Chapter Seventy-Four — The Least Trustworthy Person
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A slight warning about the events in this chapter. They might be a bit sad to read because as you can probably see in the last chappy's end -- Neko is going to fight with Abihiko, fully intending to hurt him.

So brace yourselves.

Reminder -- Neko's soul and mind are clear; his emotions/body reactions are not. And also that I am not a sadistic author so I won't actually be too cruel to Neko or his development. Neko won't ever become a bad guy in this story. Don't worry clear.png

 

Chapter Seventy-Four

The Least Trustworthy Person

 

 

The sword flashed in an arc, slicing at Abihiko's extended hand. Abihiko dashed backward and off the roof. Graceful, his foot kicked the eave and launched him up to hop onto the roof of the neighboring building, all in one smooth motion. Then he stilled there, hair and long clothes swaying about, his pale face turned to Nekohiko with an expectant, anxious look on it.

As though waiting.

"Are you sure you want to do this instead of coming with me and having a talk?" Abihiko said, grave.

Nekohiko didn't even bother to reply.

In which insane universe would he want to give Abihiko what he wanted? No, he just preferred to stab and slice the hell out of this asshole.

Talking and trusting had to be earned. By a harsh beating, if not by regular means.

The gap between the buildings wasn't too large and Nekohiko jumped it without resorting to any magic tricks. His baseline martial arts reflexes sufficed. Both for jumping and for lunging forward in a flurry of savage strikes that Abihiko avoided by backing away, ducking, by rolling out of Nekohiko's path.

Nekohiko handsprung and kicked, grunts escaping his mouth from the spiking anger that fueled him. More and more, he went for the trick blows, but none of them gave Abihiko much trouble even when some landed.

Already a small number of razor-thin cuts peppered Abihiko's hands and a couple on his cheekbones from where Nekohiko's blade got him. Abihiko hissed in pain and annoyance, deflecting the deadlier strikes with his Binding. Which further proved that nothing stopped him from using it.

And yet he never cast magic to counterattack.

What a weasel. What was he trying to prove with that?

Nekohiko watched him grimly, only slightly out of breath after the last attack bout. Unlike his own, Abihiko's breathing was strained, him having to evade so many near-fatal blows flying at him.

Yet Abihiko still didn't parry or try to tackle the weapon out of Nekohiko's hands. Neither did he run.

Infuriating behavior.

"You could use your own magic to attack me," Abihiko told him. "If you're so bent on landing a strike. But you do not. So neither do I."

"Please quit acting as though you know what I'm thinking," Nekohiko replied. "You just want to trick me into revealing my Binder's aura, like you wanted to trick me before into being grateful for you letting me off the Leash. You see, you are such a lying, cheating person, My Lord, that it really does not make me trust you the longer I am acquainted with you. Why would I expose my aura or my face to you?"

Abihiko eased down his ragged breathing. "I wasn't trying to trick. Only to prove that I mean no harm to you--"

Flashes of the terrible night of his murder zoomed through Nekohiko's sight like dumps of freezing water on his head. Abihiko's calm presence back then, the horrors of the siege, then Abihiko's cold attitude change when he had killed him.

Nekohiko could not withstand the shock and anger these memories evoked in him.

"No harm?!"

To escape the most violent outburst of Nekohiko's yet, Abihiko had to actually flee off this roof and to the next building. This time, farther than Nekohiko could jump to breach the gap.

"No harm?!" Nekohiko repeated, grabbing the nearest broken shingles off the roof he was on and flinging them at Abihiko across the street gap. "Forgive me, My Majesty -- but I do not call it 'no harm' when my Maker's brother who is also the omni-powerful Emperor of this land grabs me in front of dozens of people in his own home. Then next day, when he chases after me through the city like a disgusting pervert! How many times do I have to repeat it? Please leave me alone!"

