At the edge of the hall, beside a side door leading to the inner courtyard, stood two people.
One was a young woman in a dark-colored kimono, her obi cinched tight, outlining a slender waist. She watched the man and woman not far off, surrounded by guests, her brows knitting slightly.
"Who are those two?"
Tsuneki Maaya withdrew her gaze and asked the servant beside her.
The servant answered in a low voice, "Young Mistress, those are guests Lord Eide invited. The man's surname is Amamiya, the woman's is Kawakami."
"Uncle Eide?"
Tsuneki Maaya's frown deepened.
That uncle from the branch family, unaccomplished and idle, who only knew how to chase after women?
And... Kawakami?
The surname made her pulse skip.
Over the past two days, mingling with Tokyo's local families, she'd caught wind of a rumor: the last time Uncle Eide attended Lord Takaichi's banquet, he'd apparently brought along a forbidden figure who should never have been invited.
But...
Her gaze turned again toward Flesh-Mod Tomie.
That face truly was breathtakingly beautiful, but her build... was far too solid.
Her shoulders were a good deal broader than an ordinary woman's, and the ripple of muscle along her arms showed even through the long sleeves. She sat with a wide, commanding posture, radiating an unmistakable masculine vigor she couldn't quite suppress.
Wouldn't a woman like that draw the eye of other women more easily than men?
No — she'd appeal to both sexes, really. It was just that most of the female guests were drawn instead to the Mr. Amamiya beside her.
Tsuneki Maaya's gaze shifted to Amamiya Rin, and their eyes met briefly in the air between them.
Amamiya Rin gave a slight nod, then looked away.
Her gaze lingered a few seconds longer on his face.
It was, admittedly, a handsome face — sharp-edged, strong-browed, carrying a stern, heroic air. His build was solid and well-proportioned too, broad-shouldered, sitting perfectly straight, muscle visible beneath his suit. A calm, masculine quality about him made people want to steal a second glance without quite knowing why.
Surely it's a mistake? He's charming enough, but he doesn't look like the legendary seductress-witch at all.
Her fingertips tightened slightly. She handed her teacup to the servant beside her, smoothed the folds of her kimono, and walked over at an unhurried pace.
The handful of guests who had been fawning over Flesh-Mod Tomie and Amamiya Rin fell silent at the sight of her approaching, bowing slightly and stepping back. Toshiyuki Eide froze for a moment, then reined himself in at once.
Though Tsuneki Maaya was only a daughter, she was still the eldest daughter of the main house, and her standing within the family outweighed that of Toshiyuki Eide, a mere branch relative.
"Niece Maaya, what brings you over here?"
Toshiyuki Eide greeted her with a composed smile.
"Uncle Eide, is this gentleman your guest?"
Her gaze settled on Amamiya Rin, a perfectly measured smile on her lips.
"This is Amamiya Rin, a friend of Miss Kawakami's."
Toshiyuki Eide wanted to click his tongue but held back, mindful of the occasion, and introduced Amamiya Rin in a cool tone.
She understood at once.
Her uncle's thoughts were written plainly across his face. He'd probably taken a liking to this Miss Kawakami long ago and had gone to great lengths to invite her, only for her to pay him no mind at all — arriving instead with this striking, accomplished male companion in tow. He'd had no choice but to invite Amamiya Rin along with her.
She just hadn't expected that her ever-arrogant uncle could stoop this low to please a woman.
A flicker of absurdity crossed her mind, though nothing showed on her face. She turned to Amamiya Rin and gave a formal standing bow, textbook-perfect down to the last detail.
"Hello, I'm Tsuneki Maaya, eldest daughter of the Toshiyuki family."
She greeted him, her voice clear and gentle, every bit the refined young lady of a great house.
"Forgive the intrusion."
"Not at all, Miss Toshiyuki."
Amamiya Rin rose and returned the nod. He was tall — tall enough that the guests standing nearby instinctively stepped back half a pace the moment he stood, so as not to have to look up at him.
His voice was calm and warm, carrying an unhurried cadence, like a summer evening breeze drifting over still water — utterly without edge, full instead of tolerance and comfort, leaving people inexplicably at ease.
Listening to that gentle, springlike voice, the look in her eyes as she regarded him grew softer still, without her quite noticing.
The wariness and caution she'd felt at first had already dissolved without a trace, replaced by a growing fondness she hadn't even noticed taking root.
"Today is my younger brother's wedding banquet — a family occasion with all manner of guests. If our hospitality falls short anywhere, I hope Mr. Amamiya will forgive it."
