Work Text:
I used to believe Kanade lived alone.
It was a simple assumption to make. As far as I knew, her mother had passed away, her father and grandmother were hospitalized, and she had no other relatives living close by.
Thus, it stood to reason that Kanade spent most of her days alone, only occasionally having Honami Mochizuki work as her housekeeper.
It had occurred to me that this was objectionable. ‘Sad’ might be a better word, but I’ve learned not to put too much stock in outright evoking emotionality.
In any case, I found it rather disagreeable that a high schooler who already had little appreciation over her own life would be left to her own devices. Every time I would hear of her eating habits, sleeping patterns or general history of overthinking, my chest would noticeably clench, and I would feel out of breath.
I was worried, I think.
However, following the incident with my mother, I became a part of her household. All her habits would not change overnight, for certain, but I could at least work to help remedy some of her shortcomings, all the while giving her ample room to continue her crusade/mission.
Regardless, when I arrived at Kanade’s house, I expected it to be empty, save for her.
I was wrong.
Kanade had never been alone in this house.
…
“Do you have everything you need?”
“Um…yeah. I should be good.”
An idyllic, domestic scene took place near the front door of the Yoisaki household. Today was an important day for Kanade, one that required her to go outside with a bouquet of white carnations in her hand and some sweet offerings in her backpack.
Today was the anniversary of her mother’s passing.
Like every year, Kanade would go down to the cemetery, place her gifts upon her mother’s tombstone, sing her a song, and stay there for the rest of the afternoon.
Mafuyu had already asked her if she ought to come as well, but Kanade, in the gentlest way possible, made it clear this was a ritual she wanted to undertake alone. It wasn’t about carrying a burden, or wanting to do everything by herself, but simply a tender moment in time and space for which she wanted privacy. And Mafuyu obliged.
She had never dealt with grief. Some older relatives of the Asahinas had likely passed away, but Mafuyu’s memories of past events were too nebulous, confusing for her to know if she had once cared or not. As with many other things, her first experience with grief was the indirect one Kanade carried at all times in the scars of her heart. She was akin to grief personified in Mafuyu’s eyes.
“Are you…going to be fine?” The one who had asked this question was Kanade, even though it should not have been. She was the one at the throes of loss, having to deal with a kind of pain no girl her age should ever have to contend with. And yet, even so, her beautiful blues shone like stars reflected in the ocean as she expressed worry for Mafuyu’s own safety before even thinking about hers.
Such peculiar selflessness, yet it still lit up that ever-flickering flame of warmth in Mafuyu’s bosom.
“I will be… I want to use this day off to focus on writing.” She responded matter-of-factly, in a way that did not betray anything Kanade could latch onto to feel even more worried for all the wrong reasons.
Purple stared deeply into blue, and Kanade spoke. “I’m glad then. Take care of yourself, Mafuyu.”
Right before turning to leave, the white-haired girl stretched her head upward and left a very small kiss on Mafuyu’s cheek. It left her with a deep warmth that would likely follow her for the rest of the day.
Then, she simply left, leaving into the sun-kissed streets of their neighbourhood, towards the inner city, then to her mother.
As Mafuyu closed the front door behind Kanade, she couldn’t help but slightly cringe at the irony.
There was no need to go so far to get a glimpse of the dead.
…
Writing this helps me preserve both the information I’ve accumulated, as well as my own sanity, in case I ever come to doubt my own sight and hearing one day.
Thus have I decided to tally and record everything I’ve come to learn, as well as all my experiences regarding this particular subject matter.
Kanade doesn’t live alone. Or rather, she doesn’t exist alone within the Yoisaki household. There is something else here that borders on the edge of living. Something which ought not to exist, and something Kanade is most certainly unaware of.
I don’t recall seeing it when I briefly spent the night here during the time I’d been fever-stricken, nor do I remember it from my first night here as a proper denizen of the house.
The first time I saw it was when I moved into that guest room.
…
Mafuyu was not used to being alone in the house. In fact, she wasn’t used to being alone in any house. Back when she had lived with her parents, her mother would rarely go out for long, and now that she was in this cohabitation with the composer, Kanade herself would rarely go out alone.
So it was a strange feeling to watch over the empty, silent house. Mafuyu was now more certain of it than ever; this had never been a place for a lone teenager to live in. This house longed for a family. For laughter, tears, conversation, joy. It was a house that had lost its purpose, effectively serving as little more than a parasitic implant to what had become the real core of the house – Kanade’s room, which itself had been her father’s room before.
