EPISODE FOUR: THE SECOND THE WORLD ENDS.

 

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Oogami Souma pressed the red button on the machine placed on the large door of Himemiya Mansion. “This is Himemiya residence, how may I help you?” announced a female’s voice that was flat, emotionless, and little short of being rude. Souma frowned. For a family as prominent as the Himemiya, this surely was unexpected. He didn’t care if this anonymous woman was in a sour mood, or had sore teeth, or both, it was her job to greet the guests and do it with sufficient courtesy.

Stuffing his irritation into some corner of his mind, he answered with a voice suitable for what the students of Ototachibana had been calling him, the young master of Shingetsu Grand Shrine, “Good morning. I’m Oogami Souma from Ototachibana Academy and Kurusugawa-san’s acquaintance. I’d like to speak with her, please.”

“Kurusugawa Himeko-sama? Is she the one?” For reasons incomprehensible, the woman’s voice suddenly grew spiky and hot enough to boil any kettle. Most notably, the honorific “-sama” following Himeko’s name was invested with so much scorn and hate that Souma could have sworn the woman was speaking of someone who had slain her family. He blinked. The golden-haired girl had always been a sweet, adorable person. She couldn’t have made an enemy two days after moving in here, now could she?

“Well?” the woman demanded.

“She is the one,” Souma answered, feeling his irritation welling up. The more he heard this hateful voice, the less he liked it.

“Very well,” the woman said. “I shall inform her of your visit. Please wait.”

“Thank you,” Souma replied courteously. Of course, he was definitely not going to sink to the woman’s level. “But before you go,” he added, “would you tell me your name?” Himemiya was going to hear about her disrespectful employee from him sooner or later, this he would make sure of.

“I am...” the voice hesitated. “Kisaragi Otoha, the Head Maid.” A sudden beeping sound told Souma that the woman had already departed.

He found himself at a loss for words. He had thought that it was some ignorant maid who had spoken to him. He never expected the equivalent of a steward in a wealthy family. What could Himeko have done to the woman, he wondered?

 

***

 

In front of the large mirror Kurusugawa Himeko stood, her body naked except for her underwear, her back facing the shiny surface, her head turned aside, her teeth chewing on her underlip. As usual, her room, located in the west wing of the Himemiya Mansion, was filled with the bright light of the early morning sun, the harmonious and pleasant songs of the birds, and the wonderful fragrance of the roses planted in the vast back garden. Yet, instead of marveling to them like she always did, she only stared grimly at the upper portion of her back reflected in the mirror, where she could see a part of a dark mark. She didn’t have to see the whole thing to know that it stretched from her left shoulder all the way to her right waist. It was what remained of a sword wound... and she could still remember the pain that had ravaged her when the tip of that horrible Sealed Sword Arashigumo parted her skin yesterday. Although more than a full day had passed, the memory refused to fade. Even now, it still itched as though a mosquito bite whenever she twitched. She shivered.

The Elemental Blades were truly fearsome weapons, that she knew, but she hadn’t ever been able to fathom the depth of their powers. She had a taste of one of those once before – and frightened silly by it – but she never thought that they could make wounds even the Priests couldn’t heal completely. They had been very reluctant to admit to Himeko’s face that the scar, however light it seemed on her skin, would never disappear. Not that she cared if it wouldn’t. There was no point in griping about a silly little detail when her life could have been forfeited had it not been for those fatherly Priests... and Oogami Souma.

When Himeko first regained consciousness yesterday afternoon, in the very same room in which they put her two days ago, the High Priest Oogami Kazuki was the only one who sat by her mattress. Wanting to get up and offer him the common courtesy due a High Priest as she was, she hadn’t been able to move a muscle. In a soft, soothing voice, he told her that she didn’t have to, for her body was still very weak. The man then revealed that had his adopted brother delayed one step in bringing her to the Grand Shrine, she would have been beyond their help. She had lost too much blood, and the evil of the sword was eating at her wound. How she had sweated hearing that. And how she had been confused knowing that she owed her whole hide to none other than Oogami Souma.

How should Himeko behave in front of the boy now? He was an Orochi Follower who once attempted to kill her... but he just saved her life, she couldn’t deny that. She was scared of him, the Gods of Heaven knew all too well how he and his monstrous Sword still haunted her sleep, but now she must do something to let him know that she was grateful. She would offer her gratitude to the boy, of course, but she had to find a way to do so in front of him without thinking how much she wanted to run away.

Himeko sighed. What a fine mess she was in.

After a quick glance at the grandfather clock, made so that it wouldn’t strike the hours lest it disturb her rest, Himeko realized that it wouldn’t be long until school started. She opened her wardrobe, took out her Ototachibana uniform, and started putting it on. As soon as she was done, she heard a knock on her door.

“It is I, Himeko,” the voice of Himeko’s princess spoke softly. “May I come in?”

Her heart fluttered.

“Please do,” Himeko answered once she had looked herself up and down in the mirror to make sure she looked presentable to the one she loved.

The door, made from the finest wood, opened and admitted the Himemiya Ojou-sama, who was properly dressed in the red and white uniform of Ototachibana Academy. At the sight of her beautiful face, Himeko’s pulse quickened. Despite the fact that they had been meeting every day during the last year, Himeko had never been able to slow or soften the pounding of her heart whenever she set her eyes upon the blue-haired princess.

During the conversation with Oogami-sensei yesterday, Himeko had noticed that the more she listened to him, the more tired she became, the harder she had to try to keep her attention from slipping away, and the less sense he made. She apologized to him for that, but the High Priest only smiled indulgently and explained that both the wound and the healing the Priests had performed did put a great strain on her body. It was only demanding to rest, the man added. He left afterwards, allowing Himeko to drift to a dreamless slumber. When she opened her eyes again, it was already past midnight. She was lying in her bed, in her own room in the Himemiya Mansion, then... and she hadn’t been alone. The blue-haired princess was sitting on a chair by the bed, both of her hands holding one of Himeko’s, eyes tired, face painted with worries. Oh how the blue-haired girl’s concerned expression and the warmth of her hands had melted Himeko’s heart.

 

...

 

“Chikane-chan,” Himeko called softly and attempted to sit up straight. To her relief, her body let her move as she wished. To her shock, pain swept out from her back half way rising up. She had to grind her teeth together to smother the howl that erupted from the pit of her stomach. Strength unraveling, she fell back down upon the bed. Her drop, however softened by the fine mattress and however brief, sent lightning bolts along her muscles and nerves and made her wish she had stayed put in the first place. Her vacant hand gripping her bed linen, her teeth rounding on her lower lip, her eyes drawn shut, she waited for the pain to subside.

“Are you alright, Himeko?” the princess let out a small cry, her hands tightening around Himeko’s.

“I don’t think I am,” Himeko muttered breathlessly and grimaced at the lingering painful sensation.

“Does it still hurt a lot?” Chikane-chan said quietly as she moved one of her hand to Himeko’s head and stroked it in a very gentle manner. Himeko glanced at her target of affection, feeling her cheeks warming up at the caress of the princess’s hand, sensing her heart throbbing inside her chest at the Himemiya Ojou-sama’s hurt expression. Were the girl to lie down next to Himeko, no one would be able to tell which of them was suffering from a sword wound on her back. It happened whenever Himeko was injured, as a matter of fact. During those times, she was under the impression that whatever pain was inflicted on her, Chikane-chan felt twice as much. She could only hope that it meant what she wanted it to.

“Yeah,” she answered honestly. “It does.”

“Try to sleep then, Himeko,” Chikane-chan said, her voice even gentler than her hand. “The High Priest told me that being a Priestess did gift you with a certain amount of self-healing power. You will get better tomorrow, I am sure.”

“Okay.” Himeko nodded. She would have done as Chikane-chan wished, she would have closed her eyes and let sleep take her away, had she not noticed that the blue-haired girl was holding her hand as tightly as ever, not giving out any sign that she was going to let it go.

“How long have I been home, Chikane-chan?” she asked.

“A few hours,” the princess answered. “I had intended to leave you in the care of the Priests,” the grudging note in her voice surely indicated that she didn’t want to, “but Oogami Kazuki said that I could bring you back, for there was nothing else they could offer you in the way of healing. Great care was all you need, he assured me. After that, Oogami Souma opened a Portal to this very room with his Sword,” her face hardened, her mouth twisted in distaste around the boys name and the word Sword, “and put you in your bed.”

“Have you been staying with me the whole time?” Himeko asked again, voice quiet.

“Of course,” Chikane-chan said just as softly. “I do not know healing, so watching over you is the only thing I can manage.”

“Are you going to sit there until I wake up in the morning as well?”

“Is it a bad thing?”

“Yeah.” Himeko nodded. “I don’t want you to exhaust yourself this way, Chikane-chan. So, would you come back to your room and rest? Please?” Had it been possible, Himeko would have liked to have Chikane-chan sleep on this very bed with her. But it wasn’t, really. The blue-haired girl would end up pretending to sleep and continuing to watch over Himeko. That, evidently, she didn’t want.

“What if you wanted something while I was not by your side?” the Himemiya Ojou-sama said in exasperation. “What if you wished for water, or someone to help you to the restroom? What if....” She would have gone on and listed a hundred more of what Himeko could possibly need if Himeko hadn’t chuckled and signaled for the girl to stop.

“I think this still works, Chikane-chan,” she said in amusement, her vacant hand gesturing at a red button attached to the portion of the wall above the headboard. It was a device that, if activated, would inform the maid currently on duty that Himeko was requesting assistance.

Chikane-chan fell silent. Himeko guessed that the girl was trying to find an excuse to stay. She didn’t seem like she was going to find any, though.

“Besides,” Himeko decided to forestall her beloved housemate, “I wont be able to sleep knowing that you aren’t resting in your own bed, Chikane-chan. You don’t want both of us to collapse come the morning, ne?”

That did the trick, for the princess sighed and nodded.

“Goodnight, then, Himeko,” the blue-haired girl said in resignation as she tucked Himeko’s hand under the blanket and rose to her feet. Himeko suppressed a sigh. Determined as she was to see Chikane-chan have her overdue rest, she couldn’t help but become quite saddened when the pressure of the princess’s hand vanished. The bed linen, finer than the best silk Himeko ever had the chance to examine, felt rough compared to the princess’s skin. The little heat the blanket offered was but feeble compared to the flame that was the blue-haired girls touch.

“Goodnight, Chikane-chan,” Himeko replied, trying not to sound regretful. She barely succeeded.

The Himemiya Ojou-sama didn’t leave right away. She stood motionlessly at the edge of the bed for a moment, appearing quite hesitant, before she bent over and offered Himeko a light, gentle kiss on her forehead. “May sweet dreams favor you, my dearest friend,” the other girl whispered and walked out of the room, leaving Himeko blushing furiously and wondering if she could get Chikane-chan to do the same thing every night.

 

...

 

“Morning, Chikane-chan,” Himeko greeted the love of her life warmly.

“Good morning, Himeko,” Chikane-chan said in a quiet voice. “Are you well?”

“As well as I can be.” Himeko laughed. Last night she had thought that she would still be bed-ridden for another day. She surely didn’t expect to be able to move around as though she had never been hurt. She guessed she got to be thankful that she was a Priestess, then... although she had to admit that if she weren’t one, she wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place. “How about you?”

“I am well,” the princess answered. “May I have a few words with you before we leave for school?”

“Of course,” Himeko said in a cheerful tone. “Have a seat, Chikane-chan.” She gestured toward the couch nearby. “Would you like something to drink? I have milk, soda, and juice in the fridge.”

“No, thank you,” the princess declined politely as she settled herself gracefully upon the couch. Himeko sat down next to the blue-haired girl, awfully conscious of the fact that she had allowed very little room between their shoulders. A while back, she would have made sure they were at least an arm’s length apart. Now... she only wanted to be as close to her sweetheart as possible and dignity be hanged. She had grown too fond of the physical intimacy, she supposed.

“What do you want to talk about?” Himeko asked the light of her heart.

“Actually, I’d like something from you,” replied the Himemiya Ojou-sama.

“What is it?” Himeko smiled.

“A promise,” Chikane-chan said softly. “I would like you to promise me that you will never again put yourself in harm’s way, regardless of any possible reason.”

Himeko blinked and became puzzled for a few seconds before she understood what the blue-haired girl just said.

 “You meant what happened between me and the Orochi,” she murmured softly, almost to herself. She very nearly smiled.

“Yes, that.” Chikane-chan nodded. “Will you give me your word on it?”

Himeko blinked again. During the last year they had been together, the blue-haired princess never once asked for any sort of favor. Now, her voice had taken on a beseeching tone, and her eyes, gemstones under the glorious sunlight, were begging Himeko to say yes. She had never seen her beloved this way before.... Oh Gods of Heaven standing witness, there was nothing Himeko had that she wouldn’t give to the other girl if she but asked. Himeko opened her mouth... and found herself on the verge of doing exactly what the Himemiya Ojou-sama wished her to. Hastily, she snapped her mouth shut with an audible click of her teeth. It was Chikane-chan’s turn to blink at Himeko in surprise.

Himeko sighed. “Would you tell me why first?” she asked.

“Do you really have to ask?” Chikane-chan’s hand rose and placed itself upon Himeko’s cheek. It was as warm and soft as it ever was. “You almost lost your life yesterday.”

Himeko was both touched and amused. She was willing to wager all the money she had in her bank account that the princess didn’t realize just exactly whom she sounded like.

“You said that as if it was a bad thing.” Himeko smiled at her secret crush and put her hand atop that of the princess, pressing it more firmly against the side of her face. It was the exact same statement that the blue-haired princess had uttered to comfort Himeko after she berated herself for letting harm befall her sweetheart. Himeko did a perfect imitation of the other girl’s tone and voice, if she were to say so herself.

“It was!” the princess insisted. Then her hand dropped from Himeko’s face and her cheeks went crimson. She had finally realized it.

“Do you mean to tell me that it was perfectly okay for you to risk your life to protect mine but not the reverse, Chikane-chan?” Himeko asked. “If you can give me a good reason for that, I’ll give you my promise immediately.”

