The next morning, when Sakurai Hoshi was getting ready to leave for the dojo, she opened the door and got a fright.
Sugawara Yuu was standing motionless outside her house. His hunting robes were slightly disheveled, and he was staring unblinkingly at her front door. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and the whole person gave off a deep sense of fixation, exhaustion, and bewilderment.
“…Yuu?” Sakurai Hoshi froze for a moment. “What is it…?”
He looked like he had been standing here all night. Only after hearing her call did Sugawara Yuu seem to come back to himself, showing a gentle smile. “Hoshi… are you going to take Ryomen Sukuna along when you travel?”
Sakurai Hoshi hesitated for a moment. She did not answer his question, but instead stepped forward and touched his forehead.
It wasn’t hot… good.
“Yuu… how long have you been standing here? Your hair and clothes are a little damp…” Although he was very clean all over, still… “And there’s a strange smell of blood… You aren’t injured, are you?”
“…Last night I went to deal with the ‘curse.’ I didn’t have time to change clothes.” Sugawara Yuu answered calmly, lowering the hand she had pressed to his forehead and taking it in his own. He smiled gently again, but there was no real smile in his lowered eyes. “Hoshi, are you going to take Ryomen Sukuna along when you travel?”
…This inexplicable pressure…! What is going on…!
Sakurai Hoshi practically wanted to reach out and wipe away the sweat on her forehead.
“…Mm, yes, that’s right. But I still need to learn swordsmanship from Yuu, so it’ll probably be a while before we set off…” She answered him while forcing herself to stay calm.
Sugawara Yuu tightened his grip on her hand. The silence lasted for a moment, and he closed his eyes, as if enduring some kind of emotion. When he opened them again, his expression had returned to calm on the surface.
“Is it because of a binding vow?” He gently pressed his lips together. “Why make a binding vow with someone else…? You don’t like him, do you? …If Hoshi can’t bring herself to do it, I can…”
“Yuu–!” Seeing the topic about to drift toward dangerous territory, Sakurai Hoshi hurriedly cut him off. “I’m the one who chose to let him live, so I have to be responsible for someone else’s life… If it were you, Yuu would make the same choice as me–!”
Sugawara Yuu fell silent.
“…Why do you think that?”
Clearly, the way he had shown himself only seemed like he wanted to kill Ryomen Sukuna.
“Because Yuu is a kind person… With so many requests, you’ve always been shouldering them alone… You should also refuse unreasonable demands from your superiors once in a while.” Sakurai Hoshi sighed, took his hand, and walked back into the house with him. “We can talk about other things later. You need to rest properly now.”
She took a blanket from the storage cabinet and spread out a bed for the boy. For some reason, she thought of the way Yuta had spread a bed for her in kindergarten.
Yuta, who had always been taking care of her, and Yuu, who had given her so much help…
“Here, this one hasn’t been used yet.”
Sakurai Hoshi smiled and handed him a yukata, the boy who had been at a loss since entering the house.
“Ah… i-it hasn’t been used…? N-no, it’s nothing, thank you.”
The boy, who had inexplicably gone bright red when he first saw the yukata, seemed to look disappointed for a moment, then slowly flushed red again under her questioning gaze.
Hm…
Sakurai Hoshi hesitated. “Yuu… don’t tell me you…”
Sugawara Yuu was red all over. “N-no, no, I, I wasn’t thinking anything…”
“Liar– your face is all red! Yuu! Don’t tell me–!”
Just as Sugawara Yuu was flustered and at a loss, looking so ashamed he seemed ready to die on the spot, Sakurai Hoshi gave a mocking expression. “You’re not embarrassed to wear women’s clothes, are you!”
Sugawara Yuu: “…”
You’re overthinking it, really.
After obediently changing into the women’s yukata, Sugawara Yuu was mocked to no end by Sakurai Hoshi with a blank expression, then lay numbly down under the covers.
When she said, “Rest well,” and prepared to leave, the boy lightly held her hand.
“Hoshi… you and I also have a binding vow, too. ‘No matter where we go, I’ll always stay by your side.'” He turned his head and looked up at her, his eyes seeming to glitter with tiny specks of light, and the lips he had slightly pressed together looked very cautious.
“Can I go with you? I won’t be a burden to Hoshi. If we face it together, the journey won’t be so difficult…”
‘But with Yuta facing it with me, if it’s two people together…’
The scene from when she had comforted Yuta seemed to overlap with this moment.
