Queenfisher

This is author's note for those upset last chapter didn't have any! I am healthy, well-fed and excited to start drawing... a new picture, I guess? You'll see if I ever make it since it'll be harder than usual. I wanted to draw AbihikoxNekohiko in full height in new outfits one of these days (either for the next chappy or the one after that)...

But I'm unsure if my skills can handle that!

Chapter Seventy-One

Who Even Marries into Such Freaky Families?

"I am really unsure what the Supreme Divine Emperor Abihiko would think if we sneaked a cat to him in the guise of his bride," Kotone said doubtfully.

And this was what made Nekohiko feel his choice of an ally had been correct. Kotone did not dismiss him outright as most normal people would! Most would just kick his dummy cat form aside for talking nonsense. She still left him a chance to explain and argue his offer, without any bias.

The warmth of gratefulness filled him. He jumped forward to nozzle his small cat face into her neck. "Kotone, what would I do without you! I missed you so much! It's me, do you recognize me? I never went to the Spiritside, whatever Abihiko told you!"

Kotone stiffened, holding him, listening to him in shock.

"What happened to me in these past five years is so depressing, I don't even want to think about it now!" he mewled. "But I'm here right now and... I can't keep hiding any longer. I need to tell someone -- tell everything! And I need to hurry, too, Kotone! He's getting married and he'll be gone for at least a month, or at worst -- half a year! I need answers for what he did to me, and I need to take my revenge and--"

"Oh, oh. All right," Kotone mumbled, completely taken aback.

Nekohiko didn't even realize how rambly and desperate he sounded, but he didn't care. Because Kotone did not push him away and didn't demand something more coherent out of him. She understood that he was in turmoil and pressed him closer to her chest as she got to her feet and slowly made her way down the corridor and back to her quarters.

The door opened and closed. Kotone carried Nekohiko to the small table in the middle of the room but still didn't let him out of her embrace. She stroked his fur, looking more speechless by the second.

"Shh, shh, poor kitty," she whispered as he kept mumbling the rest of his jumbled explanation.

Something about trees, and about being forced to be a snake and a bug, and then Abihiko burning some people alive while Morokata and Kataji pestered him so much...

"Kataji? Who?" Kotone asked at some point but didn't try to stop him and get an actual answer. Yet.

For now, she just lent him her ear and listened to everything he wanted to share.

Which was a lot.

A LOT.

Even he was taken aback by how talkative he could grow all of a sudden.

Plus, he was getting distracted while he spoke, which didn't help matters at all. In the brief moments when he calmed down to think of his next words, he felt his mind being probed with a needy touch from afar.

Abihiko. Trying to talk to him back in the Palace.

Ugh.

Nekohiko didn't bother to respond or even pay attention, but, one time, he felt a strange surge of an electric-like current through his body.

A spell being cast. Onto his wooden sculpture body Abihiko had in his rooms.

Why?

Now, that was intriguing. Nekohiko spared only a few moments to peek at what was going on in there from within his seashell.

And came away from there mildly amused.

Abihiko was seemingly casting the spells that allowed any of Nekohiko's Emerald Fir bodies to enter the Palace without setting off the protective alarms around it. Probably because Abihiko hoped it would make Nekohiko want to visit him more?

How cute of him to think that.

Yet at the same time, how helpful. Being able to come into the Palace whenever he wanted and without anyone finding out? Mmmm.

Nekohiko even stopped rambling before Kotone, so pleased he felt with this new development.

Abihiko wasn't entirely useless to him yet!

With that, he quietened down.

"There-there," Kotone said after a few seconds of frowning. She cleared her throat and reached for the water jar on the table to sip from it. When she put it down resolutely, all she could say was, "I'm sorry, I think I missed almost everything in what you just said, Cat Prince."

"..."

Nekohiko dropped his head in dejection.

Of course she did. She knew so little about his tragic fate...

"Do you remember that girl, Nekohiko, you helped raise in Izumo years ago?" he asked. "Well, that girl is me. Only... I was never a girl in the first place and I was acting like one all that time to preserve my secret from others. The secret being that I'm the one and true Emperor of this Land -- Wakayamoto Nekohiko Obibi no Sumeramikoto¹His actual full name, lol ^^," he added awkwardly, afraid to meet Kotone's eye. "Yeah. And also, now I'm a cat. And Abihiko is marrying some random person... my life is truly such a mess."

"Aaahh."