“Haah…” Mafuyu sighed, languidly stretching her limbs while conveniently avoiding looking at the faint hint of a shadow behind a door. She had a long, free day to herself, and while she used to spend such occasions studying, studying and then studying further, her friends had soon taught her that one could do other things on a Sunday.
Such as…things she might enjoy.
Whatever those were.
“Hmm…” Her purple eyes flickered to a variety of things, from the TV in the living room that would only get some usage during the occasional movie night, to the kitchen with its wide assortment of ingredients and spices that likely would not have been here if Honami Mochizuki wasn’t essentially the patron saint of groceries.
Her eyes skipped over a certain room, ending on Kanade’s. There weren't any specific rules as to whether she could enter her room at any given time, because there had never been a need to establish such rules. However, out of concern for the girl’s private space, and out of respect for even letting her stay, Mafuyu had always kept her distance from there when Kanade was absent, preferring to only come when invited.
Very much like a vampire, now that she’d thought about it.
There was another reason she tended to avoid Kanade’s room, but she still had to ignore the creeping sensation beneath her skin.
Mafuyu only had one place where she thought she actually wanted to go – to her room. Or rather, to her room. To the room that once belonged to Kanade’s late mother, that in time had become a guest room and was now Mafuyu’s room.
There was something almost…poetic to the whole thing. A room was not something that was ‘passed down’ in the way of traditional heritage or the like. It was simply a room. A space inhabited by someone, or perhaps a space inhabited by no one.
And it just so happened that today, it had two inhabitants.
…
I do not remember how many times I’ve felt fear in my life. And I do not remember how many times that fear wasn’t due to my own mother or responsibilities.
So, for me, this encounter was akin to re-discovering the feeling of fear. I would almost qualify it as ‘helpful’ in the pursuit of my lost emotionality.
But no rationalization would change the fact that I felt genuine, all-encompassing fear flood through my entire system. It was the first thing I ever knew I felt for certain since Kanade’s warmth.
That first night in the guest room, I tried to sleep but couldn’t. The uncomfortable sensation that someone was watching me kept me on edge, in a manner not dissimilar to my own mother’s pressure.
Then, as though I had actually managed to sleep for some time, I found myself in a state in-between, where I was awake enough to see and sense my surroundings, but my mind and body felt too hazy to act and follow my command.
That’s when I saw it.
It was a vaguely humanoid figure, camouflaged within the darkness. Inhumanely, impossibly tall, its neck stretched out further, reaching all the way to the ceiling. It possessed long, darkened hair that reached down to the floor, making its silhouette even more nebulous and formless. At first, I couldn’t even distinguish its shape from the shadows on the wall, but it soon became apparent to me that the shadows were none at all, they had always been something else.
I could not see its face, but when it realized I saw it, I could intuit it was looking at me.
Perhaps it was the look a predator gave to a new prey.
Perhaps it was a call for help.
I did not know what to think at the time, so I closed my eyes, desperately wishing for it to go away.
And then it did. But that was not the last time I had seen it.
…
“There we…go!” Sitting down on her self-fashioned work desk, Mafuyu got ready to write up a storm on her laptop, intending to make the best use out of this day.
It was true that, in the search for her identity’s disparate pieces, Mafuyu had been in desperate need of a hobby. It wasn’t enough to simply work as Nightcord’s lyricist and arranger, she needed to channel her energy and drive into something else, something that could fill in the gaps between studies and collaborative activities, something which would not be beholden to anyone else.
Mafuyu had decided to get into writing fiction. In a way, it made perfect sense as a conduit through which she could try and understand herself, as well as the emotions that were locked within her heart.
Kanade knew about it, but they had yet to mention it to Mizuki and Ena, for no other reason than the fact it had simply never come up in conversation.
This was her safe little bubble of experimentation and exploration.
Powering on her computer, she went straight for her files, ignoring the ‘non-fiction’ folder which was not particularly of interest to her as of now, and clicking on the one labeled as ‘fiction’.
Then, she clicked on another folder within simply titled ‘WIP’ and a wide array of text files of different sizes spread out before her. It was messier than she would have hoped, but her writing had been messy to begin with. More often than not, she would adventure forth with no outline, no particular goal but the haziest of plans, not even a genre to speak of beyond what spoke to her in the moment.
