The fire had burned low, embers pulsing like dying hearts.
Hajime stared into the glow, fists clenched on his knees.
Rei leaned back against an oak, eyes half-lidded, but listening.
Izumi sat cross-legged, the white lotus in her palm now reduced to faint ash that drifted between her fingers like snow.
She didn't look at them.
Her voice was quiet, but the forest carried it.
"You asked how I got Eve.
I told you the night it happened.
But that wasn't the beginning.
That was the end of the girl I was."
She inhaled.
The air tasted of smoke and moss.
"Let me take you further back.
To the Verdant Veil before Eryndral rose.
To a village called Kagerou—a place the maps forgot."
Ten Years Earlier – Kagerou Village, Verdant Veil Outskirts
The Eidarus Tree's shadow didn't reach here.
The soil was cracked.
The wells ran red with rust.
Children played with sticks because there were no toys.
Adults spoke in whispers because hope was a luxury they could ill afford.
Izumi—six years old—sat in the dirt behind her family's shack.
Her knees were scabbed.
Her hair was tangled with leaves.
In her hands: a cracked clay pot.
Inside: one seed.
One chance.
She pressed it into the dirt.
Covered it with trembling fingers.
Whispered like it could hear her.
"Grow. Please. Just once."
Her mother watched from the doorway.
Skin pale.
Eyes sunken.
The Verdant Blight had taken her voice weeks ago.
Now it was taking her breath.
Izumi's father knelt beside her.
Callused hands over hers.
"We'll try again tomorrow, Rin."
She didn't answer.
She just watered.
Every drop she could steal from the well.
Every tear when the well ran dry.
The village elder called it futile.
"The Veil abandoned us," he spat. "The Eidarus Tree has forgotten about us."
But Izumi didn't listen.
She watered.
She waited.
She believed.
Months passed.
The seed never sprouted.
Her mother grew weaker.
But she lived.
Izumi still whispered to her every night.
Still watered the dirt every dawn.
Two Years Later – The Night the Crimson Came
Izumi was eight.
The village had shrunk to twenty souls.
Her mother still breathed—shallow, ragged, but alive.
Izumi still watered the seed.
Still believed.
Then the Crimson Legion came.
They didn't send scouts.
They sent fire and raids.
The first torch hit the elder's roof.
He screamed as flames ate his face.
Children ran.
Some made it to the trees.
Most didn't.
Izumi's father shoved her toward the forest.
"Take your mother—go!"
He turned to fight.
Izumi grabbed her mother's hand—cold, trembling—and dragged her into the dark.
They stumbled through smoke.
Ten steps.
Fifteen.
A soldier in blood-red armor stepped from the flames.
Saw the woman.
Laughed.
"Still breathing? Let's fix that."
He drove his sword through her mother's chest.
Pinned her to the dirt like a butterfly.
Izumi screamed.
Dropped to her knees.
Reached for her mother's hand.
It was already limp.
The soldier yanked the blade free.
Kicked the body aside.
Grabbed Izumi by the hair.
"Little weed. Time to pull you out."
He raised his sword.
The earth cracked.
Not from anger.
From memory.
A root—thin, trembling—burst from the soil where Izumi had watered for two years.
It wrapped the soldier's ankle.
Snap.
He dropped.
More roots followed.
Not vines.
Roots.
Thick.
Ancient.
They remembered every tear.
Every prayer.
Every drop of blood now soaking the dirt.
They rose.
Soldiers screamed as roots dragged them under.
One tried to burn them.
The flames fed them.
Grew them taller.
Thicker.
Sharper.
Izumi stood in the center.
Unmoving.
Tears cutting clean lines through soot.
A voice—warm, ancient, motherly—spoke inside her.
"Little one… You watered ashes with hope."
"For two years. Every day. Even when no one else did."
"That is a soul the world cannot break."
Izumi looked up.
Eve stood in the flames.
Barefoot.
Hair like living moss.
Eyes like spring after winter.
A crown of white lilies.
Skin glowing faint green.
"I am Eve. The First Garden. The Will of Nature."
"You kept a seed alive in your heart when the world tried to kill it."
"Will you let me grow with you?"
Izumi's voice was ash.
"Will you… Bring her back?"
Eve knelt.
Touched the girl's cheek.
"No. But I will make sure the world remembers her."
"Every root. Every flower. Every storm.
Will carry her name."
Izumi looked at her mother's body.
Then at her father's, now burning in the shack.
At the soldiers choking on their own blood as roots filled their lungs.
She nodded.
Eve smiled—sad, soft, fierce.
"Then rise, child.
And let the earth sing her eulogy."
Green light erupted.
Not gentle.
Violent.
Like a forest splitting stone.
Izumi screamed as roots burst from her back, her arms, her soul.
The ground shook.
The Crimson squad vanished. They were crushed, buried, and erased.
When the light faded, Izumi stood in a crater of white lotuses.
Eight years old.
Eyes glowing emerald.
Hands trembling.
The dirt where she'd watered for two years?
Now a garden.
Blooming in blood and ash.
She was broken and defeated.
She decided to do the only thing she knew, water the garden.
Present Day – Campfire
Izumi's voice cracked on the last word.
The ash in her palm drifted away.
Hajime's fists were white.
Rei's eyes were closed.
The fire popped.
Once.
Twice.
Izumi looked up.
Her smile was small.
Broken.
Real.
"Eve didn't choose me because I was special.
She chose me because I refused to let hope die.
Even when I had every reason to."
She stood.
Brushed ash from her robes.
Walked to the edge of the clearing.
Pressed her palm to an oak.
"Tomorrow," she said, voice steady.
"We keep walking.
And I keep watering."
Rei opened his eyes.
Stood.
Placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You're not alone anymore, Rin."
Hajime rose too.
Voice rough.
"We'll make sure you never get hurt again, I promise."
Izumi laughed gratefully.
"Thank you, guys."
To be continued…