A Thousand Years of Prayers (part 3 of 5)

CHAPTER 03: AMANO HIKARI

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Meiji Era twenty-fifth, fourth month, fourteenth day,

Dear Nikki-chan,

The clouds from yesterday haven’t cleared, and the rain hasn’t let up. It should be noon about now but for all I can tell, the sky’s the same as that of midnight. It’s so cold in my room that even several layers of clothes won’t keep me from freezing to death. That’s the reason why I’m sitting in the kitchen right at the moment, next to the roaring flame. In case you’re wondering how I survived the snow and the horrible weather of this island in the wintry seasons, Nikki-chan, the answer’s simple; the Priestess Fuyuu Kotonoha, my beloved Koto-chan of course. When winter came, she would cast around the Residential Area of the Shrine a Ward that would simulate the temperature of any cool summer day. She isn’t here now, so sitting close to the fire is the only thing I can think of that can warm me up. I wish she would come back soon. Not because I need her to cast the spell, I’m just too lonely, and I miss her too much.

Nikki-chan, my outburst of jealousy on that fateful day happened to have melted the ice wall between us. The raven-haired girl no longer ignored me. It’s the complete opposite. She smiled as soon as she saw me, and she talked to me before I could open my mouth and speak. In time, we grew close enough to each other that we got rid of the family name basis. She addressed me as Hikari-san, and I called her Koto-chan, which made her miss a step and almost fall the first time she heard. She then asked me in a wondering voice why I didn’t use her whole first name. I explained honestly that I really liked the way little Yamazaki Miyuki called her Koto-nee-chan, and that her name sounded so much cuter that way. The Priestess only kept silent afterwards, face red enough to shame the setting sun. You know what, Nikki-chan; I sometimes found her mumbling that nickname quietly with a little smile on her lips. I guess that means she liked it.

The closer to Koto-chan I became, the more deeply I fell in love with her, the more I neglected my own room, and the more I stayed in hers. She has always welcomed me so warmly that she often left the door open for me unless she was changing clothes or didn’t want to be disturbed.

Nikki-chan, you probably wonder what I could have found interesting enough in her room that I stayed in there all day and refused to return to mine until the other girl prepared to go to sleep. Well, you see, when I told you in the beginning that with Koto-chan by my side, I never found sadness or boredom where we lived, I meant it. I think it has something to do with the fact that I could rarely take my eyes off of the raven-haired girl. Even the slightest shift of her mood or the smallest gesture of her hand fascinated me. When I looked at her, I completely lost my grip on time. Sitting in her room, some place where I could study her without being too obvious, sometimes I got the feeling that a day was shorter than a heartbeat.

You know ne, Nikki-chan, Koto-chan really loved books, which filled shelf after shelf under various headings and subjects. To me, who had never willingly read more than three books in my entire life, her room was a library. While many books on the shelves gave me dizzying headaches – A Brief History of the Tokugawa Shogunate, ugh, for instant – some were very pleasant. I liked the Tale of Genji, and for a book half a hand in thickness, it was unbelievable that I didn’t put it back down after reading the first few pages. Well, I had some troubles digesting its content, in fact – the poetry aspect of the novel and the way the author described people tripped me up often – but Koto-chan was there to answer any question I had.

Nikki-chan, probably the reason why I liked the novel so much was because it gifted me with an excuse to sit next to the raven-haired girl and see her long, slender finger flickering upon the pages, showing me what one sentence or another meant. She was so good at that she could best any teacher in town. Her explanation was clear, to the point, and easy to understand. Of course, her sweet, melodious voice only served to make the book much more interesting.

As it turned out, the Tale of Genji was one of Koto-chan’s all time favorite books. She told me that she had read it at least a dozen times since its purchase a few years back. She even asked if she could read it with me once. Not that I had any intention of refusing her, but the Gods of Heaven standing witness, if the owner of that pair of obsidian eyes told me to slit my throat, I’d gladly comply.

Anyways….

During that time, Koto-chan sat next to me in front of the table, upon which the opened book lay, her full attention placed on the pages. Nikki-chan, while nothing could have made me happier than having the raven-haired girl at my side, reading the same book, it did have its side effect. You know, it was painfully hard to concentrate being fully aware that the girl I had a serious crush on was close enough for me to breath in her fragrant scent, to put my arm around her shoulder, or my hand on the hollow of her waist. Her cheeks, all but a few inches away from mine, were so inviting all I wanted was to kiss her and never stop. Of course, I spent so much time ogling her as a result that I never paid a scrap of attention to the book. When she asked me what I thought about it afterwards, I found myself at a loss for words. Thankfully, Koto-chan took me silence for tiredness, so she dropped the question. I was infinitely relieved.

Since Koto-chan and I became close friends, I had plenty of chances to learn more about her. You know ne, Nikki-chan; the raven-haired girl wore a mask to conceal her true personality when she dealt with the townsfolk. With it on, she appeared elegance incarnate, the very embodiment of serenity, and sometimes the personification of death. She brimmed with power and confidence, which she wielded as naturally as she would her own limbs. When she asked people to do something, they did it, and the one who challenged her authority would somehow find themselves obeying her afterwards while wishing from the bottom of their hearts that they had listened in the first place. You know what the funny thing about this is, Nikki-chan? Koto-chan never thought of it in that sense. To her, those “commands” were simply reasonable suggestions only the dimwitted failed to heed. The raven-haired girl claimed that eighteen years of being brought up in the Grand Shrine of Ise had given her that kind of attitude. My response was, “Yeah, right.” She blushed. I just loved it when she did that.

At least when Koto-chan ordered people around, it was for their own good, not hers. She wasn’t the least bit in the wrong when she told the weaver to quit dumping her excess dyes into the river, or when she berated the mailman, whose horse almost trampled on an elderly lady because he kept his eyes on the pretty women instead of the road. And the butcher certainly deserved it when she stared him down with her obsidian eyes for his negligence over his own children, who wandered into Kagemori Forest all on their own. Luckily, Koto-chan found them before they had a chance to fall down some cliff and break their neck.