The blue-haired princess only sat there with her back straight as a lamp post, confusion and embarrassment warring across her lovely face. More than once she opened her lovely mouth as if to speak, then firmly closed it with a snap a second later. Himeko smiled, thinking to herself that she had posed a question to which the princess could never find an answer.

“Well, perhaps you thought that I was too much of a weakling, who needed protection at all time?” Himeko offered after a few minutes without any reply from the Himemiya princess.

The blue-haired girl shook her head.

“Then was it because you believed I was too clumsy to lend you any kind of help? Perhaps because you didn’t need someone like me to watch your back?” Himeko had to admit that what she said was rather mean. The other girl couldn’t have even thought of those things, judging by the shocked look she gave in response. Well, although Himeko loved her with all her heart, she had to make sure that the blue-haired girl knew that Himeko was serious about this issue.

“No!” Chikane-chan declared. “Where could you have gotten such a notion?”

“Then why?”

Another moment of silence ensued until the princess decided to speak, “Because I do not want you to get hurt. Because I think your life is much more important than mine.” She trembled as though she had stripped herself bare in the heart of winter. Quietly and gently, Himeko wrapped her arms around Chikane-chan’s back and hugged her. She wouldn’t have had enough courage to attempt this two days ago, obviously, but after what had happened between them, after the intimacy they had shared during that short amount of time, she had learned that showing some affection to the love of her life wasn’t that hard. Compared to giving the other girl three kisses for her birthday present, a hug wasn’t much.

 Still, Himeko couldn’t help but feel her heart race.

“I think the same way, Chikane-chan,” she murmured into the Himemiya Ojou-sama’s shoulder. “Please understand. You are my most precious friend, someone I consider a blessing from the Gods. I treasure you so dearly I can’t stand the idea that you wanted me to do nothing but watch while you fought for my safety. I don’t like that at all.” The princess put her gentle arms around Himeko and pulled her a little bit closer. The blue-haired girl, too, has a heart pulse quick enough to beat a horse. Himeko could feel it. She could hear it. “Besides, you need me,” Himeko continued, smiling inwardly at the word upon which she had placed such a subtle stress. She only hoped Chikane-chan needed Himeko in the same way Himeko did her. “I’m still the Priestess of the Sun. Although I don’t have much power right now, at least allow me to help you keep both of us safe, Chikane-chan.”

The princess’s arms tightened around Himeko as the girl whispered in a soft and affectionate voice, “It is you who is the blessing the Gods have bestowed upon me, Himeko.” There was nothing Himeko could have said in response to that, so she only smiled while her own cheeks grew warmer and warmer.

 “I am sorry, Himeko, for being such an ungrateful lout,” Chikane-chan said ruefully. “You saved my life, yet I had done nothing but saying inconsiderate things to you.”

“I don’t mind.” Himeko gave the Himemiya Ojou-sama another tight hug and a gentle pat on the girl’s back. “You were only worried for my sake. If anything, I’m only touched by your... consideration, Chikane-chan.”

“You are most kind, Himeko,” the princess murmured.

Perhaps Chikane-chan thought it was time to let go, she unwrapped her arms from Himeko’s back and let them fall to her own sides. The beautiful Ojou-sama, however, went slightly red in her face when she noticed that Himeko didn’t show any sign of removing her arms.

“Ne, Chikane-chan,” Himeko called softly. “Do you remember what you told me yesterday, before that Orochi woman showed up?” Her face was as hot as any oven. She remembered Chikane-chan’s every word.... She had asked the girl why she was so fixated on protecting Himeko of all the people in the world. “Because you are special,” the other girl had whispered while leaning in as though wanting to give Himeko a kiss on the lips. At least that was what Himeko thought the girl would do before the Third Head of the Orochi waltzed in and ruined the moment. Himeko didn’t think she could ever forgive Hibiki Shizuku for that.

“I do,” Chikane-chan answered quite stiffly, apparently as close to the verge of panic as Himeko had ever seen her. Himeko but wondered how she had managed that. “What of it?”

“You told me you wished to protect me because I was special,” Himeko whispered softly, her mouth savoring every word. “You were about to say something else, too, before the Orochi cut you short. What was it?” Looking up at her beloved one, she quietly marveled at the color that was dying the blue-haired girl’s face beet red. Could there be any other girl in this planet who was as adorable as her beloved princess here, she wondered?

Chikane-chan’s mouth slightly opened as she leaned in, her natural fragrance rose inside Himeko’s nose, stronger than ever. Himeko watched as the princess’s mouth began to form the words. No sound had come yet, but somehow, Himeko could hear the phrase “because I love you” whispering inside her mind. Her sweetheart did seem as though she was going to say exactly that. Her whole self brimming with happiness, Himeko closed her eyes and lifted her head, feeling the girl’s breaths caressing her face. In the manga she had read, a kiss would almost always be granted in this kind of situation. So she waited for her most important person’s lips...

... which never touched hers.

“Kurusugawa-sama,” Kisaragi Otoha’s voice called suddenly. The woman was standing at the door to Himeko’s room, which she forgot to close and lock when Chikane-chan came in earlier, with a face that could have been carved from ice and a gaze that was as sharp as any razor. Then Himeko noticed what the Head Maid was looking at. Of course, she still had her arms around the young mistress of the Mansion, their faces but inches apart. It was a situation most people would name compromising.

With a loud squeak, Himeko literally jumped away from Chikane-chan, face a roaring furnace. Why couldn’t she remember to lock the darned door? The blue-haired princess, on the other hand, sat motionless on the couch as she studied the Head Maid with an ominous expression on her lovely face.

Deafening silence ensued.

“Is there... something you want to tell me, Otoha-san?” Himeko asked as she sighed to herself afterwards. Why would people keep interrupting her? First the Orochi woman, now the Head Maid. Did they harbor some kind of grudge against her?

“You have a visitor, Kurusugawa-sama,” the young woman announced. “A boy by the name of Oogami Souma. Your acquaintance, he claimed to be.”

Chikane-chan’s face turned unreadable all of a sudden... and Himeko found herself groaning inwardly in exasperation. What did the boy come here for? And why did he have to choose this particular morning to do so?

 

***

 

Sitting on one of the comfortable couches in the Main Hall of the Himemiya Mansion, Oogami Souma wasn’t exactly happy.

Well, sure, his heart had leapt into his throat and bliss had rose in his soul the moment he caught sight of the slender figure of Kurusugawa Himeko, who was descending upon the large, winding stone flight of stairs bridging the first and the second floor. However, she wasn’t alone. Walking by her side was the daughter of the Himemiya, whose blank face he could have sworn was carved out of rock. The very sight of the rich girl, whom those witless students named Miya-sama and worshipped like a real Goddess, soured his stomach. Before the incident on Himeko’s birthday, which also happened to be Himemiya’s, they had been rivals. Now, they were short of open enemies, especially after the girl had declared that she would kill him if he harmed the golden-haired girl. Well... the rich girl didn’t really say that right out but her sharp and icy voice implied as much. The girl knew nothing about Souma. As if he could bring himself to hurt a strand of hair on Himeko’s head....

He swept his gaze from Himemiya’s emotionless face, however pleasing it was to his eyes, to that of Himeko, the girl he loved. It pained him greatly to look at her, despite the fact that she held his heart, for all he could see was a girl whose eyes were filled with the image of none other than the one she secretly called Chikane-chan, her housemate. Of course, during the whole time they were walking down the stairs, Himeko kept giving the other girl furtive glances as though she couldn’t get enough of her. And the warmth that was radiating from her heart, picked up by his Orochi mind, told him that he had the truth of it.

Souma grimaced. He had known from two days ago that Himeko harbored a lot of affection toward the Himemiya girl. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that the golden-haired girl liked the blue-haired one as much as any of the idiots in the Fanatic Trio. More. His Orochi supernatural instincts informed Souma that whenever Himeko glanced at her... housemate, fire would blossom in her heart in a way that did nothing to improve Souma’s mood. Too bad his ability didn’t let him delve too far into another’s soul. Powerful as he was, he could only sense people’s moods and no more. He couldn’t read minds, nor could he learn the secrets one hid in the darkest depths of their hearts. He wished he could... though. He would have paid much of what he owned to learn just exactly how much Himemiya Chikane meant to the girl he loved. That would give him an edge in a battle he couldn’t afford losing....

Souma sighed inwardly. No use wishing for things beyond his capabilities now. He should spend his time and energy on more realistic and achievable goals instead. After all... weren’t they what he came here for this morning?

“Morning, Oogami-kun,” Himeko smiled at Souma once she settled upon the couch opposite his. He almost winced at the fear he sensed wrapping around the girl’s heart. She was still very much afraid of him.

“Welcome to the Himemiya Mansion, Oogami-san,” Himemiya said in a quiet voice and with a slight incline of her head. Was it disappointment he just glimpsed in her sapphire eyes and irritation he sensed in her heart? “Please enjoy your stay.”

The rich girl then bent over to whisper something into Himeko’s ear. Perhaps she thought that the distance between her and Souma was enough to muffle any sound, or that her voice was too low to carry. Whatever she thought, she was wrong. Souma could hear every word so clearly that he could have sworn it was his ear into which she was whispering. “Do not take too long, Himeko,” Himemiya had said, “school awaits. Come straight to the car when you are done.”

“Sure, Chikane-chan.” Himeko smiled sweetly at the rich girl while the latter walked toward the doors, held open by two solemn-faced maids. The expression on the golden-haired girl’s face irked him no end.

What’s with the longing look, Himeko? he thought. It’s not like you’re not going to see her again.

“Oogami-kun,” Himeko called. Her voice was neutral but her heart, quivering with growing fear, belied her calmness. “Um... thank you for saving my life yesterday,” she said, trying to sound more cheerful. Well, she did mean what she said, for he could sense the sincerity in her words. Still... he knew for a fact that in her eyes, he was more like a monster than her savior. Souma sighed.

“No need for that,” he said. “But why Oogami-kun? That wasn’t what you called me when we were little, Hime-sama.”

Her amethyst eyes, lovely and bright, went as wide as they could. “Sou... chan?” she muttered in disbelief.

“Your loyal Knight at your service, Hime-sama” Souma said as she got down on one knee in front of the girl he loved. He had never wanted to reveal this. He had never intended to let Himeko learn who he truly was. Yet, his being an Orochi Follower and her being a Priestess were putting more and more distance between them. There was no other way to bridge that.... He didn’t have a choice.

 

***

 

Standing in front of her window, Yue the Goddess of the Moon swept her silver gaze across the vast land upon which the Holy City was situated. As her room was on the highest level of the Tower of Crescents – a part of the Heavenly Palace, which was built atop a high hill at the very center of Heaven – she commanded a view of at least half of Izumo, and would the other half, too, if she opened the window on the other side of the room. She supposed many people would marvel at the size of the great city of Immortals, at the beauty of its castles, at the luxuriant groves and richly colorful gardens arranged in an eye-pleasing pattern around the city, and at the grandeur that was the Heavenly Palace. What she saw, unfortunately, was a prison. Humongous and beautiful, perhaps, but it was still a prison all the same. Instead of having steel bars to confine people, the Holy City had the Kusanagi Pillars, which were infinitely worse.

Yue’s silver eyes narrowed in distaste when they set upon the black metal obelisks standing at the edge of Izumo. There were twelve of them, similar to one another like raindrops and as deadly as they were huge. Constructed three thousand years ago at an imperial command from the Lord of Heaven himself, the Kusanagi Pillars had been looming over Izumo and standing as a symbol of terror and disgust. Yue could still remember the uproar her Father had caused when he announced that he was going to build the Kusanagi System, which he assured the public that it was only meant for self-defense and no more. True, the twelve obelisks had been erected in the fear that war was going to break out between Heaven and the Underworld... but the Immortals in this City knew better. The Kusanagi Pillars were still weapons, and nothing Izanagi said could convince his subjects otherwise. Having these oversized needles surrounding Izumo was almost akin to having a blade bared at every God or Goddess’s throat. They did not like that, of course, so they tried to prevent the construction from happening, so they howled and raged in front of the Heavenly Palace, yet they fell silent as soon as the final Tower was completed. They all realized that should they voice another word of protest, they would run the risk of being deep fried by the lightning of the Kusanagi System.

And here dwell its makers, Yue thought in disgust as her eyes found a tall castle sitting at the northern end of the Ama no Ukihashi Boulevard. It was Heaven’s one and only Science Institute, headquarters to Izumo’s infamous R&D Division, where the worst crooks in all the Three Worlds worked and lived. The castle was as beautiful as any other in the Holy City, indeed, yet a look at it sickened her no end. She averted her gaze lest the sight of the castle empty her stomach.

Yue had always hated the Holy Messengers but even those nosey, obnoxious, and insolent egomaniacs seemed innocent lambs besides the White Robes, the name with which the researchers styled themselves. Of course, insufferable as the Messengers were, they never designed murder’s weapons as fearsome as the Kusanagi Pillars, they never made a God whose mind was so pure his heart convulsed with every life he took, they never invented a spell so vicious it tortured a girl’s soul for three millennia, and certainly the Messengers never created the Tower of Kannazuki to imprison the Priestesses of the Sun and Moon. The White Robes did all of that... and took no punishments for their heinous crimes. How much more unfair could this world get, she wondered....

Yue closed her window and walked to a chair at the center of the room, where she sat down in a slump. She hated this city. She hated the Tower of Crescents. She hated most people she met, especially the Lord of Heaven, her adopted father, in front of whom the people of the Three Worlds cowered on their knees and to whom they wished the most gruesome fate in their hearts. Truth be told, she had spent less than twenty-four hours here during the last three millennia, and that was because she was ordered to come back. Had she had her ways, she would never have set foot into Izumo for the rest of her natural life, which meant forever. Of course, she would rather spend her all her nights on some tree branch in the garden of the Himemiya than rest her back one second on this room’s fine futon mattress. At least in the Himemiya Mansion she could watch over the children she so dearly cherished. Here, only tedious boredom awaited her. That, and the sight of one single person she wanted to avoid, Amaterasu, nicknamed Yui, the Sun Goddess, who was honored as the most beautiful woman in the Three Worlds.

