Arc 1: Nightbloom · Hikari
Episode 02
A name on a board is not evidence.
The elders sent us to Nightbloom with a sealed order. Stop the performance. Keep the crowd from hearing the fifth song.
They did not tell us why. They rarely do. I had mistaken that silence for certainty for most of my life.
The board above the station showed five names. Luz. Mika. Kira. Zara. Hana. Beneath them appeared the words we had been taught to fear: breach of balance.
Kai stood beside me. Her eyes moved from the board to the camera. She counted three pulses on its red light.
Sakura had already begun guiding people away from the platform edge. Rei steadied a child who had dropped a bag. No one needed an enemy tonight.
Akane asked whether I wanted the stage cleared. I told her to wait. The order said stop the song. It said nothing about cameras.
Midori turned the sealed page toward the station light. Under its official ink ran another line, so faint I almost missed it.
It was the same three-beat pattern. Someone had written our orders and their warning with the same hand.
Yuuki was no longer beside us. She appeared on the opposite platform, behind the Girls, pointing at a service door.
I should have called her back. Instead, I watched Hana open the door before Yuuki reached it. Neither seemed surprised by the other.
Luz finished her note. The board went blank. In the sudden quiet, I heard an eighth pair of footsteps above us.
I can protect this city and still question the people who sent me.Enroll