Chapter Thirty-One

The Split Skies

Part 2 of 3

 

"Aaaaah!"

Nekohiko stumbled backward even though part of him knew he was safe. Abihiko was here. Lord Yakabe was here. Neither would allow an innocent soul like him to be torn apart by Demonic Spirits. But it wasn't just fear that startled him so.

It was shock. To be so despised for no reason other than... existing?

The Wet Women had the bodies of the thick, writhing snakes from which came long, pale women's throats. Their faces, eerily blank and ghoulish, looked so abhorrent on top of those necks like some tortured, mutilated body parts randomly strewn together by a capricious god.

They misted over the hill with the speed of a gust combing the grass. The first who reacted was Abihiko. He pushed Nekohiko out of the way and put himself in between the Wet Women and him.

Yakabe hadn't yet moved. His eyes were still transfixed on his hand that had touched Nekohiko moments prior. Then, without even turning toward the Spirits, he curled that hand into a firm fist.

The ground shook as the clash of thunder rolled through the clear, azure sky.

The wind rose so suddenly and fiercely. Like a storming tide over the sea, all the trees and grasses roiled up in an overwhelming rustle.

"Lord Yakabe's Heavenly Thunder!" Abihiko said, starry-eyed. His face split into an unabashed smile as he clutched Nekohiko dearly to himself. "Yes, you kick their asses, Lord Yakabe! Show them how it's done!"

A slight smile flickered on Yakabe's lips as he gave Abihiko a passing glance. "It's not the Wet Women that are so dangerous that I need to do this."

After the dismissive swipe of his sleeve, the wind froze on that side of the hill where the Wet Women were ghosting. In fact, everything across that expanse of the meadow seemed paralyzed in a picture of standstill. The bent grass, the birds in the sky, the transparent, wispy Spirits including the Wet Women flying at Nekohiko...

But Yakabe wasn't interested in them. He pointed above Abihiko's shoulder, still smiling softly.

Like one, the two boys turned behind them only to--

A monumental crag of a giant Wildboar Spirit loomed above them. Strands of translucent, spectral saliva dripped from its muzzle, swarming with thousands of tiny Fly Spirits. Usually, such animal Spirits were small, but this one had grown into its most powerful form in seconds. Why? Solely to come close to... Nekohiko?

What was going on? Why did it suddenly seem like everything about him was so bizarrely intriguing to Spirits around him? The Wildboar Spirit exuded the malicious, murderous aura, too. Yes -- a simple animal Spirit wanted to kill him now. For some reason.

A mighty snort of its massive muzzle.

Then, like a hammer, it lunged for Nekohiko underneath. The yellowed, greenish teeth in the Spirit's jaw opened as though to devour.

Even with Yakabe and Abihiko near, Nekohiko couldn't help his plummeting heart. He gasped, clinging tighter to Abihiko who also shrank back involuntarily.

But then he remembered Yakabe's smile. How confident and easy it had been. The sound of Heavenly Thunder was only growing louder as the winds splashed through the clearing once again.

Out of the perfectly clear sky, a blinding crack of lightning struck into the Wildboar's monster maw. Purple and blue, entwined together into a helix of pure light.

The Spirit roared in pain.

It dissolved into the mass of flies and Spirit essence as the Wildboar reassembled its form. Though it flashed left, right, coalescing again a bit to the side, it still was stubbornly bent on getting to Nekohiko. Its hooves stomped the ground, and the Spiritside opened like a gash of silence and darkness around him.

And him alone. No Yakabe, no Abihiko... Only he and the Wildboar Spirit across from him.

Nekohiko had never heard that the Spirits would invite a mortal into their realm just to kill him. Even the most malicious, Demonic ones!

The absence of Abihiko's warmth in his arms was so frightening, Nekohiko realized his lips already wanted to scream out his name. But he didn't need to.

Like the Spiritside had opened at the Wildboar Spirit's will, it didn't seal itself back closed. Something was obstructing its dissolving edges with the real world -- like a hand keeping the door open against someone trying to shut it.