From so far away, Abihiko's voice almost sounded alien. "No. I won't. Because of the Puppetry spells, you're not in the right mind at the moment. And, frankly, I am not even assured you are who I want you to be -- but I'm not leaving you. Even if you're a complete nobody to me -- I still think that the Puppetry inside you is something you need to get rid of." And once again, maddeningly, Abihiko raised both his unarmed hands, turning them over as though a welcoming hug. "So if you would allow me to--"

"MIKAWA!" Nekohiko yelled to the side, slashing his blade toward the gap between the buildings he and Abihiko were on. "Come here, I need your Winds to jump!"

The boy had never left and had hovered some distance away all this while, clearly worried for Nekohiko's well-being... or maybe for Abihiko's instead because Abihiko had not once attacked Nekohiko in response. Either way, Mikawa was close enough that he could cast a small wind-step for Nekohiko to use to jump over the street gap. And yet...

He was hesitating.

The boy's frail, thin face only exaggerated how huge his eyes were when he stared at the two others through the one-sided fight. He looked stricken. He looked lost.

"Mikawa." Nekohiko lent his tone more urgency. "Cast a spell."

"W-why?" Mikawa shook his head, watching Abihiko in side-eye. "He doesn't seem to threaten you or to hold you down anymore. Let's just go while we still can!"

Nekohiko balked, suddenly amused.

Indeed. He and Mikawa had gotten what they wanted from Abihiko. So that he released them.

They could leave.

And yet...

Abihiko had dared to ask him to come with him. He had dared to insult his intelligence by suggesting to trust him.

However much Nekohiko wanted to ignore his nagging bitterness, he just... couldn't. It burned through him, filling his body with a strange itch akin to compulsion.

He wanted to see this bastard bleed.

Bleed more severely than from a few chance cuts. He wanted to see him in pain.

A few hours back, at Abihiko's dinner, he had felt the same overwhelming desire, but back then, it was sated with seeing Abihiko squirm and seethe in torment. Right now, Nekohiko realized, that no longer sufficed.

He wanted more.

He wanted... no, he demanded more.

Through his being, an unbearable hunger for justice and vengeance burned. Was it the Dark Sisterhood's doing? Or was it his own, natural resentment?

He no longer cared about the difference.

"Mikawa, cast!" Nekohiko growled, whipping his sword toward Abihiko. By now, he already surrendered the idea of harming Abihiko with his martial arts alone. Abihiko was a slippery jerk, of course he would dodge any of the non-Binding attacks easily. "Disable him, now! Or do you actually believe he wouldn't chase after us if we leave? Do not trust a single word he says!"

"But--" Mikawa descended from the high spot in the air and almost neared Nekohiko. "He's the Emperor. I can't really aid in attacking him..."

"Mikawa, get away from him!" Abihiko cried from his roof. "None of this is any of your business and he's not himself right now!"

"--what?" Mikawa shrank back, spooked. But Nekohiko had already stepped closer, catching Mikawa by the ankle and yanking him down. Hard.

"Mikawa, fly away!" Abihiko yelled, far less collected.

Ah, yes, trying to get rid of Nekohiko's last allies?

Nekohiko's sight almost went dark from the surge of hatred when he glimpsed Abihiko dashing across the roof gap toward him. Did Abihiko really think he'd hurt Mikawa?

Nekohiko released Mikawa's ankle, clasping his arm around the boy's shoulders and pushing him down to himself. He pressed his lips against Mikawa's ear, enraged. "Cast! Attack him! Now!"

Mikawa whimpered in fright, wriggling helplessly out of Nekohiko's grip, but Nekohiko was much stronger. He didn't even know where so much strength came to him from -- but he crushed the boy to his chest, suppressing any idea of escape.

"Please, no!" Mikawa squealed, genuine horror ringing in his voice. "You're... hurting me!"

"Then cast! I just want to protect us from him! He threatened you, not I -- remember!?"

Nekohiko pointed the sword out to where he'd last seen Abihiko but... he was no longer there. Instantly panicked, Nekohiko whipped around, preparing for a sucker-punch attack --

-- and exactly as he had foreseen, here Abihiko was. Right behind him, trying to sneak-attack.