The mask she discarded and her true self she revealed only when she was around people who had earned her affection and trust, like the Yamazaki Family… and me. In those times, she turned into a shy, sensitive, but absolutely adorable nineteen-year-old girl who liked to talk about books, read poetry, and practice the sword. Most surprisingly… she was also a girl who has a strange obsession over food. You know ne, Koto-chan doesn’t look it… but she’s a glutton. She never missed a meal, be it breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and every time I walked past the shoji door to her room, I would see a dish full of snacks on her table, within her arm’s reach. The incredible thing was that although she must have gulped down tons of food every week, she never seemed to gain a fraction of a pound in weight. I bet any girl would kill to have such a fine metabolism. I would kill for it.

Another funny thing about my Koto-chan and her being a glutton. You see, Nikki-chan, there was this one time where I was sitting next to her in her room. On the table was a dishful of odango balls, which she told me to have as much as I liked. We started talking, and I was about to say the punch line of a joke I heard in town when I suddenly noticed a change in her expression. I stared in somewhat of a mild shock at her, who was staring up at me pleadingly with large, teary puppy eyes that were too cute to describe with words. At which point, I realized that I had taken the last odango ball from the dish….

“Koto-chan,” I asked, “do you… um… want this?” I asked, to which the raven-haired girl nodded immediately and most emphatically. I guessed she did it before she knew what she was doing, because she froze midway through the third nod and started to chew on her lips while blushing furiously. No one could have imagined that the same girl had just scared the heck out of the butcher the day before.

Of course, I could have just handed her the odango and let her have it… but I didn’t. Instead, I held the rice ball in front of her mouth and said, “Say ‘ah’, Koto-chan.” How the raven-haired girl had been startled hearing that from me and realizing that I had offered to feed her with my own hand. Given her shy nature, I thought she would back down; I thought she would tell me to stop teasing her….

She didn’t do any of that. The girl simply closed her eyes and opened her mouth expectantly. During the next two minutes or so, I held the odango with my slightly trembling hand while Koto-chan munched on the snack. In the end, the thing vanished completely into her mouth… but not before her soft, warm lips engulfed the tips of my fingers. I felt as if steams were coming out of my ears. I lied to her that I was kinda sleepy and hurried back to my room afterwards. That night, I held that very hand close to my mouth and giggled myself to sleep.

 Koto-chan’s just too cute, don’t you think?

On a different topic, I stopped disliking Yamazaki Shizuka. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, I don’t really have an excuse to feel hostile toward her. After all, she was about to move far away, unable to pester the one I love perhaps for one or two decades. Secondly, I’ve grown somewhat sympathetic to her, I guess. You see, Nikki-chan, I realized that if I myself found Koto-chan irresistible, that I constantly felt the need to hold her, touch her, and kiss her, Shizuka must have, too. I think she was merely expressing her emotions to the raven-haired girl instead of holding back the way I did.

 About a week before the day the merchant’s family moved to Nagano, Koto-chan and I had a sorta… embarrassing discussion about her. It started when the raven-haired girl announced that she was going to escort the Yamazaki to the nearest seaport.

“Can I go with you, Koto-chan?” I said.

“I am sorry, Hikari-san,” she answered, shaking her head. “I will need you to stay here and manage the Shrine.”

“It’s just two days!” I insisted. “And it’s not like I’m going to be of much help if someone comes to me and asks for an exorcism anyway.”

“Sorry, but no,” the raven-haired girl said firmly. “The Yamazaki do not think very well of you, in case you have forgotten. Bringing you will create more trouble than I can manage.”

“I promise I’ll behave, Koto-chan!” I pleaded. “In fact, I won’t say a word to them unless you give me permission. So let me come along, please!”

“Why are you so adamant about this, Hikari-san?” Koto-chan gave me an odd, quizzical look and asked.

“It’s going to be really boring in the Jinja without you,” I told her, and received an amused chuckle in return. Well, I couldn’t really confess to her truthfully that I only wished to be by her side, look at her face, and simply hear her talk. I couldn’t predict what she would make out of it. And I didn’t want her to assume that I was just another Yamazaki Shizuka, who was hell-bent on chasing after her skirt. “Besides, don’t you need me to reinforce that lover’s act in front of the Yamazaki?”

“Oh come on,” Koto-chan said exasperatedly. “She is going to leave for a faraway place and may never come back. No need for that now.”

“I think you tell me to stay home because you don’t want an obstacle between you and Yamazaki Shizuka,” I muttered. “Are you planning to make out with her in the carriage or something?”

“You talked as if I liked kissing her, Hikari-san.” The raven-haired girl sighed. “Contrary to what you may choose to believe, I do not.”

“Why?” I asked curiously. “I’ve overheard lots of men in town saying how much they’d like to smooch her.” The men might have some qualms about Yamazaki Shizuka liking girls, but that didn’t really stop them from ogling her or wanting her all to themselves. The merchant’s daughter, after all, was pretty much a beauty.

“They do not know how it felt to kiss her,” Koto-chan said dryly. “For your information, it is no difference from touching water with your lips. Wet, and utterly bland.”

“Did you feel the same way when you kissed me?” Words poured from my mouth before I had any chance to snap it shut. The Priestess, startled by the strange question, stared at me while her complexion grew darker and darker by the minute. “I... I’m just… curious,” I added hastily.

“Well… if you must know…” Koto-chan said slowly, obsidian eyes downcast, face crimson, and forefingers drawing circles around one another. “Your lips were softer, sweeter, and you were cuddlier than she was… so… I... rather liked it.”

“Um… thanks,” I murmured happily while flame raged on my cheeks.

“But as I was saying,” the raven-haired cleared her throat and changed the topic. “I cannot take you with me, and that is final.”

“You don’t enjoy my company?” I mumbled in a sad voice.

“I do! I really do!” Koto-chan assured me frantically. “That is the problem, Hikari-san; I enjoy your company too much. When I am with you, I tend to lose focus on the surrounding. That, evidently, is not something I desire when I escort the Yamazaki through Sengimori Forest. They can get hurt. Worse, you can get hurt. I... do not want that.” She put her hand atop mine at the end of the sentence. It was very warm.

“If you say so, Koto-chan, I’ll stay home,” I murmured.

