"What is this place?" Saori asked.
"The Ohgami Shrine," said Ozawa. "The place where, I believe, we'll find the Lunar Priestess."
"Here? Why?" said Kei. "We haven't gotten a whiff of her anywhere over the last two hours, and now you're suddenly convinced that this is it?"
"There are two reasons. One, this is the home of her sister's best friend."
"Huh?"
"Reiko told us all about Tsukuyo Asamiya, remember? Were you asleep in class?" Saori mocked him.
"When hunting, it is best to know the prey as one knows oneself," Akemi added, then said viciously, "We'll root out all her boltholes until she has nowhere left to hide."
"What bug crawled up your ass anyway, Sixth? You didn't get such a hate on after she kicked you around, but lately you've been talking like she's some kind of monster."
"You saw what she did to Reiko and you can still ask that? She didn't just fight her, she preyed on her, crippling her mind. I won't let a fiend like that survive."
Ozawa had suspected as much. A fellow Orochi she might be--indeed, one of his more reliable comrades--but the things that made her the Sixth Neck were just an extension of what had made her a serial killer, the sheer despair and rage at a world that spat forth those who preyed on women. The Lunar Priestess had crossed that line, and had drawn Akemi's personal, visceral hatred down on herself.
Not that it mattered, so long as it didn't affect Akemi's worth in a fight.
"Here is the second reason," Ozawa snapped, reining in the debates among his fractious allies. He manifested his Shadow to protect himself, then extended his hand towards the threshold, the gate marking the shrine entrance. Gold lightning flashed, and his hand was knocked back.
"A barrier?" Akemi exclaimed.
"A barrier against the Orochi, behind which she could hide unseen to our senses."
"Then what do we do?"
"We break it down."
-X X X-
Chikane and Reverend Ohgami felt it at the same instant, their heads snapping upright. The other three at the breakfast table looked at them, surprised by the sudden movement.
"What is it? Do you feel something?" Minako asked.
"The shrine barriers. They're--" Reverend Ohgami flinched, making him break off in mid-sentence. "They're under attack."
"The Orochi," Chikane confirmed. "I can feel their power." She got to her feet and led the rush away from the dining room and down the hall to the same window Himeko had waited at the night before. From there, she could see them at the entrance gate.
Them.
"Three...no, four of them," the priest said, watching next to her.
"Will the boundary keep them out?" Marika asked.
"There's no chance," her aunt stated flatly. "The holy rites we practice have nowhere near the power of an Orochi or one of the priestesses. This shrine's connection to Ame no Murakumo strengthens the barrier somewhat, as does the fact that the priests have been performing the proper consecrations for generations on end, but they won't hold."
Chikane turned to the priest.
"Can you help me, Reverend Ohgami? I want you to take down the barrier before the Orochi break through, then raise it again."
He nodded.
"I can do that, but why?"
"To limit the power they can draw upon. It'll weaken them slightly to fight in this enclosed space. With these odds, I'll need all the help that I can gather."
"Fight!" Himeko exclaimed. "You can't fight four of them at once!"
"I don't have a choice. At this close range they'll be able to tell where I am once the barrier goes down. The best I can do is to choose the ground that I prefer for the fight." She paused as she felt another indrawing of power, the summoning of a Shadow. "Maybe not even that if we're not fast. Professor Ohgami, would you help Himeko and Marika get safely out of here?"
Minako nodded. She had a tight-lipped, serious expression. Marika just looked scared.
"Chikane!" Himeko protested.
"There's no time for this. I can't fight as well if I have to protect you, too, and you--"
"...I can't help. I...I understand."
She reached out, took Chikane's hand, and squeezed it.
"Please, stay safe. I...I'll be waiting."
Chikane squeezed back, then pulled her hand away. This was a bad situation, and she didn't expect that it would get any easier. She wished that she had time to change into her vestments--they had power of their own that could add to hers--but there wasn't any.
Professor Ohgami took Marika by the arm and started leading her back down the hall. Himeko gave Chikane a last, longing look, then turned and followed.
Please don't let this be the last time I see her, she thought, then tried her best to push that thought aside. Any mental slips of the kind she'd had fighting the Fifth Neck would mean her end in four-against-one odds.
She nodded to Reverend Ohgami, and the priest bowed his head, beginning to incant a prayer.
