Loving the beauty, not the throne. For some reason, seeing the look Yukari just inadvertently showed, this phrase popped into Sū ěr head.
Had Yukari abandoned her great vow from back then to choose a different path?
"Um, please don't blame Yukari… if I understand correctly, you all came at her request to treat me?" The girl named Saigyouji Yuyuko smiled gently. "Actually, I'm not sick, and I don't need treatment. Thank you all for your kindness."
"Yuyuko!" Yukari's voice rose sharply, but she fell silent after Yuyuko grabbed her hand and held it to her chest with a smile.
Though they shared a similar hair color to Jibril, Yuyuko's personality was the complete opposite extreme. Even though she didn't use much strength to hold Yukari's hand, the simple action silenced the yōkai completely.
The topic ended there for now… at least, they wouldn't discuss it in front of Yuyuko. Even if Yukari seemed to have softened over the years, Sū ěr didn't think her personality had changed to the point where she could stand by and watch someone important to her suffer.
Clearly, if left alone, something would happen to Yuyuko, which was why Yukari was so anxious.
Sū ěr group stayed at the Saigyouji home as Yukari's "friends." The servants prepared food and brought fine sake. The only thing that bothered Sū ěr was that the servants refused to bring the food inside themselves; they would only leave it at the gate of the inner courtyard and bow before retreating.
According to Yukari, Yuyuko had grown to this age in such an environment. She knew other humans lived just a wall away, and she knew the food she ate every day was made by people in the courtyard, but aside from the monks who returned to the family, she had seen very few humans.
Her only companions to fill her loneliness and emptiness were the various books in her room and the small animals that occasionally appeared under the cherry tree… and, in recent years, Yukari.
"Doesn't it get boring?" For the sake of their similar hair color, Jibril began offering advice. "Human lives are very short, aren't they? Why care so much? Don't you want to go out and play?"
Jibril couldn't imagine being locked in one place. The mere thought was a nightmare.
No matter what she said, Yuyuko simply smiled and remained silent after her thanks; her meaning was clear.
Her physical strength wasn't great—or more accurately, she was frail. Not long after the banquet to celebrate their arrival began, Yuyuko, who had been intentionally encouraged to drink by Yukari, fell drunk at the table, murmuring Yukari's name.
"Can you talk now? What exactly is going on?" Think tapped the table and asked.
Don't misunderstand—Lady Nirvalen naturally didn't care about the life of a human girl. She cared whether this matter was related to the open time portal. According to her observations over the past few days, the mirage-like gate of overlapping mist connecting past and present wasn't shrinking over time; it was expanding.
If this trend didn't slow down, it wouldn't be long before the portal expanded from the back mountain of the Higurashi Shrine into the rest of the city. People would wake up to find primeval forests outside their windows—remember, the Higurashi Shrine was built right inside the city.
By then, how many people would fall into the past, and how many yōkai would infiltrate the modern world, was anyone's guess.
Sū ěr didn't want to see the modern world fall into chaos, nor did he want to test the dark side of humanity. In this world, human grudges, ambitions, and even corpses and souls could transform into yōkai.
"…Where should I start?" Gulping down her sake, Yukari's gaze became distant. "Let's start with the Saigyouji monk who established all of this."
"Even I have to admit that for humans, he was a hero who protected many from yōkai." Yukari recalled the figure who had stood before her centuries ago to confront her, and her voice dropped. "Compared to the state of the world back then, where yōkai could run rampant, the current situation—where the number of visible human villages far exceeds the number of yōkai—was unimaginable."
"I assume you have no interest in the history of humans and yōkai fighting for dominance. I'll go straight to what I investigated through Yuyuko." Yukari lowered her eyes, not looking at the others as she continued. "The original Saigyouji monk found a ley line where a fragment of Ashihara no Nakatsukuni connected with this planet—the very place we are now. He then planted this cherry tree at the node of the ley line and continuously poured his entire spiritual energy into it, never stopping until his death."
"From then on, it became the destiny of successive Saigyouji heads. When they felt their bodies nearing their limit, they would return here and emulate their ancestor, pouring all their spiritual energy into the cherry tree… Because of this, that energy flowed through the tree and into the ley lines. It was like adding one type of bean to a mixture of two differently colored beans; eventually, it looks like there's almost only the second type of bean."
"So yōkai are suppressed on this land?" Think nodded understandingly.
"Exactly. Good weather and a suitable climate are just the most basic changes. More importantly, since then, many humans with naturally high spiritual energy have been born on this land. When they reach adulthood, they join in the act of suppressing yōkai." Yukari sighed. "But how could such a good thing not have a price?"
"Spiritual energy is spiritual energy—it is, in the end, an alien power. Trees need sunlight, water, and fertilizer to grow, but unless they transform into monsters, they don't need spiritual energy. Rooted in the ley line, this tree is more like a pipe the Saigyouji family hammered into the earth. The spiritual energy flowing into its body is a poison that causes the tree's core to crystallize and die." Yukari spoke expressionlessly. "Under these circumstances, if no other measures were taken, how could this tree have grown to such a height?"
At Yukari's words, the gaze of Sū ěr group fell on the drunk, slumped figure of Saigyouji Yuyuko.