Kotone's eyes stared in a strange reverie past Nekohiko as though something wondrous had just occurred to her.

"I see," she said after a while, but didn't move and didn't add anything else.

"Do you... want to ask me anything?" he said after a long pause.

Still looking very much dumbfounded, Kotone slowly shook her head.

She must be absorbing the information flood he had just pushed onto her, he understood. But understanding this didn't make the pressing silence of the room feel any better to him.

"I know that without proof my tale seems like utter nonsense," Nekohiko went on, nodding. "But you can ask me anything you want from back the time you and I spend most of our days together -- remember? Anything you think only you and I could know, and I'll tell you. And, besides that -- take a look at this."

And he quickly assembled a small Nagare bolt of energy out of his cat paws to fling into the air. The spell was small and not very impressive, but it was enough to expose a Binder's aura for another Binder to read and recognize.

Provided that they remembered what the aura they were recognizing looked like.

Yet regardless of that, Kotone sat up straighter the very second she read the lingering traces of Nekohiko's Binding aura in the room. Her hand outstretched as though to touch the dissipating spell. She froze, her face slowly brightening up in animation.

Nekohiko exhaled, satisfied.

It would be a bit too unbelievable for Kotone to recognize the aura of a child she'd known years ago. But it was an entirely different issue when a Binder so proficient in reading the Spirits of the Empire not to recognize the obvious magnitude of powers of the true Emperor of the said Land!

And Kotone could tell, he saw.

Like he had always known -- the Emperor's aura was just too magnificent for others to not be impressed by even the smallest traces of it.

Her hand trembled when Kotone touched the imprint of his aura in the air. A reverent smile opened up on her lips. "It is true," she breathed. "You are the true Emperor, Cat Prince..."

She flicked her eyes to him, so much more intent as she studied his features in the apparent dummy cat body. "And if you're not lying about this, it also probably means that..." Doubtfully, she leaned her face almost nose-to-nose to his. "N-nekohiko? Really?"

Tears budded in Nekohiko's eyes. He gulped with difficulty. "Yes..."

Kotone huffed a pitiful chuckle and reached for him. "My poor girl, Nekohiko... what happened to you, little one? Tsk, I cannot believe how much you suffered."

He was not a touchy-feely person, but he allowed Kotone to take him in and hug him with all her sisterly passion. "I suffered very, very much," he complained. "And the worst thing -- I'm pretty sure it's not the end of my suffering because people keep stealing what belongs to me. Now it's Sakami, of all people..."

Kotone tensed up. "Ah, yes. I know," she said gravely. "But he's forced to marry her. He would never do it if it were a choice. I bet it hurts you so much just to imagine him in another person's arms..."

"Yes-- Wait, what?!" Nekohiko shook her embrace off. "Let him roll in a thousand people's arms for all I care. I was talking about my Empire, Kotone. I want to claim it back before someone completely unfit to rule it like Sakami gets to the Emerald Throne! Please pay attention and remain on topic."

As though surprised, Kotone stilled at first but then smiled again.

"All right, sure!"

"Really? You will help me?" he asked, half-disbelieving, half-hopeful. "We would have to go against Morokata himself, let alone all the other Lords. Even Abihiko must not know a thing of our plan or he can ruin it all--"

Kotone blinked, perplexed. "Abihiko won't know? But... why? Nekohiko, if he knew, our plan would be so much easier because he would probably help us!"

...

Poor, poor Kotone.

Not only had she been in the dark all this time about Nekohiko's true identity and his gender, but also... she still had no idea that it had been Abihiko she cared about so much who was the sole reason for all Nekohiko's current miseries.

And honestly, Nekohiko didn't have it in him to tell her.

The truth would devastate her. Or likelier -- she wouldn't believe it and would simply refuse to accept it. Neither of these outcomes was what Nekohiko wanted to deal with, so he just sighed.

"No. Trust me, Abihiko should not be aware of our plan. Let's say... it'll be a kind of a pleasant surprise for him that we're readying -- since, as you say, he would not mind it anyway."

Kotone covered her nose and mouth with her cupped hands, beyond herself with excitement. "Oh yes, a very pleasant surprise, I can already imagine!"

"But most importantly," Nekohiko talked over her because her insinuations frustrated him, "our plan will save my beautiful Empire by putting the rightful ruler on the throne."

"Oh yes, and that, too."