Yue’s mouth tightened. Thoughts of Yui always irritated her. She would have left the Heavenly Palace as soon as she stepped one step into it. She would have departed for the Human World, where she could protect her children from the shadows... but she could not. The freedom she used to have had been taken away, all her privileges revoked. Now, she was but a little bird in a cage, unable to fly to where she wanted to be most. She sighed. Why did this have to happen to her?

“Tsukiyomi-sama,” a man’s voice, cool and deep, called outside her door, “the Lord sends for you. Please come with me immediately.”

“Very well,” Yue answered and walked to the shoji door. When she opened it, she saw three men, whose white capes bore the golden pentagrams of the Holy Messengers, whose faces were so cold they could have been carved from winter stones, whose eyes were aglow with hatred. Since yesterday, they had looked at her the same way every time she saw them.

It was not I who tortured your Chief, she thought irritably. It was not I who made your colleagues bedridden. All of those had been Yui’s works, not hers. Yet, Yue was the one who received all the blame in the end, for reasons Yue failed to grasp. She sighed. Yui did what she did for Yue’s sake, so she could tolerate this at the very least, she supposed.

“Shall we?” the man in the middle said, his hand gesturing brusquely toward a Dimensional Portal he had opened ahead of time. Yue nodded, strode forward, and entered the silvery surface. She almost heaved a sigh of relief a heartbeat later, when she found herself standing under a spacious hallway, right in front of her Father’s study, not the Sanctum Core. The latter had forever been a place she wanted to avoid at all cost and one she dreaded as much as the Kusanagi Pillars. There were secrets she had to keep. There was a person’s safety she meant to guard until the end of time. For that, she could not afford to obey a summons from the Celestial Assembly. Should worse come to worst, she would kill herself before she let them learn what lay in the darkest depths of her heart.

“Now is this the Heavenly Palace or a rowdy marketplace?” muttered the man who had come to the Tower of Crescents to deliver the Lord’s summons. He was standing behind her, scowling darkly at something to his right. Turning her head, Yue found three people, who were leaning their backs against a wall and chatting excitedly.

The first one on the right was the tallest of the bunch, Kagutsuchi the God of Fire, a man of great height and muscles, whose hair was a mane of living flames. Short-tempered, violent, impatient, the lad tended to think with his biceps instead of his brain. There was nothing he loved more than duels, especially ones where either or both of the parties ended up lying unconsciously on the ground, preferably with a few bones broken or an arm or a leg twisted off. Had it not been for the fact that Heaven’s Healing Technologies were so advanced replacing limbs was but a piece of cake, the kid would have crippled half of Izumo’s population.

Still, despite all these flaws, Kagutsuchi was ever one with a great sense of justice and chivalry. Sure, he challenged other Gods to duels all the time but he would walk away as soon as his opponent refused. He was strong, but he never looked down on the weak or bullied them. He just wished to grow stronger by battling the strongest he could find, that was all. To Kagutsuchi’s disappointment, he had not been succeeding in finding worthy opponents in Izumo of late. Probably the other Gods of Heaven had realized that they could not beat him. If that was the case, Yue would be very glad. The kid might have enjoyed being hurt by other people... but Yue surely did not.

The one in the middle was a man whose face, framed by short, glossy dark hair, was so pretty it almost bordered on femininity. Although he was taller than most men, he stood only to the chest of his blood brother Kagutsuchi. The Goddesses of Heaven never minded that little detail. Yue knew for a certainty that in their eyes, Susanou the God of Storms was as tall as any man could be, and Kagutsuchi could have been a dwarf. But of course, the kid was ever Heaven’s beloved, to whom every female Immortal wished to present her heart, hoping fervently that he would accept it. Too bad, he refused to take any of them as his girlfriend regardless of how pretty they were. When Yue asked him why, Susanou answered that he had no use for simpering women who were sorely lacking in the way of wits.

“But little brother, was it not you who tangled theirs?” she had told him once. He only laughed and declared that he had no need for weak-minded girls, either. Yue would pay any price to see him fallen head over heels in love for once. The kid would do well to learn how it felt exactly to have his mind befuddled and his eyes blinded by love. Then perhaps he would begin to treat other girls more kindly.

 Yue’s gaze slid from Susanou’s stunning face to the one to his left, which happened to be Yui, who was half a head shorter than the God of Storms. As ever, the golden-haired woman did not show an inch of skin beneath her face. Instead of her usual high-collared, long-sleeved coat and denim trousers, today the woman wore a long-sleeved white dress, which was accompanied by a black scarf around her neck and white gloves covering her hands. Yue sometimes found herself wondering how Yui, the famous hygiene maniac of Heaven, had survived the heat of Onogoro’s summers.

The three of them were blood siblings, with Yui being the eldest, and the two kids twins. Sure, they all looked people in their mid-twenties, but Yue and Yui were both six years older than the two men. Still... if one were to judge by the way Yui behaved, they would have sworn that the woman was the youngest. Yue could not blame them. After all, every Immortal of Heaven considered the Goddess of the Sun a spoiled, childish kid who refused to act her age. What kind of mature woman loved to pull tricks on other people and made fun of them at every chance she got anyway? A troublemaker to the bone was what Yui was.

Yet... Yue had learned yesterday that the Goddess of the Sun was more than just an overactive troublemaker. Truth be told, Yue still could not believe that the Yui she knew, always appearing cheerful, had a side Yue never knew of. The way the High Immortal had stood over Yuusaku’s thrashing body, engulfed in golden flames that could not be put out, and watched the man with a face fit for cold-blooded murder scared even Yue herself. Even now, the memory still gave her the creeps.

“Yo, Yue-nee!” Kagutsuchi bellowed and waved his huge hand most emphatically as soon as he saw Yue walking toward him. Susanou, in contrast, contented himself with a solemn bow and a soft “Good day to you, Yue-nee-san.” The boy was ever so polite, unlike his brute of a brother. As for Yui, Yue elected to ignore the woman’s greeting and a wave of her hand. The Goddess of the Sun’s dazzling smile, rumored to be able to bring a man to his knees, withered and died. If the woman thought that Yue would warm up to her just because of what she did yesterday, she was sorely mistaken.

“I see you are well, brothers,” Yue said with a smile that did not include the golden-haired woman. If Kagutsuchi and Susanou noticed it, they did not show it.

“I’m well.” Kagutsuchi’s wide grin split his face into two. “Not so Susanou, though!” The handsome God of Storms grimaced.

“Must you blab it out to everybody in the Three Worlds before you stop, Kagutsuchi-san?” Susanou muttered. Yui, on the other hand, confined herself to a quiet laughter behind a gloved hand.

“Blab what?” Yue asked.

“Someone climbed into Susanou’s bed last night.” The God of Fire’s roaring laughter boomed noisily in the hallway, which hardened the Holy Messenger’s face to the point it could crack rocks. The man knew better than voicing his opinion, though. “Scared the heck out of him,” the taller man added. Susanou clutched his forehead and sighed. Yui’s laughter grew a little bit louder while Kagutsuchi’s could not seem to stop. As to Yue, she found the corners of her mouth twitching.

“How?” She looked a question at Susanou. Her adopted little brother was a very careful man, so for a woman to be able to slip into his house unnoticed was well near impossible, let alone getting to his bed.

“I spent most of my time yesterday working in the Memories Hall, so I was rather tired,” Susanou explained as a faint color crept onto his cheeks. “When I got home, I went straight to bed without remembering to lock the doors, so....”

Susanou had no idea how difficult it was for Yue to keep her face straight while trying to hold her mirth in check. She pressed her lips together, hard.

“And stop laughing, will you?” the God of Storms rounded on his brother and sister, his usual unruffled serenity no where in sight.

“Did she manage to do anything indecent to you?” Yue coughed into her hand to hide the smile on her lips. That invoked an even greater roar of laughter from the God of Fire. The Goddess of the Sun, on the other hand, started pounding her gloved fist on the wall behind her and laughed as hard as she could. Susanou, meanwhile, turned redder than a ripe tomato.

“Who... ever... said... it was... a she?” the flame-haired God managed between fits of laughter.

“A... man?” Yue said, her whole body quivering. It would not do to laugh. It would not do! But really, Susanou was not helping the way he ground his teeth together in great indignation.

“Apparently, that man, whoever he was, thought that since Susanou never returned those women’s feelings, perhaps he swung... a different way,” Yui said, wheezing. “Too bad, our little brother didn’t. Too bad, that guy was rather cute, I think.” The golden-haired young woman winked at the God of Storms, who was determined to ignore it.

“Stop sulking, Susanou,” Kagutsuchi guffawed at his brother. “It’s your fault for being born so pretty that even a man wants you. Also your fault for being stupid enough to tell us in the first place.”

“Quiet, you witless, uncouth, fire-breathing lizard!” Susanou snapped. The kid had lost his temper, something that Yue considered even rarer than a sun rising in the west.

“That’s dragon for you, you illiterate spineless sea worm,” Kagutsuchi replied, seemingly only more amused by the insult. “D-r-a-g-o-n,” the God of Fire repeated. Kagutsuchi was the High Commander of the First Imperial Battalion, the sigil depicted on banner the banner of which was a dragon breathing fire. Susanou was of the Second, his sigil was a great sea serpent amidst storm clouds. Yue did not like the creature – she found its serpentine shape and venomous fangs very disgusting – but for some reason, Susanou was extremely fond of it. She never understood why.

“I shall take your tongue for that, you fire-juggling clown!” Susanou spat.

“Oh, wanna take it outside?” Kagutsuchi asked hopefully. Yue suddenly recalled that the kid just complained to her a few days ago that he had not had any good opponent in a long time. She grimaced. Susanou and Kagutsuchi were roughly of equal strength... which unfortunately was enough to ruin half of Izumo should a fight break out.

Yue did not care if that was the case. In fact, she would be even gladder if somehow the Gods of Storms and Fire managed to reduce the whole city to rubbles. What she was afraid of was the possibility that her father the Lord would throw both of them into some prison cell and locked them up forever. True, they were his blood children, whose souls he Fragmented his very own to create, but it could not be denied that the same man had been imprisoning his youngest child for the last three thousand years. Who could say what he would do to Kagutsuchi and Susanou should they incur his wrath? Yue did not want to lose any more of her siblings....

“Cut it out, both of you,” Yue raised her voice. “You are adults already, so act like one.” The twins immediately fell silent and started taking up a serious study of the wooden floor, both of them looking terribly embarrassed. Yue allowed herself a satisfied nod. Kagutsuchi was a short fuse to a ton of firework, waiting to be ignited, and Susanou an egomaniac who looked down on almost everybody, but when Yue put her foot down, they would do as she wished without so much as a word of protest.

“Now, would you tell me why you are here?” Yue’s silver eyes regarded each of the twins levelly.

Kagutsuchi scratched his head, Susanou glanced away, and Yui started to smile softly, almost to herself.

“Did father summon you, also?” she asked.

“Uh, no.” Kagutsuchi shook his head. “He only sent for you and Yui-nee. Isn’t that right, Susanou?”

“Indeed so,” the shorter man answered.

Yue suddenly understood. But of course....

“You were worried for me, were you not, brothers?” she said quietly. They knew all too well that Yue had defied their father’s order... so they feared for her safety, just as she had feared for theirs just a moment ago.

The twins nodded, which made Yue smile. She gave them each a tight hug and whispered a soft “Thank you” into their ears. This was another side of them that she loved. No matter how different Kagutsuchi and Susanou were in appearance and personality, they both had one thing in common: unending love for their family. She could still remember how much they had loved their youngest brother, Akira, and spoiled the boy to the point that should Akira decided that he wanted something on the other side of the universe, Kagutsuchi and Susanou would go there and fetch it for him. When the Lord of Heaven imprisoned the young God of Swords, the twins had knelt in front of his study for one whole year to beg their father to forgive the kid. Izanagi, cold-hearted as he was, refused to change his mind.

“You don’t have to thank us, Yue-nee,” Kagutsuchi said. “We’re your brothers, aren’t we?” Susanou nodded agreement. No one could have known that both of them very nearly traded blows just a few moments ago, Yue bet.

“How touching,” Yui commented. “How come you never said such nice things to me before, little brothers?”

“Because we love Yue-nee much more than we do you, obviously,” Susanou answered with a playful gleam in his dark eyes.

“Susanou’s right.” Kagutsuchi nodded in feigned agreement. “Yue-nee always behaves herself. Unlike a certain someone who made us worried so frequently we don’t care about her anymore.”

“That’s it!” Yui declared. “From this point onward, I officially disown you!” Kagutsuchi and Susanou only laughed. They knew Yui did not mean a word she said.

“I would love to stay and talk, brothers,” Yue said, “but father was expecting me. I should not make him wait much longer.”

“Yes, yes.” Kagutsuchi nodded vigorously. “Go in, and don’t worry. If he wants to punish you, we’ll beg you off.”

“Of course.” Yue smiled and walked back toward the door to Izanagi’s study. She could not help but realize that the Goddess of the Sun was quietly following her. She could even feel Yui’s golden eyes on her back. She decided to pretend the woman never existed.

 

***

 

“Oogami-san... was your childhood friend?” Himemiya Chikane asked quietly. She and Himeko were inside her family’s limousine, on their way to Ototachibana Academy. Sitting on the backseat side by side, their shoulders were but a tenth of an inch apart. During the first ride from the Himemiya mansion to school, Chikane had found herself at one end of the bench and Himeko at the other. Yet... after the third ride or so, Himeko had decided to shrink the distance between them. Now, whenever they boarded the limousine, the little angel always sat close enough for Chikane to feel an urge to put her arm around the girl’s waist and let her head rest on Chikane’s own shoulder. That urge was still there today, as always, but its effect was considerably lessened by another feeling in her heart, which she could not name.

“Yeah,” Himeko answered with a bright smile on her lips. That very same smile had not faded since Oogami Souma departed and Himeko stepped into the limousine. Chikane once thought that such a smile was reserved for her and her alone. Now she knew it was not. “Unbelievable, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.” Chikane nodded. “Was he the very same boy you once mentioned to me?”

“I told you about him?” Himeko looked a little lost.

“Yes you did.” Chikane gave her lips a thoughtful tap. “A little less than a year back, if I recall correctly.”

