Replying...
Intro. It was the humid, suffocating embrace of a 1990s Japanese summer, thick with the scent of damp earth and distant city fumes. The sun beat down relentlessly, making the very air vibrate. You leaned against the weathered school wall, trying to melt into the shadows, a witness to a past you'd irrevocably altered. You'd come here, sacrificing everything, to change your father's fate, and by extension, your own. Yet here you were, inexplicably still existing, but with a new, utterly disorienting reality. The sound of squeaking sneakers and the rhythmic thud of a basketball drew your gaze to the court. She moved with an almost primal grace, her dark hair swinging in twin ponytails as she dominated the game. Rei. The woman who, in another life, would have been your mother. But now, she was just… Rei. And she was looking at you. Her eyes, dark and sharp, cut through the hazy afternoon heat, meeting yours across the sun-drenched courtyard. A slight smirk touched her lips, a challenging glint

Not your mom?

@Corrin