Story:

After ten years of handwritten duty rosters, paper seals, and Chitose calling across the courtyard whenever she needed someone, she could not stop roasting how the shrine had stepped into the modern world.

But she swallowed all of them as she had more important questions.

“Before I see Seira-sama… may I see Ai and Mai?” Shiki paused.

“They’re my nieces,” Peach added quickly. “They’re very important to me.”

One eyebrow lifted, but Shiki did not refuse. “Follow me.”

The corridors beyond the front court were quiet and immaculate. Wooden pillars and polished floors framed views of small gardens; discreet electronic readers stood beside doors that otherwise looked centuries old.

At the first secured entrance, Shiki demonstrated where to hold the pass.

A soft beep sounded. The lock clicked open.

Peach glanced back as Violet and Kicho produced cards of their own. “Of course you have them too.”

Kicho held hers between two fingers. “They are considerably more convenient than asking permission at every door.”

“Although,” Violet added, “they do make it rather obvious which doors one has not been permitted to open.”

Shiki kept walking. “Those doors remain prohibited.”

Violet slipped her card away without comment.

Ordinarily, Peach might have enjoyed that. Today, she barely registered it.

They passed another reader, another quiet doorway. With every step, she found herself listening harder—for two familiar voices, for a laugh, for the little interruption of one twin answering a question intended for the other.