[How can he say something so terrifying with such a cute, blank face?
Is this the murder-machine kid?
I love it, I love it.]
[Well, the Nasuverse isn’t exactly a peaceful, stable place, so thinking that way is pretty normal.
And knowing someone’s going to move against your fiancée down the line, of course you’d want to do something first.
Better to nip it in the bud than to figure it doesn’t matter as long as it hasn’t happened yet.]
[But the problem is, where do you even find Araya Souren?
The man’s a monk who’s lived more than two hundred years.]
[Speaking of which—Minato, what year is it right now?]
“1989.
Mid-October.”
He didn’t know why the danmaku were asking, but Ryōgi Minato answered all the same; compared to the strange things they’d said before, this question fell well within the range of normal.
[’89?
Oh, so that’s how it is.
Didn’t realize they had this card up their sleeve.]
[Right—do the math and there’s still time.
We can make it for that event after all.]
[No riddlers!
No riddlers!]
[It’s actually simple.
If you can’t find Araya, then just go find someone who might know where he is.]
[It’s October ’89 now—about two months until the Mahoyo story kicks off.
By then, just ask Aozaki Touko and you might find out where Araya is.]
[Oh, right—Touko and Araya were even classmates.]
[But wasn’t the original Mahoyo set in ’80?
Shouldn’t that be long past by now?]
[Ah, Kinoko Nasu’s always rewriting his own settings.
He pushed it back nine years to line up with the other works—standard operation, sit down, sit down.]
Another name he didn’t know, added to the list.
Ryōgi Minato set aside this name connected to Araya Souren for now, resolving to make time later to look for the person.
Still, he didn’t take everything the danmaku said as gospel.
After finishing tending to the Yamato in his hands, the boy left his room once more and sought out Suzurigi Akitaka, secretary to the current head of the Ryōgi family.
Led by him, he came before his adoptive father.
His duty discharged, Suzurigi Akitaka bowed and withdrew, respectfully sliding the panel shut and stepping outside, leaving the space to father and son.
“Is there something, Minato?”
The middle-aged man behind the desk set down the property documents in his hand and looked at the boy before him.
“Chichiue-sama, is Shiki… sick?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because Shiki’s been a little strange lately.
Her words and actions sometimes contradict each other—as if… she’d become a different person.”
Ryōgi Minato didn’t come right out with what the danmaku had told him about dual personality; he wanted to hear the answer from his adoptive father’s own mouth.
Hearing this, the man fell silent.
A long while later, he murmured, almost as if to himself—
“So you noticed after all…”
The Family Head looked at the boy, a grave expression crossing that stern face.
“I’d meant to tell you this after a while longer.
But since you’ve already sensed it, I’ll tell you everything, Minato.”
Feeling the seriousness behind the words, Ryōgi Minato now mostly believed what the danmaku had said.
“Just as you sensed—Shiki does have a certain condition.
But rather than call it an illness, it would be better to call it a kind of curse on the Ryōgi family.
“”There truly is another personality inside that child.
But you needn’t worry too much, for Shiki is special—the only orthodox heir the Ryōgi family has had in all these years.”
The man paused there, and gave the boy a long, deep look.
“And I believe that with you at her side, that child can grow up as she should.
That, too, was Father’s thinking.”
“Ojii-san…”
Ryōgi Minato blinked, and on reflex recalled the conversations he and Shiki had each had with the old man a few years back, when the old man had been on the verge of death.
He didn’t know what had been said on Shiki’s side—they’d been called into the old man’s room separately—but the words the old man had spoken to him, the boy still kept in his heart to this day.
“Minato, your talent is not some hollow thing.
It is because it is pure enough that it can look so simple, and still reach the very summit of one thing.”
“What does ‘pure’ mean, Ojii-san?”
“Just as your eyes now hold nothing but the sword—the fewer things a heart can hold, the more wholly that one thing, set inside it, becomes your everything.”
“I… don’t really understand, Ojii-san.”
“It’s all right.
Stay just as you are for now.
One day you’ll find something just as important as the sword.
Only—speaking from my own private wish—I hope that ‘something’ will be…”
“Ojii-san?”
The old man in his memory had died with a faintly lonely expression, and for the words he left behind, Ryōgi Minato had been searching for an answer ever since.
As for now—he had long since had an answer of his own in his heart.
“I will protect Shiki, Chichiue-sama.”
There was earnestness in that young voice.
The Family Head visibly froze for a moment, then slowly nodded.
“Mm… then I leave that child to you, Minato.”
