Chapter Eighty-Four

What Makes a Monster

 

 

Aomi knelt beside Nekohiko first. Numbly, Mikawa followed, yet his manner was much more reluctant and jumpy.

"Why?" Aomi asked, clutching Nekohiko's sleeve and tugging. "Why do you ask? You mean -- you don't remember yourself? What happened when Sakami touched you? It all went by so fast, but all I could see was that only about a minute or so -- something weird began happening to this whole room." Uncomfortably, she squeezed her shoulders in her own hands and gave Mikawa a worried glance. "You felt it, too, right?"

Mikawa nodded.

"Your aura," Aomi told Nekohiko, shivering. "It's just so damn powerful." She frowned a bit as though not wanting to say something and rushed into the separate topic. "That Arata jerk just went completely insane. He dashed across the room and slapped Sakami so hard, I was afraid he might kill her on the spot."

So only a few moments passed while he'd been gone in a coma.

And Arata slapping Sakami... He must have seen something he recognized when Nekohiko began casting that spell. Something Arata had once been traumatized by, for all Nekohiko could tell.

Nekohiko lifted a hand to stop Aomi from blabbering. "Go back to what you said before. When I started making that spell and something weird began happening to the room." His jaws tensed. "What was it? Describe to me as precisely as you can."

Aomi and Mikawa exchanged anguished looks.

"I don't know," Aomi mumbled. "I really don't know. I can only tell that it was a spell that... seemed to touch my... soul? Or my Spirit in some way? It wasn't anything physical."

Mikawa trembled as he fought to speak. "It wasn't painful either. Just... very weird. And scary."

"I think you were actually Binding the Spirits of everyone around you. As if you wanted to take all of them out of our bodies... or something," Aomi ended in a hushed whisper. "I had never even known it was possible."

Nekohiko spent a moment, deep in thought, taking a small peek at Kotone and Haehime on the other side of the room. The two priestesses didn't seem appalled or frightened by his spell whatsoever. And though he was unsure of what the spell would actually do if it was fully finished, he felt no danger in the spell's motions and sequences.

It was a peaceful spell. One that epitomized Fusion, cooperation, unity... agreeableness.

What Arata had found so terrifying about it still made no sense to Nekohiko. At least Aomi and Mikawa were scared merely because they didn't understand what was happening. But Arata knew.

Arata had seen Nekohiko do this same spell before?

When?

Nekohiko had a hard time recalling or even caring. Judging by Kotone's and Haehime's reaction, neither did they. Thus, he decided, the Spirit-attuned people would not have any qualms or rejection to this spell. And since he was himself a Spirit-attuned person...

Likely, even if Arata explained to him what he found so horrible about it, Nekohiko would not be able to muster care.

But it didn't mean Nekohiko wouldn't try to care. Just that he couldn't.

He nodded at Aomi and Mikawa to soothe them. "I'm not casting it now, so you don't have to worry. And really, I never feel the necessity of using this spell in the future if most people have such a drastic reaction to it. Back in Sakami's coma," he dithered, pondering, "I wasn't in full control of my body or my thoughts, so it resulted in that spell. I am sorry it scared you so."

Aomi blinked and finally gave him a smile, however shaky it still was. "Mn!"

Mikawa, on the opposite, only looked more dismayed by something.

"It will never happen again," Nekohiko promised him, then turned back to digging out the wedding dress from within the wreckage.

Haehime's and his own reinforcing spells had actually worked and saved the dress from the destruction in the room. Nekohiko lifted the silky, watery-fluid fabric of the white core outfit, surveying every last bit to confirm it was fine, then did the same for the bright-red knockout dress¹The Shinto wedding dresses can be separated into two: the red one, 打ち掛け, and the white one, 白無垢, like Wiki explains here ^^. .

Only after he and the kids had managed to put the gown back on its dummy mannequin did he finally feel calm enough to consider the defeated foes in the room. Nervous, he steadied his breath and brushed back his worries about confronting Sakami after what she'd done to him in his mind. He walked over to her.

Before putting the dress on, he first had to...

Take Sakami's image from her, didn't he?

And since he had so little time left -- there was no need to prolong or delay this painful procedure.

Haehime and Kotone had already restrained everyone in Sakami's group, tying them up with silvery Spiritual Binds so that they wouldn't try to run or destroy the magic arrays that held this room in isolation from the rest of the Shrine. From each, the priestesses Split their hands as well, removing them in such an Utsuro fashion that they could still feel their limbs intact even if they couldn't use them.

Like everyone's Split hands, Sakami's lay on her lap, the black void swerving inside the cleaved parts with a subtle purpling sheen to it.

But unlike some of the other Hisome girls who sniffed and glared at their hands in futile anger and unlike Arata who stared before him with an expression of a person who had just seen some indescribable horror, Sakami was eerily tranquil.

She wasn't vowing revenge on everyone here and wasn't weeping for her hands, distrusting Kotone and Haehime to put them back on after everything ended. She just sat there quietly, her back against the wall. Her eyes were brimming with tears, but she didn't allow them to fall.

A picture of quiet, helpless despair.

"I am here, Sakami," Kotone told her dreamily, rubbing her shoulder as gently as she could. "We will put your hands back on and you will be free. Do you not trust me?"

"All right," Sakami said and smiled.

But past her usual, genuine smile, tears shot down her cheeks, fast and unstoppable.

Nekohiko's heart squeezed in agony. Against it, he braced himself and stepped up to Sakami.

"The Spirits have never desired your union with Abihiko, you see," Kotone went on as if she didn't even notice Sakami's tears. "It is not how it's Bound to be in the Spiritway. It's not your path to take. Your path is much greater than that and will come later. I can tell."

