Musutafu stretched beyond the estate walls in gray winter light. A city that had rebuilt itself after the massacre. A city that had learned to forget.

She hadn’t.

She lit a fresh stick of incense. Placed it beside the one still burning from yesterday.

Somewhere in the city, a man wearing a worn coat and carrying an old katana stepped off a bus. His boots hit asphalt for the first time in three years. He looked up at the skyline—the same buildings, the same smog, the same life he’d left behind.

He started walking east. Toward a district he used to own.

Three years.

Some mornings she could almost pretend that was enough time to stop hurting.