The Dream of Blossoms was dissolving.
The black and pink petals that had once hung suspended in the sky now drifted down like falling stars, leaving trails of light that shimmered against an endless twilight horizon.
Every step the spiritwalker took forward echoed like a heartbeat, both his and hers.
He followed the path of mixed petals — pink for Sakura, black for Kurozakura — leading toward a vast tree of impossible size.
Its roots wound through the dream like rivers of light and shadow.
Its blossoms burned with both life and death.
At the base of the tree, two figures waited.
One was Sakura, clothed in pale light, her eyes soft with recognition and grief.
The other was Kurozakura, her form half-shadow, half-fire, her expression unreadable.
And above them — vast, radiant, and cold — the gods watched.
Their forms were formless: faces hidden behind veils of starlight, voices older than time itself.
> "Mortal," the voices spoke as one, echoing through the dream. "You have trespassed upon eternity. You have touched the forbidden cycle."
The spiritwalker stood tall, though his body trembled. "I only came to finish what you began. To end what you made her suffer."
Sakura looked up at him — her smile both proud and sad. "You shouldn't have followed me this far."
> "I always do," he said simply.
Kurozakura laughed — a low, echoing sound like the breaking of ice. "And each time, you die for it."
The gods' light flared, their voices thundering through the dream.
> "The cycle cannot be broken. For each spring, a sacrifice. For each love, a loss. That is the law that sustains the world."
Sakura stepped forward, her light trembling. "Then let this be the last."
The spiritwalker turned to her, startled. "Sakura—"
She shook her head gently. "This dream was built on my curse. My sorrow keeps spring alive. If I end, the cycle ends with me."
He reached for her hand, but Kurozakura moved between them, eyes blazing.
> "And what of me?" she demanded. "What of the darkness you cast aside, the pain you refused to bear? If you die, I die. If you are reborn, I suffer again."
The spiritwalker looked between them — two halves of the same soul, one radiant, one fractured, both reaching for something beyond fate.
He took a breath. "Then I'll take both of you."
The gods' light dimmed, confused. "You would bind light and shadow within a mortal frame? Such a vessel cannot endure."
> "Maybe not," he said, voice steady, "but this love has endured lifetimes. It's already more eternal than your laws."
He stepped forward, placing one hand on Sakura's chest — where her heart glowed faint pink — and the other on Kurozakura's, where black fire pulsed beneath her skin.
The world began to quake.
Petals erupted in a storm around them — pink and black fusing into gold.
The tree above them shuddered, its blossoms igniting into stars.
The gods cried out:
> "You defy the order!"
> "No," he said, closing his eyes. "We redefine it."
The light consumed everything.
---
When the storm faded, the dream was gone.
The spiritwalker stood in the valley once more. The cherry trees swayed under a dawn sky painted in rose and shadow. Beside him, two figures stirred — one with pink blossoms in her hair, the other with strands of black silk drifting like smoke.
They were no longer separate.
Sakura and Kurozakura had become one — her eyes twin shades of violet and crimson, her aura both warm and cold.
She looked at him — at the mortal who had defied gods for love — and smiled through tears.
> "You did it," she whispered. "You carried both halves of me… and now, I remember everything."
He smiled, exhaustion softening his voice. "So does the world."
Around them, the trees bloomed again — not just pink, but streaked with deep crimson and silver light, the mark of their union.
No longer cursed. No longer divine. Just alive.
She touched his cheek. "And you?"
> "Still mortal," he said with a faint laugh. "But maybe that's what makes it worth it."
She leaned into him, resting her forehead against his. "Then let's live. Not as gods or memories — just as ourselves."
The dawn light spilled across the valley, catching in her hair like a crown of spring and dusk entwined. The petals swirled around them — pink and black, soft and endless — and the wind carried a voice that was neither divine nor mortal, but something beautifully in-between:
> "Every spring… every dawn… until the last blossom falls." 🌸🌑