Chapter 8 - Echoes on the Wind
The days following Akio's confession were different. Not heavier — lighter, somehow. Everyone at the pharmacy carried a new kind of pride. The walls, once just bricks and plaster, now felt sacred — built with hardships, pain, and reclaimed dreams.
Business continued. Locals still came for remedies, advice, and warm greetings. But beneath the surface, something else stirred.
Late one night, a parcal arrived. No return address. Just a small, matte-black envelope.
Akio opened it alone. Inside was a single note:
"We're not done. Not until you are you destroyed one of are other labs but the Yaka Lab is going to take revenge for are fallen bretherine."
There was a name that read Hakurage Yakasuke. Just a photo — a phew photos of the same person. He recognized the parcals design instantly. The lab hadn't died with the fire. It had simply obviously included more labs than just the one. But there was more a face of someone new on a photo a stranger who he hadn't seen before but he recognized the looks but thought it was nothing the stranger just smirked in the photo wearing a lab costume Akio ignored it but he will be so much more to not just him but the Yakasuke bloodline but he is not aware of that yet...
He didn't panic.
Instead, he gathered his friends again — not to warn them, but to prepare.
"We're not victims anymore," he said. "They want to erase us because we proved their failure. But they don't understand yet — this pharmacy isn't just mine. It's ours. And we're not going anywhere."
They all nodded.
The wind outside howled gently against the windows, but inside, there was warmth. Unity. The kind of unshakable bond that no lab, no past, and no shadow could undo.
Chapter 18: Ashes of the Ribbon
Weeks passed. Winter was near.
The pharmacy stood stronger than ever — rebuilt with more shelves, brighter lighting, a community board now filled with thank-you letters from the town. Elderly patients brought home-cooked meals. Children drew crayon pictures of Akio and his team.
And in the back room, a new addition: a framed photo of Akio's daughter. Below it, a hand-painted sign that read:
"For the dreams we almost lost."
One evening, as they closed shop together, Rumane locked the door and turned to Akio.
"You know," she said, "the way people smile when they walk in here... it's like they're stepping into something sacred."
Akio smiled. "That's because they are."
He stepped outside, looking at the sky, the streets, the passing breeze.
He wasn't a ghost anymore.
He was home.
And the ribbon — the dream — that once burned to ash had tied them all together.
[End of Volume 3 — Volume 4: Beneath the Scarlet Helix begins next.]