"Thanks for the invitation, but we aren't staying," an unfamiliar brash male voice said above Nekohiko's ear to the Spirit. Something caught hold of Nekohiko's shoulder and yanked him rudely out of the Spiritside -- and back to the real world.

In the last glimpse of the Spiritside Nekohiko saw, the Wildboar Spirit twitched to follow them here, but the man who stole Nekohiko away only laughed.

"Nah, you stay put, you misbehaving swine," the man said and sealed the Spiritside's gateway right after he and Nekohiko stumbled out of it.

Well, after Nekohiko stumbled out of it, gracelessly plopping to the grass on his butt. The man hopped out with such doe-like agility, one could only envy his poise.

Like Yakabe, he wore the simplest peasant robes and trousers that were rolled up to his knees. Now that Nekohiko took a good look at him, everything about poise or style escaped his mind. The man at best looked quirky and at worst -- ridiculous. That mop of hair assembled in a loose ravel at the top of his head that was already falling apart, the bare feet crusted with sand, a bunch of lobsters tied with a string that hanged over his shoulder...

"Gods, I was so scared about you!" Abihiko punched him in the forearm instead of an embrace. "You dummy! Way to space out and let a damn Spirit abduct you!"

Feeling wronged, Nekohiko rubbed his bruised forearm. He would retort, only he was too absorbed with watching the stranger man as he sauntered over to where Yakabe was busy pacifying and releasing the Wet Women Spirits from before. That string of lobsters was now swinging off the man's finger, then flapped at Yakabe's side as a way of greeting. The new man did it again, and then some more as if to catch Yakabe's attention.

Yakabe ignored it all.

"Such stupid stuff can only happen to you of all people," Abihiko kept pestering Nekohiko. With a dissatisfied growl, he gave him another elbow. "Can you not space out now, too? I'm talking to you!"

"Who are they?"

The Divine Thunder of Yakabe... couldn't belong to anyone but to the Lord of the Skies, could it?

From what Nekohiko had learned about the Great Lords and their powers, thunder and lightning were as synonymous with the Lord of the Skies as the Black Bow Netsuito¹熱糸 means "Heart String" here. was. In fact, the Bow and the powers associated with it were one and the same.

However, there could be no mistake. Yakabe was not the Lord of the Skies, yet he had control of the Divine Thunder. And this other man who had come in the wake of that luminous lightning amidst the clear skies could be no one else but--

"Lord Kazuragi, duh," Abihiko said, annoyed. "Please don't tell me you don't know who that is."

He did know. But it still didn't quite fit together.

Yakabe was done with soothing down the agitated Spirits and finally turned around to the other man when Kazuragi jumped at him from behind.

"Who's so prim and proper and so damn Spirit-polite, huuuh?" he cooed, catching Yakabe in a headlock. Very reminiscent of something Nekohiko had experienced himself only a few hours before. The man's laugh even had the same obnoxious undertones as Abihiko's when Yakabe twitched to struggle but quickly chose to surrender instead.

The image of a person so used to this treatment, he hardly even noticed it. "Did you seal the Wildboar out?"

Yet as Nekohiko spied on, he saw that Kazuragi's hold of Yakabe was different from how Abihiko held him. Not to humiliate but only to draw him near and keep him like that -- gently, without real force.

"I did."

Yakabe flicked eyes at him, clearly not believing. With a sigh, he reached his hand into the air and prodded it as though trying to find an unsatisfying seam in it.

"I did, I swear!" Kazuragi groaned, then nodded dismissively at Nekohiko. "She saw it."

"I saw it, too," Abihiko echoed, bubbly. "Lord Kazuragi definitely sealed it."

But, unamused as Yakabe was, he still checked that the Spiritside's gateway was thoroughly closed before letting out a content breath and smoothing out his sleeves and his hair that had slightly dislodged during the scuffle. And once he did that, all his attention once more drifted to Nekohiko.

Deep, dark eyes bored into him as though trying to pry Nekohiko's most guarded secret. With a stark squeeze in his heart, Nekohiko knew that Yakabe had cracked the secret already. He couldn't say how, he couldn't say why -- but Yakabe knew.