-X X X-
Twice now Kei had slashed the shrine's boundary with lightning, and once the black panther of Izuhara no Tamazuchi had raked it with claws. The barrier had held, but not strongly; it wasn't like the seals on the Orochi gods. Cloaked in the Shadow-armor of Take no Yamikazuchi, Ozawa punched towards the gate, a sphere of greenish-blue energy blasting from his fist with the motion. Instead of meeting resistance, it ripped through the empty space and blasted into the courtyard surface, scattering chunks of flagstones like shrapnel.
"The barrier's down! Go!" he snapped, and the four of them rushed through the inert torii. At once he sent his will out, hunting for the priestess.
"She's here!" Saori hissed triumphantly. "You were right!"
He was right. She was present, and this time there would be no escape for her.
"Find her! Raze this place to the ground if you have to, but find her!" he ordered.
As he led the charge into the courtyard, it did not escape Ozawa how close this matter was to the one that had led to his downfall. An enemy in an enclosed space, a troop of soldiers at his back, and innocent persons potentially in the way. The only difference was that then he'd regretted the deaths of the innocents and now he just didn't care. If the Ohgamis got in the way, they could die now instead of waiting for Orochi to consume the world.
"You two take the residence," he told Kei and Saori. "We'll take the shrine itself."
He wondered for a moment what made him instinctively trust Akemi at his back. Was it just that she'd been with him when he learned about Abe? Even before that, he'd recommended that she be the one sent against the Lunar Priestess, so was there something else to it? Trust in her combat skills? Or maybe it was just that the focused purity of her hatred made her a known quantity, unlike the conflicted Reiko or the ego-driven Kei and Saori. If there was a traitor, it was least likely to be her.
At this point, though, all of them seemed focused on their present concern; they divided as he'd ordered without question. They had only taken a few steps, though, when the blow fell.
It was like a sudden, sharp spike driven into the base of Ozawa's brain. He flinched, his next step turning into an imitation of a drunkard's stagger. More importantly, his connection to Take no Yamikazuchi wavered; the Shadow-armor faded to translucence for a moment.
The boundary! he realized. It hadn't fallen, but had been taken down and then reestablished. Luckily the pain had only been momentary, at the instant it went back up and the spiritual tie disrupted before a new pattern could be established, but he'd be weaker; they all would.
It had been in that one moment, too, that the enemy struck.
-X X X-
In a fight against superior numbers, Chikane knew, her first priority was to reduce those numbers. She began to unleash arrows against them from the residence roof as they writhed from the sudden disruption of their connection to Orochi caused by Reverend Ohgami's quick action.
Three of her opponents she knew. The Sixth Neck she'd fought before; the man with her was undoubtedly the Seventh, as the attack he'd launched had been far too reminiscent of Souma Ohgami for him to be anything else. The other male was just as clearly the Second; Yatsu no Onokoshizuchi was absolutely unmistakable with its eye-tipped kraken's arms. Only the second woman was an unknown; was she the Third, Fourth, or Eighth?
Her first pair of arrows tore into Izuhara no Tamazuchi, taking the panther out of existence in the first moment. The third shot hit the Sixth Neck in the side. The fourth exploded in a blinding flash in front of the unknown woman and the fifth had been aimed at the Second Neck but was struck aside by a tentacle.
"Bitch!" he swore, and his Shadow struck at her. The tentacles ripped a hole in the residence roof where she'd been standing, but she was already in motion, leaping off the roof and drawing the Lunar Blade in mid-jump. She landed lightly in the middle of the courtyard, drawing upon her enhanced abilities as a priestess to make the leap, and charged the Sixth Neck.
The arrow wound should have incapacitated her or at least slowed more than it had, but she whirled to meet Chikane, a knife in her hand.
"Monster!" she hissed, charging as if unaware of the blood pouring down her side. "I'll slice you apart for what you did to Reiko! How could anyone be such a fiend?"
There was a haunted look in the blue-haired woman's eyes, reminding Chikane of their first fight. She'd felt guilt then, a crushing weight of it that had nearly cost her life, but that had been about Himeko.
That had mattered.
The only thing the Orochi's accusations--and what they implied about Reiko's absence from the fight--inspired in Chikane was satisfaction that her tactics had been effective. There was nothing to make her hesitate. Her first cut severed the Neck's knife hand at the wrist; her second cut took off the woman's head.
One down.
