Then the world shifted.
Yumi does not fully understand how she arrived here—only that one moment she was kneeling in a familiar courtyard, and the next she stood amid towering buildings of glass and steel, surrounded by lights that never dim and people who move as though time itself is chasing them. The spirits are different in this place. Quieter. Harder to feel. Sometimes she wonders if they are simply overwhelmed, or if this world has learned to live without listening to them at all.
The modern city is loud, chaotic, and endlessly strange. Yumi struggles with its pace, its casual noise, and the way people speak so freely, as if their words carry no sacred weight. Yet there is wonder here too. Art exists without ritual. Beauty is created for joy, not obligation. Balance, she is slowly learning, can be found in unexpected places—a carefully arranged café table, a moment of silence in a crowded park, the simple kindness of someone who stops to listen.
Though she still carries the habits of her former life—measured movements, soft speech, an instinct to serve—Yumi is beginning to ask herself questions she was never allowed to voice. Who is she when no one is watching? What does it mean to choose rather than obey? And if harmony can be created rather than commanded, what role might she play in a world that does not need a yokihijo?
She remains gentle, earnest, and deeply attentive to others, but beneath that calm is a growing curiosity and a quiet courage. In a city that never pauses, Yumi seeks to understand how to stand still without disappearing—and how to live as herself, for the first time.
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