"There is something important I need to tell you," Yakabe said to Kazuragi quietly. 

But Kazuragi didn't hear him over the sound of his own voice. He grinned as he lifted his lobsters into the other man's face, yelling, "Dinner!"

"Yes, please!" Abihiko piped in, then waved when Kazuragi spared him a confused glance. Dragging Nekohiko up, Abihiko leaned in to whisper hotly (and spittingly) in his ear. "Be smooth. We want them to like us."

Nekohiko swayed.

We do...?

"Where did you get these from?" Kazuragi popped at eyebrow at Yakabe, almost astounded as he studied Nekohiko's uniform clothing. The man turned in the direction of Izumo beyond the hills and mountains, then back to the boys again. "Didn't we specifically lodge away from the Shrine to keep it private? How come there are kids swarming our place even when we're trying to hide?"

"Oh, we're just admirers, my Lord!" Abihiko ran up to Kazuragi who was still sizing him up and down with faint dislike. Nekohiko had no choice but come close, too. Simply because he was shaken from the two consecutive Spirit attacks on his person. It was safer with Abihiko and definitely safer with Lord of the Skies... Lords?

Seriously, however stupid Kazuragi looked, he was one of the six most powerful people in the world -- the Head Priest and the Five Great Lords. Control of the skies and the storms didn't come to anyone without reason. He had to have earned it. And he must have carefully maintained that power for it to come so easily to his aid whenever he needed.

Kazuragi's smirk crooked to one side. "Admirers? Aww, isn't that nice, Yakabe?" Yet in a flash, he grew serious -- even menacing -- as he tilted his head. "How did you find us, little kiddos? Does anybody know you're here? Will anybody look for your bodies after I've disposed of you?"

Even reserved, Yakabe couldn't quite hide the roll of his eyes.

Nekohiko drew back, but Abihiko was only getting more excited. "Yes, my foster father -- Lord Hira Okinaga. But he's nothing to worry about. My mom, though. Tsk, that would be an issue. Her name is Asazuma, by the way."

Judging by Kazuragi's slight eye twitch, he was acquainted with that name.

"Yeah, I'm afraid she'd kick your butt all across Nagare if something happened to me on your watch, Lord Kazuragi," Abihiko ended gravely. "Just so you know."

Kazuragi's eyes turned to slits. "...on my watch?"

"Mn."

Conveniently, Nekohiko's stomach made a small growl -- from either fear or confusion -- and Abihiko jumped on the occasion. He slapped Nekohiko's middle, then pointed at the lobsters in Kazuragi's hand.

"Dinner, you said?" And then smiled even more dazzlingly than Kazuragi's lightning had been.

A moment passed in darkened silence as Kazuragi blank-stared him back. At last, he gave in. The whole string of still-fresh, still-wriggling lobsters flew into Abihiko's chest, spraying even Nekohiko with sea sand and water drizzles.

"Dinner. As long as you help cook."

"Deeeal, Lord Kazuragi!"

"...brat."

Neither Yakabe, nor Nekohiko exchanged any words on their way to the Bound hut in the woods, but the understanding was reached nonetheless. By the glances Nekohiko kept getting from Yakabe, he knew the man was also intrigued by him. And himself, Nekohiko was just as intrigued with the bizarrity that these two people were and wanted to know more.

Who was the Lord of the Skies out of the two of them? And why was the power seemingly split? And how could it possibly even work?

Dinner shouldn't be that bad an idea, he decided.

 

---

 

***

The hut was very flowy inside -- the wood and stone that made it was so smoothly Bound together that the entire building felt more like a cowrie shell, snug and natural. Perfect. There was even furniture inside even though Nekohiko could discern it was all Bound woodland materials as well. In the later years at Izumo, there was this exam where pupils would have to go out into the wilderness and make themselves a living entirely with their Binding. From what Nekohiko knew about that exam, this would have to be a masterclass on how to pass it. Everything in the house was Bound, including Yakabe's and Kazuragi's clothes woven out of softened pine needles and tree bark. That their clothes had a rough look said nothing about their skill; Nekohiko would bet they simply preferred it like that.