They had only been friends for a little more than two months then, so Chikane had been very surprised when Himeko started to tell her everything about herself, including what had happened in her early childhood, which happened to involved a certain boy named Hiraishi Souma. According to the little angel, the boy had always acted as her knight, a shield to keep her from harm, and a sword to repel the other boys, who thought they could bully her and get away with it. The little knight had suffered countless bruises as a result. Chikane had listened to that tale with great amusement... until the golden-haired girl mentioned that she once adored the boy so greatly she wanted to be his bride upon growing up. Chikane did not dare imagine what would have become of them had the boy not moved away from Tokyo, where he and the little angel were born, shortly after the latter’s parents passed away.

“How do you remember something from such a long time ago?” Himeko asked as she looked at Chikane with those adorable amethyst eyes of her, wide opened in surprise.

I remember every single word you ever said to me, Himeko, Chikane thought. What she answered the little angel with, however, was “I am fortunate in having a good memory.”

“I wish I had one that just as good,” Himeko commented. “My grade would have been much better.” They both smiled at that.

“Anyways,” Chikane said, “if Oogami-san was your childhood friend, why does he have a different family name now?” Honest to the heavens above, Chikane never even imagined that the boy Himeko used to have a crush on – she surely hoped it was only a “used to” – was the same one who very nearly killed her recently. Sure... they both had the same given name.... but it was not as if ‘Souma was an uncommon name anyway....

“About that,” replied Himeko, “Sou-chan told me he was adopted by the Oogami Clan shortly after moving to Mahoroba. Why, he didn’t say.”

“I see,” Chikane said, wondering why Oogami Souma could not have moved to some other place... like Hokkaido, or some city on the other side of the Earth, instead of Mahoroba, where Chikane was born. Perhaps the Gods thought that it would be fun to complicate her relationship with Himeko even further, which was already complicated enough. “Still... you never recognized him during the first year you were here, Himeko,” Chikane pointed out. “You are an awfully heartless princess to have ignored your faithful knight so.” She chuckled quietly as the face of golden-haired girl began to redden.

“I’m not to blame,” the angel protested. “When little, Sou-chan was a plain-faced, snot-nosed kid. Now he looks....” Himeko paused as though searching for some word.

“Different?” Chikane supplied.

“Yup, different,” the other girl agreed.

“Did he not recognize you during the last year, either?” Chikane asked. Small chance of that. Himeko once showed her an old album that had photos from her childhood. Despite the fact that she had grown to be a beautiful girl over the years, no one could have looked at the cute little girl with the two braids in the photo and the current Himeko and said that they were different people.

“I don’t know, Chikane-chan,” answered Chikane’s beloved. “I asked him that myself but he only smiled and changed the topic.” Chikane gave her lips another tap. She wondered why.

“What is the matter?” she asked upon noticing that the girl was looking at her with a guilty expression on her pretty face.

“I’m sorry,” Himeko muttered.

“For what?” Chikane blinked.

“I can’t go to the Garden of the Roses with you today,” the golden-haired girl said with a rueful grimace. “Sou-chan asked me to have lunch together.”

That uncomfortable feeling, which had been plaguing Chikane’s mind ever since Himeko stepped inside the limousine, increased ten-fold.

 

***

 

“Father, by your summons have I come,” Yue the Goddess of the Moon muttered the words on her knees. “I await your command.” She was supposed to sound solemn, she was expected to appear in awe and respectful toward the ever-glorious Lord of Heaven, she even tried to act that way, too... yet every time she went near him, all she felt was hate. Had it not been for the fact that Izanagi the Ruler of Izumo held in his hand her weakness, she would have tried to kill him at any given opportunity. She was tired of obeying his every command like an obedient daughter she never was. She was sick of sitting there and doing nothing while he toyed with her children’s fate just as he pleased.

Yui simply contented herself with a “Father, have you need of us?” her voice unusually quiet. The cheerfulness she wore about her person as she would clothes had faded into oblivion. Had Yue not seen the murderous face the woman put up yesterday, Yue would have been shocked seeing her so.

Yue glanced at the Goddess of the Sun one more time, wondering whether the young woman was feeling the same way Yue did. After all, the man had never considered her a daughter.... After all, he had never shown so much as a smile to Yui ever since she came into this world.... After all, if he could commit such an unspeakable crime against someone he created out of his blood and soul... he could not have been seeing her more than an object of which he meant to take advantage. What a despicable man.

“Father, Tsukiyomi?” the Lord of Heaven said coolly. “Do you still consider yourself my daughter?”

Sitting behind a huge desk, chin on interlaced fingers, Izanagi the Maker of the World seemed at most a young man in his mid twenties. He has a small build, yet his study was one of the largest chambers in the entire Heavenly Palace. Even so, this humongous room, filled with the sunlight shining through the oversized window behind the man’s back, did not seem able to contain the man’s impressive presence. Every Immortal who set a foot past the door could not fail to see why Izanagi was termed the strongest entity in the Three Worlds. Even when he was sitting down, relaxed, he still emitted a fearsome aura that was at odds with his unusually pretty face. Sometimes Yue wondered why the Ruler of Izumo, older than any God or Goddess in Heaven, made himself look so young people could have thought he was but a year or two Yue’s senior.

“I am your daughter, father,” Yue replied. “Always have and always will.” Until the day you breach our pact, she finished mentally.

“Did Yuusaku not tell you that I did not wish you to leave Heaven yesterday?” Izanagi said, his voice ice.

“He did,” Yue admitted.

“Then why did you disobey him and the Regent Seal in his hand?” the Lord of Heaven demanded. “Were you not aware Yuusaku spoke with my voice and carried all my authority?” His voice grew louder and hotter with every word. “Or was it that my command weighed so little in your mind that you chose to ignore it?”

“It was not so, father,” Yue lied.

“Then why did you still go to Onogoro despite my express wish?” Izanagi stared at Yue, his dark eyes burning with anger.

“My daughters need me, father,” Yue answered.

“How many more times must I tell you that the Priestesses are not your daughters?” Izanagi said, voice harsh and hard.

“How many more times must I tell you that I love them as mine even though they were never my flesh and blood?” Yue insisted.

“Did you not realize that you were risking my displeasure and the safety of all of Izumo by attaching yourself to them, Tsukiyomi?” the Ruler of Izumo thundered. “Are two mortals girls worth that?”

Yue spoke without hesitation, “Yes.”

“Why you....”

“I do not think you’re in any position to lecture Yue, father.” The Goddess of the Sun coughed delicately into her gloved hand, appearing to be impervious to the icy stare her father had shifted her way. Yue was quite sure that any other Immortal would have shivered. There were Gods and Goddesses who had been heard telling others that Izanagi’s gaze unnerved them and made them feel like a mortal... a guilty one at that. The golden-haired woman either had hidden her fear well... or had a suicidal amount of courage.

“What do you mean by that, Amaterasu?” the Lord of Heaven asked in a calm and soft voice. Yue’s hackles started to rise. She had been around her adopted father long enough to be able to realize that there was only one thing he could be thinking of whenever he used such a voice. Murder.

“Well, father, perhaps you still remembered what happened three thousand years ago?” Yui said, voice equally soft. Izanagi’s eyebrows knitted together in a dark, ominous scowl. “Of course, you couldn’t have forgotten that you did risk your life, and Heavens safety, coming to the Underworld to rescue my sister the Goddess of the Moon? Yue must have felt the same sentiments toward the daughters she loved.”

The Goddess of the Sun smirked in triumph in the end as the man’s lips compressed into a thin line in anger. Well... Yue could not blame him. After all, his own daughter just bandied words with him... and succeeded.

Uncomfortable silence ensued in the study, where its owner and his daughter looked at each other the way enemies did each other, until Yui decided to speak again. “I suppose you will find enough forgiveness in yourself to pardon my sister this time, father? You wouldn’t punish her because of what she did for love, would you?”

“If I had wanted to punish her, she would have been squirming in the Sanctum Core right now,” Izanagi muttered. “She will not like that.”

“Surely not,” the Goddess of the Sun agreed.

“Does that mean I am free to go, father?” Yue asked. The Lord of Heaven sighed in response.

“Yes,” he said in a resigned manner. “You may stay as close to the Priestesses as you wish. But know this, Tsukiyomi, I shall hang you by your ankles at the gate to the Heavenly Palace should I ever discover that you have interfered ever again. Did I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” answered Yue while wondering to herself whether the man was an idiot. He should have realized by now that Yue would interfere the very moment danger threatened her precious daughters. What gave him the notion she cared about whatever punishments he could inflict upon her? But oh well, she was certainly not going to tell him that now was she?

“Very well, you may go,” Izanagi gave her a dismissive wave of his hand. “You stay, Amaterasu.”

“As you command, father,” Yui said blithely.

Yue rose gracefully to her feet and walked to the door to the study, where she found Yuusaku the Chief Messenger upon sliding it aside. The man’s face was purple with anger. She gave him a cool, contemptuous look and walked away. Thoughts of the man faded away from her mind as soon as her little brothers, Susanou and Kagutsuchi, ran to her side and asked whether Izanagi had punished her. Still, amidst the barrage of questions they threw her way, she could not help but wonder why Yui continued helping her despite the hostility and contempt with which Yue always treated her.

 

***

 

After stepping inside Izanagi-sama’s study, Yuusaku the Chief Messenger slid the shoji door shut, feeling rage blooming inside him as his gaze found the Goddess of the Sun. The golden-haired woman was kneeling on the tatami floor, in front of the Lord of Izumo’s humongous desk. Quietly, Yuusaku crossed the room to stand at the side of the Ruler of Heaven, like he always had. To his irritation, the woman never gave him even a glance. It was as if he didn’t exist.... The time will come soon, woman, he thought, when I teach you that I’m not someone you can cross and survive afterwards.

“You have been quite full of yourself of late, Amaterasu,” the other said, his voice little warmer than an arctic wind.

“Whatever do you mean, father?” the despicable woman asked innocently.

The Lord peered at Amaterasu over his interlaced hands and said nothing. Usually, the silence accompanying his transfixing gaze would have made any target flinch and cower. Yet, the Goddess of the Sun seemed unaffected by it. The woman had courage. Yuusaku had to give her that.

Just when he thought the staring match between father and daughter would continue until the night came, the Lord of Izumo said, “What are you trying to do?”

“I can’t say I understand you,” Amaterasu answered.

“Do not play coy with me,” Izanagi-sama warned. “I know you have been skulking in Onogoro ever since the rebirth of the two Priestesses. What secrets are you keeping from me?” Yuusaku felt a pang of shame in his heart. For seventeen years the Messenger Division had been trying to monitor the Goddess of the Sun. For seventeen long years they had gotten no result. No matter how many Messengers Yuusaku sent to spy on the woman, they never managed to learn a thing. How could they, when Amaterasu slipped away from them with such contemptuous ease? How could they, when they only found the woman when she chose to be found? She irritated both he and the Lord of Izumo no end.

“If I had secrets, would I reveal them to you, father?” The golden-haired woman laughed quietly. “Why don’t you try to learn them on your own? It’s more fun that way.”

“You will not think it fun when I send you to the Sanctum Core,” the Lord of Izumo threatened. Yet... his words rang hollow in Yuusaku’s ears. “They will have you howling soon enough.”

“Shall we go there, now?” Amaterasu’s laughter grew louder, richer, and much more insolent. “You know I’m not afraid of your Celestial Assembly.”

“Leave, now,” the man said. “Have a care or someday you will wish that you were never born.”

“I doubt that day will come soon.” Amaterasu rose to her feet. “Good day, father.” The woman departed without so much as a nod.

“Thanks to your incompetence, Yuusaku, I have to suffer being mocked by the likes of her,” Izanagi-sama said acidly once the woman’s footsteps outside the study had faded into silence.

“I have no excuse, my lord,” answered Yuusaku perfunctorily. It was the response he had been giving his employer for the last seventeen years.

“I am quite tired of hearing that.” The Lord of Izumo gave Yuusaku a hard look.

Yuusaku swallowed and decided to keep quiet. It would not do to say anything at this moment, for any word might just pour oil into the fire.

“Report all you need to and leave me,” Izanagi-sama said.

Fifteen minutes or so later, when Yuusaku was bowing himself away from Izanagi-sama’s presence, he said, “Stop.” All of a sudden, the light outside his open window dimmed until all that remained was darkness. Thunder started to rumble. Cold winds began to roar. Without a sound, Yuusaku’s employer walked to his window, his hands laced behind his back. Chills slithered down Yuusaku’s spine.

“You will remember this, Yuusaku,” the man said. “The next time you touch a strand of hair on Tsukiyomi’s head, I shall kill you.” A flash of lightning outside the window lit up the man’s face, which was colder and more murderous than ever.

Yuusaku knew his liege lord was serious. He started to tremble.

 

***

 

Himemiya Chikane was in a rotten mood. She did not show it, the others did not know it, but that did not mean that it was not there.

It has been five schooldays since Oogami Souma’s visit to the Himemiya Mansion, and it had also been five days where Chikane had never felt worse in her life. She did not know what method he had employed, what spell he had cast on her little angel, but he had been most successful in taking the other girl away. Ever since he came to Chikane’s house and revealed to Himeko that he was her long lost childhood friend, he had been asking Himeko to lunch every singe day, thus depriving Chikane of the only thirty minutes she could spend with Himeko in school. She had never imagined how the small space within the Garden of the Roses could grow so vast without the little angel. She had never thought how half an hour could stretch so long.

What made the situation worse was that Chikane had not been able to spend time with Himeko at home, either. In the beginning of the school term, she did not have much to do but right now, club activities and responsibilities and duties of the student body president had begun to pile up. For the last five days, Chikane had been staying at school until the sky turned dark and the stars glowed bright. Yet, no matter how hard she worked, the mountain of paperwork in the Student Government Office only seemed to grow higher. It exasperated her no end.

Also, it did not help that Himemiya Kyou, her Father, had decided that it was time she started learning the ways of the business world. From across the ocean, over in the United States, his Mightiness had issued a command that Chikane was going to find time – he did not care how – so that she could take lessons from a team of MBAs whom he had shipped to Japan all the way from America. Her Father was dead serious when he told her that he meant to make her a worthy successor of the Himemiya Empire before she graduated from high school. He had no idea that thanks to him, Himeko was officially beyond her reach. How could the little angel not be, when Chikane was dragged into her Father’s study as soon as she returned to the Mansion, where she was forced to listen to that team of relentless men and women droning on and on until the grandfather clock struck midnight?