“…Yes. If two people face it together, it won’t be so hard.” Sakurai Hoshi slowly smiled, gently taking back Sugawara Yuu’s hand. “Thank you, Yuu… let’s go on the journey together from now on.”
…
“Now, get into this.”
Sakurai Hoshi stood in the room, tapped that box that might have been only half a meter high, and said solemnly to Sukuna.
The elegant nobleman Sukuna, at 176 centimeters tall: …
“Such a small box… ah, just chop him into a few pieces and stuff him in, right? Anyway, the curse can be put back together again, so~ Hoshichan is really a genius~” The young man with a blindfold over his eyes wore an unrestrained smile, casually raising a finger, and blue light was about to shoot out from his fingertip. “Want big brother to help, Hoshichan~”
“Kou-san is as usual as ever. If you make a move, this whole room would be blasted to ashes, right.” Sugawara Yuu smiled shyly, then pressed his thumb and a sharp samurai sword slid a gleaming section out from its scabbard. “Leave this kind of thing to me. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it very cleanly.”
Sakurai Hoshi only felt a familiar cerebral hemorrhage coming on, rushing straight to the top of her head.
“…You two, enough already!”
Don’t casually discuss how to chop someone’s son up in front of the parent–!
She grabbed one unruly guy by the back of the collar with one hand each. Damn it! Why are they both so tall! Sakurai Hoshi actually had to tiptoe!
Sukuna made no sound, only staring coldly at the farce over here. He had been put in a food-restraining mask, and while that did not prevent him from speaking, ever since that night, he seemed to have become very silent.
Amid Gojo Satoru’s endless nonsense of “Eh~ so cold~” “Did Hoshichan forget the night when our hands were entangled?” “I still remember the feeling of your hand trembling,” Sakurai Hoshi’s breakdown and rage, and Sugawara Yuu’s increasingly dangerous atmosphere, Sukuna’s body suddenly shrank at high speed. He turned into the shape of a small child, his oversized robes barely hanging on him, looking completely like a well-behaved kid.
The unruly Gojo Satoru and Sugawara Yuu reluctantly withdrew their hands.
“You two… did you already know that curses can change bodily form?” Sakurai Hoshi let out a breath of relief and asked a little hesitantly. They were still pretty reliable, right? After all, they were the strongest jujutsu sorcerers! They had to have been joking just now…?
Gojo Satoru met her gaze for a moment, then broke into a bright smile and said decisively, “Yeah, yeah!”
…No, you didn’t even consider that possibility at all! You really were thinking of dismembering Sukuna into eight pieces?! No, with this guy’s beam-cannon property, wouldn’t he just be blasted into dust?
Sugawara Yuu said calmly, “No, I was serious.”
…This one was even more heavyweight!
Sakurai Hoshi’s breath hitched, and her expression went blank for a brief moment.
Why. Why even Yuu…
No, no, no, she couldn’t keep thinking about this any further, or else His Holiness would start doubting her lawful alignment!
“…Anyway, let’s prepare to set off.” She barely maintained her composure, walked to the side of the box, crouched down, and put on the straps. As soon as she stood up–
She sat back down.
Sakurai Hoshi: “…”
Gojo Satoru: “Hm? What’s wrong, what’s wrong? Why is Hoshichan crouching without moving? Don’t tell me you can’t carry this little box? No way, right?”
Sugawara Yuu: “…I’ll do it, Hoshi.”
Gojo Satoru: “…So it really is too heavy to carry.”
Sakurai Hoshi: “…”
Sugawara Yuu: “…Sorry, Hoshi. It’s okay. I’ll be with you, anywhere is fine.”
And so Gojo Satoru also fell silent.
By the time the group was about to reach the city gate, Sakurai Hoshi finally sighed.
They were about to part ways, so she wouldn’t get angry with this guy anymore, even though in every sense he really was quite difficult to deal with…
“All right, that’s enough here.” She turned her head and looked at the white-haired man with the blindfold. “…Thank you so much, really, Satoru.”
“Hoshi.”
Gojo Satoru suddenly called her name, pulled down the bandage, and leaned his face closer, until they were almost touching. Out of some kind of intuition, Sakurai Hoshi did not dodge.