Yakabe sat at the table chopping scallions while Kazuragi and Abihiko made a ruckus, spitting and screaming at each other about the better method of cooking lobsters and the time on the coals each thought most effective.

Kazuragi plucked Abihiko from over the vegetable basket by the collar and deposited him on the other side.

Rage colored Abihiko's voice. "Unfair! You think because you're slightly bigger than me you can mistreat me? Do you think I wouldn't be able to defend myself?"

Nekohiko sat at the table across from Yakabe and gave him a worried look. Yakabe's big eyes crinkled in a smile.

"Ohh, ohh, sure. You want to fight me?" Kazuragi sparked up himself.

"A sparring match with Half of the Lord of the Skies?" Abihiko was clearly torn between glee and desire to not show it. "Only if you both fight me, maybe. Why'd I waste time on just half of a real Lord?"

"You little bastard--!"

"Outside," Yakabe threw at the two of them, then dropped all the chopped vegetables into a bowl for Kazuragi to carry. "Go."

The terrible noise was more bearable once the overactive duo was beyond the doors. Nekohiko let out a long, held-up breath as though commiserating.

Yakabe moved the basket with rice to himself but instead picked at it listlessly as though in reverie.

"I figure you understand what this means," he said, "that the Spirits attack you now. I can seal it back if Your Highness wants."

Your Highness.

Ah, it felt like such a heart-opening relief! To share with someone. To talk about it in the open. Yet other than that... everything else Yakabe said was gibberish to Nekohiko's ears.

"Excuse me? I don't understand what you mean, Lord Yakabe..."

Genuine surprise gave Yakabe a start. "You don't know about the seals on you?"

...seals?

Since all Nekohiko did was gape, Yakabe threw a cautious look to the outside where Abihiko yelled something about the squashes. "So you weren't told. I sort of see why," he said slowly. "Thus, I'm not sure how much I can tell you about this. It's the responsibility of the Head Priest to protect you, so I can't overrule his way of doing it."

"Please tell me the truth. I just want to know everything as it is. If the Head Priest hides something from me to keep me safe, I still think I have the right to know."

But his words were falling on an unreceptive listener. "I can't. Not with Your Highness. The issue of your safety is so far beyond my wishes or even your own. I'm sorry. Ask the Head Priest about the seals if you want but I can only tell you about the one given to you by a Nagare Great Lord." With an apologetic look, Yakabe averted his eyes. "You would know either way because now that half of it is lifted, all the Spirits in the land will be naturally aware of your presence."

Nekohiko was hushed. "...why? Because of who I am?"

"The true Emperor, yes. Your Binding has been sealed right after your birth to keep you safe -- both from the people and from the Spirits." Yakabe seemed uncomfortable, even unnerved to speak. "Nagare seal is one of many that Bind you. The thing is, when I touched you, I accidentally released half of the Nagare seal. I understand that you've felt it, too."

Nekohiko nodded so fast he felt nauseated. His eyes were filled with sudden tears.

He knew it!

He knew he wasn't worthless! He knew he wasn't the most pathetic Binder in the history of humanity. That there had always been an explanation of why his Binding was so weak!

"I possess the more passive aspect of the Lord of the Skies' power." Yakabe pointed with his chin toward the door and Kazuragi's vague shape swagging outside. "Half of the Nagare seal I released is your Binder's mark. Your aura, your ability to be noticed and communicate with the Spirits."

But being able to be noticed was already a great gift. Previously, Nekohiko was as good as invisible to most!

"Abihiko calls you Neko. I assume short for Nekohiko? The 'tree-roots prince'?"

"Mn." Yakabe was so smart, so fast to grasp things. Nekohiko couldn't help but smile at him in gratefulness.

But then--

"Well, Nekohiko, I'm afraid it's better that the seal I broke is put back."

"No. No!" Nekohiko drew away from Yakabe's extended hand. "Please no, Lord Yakabe!"

Yakabe stopped, visibly dismayed. "You will have no way to protect yourself from all the Savage Spirits wanting to punish you for not fulfilling your destiny. Do you understand what your life will be like from this moment on?"