“Thank you for your understanding.” The raven-haired girl smiled sweetly at me.

Nikki-chan, as you can see, I couldn’t have been any happier living with my housemate. The bliss never seemed to end. It did. The very next day from that conversation, a revelation took me from the highest cloud in Heaven and dropped me to the deepest layer of Hell.

Early in that morning, Koto-chan received a dove carrying an urgent-marked message. The moment the raven-haired girl finished reading it, her expression turned grim. She told me that a child in town required her immediate attention and that I should prepare to leave for Unomichi with her as soon as possible. On our way through Kagemori Forest, Koto-chan explained more about the situation. It appeared that the nine-year-old Nakayama Kohaku, only child to the woodcutter Nakayama Sousuke and his wife Meiko, two days before had just suddenly collapsed. Reasons unknown. All the woodcutter could tell was that the boy was suffering from a dangerously high fever, and no doctors in Unomichi could relieve him of it.

“A curse of demonic origin,” the raven-haired girl declared flatly after a few minutes of examining little Kohaku, who was lying upon his bed in his room, whose reddened body was drenched with sweat as though he had just taken a bath. He appeared to be sleeping, but his breathing was uneven, and his skin could have been fire. “An exceptionally strong and malignant one at that.” Koto-chan’s voice was grave, her face hard. Behind her, Nakayama Meiko gasped in shock while her husband stared unblinkingly at the floor beneath his feet.

“Why’s he infected with that, Koto-chan?” I asked.

“I do not know,” the raven-haired girl said grimly. “But I intend to find out.” She turned to the woodcutter. “Sousuke-san, when did the sickness strike little Kohaku?”

“Early this morning… Kotonoha-sama,” Sousuke mumbled. “When I... came into his room to wake him up for school, he was… already like this.”

“What did he do before he went to bed last night?” Koto-chan added, “In fact, give me a full account on what he could have done yesterday.”

“Well, he went to school in the morning, came back ‘round after noon, and did homework in this room…” he hesitated. “I think.” The man gave a start at the Priestess’s unnerving gaze. “I had to go to the next town in the evening so I... I didn’t know what he did after I left!” he explained hurriedly.

“He went out to play with friends from his class, Kotonoha-sama,” Nakayama Meiko said. The middle-aged woman gave a start and gripped the front of her clothes when Koto-chan’s obsidian eyes swiveled to her face.

“Where did they go, Meiko-san?” came the soft inquiry.

“I... I don’t know.” The woodcutter’s wife gave a frantic shake of her head. “I was… taking care of the house chores at that time.” Koto-chan’s eyebrows drew lower, annoyance evident on her cold face. She was rather upset, of course. You see, Nikki-chan, my housemate adores kids. She has always been so excessively protective over them that she generally blamed the parents without stopping to think whether it was their fault. The reason for that was because Koto-chan’s own mom and dad abandoned her shortly after she was born. Had it not been for the High Priestess of Ise who found her and brought her up in the Grand Shrine….

“Would you go find out, then?” It wasn’t a request.

Nakayama Meiko didn’t need Koto-chan to say it a second time; she already scurried out of the door as soon as the raven-haired girl finished. The atmosphere in the room became decidedly awkward after that, with Koto-chan sitting on her knees by little Kohaku’s futon, gently ruffling the spiky hair on his head while I stood next to his father, whose feet seemed to have been set on fire by the occasional glances the Priestess threw his way.

About half an hour had passed before Nakayama Meiko returned. “Kohaku visited the Demon Cemetery, Kotonoha-sama,” she announced breathlessly.

The Demon Cemetery’s the square of land beyond the Eastern Gate of Unomichi, where the remains of the demons slain by the Priestess were buried, each having their own respective grave. I once asked the raven-haired girl why people would care so much about their natural enemies that they would made them graves.

“Practical reasons again, no more, no less,” my housemate explained dryly. “Those demons I felled died bearing a grudge against me and the townsfolk. I can care less about those pretty grudges, as my being a Priestess shield me from their influences. However, the people are powerless and vulnerable. That was why they made graves for the demons, hoping that they can ease their anger and escape their wrath.” It does make sense.

“What?” the raven-haired girl snapped. Her obsidian pupils were augers colder than ice and harder than iron. The husband gave a start that nearly lifted him off the ground. I am not sure whether it was because of the news or because of Koto-chan’s murderous mood, though.

“His friends said they were playing hide-and-seek last night.” Meiko swallowed audibly as she took a small step away from my housemate. “My son told his friends afterwards that he had been hiding in the Cemetery the whole time.”

“The keeper of the Cemetery never saw Kohaku?” The raven-haired girl’s voice was hard, harsh, and it made the rest of her icy face seem warm and friendly.

“I... don’t think so… Kotonoha-sama.” Meiko shook her head.

“Fine,” Koto-chan said angrily. “He shall hear from me later. Thanks to him, Kohaku may just become the first patient I do not know how to save.” Both the child’s mom and dad went wide-eyed at the statement. Horrified, Nakayama Meiko clutched at her mouth with her hands, appearing about to faint dead. Her husband was made of tougher material; he only grunted and looked at his son worriedly.

“Is it that difficult, Koto-chan?” I asked.

“Yes.” She nodded. “I can destroy the curse, but that would mean casting high-level spells on little Kohaku. The only problem is that he is too young, his body too frail, to endure the process. I will end up killing him even before the curse could.” The raven-haired girl let out a deep, exasperated sigh. “I have been trying to think of a solution for a while now. Unfortunately, none that came to mind would work.”

“I’m going to strangle that cemetery keeper,” I heard the woodcutter mutter under his breath.

“Am I... going to… die?” a young voice said. We never noticed that Kohaku had regained consciousness. The boy was looking at us, fright plain in his teary eyes. He seemed to have heard what we said. “I don’t… want to die…” he mewled. “My parents will be sad… my friends will be sad….”

“Kohaku-chan….” Nakayama Meiko knelt down next to her son and took his small hand into both of hers. She was sobbing uncontrollably. The woodcutter seemed about to, too. Even my eyes stung hearing those words.

