Saint Lycoris Academy — Dormitory Wing, 02:47 hoursCondition: Silent / Post-Engagement Lockdown
The academy is asleep.Or pretending to be.
After the night of the petals, every hallway hums like a heartbeat trying to forget what it's done.Maintenance drones sweep the marble floors, gathering debris that used to be parts of lives.The scent of burnt cherry blossoms clings to the curtains, sweet and guilty.
My body aches — not from wounds, but from memory.Every time I blink, I see the courtyard again:Ren's laugh beneath the petals, the broom arcing through fire, the cat vanishing into safety.For a moment, everything was almost human.Now the quiet has teeth.
The Dormitory
I sit at my desk, pen poised above an open journal.Dozens of these notebooks line my shelves — perfect handwriting, numbered fragments, emotion quantified like scripture.They're supposed to anchor me.But tonight, something is wrong.
A page I don't remember writing waits for me.The handwriting isn't mine.It loops softer, almost like a lullaby.The ink is red.
"He smiled in the rain again. I wanted to keep that smile. So I drew it.If it fades, I'll draw it again."
I flip to the next page.Another entry.Then another.
Each one gentler than the last — not observation, but affection pretending to be analysis.And everyone ends the same way:
"If he leaves, I'll rebuild him."
My fingers tremble.The air grows heavy, as if the words themselves weigh something sacred and terrible.I can't breathe.And then — I hear her.
Internal Echo — Dollmaker (Full Awakening)
[DOLLMAKER]: "You're not supposed to cry over him."KANA: "Then why do I keep doing it?"[DOLLMAKER]: "Because you're afraid he'll disappear."KANA: "He's not gone."[DOLLMAKER]: "They all said that. Before I made them dolls."
Her tone is soft — not cruel, not mocking — just heartbreak wearing patience.
Images flicker behind my eyes:a tiny wooden figure cupped in my palms, its mouth carved into a smile;blood dried beneath my nails;a promise whispered to no one;a song hummed through tears.
KANA: "You made those?"[DOLLMAKER]: "We made them. To remember what we lost."KANA: "I don't want him to become a memory."[DOLLMAKER]: "Then protect him. Or build him. Either way, he'll stay."
The voice fades, leaving silence that feels stitched shut.
Ren Arrives
A knock. Soft, hesitant.His voice through the door — warm even at this hour.
REN: "Kana? You're awake, right?"
I snap the journal shut, hiding the red-ink pages beneath the mattress.When I open the door, he's there — hair still damp, jacket from the battle half-zipped, eyes bright despite the exhaustion.
REN: "Couldn't sleep. You?"KANA: "My systems were … busy."REN: "You mean your thoughts."KANA: "Same difference."
He smiles, rubbing the back of his neck.
"You fought like hell tonight. Everyone's talking about it.""Let them talk.""They said you saved me — again.""Statistically inevitable."
He laughs, but the sound fades when he notices my trembling hands.
REN: "You're shaking."KANA: "It's just residual data."REN: "Kana, that's not data. That's fear."
The word fear feels foreign, a key turning in a door I didn't know I had.I want to tell him he's wrong, but the sentence breaks before it reaches the air.
He steps closer and covers my hand with his.For the first time, I don't pull away.
His skin is warm.It's ridiculous how such a small thing can feel like a miracle.
REN: "You don't have to pretend around me."KANA: "Pretending is all I was built for."REN: "Then let's rebuild something else."
Something inside me stirs — not Tactical Angel, not Crimson Doll, not Saint or Ghost — something fragile, human, unnamed.
When he finally leaves, his footsteps echo down the hall like a promise too gentle to survive here.I wait until the sound fades before pulling the red-ink pages back out.
The last one reads:
"He touched my hand. The warmth stayed after he left.So I carved a new doll tonight, but this one isn't made of wood.It's made of hope."
Diary Fragment (Later That Night)
[Fragment Log #12 — The Broken Diary]Emotional stability: compromised.Memory continuity: fractured.Persona manifestation: Dollmaker (active).
Handwritten note:I don't remember writing half of myself.Maybe that's the point.Maybe love is just the part of you someone else writes when you stop controlling it.
As I close the book, my reflection in the window shifts.For a heartbeat, six silhouettes stand behind me — my other selves — each smiling,each whispering the same word:
Live.
The first tear falls soundlessly.It hits the page and spreads, blurring the word hope until it reads like home.
End of Diary #12 — "The Broken Diary."