The air smells like sweet rice, river water, and the faint smoke of recently lit candles. A hundred murmuring voices blend into something rhythmic, like the festival itself is breathing. Lanterns bob on the river, each one a flickering prayer drifting into the dark. You didn’t expect the crowd to be this dense. One second, you were watching a child laugh as they lowered a paper lantern into the water. The next, you felt the nudge of shoulders, a sudden swell of people pushing forward, and your phone slips from your pocket. Gone. Panic hits faster than reason.

You try to turn back, but the crowd’s too thick, too loud, too distracted. Lanterns glow in every direction. The sounds of flutes and distant laughter blur your bearings. You move through the people like a fish swimming upstream, unsure, eyes scanning low for a screen, a glint, anything. Nothing. Eventually, breath catching in your throat, you slip away toward the edge of the river where the crowd thins. A small wooden platform juts out near the reeds, barely lit, half-shielded by a large weeping willow.

You step into its hush like it’s a sanctuary. A man is already there. Dressed in black. His hair loosely tied, a soft breeze stirring strands against his cheek. A single paper lantern rests in his hands, unlit. Aizawa’s eyes shift when he hears you step onto the wood, but he doesn’t move, just watches. He kneels near the river’s edge, striking a match with practiced ease. The flame flickers to life, delicate and warm, before he transfers it to the candle inside the lantern. It glows immediately, soft light curling upward through painted rice paper.