Yewang was really a considerate person.
To be precise, the two noble young men beside Sakurai Hoshi were both exceptionally outstanding figures, and every movement they made showed the elegance of the Heian era.
There were no commoners in Heian-kyō, only nobles, monks, shrine priests, and servants. If Hime were to enter the capital wearing only that thin white robe, then even if her appearance rivaled the stars and moon, she would definitely face criticism.
Therefore, the clothing that Asakura Yewang sent at this time seemed especially thoughtful, and even the upright and noble shikishi could not say anything inappropriate. He hesitated for a while, and could only hide the disappointed look on his face, and leave the oboroguruma together with Yewang.
Only after Hime had changed clothes alone in the carriage and tapped on the car door did the two of them lift the carriage curtain. The girl sitting upright in the carriage raised her head and gave them a slight smile.
Hime was a very beautiful princess. They had recognized this from the very beginning, but this was still the first time they had seen her wearing layered, colorful formal dress. Her black hair hung behind her like a waterfall, and her delicate shoulders were covered by layers of fine clothing. White, green, orange, red, and other vivid colors were worn on her body, reflecting that pure and flawless face, so gentle and lovely that one could not bear to let her suffer.
The thin-skinned shikishi barely managed to block his flushed face with a folding fan, almost covering his face with his sleeve, and for a moment he did not dare look directly at her. The well-traveled onmyoji was much calmer than he was. With a turn of his hand, he took a wisteria hair ornament from his sleeve and carefully pinned it into the girl’s hair.
The slightly cool fingers lingered by her ear for a while, and the sleeve hem hung down over her shoulder. Long hair slid from the young man’s cheek, lightly brushing the back of her hand resting on her knee, like a restrained embrace and caress.
“The princess is extremely beautiful.”
Asakura Yewang smiled as he withdrew his hand, and once again became that graceful and inscrutable great onmyoji.
…
The closer they got to Heian-kyō, the more silent Hime became.
Although she still wore that gentle and peaceful expression on her face, even Fujiwara Sawei, who was occasionally slow in social matters, became unconsciously much more cautious when speaking with her.
Unlike the refined impression Kyoto in later generations gave people, Heian-kyō was in fact a city that hid scheming, filth, and chaos beneath an elegant mask.
Because it lacked an underground drainage system, the roads and ditches of Heian-kyō were full of filth, and the corpses of humans and animals could be seen everywhere. When nobles indulged in luxury to the extreme, servants always lived in beating, disease, hunger, and cold; commoners had no means to seek medical treatment, and if they had no extra money for burial after death, their bodies would be thrown into the wilderness or bamboo groves. [[1]]
For ordinary people in the Heian period, Japan was hell. Extreme filth and chaos also bred extreme resentment; despair and pain continuously produced cursed spirits, and cursed spirits in turn continuously produced despair. The land and water were polluted and turned black; plants and trees no longer grew, and plagues spread wildly; the human world seemed like a nightmare with no end.
When Hime silently gazed at the wilderness, Asakura Yewang silently gazed at her. As if through such watching, he could obtain some kind of answer from her.
As they eliminated resentment and exorcised cursed spirits, Sakurai Hoshi’s reputation and perception were increasing at a terrifying speed.
Wherever she passed, the land, water, plants, and flowers all regained their vitality, cursed spirits and resentment were purified completely, and those whose corpses had been exposed in the wilderness were reborn into Buddha; the common people who had seen the shrine maiden Hime practically worshiped her as a deity.
Along the way, the light points beside Hime never dispersed. As they approached Heian-kyō, the mass burial grounds had already become a nest of cursed spirits. Cursed spirits born from endless negative emotions crowded densely together, and the whole world seemed to have turned into a black sea. The oboroguruma carrying Hime passed through this black sea, and wherever it went, the evil spirits all scattered.
The slender girl lifted the carriage curtain, and golden light points gathered from all directions beneath her feet. From afar, it looked as if they were driving in from a path of light.
“Hime…”
Zenin Shoya raised his head, not caring about his limbs being torn at by cursed spirits, and stared fixedly at the oboroguruma in the distance that broke through the darkness and looked like the sun.
The shrine maiden in layered formal dress lowered her head to look, and without her using any technique, the cursed spirits wrapped around him shattered into countless light points. In the blink of an eye, the black curtain of the sky was ignited by faint light, and a gentle wind once again brushed across this land.
The jujutsushi who had been ordered to clear out the mass burial grounds but had been trapped for several days raised their heads and looked at the bamboo grove, which had returned to quiet clarity, feeling as if they had stepped into another world.
“Princess, it is an honor to meet you. I am…” the future head of the Zenin family…
The boy in a hunting robe suppressed his joy and excitement, wanting to express his gratitude to the shrine maiden. But the girl who was helped down from the oboroguruma by the great onmyoji walked straight past him and stopped silently in front of a pool of filthy blood.
Zenin Shoya turned back in a daze and recognized the severed hand in the blood pool, the junior from the Onmyō Bureau, an ordinary person who was not especially talented but was still hardworking.
This mission had been too dangerous. He had not been able to hold out until the end, and had been gnawed until only one hand remained.
However, at this moment, that horrifying severed hand, mangled with flesh and blood, was being tightly held by a slender, clean hand.
As if responding to the feeling of being abandoned without anyone helping.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“I have caught you.”
…
Entering the capital went very smoothly.
The jujutsushi who had been rescued from the mass burial grounds almost fanatically extolled Hime, and among them, the most fervent was Zenin Shoya, the future head of the Zenin family.
“How can Gojo compare to Hime!”
“Kamo is far, far inferior…”
“To the Zenin, Hime is like the bright moon in the sky.”
