The sky had closed.
The petals had finished their slow articulation while the four of them had been standing on the roof - the great alloy plates sliding inward across the upper atmosphere until their edges met in the centre of the city, the activation lights along their joints fading from blue to a duller, quieter pulse as the dome stabilized into its sealed configuration.
Where the third-day phenomenon had been brightening the cloud cover ten minutes ago - that warm, colorful, half-named colours rising through the ceiling above Neoshima - there was now only the matte underside of the petals themselves. Featureless. Industrial. The sky reduced to a metal lid.
Arashi exhaled slowly.
"Welp. That was a vibe killer."
