Story:

Bel turned to his most trusted general.

"Black Rose," he commanded, gently, terribly.

"Restore them. Return my flower slaves to me—fully, deeply, better than before. Our new garden will need its first blooms."

Black Rose's lips curved, shadow-roses unfurling lazily in the air around her shoulders as she stepped toward the twins, who pressed back against each other, nowhere to go, strength gone, her perfume of corruption already unspooling through the chamber and curling into their breath.

"And now," Bel said, straightening his collar, turning toward the cave mouth with the air of a man arriving at his own estate, "we have a shrine to greet, and a nation to take."

He led Yoshiro and Miu toward the falls, their dark silhouettes passing through the curtain of sacred water—which parted around them without daring to touch them—

They were out into the garden of the Yamato Shrine, where the first evening lanterns were being lit, and the first screams had not yet begun.

Behind them, in the blue-lit chamber, Black Rose knelt beside the twins.

"Shhh," she whispered, as petals bloomed in Ai's widening eyes. "Welcome home."