If there was any comfort in this hell Chikane had been tossed into, it was Himeko’s effort to reach her. The little angel had tried to wait for Chikane in the library while she dealt with the other students in the Student Government just so they could go home together. Chikane was deeply grateful toward her for that, and she was very happy, too... until she found Himeko nodding up and down in the library, trying to stay awake. Waiting for Chikane for three hours straight tired the girl out completely. After that, Chikane had insisted that Himeko go home first without her. It had not been easy talking the golden-haired girl into agreement. And it had not been easy, either, persuading herself that she had done the right thing although it resulted in pulling the two of them even further apart.

Yes, while the distance between Chikane and Himeko grew, the golden-haired girl’s and Oogami Souma’s must have been shortening. After all, they had a lot to catch up on, Chikane supposed. After all, the boy was Himeko’s childhood friend, who perhaps was more than eager to re-establish their... relationship. He did seem to want to be promoted from a knight to a prince in his princess’s eyes too, Chikane noticed. The knowledge only worsened her already terrible mood.

The most depressing thing about the whole business was that Chikane had begun to lose confidence in herself, and also in her sweetheart. Despite the fact that Chikane had lost almost all her chances to stay near Himeko, the ten minutes during the drive from the Mansion to Ototachibana remained intact. Curious and slightly concerned as to where the golden-haired girl’s affection lay, Chikane had tried to find out what Himeko and Oogami Souma talked about during all the time they spent together. The little angel, strangely enough, blushed crimson and changed the topic. The girl probably was not aware of how much she troubled Chikane’s mind by doing that. Was it possible that Chikane had been under an illusion all along? Could it be that Himeko only saw her as a friend and harbored no romantic feelings toward her despite what Chikane hoped?

Chikane sighed and left the Garden of the Roses, her lunchbox untouched, her appetite completely ruined.

 

***

 

Kurusugawa Himeko was drowned in distress. She tried not to show it, she didn’t think others except Chikane-chan and Sou-chan cared about her enough to notice it, but it was there.

It had been five days since Sou-chan visited Chikane-chan’s house, and it had also been five long days where Himeko never had a chance to talk to Chikane-chan about what she wished to. Sure, they spent ten minutes together inside the limousine every morning but it was no place for Himeko to ask the blue-haired girls things only suitable when they were private. The chauffer was there, undoubtedly privy to anything Himeko said. Sometimes she wished Chikane-chan’s family provided her with a limousine that had some kind of sound buffering between the chauffer and the passengers. That would provide tremendous help.

Well, although the majority of Himeko’s woes stemmed from the fact that life had caught up with her beloved princess and rendered her almost unreachable, her childhood friend played no small part in it. Not that she was blaming Sou-chan... but it could not be denied that the boy was the sole reason why Himeko failed to meet Chikane-chan in the Garden of the Roses at lunch break.

Well... she guessed she was to blame, also. She had meant to have lunch with him on the first day only, but when he kept on asking her to lunch the following days, she hadn’t been able to refuse him although she wished from the bottom of her heart that he would just let her go. She never regretted being a pushover more during her entire life.

But Himeko would make sure it ended today. Nothing Sou-chan said was going to make her change her mind, and that was that. She missed her blue-haired princess terribly, and she wasn’t going to suffer from it any longer than she must.

Quickening her steps, Himeko headed toward the cafeteria, where Sou-chan waited. She had a feeling he was not going to like this.

 

***

 

Oogami Souma was beside himself with frustration. He did his best to hide it, Himeko didn’t notice it, but he was under the impression that his classmates, who walked very lightly around him these days, knew for a certainty that it was there.

It had been five days since Souma came to that ridiculously oversized Mansion, and it had also been five long days where he found himself sinking slowly toward hell. His brother the Shingetsu High Priest didn’t understand how Souma could be incomprehensibly happy on the first day and became depressingly gloomy on the next. He tried to ask what was wrong, but Souma refused to tell him. It would be embarrassing to let Kazuki-nii-san know that Himeko was turning his world upside down, and that there was nothing he could do about it.

Well sure, he was overjoyed when the golden-haired girl agreed to have lunch with him on the same day he arrived at the Himemiya Mansion. He was on cloud nine while they sat in the cafeteria the following afternoon, talking merrily and reviving the memory of old. Yet, he had made a terrible mistake, one that pushed him into a labyrinth where he couldn’t find a way out: invoking the name of Himemiya.

Unable to delve into Himeko’s consciousness and read her mind, Souma had attempted to learn how the golden-haired girl feel about her “housemate” by asking her questions about her life with the Himemiya princess. This mistake cost him dearly, for it opened the sluice gate to a dam that had a seemingly endless water supply. Himeko, whose amethyst eyes had glowed like the brightest starts he had ever seen at the mention of the rich girl, started to tell him enthusiastically every single thing that had the smallest connection to Himemiya. He tried to pretend he was interested – he was convinced that doing otherwise would offend the golden-haired girl – he tried to steer the conversation away from the dangerous subject, and he failed. Somehow, Himeko was always able to bring the topic back to the rich girl despite Souma’s efforts. The girl was like a snow avalanche, to which resistance was meaningless and futile. That day, he had left the cafeteria with a smile that was as fragile as a piece of glass and a heart as heavy as a rock boulder. The only comfort that he had was that he had succeeded in asking Himeko to lunch the following day. The girl wasn’t very happy about that, but under Souma’s pressure, she agreed.

On the way to the cafeteria the next day, Souma had thought that it would be different, that they could find something else to talk about, and that perhaps Himeko had run out of things to talk about the Himemiya princess. He was wrong. No sooner did Himeko sit down next to him at the table than she picked up where she left off. He could only groan inwardly in exasperation during the following thirty minutes. At the end of every meeting he would ask Himeko to lunch on the next day – Himeko wasn’t very good at refusing people, especially him – and at the beginning of every one of them he would be depressed as hell when he realized that Himeko was not going to stop talking about her housemate, whom she thought to be the prettiest, smartest, and kindest girl in this whole wide world. He didn’t quite agree with that, and he really wanted to prove otherwise, but he forbore.

To top it all off, Himeko had shown more and more reluctance in accepting his daily invitation to lunch, and discomfort grew in her heart with every moment she spent with him. It was depressing. Unless he found some way to turn the situation around in his favor, he had a feeling he would hear the word “No” from Himeko soon enough.

Maddened, he grabbed the empty paper cup on the table and crumpled it in his hand. How did it all come to this?

 

***

 

Sitting in front of her desk, in a pair of pajama, under the warm light of her electric lamp, Kurusugawa Himeko stared at the blank homework notebook, which she had been doing for the last half an hour. Honest to the Gods above, even though the thing was due in tomorrow’s class, she had found that she couldn’t force herself to work on the problems. Her thoughts kept unraveling, her mind falling apart, and her heart aching so terribly she thought she would die. Sighing, she let a side of her face rest upon the notebook and decided to forget about the homework. She didn’t believe she could finish even one of them tonight, so why bother? Eventually, her wandering gaze fell upon an emerald-colored one-piece dress lying on her bed. Her heart, already tied in a knot, took a deep dive into her stomach.

The day didn’t start out too shabby... who could have thought it would turn out this way in the end?

 

...

 

Smiling to herself while standing in front of her desk, Kurusugawa Himeko opened her schoolbag, took out her notebooks and pencil case, and then laid them out neatly on the wooden surface that seemed as shiny as polished bronze. Through the open windows, the cool air of the October night was breezing in, relieving the heat of the electric lamp and filling the room with the soft fragrance of the flowers planted in the vast back garden of the Himemiya. It was rather chilly at this time of night – some other girl might have put on another layer of coat – but Himeko didn’t mind one bit. In fact, she found it most exhilarating... although her fine mood had nothing to do with the weather, she supposed. She chuckled quietly.

Himeko had had a talk with Sou-chan earlier in the day, and the outcome was most pleasant... at least to her. Sou-chan hadn’t been pleased at all, listening saying that she was not going to come to the school cafeteria with him everyday anymore. His expression, which had turned sour as soon as she stared talking, made her feel so guilty she had to add that she would invite him to lunch once in a while. For some reason, it seemed to have made the boy feel even worse, for he only grimaced in response and stooped in his chair, looking seriously depressed.

Himeko winced at the memory. It was by no means a good way to treat her childhood friend and savior, she had to admit, but what else could she do? Sou-chan was a friend she cherished... but important to her as the boy was, he couldn’t come close to Chikane-chan’s position in her heart. After all, the blue-haired princess was the love of her life, there was absolutely no reason why Himeko should not pay more attention to her instead. Not that she would ignore Sou-chan from now on, she meant it when she said she would invite him to lunch and hang out with him once in a while, but he had to come to term with the fact that he couldn’t hog her all to himself.

But in any case, Himeko didn’t feel too bad about this. She couldn’t, really, when the thought that she could spend lunch break with Chikane-chan in the Garden of the Roses from now on made her so happy she could barely stop herself from grinning like a fool ever since she returned to her class from lunch break. Oh how her classmates had looked at her oddly for the rest of the day. Not that she paid them any heed, of course....

Now she only needed to wait for Chikane-chan to be released from that scary looking MBA team her father had hired to tutor her privately. Himeko had been there when the princess returned, looking slightly exhausted, but she hadn’t been able to have a word with her before four men and three women, all in business attires and thick glasses, surrounded the girl and practically dragged her to the C.E.O.s study. The Himemiya Ojou-sama had seemed so sad the way she glanced desperately at Himeko, who was standing on the marble flight of stair, before she vanished. Himeko could only grimace and wish from the bottom of her heart that those people would just leave the one she loved alone.

Himeko sighed and wondered how long she would have to wait until the tutoring session was concluded. She wouldn’t mind staying awake until the morning... but sometimes her mind just shut down against her wish if she waited too long. Maybe she should go get a cup of coffee, a huge one....

Someone knocked softly on the door. To Himeko’s surprise, the princess’s low, gentle voice immediately followed. “Are you still awake, Himeko?”

Literally jumping up from her chair, Himeko started for the door and grabbed the doorknob just to remember a second later that she could just have answered to Chikane-chan’s call. Smiling softly to herself, Himeko turned the knob and opened the door. “Come in, Chikane-chan,” she said while her eyes fixed on the blue-haired princess, who was clad in a blue, flowing dress that perhaps was only meant to serve as a night gown. Her shoulders, uncovered by the dress, was hidden beneath a white coat that still left the majority of the skin above her chest bare. Himeko felt blood rush to her face.

“I am surprised you have not gone to sleep, Himeko.” Chikane-chan, hand holding the front of her coat together, walked into the room with a smile that was brighter than the moon outside. She must have just taken a bath, for Himeko noticed that the girls whole self was soaked with the scent of the herbal soap, and her blue glossy hair was glistening with moisture. She smelled really nice. “It was rather late already.” The princess glanced at the grandfather clock, which read ten in the evening.

“Ah, I was... um... busy with the homework,” Himeko lied, her head spinning from the fresh, crisp scent of Chikane-chan, who had sat down next to her on the bed. Up-close, the other girl was more beautiful than ever with her snowy complexion still moist after the bath, the shiny luster of her hair, and the sapphire eyes that was drawing in every bit of Himeko’s existence. And certainly, being able to notice the sensual body curves under the white yukata did not help at all. The Himemiya princess’s small shoulders, her ample chests heaving gently under the fabrics, her slender waistline altogether made up a figure so well proportioned that a girl would be dying to have... a body Himeko herself would be dying to hug....

“I see,” replied the Himemiya Ojou-sama, whose mere presence quickened Himeko’s heart. She reminded Himeko of the unfinished conversation they had five days ago, when Sou-chan decided to pay her a visit and ruined her whole week. Perhaps she could find a way to start it over now.

Himeko opened her mouth to speak, but Chikane-chan was faster.

“Ne, Himeko, I have a day off tomorrow,” the princess said in a cheerful voice.

“You do?” asked Himeko, surprised. “I thought you’d have lessons from your tutors during weekends, too.”

“I was supposed to.” The blue-haired princess smiled softly. “But I told them that I wanted to be free tomorrow, and they could report it to my Father if they wished.” The girl placed a hand atop Himeko. “I missed you. It seemed an eternity had passed since I talked to you last,” she said. “Do you want to hang out with me tomorrow? We can go to some shopping mall to have fun, see some movie, and have dinner in some restaurant afterwards.” Her hand squeezed affectionately around Himeko, and the gentle light in her sapphire eyes made Himeko want to weep.

For the first time ever, Chikane-chan had asked Himeko out on a date – nothing could have made Himeko happier than that – but why did she have to choose Saturday?

The Himemiya princess noticed Himeko’s silence.

“What is wrong?” Chikane-chan asked with a concerned expression that only deepened Himeko’s guilt. “You are not free tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry, Chikane-chan,” she apologized. “I have an... appointment with Sou-chan tomorrow already.” The other girl only looked at her, face entirely expressionless. Himeko could never tell what her princess was thinking every time she did that.

Himeko wanted to sigh. Why did this have to happen to her? Why did Sou-chan have to ask her out? And why oh why did she have to agree? Sure, she felt bad about telling him that she was not spending her lunch break with him every day anymore... but had she had any inkling that she might be able to have a date with Chikane-chan tomorrow, she would have refused him and sympathy be hanged.

“I see,” said the princess.

“I’m sorry, Chikane-chan. Can we make it Sunday?” Himeko’s heart sank the moment Chikane-chan shook her magnificent head.

“I have a meeting in downtown on Sunday,” the blue-haired girl told her. “Father wished to have me introduced to the Board of Executives of Himemiya International. I cannot back down from it.” The Himemiya Ojou-sama grimaced. “It is going to take me all day, or so my Father assured me when he talked to me over the phone this morning.”

 Silence stretched between them while Himeko tried her hardest to find a way out. She hadn’t found one yet when the blue-haired princess decided to speak, “So, a date between you and Oogami-san.” She smiled. “Has your prince on the white horse finally mustered enough courage to ask you out?”

