“What happened last night?” Naoe got the jump on him the next morning as they drove toward the scene.
In the passenger seat, Chiaki flinched. So now both master and servant were conjecturing. “Did you hear about it from Kagetora?”
Naoe shook his head. “The «Nokizaru» said they saw you meeting with a woman. Was it someone related to the case?”
“...What? No. I came across somebody related to the former owner of this body.”
“A relative? What happened?”
“Nothing. I went home without even hypnotizing her.”
“That’s not like you.”
“Argh. Yeah, it’s not like me at all. I’m no Kagetora,” Chiaki grumbled, leaning back against the headrest. “Well, I guess I could just ignore her.”
They stopped at a traffic light, and Naoe gave him a intensely meaningful look. “That’s unconscionable,” he retorted, smiling wryly.
How’d he know Naoe would throw him to the wolves?
“Something’s troubling you. I didn’t know you were the type of man who’d feel himself so beholden.”
“I don’t feel beholden!”
“We choose to perform embryonic kanshou to limit the amount of necessary evil we do. If you have any doubts, then you shouldn’t be performing kanshou on anyone older at all. I had always thought you were sure of your decisions.”
“I am sure of my decisions. That’s not the problem.”
They arrived at Shiba Park
. The Iga onshou had made Shiba Toushou Shrine, a small Shinto shrine located next to the Tokugawa family’s Bodai Temple, their hiding place. The giant ginkgo here was a national treasure said to be planted by Tokugawa Iemitsu himself. Slow to turn in the autumn, it still retained some of its leaves among its boughs, despite the fact that it was already January. Perhaps because of the drop in temperature this morning, the golden leaves around the great tree’s roots had turned white with frost. The shrine here was also dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, of course, but gave the impression of being much cozier than the shrines at Nikkou and Kunou-san. It had once belong to Bodai Temple, but had gained independence with the government policy of separation of Buddhism and Shintoism.
Speaking of which, the shrine now hosting the onshou of the Iga League must also have acted as a cornerstone of the magical protection High Priest Tenkai had cast over Edo. The possibility existed that they would attempt to harness the manifested power of Toushou Shrine’s Ieyasu, but all was quiet at the moment. They weren’t precisely taking shelter beneath the biggest tree they could find, but as ‘Edo’s safe-spot,’ it was a perfect location from which to make a feint at Oda.
They joined the «Nokizaru» staking out the site.
“I didn’t know you were coming, Hakkai.”
Among them was a man in his mid-thirties wearing a business suit. He had an angular chin and piercing, rather gloomy eyes. This was the leader of the «Nokizaru», Hakkai.
He operated under Kagetora’s direct command. Naoe’s brows twitched nervously upward. “This job is our responsibility. We’ve been making regular reports.”
“No one is saying otherwise. There is no deeper meaning to my presence here.”
Naoe frowned with distaste. ...Had that been a polite way of saying that they were being monitored? Could they not be trusted to finish the job?
The rebels of the Iga League had not yet made any alarming movements.
“The Snake-Bones Monster is within the main shrine.”
They had erected layers of barriers around it. In front of them was Hibiya Avenue with its constant flow of traffic.
“The traffic is heavy, and the subway passes right beneath it. If it goes berserk, we won’t be able to prevent casualties.”
“We need to take care of it as soon as possible.” Naoe pushed, impatient to finish off the Snake-Bones Monster.
“Kagetora-sama has told us to hold off.”
“We don’t have the time to await his ruling. Who would take responsibility for the harm it would cause if it goes out of control?”
“Kagetora is probably thinking it could act as a useful check on the Oda side.” Chiaki interjected on his behalf. “The current Snake-Bones Monster is likely a fusion of the spirits of Lady Iwamura with those of the castle’s serpent’s. As you know, it was sealed away by Oda thirty years ago—”
Lady Iwamura had been Nobunaga’s aunt. He had had her executed despite those ties of blood, and she had become an onryou. She had bided her time until thirty years ago, when she had attacked the resurrected Oda and nearly succeeded in killing him. But in the end Oda cast her into the snake pit of Iwamura Castle and sealed her within. In all probability, she had joined with the snake spirit called the Snake-Bones Monster there which she herself had enslaved in her previous life.