Nekohiko drove the Maple Apple across, forcing Abihiko to back off. He wrenched Mikawa around to turn and face Abihiko, then gave the boy a hard shake to make him pay attention. "Attack him! Electrocute him or he'll hurt us!"

The pained yelp from Mikawa came to Nekohiko's ears with a delay, as though from far in the distance. Absently, Nekohiko recognized that his hold on the boy was too damn tight, crushing Mikawa's shoulder in his hand. But really, the boy was not cooperating and he had almost no understanding of how dangerous Abihiko could really be!

If Nekohiko had to force him to do it, then let it be so!

A sudden gush of cold rammed into Nekohiko from the side. A cone of freezing air, slapping him in the face and taking all breath out of him.

He staggered back but didn't release Mikawa.

What was that? A Towa freeze-whip spell? That Abihiko had cast against him even though he'd just said he wouldn't use magic to attack Nekohiko?

The ache of another betrayal seared him. Mikawa wasn't casting willingly, so maybe Nekohiko should make him...

Just when Nekohiko's hand slid up Mikawa's chest to his throat, Abihiko butted his shoulder into both of them. He twisted Nekohiko's wrist away from Mikawa, then kicked the boy away.

Mikawa dropped to his knees, biting his scream of pain in, trying to roll as far away from either of the wresting men as the roof allowed.

But why would Nekohiko care where he went? Abihiko had stopped dodging and fleeing from him. He was right here, in his arms.

No Mikawa necessary for him to quickly rotate the sword in his hand, blade pointing inward. Then plunge it in.

Straight through Abihiko's middle.

Nekohiko held him in tightly, making sure the slippery bastard wouldn't run away again. But this time, Abihiko didn't even resist. Only his fingers on Nekohiko's wrist squeezed stronger in a spasm of pain.

The sword tore into the flesh smoothly, satisfyingly. So strong the plunge was, the tip of the blade came out the other side almost hitting Nekohiko himself.

"...hnn..."

Slowly, Abihiko exhaled through teeth, casting his eyes down to look at his own sword sticking out of his chest, impaling from the back. Blood pooled around the wound, seeping through his clothes, already flowing down the blade tip and onto Nekohiko's emerald-green armor. A tremor coursed through Abihiko's frame, but he didn't try to pull away. His eyes clung to Nekohiko's face.

He wouldn't see the expression in his eyes, Nekohiko knew. So to give Abihiko the merest understanding of what he felt now, Nekohiko forced his lips apart in a crazed smile.

He was...

...so happy.

Actually, he had never felt so sated and fulfilled in his life. It was as though a craving had just been satisfied, a deep gash inside him -- a compulsion checked out.

He let out a hoarse laugh, leaning toward Abihiko's face, his hand slowly twisting the sword inside him to see more of Abihiko's sweet reactions.

"Gotcha," Nekohiko murmured.

 

 


***

 

Abihiko gasped in a croaking voice laced with agony, backing away in pure reflex to the blade burrowing deeper into him. But when Nekohiko pushed him in closer, refusing to let go, Abihiko allowed him that, too.

His sweaty, fevered forehead leaned on Nekohiko's helmet visor. "Please, take off your helmet. Neko. Let me look at you," he squeezed out through the pain.

Deeper the sword went.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, still only thinking about ogling young men, My Lord?" Nekohiko sighed. "There's a damn sword inside you, and you worry about my helmet?"

Abihiko huffed out a laugh that propelled more blood out of his torn abdomen. "Only a flesh wound." His fingers dropped off Nekohiko's shoulder, twitching toward the gash. "I can heal myself easily. But if we don't do something about the Puppetry spells that fuel your resentment so deeply, the damage it can do to your mind can be irreversible-- ah!"

Nekohiko's only reaction to that was to shift the sword outward to rip through Abihiko's torso to the side if this wound was, apparently, too "easy" for him. Abihiko stiffened before him, then shook his head, heaving through his mouth as trails of blood now escaped his lips.

