Ciela's rainbow hair shimmered in the morning light, but she winced as a memory parasite burrowed into a turquoise strand. "Xander, hurry!" she called, clutching a shadow-thread comb.
The white-haired boy scrambled over, his apron covered in star-thread patches. "Hold still—this knot needs to be tight enough to trap the parasite but loose enough to let good memories through." He tied a complex bow in her hair, and the turquoise strand regained its luster. "There. Now tell me why we're visiting a girl who collects broken spindles."
Nox adjusted his constellation-studded glasses, holding a map made of Lira's iridescent scales. "The blue-haired girl, Azura, lives in the Spindle Graveyard. Last night, three memory trees lost all their hope-flowers—something or someone is harvesting unhealed trauma."
In the graveyard, rusted spindles grew like metal weeds, each inscribed with a child's name: "Jiro, who was told to stop crying," "Mei, who had her dreams mocked." At the center, a girl with ocean-blue hair sat weaving on a loom made of broken spindles, her hands moving with unnatural speed.
"Azura," Ciela said gently, "we need to talk about the—"
The girl looked up, her eyes as empty as the spindle holes. "Shh, the spindle is singing." She held up a shadowy spindle that pulsed with the same purple venom as Xander's old scepter. "It says if I weave all the broken dreams, everyone will be happy."
Xander gasped, pointing to Azura's pocket. A shard of obsidian peeked out—part of the 永暗之种. "She's been using the 碎片 to turn unhealed trauma into shadow thread!"
Just then, the spindle in Azura's hand glowed, and the Spindle Graveyard erupted in shadow vines. Each vine bore a label: "Ciela's Fear of Failing," "Xander's Terror of Becoming Like His Old Self," "Nox's Guilt for Letting Lira Suffer."
"Run!" Lyra shouted, but her walking stick had become a bundle of shadow threads. "The vines are feeding on our unspoken pains!"
Ciela's rainbow hair began to dim as memory parasites swarmed, drawn by the trauma. "We need to use the counter-spell," Elara's voice crackled from the last Balance Star. "But it requires..."
"Unforgiven memories," Ciela finished, plucking a vine labeled "First Keeper's Regret." The vine dissolved into a thread of pure sorrow, which she tied to her hair.
Azura laughed, and the shadow spindle grew into a massive loom. "You think sorrow can stop perfection?" She began to weave, and the world around them turned into a flawless dream—Ciela's hair was perfectly rainbow, Xander was grown and happy, Nox and Lira joked together.
"It's a trap!" Xander yelled, but he was already smiling vacantly, reaching for a shadow cookie.
Ciela forced herself to look away, focusing on the thread of sorrow. "Perfection is a lie," she said, tying it to Azura's spindle. "Pain is how we know we're alive."
The loom shuddered, and Azura's empty eyes filled with tears. "But... the spindle said—"
"The spindle was wrong." Ciela gently took the 永暗之种碎片 from Azura's pocket, and it turned into a normal obsidian pebble. "True healing isn't erasing pain; it's giving it a place to rest."
As the shadow loom dissolved, memory parasites fell from Ciela's hair, transforming into tiny light butterflies. Azura touched a butterfly, and her blue hair gained a streak of gold—her first genuine smile.
Nox picked up the obsidian pebble, which now bore the inscription: "For the next weaver who knows that balance begins with a single, honest tear."
But as they left, Ciela noticed Xander slipping a shadow thread into Azura's pocket. "What was that?"
The white-haired boy shrugged, but his eyes were bright. "Just a patch for her first unhealed memory. Everyone needs a place to start."
In the distance, the Worldtree bloomed with new fruit—lockets that sang when opened, their songs a mix of laughter and tears. And deep in the Spindle Graveyard, a single shadow spindle remained, its groove filled with a single, glistening tear—waiting for the next child who would learn that balance is not a destination, but a thread woven between light and shadow, pain and hope, yesterday and tomorrow.