“You are not going to die,” Koto-chan assured Kohaku gently, her hands ruffling his head. “I will save you no matter what. Now, would you tell me what you have done in the Cemetery?”

“I....” Little Kohaku mumbled. “I h… hid behind a… a… gravestone.”

“Which one was it?”

“T… the newest… one.” The raven-haired girl gave no sign that she was surprised. Nikki-chan, I think she already knew before Kohaku answered. She asked just because she wanted to confirm her suspicion.

I happened to know the demon to whom that grave belonged. It had been a spider disguised as a pretty woman, who was walking past the Southern Gate when Seinaru Suishou chimed loudly and alerted the Priestess. I knew why she tried to enter Unomichi, as my dad used to tell me about all sorts of tales concerning how his demonic brethren behaved. You know ne, Nikki-chan, spider demons, especially the female ones, had a voracious appetite for men. What they would usually do was put on human’s flesh, come into some village or town, and then entice the men away with their beauty. Men being men, lustful creatures that refused to be sated, didn’t resist the spiders very well. No one would ever see them again.

The demon from the day prior to our arrival at the woodcutter’s residence didn’t have time to do what she planned. The townsfolk knew she was suspicious, for no other person was walking through the Southern Gate, so they ran away from her as soon as Seinaru Suishou started ringing. When my housemate and I found her – we happened to be in town that day – the woman was standing in the middle of an empty street with an utterly confused look on her face. That look was replaced by fear, tinged by envy, the moment she laid eyes upon my beloved Koto-chan. The demon realized that she had just been confronted by a Priestess, so she reverted into her true form, a monstrously huge black spider, immediately. Too bad, a sacred flame springing from the raven-haired girl’s hand reduced the demon to a heap of blackened bones before she could twitch.

“Did anything happen there?” Koto-chan asked quietly.

“I... I see a… lady there, nee-chan,” Kohaku said, his eyes hazy, his voice weak, his entire body aflame. “She asked… what I was doing. I told her… I... was playing hide-and-seek and begged her… not to tell my friends where… I... was. She smiled… and said that she wouldn’t. Then she went… away.”

“Did she touch you?”

“On… the… the head,” was all he could mutter before the fever took him into the land of the dark.

“What’s the meaning of this, Kotonoha-sama?” Nakayama Sousuke demanded, accusation plain in his raised voice. “Why is the demon still alive?!”

“She is not,” Koto-chan said coolly, obsidian eyes boring at the man who dared talk to her in such a disrespectful way. The woodcutter shied back. “What your son saw in the Cemetery was but her spirit. She still lingered in this world because of her thirst for revenge. That was the reason why she cast a curse upon Kohaku, hoping he would die a slow, painful death. If this continues, her wish would come true, and Kohaku would rot alive.” Anger coursed violently in her voice.

“HELP HIM! PLEASE!” Nakayama Meiko grabbed Koto-chan’s shoulders and shook them, screaming. The raven-haired girl only sighed deeply.

“So… the only problem’s that Kohaku’s frail body can’t endure the intensity of the spells you need to cast, right, Koto-chan?” I asked.

“Yes.” My housemate nodded and gave me a quizzical look.

“Then is it possible to transfer the curse to another person who has a stronger body? Like me?” I offered.

At first, the raven-haired girl stared at me while not saying a word. Then slowly, she nodded and said, “Yes.” Had the child’s mom and dad been drowning at sea, the sight of a rescue boat still couldn’t have made them any happier than that single word. In fact, they were jumping up and down in joy.

“Then do it, Koto-chan.” I smiled at the one I loved.

“I will transfer the curse, but not to you, Hikari-san.” Nakayama Sousuke and Meiko suddenly became deathly still. From the horror that was creeping across their pale faces, I’d say that they were afraid that my housemate would pick either of them. I was right, for they became infinitely relieved when Koto-chan spoke, “I will take it myself.”

“You’ll be burdened enough with the curse removal already,” I protested. “So let me help, please!”

“No!” The raven-haired girl’s obsidian eyes began to gather so much heat I thought that should I keep looking into them they would scorch me into dust. “I shall not put you in harm’s way. EVER!” then she turned toward the panting Kohaku on the bed, leaving me standing there, speechless. No, Nikki-chan, I wasn’t angry despite the fact that it had been the first time she raised her voice with me. On the contrary, I was so happy I wished the Nakayama couple would go away just so I could pull Koto-chan into a hug. The raven-haired girl’s words were harsh, but the meaning behind them was unmistakable. She would rather put herself in danger instead of letting me take risk. There could be no joy greater than hearing the one I loved saying that.

“All of you, stand as close to the walls as possible and leave the center clear,” the raven-haired girl commanded, which we obeyed with great alacrity.

As soon as an empty area of at least five feet in radius was formed, Koto-chan raised her right hand and intoned, “Guardian of the Storms and Winds, come forth, Sennen no Inori.” In a powerful flash of light, the transparent-bladed sword materialized in the room, its prickly tip hovering a good hand above the tatami mat. A Thousand Years of Prayers was as impressive and seemingly powerful as ever.

All of a sudden, winds rose in the room, and little Kohaku’s body began lifting off his futon as though grabbed by an invisible hand. The child then stood vertically in midair, his front facing Sennen no Inori and the Priestess Fuyuu Kotonoha. Eyes closed, the raven-haired girl raised her hand once more, her movement mirrored by the woodcutter’s son to the smallest detail. The sacred sword started to glow.

“Cut,” my housemate said. A flash of light emerging from the sword opened a wound on Koto-chan’s hand, and another, little Kohaku’s. No blood came trickling out as anyone would expect, though.

“Liquefy.” At the raven-haired girl’s command, the transparent blade of Sennen no Inori turned into water, which then split into two streams joined at the hilt of the sword, each engulfing a hand. Nikki-chan, Sennen no Inori in truth is a Water Sword. As a result, its blade possessed a sharpness not even that of the best man-made razor could match. If you put a strand of hair along the edge of Sennen no Inori and breathed on it, that very strand would be split cleanly into two. If you pointed the sword downward at the toughest paved road in Unomichi and then let go, Sennen no Inori would drive through it like through paper until all you saw afterwards was its hilt.