This was the most prominent point Nekohiko pressed on in his pitch to Kotone. Through the odd hour it took him and her to ponder the situation they were in, Nekohiko reveled in how accepting Kotone was of everything he suggested. Not accepting because she was being polite or because she was confounded.

But only because he was the Emperor.

And she was one of the Spiritway priests devoted to serving the Emperor for the balance and fulfillment of the Empire.

In an uncanny sense, it bothered him. She would have stood behind anyone who was on the true Emperor's spot. It made no difference to her whether he was her friend or not.

She would serve anyone, indiscriminately, as long as their Spirit and Binding powers had the biggest right to the Throne.

Years ago, Kotone had always been such a sweet, mellow young woman. She had been very kind and deeply attached to certain people and places. She had known what was right and what was wrong, on whose side she chose to stand and where she didn't.

Yet back in Nagare castle, with how she had accepted anything that was happening around her there -- with not a trace of judgment or opinion on the morality or wrongness of it all? She had only rarely exhibited curiosity about human issues, mostly worried about the Spiritual things.

And this was not the Kotone Nekohiko had known before.

It did seem that the Spiritway influence had changed her in some drastic ways. And if he hadn't known better, he would say that this change was... a negative one. A scary one.

Her affable personality remained the same but beneath it was no longer genuine engagement with others but rather... amusement. Interest, but no longer real care. More and more, Kotone's behavior reminded Nekohiko sharply of... Suminoe's, years back.

And that made him wonder. Had Suminoe truly been a very different young man before he had become the Head Priest? Had Haehime been different as a child, too?

Had... Nekohiko?

Had he changed through time too much as well?

He couldn't remember how the influence of the Spirits had transformed him, partly because he had only observed this change from the inside. But as he looked now at how serene Kotone was about him telling his plan that would no doubt endanger many, many people and might even cause strife between the Great Families -- he found himself being the one who offered more counterarguments to his own schemes than Kotone.

He'd thought she would try to persuade him not to pursue his goals, but actually, he was persuading himself against it while Kotone was only cheer-leading him and nudging him on with how delighted his plan made her!

Come on, his plans could not be that good.

Yet, thoughtfully, Kotone hummed when he asked her about this element of the wedding ceremony or that, but never rejected his ideas.

"All right, we'll see," she told him again and again. "I'd have to talk to the Shrine Maiden about this since she's responsible for the Marital Bond ritual."

She opened the door and let him out before taking a stroll down the corridor to where she and Haehime had parted some time ago. "Maybe you could even ask her yourself?"

"No," Nekohiko said. "Better you. I trust you and besides, I am not very acquainted with the Shrine Maiden. I don't want her to first get to know me as a cat..."

"Ah, I guess I understand that. Anyway, don't you worry. Haehime is a wonderful person, although I think I disliked her a lot when we were both in the first grade, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Like, this one time, she went fishing in the town fountain..."

Nekohiko couldn't focus on Kotone's funny anecdotes from her childhood with Haehime. All his thoughts swerved solely around his doubts.

He still didn't feel completely safe with leaving such crucial parts of his plan to someone else, but at the same time... just one day separated him from the terrible wedding. Entrusting his life to others felt weird yet did he have any choice? He couldn't control every fine little thing in his complex plan and thus, he had to rely on someone else or he would fail. 

Walking side by side with Kotone, witnessing how cheery and tranquil she was with his ideas, Nekohiko couldn't help but tell himself that this was worth it. That this wasn't a mistake and that his paranoia of being betrayed by someone he trusted so deeply should not hold him back.

And then Kotone had to blurt this out:

"...wait till I tell Haehime the whole love story underneath this plan! She has such a soft spot for love stories with fate and separation and reunions, ah! I was always rooting for you and Abihiko to marry even when you were a girl, but now it would make so much more sense!"

...

Sure, Nekohiko said to himself. Him worrying about being betrayed was not really a factor.

Only about being disregarded and treated as some strange lovesick puppy pining after his heartthrob rather than an Emperor merely doing his job!

"And besides!" Kotone stopped, thinking of something in a flash. "She'll get to find out who goes where, does what, and who is responsible for what in a wedding between two men! Because now that we don't have a proper bride, would we be even called a Bride's Side in the Spiritual sense, mmm? Now this is interesting." Kotone let out a silvery laugh, waving her hand at Nekohiko. "Then again, you aren't a stranger to performing the roles of women and girls, are you, Nekohiko? Tsk, I still can't believe you hid the truth from us all for so long! I hope at least Abihiko knew... wait, what am I talking -- of course he knew," she added under her nose. "How would he be in such deep love with you if he had no idea? Oooooh, and now he's going to marry you! It is as it should be!"