“This is a spirit which even Nobunaga couldn’t kill, only seal away. Her hatred for Nobunaga is turned up to eleven. If we were looking for a spirit guaranteed to go after him, we couldn’t find a better candidate.”
“Our highest priority is to protect the living, and there’s no guarantee that it will not harm them.”
“The Snake-Bones Monster is still tranquil. We have enough time to verify a few facts. The «Nokizaru» have gone to the Iwamura Castle’s snake pit to confirm. We should at least wait until they get back.”
Naoe’s displeasure was obvious. In addition to being the private police force of the «Yami-Sengoku», the Uesugi had to maintain the balance between the various powers objectively. To crush one side meant complicity with its adversaries. To fail in this balancing act was not unlikely to pour gasoline on the fire of the shadow war.
The time when they could simply go around exorcising onryou was long past.
“... To tiptoe around the onshou while the living are harmed is putting the cart before the horse. I will talk things over with Kagetora-sama. Don’t slack off with the monitoring.” Naoe returned to the car.
“Geez... Why’d he have to get all mad for?”
“Why must Naoe-sama oppose Kagetora-sama to such an extent...?”
“...Who knows—I sure don’t. But hey, I’ve seen worse than them clashing over something like this.”
“Yasuda-sama?”
“Naoe should know the meaning of his left hand.”
Hakkai could not decipher this remark—not that Chiaki had meant it to be deciphered. He shifted out of Naoe’s line-of-sight.
“Whether we exterminate it or return it to Iwamura Castle, we’d better do it before Oda’s gang get wind of it. Bodai Temple is our focal point—we need to spread a watch over the entirety of Shiba Park. Let’s get to work, Hakkai.”
It was past eight in the evening when Chiaki returned to the hotel. Upon collecting his key from the front desk, the concierge there told him that he had a visitor waiting for him in the lobby lounge.
Natsumi rose from her table seat to greet him.
“Na-Natsumi-san. Why...” Chiaki asked, taken completely back.
“I’m so sorry. I was worried, so I followed you last night.”
She had apparently been worried that her little brother would simply disappear again, so had secretly followed him back to his hotel, which was how she’d known to find him here today. Chiaki had been completely oblivious. ...What a blunder on his part.
“Maybe if we interacted a little more, you would remember something. I brought some albums and things, thinking that maybe there’s an off-chance that they might trigger a memory. And maybe dinner? I brought onigiri with pickled eggplant. You used to love them.”
The words ‘I have no intention of remembering’ stuck in his throat in the face of Natsumi’s heroic efforts.
“And wow! I didn’t know you were staying in a hotel!”
“Oh, yeah. It’s, um, for work.”
“How long will you be here?”
“Dunno... ’Til the job’s done, I guess.”
“Are you okay for money? Are you getting paid well? What kind of work are you doing?”
Natsumi couldn’t seem to help feeling concerned about her little brother—understandably, of course. What kind of job would pay a young man who was nineteen, twenty at most to stay in a hotel—and one suffering from amnesia, at that? It was fishy, to say the least; Natsumi certainly seemed to think something shady was going on.
“You’re not doing anything illegal, are you? Something you can’t even tell your sister about?” Natsumi pressed.
She certainly acted like a big sister.
“Urm,” Chiaki hemmed and hawed. “No-nothing like that! It’s just a normal job at a small night entertainment business.”
“Night entertainment business? Like a host?”
“Yeah, um...”
“Liar! If you were a host you’d be at work right now!” Natsumi leaned forward, pressing for an answer. Caught out, Chiaki attempted a dry dissembling laugh, but Natsumi stared at him with wide eyes and a look resembling that of Lord Shoki the Plague-Queller, commander of 80,000 demons.
“Uh, yeah...I mean, it’s closed right now. For, you know, renovations. My apartment too—it’s being remodeled.”
“Oh, really,” she said, completely unimpressed. Chiaki smoothed his shirt against his chest. “But I guess it’s understandable... I mean, what other kind of job would hire a kid without an identity who can’t even remember who he is? But still, my Shuuhei as a host? ...I guess I’m in a bit of a shock.”
“So, see? I’m doing fine. You don’t have to worry about me. Why don’t you...”
“Hey, want to come over to my place?”