Also, being a magically wrought Water Sword, it has another powerful ability other than being able to liquefy at will. You know ne, Nikki-chan, Sennen no Inori can gather the moisture from the air to extend its length as far as its wielder wished. That was how the Priestess Fuyuu Kotonoha could stand in one place the very night I first met her in my kitsune youkai form and still managed to hurt me. You understand now, don’t you, why Kugimiya Karasu wants the thing so much? I doubt the demon’s father, Kugimiya Ryuha, however mighty he may be, would stand a chance against the sacred goshintai of Furisame Jinja.

“Draw,” Koto-chan muttered. As if it was a summons, a liquid blacker than ink wormed out from within the wound on Kohaku’s palm. I didn’t have to be a genius to be able to guess that it was the materialized form of the curse the spider demon had cast upon the child in her hope for vengeance. The liquid then swam along the current of Sennen no Inori and finally arrived at the wound on my Koto-chan’s palm. It rushed inside.

“Cease,” the word came out a snap. The wounds closed their mouths, the water withdrew into Sennen no Inori’s original sword form, and the sword vanished. Koto-chan’s expression went a trifle gray.

“Kohaku-chan! Kohaku-chan!” Nakayama Meiko called as she rushed to her son, who had been lowered back down to his bed. “Are you alright?” the boy didn’t answer her, but it was clear that his condition had improved vastly. He was no longer sweating within an inch of his life, his breathing stabilized, and the red color slowly fading from his complexion. I didn’t doubt for a second that he was beyond death’s reach.

“We must leave, Hikari-san,” Koto-chan said as she grabbed my hand. “Hurry.”

Ignoring the overjoyed Nakayama couple, we left the house. Ignoring the townsfolk who went wide-eyed at their usually self-possessed Kotonoha-sama, beautiful face grim, hand dragging her utterly confused assistant, we hurried toward the Northern Gate, where Kagemori welcomed us into its sacred shade and a labyrinth’s worth of winding roads. Midway through the Forest of Shadows, the raven-haired girl missed a step and collapsed onto all four. Her obsidian eyes were wide open, her complexion reddening, and her whole body trembling above the grassy ground as though a tree caught in an earthquake.

“Koto-chan!” I cried as I knelt down next to her. “Are you okay?”

“The curse… it is affecting me,” my housemate mumbled as she struggled to rise back on her feet. “Come, we must return to the Shrine before it is too late.” She fell down again, this time flat on her stomach.

Not saying a word, I took her limp body into my arms and started to run as if hell was on my heels. Yet, worried about her condition as I was, I still could notice that it was getting worse. Koto-chan was sweating profusely, her temperature growing so rapidly in so short a time that one moment I was holding a warm human body, the next I was holding something almost as hot as burning coals. Her eyes were only half opened, yet the brilliant gleam I usually saw in them had vanished, leaving all but a dull black color belonging to the eyes of the dead. The mighty Priestess Fuyuu Kotonoha had become exactly the same as Nakayama Kohaku, the child whose life she saved. I was scared witless, but the more so I was, the faster I ran, the more fervently I hoped I could reach Furisame Jinja in time.

All of a sudden, I felt her soft, searing-hot hand on my cheek, touching it in such an affectionate way that anyone could have thought I was her lover. Then slowly, Koto-chan shifted her body in my arm so she could wrap her arms around my neck. My mind went blank as I felt her breath caressing the skin on my cheek, as I saw her lips drawing nearer and nearer to mine.

I tripped on a rock – or perhaps a fallen tree branch, I wasn’t quite sure – so I lost my balance and fell. Although Koto-chan caught me by surprise, there was enough sense left in me to realize that a forward fall would hurt the girl I loved, who was hugging me in a way that tied my tongue in a knot and made my heart pound hard enough to rival any stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer. Before the fall lifted my feet into the air, I used all the strength I had to pull my head away from the raven-haired girl, pressed her against my chest, and then turned my body so my back instead of my front slammed painfully upon the ground afterwards. Darkness decorated by colorful stars blanketed my vision while a terrible pain rippled across my whole self. Had the air not been driven out of my lungs already, I would have screamed.

When the darkness dissipated from my eyes, I found my beloved companion lying atop my body, her face hovering an inch above my own, her hands lacing tightly in mine, pinning them to the ground on either side of my head. She was breathing heavily, and I could feel the intense heat radiating from her reddened skin. I wanted to push her off of me so I could take her into my arms again and hurried back to Furisame Jinja. Eyes closed, lips slightly opened, she lowered her mouth to mine.

Nikki-chan, despite the fact that I had always wanted to feel the raven-haired girl’s lips once more ever since I discovered that I had fallen head over heels in love with her, I found no joy and pleasure in seeing her wanting to kiss me so desperately on that fateful day. Why would I, when I was fully aware that she wasn’t herself all the while? Why would I, when I knew that it was her wretched fever that controlled her body? The Koto-chan I know and love wouldn’t try to kiss me by force, and I am not so low that I would attempt to take advantage of her for my own selfish gain. That was the reason why I struggled to keep her lips off of mine.

My efforts didn’t manage to daunt the raven-haired in the beginning, though. It only made her try ever more fiercely to capture my lips, which gave me one hell of a time trying to stop her by constantly turning my face. After a long while of playing hide-and-seek with my mouth, Koto-chan gave up. I thought she would get off of me. She didn’t. To my horror, she wrapped her arms around my neck, buried her lovely face in my bosom, and wept as hard as she could. Her voice, drenched with sorrow, soaked in tears, echoed loudly in Kagemori Forest. I only stared at her then, sensing my heart being ripped apart.

“Why… why will you not kiss me?” the other girl sobbed.

“K… Koto-chan…” I muttered in disbelief.

“Why do you not accept my feelings, Hikari? Why will you not love me back?” came the muffled questions that upturned my stomach. Never once before did she address me with my plain name. Prior to that day, she only appeared a caring friend and a kind housemate but the emotions overflowing from her words at that moment clearly proved to me that she saw me as nothing else but a lover. Nikki-chan, instead of being filled to the brim with happiness, a terribly feeling I couldn’t name placed its cold hand around my heart.