"You and I can get rid of that spell!" he roared through tears. "Please let me help you!"

"Please, please!" Mikawa's voice came from the side, too.

Stunned, Nekohiko found the boy clinging to him from the side, prying his hand holding the sword away. Mikawa was trembling and sobbing, and in his glistening eyes, Nekohiko saw his own face reflected.

A masked, utterly impassive, almost inhuman face that Mikawa cowered away from the moment he realized Nekohiko noticed him.

"Please don't hurt us!" Mikawa wept, shaking his head. One of the boy's arms hung dislodged from its socket in his shoulder while on Mikawa's ashen throat, Nekohiko could clearly see the imprints of purpling bruises as though from someone's hand.

Whose... hand had it been?

"Mikawa," Abihiko rasped as well, "get away from him! I'll handle it! Please, go away -- he's dangerous!"

...

What?

Who?

Me?! Nekohiko thought, flashing in rage again. Compared to Abihiko, he -- was dangerous?

He wasn't even using his magic on anyone!

"How... dare you..." Nekohiko said, wanting to whip the blade out of Abihiko's chest to stab him with it the second time.

But Abihiko hugged him instead, not letting the blade out.

No. Not just hugged him. He toppled both Nekohiko and himself -- off the roof and onto the street.

The fall was so brief, Nekohiko didn't even have time to react. The night lights of the city zoomed before his sight as he and Abihiko plummeted, and Nekohiko's hands flew upward to cast a spell to slow down their fall. Yet Abihiko's Hira spell was faster, and so was Mikawa's Winds that swept at both of them almost instantaneously, preventing them from crashing down.

Both warmth and the wind gusts enveloped them, gently carrying them to the crammed alley between two buildings, and Nekohiko's desire to rage momentarily weakened.

The thought that, even wounded, Mikawa still cared enough about him and Abihiko to protect them from damage was like a trickle of fresh breeze into his turbulent mind.

It cleared his head, just a bit.

And with horror, he realized that the person who must have hurt Mikawa so much had been...

...himself?

No.

Wait, absolutely no. Nekohiko would never...

The hot trickle of blood now drenched Nekohiko's stomach and thighs and he looked down, stunned. Abihiko was bleeding so heavily... and yet he, too, had cast a spell to stop their falling from the roof even though he was the one who had pushed them both off!

All color was draining from Abihiko's face when he finally saw Nekohiko watching him. His hold around Nekohiko's back released. His lips quivered.

"It's all right," he whispered. "I'll survive. Please, promise me that... you will take care of the Dark Sisterhood's Puppet inside you..."

Still on that nonsense?! Nekohiko felt the same murderous urges stir deep within as before.

"Ask Mikawa. Later, when you can think clearer..." Abihiko told him. "I'll... give him all the..." A bout of coughing erupted out of his throat, and a fine drizzle of blood breathed at Nekohiko's uncovered mouth and chin. "...the instructions through his Wind Whispers," Abihiko finished saying and...

His eyes lolled closed and his head hit the cobblestone as he blacked out.

Nekohiko stared at him, waiting for the trick to come up. Some other cheat or manipulation Abihiko was pulling on him. But as the seconds trickled by, and Abihiko wasn't moving an inch, something like a cold wave of clarity washed over Nekohiko.

He flinched, snapping his gaze to his chest and arms and torso, all covered in Abihiko's blood.

Gods, there was just... so much of it here!

"He'll die if we don't do something--" Mikawa rasped from a few feet away. "Please... don't hurt him more..."

Why would I?! He's fucking unconscious, Nekohiko wanted to yell back at him. Who do you think I am?!

But then the odd sequence of events up on the roof came back to him and he thought that...

Hells.

What had that been all about?

Had he actually stabbed Abihiko and nearly choked Mikawa with his own hands?

And stabbed him half to death?

The panic was real, spearing right through him. If Abihiko died just now how the hell would he get his Empire back by peaceful legal means?!