“Huh?” Chiaki’s eyes widened.
“It’s not that far—just by Sanguu Bridge . I can at least cook dinner for you. I have a spare loft, so you can sleep there if you like.”
“Hahahah... I appreciate the invitation, but...”
“What? You don’t want to?”
“Um, well, I’ve lost my memory and everything, so...I mean, we’re like total strangers now. Wouldn’t it look bad if you brought a strange man home with you?”
“That’s a weird way of putting it. You’re not a strange man, you’re my brother. You don’t stop being my brother just because you’ve lost your memory. So you don’t have to feel awkward about coming over,” she persisted, unexpectedly stubborn. “I bet you’ll be begging to come over next time once you’ve tasted my onigiri...oh shoot! I was focused so much on the pickled vegetables that I forgot about the rice!”
Natsumi could be absent-minded at times, too, it seemed—and ironically, with the onigiri in which she had so much confidence. Holding back tears, she stared forlornly at the plastic container with the pickled vegetables for a moment before looking up with tear-bright eyes at Chiaki. Oh shit, he thought, but he had no escape.
“I’ll go get some with you, so...please don’t cry.”
Thus, thirty minutes later saw Chiaki Shuuhei pedaling along the track of the Odakyuu Rail Line on the bike Natsumi rode to work every day. She was riding behind him.
“Hey, steady! You’re wobbling!”
(You’re complaining when I’m the one who got suckered into riding around on a granny bike?)
Chiaki pedaled hard with Natsumi’s reproofs in his ears and the bright glow of skyscrapers at his back, overtaking railroad cars on the pale track next to them.
“What a wonderful feeling! It’s been so long since I’ve ridden tandem with you, Shuuhei. The last time was in elementary school—do you remember? I was the one pedaling then!” Natsumi recalled merrily.
Chiaki huffed up Kiridooshi Hill . It’d been decades since he’d last been on a bike, and man, were his trembling thighs reminding him of that fact.
“Ha-have you put on weight, Natsumi-san?”
“Wow, rude! I’ve lost weight, actually—15 kilos since college.”
He was openly panting by the time they reached Natsumi’s studio apartment. Located on the second floor at the end of the hall, it offered a nice view of the Shinjuku nightscape. The interior was decorated in warm colors and sundry items indicating that a young woman lived here. On a wood-grained table were a fashion magazine and the remainder of that morning’s breakfast, including a mug with leftover coffee.
“Crap! Give me just a minute.”
Noticing the underwear left forgotten on her bed, Natsumi rushed to tidy up. Her brother he might be, but she was still embarrassed to have him see her private things lying around.
“All right, come on in!”
“One cup of tea,” Chiaki insisted as he entered. Natsumi’s flat was a window into Natsumi herself. She was not a particularly tidy person. Her breakfast things had been left lying out, indicating a rushed morning. Videos were stacked high next to the TV—probably recordings of shows she liked. The room had that lived-in atmosphere, but rather than feeling cluttered, it somehow managed to convey a sense of peace.
“Is oolong okay?”
Natsumi returned with a mug. Seasoning and condiments stood in a line in her tiny kitchen space. The cramped layout likely meant she couldn’t do any complicated cooking while she lived here. Rehydrated seaweed strips lay piled in a colander.
“Here, have some onigiri.” Natsumi re-entered with a plateful of the onigiri she had ‘forgotten’ earlier.
Though not particularly hungry, refusing was out of the question. He bit into one half-despairingly. It had stuffing made from the seaweed he had noticed earlier.
“Here’s some miso soup to go with that.” She came out again with a wooden bowl of reheated miso soup. She grinned at her little brother. “So? Is it good?”
It discomfited him. ...He was completely discombobulated.
“Eat as much as you want. There’s lots,” she urged, pointing at the pile of seaweed. ‘No thanks,’ he thought—but it truly had been a long time since he‘d had real home-made miso soup (his ’home-made’ miso soup usually came from fast food joints), and it moved him more than he could have imagined. The Chiaki family miso was quite mild. As if his body held some sort of taste-memory, a strange, bewildering feeling of deep familiarity welled up inside him.
“Miso soup is the only thing I make that Mom actually gives me a passing grade on. Nothing else meets her standards.”