“You’re delirious, Koto-chan,” I said, my hands gently pushed her away from me so I could sit up straight. “I must….” She didn’t let me finish.

“NO!” She threw her arms around my back and hugged me tightly as she wept furiously into my shoulder, her tears seeping into the fabrics. “Please! Do not leave me on my own again, I beg of you!”

“I’m not going anywhere, Koto-chan,” I whispered breathlessly into her ear while my hands traveled up and down her back, trying to ease her crying. She didn’t seem to have heard me, for she only tightened her grip. I really wanted to yell out in pain.

“I love you so much, Hikari,” the raven-haired girl wept “Ever since you left Ise Grand Shrine, my life had become worse than death. But now the Gods have brought you back to me, they had rekindled my hope…. So please…. Stay by my side forever. I cannot live without you anymore… Hikari….”

The heartfelt confession struck me like a slap across my face. Another girl would probably be happy enough to die right then and there, but Nikki-chan, all I felt was bleakness and raging jealousy. It wasn’t me Koto-chan claimed she loved. It wasn’t me she was speaking to. It was the real Amano Hikari, the person I’m masquerading as under Kugimiya Karasu’s command.

Arms dropped to my sides, I was at a loss for words. Meanwhile, Koto-chan never stopped crying until the fatigue and the fever defeated her and rendered her unconscious. She passed out with her head resting on my shoulder, face contorted in grief, tears still leaking from the corners of her eyes.

Knowing that I must not hesitate, I took her back into my arms and dashed toward the Shrine of the Falling Rain. Before long, I passed beneath the Torii Archway marking the territory of Furisame Jinja. It was only then did the raven-haired girl truly regain her consciousness. Nikki-chan, I don’t think it was a coincidence. The Sacred Barrier protecting the Shrine must have exerted some positive influence on the girl’s body and temporarily disrupted the devastating influence of the curse.

“Are we home, Hikari-san?” Koto-chan mumbled weakly.

“We are,” was my quiet answer.

“Take me… to the Inner Sanctuary,” my housemate instructed. “There lies… the cure.”

In less than five minutes, we arrived at the Honden – the Inner Sanctuary – of Furisame, a minute building only as large as my own room that was placed at the end of the gable-roofed portico connecting the four main buildings of the Jinja. Nikki-chan, the Sanctuary is where the goshintai of the Shrine, A Thousand Years of Prayers, rests. The first time the Priestess took me there several months ago, I knew immediately that what Kugimiya Karasu wanted was hiding beyond those little wooden doors that weren’t even locked. Well, true, it seemed a piece of cake just to push them open and take the sword, you might think. Wrong. Instead of locks, the Honden’s protected by a Barrier that denies physical contacts. There’s no way in hell I could get in.

“Put me… in front of the entrance,” Koto-chan said. I did as she wanted me to. I helped her to sit up straight in a prim seiza fashion then moved out of her way.

The raven-haired girl’s right hand rose, the tip of her long, slender finger alight. Slowly, she used it as a brush to draw strange glowing shapes that formed vertical line after vertical line in the air while her mouth moved soundlessly, probably reciting sacred chants. All of a sudden, a white dome of light materialized over the sacred Inner Sanctuary. It was the physical-repelling barrier I told you earlier, Nikki-chan.

“Open,” Koto-chan breathed as her hand plowed forward. The glowing lines blazed, a deafening sound erupted, and the Barrier was gone. The doors to the Honden swung open, revealing what lay beyond. Lying horizontally on a wooden altar was the glowing shape of the sacred sword Sennen no Inori, above which was a length of wood lacquered in white, a scabbard I never knew existed.

“Awaken, Sennen no Koe,” my housemate said weakly. She had to use both of her hands to support her body then. Light flared from within the Inner Sanctuary in a humongous pillar of light that enveloped the raven-haired girl in a heartbeat. Then just as quickly as it had emerged, it was gone. The doors to the Honden drew shut in a loud, dry crack.

“Are you alright, Koto-chan?” I cried and ran to my beloved’s side.

“The danger has already passed, Hikari-san,” she smiled gently at me. “The curse has been lifted.” I heaved a sigh of relief. Looking at her, who seemed at the prime of her life, healthy and strong, none would have believed that she was so sick she couldn’t even walk on her own just moments ago. Still, despite the fact that my worries about her condition had departed, my heart was still heavier than a chunk of rocks, and my head buzzing with suspicions.

“What was that light from earlier?” I asked after giving my head a light shake.

“Sennen no Koe,” Koto-chan answered while using the wide sleeve of her robe to dry the sweat on her face. “The second goshintai of Furisame Jinja, the object that maintains the Sacred Barrier around our Shrine, and the scabbard to Sennen no Inori itself.”

“How did an object capable of making a Barrier remove the curse for you?” I said, puzzled.

“It is quite simple.” The raven-haired girl rose gracefully to her feet. “Sennen no Koe created a Barrier within my body and trapped the curse within its clutches. Like this.” She raised her hand to her side, palm upward. A glowing white sphere – centered by another, pitch black and only half the size – leapt up and suspended itself in the air. Then the outer sphere grew smaller and smaller, forcefully shrinking the black one within as it went, while Koto-chan’s fingers bent steadily inward. The instant their tips touched her palm was also the instant both spheres exploded in a brilliant flash of light. “Sennen no Koe obliterated the curse in pretty much same way.”

“I see,” I said in a half-hearted tone.

“Thank you, Hikari-san.” My companion suddenly pulled me into her arms. “Without you, I fear my life would have been forfeited. So thank you.” Normally, I would have blushed myself to death in her arms. I would have even hugged her back and enjoyed the soft, cuddly body of the one I so dearly cherished. Yet, at that time, I only felt bitter… and strangely empty inside my heart.

“Ne, Koto-chan,” I said after she had released me.

“Yes?” She gave me a little smile that did nothing to improve my mood. I tried to smile back but managing anything other than a quirk of my mouth’s corners was beyond any effort. The raven-haired girl blinked at me, slightly taken aback.

“Do you remember what you said to me on our way home?”

“Ah… no….” Koto-chan said, genuine puzzlement dancing in her obsidian eyes. “I thought I was unconscious the whole time... was I not?”

