The mist lingered for three days.
By the time it cleared, the garden had begun to bloom again. Bright violets. Wild ginger. Pale, trailing moss. Rin tended it with care, and Yuki stayed close, but not too close — as if afraid that too much presence might erase the fragile peace between them.
Aoi packed her bag quietly.
One set of clothes.
Shirou’s letter.
And the stone from the stream she’d balanced beside Rin — still smooth and slightly warm in her palm.
Yuki found her at the inn’s steps the morning she planned to leave.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
She smiled. “I came here following someone else’s map. It’s time I draw my own.”
He hesitated. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t,” she said gently. “Just… don’t forget me.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He looked down.
“I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.”
Rin came to say goodbye too.
She looked stronger now. Firmer in her voice. The tremble in her hands had quieted.
“You gave me pieces of myself back,” she told Aoi. “Even the ones that still don’t fit.”
“You don’t need to remember everything,” Aoi said. “Just enough to live forward.”
Rin nodded.
Then stepped close and hugged her.
No tears. Just warmth.
The path beyond the village was narrow, carved by foot and wind.
Aoi walked alone.
But not lonely.
For the first time in years, there was no destination in her mind.
Only direction.
She stopped at a hill that overlooked the valley. From there, she could see the edge of the forest. The rooftops. The garden where Rin knelt. The porch where Yuki watched.
They looked like chapters now — not open wounds, but folded pages.
Aoi reached into her coat.
Pulled out the final piece Shirou had left behind.
A second note, never sealed. Just a line scribbled on a torn scrap of train ticket:
“The heart is a compass — not for where you go, but for what you leave behind.”
She smiled.
Tucked it into her journal.
And walked on.