Chiaki unthinkingly set down his chopsticks.
“Are you okay? Did something get in?”
“No... it’s nothing.”
“What’s wrong, then?”
The tears abruptly welling up in his eyes surprised Chiaki. His body knew this taste, though Chiaki had no memory of it. A startlingly deep sense of nostalgia flooded into him.
(It’s strange,) he thought. The part of his brain that he had locked away was reacting. That had to be it, for why else would something to which he had no emotional attachment whatsoever affect him so strongly? Was it his own emotions he was struggling with or his body’s? The uncertainty addled him not a little. Could the part of himself that he had locked away awaken if he ate any more? The possibility frightened him.
“Ah, I guess you weren’t very hungry, then...” Natsumi said with some regret, for she had wondered whether her miso soup might not stir her brother’s memories even just a little. Recognizing the shine of Chiaki’s eyes, though, she began wrapping the remaining onigiri in aluminum foil, relieved. “I was worried about you becoming a total stranger because you’ve lost your memories... well, in some ways I really don’t know you anymore. But you know, I feel like it’s so much easier to talk to you now. I mean, you’ve grown up into such a cool guy, it surprised me!”
“Really?”
“You’ve matured, Shuuhei,” Natsumi gazed at him warmly. “I never even dreamed I’d find you like this. I thought it was impossible just yesterday. I’ve phoned Mom to let her and everyone know.”
“Already?”
“Of course,” Natsumi said, her eyes falling slightly as she continued more gravely, “Mom...and Step-Dad...were overjoyed. He said...he’s forgiven everything that happened, so come home. ‘It’s all right now. Everything’s all right.’”
Her voice had become unwontedly solemn at the end. Her hands, clasped together over her lap, had tightened. Chiaki could vaguely guess at what had happened between ‘Shuuhei’ and his family.
“Are they coming? Here, to Tokyo?”
“They wanted to come immediately, but Step-Dad isn’t feeling well enough to make the trip right now... After you disappeared, all the light just went out of the house. We didn’t know whether you had run away, or if something had happened to you, or if you were even still alive...” Chiaki’s expression stiffened, but Natsumi continued without noticing, “Mom lost ten kilos.”
“...”
“It won’t be until later, but when you see her again, call her ‘Mom,’ okay? Please? Even if you don’t remember her.”
Chiaki’s thoughts were decidedly mixed. Natsumi’s anxiety over her brother meant that she was trying her very best not to pry into his life. But her fervent longing to repair her shattered family came through loud and clear.
“...Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put so much pressure on you. Anyway, you know, I was thinking of buying a heated table, but they don’t really have single-person sizes. Maybe an electric carpet? What do you think?”
Her bell-like voice was soothing, and subtly cast a spell of peace over the room.
Perhaps it was because Natsumi had such a tranquil disposition that the atmosphere of her home felt so comfortable. Her bright chatter held no hint of malice, and never seemed to become irritating. He felt as if he’d always known her, rather than for just a few short hours—maybe it was just that they thought alike. Was that feeling also an influence of ’Shuuhei’s brain on his consciousness?
“Do you like mandarin orange?” Natsumi asked, looking up at him with her big beautiful eyes. They were a lovely pair of siblings. But no matter how big-sister-like the baby-faced Natsumi acted, Chiaki could not help but think her sweet. Her silky hair, her soft skin, the faint flush on her cheeks, her moist lips...
(Oh shit...)
It was close to midnight when he next became aware of the time.
“I-I gotta go.”
“Wha—already?” Natsumi asked reluctantly. She caught at Chiaki’s sleeve as he stood. “Are you sure you don’t want to come stay with me?” Chiaki’s expression had turned serious. She added, looking up at him imploringly, “Mom won’t have to worry as much that way, and maybe you’ll get your memories back, too. I don’t care what kind of job you’re doing, okay? So just think about it.”
Chiaki sighed and smiled wryly. “Alright, I’ll think about it. Thanks for the onigiri.”
Natsumi saw him out, looking after him until he disappeared past the light of the street lamps. The skyscrapers were mostly dark now, only their blinking aircraft warning lights delineating their shapes against the night sky. As Chiaki walked away, he felt the night wind’s chill slice into him like a knife. Yet within him was an almost intoxicating warmth.