The composer had once asked if she could read some of these, and Mafuyu declined. In an odd feeling of inadequacy, she did not think her work to be at a level where it could be seen by the eyes of others.
This was not a bad feeling, however. Throughout her life, Mafuyu had been pushed to excel at everything she did. Academics, sports, the odd hobby or two, she had never not been praised for her efforts and her work. Perhaps, if Kanade did read some of her stories, she would also give her praise, and while that made Mafuyu feel a certain warmth in her chest, she wanted to protect what might be the only thing of hers that wasn’t beholden to others’ opinions or praise.
This was her bubble.
Even so…she asked out loud.
“Do you…want to read?”
…
In the days following that first encounter, I felt too frightened to stay in the guest room.
Kanade was kind, understanding. She figured I must have had nightmares of a more domestic nature, ones that reminded me much too closely of my own mother.
She was wrong, but she was still kind. The two things she did best.
Regardless, after telling Kanade about my fears – without evoking the reasons – she let me sleep by her side.
It was scary in a different way. I had never held anyone my age so close before. Perhaps, if I had been born with siblings, it might have been a similar experience. But I didn’t think I would have felt so agitated, warm and embarrassed with anyone else than I did with Kanade.
She was really small. It was then that I realized just how unhealthy her eating habits must have been for me to feel the bones protruding through her skin. But even so, she was warm. She held onto me like I was the one who needed help, whispering words of comfort into my ear until I fell asleep.
The next few days ended in similar fashion. Still hesitant to return to the room with it, I stayed by Kanade’s side, by her warmth. It was blissful.
Perhaps that was why I had let my guard down, and didn’t realize.
It was already here.
…
The shadows in her peripheral vision showed no signs of fear or agitation, but they moved, ebbing and flowing ever so subtly so that Mafuyu knew she had been heard.
Something slid across her shoulder, coming dangerously close to her head. If she wanted to, she could likely have sliced clean through her neck. Fortunately for Mafuyu, she did not seem to have such aspirations.
It was a strange kind of cohabitation, far removed from her own with Kanade, but Mafuyu had acclimated to it. Some nights, she would still see the shiver of the shadows, the tempestuous trembling of the terrors that lurked beneath the surface. But then again, Mafuyu wasn’t completely unprepared.
She had always been able to see beyond the world of the living.
A peculiar quality though it may be, it had never affected Mafuyu’s life beyond making cemetery visits particularly awkward – another reason she was glad Kanade needed the space.
That day when the four of them had gone to that abandoned school was still quite memorable to Mafuyu for a flurry of reasons, chief of which was her encounter with that small girl who’d tugged on her skirt, wanting her shoe back.
Mafuyu thought long and hard about the meaning of that event, and she had concluded that those who lingered on after their passing most likely did so out of a sense of regret, of ‘unfinished business’, as a movie they’d once watched put it. It made some logical sense, then, that there had to be many more such beings.
But was this the case for her too? Mafuyu looked over her shoulder, steeling herself in case she came across a particularly grueling sight. Yet, under the light of the day, what had crawled onto her shoulder had been reduced to little more than the vague memory of passage.
“Hm…wonder if my writing is just not to her liking…”
…
Why had it taken me so long to notice it? Simple. I grew complacent. Enveloped in Kanade’s love and affection, I failed to see the signs of danger inching ever so closer to our cocoon, our bubble.
One night, Kanade had fallen asleep before me, still clutching onto me tightly, as if I would disappear if she didn’t.
Perhaps she was right. I really do owe her everything.
But that night was different. My mind was not quite tired enough to sleep, so it wandered. It thought about a million different things that I do not care to write down here. And then, I saw it again.
It was back.
With its incomprehensible height and terrifying proportions, it leered at us from above, practically glaring.
But it wasn’t glaring at me. It was glaring at Kanade.
Was it anger I saw in that faceless expression? Was it some form of envy that all those who had already lived harbored towards those who still did? Or was it something else I was unable to parse due to my limited understanding of my own emotions?
I had no answer at the time. But now I think I know.
The only word that comes to mind is – Love.
…
The rhythmic tapping of keys had been the only sound in the quiet room for the past hour or so, only occasionally silenced by a very brief break before picking up again.