There was no room for any pause, no time for even a moment of triumph; she ducked and rolled forward as the Seventh punched one of his glowing orbs at her. The attack shot over her head and exploded harmlessly somewhere, but a trembling beneath her warned her a second before flame-tipped, insectlike mandibles burst through the flagstones, slashing the air behind her before vanishing.
Ooube no Senazuchi! Chikane realized. That identified the unknown Orochi as the Fourth Neck, for whatever it was worth. There was little time to digest that information, as the Second Neck was sending another spear-strike with his Shadow's tentacles at her. Chikane dodged, then as the extrusions struck home in the courtyard's surface she slashed them, severing their tips. The stumps recoiled, writhing, and she knew she'd hurt it. It would definitely regenerate, though, so it only gave her a limited window of opportunity.
That was the problem with being outnumbered. Even though one-on-one she was more powerful and probably more skilled than any of them, Chikane couldn't stop to use that power against one Orochi without exposing herself to the others.
The Fourth is probably the weakest, Chikane thought. She's all but hiding behind the Second. With the Second weakened, this was a chance to close in and Chikane took it, zigzagging towards them to throw off the Seventh's aim. Another of the sparkling orbs flashed by her, blasting a chunk out of the veranda, and the Second cut her off. He was a boy Chikane's own age or even younger, dressed like an urban punk. The sneer, the pose marked him as a wannabe tough guy, not so different from Reiko in that he was a man of frustrated ambitions and thwarted dreams. He threw a punch at her that she sidestepped easily, then a spinning high kick that spoke more of long hours watching ninja movies than long hours at the dojo. She ducked the sweeping foot and cut his plant leg out from under him, nearly severing it at the knee, before moving on the Fourth. Chikane lunged at her with a thrust she hoped would incapacitate at least, but something coiled around her ankle, tripping her.
Even as she went down, she realized what had happened: the Second Neck had caught her with the stump of a tentacle. She hadn't given him credit for the will to fight through his wound and keep focus. Chikane cut her way free, but the Fourth had been given time to react. Summoning her Shadow, she was suddenly surrounded by a cluster of black, chittering, clicking bugs, swirling around her like a turning wheel. They began to glow, turning orange, then red, and them burst into flame while launching themselves at Chikane like a stream of tracer rounds. Desperately, she spun the Lunar Blade in an arc, its tip describing a crude circle of protection, but without mobility she was forced to block the entire force of the attack with power alone. The fire built with each insect that drilled against her shield, then burst in an explosion that knocked her sprawling. Chikane grunted as her back smacked against the grassy border between the flagged court and the residence building, then her head hit a second later, making her vision swim for an instant. Luckily she hadn't hit the stone, but she was in a bad position.
Suddenly, the voice of Reverend Ohgami rang out boldly. The priest had emerged from the door, chanting in a firm voice. His voice soared, he thrust his hand towards the Orochi, and bright blue lightning burst around them, crackling across their bodies. They writhed in pain, the injured Second toppling while the Fourth and Seventh twitched. Chikane looked up in surprise as the priest sagged heavily against the rail. Perspiration dotted his face and he was breathing heavily; calling on the shrine's power had obviously taken a lot out of him.
"Reverend...?"
"As the priest of the Ohgami Shrine, it is my duty to guide and protect Ame no Murakumo's miko." He smiled faintly at her. "I will not let this sanctuary against the Orochi be violated without a fight."
She smiled back at him, then pushed herself to her feet.
"I doubt I'll be able to protect you," she said honestly.
"I can apologize to Marika when the world is revived."
"You won't remember that you'd need to."
"Then neither will she," he said with a wry humor Chikane hadn't known that he possessed.
She launched herself at the Seventh Neck, who was the first to recover from Ohgami's assault. He stood his ground and faced her rush calmly, deflecting her first strike with his Shadow-armor and counterpunching. Unlike his street-punk associate, his moves were smooth and efficient, showing the unmistakable signs of training. At close range, it struck her that his face was a familiar one. After another exchange, it came to her.
Junichi Ozawa--the one the press called the "Slaughterer of Sendai." That explained his fighting skills: he'd had military training.
"At least you're consistent, Major Ozawa," she said. "I guess obeying orders to murder innocent people is a specialty now?"