“It must be my imagination, then. I’m… sorry, but I was rather tired, so I’ll retire to my room and rest. Good night, Koto-chan.” Before she could say anything, I ran off and spent the rest of the day hiding beneath the blanket of my futon, trembling and crying in silence. Koto-chan came in my room a few times but I pretended to be fast asleep and ignored her. She sighed and left.

The very next day was the day Koto-chan was supposed to escort the Yamazaki family through Sengimori Forest and to the port. I woke up early to see her off, acting normally as though nothing had happened the day before. I even gave her a smile, however tight and forced, when she waved to me one last time beneath the Torii Archway before she vanished into Kagemori Forest. She wasn’t exactly happy, though, and she appeared to have spent the whole previous night awake.

Later in the afternoon, when I was sure that the raven-haired girl and the Yamazaki family had already departed, I crossed Kagemori and went straight to the office of the Mayor. Sadamoto Shun'ichi was shocked to see me, and his eyes seemed more than ready to fall out of his face when he heard my demand to see Kugimiya Karasu. He tried to talk me out of it. He very nearly swallowed his own tongue when I threatened to reveal his involvement with Karasu should he refuse to do what I wanted.

Dear Nikki-chan, of course I had known from the very start that Koto-chan was lying when she said she had mistaken me for someone else. I was fully aware that she must have realized who I, or rather the girl to whom my face belonged, was before I came to in the Colonization Office. I hadn’t given much it thought firstly because I didn’t love Koto-chan in the beginning, and secondly because once I did, I became too infatuated with her to remember anything except her smiling face. After what had happened… I had to learn the truth.

An hour or so after the Mayor had sent out a dove carrying a message, in a secret spot in Sengimori Forest known only to Kugimiya Karasu and his faithful servant Sadamoto Shun'ichi, the handsome crow demon revealed himself to me in a flutter of black wings and a whirlwind of dancing feathers. His smile was as pleasant as ever, his face warm, and his dark eyes glittering with a light that spoke volumes of happiness. Yet, the smile vanished, his face grew icy, and his eyes became daggers once he had realized that I didn’t bring with me anything except the clothes I was standing in. Of course, that meant he had thought that I was going to give him Sennen no Inori upon receiving the message. The disappointment must have been killing him inside. I couldn’t care less.

“What do you want?” Karasu frowned irritably at me, wings folded behind his back.

“Who’s Amano Hikari?” I demanded. “How is she related to Fuyuu Kotonoha?” Annoyance flashed across his face, but it was soon gone and replaced by a surprised look.

“You’re not the girl I remembered, kiddo,” he said softly, hand cupping my face and lifting it up. “The you of four months ago wouldn’t dare speaking to me in such a defiant way. What constituted such a change, I wonder?”

“Answer me,” I said, anger bubbling furiously in my voice. I backhanded him. “Who IS Amano Hikari? You make me look exactly like her. FOR WHAT?!”

“I said once before that she was just a random chick, yes?” the man said in a dangerous voice.

“You’re lying! She used to be in the Grand Shrine of Ise with Kotonoha,” I pointed out heatedly.

“How do you know?” The demon’s brows knitted together in puzzlement, his eyes blinking in evident surprise.

“The Priestess was dead drunk yesterday,” I lied, “so she blabbed it out all on her own.”

“What else did she reveal to you?”

“None,” I answered. “The only thing she kept repeating was how much she missed Hikari after the girl left Ise Daijin-guu.” While the explanation seemed to have satisfied Kugimiya Karasu’s curiosity, it did nothing to warm up his face. Of course, the way I stared at him challengingly didn’t really help.

“Go back to the Shrine,” Karasu said, his hand making a dismissing gesture. “Maybe I’ll tell you if you bring me what I need. Maybe.”

“No!” I snapped. “Tell me the truth right now!”

“Heh,” Karasu narrowed his eyes. “You do not know your place, kiddo. I am the one who gives command, not you.” He raised his hand and pointed it at me with his fingers, armed with nails that had grown long enough to resemble small knives in a heartbeat. “Get out of my sight before I slit your throat,” he threatened menacingly.

“Go ahead,” I hissed. “Kill me and lose the opportunity to get your filthy hand on the sword forever!” My response surprised Karasu so greatly his arm dropped to his side. He stared at me, eyes unblinking, tongue seemed to have been glued to the roof of his mouth. He was right when he said that I had changed. Following Koto-chan around does have its use, I guess. The high-handed attitude she wielded against the people of Unomichi must have rubbed off on me and stiffened my backbone more than enough to deal with Kugimiya Karasu.

“Tell me!” I demanded. “Who is she?!”

“Fine!” the demon muttered. “Amano Hikari, as I told you, was born into a farmer’s family in Hiroshima Prefecture. They were poor, and the profit from their crops was barely enough to feed the entire family. Then a terrible famine struck the region. Everybody starved. Kiddo, you know how some humans became animals when driven insane by their growling stomachs, yes? Well, many chose to discard their humanity to become bandits so they could protect their own lives at the expense of others’. One night, a gang of bandits assaulted the Amano family. They took away all the food, slaughtered the entire family except Hikari herself, and then dragged the girl with them, probably intending to sell her to a brothel.”

I gasped.

“Nah, don’t worry,” Kugimiya Karasu said. “Nothing happened to her. The bandits bumped into two people later on the road. It was the High Priestess of Ise, Hiiragi Mikazuki, who was on a journey across the country with her disciple, an eighteen-year-old girl who happened to be Ise’s famous prodigy, the one who was rumored to possess powers beyond even the strongest exorcist at the Grand Shrine itself.” Karasu glanced at me. “Care to guess her name?”

“Fuyuu Kotonoha,” I breathed.

“Obviously.” Karasu nodded. “Kotonoha and her mentor noticed the condition the Amano girl was in, so they chased away the bandit and saved her. I don’t know if it was pity or something else but Kotonoha insisted that her mentor brought Hikari back to Ise. Given that the people in the Grand Shrine spoiled the girl rotten, her request was quickly granted. From that day onward, Amano Hikari became the young Priestess’s personal page. According to a reliable source, Kotonoha never stayed more than an arm’s length away from the girl. If you saw one of them, you’d see the other. Some even joked that they were lovers in their past lives. But of course, Kotonoha was definitely in love the way she neglected her studies just to hang out with her page.” My mood grew darker with his every word.