There was no other expression on that stern face, yet for an instant the man’s tone seemed to grow complicated.
Perhaps he simply wasn’t good with words of concern.
…
Night fell without a sound.
Having taken his supper in his own room, Ryōgi Minato picked up Yamato—a blade longer than he was tall—and, hugging it to his chest, walked along the corridor toward the inner courtyard.
That he ate in his own room was simply because the Ryōgi family had no custom of gathering to dine together.
To an outsider it might seem overly cold, but in the Ryōgi house it was the norm.
The mansion was quiet at night; counting the servants, this whole great estate held only some twenty-odd people.
Along the cold, still passage, only the boy’s soft footsteps echoed slowly.
Soon Ryōgi Minato had crossed the corridor, left the inner courtyard, and come before the towering front gate, so tall you had to look up to take it all in.
Beside the open gate, a young man in a suit already stood waiting respectfully.
“Same as before tonight too, Akitaka?”
“Yes.
The young lady went out alone again a few minutes ago.
But I’ve already sent people to follow her in secret.”
“Mm.
Understood.”
Nodding, Ryōgi Minato stepped out through the gate.
Suzurigi Akitaka didn’t follow, for he knew ordinary people couldn’t harm the boy, and the men hidden in the dark would keep watch over them both.
Out past the front gate lay a stretch of bamboo grove.
With no street lamps in the area, the boy walked the finely paved path by moonlight, blade in his arms, heading toward the residential district beyond—his gaze searching left and right, as if looking for someone.
The reason was that his fiancée had lately taken to night strolls.
Even with the household’s servants following her in secret, Ryōgi Minato would still go after her a few minutes later each time.
More than the servants’ watch, he trusted, by instinct, the blade in his own hand.
So far, at least, he hadn’t met anything that blade couldn’t cut open.
After walking the path a while, just as he was about to leave the bamboo, the boy finally caught sight of a small, slight figure.
Beneath the scattered, interlacing light and shadow, the girl in the pale blue-green yukata stood gazing up at the moon in the sky.
But hearing the soft footsteps from not far behind, the girl lowered her head, her brows knitting as if in irritation.
He’d followed her again…
“Why did you follow me, Minato?”
She turned at once and asked the question in her heart.
“Being out alone at night is dangerous, Shiki.”
Ryōgi Minato stopped, earnestness on his small face.
“Akitaka’s definitely sent people to follow anyway.
There’s no danger at all.”
“But I don’t think that’s safe enough.”
Watching the boy state his answer so plainly, Ryōgi Shiki only felt the restlessness in her deepen a degree.
“Don’t follow me, Minato.
I want to walk alone.”
Throwing out the words, she set off ahead on her own, before the restlessness in her heart could turn into some sharper impulse.
But the instant she moved, the footsteps behind her sounded once more.
“Why are you still following?”
The girl stopped, turned, and stared at the boy, brows drawing together as if in anger.
Carried along by the restlessness, her tone took on an edge of demand—then she pressed her lips tight at once, seeming to regret the outburst.
“I’m not.
I’m just… taking a walk.”
Ryōgi Minato turned his head aside, lowered his gaze to a stone on the ground, and didn’t so much as blink.
But even a younger child could have seen through such a clumsy lie, and Ryōgi Shiki—already carrying an irritation she couldn’t understand—said outright, as if in a sulk—
“Stand right there.
Don’t follow me!”
“Okay.”
The boy nodded, and really did just as she’d said, standing where he was, the overlong blade hugged in his arms, watching her back as she walked away.
Yet once she’d gotten her way, Ryōgi Shiki found the restlessness in her only grew stronger.
Her steps slowed without her meaning them to, until at last they came to a stop.
She stood beneath a street lamp and glanced back on reflex.
Down on the dim forest path below, the boy still stood at the spot where he’d first stopped, looking straight at her.
A nameless anger welled up in her heart.
The girl bit lightly at her lip, not sure herself whether she was angry at herself, or at the boy’s concern that came with no reason at all.
The one thing certain was that she’d lost all interest in a night stroll.
Honestly—he was supposed to be a “prodigy,” so why did he seem like such a…
“…idiot.”
Biting down on her lip harder, Ryōgi Shiki stalked back the way she’d come, walking straight up to the boy.
“Shiki?”
Finding it strange that she’d suddenly returned, Ryōgi Minato blinked in confusion.
“We’re going home.”
Without much explanation, the girl seized the boy by the wrist and set off toward the mansion.
And, towed along by her, the boy didn’t struggle in the slightest.
He only matched her pace, nodded, and answered softly—
“Mm.”