She said this softly, her eyes tender as water.
"Thank you, Miss Toshiyuki. I'm just not very used to such lively gatherings — I hope I haven't made a poor impression."
Amamiya Rin replied politely.
"I see."
Her gaze swept over the noisy crowd in the hall, then to the clock on the wall, before turning back. A trace of anticipation crept into her eyes, her pulse quickening for no clear reason, as she extended an invitation to Amamiya Rin.
"There's nearly half an hour left before the auspicious hour of the ceremony. The main hall is crowded and noisy, and since you don't care for that kind of environment — the late cherry blossoms in the back garden happen to have just bloomed these past few days. They're lovely under the sunset, and it's quiet there. Would you care to take a walk through the garden with me, Mr. Amamiya?"
Even she was startled by her own words the moment she'd spoken them. As the eldest daughter of the Toshiyuki main house, inviting a man she'd known less than half an hour to a private stroll in the garden was hardly proper.
But looking into Amamiya Rin's calm eyes and hearing his reassuring voice, all she wanted was to find some quiet place and talk with him at length.
"Maaya—!"
Watching this unfold, a vein throbbed at Toshiyuki Eide's temple. He blurted out her name, on the verge of an outburst, but reined in his temper for the sake of the occasion.
Damn it, what was going on? First it was Miss Tomie, then Miss Kawakami, and now inexplicably his own niece had taken a liking to this guy too. What did this pauper even have going for him? So he was a bit handsome, had a decent build — big deal.
Toshiyuki Eide gritted his teeth, eyes practically shooting fire.
The smile faded from her face, a trace of displeasure entering her eyes.
"I merely noticed your honored guest wasn't comfortable with the noise, so I offered to entertain him on your behalf and show him the family garden. Is there something wrong with that? Or does Uncle Eide think I don't even know how to properly host a guest?"
As the legitimate eldest daughter of the main house, her standing already outranked that of a branch relative like Eide. The question left him speechless on the spot.
"N-nothing wrong at all."
Eide said, choking down his temper, forcing a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"What do you say, Mr. Amamiya?"
She turned back, looking at him with bright, expectant eyes.
"It is exactly what I would have wished, though I dared not ask."
Amamiya Rin gave a slight nod, the corner of his mouth curving into a faint smile.
That faint smile seemed to melt away the dusk gathering inside her.
"Please, lead the way, Miss Toshiyuki."
As he spoke, he turned his head toward Flesh-Mod Tomie beside him and gave her a barely perceptible look.
Flesh-Mod Tomie had already been scowling at Tsuneki Maaya's engaging Amamiya Rin in conversation, and now, seeing the two of them about to head off alone, her brows knotted even tighter. She was on the verge of speaking up when she met Amamiya Rin's calm but unyielding gaze.
She clicked her tongue, turned her head away, and swallowed her displeasure like gunpowder held in reserve.
Paying no mind to Tomie's attitude, Tsuneki Maaya turned and led the way, guiding Amamiya Rin out through the side door and into the garden beyond.
The moment they entered, the fresh scent of grass and trees washed over them, shutting out the noise and wine-fumes of the hall.
It was a classic Japanese dry-landscape garden — white gravel spread across the ground, stones stacked into miniature mountains, a few late-blooming cherry trees stretching their branches at an angle. A breeze stirred, and pale pink petals drifted down in a soft rustle.
Beneath the eaves, white wooden lanterns lit one by one, their warm glow filtering through the washi paper, casting mottled patches of light on the ground that mingled with the falling blossoms.
"This Tsunekiyoshi Jingu is the ancestral shrine passed down through generations of the Toshiyuki family. Outside of rites and family ceremonies, outsiders rarely set foot here — even our own kin and close family friends only come when paying respects to Kuzunomiya-no-Mikoto and the ancestral spirits of the Toshiyuki line."
Walking alongside him, she explained the family grounds.
"Kuzunomiya-no-Mikoto? That name sounds unfamiliar."
Amamiya Rin's steps paused for half a second, his brow lifting slightly, his tone carrying just the right note of puzzlement.
In a world saturated with ghosts, gods, and the uncanny, every unfamiliar deity's name usually signaled some hidden danger or malevolence.
Or, put another way, it likely traced back to some Japanese horror manga, game, or TV drama.
After all, though Japan was said to have eight million gods, that was only a figure of speech. Deities worthy of actual worship, bearing proper, formal names, carried the marker "Mikoto" after their names, signifying divine status.