He wasn't Reiko, but Chikane saw the doubt flicker in his eyes. She was sure he wouldn't break in the same way--he was a grown man, not a teenage girl with major self-esteem problems and a personal link to her--but she'd hit on it, the source of his despair and rage, that which made him Orochi. She struck at it, ruthlessly, even as she assaulted his body.
"That's it, isn't it? You were innocent, weren't you? You didn't give the order to fire. You didn't want to kill all those people. It was someone else, wasn't it?"
She used her reach to hold him back, to keep him at bay for the next clash.
"All you were was too much of a sniveling coward to say no."
Got you.
Chikane saw the rage rise in him, the burst of temper that threw his attention off. Power gathered to Ozawa's fist and he punched another blast at her at point-blank range. The anger had thrown off his rhythm, the moment to summon his attack delayed him, and Chikane wasn't in front of it. Instead she slashed under his upraised arm, putting all her strength into the cut. Her sword disrupted the armor, dispelling it to translucence, and ripped a deep cut along his torso. As he was still off-balance, she hooked his leg, got one hand on his upper arm, and flipped him over to slam hard onto his back on the flagstones. Chikane whirled, sword ready to spear through his chest and finish him when the scream cut her off.
She shouldn't have looked. It was just a glance--a reflex spawned by his coming to her rescue, that brief moment of shared understanding between them. It would have made Himeko happy; she was the one who kept insisting that there was something good, some basic humanity within Chikane that could still be touched by others.
But she shouldn't have looked.
In that moment when she turned her head, when she saw Ohgami's body being spitted on the flaming mandibles of Ooube no Senazuchi the way she'd almost been, she lost her advantage. Ozawa acted in that instant, slapping his hand against the flat of her sword so that her stab only scored along his ribs instead of spitting him through the heart. He kicked at her legs, trying to knock her down, and she avoided it only by skipping aside.
That, though, opened space between the two of them, and gave the Second Neck a chance to act. Before Chikane's eyes, his Shadow restored itself, the severed tentacles regrowing until they were complete again, and in the tips of all six an eye opened, leering at her with the same triumphant cruelty as its Neck.
Then six bolts of violet lightning lashed at her, one from each eye.
Chikane parried them as they converged, knocking them aside. She knew that she couldn't stop them all, so she concentrated on deflecting what she could, sending bolts back at the Second and Fourth. Two bolts, though, struck her; they lifted the Lunar Priestess off her feet and left her sprawled at the base of the shrine steps.
The taste of copper was in her mouth; hot, red pain obscured her concentration, drowning thought. Fear surged inside her, the animal instinct fighting to recover, to clear her head. If she'd been properly wearing the Lunar Priestess's vestments this wouldn't have happened, the thought drifted past, even though she couldn't--quite--recall what "this" was.
Focus, Chikane.
It seemed like hours but was probably no more than a couple of seconds before the red cloud cleared from her brain and she began to struggle to her feet. The Necks she'd counterattacked seemed even more damaged than she was: the Second had managed to nearly clear the entire board in a single move, like a petulant child sweeping his arm across a chess game.
Nearly.
The Seventh was upon her before she could get to her feet. His Shadow had returned; the damage she'd inflicted on his body was no doubt regenerating. He fisted his hand in the front of her T-shirt and lifted her the rest of the way up, then clear off the ground. That was when it got through Chikane's pain-dazed mind that her hands were empty, the Lunar Blade knocked from her grip by the lightning strike. Off the ground she didn't have any leverage to use against him, she couldn't pierce his armor with her bare hands alone, and his arm, fully extended, kept her from being able to reach his face and the vulnerable points there.
"You're finished," he said simply, drawing back his fist, no doubt to blow her head off with another energy sphere.
Then his eyes went black and unseeing. Blood spurted from his lips. Chikane glanced down just in time to see the armor fade away, dispelled by the same sword that emerged from his chest. His grip slackened in death, and Chikane managed to catch her balance as Ozawa fell dead between her and the one who'd killed him.
"Professor Ohgami?"
The red-trimmed kimono jacket and crimson hakama were all too familiar. The sword in her hand was the twin of Chikane's own. The blaze of light from the mark on her chest, so searingly bright even through her clothing that it made Chikane squint, was what made for absolute confirmation.
"You're the Solar Priestess? But...but why didn't you tell any of us?"
Minako smiled thinly.
