Beneath the shade of the Goshinboku, mottled light lay scattered across the ground, and after a moment in the gentle drift of the breeze,
the two figures slowly drew apart.
Kikyo let go of his hand.
She stepped back half a pace, turning her head slightly aside. The flush from her ears to her neck hadn't faded yet, but her expression had already settled back into the calm bearing of a shrine maiden.
As though the one who had kissed him a moment ago, of her own will, hadn't been her at all.
Kobe Hikaru leaned against the rough bark of the Goshinboku, his crimson Demon eyes reflecting the shrine maiden in the morning light — black hair falling at her sides, white robe and red hakama spotless, her sash cinched at its narrowest point, tracing the slender curve of her figure.
She was beautiful.
He'd known that from the first day he saw her.
But right now that beauty carried something different layered over it — the weariness of a sleepless night, filled instead with the calm of reunion.
Kikyo didn't keep looking at him, though. She merely turned her head slightly, gazing past him at the rising sun in the distance.
"You were gone a month," Kikyo said.
Kobe Hikaru nodded. "Mm."
All told, it really had been close to a month.
"In that time, you sent word thirty-three times."
At least once a day.
"But until that last signal last night, I didn't even know what you were about to face."
Kikyo looked at the young oni warrior before her, her words trailing off. On the surface it seemed to carry no ripple at all, but Kobe Hikaru could feel it — the shrine maiden's quiet displeasure underneath.
Still, by now he understood one principle well.
Meet all change by not changing at all.
"Mm," he said, nodding again.
"Mm what, mm."
Kikyo turned her head, her cool, clear eyes finally meeting his gaze straight on.
There was no visible resentment in those eyes, no hint of grievance either — only a very faint feeling, pressed down beneath everything else, like a lake frozen over in winter: calm on the surface, but always moving underneath.
"I really was upset, at first," she said. "I meant to wait for you to come back, and ask you properly."
"And then?"
"I saw you."
Kikyo lowered her eyes. "And that was that."
She said those four words lightly, as though brushing a fallen leaf off her sleeve without a second thought.
A month of waiting, a whole night maintaining the barrier, every worry and every fear — all of it wiped clean in those four words.
Kobe Hikaru looked at her.
He knew the shrine maiden before him was, at heart, quite traditional and quite reserved — no matter how much turmoil churned inside her, on the surface she always kept that same unruffled, cool composure.
But by now, Kobe Hikaru had long since learned to read the truth in the smallest cracks of that composure.
He was about to say something.
Kikyo suddenly spoke again.
"However."
"There won't be a next time."
She said it with perfect calm.
So calm that it left Kobe Hikaru briefly stunned.
It wasn't a threat, in tone. Nor could it have been coy or wheedling.
It was confidence.
The confidence of a goal already achieved, a fact already settled.
"Next time you go out, I'm coming with you."
The words fell, and Kikyo moved at once.
Not a run, not even a visible step.
Only — in the morning light, her white-and-red figure suddenly blurred. Kobe Hikaru could see the shrine maiden's entire body wrapped in an extremely thin, almost transparent film of glowing spiritual power.
And then, in the space of a single instant,
she was standing ten zhang away.
In that split second, Kobe Hikaru had seen it clearly too.
This wasn't like the spatial displacement Kikyo had used before.
It was simple movement.
Extremely fast, but with an intermediate process — motion from here to there, with her body wrapped in spiritual power, streaking across the ground as a beam of light. The speed came close to rivaling the baseline level of Kobe Hikaru's own Thunder-Sinew Razor-Body.
Kikyo stood on the stone path ten zhang away, the hem of her white robe and red hakama settling gently as the rush of displaced air faded.
She turned to face him, her expression as cool and composed as ever.
"Spirit Transformation Technique," she said. "Wrapping the whole body in spiritual power, briefly turning into a spirit-like state to move."
"I made it myself."
"Same as the spatial displacement technique before, the compound barrier technique, the Earth Barrier — all of them, I worked out on my own."
She said all this in the same tone as always.
But hidden in those cool, clear eyes was a very well-concealed pride, something almost bashful and pleased with itself.
She had spent a full month on this.
In the month he'd been away, she hadn't simply waited.
She had been training.
Training a way of moving fast enough to keep up with him.
Training a technique that would let her travel at his side.
All of it, just so that when he came back, she could say those words: no next time.
A shrine maiden reserved and traditional by nature, and yet she never hid her true feelings and desires from herself.
She didn't want to wait behind. She wanted to walk beside the man in front of her, rather than watch him rush off to face, alone, enemies they should have faced together.
Kobe Hikaru stood beneath the Goshinboku, his crimson Demon eyes fixed on the shrine maiden ten zhang away.
He was silent for a few seconds.
And once again, he felt the same admiration he'd felt many times before.
No wonder she was called the strongest shrine maiden of the Sengoku era.
That title had never been an empty one.
Perhaps the total quantity of one's spiritual power was innate, but talent and creativity in using it were things earned — and in that regard, Kikyo was truly, genuinely astonishing.
Spatial displacement, multilayered compound barriers, the spiritual power lens, the Earth Barrier, mastering the workings of the power of faith in an extremely short span of time, and now on top of all that, the Spirit Transformation Technique — every single one of them, she had grasped and pioneered entirely on her own.
If she hadn't been born in this remote countryside shrine, without a great master to guide her, without any established lineage to inherit —
Kikyo wouldn't have remained merely the strongest shrine maiden in spiritual power of the Sengoku era.
She would have become, outright, the strongest human being of the entire Sengoku era.
She wouldn't have fallen short, even, of Midoriko, who back in her day had single-handedly driven back countless yokai — even countless great yokai.
Kobe Hikaru walked over.
Step by step, until he stood before her.
The shrine maiden still didn't move, only lifted her eyes to look up at him.
Those clear, cool eyes looked especially translucent in the morning light — like mountain spring water, like winter snow, clean without a trace of impurity.
Then.
She raised her brows.
She closed her eyes.
She tilted her face up, just slightly.
The gesture was small, but its meaning was unmistakable.
Kobe Hikaru fell silent.
He understood exactly what Kikyo meant, but he couldn't help teasing her anyway.
"Didn't we already just—"
"That one, I started."
Kikyo said, eyes still closed, her voice flat and even.
"This time, it's different."
"...Different how?"
"Figure it out yourself."
Kobe Hikaru looked at the face before him — eyes closed, chin tilted slightly up, that cool composure reserved to the bone and yet, in this moment, unusually candid.
He didn't need to think about it. He already understood what she meant, in truth.
A moment ago had been her displeasure, given voice.
Now what she wanted was his answer to it.
Those really were two different things.
At that, Kobe Hikaru had nothing to say — but he had no intention of refusing either.
After all, this was exactly what he'd been hoping for...
He leaned down.
This time, softer and slower than before.
Kikyo's eyelashes trembled.
Her fingers quietly caught hold of his sleeve.
Off in the distance —
Momiji and Botan crouched behind a pillar of the corridor, hands clamped over their own mouths, eyes wide as saucers.
Botan whispered, "They're at it again... Sister Momiji, shouldn't we head back..."
Momiji said, "Mm-hm, right, right, let's go" — but her feet didn't move an inch.
Naoe Kanetsugu turned his head the other way, though his ears twitched, just slightly.
Kaede lay sprawled on the steps, fast asleep, drool trickling from the corner of her mouth.
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