Nekohiko endured it all, silently and tragically.

Only one thought pulsed through him as he suffered this humiliation:

Abihiko is not going to marry me. I am marrying the throne, not the person who currently sits on it undeservedly.

And above all -- I am the one who marries him.

I, the Emperor! A person with a lineage as pure and as ancient as this Empire itself.

Why would someone like me step down to be wed into Abihiko's low level, huh? And who would even want to marry into his freakshow of a family?

The corridor led them to the inner yard with the purifying spring in it. Even from afar, the veiled silhouette of Haehime popped among the darker foliage of the garden trees, more resembling a ghost than a real person. Excited, Kotone wanted to run toward her but Nekohiko stopped her.

"I'm leaving you now. Tomorrow, I'll come visit in my human form, all right? Then we'll go through the wedding schedule and the plan all together. Plus, I think Kasuga and Aomi come to Nara tomorrow morning, too, yes? Good." Decisive, he purred to himself. "Their help will also be needed."

"So I'm free to tell everything I want to Haehime?" Kotone asked him once he hurried away a few steps.

With the last tinge of doubt, Nekohiko glanced to Haehime who was slowly whirling her way around the rose bushes. A trail of Haehime's words reached him in her eerie, almost surreal voice.

"Good night, Lord Twig," Haehime murmured to the air before her. "Good night, Lord Celestial Crane Who Watches the Horizon. Good afternight, Lady Scent of Lilies... Please give my condolences to Lady Bronze Chime..."

He could maybe force himself to see all those Spirits Haehime was talking to, but they were such disposable and irrelevant Spirits. Nekohiko, like most normal Binders, had learned to ignore them the majority of the time. Of course Haehime wasn't truly insane... albeit she was probably -- a little. But she was also very in tune with the Spirits, so there was nothing too weird in her trying to talk to all the Spirits she met.

Which meant that Haehime would likely not give a damn that Nekohiko wanted to break several laws against the Great Lords and even the current Emperor.

Human laws would hold zero relevance to someone like her.

"Ah, Lord Ant! Sorry I murdered you just now by stepping on you! It wasn't on purpose, you're just very tiny. Also, good night, Lord Ant... I suppose."

Nekohiko shrugged. "Yes, you can tell her everything you want, Kotone. I trust her as well. Just," he added even before deciding to, "don't... talk to the Head Priest about it."

He felt strange to even say this. But he couldn't shake off the gut-squirming sensation of wrongness that clutched him every time he thought about Suminoe.

A flush of complex emotions crossed Kotone's features. Part-shudder, part-relief. "I wouldn't have told him anyway," she said. "Please do not worry about him. Neither I nor Haehime will tell him."

...huh?

Nekohiko perked his ears up. "Why? What do you mean?" A chill crept along his spine, setting the hair of his fur upright with tension. "Kotone, is there something wrong with His Holiness lately?"

"Well..." Kotone frowned, looking uncertain. "No, I do not think there is. But at the same time..."

"Good night, Lord Kitty," Haehime's carefree voice cut in close beside. The young woman sailed from beyond the cherry tree and toward Kotone. "Good night, Lady Kotone -- oh wait! Not good night yet. You only just came back, ha-ha!"

Kotone gave her friend a secretive look then winked at Nekohiko, already forgetting what he and she had talked about a moment ago. "Haehime, you will not believe what I've got to tell you about our new plans for tomorrow and the day after! But trust me -- you'll love it! It's so romantic!"

Nekohiko ran away faster than his dummy cat paws allowed him, slipping on the polished wooden floor at the corners and rushing back into Kotone's room with his hackles risen.

How he disliked that he had to accept Kotone's strange interpretation of his plan to conquer his Empire... This young woman was not much better than Aomi with the girl's constant obsession with sexual innuendos.

And speaking of Aomi -- argh. What would tomorrow bring when Aomi came to Nara? Worse still, Aomi was Abihiko's sister, so the girl would absolutely misinterpret why Nekohiko was suddenly trying to "marry his way into the Abi family".

Would Nekohiko explode from frustration tomorrow with so many of his "allies" misunderstanding his goals for the wedding?

It all could wait till tomorrow. Tonight, some other issues with the "Abi family" still required his participation.

