Does coincidence exist in the world of yōkai?
Or rather… why was Yakumo Yukari appearing before him now?
Was there some secret here that he and Think hadn't discovered yet, and Yukari was here for it? Or was there something extremely important to her here, and she appeared directly to prevent him from interfering or exposing her?
If it were another yōkai—say, that green-haired flower demon—such a suspicion might be overthinking, as she was a battle-maniac like Jibril. But coming from Yakumo Yukari, it was worth pondering.
For humans, a dozen years—one generation—is enough to forget certain things. Even if that timeframe is amplified for yōkai, it's usually a matter of centuries or millennia.
But how many hundreds, how many thousands of years had passed since the primordial era?
This was a vast span of time even for a yōkai, giving birth to long memories. Former fears blur as one grows stronger, and extinguished campfires are relit.
If Yukari had been hiding in her gaps, peeping secretly and only coming out to say hello after being caught, Sū ěr wouldn't have seen an issue. But coming out so openly to reminisce was… suspicious.
Or had her personality changed so much over time that she was practically a different person?
Sū ěr didn't think that was likely.
So… did the mass of yōkai suicide-charging and the appearance of the time portal have something to do with this blonde yōkai?
"Hmm… You aren't thinking about something very profound, are you? It's a bit too much to scrutinize a friend you haven't seen in so long like that," Yukari produced a fan from nowhere, snapped it open with a clack, and covered half her face, leaving only her eyes visible.
"…Setting my changes aside, your change is like night and day," Sū ěr grumbled.
He said it had been a long time, but for him, it had actually only been a few months—hardly half a breath for a long-lived species. However, that was only his perspective. For Yukari, this was a reunion after tens of thousands of years. Seeing that this man looked no different from her memories was something she hadn't expected.
This Yukari looked a bit more mature than before. If she could have been called a girl back then, now she was an au—I mean, a mature woman, though she didn't look old in the slightest.
Compared to her simple image back then—long blonde hair and a plain purple robe—the Yukari he met tens of thousands of years later had slightly curled hair, as if she'd secretly gotten a perm. Her clothes had become an Oriental-style Taoist robe in white and purple, but with several layers of skirts.
Should he call it "the eighteen transformations of a yōkai"? Even an old demon like her had developed a sense of vanity.
Perhaps the biggest change was her calm, self-assured attitude. Having experienced the passage of time and the grinding of the world, Yukari spoke very differently now. She lacked the respectful, slightly supplicatory attitude she had back then out of fear of Sū ěr power, and the sense of constraint was gone.
She acted as if she were truly greeting an old friend, neither humble nor arrogant—and she truly was feeling nostalgic.
Sū ěr suddenly had a direct understanding of the "Great Yōkai aura" Nurarihyon mentioned. This stability, sedimented over ages, was indeed unique.
"You've grown up too…" Realizing this, Sū ěr suddenly let out a weirdly sentimental sigh.
Yukari: "?"
"I remember you wanted to build a nation only for yōkai. How is that going?" Sū ěr was actually curious. "With the power of yōkai, the efficiency of doing something should be very high, right? After all these years, you should have built a very prosperous place."
Yukari: "..."
Whether it was his imagination or not, Sū ěr felt the blonde yōkai's smiling brow drop in a heartbeat. Uh, the hand holding the fan tightened until the knuckles were visible.
[Think: You poked a sore spot.]
Think, ever the penetrator of hearts.
"The City of Yōkai… no longer exists." With half her face hidden by the fan, her expression was unreadable. This new skill Yukari had learned over the years was quite useful. Sū ěr could only hear that her voice was strained and low. "That is all in the past."
"…Looks like you've been through a lot too…" Knowing he'd poked a scar, Sū ěr felt a bit awkward. To lighten the mood, he offered a couple of hollow compliments.
"Forget all that. You didn't just stop us here to reminisce, did you? State your purpose and don't dream of hiding anything," Jibril said bluntly. She laid out what Sū ěr had been speculating about right in the open. A white light flickered in her raised right hand—a clear sign she was ready to thump anyone who talked in circles.
While Sū ěr and Think had some history with Yukari, Jibril wasn't familiar with this pretty yōkai at all. She vaguely remembered a blonde yōkai coming to pay respects when she brought Sū ěr back to the modern era, but she had dismissed those boring things casually, not wanting to waste a second glance.
"Lady Jibril is as straightforward as ever," Yukari, showing excellent self-control, smiled again. "Seeing you again reminds me of some interesting things. If you have the leisure, you might want to visit the Ise Grand Shrine… Haha, although they worship the Great Goddess Amaterasu there, the statue enshrined in the main hall is actually…"
She trailed off, but seeing Yukari's smiling eyes dart toward Jibril made her meaning crystal clear.
In the Ise Grand Shrine, the one receiving incense and worship under Amaterasu's name is… Jibril?!