The grove had grown taller, fuller, and older, yet something stirred beneath the roots.
No mortal could see it at first. Only the petals sensed it — drifting slower, heavier, tinged with a faint crimson shadow.
The children who played among the trees paused, feeling a shiver in the wind, and even the birds fell silent.
Sakura, walking barefoot along the familiar paths, felt it too.
> "The roots are uneasy," she murmured to herself.
The spiritwalker, long a quiet companion, nodded. "You feel her too, don't you?"
> "Yes," Sakura said, her eyes softening. "Kurozakura…"
---
It had been centuries since the shadow had walked openly.
No longer the divine wrath she had once been, Kurozakura lingered at the edge of memory — a whisper in the wind, a flicker in dreams.
But now, she stirred with intent.
The first sign came in dreams.
A child — no more than ten — awoke with petals clinging to her hair.
She described a woman of shifting light and shadow, smiling yet stern, who led her through fields of black blossoms.
> "She says I must choose," the child whispered to her mother. "Choose what grows… or what fades."
Sakura knelt beside her. "And what did you choose?"
> "I… I don't know," the child said. "She said it would tell me later."
Sakura's lips pressed together. "Then she's testing you."
---
Elsewhere in the grove, another dreamer — a young scholar who had spent years chronicling the grove's strange happenings — noticed the petals changing color.
Where once they had been soft rose and white, faint streaks of crimson appeared, swirling in subtle patterns across the blossoms.
> "It's… beautiful," he murmured. "But it's not natural."
The spiritwalker touched the petals with careful fingers.
They shifted under his hand — light and shadow intertwined, as if aware of being watched.
> "Kurozakura walks the grove again," he said quietly. "She doesn't seek to harm. She seeks understanding. Or… to see if mortals can understand."
Sakura inhaled slowly. "Her way of teaching is… harsh."
> "And necessary," he said. "Balance requires both bloom and shadow."
---
That night, the grove seemed to breathe differently.
Petals fell in spirals, catching in the branches like whispers of movement. The wind carried a faint voice — a melody that was neither sorrowful nor joyful, but sharp with intention.
Sakura closed her eyes and whispered to the roots.
> "Guide them. Help them learn. Not from fear, but from truth."
The roots pulsed faintly in reply.
Beneath the earth, the Heartroot had sensed the awakening. Threads of light and shadow intertwined, glowing faintly under the grove.
---
Kurozakura appeared next — not fully visible, but as a shifting silhouette at the edge of the light.
> "You've done well, little sister," she said, voice soft, almost musical.
"The mortals remember balance. But do they understand choice?"
Sakura's eyes softened. "You don't need to test them harshly."
> "Perhaps not," Kurozakura replied. "But understanding cannot come without shadow. They must walk among it to know the warmth of the bloom."
The wind stirred, and the petals whispered secrets — fragments of memory and prophecy.
Sakura stepped closer to the shadow. "Then at least guide them gently."
> "As you taught me," Kurozakura murmured, and then she vanished, leaving only a single black-and-rose petal on the path.
The spiritwalker bent to pick it up. "She's always watching," he said softly.
Sakura smiled faintly. "And always reminding us… that growth requires both light and shadow."
---
The next morning, the children awoke with new courage.
Where once they had feared the deep grove, they now walked among the petals, noticing the subtle crimson streaks and whispering to one another of balance, choice, and bloom.
Even the scholar felt a shift. The patterns of petals in his notes began to make sense — not random, but deliberate, teaching him something he had not yet understood.
And Sakura, standing beneath the trees, breathed in the scent of blossoms and shadow.
She understood, finally, that Kurozakura's presence was not a threat, but a continuation of the cycle: a reminder that even in peace, lessons must be remembered.
> "Let them dream," she whispered. "Let them grow. And let the shadow teach as gently as it can."
Above, the petals swirled once more — pink, white, crimson, and black — and the grove seemed to hum with the quiet laughter of two spirits, sisters, watching over a world that still remembered how to bloom. 🌸