The train pulled away from the station, leaving behind the town, the rain-washed streets, and the bookstore that had, somehow, become home.
Yuki and Aoi sat beside each other, a single backpack between them. The map was folded in Aoi’s journal now, its lines faded but firm — like a promise whispered in the dark.
Neither spoke for a while. The train rattled along the tracks, pulling them toward the north, toward the forest once marked The Hollow Pines in Shirou’s ink.
"I haven't been back here since I was sixteen," Yuki said at last.
Aoi turned to him. "Is that where you and Shirou...?"
He nodded. "We built a whole world out of these woods. Said it was haunted. Said it was holy. Said it was ours."
"And Rin?"
Yuki hesitated, then smiled faintly. “She was the one who gave the trees names.”
The silence after that wasn’t heavy. Just... thoughtful. Like the space before a page is turned.
By afternoon, they stood at the edge of the forest.
The air was thick with pine and the hush of places forgotten by roads. The path ahead was more suggestion than trail — stones half-sunk in moss, roots thick with memory.
Yuki stepped forward first.
Aoi followed.
They walked for hours. The sun dappled through high boughs, painting light across their shoulders. Every so often, Yuki would stop, crouch, and point out something left behind — the rusted tin of an old campfire, a rock etched faintly with a rune only two boys and one girl would’ve known to read.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Aoi watched him with quiet reverence, like she was reading the footnotes of someone’s life.
Then, near dusk, they found it.
A clearing.
Still.
Silent.
And in the center — a stone, tall and narrow, carved by a knife’s uncertain hand.
It read:
“Here we buried our fears.”
Yuki knelt beside it, fingertips brushing the moss that had started to reclaim the words.
“I remember now,” he whispered. “Shirou... said we needed to leave something behind. So we each wrote something on a scrap of paper, folded it, and buried it here.”
He dug gently, brushing earth aside until he found it: a tin box, rusted but intact.
It clicked open with a sound like the past exhaling.
Inside, three folded notes.
Yuki took his.
So did Aoi.
They read in silence.
His note was a single line, faded but legible:
“I’m afraid I’ll forget who I am when I’m alone.” — Y.
He looked at Aoi.
She didn’t ask.
Instead, she handed him the third note — Rin’s.
Yuki unfolded it, breath catching.
“I’m afraid we won’t survive the ending.” — R.
And beneath it, taped crudely to the bottom of the tin, a fourth scrap neither of them had seen before. Newer. Pinned with wax.
Shirou’s handwriting.
“If you’re reading this, you’re still brave. Follow the stone river. The story's not done.”
Yuki stared at the note.
Aoi squeezed his hand.
“The stone river,” she said softly. “Do you know what it means?”
Yuki nodded, stunned. “There’s a dried-up riverbed nearby. Full of smooth, white stones.”
He looked up.
Eyes clearer than they’d been in years.
“He’s alive.”