Mafuyu was in the zone, but that did not mean the same thing to her as most others.
The concept of the ‘zone’ in sports or other such ventures is closely associated with the absence of any stray thoughts that could impede one’s concentration. However, in Mafuyu’s case, her ‘zone’ was when her head was full of nothing but stray thoughts. Disorderly, messy ideas juxtaposed with one another, coming to ooze out of her mind and into her fingers, into the keys that wrote the words on her document. She wasn’t sure if that made her writing ‘good’ in the conventional sense, but it brought her a great sense of comfort and enjoyment.
Perhaps Mafuyu liked having somewhere to birth her disorderly mind’s gestations, instead of aborting them in the same repressed way she’d done throughout her whole life.
After having written a fair share in an apocalyptic, medieval setting where her friends and her fought to save the world, Mafuyu saved the file and closed it. She’d had enough of that work for a day and would simply continue something else next.
“Still…are you sure you should be here today?” It was Mafuyu’s voice that once again echoed in the room, her words slipping out of her lips before her own thoughts could catch up.
It had been at the forefront of her mind that she really ought not be here. It felt…disingenuous, disrespectful.
The shadows moved, not only hearing her, but trembling in what felt to Mafuyu like taking offense.
“I won’t judge you. In the end, I still could not find how to help you, after all…”
The shadows moved, this time in a soft, subdued way that Mafuyu almost thought was…compassion? Reassurance?
Like a gentle mother would console her child after seeing them get injured.
Now that felt a little fantastical, even for Mafuyu’s taste.
…
I never fell asleep before Kanade after that day.
It came multiple times in the following nights, always standing on the edge of our bed, ‘staring’ down at Kanade. Only Kanade.
One day, it stopped just staring and started acting.
Right before my petrified eyes, I saw a long, bony arm stretch towards the sleeping beauty, as if to touch her, to take her.
I screamed. Or at least, I thought I did. But my voice had been stolen from me, and my body did not listen to my brain.
So all I could do was watch as this shapeless fear threatened to take away what mattered to me the most.
But it didn’t.
Instead, its uncomfortably thin phalanges held onto the blanket before us, and slowly, like dragging the dead awake from their sleep, it covered the both of us to our necks.
It was only here to pull up our covers.
…
As she prepared herself a cup of tea, the whistling sound of the kettle served as background noise to her relaxed, emptied mind.
Mafuyu looked through the window, seeing pale clouds covering the sun that had shined brightly just this morning.
Absent-mindedly, she wondered if Kanade had brought an umbrella with her.
The sound of the kettle reaching its optimal boiling temperature shook Mafuyu awake from her reverie, having not even noticed more than half her vision was covered in shadows now.
“Did you want tea as well?” She asked, knowing full well she would not get a response.
But the curtains moved the slightest bit, and an impossible wind breezed through the home that had no open windows to cause such a phenomenon.
Wistfully, Mafuyu sat down on the living room couch, her cup of tea sitting in front of her, its steam rising into the air and disappearing into the aether.
She put forth a second cup of tea, just as warm and steamy, beside her.
Silence was not necessarily a refusal. Sometimes it was merely the suggestion that one was constrained, unable to give an answer. Perhaps it was too romantic a way of thinking to Mafuyu’s liking, but she wanted to believe a cup of tea could do her well.
Small ripples appeared on the surface of said cup. Was it a sign that it was the right answer?
Mafuyu didn’t know, but as she felt a presence at her side, she figured it must have been.
For the first time, her hair appeared white.
…
She asked me if I was sure, with those hurt, puppy eyes she would sometimes flash by accident. I couldn’t feel many things, but I knew this felt awful. And yet, I still told her that yes, I was sure I wanted to go back to the guest room.
I had a theory that, whatever it was, it wasn’t harmful. However, to test that theory, I needed more room and time, especially at night.
During the day, I would see and hear little signs of its presence, but it was only at night that I could even come close to seeing its full form.
So one night, after leaving the green pastures of Kanade’s warm embrace and holing myself up in the guest room, I decided to stay awake all night.
It appeared, just as I’d predicted it.
I still couldn’t move as I gazed upon its figure, as though the very sight of it paralyzed me down to my very blood. However, I could hear, I could see, and I could speak.
I asked, “what are you? What do you seek from Kanade?”