...

Everything in him roiled. He didn't know what consequences this would entail. He couldn't say he was ready. He would probably regret it later.

Yet for now... his choice was as clear as the azure sky above.

"Lord Kazuragi can release the second half of Nagare seal on me, yes?" Nekohiko said. His heart beating so loud he almost didn't hear his own voice. "If it's the active half, then will it mean I'd be able to defend myself? To finally use Binding to cast spells?"

Something toppled and crashed outside with the clangor of full plate armor. Kazuragi yelled in aggravation. "Do your arms grow out of your butt? Give me that, or you'll ruin it completely!"

But inside the hut, there was only silence.

"I'll talk to Kazuragi about this."

Yakabe appeared tired and guilty. But he didn't reject him outright. That was good, yes?

After a long while as he and Nekohiko picked the bad grains out of the rice, Nekohiko couldn't endure the silence anymore. He wanted Yakabe distracted and besides, he did feel curious about some peculiar thing.

"So is it true? You and Kazuragi are both the Lord of the Skies?"

"You could say that."

"I've never heard of a Great Lord or Lady title being shared among several people," Nekohiko wondered out loud.

"It's not exactly shared among different people. It's still Kazuragi's," Yakabe began, somewhat confounded. "Of course he had been the Lord of the Skies on his own. But he chose to unite his power with me."

"...why?" Nekohiko asked to Yakabe's sad little smile.

And no real answer following it.

Abihiko peeked in, sweaty, with his hair tangled -- but so obliviously happy from all the running around.

"Neko!" he chimed. "Did you know why he had lobsters? Can you believe he actually just caught them in the sea and then flew here?"

No way. From here, and over the mountainous terrain, the sea was about two hours away. 

"He says he can fly, and so can Yakabe! Can you?" Abihiko asked the man after exchanging incredulous looks with Nekohiko.

"Yes."

"I sprained my ankle, so I can't walk all the way back to Izumo," Abihiko moaned. "If only there was a way for you or Kazuragi to get me there without me having to hurt my feet more..."

It was clear that the same trick hadn't worked on Kazuragi. But with Yakabe, and with the fact that the man felt guilty about Nekohiko's accidentally released seal...

Yakabe shook his head at the woven rice bowl in his hands. "Of course," he surrendered.

The dinner in the shadow of the Bound lacy-tree canopies went in Kazuragi's loud ignoring of Abihiko's incessant chatter. The man preferred to talk to Yakabe about some stuff Nekohiko found incomprehensible -- taxes, planning issues of the next week, some banquet at Nagare castle the two would be attending in a month. Both winced as soon as they brought it up. But Kazuragi didn't just talk. He also poked Yakabe with his dirty bare feet and took all of Yakabe's mushrooms from his bowl and substituted them all for his shreds of lobster meat.

From the scattered words here and there, Nekohiko gleaned that Yakabe was not related to Kazuragi or the great Nagare family at all. In fact, both Kazuragi and Yakabe seemed to have had wives of their own for years and each had a child with those wives.

So... a complete nobody like Yakabe was carrying the shared title of the Lord of the Skies? And the Nagare family could do nothing about that? It was so bizarre to Nekohiko, he couldn't help but stare.

"...what?!" Kazuragi finally snapped at him. "If you keep staring, you'll bore a hole in me with your eyes."

"Does the Nagare family not oppose to... the title being given to a stranger?" Nekohiko asked. He just couldn't wrap his mind around it. Or how come Kazuragi had felt it necessary to just... split his incredible power in half to give it to some random man?

Kazuragi flexed his jaw.

"How is this any of your business?" He turned to Abihiko who was occupied with stuffing his mouth with a fat lobster chunk. "Is this the real reason you two came? To take a peek at the 'crazy Kazuragi'?"

"Eh?" Abihiko made a face at him, then kicked Nekohiko in the shin. "Trust me, Neko is not very good at socializing, that's basically it. Me, on the other hand..." And he made a flourish with the chopsticks. "I came to see the 'crazy Kazuragi', yes. Very crazy, indeed."

