The archway seemed to breathe as Yuto stepped through, the lantern's glow splashing color onto stone walls laced with veins of shimmering gold. Sweet plum petals swirled around his feet, guiding him down a winding passage. Koma trotted close behind, his earlier bravado faded to a quiet, respectful hush.
Beyond the arch, the air shifted warmer, fragrant with the air of long-ago festivals. The corridor opened to a sunken plaza, circular and impossibly vast, lined with ancient lanterns, each one flickering with a different hue. Their lights painted shifting patterns over carvings etched into the stone hundreds, maybe thousands, of kanji: names both familiar and strange, pressed close together across the entire plaza.
Yuto's breath caught. "What… is this place?"
Koma gestured with his tail. "The Memory Plaza. Every lantern, every name is a life touched by the Mediator some saved, some lost. The Assembly keeps this place as both memorial and anchor. When the lanterns flicker out, the barrier grows weaker."
A lonely hush settled in Yuto's chest. He could almost see faint figures clustering by certain lanterns, their heads bowed in silent remembrance. Each step stirred echoes; some happy, some unbearably sad. Yuto traced his fingers over the nearest name, tingling with a sense of recognition that flirted with memory.
"Am I supposed to find someone?" he asked softly.
"Not someone," Koma replied, his eyes uncharacteristically gentle. "Yourself. The Assembly's final test for tonight find the lantern that knows your true name. Until you can face that, you can't become a bridge for anyone else."
Yuto swallowed, turmoil seething. His given name Arai Yuto felt hollow here. Was there another? One born of old promises and lost dreams?
He moved through the circle, each lantern flickering as he neared. Whispers drifted, like verses of forgotten songs:
"He came back for us…"
"She remembered, even when lost…"
"Guardian, stranger, child…"
At the far side of the plaza, a lantern unlike the others waited: its flame was silver, not gold; its inscription too faded to read. Yuto's heart thundered as he knelt before it, drawn by an ache unlike any he'd felt before an ache that felt like coming home and sorrow all at once.
His fingers brushed the glass, and memories surged: the cold bite of loneliness as a child, the fluttering hope at older festivals, the laughter and regret of someone who had once stood here who had once made a promise to protect these names, and then disappeared.
Koma crouched beside him, silent.
Yuto pressed his palm to the lantern and whispered, "I'm not the boy I was. But I want to remember, and I want to help. Please… show me the truth."
Light flared bright, dazzling. For a heartbeat, Yuto saw another life, another him, wrapped in festival silence, making a vow to the spirit city and vanishing into mist. The silver flame turned warm, gold at its center. The kanji on the lantern shimmered, then cleared: not "Arai Yuto," but a name older, rearranged, symbolic a guardian's name.
The city itself seemed to exhale. The lanterns along the plaza blazed in response, their flickers rising like a chorus. Spirits watched quietly from the edge of shadow, nodding in approval.
Koma gave a proud, toothy grin. "You did it. The Assembly will welcome you now, as Mediator. The plaza has marked you, and the city will not forget."
Exhaustion swept over Yuto, but for the first time since crossing the barrier, the fear retreated. In its place bloomed cautious hope.
Somewhere above, a bell rang this one low and dignified. The path to the Assembly opened once more, but this time, Yuto stepped forward with his own lantern burning steady, his name shining clear among the others.
The story of the bridge between worlds had only just begun. But tonight, for the first time, Yuto belonged.
End of Chapter 6