The air in Shinjuku was thick with the scent of grilled yakitori and sweet plum wine. It was the night of the local Summer Festival, and the streets were a sea of colorful yukatas and paper lanterns. Kazuto had managed to convince the manager to give them both the night off, though he suspecting the manager only agreed because Asuna’s "mysterious charm" had boosted their sales by 40% in a single week.
"Is this... a pilgrimage?" Asuna asked, her eyes wide as she took in the crowds. She was wearing a simple navy-blue yukata Kazuto had helped her pick out—a stark contrast to her usual celestial white, but it made her skin look like polished pearl.
"Sort of," Kazuto laughed, adjusting his own light cotton robe. "It’s a festival. We eat junk food, watch fireworks, and forget that we have finals next week."
Asuna reached out, tentatively touching a paper lantern hanging from a stall. "They try to mimic the sun with paper and flame. It is... endearing. On the Moon, the light is constant. It does not flicker. It does not die."
"Sounds a bit lonely," Kazuto remarked.
Asuna stopped walking. She looked at him, her expression unreadable. "It is the pinnacle of peace, Kazuto. And yes... it is the loneliest place in the universe."
They wandered through the stalls. Kazuto bought her a candy apple—something she stared at for five minutes, convinced it was a "jeweled fruit from a forbidden tree"—before she took a bite and nearly fainted from the sugar rush. For a few hours, they were just two college students, laughing as they failed to catch goldfish with paper nets.
But as the night deepened, the atmosphere shifted.
The crowd began to migrate toward the riverbank for the main event. As they walked, a group of kids ran past, accidentally Jostling Asuna. Kazuto instinctively reached out, grabbing her hand to steady her.
The moment their skin touched, the world around Kazuto didn't just blur—it vanished.
The sound of Shinjuku’s traffic was replaced by the rustle of silk and the scent of burning cedar. He wasn't wearing a cheap yukata; he was draped in heavy, embroidered robes. He was standing on a wooden veranda, looking out over a vast, dark forest toward a mountain that glowed with a ghostly light.
Beside him stood a woman. Her face was obscured by the shadows, but her hand in his felt exactly like Asuna’s.
"Do not go," he heard his own voice say—but it was deeper, ancient, echoing with the authority of a throne. "I will burn the world to keep the Moon from taking you."
"You cannot burn fate, my Emperor," she whispered.
"Kazuto? Kazuto-dono?"
The vision snapped like a broken string. Kazuto gasped, his heart hammering against his ribs. He was back in the park. The neon lights were back. Asuna was looking at him, her eyes filled with a terrifyingly deep sorrow. She hadn't let go of his hand.
"You... you felt it, didn't you?" she breathed, her voice barely a whisper.
"I... I don't know what that was," Kazuto stammered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "I saw... a palace. I saw you. But you were different. I was different."
Before she could answer, a high-pitched whistle tore through the air.
BOOM.
The first firework exploded in the sky—a massive, golden chrysanthemum that painted the clouds in fire. The crowd cheered, but Asuna flinched violently. She looked up at the sky, not with wonder, but with a primal, soul-deep fear.
To her, the explosions didn't look like celebration; they looked like the celestial chariots of the Moon Embassy coming to drag her back to her cold, silent prison.
"They are coming," she murmured, her grip on Kazuto’s hand tightening until it hurt. "The light... it’s too bright, Kazuto."
"It’s just fireworks, Asuna! Look," he said, moving behind her and wrapping his arms around her shoulders, shielding her from the sight of the sky. "It’s just fire and powder. You're safe. I’m right here."
Asuna leaned back into his chest, her trembling slowly subsiding. For a long time, they stood like that—the reincarnated Emperor and the Moon Princess, hidden in plain sight amidst a thousand people.
"Kazuto," she said softly, her voice muffled by his chest.
"Yeah?"
"In that dream... did the Emperor save her?"
Kazuto looked up at the fading sparks in the sky. The memory of the vision felt like a weight in his pocket—heavy and cold. "No," he admitted. "He watched her go. But he never stopped looking for her."
Asuna turned in his arms, her face inches from his. In the glow of the next firework—a brilliant, haunting silver—he saw a single tear track down her cheek.
"Then this time," she whispered, "the Emperor must be smarter. Because the Moon does not like to be kept waiting."
ns216.73.216.141da2
and then Add to home screen.