"Hanabi… friend…"
Hikari murmured it softly.
"That's right. And it's been several hundred years since your time — the Uchiha clan is gone now. Which means: you're free. Free to live however you choose."
Hanabi drew [Zhuixia] back.
[Resuscitation] had brought Hikari Uchiha's body to its best condition.
"The Uchiha clan… is gone."
A drifting feeling spread through her chest.
She no longer knew what she was supposed to do.
Bang.
A firework cut across the sky outside.
"Ah—!"
Hikari's eyes went wide — a full-body startle response, involuntary.
"Oh, it's fireworks~" Hanabi crossed to the window and pushed it open. "Want to see?"
"That's… not an attack?"
"Fireworks. They're called Hanabi in this world too~"
Nothing as grand as a fireworks show — it seemed to be a small local celebration in one of the nearby villages, some commemorative day or neighborhood festival.
Hanabi herself hadn't known about it beforehand.
Timing.
If Hinata hadn't gotten ahead of schedule and found the seal earlier, they wouldn't have been here tonight to see it.
"What… am I supposed to do now…"
Hikari slowly sat up and looked out the window.
Before the seal, she had made her peace with it. She had accepted that she was a weapon — that weapons didn't have futures of their own, only purposes assigned by others.
But down in that lightless dark underground, the hollow place inside her had slowly filled with something else. Resentment. Fury. A heat that had no outlet.
And now — to hear that centuries had passed, that even the Uchiha themselves were gone, that the things which had bound her no longer existed — she felt unmoored. Unanchored. Lost in open water.
Then Hanabi stood up.
"Come on — let's go outside!"
"Wh—!"
No warning. No negotiation. Hanabi took her hand and pulled, and then they were through the door, out of the inn, onto the street.
Hikari was wearing a light pink yukata — Hanabi had dressed her in it while she slept.
The two of them walked hand in hand, looking almost like a pair of girls out for a festival evening.
Fireworks blazed overhead.
The night lit up in color after color around them.
But what pulled Hikari's eye wasn't the fireworks in the sky.
It was the one walking beside her.
She stared at this girl who was roughly her own age.
Hyuga Hanabi — like her name, she was summer fireworks. Brilliant. Dazzling. Burning and gone in an instant, yet impossible to look away from.
Her hair fell straight and black down her back, swaying as she moved, catching the light like something from another sky. Her face was the most beautiful Hikari had ever seen — skin flawless in a way that didn't quite belong to the mortal world. Lashes long enough to cast a shadow. Her eyes were closed just now, but there was a feeling to them — the sense that when they opened, they would see straight to the bottom of you — warm and mysterious at once.
She was smiling. And with that smile, the corners of her eyes curved into something soft and gentle — like the first bloom of cherry blossoms, innocent and quietly devastating.
"She's beautiful…"
Hikari breathed it without meaning to.
"Isn't it?" Hanabi turned to look at her.
Her voice, too, was beautiful.
To be friends with someone like this — it felt like something from a dream. The kind of thing that didn't happen to people like her.
Hikari's gaze dropped — and then was pulled back up again by Hanabi's presence.
The kimono she wore was exquisite: a furisode embroidered with fine patterns like fireworks blooming across the fabric, the colors vivid but balanced. Every movement was effortless. Every step landed without weight, as if the ground was something she was only choosing to touch.
She moved through the noise of the crowd and somehow carried a stillness with her.
As if the world — all of it, the mess and the beauty and the chaos — was transparent and clean.
Something Hikari had no name for stirred in her chest and began to rise.
Longing.
Could someone like her really become this person's friend?
The longing and the distance seemed to move together — drawing her closer and pushing her further at the same time. Close enough to touch, unreachably far.
"Hanabi looks like a princess."
It came out before she could stop it.
That had been her very first impression — the moment she'd laid eyes on her. This beautiful, radiant girl.
"Oh? Then will you be my knight?"
Hanabi smiled, reprising the line she'd said before.
"I…"
Hikari pressed a hand to her chest.
Her heart was going too fast. She couldn't think. Her head felt like it was full of something warm and airless.
"Do you want to head back and rest?"
Hanabi stopped walking.
"That's — I mean — yeah."
The crowd felt suffocating. She couldn't breathe right in the middle of all of it.
By the time they were back at the inn, Hikari had steadied somewhat.
"Then rest well."
Hanabi closed her door.
That went well enough.
Hanabi hadn't lectured her. Hadn't said anything grand.
When all was said and done, Hikari was still just a child.
So — show her that this world has a gentle side. Let that settle first. Then let her find her own footing.
"…Hanabi."
The door was shut. But Hinata's voice came from somewhere to the side.
"Good evening, Sister~" Hanabi looked over. There was something hesitant in Hinata's expression.
"Um — I saw the fireworks just now, and I thought about looking for you to watch them together…" Hinata's voice had a quality to it — not quite sadness, but adjacent.
She'd neglected her sister.
Hanabi could see it.
"Actually—" Hanabi started.
But Hinata — who usually held herself back, who hedged, who circled — spoke first, and directly:
"Who is that girl? You acted like you'd known her your whole life, even though you'd never met. Like you'd been waiting all this time for the chance to see her."
Her sister had seen through it.
It was true. Since first learning that Hikari Uchiha existed, Hanabi had wanted to bring her out.
"She's a dangerous person who was sealed away, isn't she." Hinata looked down. "Is it really going to be alright?"
"Hikari's a good person~" Hanabi said.
"…I believe you. I believe everything Hanabi says… but."
Hinata didn't seem to know what she was trying to say, exactly.
The little sister she'd always been close to — always leaning on her, always beside her — and now, here she was, so at ease with someone else.
A hollow feeling.
Like half of her body had quietly stopped being hers.
The loss of it pressed in from all sides and wouldn't be held back.
Emotion, uncountable.
I must look hideous right now.
I've always felt so ashamed around Hanabi — always so painfully aware of my own inadequacy. But right now, what I feel is something different. Something I can't put a name to.
This won't do. She couldn't let Hanabi see her like this.
"If it's Hanabi's decision — then I'll support it. Whatever it is. Always."
She retreated into her room as if she were fleeing, and pulled the covers over her head.
Hanabi stood where she was.
Twelve years since she'd transmigrated into this world.
For the first time, she felt sweat soaking through her.