She slipped away like mist at dawn, leaving no trace; only that last glance hung there, like a petal caught in still air.

A hush pressed on Mizuki’s chest before her feet could move; she wanted to go say something, even something empty, yet she stayed rooted like a stone in shallow water.

Time felt thin as rice paper; she knew it wouldn’t be long before… The thought brushed her like cold rain, and Miyuki Kiseki’s heart sank.

She kept wondering why she’d stepped into the Underworld, like a moth into moonlit shadow. If she hadn’t chased that person into the alley, her path might’ve stayed on sunlit streets—just an ordinary girl, brave and reckless as spring wind.

Once she saw the world’s true bones, she could no longer be naïve; the facts were iron, and she had to face them. The calm she lost was a river overturned by storm, yet the thing she gained was a pearl a lifetime wouldn’t usually yield.

If not for growing up in the Underworld’s frost, maybe she wouldn’t have loved two suns at once.

Mizuki smiled, thin as a blade’s reflection on water.

It was already like this; what else could she do, a leaf pushed by current.

Yun Shi stood amid classmates like swallows on a wire, discussing school affairs; she didn’t notice a gaze hanging on her like moonlight. When the talk ended and she turned, the place was empty as a cleared pond.

Still, a trace lingered like warmth on a chair; someone had stood there—she felt it as one feels a shadow after the sun slips behind clouds.

Strange, she thought, the way fog remembers footsteps.

Yun Shi turned away, shedding the thought like fallen leaves. Asagi Renka had lightened her load, yet duty was a mountain that didn’t move.

Mizuki walked alone through the school, a quiet reed amid festival drums; the sports day’s laughter rolled like waves, but her thoughts were stones under water.

“What’s with that face? One lap and you come back like winter.”

Andrea appeared out of nowhere, like a hawk dropping from a clear sky, and Mizuki flinched.

“Tsk tsk, don’t tell me you got your heart broken.”

“Elana, don’t talk nonsense!”

She’d gotten used to Elana, the Artifact Spirit, a voice like a bell in a blade; but the teasing still pricked like nettles.

“Alright, alright—I’m out, I won’t meddle,” the voice chimed, light as wind.

“It’s not what you think!”

Andrea watched, weary amusement like smoke in her eyes. Good thing the hallway was quiet, or people would think Mizuki was talking to air.

“Walk with me.”

Andrea said it and drifted past like a passing cloud; Mizuki, a leaf, followed the current.

“Uh, Miss Andrea, let me give you a tour of our school.”

“No need. I’ve already walked it.”

“It’s fine—just one more time. I know these paths like river lines; I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

Mizuki took Andrea’s hand, a quick tug like a sparrow’s hop; in Andrea’s faintly surprised gaze, they moved with the crowd’s tide.

Eyes turned, drawn as moths to a lantern; Andrea was a foreign beauty, bright as frost glass, impossible to ignore.

Usually Andrea led like a north star; in Japan, she found herself steered like a boat in friendly current, and the oddness flickered in her thoughts.

Her gaze soon settled on the road’s pulse; the street’s trees and the stride of passersby drew her like sunlight through leaves. Britain had its bustle, yet here Andrea felt the Outer World in her bones, soft as rain on old stone.

The Underworld and the Outer World share one sky, yet their winds blow in different seasons.

As a child, Andrea lived in the Underworld’s shadow. She grew up in an ordinary faction, the kind that survives by grit; her father fought like a weathered oak, and her mother was a name swallowed by the river at birth. She had an elder sister whose warmth was a hearth in winter.

Andrea drifted around battlefields like a small bird at the edge of storms; she saw the faces of the dead, pale as ash, and she grew used to the metal-smell of blood. Sometimes she wondered if she’d step onto the field like her father, blade in hand, when the tide called.

She didn’t want to think of it, but when her father fell like a tree in lightning, the thought came cold as night.

After that, her sister raised her, gentle as silk, fierce as fire. Her sister killed with a cruelty sharp as broken glass, even turning men to minced flesh, yet for this one little sister she was softer than spring rain.

They leaned on each other, back to back like mountains; her sister wouldn’t even let Andrea hold a gun, guarding her hands like lilies.

Andrea thought it could stay that way, like summer that refuses to end.

But debts come due; at ten, her sister was butchered by enemies, the knife sliding into fate’s script. Andrea still hears the last words, ragged as wind through cracked doors:

“For whatever you want to protect… fight… grow strong… Andrea…”

Without strength, you can’t take root in the Underworld’s soil.

Without power, you can’t shield anything from the storm.

Andrea, young as a sapling, lost every branch of family.

She trained like a blade at a whetstone, chasing power like a wolf chasing breath; she fought and fought, and the battlefield carved her into stone. In time she joined the Magic Institution and rose, a name that moved like thunder. She gained status and steel, yet not the thing she wanted—a home flame to guard.

The things she wished to protect—where were they, in this winter field?

With no ties, only battle remained, a road that ran straight into dusk.

“I caught up, Miss Andrea!”

“Good work.”

Now, she still had a student to shield like a small flame; no need to hurry to the grave. In truth, the will to live had sprouted, tender as green shoots after snow.

The school corridor stood hushed, a stream with most of its fish gone; almost everyone was outside riding the sports day’s surf.

Two exceptions stood like lone trees: Sham and Mizuki.

Sham leaned against the window, eyes on the games like a hunter watching distant hills; Mizuki stood behind her, quiet as dew.

They didn’t speak; silence pooled between them like a still lake. Only the outside cheers drifted in like kites on wind.

Mizuki felt the hush turn heavy, and her lips moved like petals trembling.

“Sha—”

“I’ll go first.”

Sham cut in, a clean slice like a blade through paper.

“I’ve wanted to say I’m sorry, Mizuki—sorry in every way.”

Sham had hurt her heart and hidden her own thorns; guilt sat on her shoulders like wet cloth.

Mizuki’s words tangled like ivy; she’d thought Sham just playful, a girl chasing sunspots, but blood had stained that laughter like wine on white cloth.

“You should forget, for your own soft heart.”

“Eh… why would you say that…”

“See? I’ve kept bothering you like a mosquito at dusk. I made you cry. I let you see that scene, red as a slaughterhouse. I’m… rotten.”

Sham smiled at herself, brittle as frost on glass.

Since that day, her old light hadn’t returned; she wore this expression like a winter mask.

Pain pressed on Mizuki, and stubborn fire rose under it; she wanted to do something, anything, a hand held out in storm.

“Even so, I—I’ve always liked you, haven’t I!”

“Mizuki, don’t be like this.”

“What else can I be! I like girls, and I’m proud like a banner in wind. Sham-chan, please, stop sinking—your sorrow cuts my heart like a blade.”

Sham froze, then the sour ache rose like tide; in this breath, she wanted to cry, to let it all spill like rain.

Who could understand this knot in her chest; who could know how sharp love bites when it can’t be held.

“Thank you, Mizuki.”

To know such a girl was a lantern in night; Sham thought it from the marrow.

“I don’t blame you, because… you don’t have it in you to make me blame you.”

“Pfft… hahaha!”

Sham laughed, light breaking through clouds; she didn’t know why, only that the laugh bubbled up like spring water.

“Sham-chan, you’re laughing?”

“Mizuki, you’re something else—a spark that won’t go out.”

Little by little, Mizuki saw the shadow of the old Sham returning, like a swallow finding its way back to the eaves.