A clear thread yanked her ankle again.

  Half a step—and her whole body went with it.

  A honey-colored line lay thin across the plastic floor. Not thread—an afterimage of tears. Amber, trying one last time to stitch foot and world back together.

  …!

  Her ankle went cold, the chill sliding under her skin, and her sole bit into the floor.

  Skrrk.

  When she tried to peel free, the clear thread stretched thinner and thinner, and hauled Yurie back.

  Don’t run.

  That was what it felt like the world was telling her.

  Yurie reached for the amber on the floor: a transparent lump cradling a white tablet.

  The corner dug into her palm. Blood seeped in a slow bloom, smearing red across the resin’s perfect surface.

  It hurt.

  And that pain—only that pain—proved she was still alive.

  She lifted her face.

  The Empress had frozen with one arm extended, suspended midair.

  Her fingertips trembled, as if hesitating—still held in the shape of a gentle wipe. Paused.

  And yet she advanced.

  White arms. Smooth skin. A posture that believed, absolutely, that an embrace could be salvation.

  Yurie’s breath caught.

  She looked straight into the Empress’s empty sockets.

  Not peering in.

  Not looking away, either.

  What lived there wasn’t sight.

  It was rightness, surging in without needing to be seen.

  Her throat dried out. Words snagged before they could become voice.

  “...I’m sorry.”

  It came out small.

  She didn’t want to apologize, and yet her mouth moved first.

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  Still, she kept talking.

  “But I... I want to be in the mud. With Mermi.”

  The moment she said it, something hurt deep in her chest.

  Not from rejecting the Empress’s hand—

  but from her body remembering that hand had been truly kind.

  Yurie pressed the amber to the Gamaguchi.

  She jammed the cold lump against the dark rim of its mouth—hard. The strap bit her shoulder; the weight ran straight into her spine.

  Her fingers found the silver clasp—

  the rakkyo knobs (the onion-shaped clasp bulbs).

  Pachin.

  A hard, ritual snap.

  A single spark snapped and died.

  Like a signal, color bled out of the world. The roses’ deep crimson thinned. The lawn’s green peeled away. The sky’s gloss went dead.

  Then the plastic finally gave.

  Crack—crack—shatter.

  The garden split like glass left under too much heat. Roses burst into fragments and spun through the air; vinyl petals flaked off like paint skins.

  The pond’s perfect transparency clouded white along the fractures, and the goldfish specimens collapsed, still specimens, as they fell.

  Grrrr… THOOM.

  The throne at the far end split clean in half.

  Through the crack, real wind blew in.

  Moisture. Soil. Death.

  And somewhere in it—regrowth, mixed in like a bruise of hope.

  The disinfectant’s flat sweetness rinsed out of the air, and at last Yurie’s lungs managed a full breath.

  In the wreckage, the Empress was gathering shattered grains of amber.

  She didn’t chase.

  She didn’t blame.

  She only picked them up, laid them on her palm, and picked up more.

  And the fact that those fingers had been shaped to wipe her, just moments ago—

  lodged in Yurie’s chest and wouldn’t let go.

  Soon, the Empress crumbled into transparent dust.

  Until the end, she never once touched Yurie’s mud.

  …Haah.

  Mermi kicked fragments aside and stepped up beside her, shaking the resin powder off her golden coat with a disgusted shiver.

  “Finally my lungs can do their job, Yuri.” “Was she planning to suffocate the world to death with her goodwill?”

  Yurie didn’t answer.

  She only clenched the Gamaguchi’s strap hard enough to make it bite.

  Inside was the amber tablet. It should have been cold as ice—

  and yet through cloth she could feel an obscenely vivid heat.

  A heat like a heartbeat.

  Yurie touched her cheek—the spot that had been touched.

  There was no warmth left on the surface, and yet that one place felt strangely heavy.

  “Hey, Mermi.” “...Her hand was really gentle.”

  Her voice rasped.

  Mermi snorted once.

  “...Yes. I’m sure it was. She truly loved you.” “That was the only answer she knew.”

  Yurie nodded. Just once.

  “...I know. I know, but—” “Right now, being treated like that was the scariest thing in the world.”

  Saying it should have made her chest lighter.

  It didn’t.

  The Gamaguchi’s weight stayed exactly where it was—honest and present.

  Yurie slid her fingers over the Gamaguchi’s clasp—

  the rakkyo knobs.

  This weight was the weight of love she had refused.

  She still couldn’t measure its value. She still didn’t understand why the Empress had wanted to harden her so badly.

  But—

  “Without this weight... I’d lose track of where I’m running.”

  The words stopped there, and a calm fell—brief, shallow.

  Ahead, the purple wasteland had begun to take color again. There was wind. There was scent.

  “...Someday.” “When I’m older—when I stop thinking her kindness is ‘gross’—” “Then I’ll go back, and I’ll return it properly.”

  Yurie hugged the Gamaguchi closer, pinning it to her chest so it couldn’t swing away.

  “...For now, I can only run while carrying this hot, useless trash.”

  Mermi huffed.

  “...Cheap job.” “If it gets so heavy you can’t move, I’ll drag the Gamaguchi along with you.” “You’re still the one responsible for scrubbing the mud off, though.”

  Mermi stepped one pace ahead.

  Yurie followed.

  Behind them, the plastic world turned back into sand and vanished under the wind’s grinding.

  A thin sound—unmistakable—

  the sound of something ending.

  Ahead, the next pain was already taking shape.

  —End of Chapter 3.