Those eyes, as blue as an endless sky, met hers at extremely close range, and she could even feel the other person’s warm breath. She could not focus her gaze at all, only felt that her entire field of vision was filled with beautiful blue pupils and white, slender eyelashes.
“If there’s something you can’t do, come ask reliable big brother for help~ Anything is fine~”
“Satoru…”
Her head was forcefully patted and rubbed twice. After Gojo Satoru straightened up and stepped back half a pace, he wore a light smile. “Go on. That Masakado guy is still waiting outside the city for you to say goodbye.”
…
Saying goodbye to Yeohaō was something that left one feeling a little wistful.
At that time, the upright young onmyoji stood under the tree, and the way he turned back to look at her was enough to make one’s heart sour.
“It’s time to part after all. I cannot remain in the capital for long, and the princess will not stay here for long either.” Yeohaō held the little cat Koshuu in his arms and smiled faintly, his expression gentle, but his eyes made one feel sad. “What the princess said that day… I still cannot understand it, but… I will keep watching over the princess. Let me be the one to guide my heart…”
He handed the Oborogyu and the communication talisman to the miko, his eyes full of cherishment.
“Princess… may your military fortunes be vast and successful.”
Sakurai Hoshi accepted his gift, then gave him the bracelet woven from her own hair. She had already attached a skill to it, and as long as he wore the bracelet, he would not be swallowed by negative emotions. Although she did not know why Yeohaō needed the calming of the itchy-creature so much… as a friend, she also wanted to make his life a little easier.
“When I’m not around, let this protect Yeohaō’s heart.”
…
On the journey with Sugawara Yuu, Sakurai Hoshi always wandered between pain and happiness.
They did not use the Oborogyu very often, because Sakurai Hoshi would be supervised by Yuu to run and train her body, and after running she would do stationary muscle training on the Oborogyu as well, with the posture of someone determined not to stop until she was turned into Strength 25.
Apart from that, Yuu was an angel who spoiled the player to the extreme.
Since the first day, he had never let her touch Sukuna’s box again. Clothes soaked with sweat would be washed clean for her and then dried with cursed energy. Speaking of which, could cursed energy be used like that? In any case, Sugawara Yuu took care of her food, clothing, and lodging by himself, and also strictly supervised Sakurai Hoshi’s sleep time. Even though he himself slept very little! An itch-creature clone doesn’t need sleep, do you even understand!
He was also truly very strong.
Sometimes when they ran into a cursed spirit, Sakurai Hoshi had not even had time to aim before Sugawara Yuu killed it with one slash, then turned around and asked her whether she was tired or injured.
The invincible player: …Could you at least look at what you did before asking?
By the way, because she had the skill [Transparent World], her learning of swordsmanship advanced by leaps and bounds. She could clearly see the lines and weak points of the muscles, and even Sugawara Yuu laughed and said, “Hoshi’s swordsmanship will be stronger than mine.”
She tried to combine the Sun Breathing technique with Yuu’s swordsmanship, and then golden-red flames ignited on the swung tachi, the blazing temperature as if the sun itself were burning away all evil and corruption.
…Thank you, Yoriichi.
–This skill is really so cool! The player has to have special effects!!
Sukuna seemed to be very afraid of Sun Breathing. Every time she practiced, he would wake from his dreams in shock. Yeohaō seemed to have cast some kind of spell on him so that he could reduce energy consumption during sleep. The tiny Sukuna cautiously hid far away and secretly watched the way she used the sword, as if he had met a natural enemy.
“Hoshi looks just like Amaterasu, doesn’t she.”
Sugawara Yuu praised her with a smile while tossing Sukuna into the box like putting a cat into a cat carrier.
The blue spider lily was too mysterious, something that could be found only by chance and not sought. So they advanced all the way toward the nests of cursed spirits, going wherever there were more monsters.
Cutting through everything along the way, Sakurai Hoshi’s attribute points steadily increased, and her perception was also almost up to 24 points. Added to the effect of [Eye of Shadows], her perception was about to reach the full value of 25. She just didn’t know what the effect would be if she finally maxed out perception at 25.
Until one day, when they were heading to a nest whose situation was quite serious, all they saw was a pile of cursed spirit remains on the ground. The high-level perception made the player abruptly raise her head and look toward the top of the corpse pile–
The King of Curses looked down with interest, all four eyes staring at her at once, and after a moment, he bared a terrifying smile.
“Your head is lifted too high.”