"Kujou Tengu, let me out if you've got the guts! The two of us, a fair and square sumo match, one on one!"
"Right here in the Tenryou Commission, so all your men can get a good look at how ugly you are after you lose!"
The Tenryou Commission.
Trussed up with rope and thrown into the Tenryou Commission's temporary holding cell, Arataki Itto hollered himself hoarse at the woman beyond the iron bars — Kujou Sara, seated in a chair, sipping tea as she picked up a copy of anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day and prepared to read.
His mouth ran wild.
Kujou Sara studied the cover in silence.
"anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day. There's a certain refinement to this title. The young lady of the Kamisato Clan, with her taste for elegance, should like this book quite a bit."
Kujou Sara nodded to herself.
Having taken in the cover, she opened to the first page.
Under Fang Qiu's delicate, warm brush, a scroll of high summer seemed to unroll slowly before her eyes.
The racket of cicadas, blazing sunlight, an ice-cold sweet tangerine drink, and a boy lying at home reading manga.
A gust of wind blew through, carrying the dry heat of midsummer with it.
A girl's white sundress rose on that wind and appeared at the window.
Just as she meant to read on, the clamor started up again.
"Bwahahahaha! Kujou Tengu, I knew it, you're scared of me! If you hadn't fought dirty and jumped me back there, you think I'd have lost to you? Ambushes are the only way you win — meanwhile the Great Me keeps getting stronger every single day!"
"Hahahaha, don't even have the nerve to talk now? Kujou Tengu, you've got the guts to arrest a guy, but not the guts to let me out for a one-on-one? Let's settle it with sumo, and I'll show you what a two-hundred-pound powerhouse looks like!"
Arataki Itto bellowed and laughed by turns.
Every paragraph Kujou Sara managed to read, he cut into. The reading experience was dreadful.
"Insufferable racket."
She lifted her head and glanced at Arataki Itto, locked behind the iron bars of the holding cell. Her brows drew together. She closed anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day and stood up.
At the sight of it, Arataki Itto burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! Kujou Tengu, so you're finally going to duel me? I'll grant you that much — you're a man after all."
Hearing him, the Tenryou Commission soldiers all stiffened.
Lady Kujou couldn't seriously be planning to wrestle him, could she?
Just as they were about to speak up and talk her out of it, Kujou Sara looked at them and said flatly, "I am stepping out. Keep watch on him. Until Kuki Shinobu comes to bail him out, not one of you is to exchange a single word with him. Understood?"
"Understood."
The soldiers had no idea what she was after, but they accepted the order all the same.
Then, with Arataki Itto still bawling behind her, Kujou Sara left.
Once she was gone, the wind rather went out of Arataki Itto's sails.
It felt like throwing a punch into a pile of cotton.
Deeply unsatisfying.
He turned to the others and tried to strike up a conversation, but thanks to Kujou Sara's order, not one of them so much as looked at him.
It drove Arataki Itto up the wall.
Kujou Sara, meanwhile, walked out of the Tenryou Commission and set off toward the Kujou Clan estate.
But when she reached the arched bridge before Tenshukaku, she saw a small child in strange clothing, dressed up like a tanuki cat, standing at the foot of the bridge. The child was clutching a deluxe edition of anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day and pacing back and forth with a hesitant look.
An exquisite wooden box sat by her feet.
Hm?
Kujou Sara frowned and walked over.
"What are you doing here?"
"Eep!"
At the sound of Kujou Sara's voice, Sayu — who had been circling the bridgehead with a troubled face — jolted from head to toe.
She turned toward Kujou Sara, eyes darting everywhere but forward, and said with a flustered stammer, "N-nothing… it's nothing… I was just… looking for somewhere quiet to read… right, to read."
As she spoke, she held up the brand-new deluxe edition of anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day in her hands.
"I see."
Kujou Sara glanced at the Anemo Vision strapped to Sayu's thigh, then at the book in her hands, thought it over, nodded, and spoke.
The child looked nervous, but what she said was probably true.
What assassin would loiter in the middle of a public street?
And besides, whoever heard of an assassin carrying a book?
With one last look at Sayu, Kujou Sara took her own book and continued on toward the Kujou Clan estate.
Watching her walk off into the distance, Sayu let out a long, long breath.
Thank goodness she hadn't been found out.
Otherwise she'd have been hauled away for sure.
After all, not long ago she had broken into the Kujou Clan estate and cleaned out every last one of their documents and files.
Once the relief passed, she looked at the copy of anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day in her arms and the wooden box at her feet, and the gloom settled back over her.
This was the job that woman had handed her — deliver a book to that person…
She'd taken it to avoid being dragged off to hard labor, and because Yae Miko had promised her five days of vacation on top of it. Vacation.
If you can't fight it, you accept it.
Yae Miko had at least given her a token to present.
Even so, by the time she reached Tenshukaku with the book, she was a wreck.
She'd been dithering here for ages, going back and forth over what to do.
After all, the last time, that person's remark about trespassing into Tenshukaku being a grave crime had turned her legs to jelly.
She wavered a long while, then finally worked up her courage, gathered the wooden box and the book into her arms, walked up to Tenshukaku, produced the token, and asked for an audience with the Shogun Almighty.
The Tenryou Commission soldier took one look at the token, hesitated, and decided to report it after all.
Before long, that same soldier came jogging back to the gate to tell Sayu that the Shogun Almighty had summoned her into the hall.
The news let her breathe out — and then, at once, tense right back up.
She swallowed hard.
As soon as she'd handed over the book and this box, she was leaving, and then she was going to find somewhere to sleep.
Following the soldier, she made her way to the doors of the great hall of Tenshukaku.
"Go on in. The Shogun Almighty is waiting for you inside."
The soldier withdrew to one side as he spoke.
"O… okay… okay…"
Sayu nodded with a mumble, pushed open the hall doors, and a faint, refined fragrance washed over her.
Holding the box and the book, Sayu raised her eyes.
At the head of the hall sat a purple-haired woman in long violet robes. Her features were flawless, her eyes lightly closed, her expression serene.
She commanded awe without a trace of anger.
One look was enough to know she was no mortal.
Just as Sayu began to feel lost, the purple-haired woman opened her eyes.
"Miko sent you?"
Ei glanced at Sayu and spoke evenly.
She remembered this little one.
The one who had come with Miko last time to deliver a book.
"Y-yes."
Sayu nodded. "I… I'm here to deliver a book."
"A book?"
Ei raised an eyebrow slightly. "Bring it up."
"Yes."
Sayu nodded again and again, carried the box and the book forward, and set them both down on Ei's desk.
Ei glanced at the copy of anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day resting atop the wooden box, saw that the author was Fang Qiu, and nodded in satisfaction.
Then she turned her gaze to the box.
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