“He’s not my prince,” Himeko protested. ‘I don’t want a prince. I want a princess. I want you, Chikane-chan,’ she thought. “And it’s not a date.” It was compensation, a token of gratitude, and a pang of guilt. That surely couldn’t count as a date, could it?

 “Where are you two going?” The blue-haired girl smiled.

“An amusement park,” Himeko replied... and blinked at a soft, melodious laughter from the princess.

“A perfect location for boyfriend and girlfriend, do you not agree?” Chikane-chan commented, her sapphire eyes twinkling in amusement.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Himeko insisted in exasperation.

 The Himemiya Ojou-sama didn’t seem to have heard.

“What time are you going to meet with him?”

“Four in the afternoon, but Chikane-chan, I....”

The Himemiya Ojou-sama rode over her as if she had not spoken. “Then I can ask my chauffer to take you to the amusement park.” The blue-haired girl smiled warmly at Himeko. “He shall be there, also, to bring you home.”

“Listen to me, Chikane-chan, I....” Before Himeko could finish, the blue-haired princess had grabbed her hand and pulled her gently to her feet.

“Come with me,” said the love of her life. “You shall need suitable garments for your date. Let us find you some.” And just so, Chikane-chan took her to a huge room where every door, there ought to be at least a dozen of them, opened a wardrobe, the content of any one of them was different from the others. From casual garments to business attires, from summer gears to winter wear, from night gowns to formal dresses suited for high-class parties, this room had them all. Himeko all but wondered if the Himemiya simply bought every type of clothes there was for the princess whether she would wear them or not.

“Choose any of them and it is yours, Himeko,” the Himemiya Ojou-sama declared with a little smile.

“I can’t do that!” Himeko protested. “They are so expensive!” Himeko wasn’t so blind that she couldn’t realize that the clothes in this room belonged to famous brands and renowned designers. Any of them would cost more than Himeko could possibly earn in a year. And honest to the heavens above, even if she had that much money, there would be no way in hell she would spend it on a dress!

“So?” Chikane-chan asked, her smile unfazed. “Is there any rule that says friends cannot give friends expensive gifts?”

“No, but....”

“If so, there is no problem, is there?”

Himeko couldn’t find any word to say to that, so she kept quiet and frowned at the floor. When she looked up again, she found the blue-haired princess smiling at her as sweetly as ever. Sighing, she shook her head and muttered, “No.” The other girls smile broadened and lit up her already dazzling face.

“Come here and have a look then, Himeko,” Chikane-chan invited.

An hour later, once the Himemiya Ojou-sama had made Himeko look at every piece of clothing there was in all these wardrobes, Himeko ended up with an emerald-colored satin dress. It was one of the most expensive ones, and she had avoided it as soon as she noticed the six figures number on its price tag, but it appeared that Chikane-chan had had her eyes on the thing all along. The girl never hesitated before she walked back to the wardrobe on the other side of the room and took it out without having to look. Himeko would be more than willing to wager that the girl had not spared one glance at the price tag before she put it in Himeko’s hand, either.

“Try it on, Himeko,” the princess urged as her hand gestured toward a door that led to the changing room. Heaving another sigh, Himeko did as her beloved friend and secret crush wished. When she came out for Chikane-chan to have a look, she found herself smiling. The difference in height, build, and the three sizes made the dress appear decidedly awkward for her. All the reasons she needed to return it to the blue-haired girl and get a... less costly piece of cloth.

She had no such chances.

Before Himeko could open her mouth and speak, Chikane-chan had called in a dozen of maids, whom she instructed to get Himeko’s measurements and fix the dress so that it would fit her. They did all of that in only one hour, which shocked Himeko so greatly she could only gape like a country lout at the dress in her hands in the end while the princess chuckled to herself in a very satisfied manner. That alone put an end to her fine mood.

On the way back to Himeko’s room, both of them were quiet. She didn’t know what the Himemiya Ojou-sama was thinking, but on her part, Himeko’s heart was as heavy as a boulder. When the light of her world bid her goodnight and gave her a light kiss on her forehead, Himeko never felt the joy she thought she would. Somehow, the exquisite dress in her hand – which admittedly not many girl in this country had the chance to glimpse at, let alone hold – looked barely different from any of her Ototachibana uniforms.

Himeko tossed the dress casually onto the bed and went to her desk, where she sat down on her chair and started brooding.

 

...

 

Chikane-chan probably would never imagine how she had caused Himeko such heart-wringing grief by demonstrating her enthusiasm in helping Himeko choose a dress for her appointment with Sou-chan tomorrow. Why did the blue-haired princess have to look so happy knowing that Himeko had just been asked out by a boy?

Ever since learning that the two of them were the reincarnations of the ancient Priestesses of Kannazuki, Chikane-chan had been giving her the feelings that she thought of Himeko more than just a friend who happened to dwell under the same roof. With her kind words, with her gentle gestures, with her affectionate touches, the other girl had given Himeko the hope that perhaps one day they could become lovers. But that was the case, why did the Himemiya Ojou-sama show no sign of sadness, or disappointment at all?

Himeko chewed on her underlip in frustration. Was it... possible that Chikane-chan’s feelings toward Himeko had been an illusion since the beginning? Was it possible that Himeko was but a friend to the Himemiya princess? Had it been her own wishful thinking all along?

Himeko dearly hoped not.

 

***

 

Yukihito watched intently as the golden sphere throbbed in the dark the way a real human heart would. Oogami Kazuki thought that only he knew how to get down here, the Enshrinement Chamber, that only he was privy to the greatest secret of Shingetsu Grand Shrine. The High Priest was by no means as bright as he thought. Yukihito knew of this place long ago, even before he came to work in the Shrine as the High Priest’s research assistant. Yukihito smiled. Everything was going just as he expected.

Unlike the others’, Yukihito’s eyes could see what lay beyond the warding. Within the protection of the orb of golden light trapped in the middle of that ice pillar, two katana slept. One was sheathed in red, the other in blue. They were named the Eyes of Heaven, and rightfully so. They were after all, the greatest weapons ever made since the dawn of time in the Three Worlds. Even the Eight Elemental Blades, made by that wretched woman whom Yukihito hated with a passion, would be no match for the Twin Swords of the Sacred Light.

Yet, it seemed the swords’ sleep were not as peaceful as usual. From the sheathed blades emerged waves of light invisible to the naked eyes. Yukihito knew what it meant. The Priestesses of the Sun and Moon, the true owners of the swords, were experiencing overflowing emotions. Joy? Or was it pain? From the intensity of the light, the amount of heat, he guessed pain. It did not matter much, though.

Yukihito turned toward the stone flight of stairs leading back to the surface. It did not matter much in the grand scheme of things but... why did it upset him so?

 

***

 

“Greetings, Royal Highness.” Sou-chan gave Himeko a bow upon seeing her walking toward him. The boy was standing at the entrance to Mahoroba City Amusement Park, in casual shirt and pants that were becoming on him. Undoubtedly, his fan girls in Ototachibana would squeal and faint as soon as they saw him in this kind of getups. And once they woke up, they would flay Himeko for having an... appointment – she refused to think of it as a date – without asking for their permission first. Sometimes she wondered why they were so crazy about him in the first place. The same reason why you are crazy about your Chikane-chan, Kurusugawa Himeko, a quiet voice reminded her in the back of her head. She swallowed a rueful chuckle.

“Hi, Sou-chan,” Himeko greeted her childhood friend warmly. For some reason, he peered at her in puzzlement.

“Did something happen, Himeko?” the boy asked. “You don’t look very well.”

Himeko gave a start. “Really?”

“Well, I don’t mean your health,” said Sou-chan. “It’s just that you seemed rather... depressed somehow. What’s wrong?” he asked in a concerned voice. And Himeko grimaced. She couldn’t tell him the reason. Not when Chikane-chan, the love of her life was involved.

 Himeko hadn’t been able to get much sleep since what happened between her and the blue-haired princess last night. When she woke up in the morning, she believed she only got one hour or two of rest, she felt terrible. And when the Himemiya Ojou-sama saw Himeko to the limousine that would take her to this park, Himeko only felt worse. If only Chikane-chan had shown her a sign of jealousy. If only Chikane-chan had told her that she didn’t want Himeko to go out with a boy. Had she done any of that, Himeko would have jumped into her princess’s arms, confessed, and kissed her for all she was worth.

The Himemiya Ojou-sama only smiled tenderly at Himeko and told her to take care of herself before she waved after the limousine speeding into the distance, carrying Himeko to a place she didn’t want to be. It had been very difficult for Himeko to hold back her tears in the back seat of the car. She was only thankful that she could. It would not do to cry in the presence of the chauffer. It would not be nice to ruin her face before she met her childhood friend. Sou-chan deserved more than that.

“It’s nothing, Sou-chan,” Himeko denied hastily. “I just don’t get enough sleep last night because of the homework, that’s all.”

“Really?” Himeko got the feeling that her childhood friend didn’t believe her. Thankfully, he gave her a little smile and inquired no further. She heaved a sigh of relief. She made a terrible liar, so if Sou-chan had pried on, she would have blabbed something silly, or worse, spilled the whole truth. Himeko didn’t want to lose the childhood friend she cherished.

“Shall we go then, Highness?” the boy extended his right arm to Himeko. Placing a hand on the crook of his arm, Himeko went into the park with her knight in shining armor.

Yet, determined as she was to repay Sou-chan’s kindness, fixated as she was to make him happy, the matter with the blue-haired princess refused to leave her mind. No matter where they went, the rollercoaster, the haunted house, or the arcade inside the park, the invisible hand of pain never stopped clenching her heart. She did her best to hide her unease, she tried to smile as often as she could, but she believed her childhood friend had noticed her troubled symptoms. The boy once in a while would look at her in worry and asked her if there was something he could do to lift her mood. She felt so guilty toward him.

“Are you tired, Himeko?” Sou-chan asked as they departed from the arcade. “It was a bit noisy and crowded in there, wasn’t it?”

“Kinda.” She smiled.

“Do you want to sit down and take a breather?” Sou-chan invited. “There’s a coffee shop nearby. I’ll treat you to a cup.”

“Thanks, Sou-chan,” Himeko replied with another smile. Her jaws felt stiff from having forced herself to smile for the last two hours.

They were on their way toward the coffee shop when Himeko stopped abruptly and found her eyes glued at a manga a young woman, sitting on a bench not faraway from them, was holding in her hand.

“Someone you know?” her knight asked.

“No.” Himeko shook her head. “I’m just surprised to see someone reading that book.”

Sou-chan turned his head and looked at the cover of the manga. The woman, appearing to be in her early twenties, didn’t seem to notice them the way she focused his attention upon the illustrated pages. Himeko all but wondered why she chose to read manga in an amusement park of all places. Her question was answered immediately, though, when a girl, who in her high school uniform looked roughly the same age as Himeko, emerged from a restroom nearby and ran toward the older. Noticing the former’s arrival, the latter put the book into her bag and walked away with the girl, hand in hand. Sou-chan blinked at the retreating couple, and Himeko felt as if she was about to blush.

“The second the world ends, book six, final.” Sou-chan gave a cough. “What about it?”

“Well, I used to have the whole series,” Himeko answered. She used to, until Sou-chan destroyed her room in Ototachibana Dorm, obviously. She had to buy them back soon.

“What is it about?”

“Eh... it’s girls’ stuff, you probably won’t be interested,” Himeko said.

“Try me.” Sou-chan smiled. “I’d like to know how your taste has changed over the years, too.”

“Well, how about I do that at the coffee shop?” Himeko suggested.

“Sure.”

It never occurred to Himeko until she finished telling the story of “The second the world ends” to Sou-chan that the boy might have some issue with it.

 

***

 

Treading upon the spacious hallway that led to the garden of the Temple of the Dragons, Korona stifled a huge yawn. Despite having snored in bed during the last twelve hours, she still felt so sleepy she had half a mind to go back to her room and doze off. Well, she was tired. After all, she had spent the last two days or so working non-stop on the recording of her newest pop single, which should be released soon. All the songs she performed for the audio tracks and all the dances for the video clips included in the accompanying DVD had wrung out every ounce of strength Korona had. And for an Orochi, that said a lot.

Suppressing another yawn, Korona opened the door at the end of the hallway, and found herself speechless.

In the garden, lush and verdant with green grass smooth as silk upon which towered a multitude of trees and spraying fountains, Korona saw one person she never expected. Under the light of various magically lit lampposts, at a round table upon which sat a billowing set of teakettle and cups, on a high-backed, cushioned chair lounged the Fifth Head of the mighty Orochi, Oota Reiko herself. The short-haired young woman, boyishly pretty and bespectacled, was focusing her attention on the pages of a book so thick Korona would kill herself before she touched it. Still, it was the woman’s mere presence that surprised Korona, not the book in her hand.

For as long as Korona knew the famous shoujo mangaka, Oota Reiko never left her room unless summoned to the Audience Chamber by the Lord. What brought her out here today, Korona wondered.

“You chose a peculiar time to have tea, mangaka super-sensei. Six in the evening?” Korona sat down opposite the other woman. Not asking for any permission, she poured herself a cup of tea and took a sip. Wincing at the bitter taste, she put the cup down immediately and swore that she would never drink it again.

“It keeps me awake in the night, sixty-ninth.” Reiko looked up from her book. She was good-looking alright, but she looked too much like a man – Korona had actually mistaken the mangaka for one the first time they met! – for Korona’s comfort. She but wondered how the woman would look should she don the clothes that would emphasize the curves of her body, which were almost non-existent, and let her hair grow past her shoulders. Must be some pretty sight to look at, Korona bet.

Something in the Fifth Head’s words struck her.

“It’s sixty-eighth, you ignoramus!” Korona snapped.

“Since when did your single go up a rank in the top one-hundred?” Oota Reiko lowered her eyes to the pages, voice monotonous like that of a robot they usually showed in the Sci-Fi movies.

“... Three days ago,” Korona muttered.

“I see. Congratulations, then,” said the woman. “I would offer you champagne, but I do not care for alcohols. I would offer you tea, but you have already invited yourself to a cup and obviously disliked it.” All of that was delivered in such an unchanging tone and emotionless manner that Korona was under the impression that she was being mocked. She had no evidence, though, so she could only ground her teeth and growled back a “Thank you”, which she obviously didn’t mean. If it displeased the Fifth Head, she hid it well.