"Hey," Nekohiko gasped, grabbing Abihiko by the shoulders, then drew back when it hit him that such a rude gesture might damage Abihiko further. "Wake up... Bind yourself together, you!"

No. Nekohiko could Bind him instead -- or maybe even Mikawa!

Nekohiko snapped back to call Mikawa closer. It gutted him how Mikawa recoiled from him. With such a deep fright on the boy's face, too.

Mikawa was actually horrified of Nekohiko now.

"We need to save him..." Nekohiko said, lost, his vision pulsing with vivid bloodrush. "We need to save him!"

Damn it, if Mikawa couldn't do it, then Nekohiko had to. And to hell with exposing his Binding aura -- he could not let Abihiko die in such a pathetic way here, in the middle of some gaudy Nara backstreet!

Nekohiko ripped off his gloves and quickly assembled a sequence of purifying, thinning, reversing the direction of the blood flow, mending the torn arteries and bones and organs, pulling them all together with Imperial Fusion. It was a complex combination of spells and no doubt Nekohiko's personal imprint was left so thoroughly and vividly here, across Abihiko's mended torso.

It astounded Nekohiko how clearly he could think now when minutes ago, his rage had been so overwhelming, he had nearly lost track of time, his actions, and their consequences.

Like a nightmare.

Like a... mind control.

He slapped himself in the face a couple of times to make sure he wasn't losing his control now, and belatedly realized he'd smeared Abihiko's blood all over his face. The stench it emitted, the terrible stickiness it left on him...

He breathed out, queasy. His healing spells were finished. Abihiko was fully healed. Before him, Abihiko lay crumpled on the ground, looking so gaunt he appeared almost corpse-like even though he breathed. But barely. Nekohiko leaned toward him, worry thrashing inside him at the thought...

...at the idea...

...that this was how he could lose him. Forever.

"No," Nekohiko whispered, carefully grabbing hold of Abihiko's lapels. "No, what are you doing? Don't you dare die..."

Abihiko's brow creased and his eyelids fluttered.

Nekohiko's lips tugged up, but just then -- someone's tall shadow lay across him and Abihiko.

At the mouth of the alley, a tall man stood, blocking out the street lantern glow from the main street. The man's silhouette... these imposing, wide shoulders... this lean build and the ceremonial Spiritway hat on his head.

Suminoe.

Suminoe's gaze lay in such terrible, grim silence on Nekohiko. A silence that seemed to stretch and stretch...

"..." Nekohiko trembled, pulling away.

"I'll take it from here," Suminoe told Nekohiko, cautiously stepping forward. Behind him, in the main street, the emerald-green uniforms of the Imperial bodyguards flashed as they readied to pour into the alley to their beloved Emperor.

But Nekohiko hardly cared about them.

Suminoe knelt beside Abihiko, giving him a cool, impassive stare. In Nekohiko's arms, Abihiko stirred, waking up, then jolted when he saw Suminoe loom above him.

"No need to worry, Your Majesty," Suminoe said. "I'll take care of everything."

His eyes swept over Abihiko's face to his torn and healed wound -- then above it -- to Nekohiko.

Nekohiko froze, petrified.

His Binding aura imprint was so heavy in the Spirit-sense around them, he knew that there was no chance in hell Suminoe wouldn't recognize it. But maybe... maybe the helmet on Nekohiko's face could hide him...

Desperate, Nekohiko shrank away to get to his feet and try to not call any attention to himself. But Suminoe's cold hand lay on his bloodied, trembling wooden fingers.

And squeezed.

Suminoe's eyes clung to Nekohiko's visor as though able to see through it. "Your magical talents are very admirable. It's almost as though I don't need to do anything else on top of it."

Ah.

...Shit!

"Your Holiness. You flatter this undeserving guard." Nekohiko bowed and tried to slip away.

But though Suminoe let him go immediately, his gaze still lingered on Nekohiko. "I do not. But I am grateful to you for saving His Majesty's life, so I won't hold you here much longer."