The two very annoying brothers and their affinity to make Nekohiko's life a nightmare.

***

Nekohiko opened his eyes inside his human dummy, just in time to see Mikawa peeking out the window at some commotion down in the inn's front courtyard.

The mere sounds of that commotion promised nothing good.

Kataji's voice, but so slurred and loud and blaring in sudden bouts of laughter.

...

Nekohiko covered his face with his palm, huffing a breath out. "Please tell me he's at least alone," he said.

"If you can call three servants and one street-sweeping dummy supporting him to talk as 'alone', then no," Mikawa answered, watching the scene down below with a saddened expression. "Because there is one more person next to Kataji who does not look like he's nobody."

Nekohiko's hand dropped off his face. "Does this person wear dusty-pastel robes and an aura of elegance and charm about him?"

"He does."

Damn it.

The rumble in the courtyard drowned in the happy cries and salutes from the other inebriated patrons, but the direction of the noise gradually shifted. It went inside. Next, the thunderous scuffle sounded from the inn's stairs as well as an unexpected rowdy song.

The song in Kataji's voice.

"Heave-ho, heave-ho!

The fisherman fucks tonight!

Heave-ho, heave-ho!

A girl or a fish, nevermind!"

"Cousin Kataji, your manners, tch," Morokata's refined voice chided him right from behind the door.

Nekohiko suppressed a cringe, turning to Mikawa. "You better flee to the roof for a while. I'll get them and kick Morokata away shortly, don't worry."

But instead of following his orders, Mikawa lingered. "King Morokata does pay for my stay in this inn... isn't it a bit rude for me to avoid him all the time? Him being here tonight doesn't even look like he pursues me or wants to trick me somehow, so--"

What was it with all the young people in Nekohiko's life suddenly getting too free-willed all of a sudden?

"Mikawa!" Nekohiko furrowed his brow most menacingly. "Think of your Elder Sister and her wishes."

At last, that tugged the right string. Mikawa assumed a guilty expression and clumsily crawled out the window when Nekohiko reached for the door on which somebody was banging shamelessly from the other side.

"Heeeey! Guess who's back home, suckers!"

Morokata's forehead almost rubbed against Kataji's flustered, reddened cheeks as the two swayed unsteadily in the doors. Nekohiko gave each of them a troubled look, then tried to take Kataji out of Morokata's embrace.

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for bringing him," he said, gripping Kataji's arm in his fingers.

But Kataji recoiled from him with a gasp.

The young man's eyes were all but sparkling with drunken tears as he watched Nekohiko, mesmerized.

"You are just... so... pretty," Kataji breathed, almost sounding shocked. "Why are you so pretty, Itsuki?"

Nekohiko persevered. "Come in. You need to rest and get better--"

"No!" Kataji shook his head blearily. "No. You... you explain yourself first. Is it me or are you glowing? So, so... beautiful." His fingers almost reached out to cup Nekohiko's face but only caressed his hair as though afraid to dirty Nekohiko's skin with his touch. "Can't believe I made you. With these bare... stupid hands." Miserably, he held out his hands before his face, studying them with vivid distaste. "I must be some kind of a genius, damn it."

"All right, genius," Morokata told him. "Time to go to bed."

Nekohiko also wanted to help but Kataji slipped out of both their grasps like an eel, which was impressive for how hard he swayed on his feet.

"No!" he cried, getting louder again. "No! I am not sleeping here in the same room as Itsuki!"

...eh?

Just wait, Kataji, I can Bind your drunkenness away, Nekohiko thought as he pulled Kataji in. Just wait till Morokata leaves, and I'll help relieve your ailment.

"Don't touch me, Itsuki! No, stop it. My heart aches," Kataji confessed to Morokata, seizing the shirt on his chest on the left side. "I cannot sleep here. Not anymore, not after... today." 

Not after today? What had happened today?

"Kataji, what's wrong? Did something happen to you?" Nekohiko threw a helpless look at Morokata only to be waved off.

"Mmm? I don't know. Why don't you ask my brother? Since you like visiting him so much, apparently," Kataji whispered grimly, then snuggled into Morokata's arms. "I'm sleepy, Cousin. Carry me to the roof. I'll just sleep there tonight."

...since you like visiting my brother so much.

Nekohiko froze.

"..."

How had Kataji found out?!

"You told him about our visit to the Palace?" Nekohiko mouthed at Morokata soundlessly.

