The entrance to Kaede Village.
Hojo Ujiyasu stepped onto the mountain path, more than a dozen attendant samurai trailing behind her.
The one leading them was not dressed as a samurai. He was an old man with red hair, clad in a deep-gray hunting robe, a short sword at his waist.
His face was lean, his features even, his bearing steady yet edged with something hard to name—like a blade that chills a man before it ever leaves the scabbard.
He was of a cadet branch of the Hojo clan—a man of the Tsugikuni.
More precisely, the current head of the Tsugikuni house.
The Tsugikuni line had served the daimyo of the Kanto for generations. Their blood could be traced back several centuries, unbroken, and now and then the clan produced someone of rare, uncanny gift.
In the most recent generation of the Tsugikuni house, the head had once had a pair of twin sons beneath his knee.
The elder was named Tsugikuni Michikatsu. In days past, in the roster of Hojo clan warlords, his name had been recorded—young as he was then, he was already a great general of the army.
And that younger brother—it was said he had been born with a strange-colored birthmark on his brow and eyes of crimson, marked by the Tsugikuni house since infancy as a child of ill omen.
But later that younger brother vanished without a trace. Some said he had died; others said he had left.
Only the elder brother remained.
Yet all of this was old history, with no bearing on the present.
The man walking now at Hojo Ujiyasu's side was that very head of the Tsugikuni house, a little past sixty, charged with the Hojo clan's civil affairs in Musashi Province.
He was, moreover, one of the rare swordmasters of the age who carried a true sword intent.
His swordsmanship was fierce enough to threaten a high-tier demonic fiend—one of the very strongest among humankind, no lesser than a master of the caliber of the Seven.
"My lord, there is one thing your servant does not understand." Tsugikuni lowered his voice, keeping half a step behind Ujiyasu.
"To hand the Shinto center of two provinces under Hojo rule over to a yokai—surely this goes too far. Even if Kyoto does not reject it outright, the temples and shrines of every province will raise objections."
"Let the objections be objections. What is to be done will be done."
Hojo Ujiyasu did not so much as turn her head, tapping her folding fan against her palm, her pace neither quick nor slow. "You think I'm doing this out of goodwill? That it's truly only to thank him?"
Tsugikuni said nothing.
"Gratitude, of course, there is. The Hojo govern by benevolence and honor—we can hardly let ourselves be outdone by the Uesugi to the north."
"But at the same time, as I've said, this is win-win."
Ujiyasu's voice dropped very low, audible only to Tsugikuni at her side.
"Imagawa Yoshimoto has Kobe Hikaru as his household god, and turned around to set fire to the Uesugi's back garden—and made that arrogant woman who styles herself the incarnation of gods and buddhas kneel besides. Yokai though he may be, his value—need I spell it out for you?"
"But he has already signed a pact with the Imagawa." Tsugikuni started to speak, then held back.
"Which is exactly why I mean to raise the stakes."
Ujiyasu stopped, turned, and on her face was the confidence of one who has laid a heavy wager. "The Imagawa gave him command authority and offerings. Then I will give him more."
"The recognition of a province's lord, and the certification of a true god from the central Shinto institution."
"Once this matter succeeds, come what may, this Demon God—Master Kobe Hikaru—will become the bulwark to the north, standing at the Hojo clan's back."
She glanced back once at Tsugikuni, then waved her folding fan and mounted her horse.
"Back to Odawara. Prepare the documents."
The sound of hooves faded into the distance.
Tsugikuni stood where he was and looked down at the short sword at his waist.
Carved into the scabbard was the Tsugikuni family crest—a single red sun.
…
Kaede Village, the main hall of the Shrine.
Barely half a cup of tea's time after Hojo Ujiyasu departed, Kobe Hikaru at last drew back his gaze—withdrawing the faint attention he had paid to that one man of the surname Tsugikuni.
Only then did he and Kikyo walk out of the main hall, coming to stand beneath the eaves of the Shrine.
Momiji and Botan had been sent off to bring Naoe Kanetsugu his midday meal, and Kokaede was in the back garden picking fruit, thoroughly delighted with herself.
Kobe Hikaru sat down on the floor, the oni mask dissolving into formless demon-qi and receding.
Kikyo sat down across from Kobe Hikaru.
Her long hair, freshly bathed, still carried a trace of damp, hanging over her shoulders and down her back, the jet-black strands catching a moist sheen in the light.
Her white upper garment, only just changed into, had not yet warmed to her body; the fabric clung faintly to her skin, the collar tied neat and proper, yet with each breath one could just make out that pale curve below her collarbone.