"I'm fine. You can leave, Your Holiness. This guard and me -- we need to talk about something private first,"  Abihiko mumbled, trying to get up and reach Nekohiko, only to be shushed by Suminoe. The Head Priest put his hand to Abihiko's forehead and cast a soothing spell. One mainly used to calm down agitated patients, putting them into a state of quiet dreaminess so that they wouldn't hurt themselves or their newly-healed wounds too much.

And even though Abihiko was clearly trying to evade it, he couldn't.

His limbs went rigid yet his eyes dimmed, serene and thoughtless. Before he could fall limply to the ground, Suminoe hugged him from the side like a mother would.

"Go," Suminoe told Nekohiko, eyes burrowing into him with their usual freezing intensity. It was as though Nekohiko was finally meeting Suminoe of the past -- the one he had always known and trusted. Suminoe subtly shook his head at Mikawa who still cowered nearby. "Or fly, whatever. Get away as fast as you can."

Nekohiko gulped, frustrated. "Why--"

"--please tell me Future Brother-in-Law is all right!" Morokata's husky voice broke in his anguish as he rushed past the Imperial bodyguards and into the alley. "Please tell me he hasn't hurt himself!"

Ah, not Morokata, of all people!

"That's why," Suminoe mouthed, inclining his head toward Morokata's figure in the back. "Now go," he commanded Nekohiko and Mikawa again.

And this time, Nekohiko listened, clutching Mikawa by the elbow and propelling him to run as fast as they could in the opposite direction from Morokata and the guards.

He ran, eyes shut, his soul in turmoil.

From his sight, Nekohiko couldn't erase the image of Suminoe's calm demeanor as he had studied Nekohiko's obvious Binding imprint and as he had let Nekohiko go. It was Suminoe, no doubt about that.

The one and only. His father figure. His only role model and his only teacher in life.

Not Suminoe he had seen in Nagare when the Head Priest had been accusing Kasuga of war crimes. Not Suminoe from the Emerald Palace reception who had not recognized Nekohiko when he saw him.

No. This was real Suminoe. And he had of course recognized Nekohiko's aura, and this was why he let him go to save him from Morokata!

A wild hope bloomed inside Nekohiko. Could it be? Could it be that he had finally a chance to connect with Suminoe now and have one more ally on his side?

He and Mikawa stumbled further and further through the twisty lanes of the side streets as they ran. Nekohiko changed the course only once to find that garden into which he had dumped the wooden sculpture of himself earlier.

He did not care about that ugly piece of trash, but he didn't want to lose it either. It was made of the same wood as him, after all. It still possessed some of his live parts inside it.

He slipped into the garden and stole the damaged sculpture from it. If he wanted to hide it somewhere, he needed to do that in a place far removed from the city life -- under glamor spells that would shield it from any harm and any unwanted gazes. 

Mikawa overtook their movement through Nara at some point, sweeping them both off the ground and up into the skies. But the way he held Nekohiko as they soared was different from before. An unfamiliar, almost revolted touch that Mikawa forced himself to do even though he shivered underneath all his clothes at Nekohiko's proximity.

...this was so awful.

Nekohiko wanted to apologize and to beg Mikawa to tell him what exactly had happened to Nekohiko back there because himself, he wasn't sure. But he was too riled up to speak right now, so all he focused on was getting to safety -- back to Petals in Amber and healing Mikawa's injuries once there.

The injuries Nekohiko had personally dealt to him.

Unable to control himself. Unable to even understand what he was doing and why.

And to think of it... it was soon the dawn of the new day. And tomorrow from this day would be -- the wedding.

If Nekohiko didn't take care of this issue with him losing control near Abihiko because of the Puppetry spells inside him -- would that mean he might attack Abihiko on the spot right during the ceremony?

In front of the entire court and all the Great Lords?

 

 


***

 

"Are you afraid of me now?" Nekohiko asked him after he and Mikawa had gotten back into the inn. They had also changed and taken care of Mikawa's dislocated shoulder and bruised throat.

