Silence—a long, drawn-out silence.
The shrine maiden's clean, clear features could at last no longer conceal the joy welling up from deep within her maiden's heart.
Kōbe Hikaru looked at Kikyō, and simply waited, unhurried, for her answer.
Then he saw Kikyō smile.
It was the first time Kōbe Hikaru had seen her smile like this.
Different from her usual composure, and unlike the cold edge she wore in battle.
It was a smile that came from the heart, blossoming like the light of dawn.
"You yōkai..."
Her voice trembled faintly, and she seemed at a loss for words: "Even words like these—you have to be the first to say them?"
"A confession is a declaration of victory, not a bugle call sounding the charge."
Kōbe Hikaru said: "Since I've already made certain of how you feel, then of course it should be I who says it."
"If I let you speak first, wouldn't that make me look rather useless?"
Kikyō's smile deepened.
She clasped Kōbe Hikaru's hand in return, her fingers intertwining with his.
"All right."
she said.
Her voice was very soft, yet very firm.
"Let's be together."
[Shikon Jewel — Naohi: favourability +5]
[Current favourability: 65 (Intimacy)]
[It says: "Finally."]
For this, of course, he had to thank the Shikon Jewel for passing along the word every step of the way.
From now on, he'd set out a whole table just for Naohi!
Kōbe Hikaru thought to himself.
Afterward the night gradually faded, and a faint, pale fish-belly white spread across the eastern horizon.
The candle flames within the Shrine had long since burned out, leaving only the faintly cool light of early morning to spill through the window lattice and over the two of them.
Those words spoken between them were like a stone dropped into water, rippling out layer upon layer through the air, lingering long without dispersing.
Kikyō leaned against a wooden pillar, her black hair falling over her chest, her fingers gently stroking the longbow resting upon her knees.
Her expression had returned to calm, yet deep within those jet-black eyes, some not-yet-untangled thoughts still seemed to churn.
The joy was real.
It was the flutter of a maiden's first love, the contentment of a soul that, after eighteen years of loneliness, had at last found something to lean upon.
But the worry, too, was to some degree truly there.
She was a shrine maiden.
One whose calling was to guard the Shikon Jewel, to protect human villages, to take the slaying of demons and banishing of evil as her own duty.
And Kōbe Hikaru was a yōkai.
An oni warrior.
An existence who, even after saving people, would still be feared by ordinary folk and warily regarded by mages.
In this chaotic Sengoku age, the boundary between human and yōkai was sharply drawn, and those who crossed that line seldom came to a good end.
"What are you thinking about?"
Kōbe Hikaru's voice cut through her thoughts.
He had already risen to his feet, working the stiffness out of his body.
After a night's rest, absorbing the turbid qi between heaven and earth, and with [Bloodthirst Eternal] hastening the recovery of his yōkai power, the wound on his chest had already vanished; beneath his pale skin, strength was once more surging anew.
Kikyō raised her head and looked toward him.
That crimson oni mask still lay set aside, revealing his pale, handsome face.
His gaze, though its black and white could hardly be called limpid, held not the slightest trace of confusion.
"I was thinking..."
Kikyō's voice was very soft: "If we're together, what will other people think?"
"Our being together runs against all common sense to begin with."
"The demon-slayers may question it, the mages may come to crusade against us, and even the villagers here... though they're grateful to you now, given enough time, won't fear come to outweigh that gratitude?"
Human and yōkai walk separate paths.
In any world, this was, in truth, an iron law.
Kōbe Hikaru did not answer at once.
He walked to the window and pushed it open.
The morning breeze, carrying the scent of earth and growing things, poured into the room.
He gazed at the village gradually waking at the foot of the Shrine, at the curls of cooking smoke rising into the air.
"Kikyō."
With his back to her, his voice brimming with confidence: "Tell me—these so-called ethics, these so-called rules, who is it that decided them?"
"Humans."
"Exactly. Humans."
Kōbe Hikaru turned around, leaning back against the windowsill, arms folded across his chest, the expression on his face every bit as confident: "It's because they're weak that they need to band together, need outsiders to set off their own legitimacy, need rules to maintain a fragile sense of security."
"But I am not human."
"And you are no ordinary human either."
He pointed at the floor beneath his feet.
"Last night, this land of Kantō acknowledged me."
"If even the earth that nurtures all things does not reject me, then what do the eyes of mere mortals count for?"
Kikyō was slightly taken aback.
That was true.
In that battle last night, she had witnessed with her own eyes the land's response to Kōbe Hikaru—not the forcible plunder of some yōkai art, but an attention the earth had never once before shown to any single being.
Because he had purified the demonic miasma on every side.
Because he had cut down the monsters that ran rampant.
That was enough.
The measure of good and evil should never have been race, but conduct.
"What's more."
Kōbe Hikaru walked over to stand before her, crouched down, and brought his gaze level with hers.
In those crimson eyes, her reflection was mirrored.
"Rules are for the weak to obey."
"So long as I am strong enough."
"Strong enough that even those of Kibōmaru's caliber—and true great yōkai stronger still than Kibōmaru—wouldn't dare set foot lightly upon this land; strong enough that those great yōkai of Kyoto would have to weigh their odds; strong enough that..."
He reached out and gently tucked back the jet-black hair beside Kikyō's ear.
"strong enough that no one would dare utter so much as half a word of 'no' before you."
"By then, all those ethics, all those taboos, will be nothing but a joke."
His tone was arrogant, yet arrogant as though it were only natural.
This was the survival philosophy of an oni warrior.
Simple, crude, yet striking straight at the heart of the matter.
And this was truly the creed Kōbe Hikaru lived by: the so-called fear of insufficient firepower—turned the other way around, so long as one piled up enough firepower, there was nothing left worth fearing at all!
Kikyō looked at him, at this yōkai who, by outward appearance, seemed about the same age as herself.
That stone weighing on her heart—never so large to begin with—suddenly crumbled away.
That was right.
What was she even worried about?
The tragedies of the past had been nothing more than the result of not being strong enough.
Of not trusting enough—and of caring too much about so-called status.
But.
This oni before her possessed a will firmer than anyone's, and she believed he surely held the potential to overturn the rules themselves.
So long as she held fast to goodness in her own heart, that would be enough.
And most important of all——
He was on her side—unconditionally on her side.
And she trusted him.
That was all she needed.
"You're right."
Kikyō smiled, all at ease, and the charm of that single instant made even the morning light beyond the window pale by comparison.
"So long as you're strong enough, that's all that matters."
She reached out and once again grasped Kōbe Hikaru's somewhat cold hand.
"Then, Hikaru—so that all that idle gossip won't trouble us..."
"you'll have to become stronger still."
But Kōbe Hikaru kept his expression calm, merely clasping her hand in return, the warmth of their palms melding together.
"All right."
In any case, for now at least, this much was enough.
[Shikon Jewel — Naohi: favourability +2]
[Current favourability: 67 (Intimacy)]
[It glows; it feels that this is exactly how the guardian it wishes to see ought to be.]
[It is—quite gratified.]
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