The red hakama were bound at her waist, the sash drawn tight, tracing the clear outline of her slender waist.
She sat upright, her posture as flawless as a divine image enshrined in a temple.
Her pitch-black eyes looked at Kobe Hikaru—calm, cool, as ever.
But what lay hidden beneath that calm, Kobe Hikaru could now see very clearly.
"A true god." Kikyo said it once more.
"Mm."
"Then this Shrine is no longer without a master."
"Mm."
"And from now on you will no longer be a wandering shrine maiden."
Kobe Hikaru looked at her.
When Kikyo spoke these words, her tone was still that habitual cool composure.
But Kobe Hikaru could truly feel the turmoil within her.
She was a wandering shrine maiden.
A shrine maiden with no fixed shrine, no deity, obliged to roam and slay yokai wherever she went.
From the day Kikyo became a shrine maiden, this had been her station—no belonging, no roots.
The Kaede Village Shrine, though a place she had guarded for many years, was not, strictly speaking, a formally recognized shrine with a master.
It was merely an old building in a remote mountain village, without even a shrine rank to its name.
But if Hojo Ujiyasu's documents reached Kyoto, if Kobe Hikaru were formally enshrined as a true god—
then this Shrine would have a presiding deity.
A shrine with a god no longer needed a "wandering" shrine maiden.
It needed instead—a resident priest.
Or rather, a shrine maiden.
"Kikyo." Kobe Hikaru held out his hand first.
Kikyo looked at that pale hand, and paused for a breath.
Then she placed her own hand upon it.
Her fingertips were faintly cool, as ever.
"From now on, you truly belong to me."
"A shrine maiden is, after all, one who serves a deity to begin with."
"A god's proxy in the mortal world, one who belongs to the god," he said.
Kikyo's face did not change.
But her fingers tightened, gripping the back of his hand.
The two hands clasped together, standing out with unusual clarity amid the dappled light and shadow of the main hall.
Pale and fair, Demon and shrine maiden.
Between the lowering of one face and the lifting of the other, they drew closer, and closer still.
In this very moment—
"Wooagh—"
The paper door of the side hall was pushed open a crack.
Botan's round face and Momiji's profile poked out through the gap at the same time, four eyes stretched wide as coins, fixed hard on those two clasped hands at the center of the main hall.
Botan's mouth had fallen into an O, and the rice bowl in her hands nearly slipped from her grip.
Momiji's face was written all over with "just as I thought," but the tips of her ears had gone red.
The two of them watched the scene, one thrilled, one stunned.
Kikyo caught the two heads in the corner of her eye.
Her reaction was swift.
Her hand snapped back, her whole body straightening, spine drawn ramrod straight, the expression on her face restored to that standard cool composure.
Perfect, without a flaw, not a drop leaking through.
Only the base of her ears—who knew how many times now—burned bright and translucent.
From the lobe all the way up to the rim, the flush glowed, half-hidden beneath the veil of her jet-black hair.
"…Have you finished delivering the meal?" Kikyo's voice was steady.
Too steady—so steady it was plainly forced.
"D-delivered it!" Botan, flustered, backed into the side hall clutching the rice bowl, and knocked the paper door shut with her back.
Momiji was a touch slower, sparing one last glance at Kikyo's ears before she gently pulled the door closed.
From behind the paper door came hushed, murmuring whispers.
"They're together now, right? They really are together, right? Even a shrine maiden that formidable—can actually make an expression like that…"
"…Senior Sister, stop it."
Kobe Hikaru looked at the Kikyo before him, now back in "shrine maiden mode," and the corner of his mouth twitched.
He wanted to laugh, but held it in.
This was simply who she was.
Longing for warmth, yet wrapping herself out of habit in cool detachment.
Wanting to draw near, yet shrinking back into her shell the instant she was seen.
The bond between them was established, and still she kept up that aloof, unapproachable shrine-maiden image before outsiders.
Reserve.
Reserve carried down to the bone.
But the lingering cool touch in his palm gave her away.
Kobe Hikaru did not reach out again.
Nor did Kikyo react much, though her fingers curled once more against her knee.
She wanted to reach out again—yet was too embarrassed to.
In the end it was Kobe Hikaru who took her hand once more, and held her once again.
However it came to be,
from this day forward.
This Shrine of Kaede Village had a god.
And the wandering shrine maiden Kikyo no longer needed to wander at all.
[Shikon Jewel: Current Favourability 81 (Sharing Life and Death)]
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