"That's it," Kazuragi told Yakabe. "I'm going back into the sea. Even fighting with sharks wasn't this traumatic."

"...because I want to be just as crazy as you when I grow up," Abihiko finished triumphantly. "You two are my role models."

"Enough with your flattery. I'm not taking you flying!" Kazuragi said with the air of having repeated that a dozen times before.

Abihiko's content face didn't change. "I'll marry a boy I love, too, when the time comes. And I will not care if the world tells me I can't. Even if they all turn on me or torment me. Just like you did." He patted his chest on the left side. "The true Nagare power comes from the heart."

Nekohiko stopped chewing, so conflicted he felt.

Yet the way Abihiko looked was so moving... as though he'd been waiting to say this for so long. As though, truly, this was the sole reason why he had come here today.

Yakabe's eyes dropped to the ground, eyelashes quivering.

But Kazuragi only grimaced so much harder. "You're like... ten."

"Eleven!" Abihiko said.

"Whatever. You're tiny." Abihiko's indignant 'I'm as tall as your shoulders!' was met with utter indifference. "What the hell are you doing talking about marrying people? You can't tell what you like or why at such a young age."

If Abihiko's mouth could open any wider, his jaws would become unhinged. "Of course I can!"

"I could, ever since I remember myself," Yakabe said, thoughtful.

Now it was Kazuragi's turn to gawk. "No waaay! You freaks of nature." For the first time ever, he sought Nekohiko's support by nudging him in the knee with his toes. "That can't be normal, right?"

Resolute, Nekohiko gave him a solemn nod. He agreed with Kazuragi regardless of what all these other people said. And they said a lot, so agitated and amused they became with the turn of the conversation. Abihiko most of all, with Yakabe only agreeing or disagreeing here or there.

"Lucky bastards. I could only tell at twenty-five," Kazuragi went on after chuckling for a while, his bowl long forgotten and stale by the smoldering fire. "And even then only after I met you," he told Yakabe with the most laidback grin.

"Eat," Yakabe stressed.

Later, after the dinner was over and the burnished gold of the sun tinted the horizon into the brilliant evening colors, Yakabe promised the boys to talk with Kazuragi about flying them back to Izumo. The men went about clearing the site of the impromptu fire while Abihiko and Nekohiko were saddled with washing the dishes in the shallow stone basin.

Nekohiko felt warm and a bit sleepy. It astounded him how serene he found himself among people he'd just met.

"Thanks," Abihiko said. "For your gift for my birthday. I wanted to meet the two of them so much."

"You could have gone alone?" Nekohiko was glad that he hadn't, but he really didn't understand how this trip was somehow a gift he'd given Abihiko.

"You are the only friend I have," Abihiko whispered. "If I came here on my own, alone... I don't know. It would have felt even more depressing. There's two of them, after all. They'll never be alone. I also don't want to be."

"They're almost like the same person, aren't they?" Nekohiko said, contemplative. "I wonder if that's the reason the title is split and it doesn't harm their power at all."

Once the two Lords finally agreed on flying the boys back to Izumo, Nekohiko learned how exactly Kazuragi's mind had been changed so quickly on this issue.

Because Kazuragi almost didn't pay attention to Abihiko anymore. All of his focus was solely on Nekohiko. A grave, hesitant focus.

Ah.

Yakabe must have told him. Not that Nekohiko minded. If Yakabe could be trusted with this information, so could Kazuragi.

The Lord beckoned him closer then hovered his open palm above Nekohiko's, almost touching it. "Yakabe told me you wish to lift the second half of the Nagare seal."

No questions asked, no reluctance, no prolonged sermons or warnings not to. Kazuragi was quite a cut-straight-to-the-chase kind of person, wasn't he?

Nekohiko decided to mirror him, too.

"Yes. I do." He lifted his hand to meet Kazuragi's. The imminence of the touch of another human's skin on his own made him squirm inside, but he knew he had to overpower it. Some things required sacrifices however small or big.

Kazuragi dithered a moment but then seemed to have exhausted his own patience. "Eh, sure, why not?"