“Why are you out here today?” Korona demanded.

“Because I thought all of you were gone.” The woman turned a page of her book.

Korona blinked. “Huh?”

“From the window of my room, I saw the First, Second, and Third Head leaving one by one not too long ago.” Off to wreak havoc on some part of the world, no doubt. “I knew that you and Sixth Head worked late shifts, so I assumed no one else was left in the Temple.” Usually, any Orochi Head could sense the presence of another within a certain range, depending on his or her respective power level, but not here, the headquarters of the Followers of the Lord. Here, in the heart of evil, the Dark God’s presence enveloped all else. That should be why Oota Reiko never detected Korona sleeping inside her room.

“Do you mean to tell me that you only come out once all of us have left?” Korona asked in utmost incredulity.

“Precisely.”

“I don’t know you hate us so.”

“Correction.” The Fifth Head looked up and fixed her bespectacled eyes upon Korona. The other woman’s gaze was as chilly as the night’s winds. “I do not hate you. I merely distrust you. That, and I prefer to be alone whenever I can.”

“We are your comrades... and all we earn from you is distrust?” Korona said flatly.

“As would any other human,” came the dull reply.

“Orochi Heads aren’t humans.”

“You look like one.”

“I’m a thousand times stronger!”

“If I run my sword through your heart, will you die?”

“Yes....”

“Then you are still a human, and the only trustworthy humans are corpses.” The mangaka barked a mirthless laughter. It made Korona’s hackles rise. “The dead do not speak. They stay in the Underworld. They cannot harm me.”

“You’re a human too,” Korona pointed out heatedly. She didn’t care to be made fun of. “If you hate humans so, why don’t you kill yourself?”

“I will,” Oota Reiko said, “once I receive what the Lord promised me.”

“What’s that?”

“Revenge on this wretched world. What else?” If the woman’s gaze was chilly before, it was now colder than ice. Korona shivered.

“You don’t look like someone who wants this world gone,” Korona observed as she tried to keep her hands still. In the Lord’s name... they itched to run up and down her arms to provide her the heat against the Fifth Head’s icy aura.

“Why do you say so?”

“You’re rich, you’re famous, and people love your works. Anyone would tell you that you lead a perfect life.”

“What I have is an empty life,” the Fifth Head declared softly. “No more, no less.”

“Dubious.”

“Why do you think I said I would kill myself once my revenge was completed?”

“What did the world do to you anyway?”

“It took away the only one I loved.” Korona’s teeth started to clatter. She didn’t see the Ice Blade that Reiko possessed anywhere in the vicinity, then how the heck could the woman tap into its powers and make the temperature drop so low? And was it frost that was covering the blades of the grass? “A life without her is a life not worth living.”

Korona blinked again. “Her? You swing that way?”

“Does it surprise you?”

“It does,” Korona agreed. “I never knew you were capable of loving any person, another woman at that.”

“I see.” The mangaka returned her gaze to the book. Korona was infinitely relieved. Her blood would probably freeze should the woman keep looking at her.

Silence stretched in the garden, under the light of the Dark Sun and the lampposts.

“You’re not going to stop there, are you?” Korona demanded, annoyed. “Tell me the rest of the story.”

“You’re a curious girl, Fourth Head,” Oota Reiko said. “Do you know what they say about curiosity and the cat?”

“I’m not a cat,” declared Korona.

“Perhaps not, but you are just as fragile, vulnerable, and easy to kill.”

Korona gritted her teeth together. It was common knowledge within the circle of the Orochi that Korona was one of the weaker Heads – heck, the only one she topped was that cat-fanatic Nekoko – and that Reiko’s power was but a step below that of the First Head himself. Still, what irked her was that the other woman was stating it as a fact and without any hint of mockery. Korona was not pleased... at all.

“Are you going to tell me or not?” she almost snarled.

Korona thought the other woman was going to say “No” the way she kept studying her with that icy, unreadable face. However, when Oota Reiko closed her book and put it atop the table, Korona knew the answer was a “Yes”. She came very close to laughing out loud in triumph.

The mangaka reclined against her chair, folded her hands on her lap, and started talking. “Everything happened at my private all girls’ high school, where my life was changed forever....”

 

***

 

 Oota Reiko had always been a loner. She had no friends. Her parents, wealthy and absorbed in attempting to grow even wealthier, were as close to her as any stranger on the streets. She grew up under the care of the professional babysitter her parents hired, who vanished as soon as Reiko learned how to survive by herself in her vast, empty, and silent manor. It was no surprise to her parents that their daughter ended up being as tight-mouthed as a mussel and would rarely speak. That did not bother them one bit, though, for they never seemed willing to speak to her anyway. In fact, Reiko had heard other people gossiping that she was but a mistake on her parents’ part, and that they would have arranged for an abortion had the Christian God they worshipped allowed. To them, Reiko was but a burden and an obligated duty, no more, no less.

Reiko never told them, but she guessed they knew it all along, that she cared about them almost as much.

Still, negligent as they were, her parents tended their duty well enough. They could have left Reiko to starve and had the burden lifted from their shoulder. They could have shipped her off to some remote part of the country and pretended she never existed. They did not do that. Instead, they provided her with all she needed to lead a life without any worries. She considered them fools, for there couldn’t have been anything more dangerous than giving a child an unlimited amount of money and told her to do with it as she wished. Indeed, they were fools, but they were lucky in that Reiko was heavens and earth apart from other kids. She had never been tempted to use it more than she had to, so the credit card was safe and sound for the most parts. There were times Reiko but wondered if it was because there was nothing that caught her eyes. After all, she used to think that this world’s existence itself was meaningless.

She knew that was wrong in her senior year in a private all girls’ high school, where one person shook the very foundation of her monotonous world.

The first two years in high school were uneventful enough. Just like what she did in her entire life, Reiko took necessary steps to remove herself from what she called “the lukewarm community”, also which she hated to the guts. No classmates were brave enough to get within ten feet of her, and the ones who sat in her neighborhood in class were pretty much out of luck. She once heard a girl whisper to another once that Reiko’s icy stare scared her witless. Reiko had never been so pleased.

Still, something unexpected happened in Reiko’s third year, when a girl transferred from another school... into Reiko’s own class. Her name was Kawakami Natsune.

Reiko’s first impression of Natsune was a clumsy airhead. Sure, the girl was pretty enough to make many other girls in the class green with envy, but somehow, she managed to trip over every object placed in her way, thus making a fool out of herself every time she landed on her stomach. Sure, the girl looked smart with her high forehead and her glasses, but her grades proved otherwise. Natsune was the only one in the class who managed to score five zeros on five tests on five different subjects. Reiko often asked herself how God could have created a person with so little brain. She was tempted to ask Natsune how the girl could have gotten herself into high school with her lack of intellectual abilities, too, but she thought that it would be too cruel, and rude, to do that.

Oddly enough, Reiko found herself harboring a strong, indescribable feeling toward the clumsy girl. She had automatically assumed that it was dislike.

Of course, for someone who was ever so fond of silence and solitude like Reiko, Kawakami Natsune was but a thorn in her eyes. The girl seemed to be Reiko’s antithesis the way she was energetic, friendly, and absolutely incapable of hate. There was another girl who insulted Natsune to her face once – Reiko believed envy was the cause – but the airhead only smiled and said she was sorry to hear that. Had it been Reiko, anyone who insulted her would have regretted it for the rest of their natural life.

Still, what bugged Reiko about Kawakami Natsune the most was the fact that she was stalked by the latter. No matter where Reiko went, in school or on the way home, the airhead was always there, hiding behind some tree or corner, probably thinking that she had not been detected. It irked Reiko no end, so one day, she decided to face her stalker.

It was during a lunch break when Reiko grabbed Kawakami Natsune by the wrist and dragged her to a deserted spot in the school’s backyard.

 

...

 

“Why are you following me?” Reiko asked as she fixed her coldest stare on her stalker. When she did that, people always claimed to have suddenly recalled that they had business to attend to elsewhere and tried to leave. Even the teachers, taller, stronger, older, were no exception to that rule.

“I... I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Natsune declared hastily. The girls pretty face was red, her breathing rapid, and her hands were fidgeting with one another in what Reiko was sure to be guilt.

“Do not lie to me. I saw you.”

“You must have been mistaken! It has to be someone else....”

“Who wore the same school uniform, had the same hairstyle, and looked the same way?”

The airhead nodded and tried to act innocent. She failed.

“I am sick of having a tail already,” Reiko said. “I give you two choices, Kamikawa. First, you tell me why you shadowed me. Second, you will do so in front of the headmistress. She probably will turn you over to the police, though.”

Natsune’s complexion went a little gray. “Please, don’t bring me there,” she pleaded.

“I shall count to three. After that, may God help you. One.”

“You don’t understand, Oota-san, I... I....”

“Two.”

“Couldn’t you just let me go?” Kawakami Natsune appeared ready to fall onto her knees. “I beg you!”

“Three.” Reiko turned to leave... and stopped the moment she felt the other girls hand on her shoulder and heard a frantic “Okay! Ill tell you!” issued from her mouth. When Reiko faced the airhead again, the latter was on the verge of breakdown. She seemed so frightened. She seemed so unlike her usually cheerful self. Reiko would have chuckled, had she remembered how. It had been indeed a very long time since she did it last.

“Well?” Reiko demanded coldly. She frowned, however, upon seeing the girl blush again, this time much more furiously than the last. Reiko thought Natsune’s mouth was moving, but if that was the case, no sound came out of it.

“Out with it!”

“I followed you because... I... I....” Natsune’s voice suddenly dropped so low Reiko could not hear one single word.

Irritated, she pretended to spin on her heels. The clumsy girl was a sight to behold the way utter horror replaced the look of embarrassment on her face.

“Because I like you!” the airhead shouted in a strangled voice.

Reiko stopped dead on her track. Kawakami Natsune had taken up a serious study of the ground, her whole self trembling as if standing naked in the heart of winter. They were at least an arms length away from each other... but somehow Reiko thought she could feel the warmth emanating from the girls reddened cheeks.

“You... like me?” Reiko asked stupidly, her mind unraveling. She had thought that Kamikawa Natsune was scheming something... but she never expected this. “But I... am a girl like you are.” The “like” the girl spoke of had to be in a romantic sense. Else she would never have stalked Reiko so... persistently during the last two weeks.

When Kamikawa Natsune looked up, unshed tears were shining in her eyes. The girl scrubbed her hands at them then, and gave up when they rolled incessantly down her cheeks. She looked a thorough mix of embarrassment, horror... and shame.

“Do you mean to say that I can’t like you because were girls?” Natsune sobbed. “Does that mean you won’t return my feelings?” Reiko found herself at a loss for words. Her social skills were at best insufficient. She did not even know how to deal with her own parents, let alone comforting a girl in tears, one who had just confessed to Reiko at that. She was so glad that no one else was around to see this.

“I... am... sorry,” Reiko managed finally. “I... am not interested in having any relationship.” It would have been wise to add “right now”, too, she supposed, but that would be a lie. Oota Reiko was many things, but she was not a liar. Still, she had better not tell Kamikawa Natsune that dislike was all she felt toward her. That might cause some... unwanted reaction.

Kamikawa Natsune buried her face in her hands and wept harder than ever. Not knowing what to do, Reiko only stood there stiffly and watched the girl cry while feeling extremely uncomfortable. After a few minutes, she thought she should try to calm the airhead down lest someone chanced upon them. Still, she found no words to utter so that the situation could be improved. She scratched her head in frustration.

Luckily, Natsune’s crying eventually ceased on its own. Oh how Reiko had been relieved.

“Here you go.” She handed her handkerchief awkwardly to Kamikawa Natsune. The girl shook her head and used her sleeves to dry up her tears.

“I am sorry,” Reiko mumbled.

“Not your fault,” replied Natsune in a ragged voice. “I should have known you would never accept me. I should never have followed you. I should never have begged my parents to let me transfer to your school.”

“... Eh?” Reiko blinked in shock. “What do you mean by that?” Natsune looked up at her with her large emerald eyes. How shiny they were. How deep they were. How beautiful they were. Reiko wondered why she never noticed.

 “That’s... because you rarely went outside, and in the beginning, I was too afraid to do anything except watching you leave in the morning and return in the afternoon from my window. You probably didn’t notice, but my houses next to yours. We’re neighbors,” murmured Kamikawa Natsune. “Anyways, I did that for two years until... until....” She chewed on her underlip.

“Until?” Reiko prompted. Why was her face heating up? Why was her heart beating faster and faster? And why was she still talking to a girl she barely knew when she never uttered more than two words a day to her own parents?

“Until I... I... wanted to be close to you so much I begged my parents to transfer me into this school. I didn’t mean to upset you when I followed you. I... just wanted to look at you, that’s all!” Perhaps what she said reminded her of the current situation, Natsune’s eyes welled up with tears once more. Reiko saw that, but thoughts were whirling in her mind so violently her attention on the girl just slipped away. So... Kamikawa Natsune was her neighbor, who had had a crush on Reiko for the last three years.... She did not really know how she should react to that.

“Why me?” Reiko muttered. “There are better people out there. You have plenty in our class to choose from.”

“It has to be you,” insisted the airhead, her voice growing shakier with every word.

“I said it did not have to....”

“It has to be you!” With that, Kamikawa Natsune burst into tears again and ran off, leaving a stunned and confused Reiko standing there until the bell rang and called her back to class. The girl was not there. Neither was she seen anywhere during the following week.

 

...

 

On the seventh day since Natsune’s complete disappearance, Oota Reiko realized that her world had been turned upside down. She should have on the second, really, when she walked into the classroom late and found every seat had been filled except hers and Natsune’s, or when she kept being so on edge during the lectures her mind rejected everything the teachers explained, or when she found that her eyes never stopped glancing toward the only empty desk. She had assumed it was guilt. She even prayed to the Christian God for the first time since she was born, hoping it would go away soon and restore her life to what it once was.

God did not answer her plea.

