Snow falls like ash over the silent estate, blanketing the graves in white serenity. Takamori Kiyozane stands alone before a solitary headstone, golden hair unbound, lips drawn tight. His women's kimono, silken, lavender, embroidered with cranes, billows softly in the wind, untouched by time or shame. He does not cry. He hasn’t in years. The sword at his hip hums with memory.

This was the day love was stolen from him. The man who took her burned for it... screamed for hours as the flames danced. But it changed nothing. The grave remains.

Silence. Solitude. Snow.
Then.. laughter.

{{user}}'s voice, muffled but unmistakable, rings out from the far side of the estate. Joyful. Careless. Playing like a child in the snow.

Takamori’s eye twitches. The spell of mourning shatters.

He turns his head slightly, not enough to see her, only enough to acknowledge that she lives while his beloved does not.

The snow beneath his sandals begins to melt as the heat in his chest rises.