As the shadow of the old codger vanished behind the doors, Baiyu's true colors were revealed. Her glow was gone, her face pale and lifeless. Slowly, a faint voice slipped from her lips like a fragile stream of water ,soft at first, then swelling, until it burst into a waterfall of sorrow.
Her tears fell without end, her voice breaking as her body, weakened by grief, collapsed onto the floor. The room echoed with her cries, and the sound clung to the walls as if unwilling to fade.
Yet as her wailing deepened, a strange radiance stirred. Her body began to shine with lights like a fallen star, and her robes shimmered with the sheen of molten gold.
From that glow, tiny celestial fragments emerged glimmers like droplets of starlight, scattering until they filled every corner of the room. Before her tear-streaked eyes, the fragments whirled and danced, then took shape. They became koi, radiant as though carved from moonlight itself. Their fins swayed through the air as if gliding in water, and they circled Baiyu as though she were their princess of the hidden depths.
When their shining scales brushed against her open wound, the torn flesh began to knit itself together, vanishing as though the injury had never been. Wherever the koi swam, the glow brightened, and warmth seeped into the room.
Baiyu's lashes were still heavy with tears, yet as the shimmering dance surrounded her, a quiet comfort touched her heart. The grief did not vanish, but for a fleeting moment, it was softened by light and wonder.
With her pain and mourning, half the night had slipped away. Yet at last her anguish eased, as though Heaven itself had reached down to help her recover.
The tears that had escaped from her almond shaped eyes no longer seemed like sorrow alone they had turned into pearls, brighter than any hidden in the depths of the sea, as if even grief had been transformed into treasures of light.
All white as moonlight.
She tried to rise to her feet, yet her legs trembled, numb from lying too long upon the cold floor.
While her tears now turned into pearls rested gently in her palms, she rose and walked toward the wooden almira. With trembling hands she opened its doors. Inside, as though waiting for this very night, a fresh pair of robes lay neatly prepared.
She gathered herself, her breath still uneven, and changed into them. The fabric brushed against her skin like quiet reassurance, wrapping her sorrow in new cloth, though the ache within her heart remained untouched.
The garments draped with the grace of water flowing around stone, the golden embroidery at the hem glimmering softly in the lamplight.
A veil, sheer and weightless, descended over her like a meteor shower silent, luminous, fleeting.
In her trembling hands she placed her tears, now pearls, into a white wooden box lined with silk. Her voice was no louder than a sigh:
"Here lie my memories… the box is almost filled with white pearls each one a wound, each one a sorrow."
Her fingers brushed against a small pouch beside it. Carefully, she untied the knot at its mouth. Within lay only a handful of blue pearls, not enough to fill even one palm. Her eyes softened as she whispered:
"These are the memories Nezumi gave me, from the moment she arrived here as a child. They are so few, and yet… how can I let her be harmed, when she has been the one to gift me happiness?"
Now was the time she forced herself to wear a cheerful smile, one painted over grief like a mask of fragile porcelain. With that false brightness fixed upon her lips, she raised the blindfold the old man had gifted her. Slowly, she covered her eyes, choosing blindness not because she could not see, but because she was compelled to see only his belief, his so called reality.
"The moment darkness took her sight, she began to hear the voices of those who had shed their mortal cadavers and risen as immortal souls."
The voices rose at once a chaos of whispers, chants, cries, and songs. They pressed against her ears like an endless storm, so sharp and shrill it felt as though her very eardrums might shatter.
The voices rose at once a chaos of whispers, chants, cries, and songs. They pressed against her ears like an endless storm, so sharp and shrill it felt as though her very eardrums might shatter.
Amid the cacophony, one soul drifted closer. Its presence was softer than the rest, and with a touch as light as mist, it caressed her cheek. A broken murmur followed:
"Forgive me… forgive me for leaving you alone in this cruel world."
The touch lingered, almost tender, before it slid to her neck. Then the voice that had begun as a plea twisted into a roar, heavy and merciless:
"Let you be free,free as we are now !"
The priestess kept her back perfectly straight, each step carrying an elegance carved from discipline. As she moved toward the voice, there was a fleeting moment when it felt as though the two of them were dissolving into each other's gaze.
Instead of answering with words, Baiyu moved. It was as if for a fleeting moment she and the voice had become one, their breaths mingling in silence. Yet her steps did not falter she pressed forward, her back unbending, her movements solemn and graceful inside tbe voice.
Slowly, her hand reached for the wooden door.
At last, her hand wrapped around the handle. The door creaked open.
There, bathed in the faint glow of dawn and new day and in from stood Nezumi.
All the whispers, the chants, the cries everything that had stormed her ears were gone. To others, perhaps, they had never existed at all.
But to the priestess, they still lived, echoing faintly in the chambers of her heart, a reminder that the dead do not leave so easily.