The wind had changed.
Sayo noticed it first on the ferry to Yurejima—a subtle tension, a stillness in the air that didn't quite belong. Seagulls no longer circled the boat. Waves rolled silently, unnaturally, like the sea itself had begun to listen.
Ren stood beside her, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, eyes fixed on the horizon. They had left the mainland behind. Kyoto, the Shrine, even the memory trials felt distant now—folded cranes pressed flat beneath the tide of what came next.
"The Book says the first fragment will appear where flame first touched memory," he murmured.
Sayo nodded, brushing her hair from her face. "The mountain."
He looked at her. "Are you ready?"
"No," she said honestly. "But I remember enough to know that being ready never mattered."
---
The village of Yurejima was the kind that didn't show up on maps.
It clung to the southern coast of a volcanic island, surrounded by pine groves and old fishing huts. The people there watched with quiet eyes, some blinking a little too slowly, as if their thoughts were half in another time.
A child pointed at Sayo as she stepped off the dock. "The girl with the cranes," he said.
No one corrected him.
The innkeeper didn't ask for their names. She simply handed over a key carved from driftwood and said, "The wind is wrong. Don't stay past the third night."
They didn't plan to.
---
Their room was above an old tearoom that smelled of roasted barley and salt. The window overlooked the beach where fishermen pulled in silent nets, though the tide brought no fish that day—only empty shells and dark pieces of driftwood shaped vaguely like feathers.
Sayo opened the Book of Remnants.
Its pages had begun changing on their own.
New ink shimmered faintly in the margins—curved symbols that resembled folding wings and stars drawn in reverse.
She turned to the page titled: The Ember Trial.
Below it, fresh writing appeared.
> To touch the first fragment, you must burn again. Walk where you once died. Speak the name that ended you. Only then will fire remember.
Sayo looked up. "Mount Ashina."
Ren exhaled. "Where Hotaru died in the first life."
"And where Akihiko failed to save her."
They said nothing for a long moment.
Then packed.
---
The trail up Mount Ashina was buried in mist.
It wasn't the tallest on the island, but something about it warped perspective—the way it loomed, the way paths bent when no one watched. It had once been a place of pilgrimage, now abandoned, the torii gates that lined the ascent broken or half-sunk in soil.
Halfway up, they found the clearing.
Sayo stopped, her breath catching.
This was where she had burned.
She didn't remember the pain. But she remembered the choice—turning back to save the village child, knowing it was too late to run from the fire that had consumed the shrine.
Ren knelt by the blackened stones. "This is where I found your body."
"You carried me down," she said. "Even when they told you it was too late."
He looked up, eyes glassy. "I never let go. Not in any life."
The wind howled.
From the trees, a soft clicking sound emerged.
Like paper unfolding.
---
A figure stood at the far edge of the clearing.
It wore a robe of ash-gray feathers and a mask carved like a crane's beak.
Sayo stepped forward. "Are you the fragment?"
The figure didn't speak. It turned slowly and walked into the forest.
They followed.
Deeper and deeper they went, until the air thickened, until the sky disappeared and the world became memory.
The trees parted to reveal a wide stone circle—an altar scorched by time, the center cracked open like a wound.
And floating above it: a single paper crane.
Black. Smoking. Alive.
The figure turned.
Its mask cracked.
And beneath it was Sayo's own face.
---
She couldn't speak.
Neither could Ren.
The fragment stepped closer. Her movements mirrored Sayo's own—too perfect, too precise.
"I am the part of you that remembered first," it said. "The echo buried beneath centuries."
"I don't understand," Sayo whispered.
"You will," the fragment said. "When you face what you were."
It held out its hand.
The black crane unfurled midair and dropped into Sayo's palm.
She screamed.
---
Fire.
It wasn't a vision. It was memory—flooding back all at once.
She saw the shrine burning.
She saw the villagers screaming.
She saw herself—Hotaru—standing on the altar, arms open, chanting the invocation that would hold the fire demon long enough for the rest to escape.
And in the distance, Akihiko—Ren—running toward her, shouting, too late.
Then the fire reached her.
It consumed her soul.
But something remained.
The vow.
"No matter how many lives it takes. I will return to you."
---
Back in the present, Sayo collapsed.
Ren caught her.
She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. "I remember it all."
The altar began to glow.
The cracked stone pulsed with golden light, and from its center rose a fragment of crystal—red like ember, inscribed with ancient kanji.
Ren stepped forward.
The fragment flew into the Book of Remnants.
It pulsed, once.
Then disappeared into its pages.
---
They descended the mountain in silence.
At the base, the child who had called her "the girl with cranes" was waiting.
He handed her something.
A folded crane.
Made of obsidian.
Sayo looked down. The child was already walking away.
Ren touched her arm. "Do you feel it?"
She nodded.
A second fragment was calling.
But this time... it wasn't fire.
It was something older.
Darker.
And far more dangerous.