"Why didn't I? That's quite a good question. Then again, you always were a good student, Tsukuyo--or should I just call you Chikane now? It is your 'real' name, at least the one you think of yourself as, after all. Just why did I carefully keep silent about it all this time?" She tapped her finger against her lip in a parody of a thoughtful expression. "Let's see...oh, that's right."
A shadow passed across the sky, and the sun symbol's light went out like a snuffed candle. Minako's eyes filled with seething violet fire.
"It's because I'm the Eighth Neck, as well."
The shadow seemed to swallow the courtyard as the war-cry of a hawk shattered the stillness. It dove out of the sky as if plummeting from the depths of space, a titanic demon, its wingspan at least a hundred yards across. Its talons crashed into the boundary enclosing the shrine and tore it apart like it was paper, the gates blasted to splinters along with several trees in the surrounding woods, the anchor points of the barrier destroyed by the unsealed god, Yokusemi no Mizuchi.
In this incarnation, Orochi's eighth head looked much like a gigantic brown eagle, the edges of its sagging feathers crusted with black rot, its eyes a baleful crimson, its beak, feet, and claws all dark as if carved from obsidian. The sheer power of its presence alone was all but overwhelming; the remaining Necks could barely stand up in the face of it and even Chikane was struck with horror. It seemed almost unthinkable that this demon had once been tied to her own soul--indeed, that she'd cast it aside in favor of the even fiercer Take no Yamikazuchi.
It swung its massive head towards the two quivering Necks, opened its beak, and let loose a piercing screech. The air rippled, waves traveling outward from the god's maw. The scream, Chikane realized, wasn't just its voice, but an attack, a sonic wave generated by the demon's power. The Ohgami residence wasn't so much destroyed as vaporized, blasted to dust, as was a good chunk of the forest behind. The Second and Fourth Necks, who had been forcefully wielding their power only a moment ago, were torn apart, their Shadows and their bodies blown away as one.
Chikane bolted for her sword, but the demon was faster; its talons lashed out, pinning her down spread-eagled on her back, holding her with exactly enough pressure to keep her immobile and no more. There was nothing she could do against a foe that so completely overmatched her.
Is this how Himeko felt in our last life? Helpless, overmatched, entirely dependent on someone else to protect her?
"Why?" Chikane asked. "Why are you doing this, Professor?"
"I'm glad you asked. It's annoying, wanting to say something this whole week and not being able to. I only wished my brother was still alive so I could say it to him, and then kill him myself."
"Kill...Reverend Ohgami?"
Keep her talking. The longer she talks, the more time there is for me to think of something!
Her face twisted into a mask of hate.
"I was the eldest Ohgami child. That meant that I was to be the priestess of this shrine--male and female don't matter to the family for that. I was trained in the rites and rituals by which we honor the kami, the legends that we hand down, the 'sacred duty' we are supposed to play as your guides and support. As a child I was an eager and enthusiastic follower of our ways, hoping--yes, hoping--that your arrival would be during my term and that I could play my part."
That sounded so unlike the Minako Ohgami that Chikane knew--not the Orochi but just the woman, the aunt, the professor--that she could barely believe it. Her feelings clearly showed, too; Minako smiled wryly at her.
"You find it hard to imagine me as a devout little girl, Chikane?"
"What changed it?"
The smile vanished.
"I went into the world. I attended school., I read history. I learned about current events, and what I saw made me sick. As a priestess I was supposed to become a guardian of a sacred tradition, a guide so people could live happy lives. Instead I saw that far from being sacred, religion was nothing but a sham. Marx called it the opiate of the masses, a tool to keep them in line, but he was wrong. Religion isn't a tool, but a poison in and of itself. It's a bunch of made-up ideas people imagine so they don't have to feel alone and helpless in a universe they don't understand. The ideas have no support, no proof, no evidence, so people cling to every scrap of them without thinking and call it 'faith.' Then, if anything tries to challenge those ideas, they try to destroy it so they don't have to examine their beliefs and see that they're nothing but worthless hot air.
"You can't escape it when you look at history! People demand answers to question no one can know the answers to, and the priests make those answers up. Then, if someone finds the answers, the 'faithful' fight tooth and nail to suppress the truth. And because religion is so important to these people, it doesn't just fight with science but even more so with other religions! Racial and cultural superiority is always based on it. Our way is better than your way! Your imaginary afterlife is different than our imaginary afterlife, so we have to kill you! Shintoist or Bhuddist, Christian or Jew, Moslem or Hindu, they're all the same. Every atrocity in history is rooted in some arrant stupidity characterized as 'faith.'