Amaterasu-no-Mikoto, Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, Okuninushi-no-Mikoto, Takamimusubi-no-Mikoto — the pattern repeated everywhere. Every legitimate deity carried Mikoto as an honorific suffix. That title, appended to the names of gods or emperors, derived at its core from mikoto — meaning sacred word, decree, or command — representing divine will, imperial edict, and sacred power, a symbol of absolute authority and inviolable divinity.
For Kuzunomiya-no-Mikoto to bear the Mikoto honorific and have an entire great family's shrine dedicated to her worship, she was no minor figure.
Finding no corresponding place for her among the established pantheon suggested a strong likelihood that she was an original character from some specific work.
"If Kuzunomiya-no-Mikoto sounds unfamiliar, then what about Kuzunoha?"
She turned to him, asking with a smile.
"Kuzunoha? The white fox, mother of the great onmyoji Abe no Seimei?"
Understanding dawned on him at once.
Naturally, the first thing that came to mind at the mention of Kuzunoha was that legendary onmyoji, half-man and half-fox: Abe no Seimei.
According to The Tale of Kuzunoha, the white fox Kuzunoha met Abe no Masuki, Seimei's father, and the two fell in love. Six years after giving birth to Seimei, she could no longer remain in the human world and left without a word of farewell. It was precisely because his mother was a fox spirit that Seimei inherited such formidable spiritual power, able from birth to perceive malevolent spirits and vengeful ghosts.
Of course, that was only a story. Other records claim Seimei's father actually married a lowly female performer. But the legend of the white fox Kuzunoha lent the great onmyoji Seimei an air of myth, and did much to cement his standing.
In actual history, Seimei's mother was likely that performer. But in this world, the white fox Kuzunoha's existence was very possibly real.
"So the Kuzunomiya-no-Mikoto your household worships is the white fox Kuzunoha herself."
Amamiya Rin nodded along, his tone calm and even, steering the conversation deeper without a trace of effort.
"A family that worships a fox spirit as its ancestral deity — does that mean the Toshiyuki family descends from Abe no Seimei?"
"No, there's some connection, but not one of descent."
She shook her head.
"Even if not descendants, having ties to the white fox Kuzunoha — could the Toshiyuki family be an onmyoji lineage, or a Shinto lineage, then?"
Amamiya Rin asked, testing the waters.
"The Toshiyuki family isn't anything so noble. We're simply a prominent, wealthy household here in the Tokyo area."
She gave a soft laugh, the curve of her lips carrying a touch of self-mockery.
"It's said that generation after generation, the family heads have had a gift for commerce, thriving especially in times of chaos, amassing vast fortunes. But wealth aside, our name hasn't carried the best reputation. 'Whenever chaos strikes, the Toshiyuki family strikes it rich' — Toshiyuki practically means 'ever rejoicing,' and people whisper that we're forever rejoicing over disaster and calamity. Anyone who's kept company with our family has heard some version of that rumor."
"In other words, profiteering off the nation's misfortunes?"
Amamiya Rin summed it up in a single line.
Those so-called rumors, put plainly, were just saying the family had exploited national crises to get rich, weren't they?
His words weren't exactly pleasant to hear, yet she showed not a trace of anger at them.
Perhaps she had felt an inexplicable trust in him from the moment they'd met. The grievances and frustration she'd bottled up seemed to find an outlet at last, and she found herself venting to him.
"Mr. Amamiya, that's a real injustice to our family. For centuries there's been no shortage of people jealous of us, and I've heard slanders like that since I was a child — I'm used to it by now. It's just... hearing it from your mouth, of all people, stings more than I expected."
The wind swept pale pink petals onto her shoulder. She let out a wistful sigh, brushing them away gently as she explained further.
"The Toshiyuki family rose from common origins to where it stands today — not through profiting off disaster, but through the vision and judgment of every family head across the generations."
She paused, her gaze sweeping over the main shrine hall hidden in the dusk deep within the garden, her tone taking on a note of genuine reverence.
"What's more, our family has worshipped Kuzunomiya-no-Mikoto for generations, and our ancestral spirits have always watched over us. Whenever the times grow turbulent, the family head receives warnings from beyond, guiding us away from disaster and toward opportunities others cannot see. To outsiders, that looks like profiting from every crisis — but the ignorant masses only see the wealth, and assume the Toshiyuki family must have caused the calamity itself to profit from it."
"Is that so?"
Amamiya Rin neither confirmed nor denied it, a sharp glint flickering through his eyes.
If this were an ordinary merchant family, it might well be nothing more than jealousy and slander from outsiders. But once gods and hinin powers entered the picture, things were unlikely to be so simple.
____
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