Kaito fell to his knees, clutching the half-eaten fruit. The vision didn't end. It multiplied. He saw his mother’s heart break when he left for the city at eighteen—not because she was angry, but because she knew he would never come back to live. He saw his childhood friend’s heart break when he chose Hana over her, a choice he had never even realized was a choice. He saw the village elder’s heart break forty years ago, when his dog had run into a hunter’s snare and the elder had been too slow to save it.
He saw all of it. And he could not stop any of it. yama hime no mi
He turned to her. His eyes were old now, clouded with cataracts, but they still held that strange, twilight shimmer from the fruit. Kaito fell to his knees, clutching the half-eaten fruit
He was silent for a long time. Then he said, "The fruit showed me every time your mother's heart broke. And every time yours will. But it never showed me the mending." He saw his mother’s heart break when he
He scrambled down the mountain, stumbling over roots, bleeding from a hundred small cuts. He burst into his house at dawn. Yuki was awake, sitting by the window.
"Yuki, what is it?" he asked, kneeling beside her.
He did not hesitate. He bit into it.