"It made me sick."
She took several deep breaths, reining in the building fury.
"So I abandoned faith. I abandoned belief and put my trust only in what could be proven. And my family just smiled their supercilious little smiles and said things like 'for those who do not believe, no proof will suffice' and other pithy axioms which boil down to Because I Said So. And Takeshi swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. It's always been there between us, that utter arrogance that sooner or later I'd 'come around,' that I'd fall in line with the family duties sooner or later."
"Then why did you agree to move to the shrine when Marika's mother died?" Chikane asked.
"Because I wanted to make sure that my niece didn't have her mind poisoned by their corruption! Even if she does have faith in the beliefs of the shrine, at least she uses them for what they're supposed to be, a guide to decency instead of a voice to drown out all rationality or an excuse to commit all sorts of corrupt acts." Her lips quirked upwards. "You know, such as having an incestuous affair because of a belief that you are reincarnated lovers?" Minako chuckled at Chikane's sudden surge of anger. "Oh, don't make that face; I know now that it was true all along."
Control yourself, Chikane thought. Stay calm and think!
"Isn't incest itself just another religious taboo, though? So what difference would it make if we were deluding ourselves?" she stalled for time.
Professor Ohgami laughed.
"Chikane, nearly every myth-cycle in every religion is filled with incest, particularly among the gods. It's taboo because it's disruptive to human society, by damaging the family unit through confusing the roles people occupy in connection to one another. That it's passed off as God's commandment is the biggest joke about it.
"But you haven't asked the most obvious question yet."
"You hated religion because it was a lie. But you're a Neck of Orochi. You know that the gods are real. So your own despair is a paradox!"
"Is it?" Minako pretended to ponder the issue. "Just because I didn't believe in the gods didn't mean that I wasn't paying attention. One deity which represents the combined malice of humanity intent only on destroying everything in its path, and another deity who opposes the first with such callous cruelty that it inspired in its own champion enough pain and hatred to switch sides? It seems to me that my impression of religion was absolutely correct--and that its legacy of violence and hatred is exactly in accord with the gods.
She looked down at Chikane, shaking her head.
"Now, can you explain to me why a world like that should be permitted to exist, Lunar Priestess?"
She chuckled again, the pure arrogance of it making Chikane's gut twist.
"But as entertaining as this has been, I need something from you. Specifically, the blood of a pure priestess to break the final seal on Yamata no Orochi. Another of those idiotic rules of the gods; I can't see why the existence or lack of one membrane within the body constitutes 'purity.' After all, who seems purer to you, a woman in her forties who's had a few love affairs or a girl of nineteen who's been consensually bedded by her sister for...what is it, now, six years? Seven?" She shook her head. "But there it is."
Standing over Chikane, she pressed the tip of the Solar Blade against Chikane's shoulder and sliced down her left arm. Chikane winced at the sudden pain, but didn't cry out. She didn't want to give the other woman the satisfaction.
"And there we have it," Minako declared, holding up the sword, its tip now glistening with blood. "I hope that you and dear Himeko enjoy the show. There'll be plenty of fireworks, and the ending's a real killer."
With that, Professor Ohgami vanished into black fire. Yokusemi no Mizuchi spread its massive wings and launched itself into the air, receding into the sky so fast that in seconds it was barely a fleaspeck, leaving Chikane staring up at nothing. The shrine courtyard was still and silent, yet the Lunar Priestess could still hear the echoes of her world crashing down around her ears.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A/N: And now you can stop wondering about "who?" and start asking "how?" and "why?" about the Solar Priestess! Deep congratulations are due anyone whose attention was grabbed at the first by an atheist from a shrine family and wondered if there was more to that story, with lesser but still distinct clue-spotting bonus points for those of you who might have noted that while Reverend Ohgami was with the girls during the unsealing ritual, Minako and Marika were both free to be off killing Abe, and that it was Minako's research and advice passed on by Takeshi to Chikane that brought Chikane to fight Hirata and give the Eighth the chance to unseal Yokusemi no Mizuchi--since Minako was the only one who was suspect in both matters, she was therefore the Eighth Neck. I know I'm evil with the cliffhangers and all, but I tried to at least play somewhat fair with the story's major mystery.
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