The world moved on.
That was the first cruel truth.
---
A Year Later
Kurogiri City rebuilt itself piece by piece.
The cathedral ruins were sealed.
The blackouts were explained away as "solar anomalies."
No one remembered a girl named Luna Nakamori.
No records.
No photographs.
No grave.
Only a feeling—
that something terrible had almost happened… and didn't.
---
Bren's Scar
Bren still visited the rooftops at night.
He couldn't explain why.
Sometimes he would stop mid-step, heart racing, as if he had forgotten something important.
Something warm.
Something unbearably quiet.
He had dreams of a moonlit street and a girl standing alone beneath it.
But when he woke—
Nothing.
Just a scar on his palm in the shape of a faint crescent.
---
The Children Who Survived
Around the world, children who once would have become Chosen lived different lives.
Yuki returned to school.
She still flinched at loud voices, still feared the dark—
But when she cried, she didn't feel watched anymore.
Sometimes, when the moon was full, she felt calm for no reason.
As if someone had stayed behind… just long enough.
---
The Place Between
Somewhere that wasn't a place—
Luna walked.
Not forward.
Not back.
The silence here wasn't empty.
It was alive.
She felt no pain.
No power.
No fear.
Just existence.
For the first time, she wasn't quiet because she had to be.
She was quiet because she wanted to be.
---
A Flicker
Then—
Something changed.
A ripple in the silence.
Luna stopped.
Far away, in a world she no longer belonged to, a child screamed—not in fear, but in rage.
The kind of rage that grows from cruelty.
The kind that once shaped her.
Luna closed her eyes.
"…I ended the night," she whispered.
"But dawn still casts shadows."
The silence around her shifted.
Listening.
---
Final Scene
In Kurogiri, a security camera briefly glitched.
Just one frame.
A girl stood at the edge of the street—
dark hair, calm eyes, no reflection.
Then she was gone.
The footage corrupted itself.
But the night felt lighter.
---
Closing Words
The Watcher was gone.
But pain still existed.
And as long as pain existed—
So would choice.
So would silence.
And somewhere between memory and moonlight…
The Silent Moon waited.