Chapter 51: Threads of the Forgotten
The petals fell slower here.
Not like the hurried dances from before, but gentle—almost hesitant. As if the Garden itself mourned what was coming.
Riku stood at the edge of the broken spiral tower, wind combing through his hair, his hand clenched tightly around the pendant. The faint light of the Seed pulsed faintly, echoing the unspoken tension in the air. Airi stood beside him, her eyes locked on the distant shimmer of the horizon where the Garden faded into illusion.
They had rested, briefly. But peace was a fragile thing now—fragile like the trembling voices that echoed in their dreams.
"You're thinking about him again, aren't you?" Airi's voice was soft.
Riku didn't need to ask who. "Yeah. Ren."
His brother's name still ached like a bruise inside his chest.
---
FLASHBACK: Six Years Ago
The rooftop was cold that night. Ren's coat barely covered Riku's small shoulders, and the stars above seemed to be mocking the silence between them.
"You're not weak, Riku," Ren said, ruffling his brother's hair. "You just feel too much. That's what makes you stronger than me."
Riku shook his head. "You're not scared of anything. You never cry."
"That's the problem," Ren whispered, staring at the sky. "I forgot how to."
---
Back in the present, Riku's fingers dug into the railing. He wanted to believe those memories still meant something.
But the darkness from the last battle—what the Remnant had said about the Seeds, about the past repeating—it clung to him.
"I can't stop feeling like we're walking into the same mistakes," he muttered. "What if touching the Seeds really is dooming us?"
Airi turned to him, eyes blazing. "Then we change what they mean. That's what you always told me."
Riku turned, caught by her gaze. It was fierce, unrelenting, but trembling beneath with worry.
"We're not like the Originals," she said. "We have each other."
---
Elsewhere: Toma's Perspective
Toma knelt before a patch of glowing vines, his gloved hand brushing over the surface of a petrified bloom. The whispering voices of the Garden were louder here. Lingering.
Sera sat cross-legged nearby, eyes closed, meditating—though her fingers twitched as if ready to fight.
"She still hasn't said anything about the vision," Toma said aloud.
Lina, seated beside him, leaned forward. "Sera's never been the kind to share until it breaks her."
Toma frowned. "You think it's breaking her?"
"I think," Lina whispered, "we're all cracking a little."
There was silence for a while. Then Sera opened her eyes.
"I saw a child calling for me," she said. "In the reflection. It wasn't someone I lost. It was... who I used to be."
Toma inhaled slowly.
Sera added, voice low, "I forgot who I was to survive. But the Seeds—they remember everything."
Lina reached out, touched her shoulder. "Then maybe it's time we let them help us remember."
---
Rei and Kohana's Perspective
Kaoru stood in silence as Rei and Kohana approached the cracked mural on the inner wall of the chamber. It depicted nine figures standing around a dying tree.
"This mural again," Rei muttered. "It shows up in every ruined Garden chamber."
Kohana traced the etched lines. "They're always in the same poses. One with a staff. One holding light. One... missing."
Kaoru's voice was quiet. "The Ninth Seed. The one cast away."
"The one Veyla warned us about?" Rei asked.
Kaoru nodded. "The one they sealed and tried to erase."
Rei sighed. "History has a funny way of repeating itself."
---
Later that Night
A campfire burned. Each group had returned from their separate paths, silent, solemn, but close. Sera leaned on Toma's shoulder. Kohana sat beside Airi, resting. Riku stood, alone, by the embers.
Veyla stepped beside him.
"You saw it, didn't you?" she asked.
Riku didn't answer right away.
"The voice in the Remnant..." he murmured. "It felt familiar. Not like an enemy. Like... a broken part of us."
Veyla nodded. "Because it is. It remembers the sorrow that birthed the Garden."
She looked around at the others. "Each of you is a bloom from that sorrow. You don't just carry the Seeds—you are the Seeds."
Riku turned to her, eyes wide. "We're... reincarnations?"
Veyla's gaze was deep. "You are what grew from the sacrifice they made. Not to continue it—but to finish what they couldn't."
The wind picked up. The Garden stirred.
---
Flashback: The Original Nine
A woman cloaked in light fell to her knees before the Bloom Tree. Blood poured from her side.
"We cannot stop the decay," she whispered. "Only rebirth can carry us forward."
A man with obsidian eyes held her as she faded.
Another voice echoed in the chamber: "Then we plant what we cannot protect. Let them grow where we failed."
Nine lights. Nine sacrifices. The Garden bloomed.
---
Present: Dawn
The team gathered on the upper terrace. Veyla stood at the center.
"You've touched four Seeds," she said. "Five remain. But the path is not linear. The next is buried in memory."
Riku frowned. "Memory?"
"Your memory," Veyla said. "You must descend—not forward. The Garden Below holds what was erased."
Kaoru shivered. "The place where the Originals hid their shame."
Toma glanced at Sera. "What will we find there?"
Veyla looked each of them in the eye. "Your past. And the final truth of the Bloom."
Riku stepped forward. His heart was pounding. "Then show us the way."
Veyla nodded, raising her hand. The floor cracked beneath them, forming a spiral staircase of crystal and shadow.
"Descend together. Remember together. Choose together."
---
As they began their descent, the petals followed them—slow, fragile, and mournful.
Each step was a breath deeper into forgotten dreams. Each light above grew smaller. And the Garden whispered:
Remember who you were. Become who you must be.