"Roof? Pff! My future relatives do not sleep on roofs. Not on my watch, at least. My mansion has plenty of spare rooms with very, very fluffy beds," Morokata told Kataji to Kataji's pouting agreement. Morokata then threw at Nekohiko a smug glance. "Next time you go around to questionable place, please remember that, as a Bound dummy from the Doll Palace, your maker has a way to track where you are. At all times."

Nekohiko stared, speechless.

The tracking spell inside him...

That wooden teardrop pendant that Morokata had given Kataji?

Damn it. Kataji had actually used it? When he had told Nekohiko he would never?

...great. Just great.

"Don't look so shocked," Morokata added, wrestling with Kataji who had already dropped his head on Morokata's shoulder as though trying to take a nap right there. "There are many unexpected circumstances why a maker might need to find his creation. Maybe Kataji thought you were in danger. Or for any other reason, really. You can ask him tomorrow when he's sober. Provided that he'll even want to talk to you then," he ended with a sly little smile. "Good night."

No. This couldn't be it.

Morokata was lying. He had told Kataji about the Palace, Nekohiko could swear.

"Kataji would never abuse his creator's powers over this body," Nekohiko said, dashing after the other two into the hallway. "I know him. If you are the one who told him and hurt him so -- I can't let you take him away!"

"I hurt him so?" Morokata narrowed his eyes in indignation. "Baby doll, dear. Never forget that you are not a real person. You are a doll. You do not have rights, you do not have claims -- including to your own freedom. Unlike a human, you belong to someone. You owe your very existence to the one who made you and he trusts you to understand that. And thus, if you forget that --" he tilted his chin to Kataji's pained face leaning on his shoulder "-- such things will happen. Now, please. Go back to your room and behave. You wouldn't want to hurt your Master's trust even further tonight, would you?"

Stark in shock, Nekohiko sagged to his bed after Morokata and Kataji left.

He stared before him, devoid of thought or emotion.

This... was just...

Arrrrrrrgh.

His fists flexed on his lap as he glared at the small empty room. He was seething yet didn't know where to channel his anger. Plus, it wasn't as though he had spare time for that.

So much to do to worry about something he couldn't change. Kataji would not be able to have a serious conversation with him while in this state no matter what Nekohiko did. Like Morokata said: Kataji had to sober up first.

Then they would talk.

So rather than dwell on the horrific episode, Nekohiko fell backward onto his bed and closed his eyes with his hand.

Clearing his mind with some other pending issues would suffice. He could check on Abihiko at last, after the whole evening of ignoring him even when Abihiko had tried to speak to him there.

Why not?

His mind settled inside the seashell, blinking out of Abihiko's collars, still too fuming to notice Abihiko's surroundings at first. But when he did--

"Heave-ho, Heave-ho!

The goatherder fucks tonight"

Heave-ho, Heave-ho!

A girl or a goat--"

"Future Cousin Kataji!" Morokata lamented, dragging Kataji down the street in the tight circle of Hisome dummy guards and even some Hisome girls who had arrived some time ago to fuss around their Lord. "Please do not lose our future united family's face even more tonight!"

...

Wait--

This was--

Excuse me?!

Why was Nekohiko's seashell observing this? Wasn't this the Petals in Amber Inn? Right outside the door and down in the street?!

And from where?

Nekohiko went back to his human dummy self and lurched up from the bed. He darted to the window, biting his lip in dread at the mere idea.

How? When? And to what ends?!

Down below, Kataji and Morokata slowly dragged their feet through the inner courtyard. Across the street from them, amidst the crowd of overexcited onlookers, there stood a very tall figure in black clothes and a hood drawn low over his face. And that figure observed the scene before him very, very closely.

When Morokata's eyes occasionally swept over the bystanders, the figure slumped a little to dissolve into the crowd, but that didn't stop the man from slowly weaving through the people to get to the Petals in Amber Inn.

Even his own brother's stumble with Morokata didn't bother Abihiko much. Nekohiko heard Abihiko curse under his breath as he watched Kataji hang off Morokata's shoulders, but that was it.

Abihiko's aim was only the inn itself. As though guided by something, he was coming over here. To Nekohiko.

Not even a trace of hesitation in the steady rhythm of his heart.

Queenfisher

Yes, speaking of the Author's Note up above -- I just wanted to draw Abihiko in full-black outfit , okay? And I wanted to draw Nekohiko in his new cool outfit as well -- though that one will only appear in the next chappy, so wait till there! ^^