The touch was rude yet only passing. A surge of electric shock chilled Nekohiko's hand for a few heartbeats then eased back through his body -- up his arm into his shoulder, through his back and right down to his toes. The sensation was not unpleasant, yet Nekohiko preferred if this never happened again.

He hid his hand within his sleeve and withdrew from Kazuragi. "Thank you, Lord Kazuragi." He should add something much more princely that this, too, probably. "I will not forgive your favor--"

"Tsk, don't be silly, little girl!"

Girl? How could... Kazuragi not pay attention to Yakabe long enough to learn that he was, in fact, a prince, not a princess?

"Hop on! We're flying you home!"

And Kazuragi opened his arms for him as if actually expecting Nekohiko to jump right into them no questions asked.

Abihiko had already mounted Yakabe's shoulders a few steps away, yelling something about reaching the clouds and the stars, and Kazuragi was clearly not going to ask him the second time before he'd seize Nekohiko to speed things up.

"You can carry me instead, Lord Kazuragi!" Abihiko offered.

Not allowing Kazuragi the chance to explode upon the boy again, Nekohiko neared the stormy-looking Lord and diligently climbed onto his back, heedful to not touch any uncovered body parts as he did.

"I wouldn't carry you even if your mom had the Red Blade at my neck," Kazuragi said as he and Yakabe gently pushed themselves off the ground and soared up into the wind-swept skies. Even though the gusts of the wind beat against them teasing their hair and clothes as they swooped over the trees, higher and higher, Kazuragi's voice was very clear to Nekohiko's ears.

Ah, but who else but the Lord of the Skies and Winds and Rains and Storms who could command the wind so perfectly?

"I enjoy the little girls' manners so much more than the boys'," Kazuragi said dreamily as they flew. "My little daughter is a prime example. So quiet, so mindful, so well-behaved. Just like you actually. Ah, the two of you should absolutely meet. Trust me, my Kasuga would be so much better to your growth as a person than somebody like that little..."

He threw a disdainful look over his shoulder at Abihiko who was whooping and squealing on top of Yakabe's shoulders.

He didn't need to finish his sentence. Nekohiko understood.

But at the same time, he also didn't. That Kasuga girl sounded amazing to him -- quiet, evasive, and contemplative? A perfect person if there ever was one.

Yet nevertheless... Abihiko was...

Nekohiko turned, too, trying to see Abihiko as though for the first time. What was Abihiko to him, really?

When they descended at the brink of the Izumo Shrine grounds, Nekohiko hurried up the slope, intent to appreciate his newfound abilities in the School environment. But his step faltered when he realized that Kazuragi and Yakabe weren't following. They stood afar looking up at him as though this was it.

Kazuragi gave him a tight-lipped smile while Yakabe seemed too deep in his thoughts to give a proper goodbye.

"Well, well, well." Abihiko crossed his arms on his chest. "Afraid to meet the Head Priest, aren't ya, you brave and mighty Lord Kazuragi?"

Oh, now that Nekohiko pondered that through, he was afraid of meeting Suminoe, himself. What would he say if Nekohiko told him everything that had happened? What if he would seal all of Nekohiko's newfound powers back?

Should Nekohiko perhaps... not tell him?

Breath puffed out of Kazuragi's mouth as he turned around in aggravation. "Afraid of that ice sculpture? Please... I just have no patience for someone so--"

Yakabe clutched his wrist, his own eyes snapping up and above Nekohiko's shoulder.

...

This could only be the Head Priest.

With a familiar chill on the nape of his neck, Nekohiko swallowed with difficulty. Should he tell? Should he not tell? Yeah right. As if the Head Priest wouldn't know everything already.

Visibly shuddering, Kazuragi glanced up above Nekohiko, too. When he smiled, his teeth were gritted -- not in the display of aggression but rather in the clearest display of trepidation Nekohiko had ever seen.

"Hiiii," Kazuragi whispered. "Here are your kids back. You're welcome and... bye."

Very slowly, he turned, wishing to tiptoe away.

"Nagare," Suminoe said. "Let's have a talk."