He had talked to Mikawa about how it felt from inside him when he'd attacked him and Abihiko, and Mikawa had told him everything that he saw. All in all, a painful way to recollect one's memories...

Or to realize just how deeply his body's reaction to Abihiko could blind him and twist his mind.

Nekohiko sat on the floor, resting his elbows on his knees, looking down, afraid to lift his eyes. The new day was beginning in the grey and foggy light seeping in from the outside. Mikawa loomed beside the window -- just to breathe in the fresh air, Nekohiko hoped, and not because Mikawa wanted to be close to a potential escape route in case Nekohiko...

...did something scary again.

That stung, to realize this.

Nekohiko's eyes burned as he held back his tears. "I would never want to hurt you. I hope you know that."

"Mn," Mikawa said eventually. But he still wouldn't come close. "Before the Head Priest took him away into the Palace where my Wind Whispers can't reach, His Majesty.... murmured something to himself, so that I would hear him. He said you could go to the Holy Ise Shrine1伊勢神宮 the biggest and most famous Shinto Shrine (unlike Izumo, which is the oldest). Is situated in Kansai region, which in this story aligns with ~Hira Kingdom. I wanted to feature both these famous shrines in the story albeit in different situations, so here it is! Its presence will actually come later, when Neko and Abihiko are already back together -- so this is just a mention for the future reference ^^ to properly purify yourself. Or you could check your own body to separate the First-rate aspects that mess you up because of the Dark Sisterhood's conflicting techniques. But it's best that someone else does it for you since your judgment would already be compromised by the Dark Sister's spell. Someone very powerful, who has dealt with Dark Sisters before."

Mikawa quietened, looking lost.

And Nekohiko understood why. Someone very powerful who dealt with Dark Sisters before.

Who could that be, now? Nekohiko himself. Plus Abihiko.

Maybe Suminoe...? Nekohiko didn't even know how much he could or should trust Suminoe. Although, judging by how Suminoe had tried to shield him and Mikawa from Morokata... would that not mean that Suminoe schemed against Morokata and that was why he had been so cordial with him recently?

To trick Morokata? That had to mean that Suminoe was on Nekohiko's side, right?

Groaning inwardly, Nekohiko rubbed his temples, slumping in. Ah, it was all so difficult to understand, so dangerous not to! Everyone a schemer, everyone playing double-triple games with each other!

He hated them all so, so much.

"Today your sister and Aomi are coming to Nara." Nekohiko looked out the window at the starting bleary morning over the dark, dew-soaked roofs. "They are part of the Bride's side of wedding preparations and will have to meet with His Holiness to talk all about their roles in the ceremony."

And Kotone and Haehime, the Shrine Maiden, would also have to be there. It would be a perfect chance for Nekohiko to clue in every one of his allies on his plans. To speak both to Kasuga and Aomi and convince them to participate in the wedding -- and to maybe... get together with Suminoe and decide if he could be trusted or not.

"I know that you and Kataji are on the Groom's side of the wedding," Nekohiko went on, "so you would have to go and see Abihiko today. Could you please tell him..."

Tell him what?

Nekohiko didn't even know himself.

"No," Mikawa suddenly replied. His voice had an odd new shade of firmness in it. He turned aside, watching the inn's courtyard out of the window, his features sullen and sapped of all strength. "I can't be the messenger between you two. Nekohiko, you are one of the most powerful Binders I've met. And so is Abihiko. Standing anywhere close to between you two... I'm not sure I want to." His voice dropped. "Please don't ever make me again."

"Of course," Nekohiko hurried.

Mikawa nodded to the street as though seeing someone specific there. "But perhaps Kataji can pass your messages instead? He is, after all, connected to you both and now seems to be in a far better mood to talk to."

Even before he finished that, Nekohiko had already sprung to his feet, rushed out of the room and down the inn stairs. To greet Kataji as soon as he could and to maybe ask him a very huge favor...

One that Kataji would absolutely hate to do.

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