(Come stay with you...?)
It had been jarring and awkward to hear those words from her; innocent though the invitation had been, it reverberated with another meaning to Chiaki’s stranger’s ears. Though he had no such intentions, it still felt nice to be asked. Convincing himself that there was nothing wrong with basking in that feeling, he walked through the dark streets with pleasure in the lingering memories.
And then he abruptly came back to himself.
(What the hell am I doing...?)
The hotel lobby was nearly deserted at this late hour. Someone, however, was awaiting Chiaki’s return.
Though he was dressed in a fur-lined jacket, Takaya had caught the last limited express out of Matsumoto rather than taking his bike.
“Where the hell have you been?”
He’d apparently heard from Hakkai that Chiaki had left Shiba Park hours earlier. Chagrined, Chiaki scratched his head and responded curtly, “... I was with a girl.”
“With a...! At a time like this?!” Takaya burst out, leaping straight to the conclusion Chiaki had laid out for him—but he paused with aggravating astuteness, scowling. “I don’t give a damn about your private affairs, but if you go gallivanting about and screw up the job, innocent bystanders could get hurt. So be a little more careful, will you?”
“‘Private affairs,’ huh? My my, aren’t you acting all mature all of a sudden.”
“Were you with the relative?”
Chiaki’s eyes widened at Takaya’s perspicacious guess. When asked how he’d known, Takaya responded that Naoe had told him. So Takaya realized that he’d met up with Natsumi.
“Let’s talk in your room.” Takaya tossed him the room key. He’d recently started using hypnotic suggestion, and had apparently voodoo’d the front desk into giving it up. “Naoe’s spending the night on stakeout, so he’s letting me have his room.”
Chiaki shrugged and got on the elevator with Takaya behind him. Once the door closed, Takaya asked, “You performed non-embryonic kanshou, didn’t you?”
Chiaki leaned back and twirled the room key chain around his finger.
“A pretty flukey meeting, huh?”
Chiaki caught the key and stared down at his feet. The elevator doors opened. They got off and went into Chiaki’s room, which was immediately next door. Chiaki took a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge.
“You got a problem with that?”
“I’m asking if you feel any guilt at all over it.”
Non-embryonic kanshou was to perform kanshou on a body already grown—in Chiaki’s case, just three years ago, which meant that his vessel had been at least fifteen or sixteen years old at the time. Unlike Takaya and the others, who had performed kanshou on their hosts before birth, Chiaki had taken his body from someone already born into the world, already living his life. Takaya crossed his arms and learned back against the wall with a grim look.
“Naoe said that you’ve never balked at performing non-embryonic kanshou.”
“True.”
“Takes some nerve,” Takaya commented softly, the censure evident in his voice. “I‘ve been struggling with the question of how to accept kanshou since I learned of it. This body was supposed to belong to somebody named ’Ougi Takaya.’ And it’s not just that. I mean, how am I supposed to face Miya and my mother? The guilt isn’t so easy to shake off.” Biting off the pained words, Takaya lifted piercing eyes. “How are you going to explain being in that body to his family?”
“... Sorry, but I don’t feel any of that guilt.”
“Chiaki.”
“I’ve never been interested in those kinds of questions, so I’m gonna leave the philosophizing to the rest of you. I’ll thank you to keep your moralizing to yourself, General.” He capped the half-consumed bottle and tossed it over to Takaya. “I’m me, you’re you. It’s not like you haven’t done everything in your power to survive and carry out our mission, so you’ve got no right to cast stones.”
“Why haven’t you used hypnotic suggestion?” Takaya demanded. “Don’t get close, don’t invite trouble—isn’t that your modus operandi?”
“...”
“Nagahide.”
Chiaki’s eyes widened in surprise at Takaya’s use of his original name. Takaya had regained a large part of Kagetora’s memories, it seemed. Even he had a hard time keeping up with the transformation sometimes. He sighed to hide his discomfiture.
“It’s not like she‘ll be saved if she gets mind-wiped—you should know that firsthand.” The allusion to himself and Naoe choked Takaya into silence for a moment. “Stop worrying.” Chiaki threw himself onto the bed. “I won’t let anything slip—I’m not that much of an idiot. So worry about yourself instead. Narita nags at me like an old woman, and it’s all because you’re procrastinating on your decision. You need to be prepared to give up on having a ’normal life.’”