“What happened next?” I muttered coldly.

“Kotonoha confessed; what else?” the man rolled his eyes as if to say ‘What are you, stupid?’ “Now here’s the interesting thing, kiddo, Amano Hikari reported it to the High Priestess Hiiragi Mikazuki.”

“She did?” My eyes went wide.

“Oh yes.” The crow demon chuckled softly. “She either didn’t know what to do or disgusted by the confession, I suppose. The very next day, the old hag announced that she was sending Hikari away to Kyoto to be a servant in a wealthy family. She wasn’t pleased by the news that a girl had captured her disciple’s heart and destroyed the girl’s dedication to her training, I’d say. As far as I can see, it was the wrong decision, for it made Kotonoha spend the following months wandering aimlessly around the Shrine like a person who had been robbed of her soul. Heard she broke a few expensive vases, too.” The chuckle became a deep, rich laughter.

“Ever since you left Ise Grand Shrine, my life had become worse than death,” Koto-chan’s voice whispered softly in my ear. My blood froze, my vision grew teary, and my heart almost stopped.

“Why did Kotonoha leave Ise for a faraway place like Hokkaido?”

“The official announcement was that Hokkaido was in desperate need of exorcists, and that the Grand Shrine would like Kotonoha to learn how to manage a Shrine on her own to prepare for her succession to the post of High Priestess in the future,” Karasu said. “The real reason behind it, well, who knows?”

“How did you… learn all this?” I said, my voice tight and on the verge of breaking like glass.

“I said I had a reliable source; you haven’t been listening, no?” Karasu answered wryly. “There’s a fallen Priest who was excommunicated from Ise for his dirty deeds, which he confessed to include gouging people for the ritual services that actually didn’t cost a yen. Turned out he needed money to support a concubine he hid from his lioness of a wife. Oh, and he was addicted to gambling and drugs, too. Silly human, yes?” He paused to laugh again, this time more loudly and amused. “Well, what do you know? I showered him with gold and he spilled all I needed to know about our little Priestess.”

“Why… did you make me assume that girl Hikari’s identity?” I mumbled. “Why did you make me feign amnesia?”

“Oh come on. It isn’t that hard to figure out on your own, you know.” The demon threw up his hands. “Do you think Kotonoha would have accepted another girl as her assistant so easily, with no questions asked? Despite the fact that she was betrayed by the Amano girl, the Priestess never stopped loving her. While in Ise, people had seen her sitting in some corner of the Shrine, holding a handkerchief close to her heart and cried in silence. No wonder that old hag of a High Priestess was pissed off.”

“A handkerchief?”

“Yes.” Karasu nodded. “That money-worshipping Priest said Kotonoha sewn that piece of cloth herself and gave that to the Amano girl as a present in the beginning. When the girl left Ise, she returned it. That ought to hurt.” He cackled out loud.

“Did your source tell you… what that handkerchief looked like?” I asked, feeling my blood turn cold as my hand reached into my pocket and found that which I always brought with me wherever I went.

“Ehm… let’s see,” the demon said while giving his lips a thoughtful tap. “I think it’s a plain cloth sewn at the corner with a golden lily. The Priest mentioned that it’s supposed to represent something, but I forgot what. He got hysterical when speaking about it though.”

“I see,” I mumbled, my head swayed, my heart throbbed, and my hand clenched around the piece of cloth in my pocket. It was the handkerchief Koto-chan lent me during our second meeting, in which I cried my eyes out grieving for my deceased mom and dad. It was the same handkerchief she gave me after the outburst of jealousy in the morning Yamazaki Shizuka informed her that she was going to move away from Unomichi.

“You okay, kiddo?” Karasu frowned. “Why do you suddenly look so pale?”

“I’m… okay…” I said weakly as I turned around and started to walk away. “See you later.”

“You better bring me the sword then, or else!” the man called after me, but I hardly cared about his unvoiced threat. In fact, I wouldn’t have cared if he killed me right then and there. I even would have thanked him for that. You know why, Nikki-chan? It was because my heart was hurting too badly. Knowing that the one I loved never loved me, but the girl I was supposed to be made me feel as though my world had been robbed of the light. It just hurt too much.

When Koto-chan returned the following day, she found in her room the handkerchief she had given me on the table, and in mine a girl who seemed as though she had lost all meanings to live. Of course, being in low spirit as I was, I abandoned my duties as her personal assistant, I wouldn’t talk to her, and I avoided her whenever I could.

I made her worried, of course. Times and again Koto-chan tried to find out what had happened, or if she had offended me somehow. More than once she sat by my futon for an entire evening, hand holding the handkerchief, and waited for me to speak up. I never did.

Nikki-chan, I didn’t talk much to her, or even want to face her, wasn’t because I hated her, or was mad at her. It was because every time I did, I was reminded of the fact that I was but a substitution for the one she really loved. During those times, I had been very hard pressed to stop the tears from welling in my eyes. When I saw her outside the safe haven that was my room, it took every once of strength I had in my body to not run back into there and hide until the pain subsided. Someone else might not have cared, I suppose. Someone else might have taken advantaged of the situation. I could not…. Every night, I would tremble beneath the blanket, bury my face in the pillow, and cry until I fell asleep. Life had never been so painful. Sometimes, I even wished that I had died along with my parents in that fire so I wouldn’t have had the chance to meet and fall in love with Fuyuu Kotonoha.

Our relationship remained that way for another month, with me being hurt by the raven-haired girl’s misdirected love, with me hurting her equally so by giving her cold shoulder. Her body grew thin, her body haggard, and her eyes red enough to suggest that she had been crying during the nights. I knew she was tormented by my attitude, yet I could do nothing to cheer her up when I myself barely felt the need to linger in Furisame Jinja.

Two weeks before New Year, I was delivered from the pit of misery in which I trapped myself. By what? Well, that’s for tomorrow, Nikki-chan. Now, I have to go.

Jaa, ne.