“…”
From the Onmyō Bureau to tea houses and taverns, one could hear these brainwashing remarks everywhere. Quite a few people, while talking, could even burst into tears on the spot, looking like the brainsick rabid fans of an evil cult.
After hearing of the strange phenomena outside the capital and seeing the peerless grace of the divine child, the emperor repeatedly praised her as “pure and unstained,” and granted her a residence on the spot, thus firmly establishing the title of the shrine maiden Hime.
Heian-kyō gathered together more than half of the onmyoji and jujutsushi in the world. But in Heian-kyō, where struggle and plague seemed endless, the strength and density of cursed spirits were far greater than in the wilderness, so that insufficient manpower had become the norm in the jujutsu world.
However, in just a little over one month after Hime entered the capital, the cursed spirits and resentment within Heian-kyō had been swept completely clean.
When the Kamo River, which had once been full of floating corpses, returned to clarity, and the cherry blossoms stained blood-red by resentment regained their purity, even the most arrogant and unrestrained onmyoji sighed: “Pure and unstained, truly a divine child.”
However, Hime, who had been running around day and night for more than a month and had been admired and adored by countless nobles and commoners, politely declined all the emperor’s rewards.
“…Your Majesty, exorcising evil is naturally my duty. However, there is one thing I must accomplish no matter what.”
The fresh and sacred shrine maiden bowed to the emperor, her eyelids lowered.
“Please allow me, in my capacity as Fujiwara Sawei’s disciple, to let Sawei and Sugawara Akitsuna face each other in imperial court once again!”
Sugawara Akitsuna, the only chess appointee by the emperor’s side now, and also the one who had once played at court against Fujiwara Sawei.
The chess spirit hidden in the shrine maiden’s shadow widened its eyes, his lips trembling as if he wanted to say something, but his throat seemed blocked by a lump of cotton, making it inexplicably hoarse.
What virtue did he have, to make the princess go this far for him…!
The great onmyoji standing in the crowd smiled bitterly in silence.
That night, the princess’s inner thoughts were still vivid in his ears.
‘Heian-kyō, huh…’
‘…Let’s set out as soon as possible. The one slandering Sawei is there. We have to clear Sawei’s name in front of everyone…!’
To be treasured like this by the princess…
How enviable, Sawei-kun.
…
After the emperor gave the order, the chess appointee arrived in a hurry very quickly. His expression was fairly composed, his clothes and crown were neat, and the moment he saw the shrine maiden’s back, he glared angrily: “I have no grudge or enmity with Hime, so why does Hime slander me! The matter of the Fujiwara clan cheating has long been known to the whole world, so how can the blame be placed on me?”
Facing the chess appointee’s stern questioning, the girl standing by the wisteria looked back at him. Her gaze was as indifferent as water, her figure delicate and peerless, with a blue butterfly quietly resting on her fingertip, faintly making people afraid to make noise.
“In front of His Majesty, how can the chess appointee be so rude.” She lightly raised her hand and let the butterfly in her palm fly away. Her eyes, the same color as the wisteria blossoms, looked at the chessboard placed to one side, her gaze calm as water.
It was on this very chessboard that the way of chess, which Sawei regarded as the meaning of life, had been defiled by human selfish desires.
“Today, with His Majesty’s permission, the duel between the Fujiwara shikishi and yourself is now about to begin again.” The pure and unstained shrine maiden paced to one side of the chessboard, gave her sleeves a light flick, and sat down properly. “Sugawara chess appointee, please—”
After the shrine maiden turned back, the chess appointee’s arrogance vanished completely. Hearing this, his expression turned extremely ugly, and under the emperor’s majesty he had no choice but to sit on the other side.
However, even after both of them had picked up their pieces, the spirit of the shikishi still never appeared.
Facing the faint contempt in Sugawara Akitsuna’s eyes, the shrine maiden, who had still not made a move, instead showed a gentle smile on her face.
She looked at the hand that held her piece.
Under the sunlight, the slender, pale hand cast a shadow on the chessboard. That hand shadow stretched out, and it looked equally beautiful, but also like a man’s hand.
“Sawei,” Sakurai Hoshi looked at her own hand, her gaze firm and unyielding: “This is your game, your battle. I am your hand, and you will use me to take back your dignity, to take back your way of chess. Now, stand up!”
Suddenly, the wind howled, and the gauze curtains in the hall fluttered wildly. Amid the purple rain of wisteria flowers that filled the air, a man’s hand silently covered Sakurai Hoshi’s hand holding the piece.
“Pri…ncess…” The shikishi lowered his head and covered his face, his body in the hunting robe trembling, and he was already in tears, sobbing uncontrollably. “Ten… rows… three… lines…”
The dead young man had none of the elegant grace of the past. While crying uncontrollably, he was holding the shrine maiden’s hand as it moved the piece. Even though his eboshi had already tilted askew and his hunting robe was somewhat disheveled, making him look so pathetic and disordered… everyone who witnessed this scene was moved and speechless.
Looking at the chess spirit choking back tears while being intimately close with Hime, Zenin Shoya lowered his head.
‘…Infuriating.’
Asakura Yewang glanced at the onmyoji who was muttering darkly in his heart, then silently turned back and continued gazing at the girl who seemed to be embraced by the chess spirit.
Watching her place pieces with the chess spirit and confront the enemy together, that perfectly coordinated, peerless manner made one’s heart feel sour.
It really was… completely unexpected, princess.
Author’s note: I changed it! The original Kamo Tokisue was changed to Zenin Shoya…
I found that what I was writing somehow became one certain person without me noticing, so I changed it! Zenin-style special attack is still better!!
1 The appearance of Heian-kyō was referenced from a NetEase Great Onmyoji article, “Heian-kyō Was Actually Created This Way, and It Is Closely Linked with China!”
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