“I know that,” Takaya muttered, and left the room.
Once he was alone, Chiaki took out the present he’d received from Natsumi. Still lying where he’d fallen on the bed, he extracted one chilled onigiri from its aluminum foil wrapping and bit into it, exposing its seaweed filling.
He couldn’t seem to get Natsumi out of his head.
Staring fixedly at the onigiri, Chiaki sighed. “...Guess I have a crush...”
“Shuuhei! You’re here!” Natsumi smiled with heartfelt gladness as she saw Chiaki in front of her door. It was the following morning. He’d dropped by Natsumi’s apartment before leaving for the stakeout to return the tupperware she’d given him with the onigiri last night. She lit up with happiness as soon as she saw him.
“I was just getting ready to bring you a bento! Come on up!”
“Um, not right now. I have to get to work.”
“Oh? Okay then, I was about to go out anyway,” Natsumi said, and they walked to the station together. Not many people had to work on a Saturday morning, so pedestrian traffic was lighter than usual. Natsumi took the Chiyoda Line to Omotesan Road , so they rode together part of the way. Though the train was usually crammed with people commuting to work and school, today there was room to spare, with casually-dressed passengers barely filling the seats.
Hanging onto an overhead strap, Natsumi grumbled, “Yeesh, I wonder if my company’s in trouble or something. There’s a ban on overtime work and no overtime pay, and we had to shift our work hours to the weekends. Everyone’s taking work home. Don’t you think that’s pretty unfair?”
She was actually heading over to the office to grab some work materials she had left behind.
“My astrology reading this morning was horrible... Oh, but don’t worry, your Aries was the best. Isn’t that wonderful?”
(What’s not wonderful is the way you’re looking at me, sheesh.)
No red-blooded male could help but react to those wide, bright eyes looking so sweetly up at him from that lovely face. “But it was totally true. ‘The one you await is coming.’ That must be you, Shuuhei.”
“Do you like astrology?”
“Yeah,” Natsumi grinned at him. “I always end up looking up horoscopes and compatibility charts even though I know I shouldn’t.”
“Compatibility charts? Do you have a boyfriend, Nee-san?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be so obsessed with horoscopes, hahah.” A self-conscious Natsumi blushed hotly as she said it. “Whenever I get a favorable result, I re-read it over and over. It makes me smile, and I keep thinking about it, because I feel like my wish has been granted. I get a lump in my throat even though I know I’m indulging in a delusion. It’s totally unproductive, but it makes me happy, so I feel like my little foible can be forgiven.”
“Have you told him?”
“I-I can’t do that! ...Really, he’s just not someone I could ever tell.”
He was not so crass as to ask ‘who is it?’ Not that he’d know the guy even if she did tell him. Chiaki looked down at Natsumi with a touch of dejection as she sighed deeply. Though her tone was light, in reality it seemed to weigh on her heavily.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained?”
“No, I can’t. I’m too afraid of ruining our current relationship,” she admitted soberly, though a moment later she was all smiles again. “Anyway, having found you makes me happier than anything right now. I’ve canceled our missing persons report with the police, and Mom and Step-Dad are coming to Tokyo next week. Yoshiki Nii-san wants to come and see you, too. Do you have any time tonight?”
Chiaki said nothing for a moment. If he didn’t put a stop to this now, he might not be able to stop himself from getting involved. Like Takaya had said, entangling himself even further would be to no one’s benefit.
“I’m sorry, I can’t tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“Not Tomorrow either.”
Seeing Natsumi’s expression cloud over, Chiaki hurriedly raised the paper bag with the bento she had made for him and temporized, “I’ll come and return your tupperware, though.”
“Okay. But just in case—” Natsumi extracted the restaurant’s business card from her purse. “I’ve made dinner reservations with Yoshiki Nii-san. If you can come for even a little bit, please do. We’ll be there until closing time.”
Leaving him the card along with a smile bright as spring sunlight, she got off at Omotesan Road Station . She waved until the train slid out of the station. The smile slipping off his face, Chiaki gazed back at his solemn reflection on the darkened windows.
(...I’m likely being affected by ’Shuuhei’s emotions.)