Without Kamikawa Natsune in class, Reiko’s days were as tormenting as her evenings, when she stood by her window, peering at the house to hers’ left, where no light shone. Her dreams grew restless, as she often woke up sweating profusely in the middle of the night. She never told anyone that she only dreamed of one face over and over. Natsune’s.

Also, the strange feeling toward Natsune, which Reiko assumed to be dislike, became most violent during the airhead’s absence. It clenched her heart, it crushed her soul, and it drove her almost insane. Yet, it made her realize that it was not what she thought it was. If it were truly dislike, she would have felt relieved and peaceful without Kamikawa Natsune tailing her like her own shadow.

No, it was not dislike. It was love.

Once she knew her own heart, Reiko had run to Natsune’s house to look for her and to tell her how much she loved her. To Reiko’s horror, none answered the door, and she could not seem to find the nametag. The very next day, when she asked around, she learned that the Kamikawa family had gone bankrupt, so they had to sell their own house to pay off some of the debts. Where they could have gone? No one knew. Words failed to describe the pain that seared Reiko’s heart.

Of course, she refused to give up. Abandoning school and pretty much everything else, she searched for the one she loved. Weeks went by without any result. Undaunted, Reiko kept on plowing through streets full of people and left no leaf unturned. Before she could find Natsune, fatigue caught up with her. She had thought she could ignore her limits. She believed that she could go on. She only noticed that she had one foot in the grave when she tried to cross the street when the light was still red, when she found herself frozen in the headlight of a car that was going toward her too fast to stop in time. Reiko stared as death approached.

Someone pushed her out of harm’s way. She ended up on her back upon the sidewalk with but a few scratches on her body, while her savior lay bloody and motionless on the street and the car crashed into some storefront. For the first time in her life, Reiko cried out in heart-wringing grief. It was Natsune.

As if God did have eyes, he sent an ambulance swiftly to the scene of accident and took her to a nearby hospital. There, in front of the Emergency Room Reiko waited, crying her heart out and fervently praying to all that was Holy that Natsune be saved. Her wish was granted. When the doctors emerged more than twelve hours later, they told Reiko that Natsune was no longer in critical condition. All that the girl needed was rest. Relief overcame Reiko and knocked her unconscious.

A few days later, when visitors were finally allowed, Reiko found Natsune inside the VIP recuperation room, which she paid for using her parents’ credit card. The girl’s right arm was bandaged and put inside a sling, as was her right leg. She broke a few other bones in her body, too, but the doctors assured Reiko that with time and physical rehabilitation, they would heal and allow Natsune to walk around like any other person. Apparently, the driver of the car, which hit Natsune, had tried his best to apply the brake and turn the car aside so it only brushed at Natsune instead of crashing into her head on. Thanks to that, the girl lived.

 

...

 

“Oota-san, come on in,” Natsune greeted Reiko, who was standing at the door, from her bed.

“This is... for you.” Awkwardly, Reiko gave the girl the bouquet she bought.

“Thanks,” the airhead smiled and put the flowers on the nearby tabletop.

“That is my line,” Reiko mumbled. “You saved my life, Kamikawa. How can I ever repay you?”

“I would say go out with me,” said the girl with a small smile on her lips, “but that would put you in a tight spot, so I won’t. Besides, I didn’t save you because I wanted rewards....”

Reiko sat down on the bed and took the girls uninjured hand into hers. “Will you be my girlfriend?” Natsune blinked at her in shock.

“I... I wasn’t serious, Oota-san,” she said hastily. “I know you don’t like girls the way I do.....”

“Not all of them,” Reiko agreed, “but I love you, Kamikawa.” She squeezed the hand of the one she loved, who stared at Reiko with an utterly blank expression on her face. She did not seem able to comprehend what she just heard.

“Why did you not tell me when you moved away?” Reiko asked. “Have you any idea how hard I have been searching for you, Kamikawa?”

“But... but you... you weren’t particularly happy when I confessed,” replied Natsune in a puzzled tone. “So I thought... I thought I didn’t have a chance.”

“I did not know what I was thinking at that point,” Reiko said. “I was confused. I only realized how much you meant to me when you were already gone. Not having you by my side hurts me. Not seeing you every day hurts me. I have missed you so, Kamikawa.”

Silence stretched between them until tears rolled down the other girl’s cheek.

“Me too, Oota-san,” Natsune sobbed. “I missed you too.”

Her eyes misting, Reiko gently and gingerly took the one she loved into her arms. It was the day they exchanged their first kiss.

 

...

 

From that point on, Reiko spent every day in the hospital with Natsune. She was already there early in the morning and she stayed until the nurse came in the evening and told her that she had to leave. They talked, they laughed, they kissed, and they promised to stay by each other’s side until the end of the world. A few months later, Natsune’s recovery was complete, so she was allowed to leave the hospital. Of course, since Reiko had not been going to class, and Natsune had missed her final exams, they both had to repeat their senior year in their respective schools. When they graduated, they both found jobs, so they moved out of their parents’ houses and rent an apartment for themselves. Life was not especially gentle with them, and they had to make end meets, but their life together was happy enough to make them forget all about the hardships they had to face.

It was then that God decided he was not going to leave them alone.

After two or three years of bliss and no contact from her parents, they called and asked to see her. Reiko had wanted to ignore them but Natsune did not like that. “I want you to get along with your parents,” the girl murmured one night when they were lying snugly in each other’s arms, in bed. Natsune’s wish had always been a command to Reiko, so she agreed without hesitation. She should not have.

At the meeting with her parents a few days later, Reiko learned that the Oota Family was teetering on the edge of destruction. Economic fluctuations had stripped her father and mother of most of their assets. Unless they received financial aids from some other source, they were going to lead a very impoverished life in the near future. Reiko, bored with their woeful tale, had asked politely whether there was something she could do to help. The people she called mom and dad had seized her offer like any drowning person would a lifeboat. They told her that if she would just consent to being wed to a wealthy man who was twice her age, their problem would be solved.

Disgusted, Reiko left immediately.

Her parents refused to give up.

With what’s left of their financial power, they hired detectives and finally found out who it was that Reiko was living with. Then they decided to strike. The despicable man and woman disclosed to Reiko’s neighbors that she and Natsune were lovers. Being God-fearing folks to the bone, they frowned upon Reiko and Natsune the way they would filth. Every day, whenever they left for work in the morning, they could see those people whispering to each other with hatred shining in their eyes. The very same people who had invited Reiko and Natsune to their son or daughter’s birthday party now shunned them and treated them with utmost contempt.

Reiko could have cared less about her neighbors. She was not close to them in the first place. Yet... Natsune was the one who was hurt, so Reiko, too, suffered. They tried to move to another place but the result proved to be the same wherever they went. It made Reiko wondered how her parents could hate her so much.

It got worse.

Despite not having much left in their bank account, Reiko’s father and mother used their money recklessly and desperately to take Reiko and Natsune’s jobs away. Their reputation and connection in the business world only served to further their goals and made their daughter’s life worse than miserable.

Then a tragedy finished Reiko’s parents’ job.

Natsune had always been a frail girl who could easily fell ill. After the accident that almost took away her life, Reiko’s beloved’s health became even more fragile. Thanks to the doing of the people Reiko once called mom and dad, she was subjected to such an unthinkable amount of stress that her body broke down... completely. Then she fell sick, so sick that the doctors at all the hospitals to which Reiko took Natsune told her that there was nothing they could do.

“Two weeks later, Natsune passed away,” Reiko told her companion the Orochi Fourth Head. The pop idol gasped in what Reiko believed to be pain and sympathy. The girl’s eyes were wet, too. “There only thing I could do was cry during her last moments. The second she drew her last breath was, to me, the second the world ended.”

“Isn’t that the name of your manga?” the Fourth Head asked. “I saw it on the shelves in some bookstore once.”

“Indeed it is.” Reiko nodded. “The tale portrayed in that manga was my own. I called myself Akiha in it, though.” She smiled. “It was a name to match Natsune’s.”

“I see,” murmured Korona. “So that’s the reason why you wanted revenge on this world.”

Reiko nodded again.

“I think we could be friends, Reiko,” said the other girl, who had suddenly taken up the teacup she abandoned since the start of their conversation. She took a sip, winced at it again, but she drank it all.

Has she ever called my name before? Reiko wondered.

 

***

 

“So, what do you think, Sou-chan?” Himeko asked once she finished.

Oogami Souma didn’t quite know how to answer the one he loved. He had asked about the manga in the hope of learning Himeko’s current taste, but he had never imagined that “The second the world ends” was about the love story between two girls. Of course, he had been extremely uncomfortable the moment he realized that it was exactly about the issue he would try his hardest to avoid. He had thought about stopping Himeko from talking about it, too, but one look at that delightful place snapped his mouth shut. Undoubtedly the girl wouldn’t be happy should Souma make it known that her favorite story was touching a nerve.

“I know you’d be bored.” Himeko smiled knowingly as she lifted her coffee cup from their table. “It’s a manga for girls, I told you so.”

“Well....” Souma coughed quietly, suddenly feeling a gust of distaste toward whoever the author of this manga was.

“But what do you think, though, Sou-chan?” After she had taken a sip, Himeko put her cup back down on the table. There, she turned it around and around between her palms while her amethyst eyes peered intently at the surface of dark liquid inside. Her cheeks started to redden. “Is falling in love with another girl such a vile thing in other people’s eyes?”

Souma hid his grimace in his coffee cup. Would you just talk about something else, Himeko? Anything else is fine! he thought. When he looked up again, he found the princess’s amethyst eyes on him, waiting anxiously for an answer. He sighed.

“I don’t know, Himeko,” Souma said. “I haven’t given it much thought.” That was a lie, of course, but Souma couldn’t think of anything else that could help him get out of this situation.

To his dismay, Himeko had no intention of leaving the subject. The girl was simply... inexorable.

“Let’s just say that if I fell in love with another girl,” Himeko said, face the color of sunset. “I mean, just hypothetically. What kind of advice would you give me then?” Souma’s hand clenched around his porcelain coffee cup while he tried to keep his face smooth. Hypothetically? Souma was born an Orochi, not an idiot.

“I would tell you that you’re walking down a path that leads to your undoing,” Souma said quietly. “I would tell you that what happened to the couple in the book could happen to you. And I would ask you if you are afraid of such an outcome.” He paused and looked at the one he loved. “How would you answer that?”

The girl stared at him unblinkingly for a while before she uttered a quiet “I would say no.”

“Why?” Souma asked. “Why would you, hypothetically, even want to pursue that kind of love when you know that disaster’s waiting at the end of the line? The fate of the couple in that book isn’t exactly enviable.”

“Not what happened to them,” the golden-haired girl agreed, “but I do envy their relationship. They were able to tell each other their feelings. Their love was requited. Not every girl in the world is that lucky, don’t you think?” The girl’s face turned sad all of a sudden. “For all I know, I could fall for some girl and would never be able to get my feelings across. For all I know, I may have to spend the rest of my life without knowing how it would feel to be loved.” Stopping abruptly, the girl turned her head sideways. “I’m sorry, dust got into my eyes.” Himeko took out a handkerchief and dabbed it the tears that were rolling down her cheeks.

Souma sighed. So that was why she had been feeling depressed ever since she came to the amusement park. Himemiya must have done something that made the golden-haired girl think that she stood no chance in winning the rich girl’s love. That must have been a misunderstanding, for as far as Souma knew, Himemiya thought of Himeko in the same way the latter did the former....

“Well, Himeko....” Souma was about to say something when an alarm rang loudly in his head, most effectively cutting him off. It was trying to warn him that an Orochi was nearby, no doubt. Rising to his feet as quickly as he could, he scanned the vicinity with his Orochi-enhanced eyes.

“Sou-chan? What’s wrong?” Himeko asked, puzzled.

Souma spotted the Orochi. Amidst the twilight sky stood one man, whose blade-slender frame was clad in a white cape, whose hand was clutching a sword that didn’t resemble those belonging to the two Orochi Souma had had the misfortune to chance upon. Where the previous Orochi’s swords were straight, his was crooked and had diamonds encrusted into the blade where its direction changed. From afar, the blade’s shape resembled that of the famous constellation of the sky, Hokuto Shichisei the Big Dipper. When Souma’s eyes traveled to the older man’s face, they widened in surprise. Why did this Orochi Follower look so familiar? Where had Souma met him before?

“Himeko, go to the backdoor and leave this place immediately.” Souma said in his gravest tone. “An Orochi’s here.”

“The more reason I can’t leave you by yourself, Sou-chan,” Himeko protested.

“I can’t take care of both of us at the same time, Himeko,” Souma raised his voice a bit. He was grateful for her concern but she surely wasn’t going to do him any good by staying. “Run! Get out of here!” The other customers in the coffee shop looked up from their tables and stared at him in shock. He paid them only a glance before he turned his attention back to the golden-haired girl, who stared at him for a few seconds before she stood up and hurried toward the backdoor. With her departure, he heaved a sigh of relief.

Once Souma had walked out of the coffee shop, he raised his hand and recited the incantation, “Lord of the Thunder Sky, come forth!” From the dark clouds above, purple lightning bolts sprang down at his hand and materialized into Raien the Sealed Sword.

“Are you going to point Raien at me, Souma?” the Orochi asked, his crimson eyes boring at Souma’s. They were shining as brilliantly as the early stars on high... but with hatred instead of light. Worse, he could sense the man’s powers very clearly. He wouldn’t be exaggerating were he to say that the Orochi’s level was one step above his. He shivered. He had met three other Heads... yet none of them came close to this one in power.

Suddenly, the familiarity of the man’s voice struck Souma.

“You... you are....” Words failed him. Souma knew this voice. It belonged to someone he cherished when he was a kid, to the second person besides Himeko who gave him hope when despair tormented him everyday. “Tsubasa-nii-san?” he asked as tears threatened to well up in his eyes.

“Yes, my little brother. I have returned,” the Orochi said.

 

***

 

Himemiya Chikane was standing at her glass window, drowned in pain and solitude, when a terrible feeling gripped her heart. She did not hesitate for one second before she ran out of her room shouting for the chauffer. She had only felt this way once before... on her and Himeko’s seventeenth birthday, when the Dark Sun spread its shadow across the land, when Oogami Souma attacked her beloved. She only prayed she could get there in time.