It did not reply with words, but its crooked neck stared me down, its hair finally revealing a blue, blood-shot eye beneath the veil of darkness.
Then, a single tear fell from that eye, vanishing into thin air, just as it did as well.
I was no closer to figuring out what it sought, but it scared me to realize something.
That perhaps, it felt more than even I could.
…
“I see you still do not, or cannot, speak. Very well, perhaps I should.”
Ignoring the growing darkness that had invaded her entire left eye, Mafuyu took a gentle sip of the cup before her, its taste bland but its warmth radiating through her entire body.
She thought long and hard about the significance of today, of having her right next to her while Kanade was already so far away.
“Would it not have made more sense to go with her?” She asked, materializing her thoughts into questions for no one but the shadows on the walls.
They moved. Gently, softly. Once again showing signs of understanding and something adjacent to kindness.
“Then…am I correct in assuming I’m the one who holds your interest?”
They moved anew, trembling with agitation. But it wasn’t the angry sort like earlier. It was more akin to…glee.
“I see. Then if I’m right about who you are, and what you seek…”
She put down her cup, turning her body towards the darkness which she had desperately avoided all day. There was still fear in her heart, but she needed to find out.
Mafuyu needed to understand how to help her.
“Shall I tell you a story?”
…
Since then, I learned little of our third inhabitant, but I took to understanding more and more of its habits. Its patterns.
It would only appear at night, but it was always present. In the silence between walls, the shadows of the halls, in the slight gaps between these torn patches of reality that I, and only I, could glimpse through.
Even when its form would be invisible, I could somewhat tell what it was doing, or where it was looking.
Most of the time, it was Kanade.
One time, I peeked through the ajar door of Kanade’s room, seeing her hard at work on one of her newest pieces. Right behind her, there it was, ‘looking’ in the same inscrutable way it always looked.
I already had a theory in mind when, one night, I saw it again in my room – in the guest room. This time, it did more than look. With its inhuman arm, it opened the door for me, pointing in the direction of Kanade’s room.
I believed it was telling me to go there, but I only understood why when I arrived.
Kanade wasn’t sleeping. She was crying, clutching a small music box with a picture of her parents inside, trying to lull herself to its tune.
It was a terrible thing to see, and I did not even hesitate before coming in, wrapping her around my arms, and whispering the same words of comfort she’d once whispered onto me to appease her, to grant her the sweet release of sleep.
After many tearful apologies, and a very warm embrace, she finally succumbed to unconsciousness, filling my heart with relief.
In her unmoving hand, I saw the music box and the picture.
Finally, I had realized the truth.
…
“You have been watching her for a long time, so this story will be about me. I hope it will not bore you.”
By now, Mafuyu’s entire vision had become an inky black mess of abstract shapes and forms. She had long since realized that the more she looked at things that ought not to exist in this world, the more she found herself irrevocably attracted by and pulled into the other world.
For a long time she’d resisted. She couldn’t leave. Even if, at times, it was tempting to leave everything behind and disappear, Mafuyu had been beholden to a promise that she could not break.
Until Kanade could save her, she would stay right here, at her side.
So she started speaking, her voice honest, pure, unaffected by the shadows threatening to tear into her bruised heart.
She told an all-too familiar story.
The story of a black bunny that ran away from its home. Scared and lost, it had found refuge within the companionship of a friendly, kind white bunny.
Mafuyu could feel the warmth in her heart slowly subside as the shadows overtook it, but she didn’t stop.
If she was right…if she could do something to save her, then she would relinquish her very sense of self to the darkness cutting deep into her.
Because Mafuyu owed it to Kanade to save her.
…
It was not an it, thus I will now refer to her as a she.
The truth had escaped me for so long in spite of how obvious it felt.
The only person who ought to have lingering feelings remaining in this household would be her.
Hikari Yoisaki – Kanade’s mother.
I could not do much about this information, this revelation, until I could have an opportunity to make contact with her directly. However, all her actions were now recontextualized in my eyes.
Her terrifying stares were the longing, worried gazes of a mother wanting the best for her child.
Her outstretched hands which constantly hovered around Kanade’s head were failed attempts at brushing her unkempt hair, or caressing her soft head.
If Kanade was grief personified, Hikari was longing in the ghostly flesh.
One who longed to see this house erupt with cheer once more, to see her daughter’s laughing face again, to come back and give Kanade the childhood she did not deserve to lose.