Though rare, there had been instances in the past when the Yasha-shuu had been influenced by their vessels’ memories. It was ridiculous that he should feel practically suffused with happiness, but when he tried to laugh at himself, it fell flat. He grabbed the strap Natsumi had used, still warm from her hand. Strange how much it hurt.
(Who’s the unproductive one now...?)
A short time later he arrived at Zoujou Shrine, where he joined up with Takaya and Naoe. Takaya scowled at Chiaki, who had left earlier yet was arriving later, silently expressing his mistrust of Chiaki’s intentions for refusing to sever his ‘bond’ with Natsumi. He was frighteningly astute sometimes.
(Guess I’m the indecisive one now.)
“You’re relieved, Naoe. Go get some rest.”
Naoe, who had taken the night watch, looked exhausted.
“There’s been a report that Oda is on the move after learning of the Snake-Bone Monster’s acquisition. The probability that he’ll attack this location is high. Keep a close watch. Don’t slack off.”
“Aaaall righty.”
Naoe walked off without even a parting word to Takaya. Takaya’s grim eyes followed him as he got into his car and drove off. They’d been like this since Kyoto. They each had things to say to the other, but refused to engage. Chiaki noted the way Takaya’s gaze crumbled and filled with pain as he watched Naoe walk away. Hakkai murmured into his ear: they’d been arguing before Chiaki’s arrival.
(When he looks like that...)
But when he turned, Takaya’s face was serene, all trace of emotion locked away.
“We’ve received word from the «Nokizaru» I dispatched to Iwamura Castle: as we thought, Lady Iwamura’s spirit is missing.”
“She’s merged with the Snake-Bones Monster, then?”
“Yeah. What’s more, without a leader to control them, the onryou of the former garrison are becoming restless. There’s a danger of them running amok and destroying the castle ruins. For now, we need to look at returning the Snake-Bones Monster.”
“So we need to break up the revolt and get it out of that shrine?”
“I’d like to resolve this peacefully if possible... if they’re willing to talk to us,” Takaya said, gazing at the giant ginkgo tree within Shiba Toushou Shrine. Its branches had lengthened discernibly these past few days, though with odd twists and bends: a direct effect of Snake-Bones Monster’s miasmatic influence.
“...The leaders of the Iga League will be meeting there tomorrow,” Takaya murmured, his gaze still fixed on the tree. “Let’s see if we can persuade them to hand over the Snake-Bones Monster. If not...we’ll have to resort to brute force. We’ll go in at night to minimize harm to innocents if things go sideways.”
“...We’ll have to «exorcise» them in any case,” Chiaki snorted, looking back at Takaya with his usual boldness. “So let’s wrap this thing up and get back to Matsumoto.”
Comments
Thanks for another fun chapter!
Thanks for this translation! I'm still trying to figure out Nagahide's sexuality. He's often presented as a flirt and has an explicit crush here and a romance in one of the prequel stories, yet most often he seems to just use his flirtations as a way to get stuff he wants (literally, like dinner) and doesn't seem to have much need of a sex life at all.
I think when Naoe says that
I think when Naoe says that Nagahide is detached and unsentimental, he's quite right, except that Nagahide takes great care to remain detached and to maintain healthy boundaries. He says it himself--he's seen what happens when one of them (someone who is more or less immortal) falls in love with with an ordinary person (Haruie). And Naoe and Kagetora are like the ultimate example of "why dating your co-worker/boss is a BAD IDEA."
So while I'm sure he'd like to have a sex life, he consciously slots it as lower priority than his mental health. But the cost of detachment is loneliness, which I think is why he gets attached so fast to Natsumi--it's a ready-made connection that he doesn't have to feel guilty about making.
Good points
Sorry for a late reply. It's interesting that you describe Nagahide as "detached." I'll have to think more about how that fits in with the Buddhist themes of the story. He definitely does try to protect himself from attachment. I also think that under the surface he is very attached to the Yashashuu--and it hurts him a lot. As to his general manner (often snarky, bordering on nasty), it doesn't suggest what I associate with Buddhist non-attachment, a vibe I get more from Irobe. It feels more like self-protection, maybe with the emphasis on trying not to be attached? Anyway, excellent points. I need to ponder more!