My heart was seized with a wide array of complicated feelings once I’d understood the truth, but chief of all was lament.
I also wished Hikari Yoisaki was among the living.
Even if it meant my own life would have only been worse for it, that I would perhaps never have found that hint of light at the end of the tunnel within Kanade’s grief-stricken songs.
At the very least, she would have been happy. Safe. With a loving mother and father.
Unfortunately, there was only one thing left to do now.
…
“Urgh–” The darkness had fully clung onto the last remaining traces of light in her soul, preparing to fully subsume her, but Mafuyu wasn’t done yet.
“See… After the white bunny and the black bunny became friends, and the black bunny was saved from her old home, it realized something.” Her breath was erratic, jagged as she fought against the tempest threatening to snuff out her flame.
Nevertheless, she forged ahead. “The white bunny…also needed saving. It was alone…afraid…convinced no one else in the world…would ever help it…”
Her eyes could hardly stay open now, and as the final shadows descended, Mafuyu forced herself to complete this story, no matter what.
“So…the black bunny…made a promise to itself. One day…it would save the white bunny…no matter what it took… And that’s…a promise – Ms. Yoisaki…”
The last embers of her flame had been extinguished, put out, and the girl fell into a deep, deep slumber.
…
It was almost a romantic idea – to send the dead back amongst the dead by soothing their woes.
But I knew it was the correct course of action. I had done it before, after all.
However, the closer I got to hearing and understanding her, the more I could feel my own sense of self slowly fizzle away, disappear in a sea of butterflies.
I had to act, but I couldn’t fade away. Not yet.
Not before Kanade, too, was saved.
My only hope was that she would understand.
That Hikari Yoisaki would not let me go either, that she would accept me –
Accept me as the protector of her daughter.
…
Mafuyu was shaken awake by the thundering sounds of a storm in the horizon, snapping her right out of her sleep.
Sleep? Had she merely fallen asleep instead of disappearing altogether?
In spite of the very slight twinge of disappointment, she was mostly relieved. And although she could not see her anywhere, Mafuyu hoped that her story had touched her.
It was then that the front door of the house, of all things, blew wide open. It was far too intense to have been provoked by wind alone, and Mafuyu realized it immediately.
Picking up an umbrella near the entrance, Mafuyu put on her shoes and ran outside, closing the door behind and making a run for the cemetery. Of course Kanade would have forgotten her umbrella, there was no doubt about it.
She ran, and ran, and ran, and ran. She calculated in her head the distance it would take to simply run there instead of getting on a train. So long as she didn’t stop, she could get there faster.
Beneath the stormy weather, the rain that clung to her clothes, the wind that threatened to freeze her very core, Mafuyu ran the fastest she had ever ran, even faster than the night she had run away from home and right into Kanade’s arms.
This time, she wasn’t running away. This time, she would not be the one who was saved.
Mafuyu would be the one to save her and bring her home.
After maybe 30 minutes of running, barely having the energy to even think, Mafuyu came upon the cemetery. Within, she had no trouble finding the lonely, crying girl alone in the rain, seemingly content to just freeze beneath the endless rains before her mother’s headstone.
“She wouldn’t…want that.” In between two breaths, Mafuyu held an open umbrella above Kanade’s head, staring right into her shocked, teary-eyed blues, as though her very presence here was incomprehensible.
And yet, she didn’t question it. Kanade simply, shakily got up, and under that umbrella with the maroon exterior and purple interior, she embraced the girl who had run all the way here for her sake.
“T-Thank you…Mafuyu…”
Mafuyu brought a single hand to the crying girl’s head, caressing it up and down, gently toying with her humid hair. Kanade’s voice evaporated into the mist, just as the rain soon would. But it echoed endlessly within Mafuyu’s heart.
And then, right as she turned to head back home, over a patch of carnation flowers, she saw her.
Hikari Yoisaki was standing there, the inhumanity of her form having fizzled away, revealing her to be nothing more than an ordinary woman. As Mafuyu stared in her direction, between the drops of rain falling from the sky, Hikari looked her deep in her eyes, with those same piercing, soft blues that Kanade had inherited from her.
Faintly, accompanied by the softest of winds, she uttered something that only Mafuyu heard. Something which seemed to stop the very storms and rain above, before she too faded away.
Please…keep protecting her. My lovely Kanade…