Sakami nodded at her as though she understood, but it was clear she didn't believe Kotone's words. Her eyes already pinned to Nekohiko's face, looking at him from her low sitting position like a small animal would at their master.

And that gleaming in her eyes and the defeated smile did not help the image at all.

"You want to take my face and my name and my wedding day from me, don't you?" she asked him in a soft whisper. Wet, her eyelashes fluttered as though she was afraid to blink and shed more tears.

The sight of her felt like a punch to Nekohiko's gut.

"Lady Sakami," he began. "It won't hurt you and I promise I will return you your image as soon as the wedding rituals are finalized."

Only till after he and Abihiko were left alone in their rooms. He didn't need any disguises after that point.

"Above all, you will be free from any obligations in this forced marriage. I know what it feels like to be engaged to people you barely know or interacted with and how dehumanizing it feels. You will avoid tying yourself into a loveless marriage and nobody would blame you, including your Cousin Morokata. Because I bear the main responsibility for this act," Nekohiko said as he had planned all this time.

He had always pitied Sakami for being such a pawn in the hands of other, stronger men, and a pawn nobody cared about or even asked the opinion of. His plan to marry Abihiko was solid and unchangeable with or without Sakami's participation. But it still warmed his heart to think that he would also be saving her from a forced marriage.

Yet instead...

"Forced marriage?" Sakami asked him, hollow. "Loveless? Who said it was loveless or forced?"

...

Nekohiko watched her, speechless.

"Huh?"

He thought he misheard. And he wasn't alone like this, either.

Aomi also let out a confused noise. "I'm terribly sorry, but... haven't you been engaged to my brother for the last two years yet haven't, to my knowledge, exchanged more than a few words with him through that time?"

Sakami's cheeks subtly grew rosy with shame, but she persevered. The pain on her face was real; Nekohiko could swear.

"...that your dear brother does not love me doesn't mean that I don't love him," she said almost as quietly as the leaf rustle.

...

Nekohiko balked. "Both he and Morokata treat you as a pawn in their power plays! Have they even asked your consent before they engaged you to him? Abihiko doesn't even look at you when he talks to you! You are next to invisible to him!"

Sakami's smile wavered. "I am next to invisible to everyone, so is there really a difference?" she murmured. Raising her eyes at Nekohiko, she went on, just as meekly, "And you didn't ask my consent in stopping my wedding and stealing it from me either. Do you not treat me like a pawn in your power plays?"

"Lord Abihiko is generous and polite," one of the Hisome girls blurted, nodding at Sakami. "And he would treat her kindly even if he doesn't love her!"

"This is her day! Don't you see that you are stealing the single one day in her life when she wouldn't be invisible for the entire world?!" the other cried, too. "How dare you tell us who's mistreating her and who isn't! You are a face-stealer!"

"A husband-thief!"

Nekohiko's mood darkened, and only the merest of flashes of his power sparked within him.

To remind them in front of whom they sat.

Had they forgotten? A lot of people tended to forget who he was because he chose to not abuse his powers too much. But maybe he should. People's arrogance never failed to amuse him.

"If I am a face-stealer and a husband-thief, then you all are the traitors of the Empire. My Empire, mind you," he snarled at the annoying Hisome girls, pleased to note how quickly they shut up when he exposed his magic. He turned to Sakami, eyes burning with humiliation at getting into an argument that was so beneath him. "I do not want your beloved Abihiko. Take him, for all I care. But he currently sits on my own damn throne, and dear Sakami -- trust me. The only person who is allowed to sit on it is me. Not him. Definitely not you."

With that, he reached his hands toward Sakami's face, readying to grasp onto the aspect qualities that made her image hers, and uniquely so.

His fingers curled in, tracing the edges of the appearance, scent, presence, mood, even personality that he could define -- but before he could latch onto it, something distracted him.

A small thing. Only one word thrown dismissively at his face.

"Monster."

His fingers trembled, curling into fists instead.

He turned to Arata, deathly slow. "Yes, Imperial Bodyguard Arata? Did you want to speak to me at last? Please do. I am listening very intently."

Sakami trembled, shying away from Nekohiko's cold gaze, whereas Arata appeared just as motionless and numb as he'd become after he'd seen Nekohiko cast.

"Aomi, Mikawa, please check all the make-up and jewelry boxes," Nekohiko said louder to the two children, not even bothering to look their way. They shuffled feet, drawing back from here, and Nekohiko felt that the distance was enough to not shock them with anything he and Arata would tell each other next. He leaned in closer to the Towa bodyguard. To his despicable, traitorous face.

"Tell me. That spell that you've just witnessed me casting -- have you seen me finish it before? And if so, then what did it do that you're so scared of it? You tremble like a little boy," Nekohiko tried.

Arata belonged to proud and arrogant kinds of men. He had to find these statements objectionable and drop down some truthful hints about what had happened in the past.

But the guard barely reacted.

Kotone was sitting beside them, observing their whispery conversation with a detached intrigue. As though she was watching the grass grow, really.

This didn't help at all because now Nekohiko felt that nobody in his vicinity was paying him or his miseries any attention. Apart from Sakami and the other Hisome girls. But they did not matter.

Kotone and Arata did. Their indifference stung too much.

All right. A different tactic.

"Please. You keep calling me a monster, but I really do not see how such a peaceful and calming spell could do anything monstrous at all," Nekohiko went in the other direction. "I just want to understand. Maybe I'm missing something--"

"You do not remember," Arata whispered abruptly. His eyes at last found Nekohiko's. In the dark depths of Arata's pupils, there was no care or understanding. Only vast, icy dislike. "You probably cannot remember. Because you're not human. Are you?"

...

Arata's gaze flicked to Nekohiko's clearly wooden fingers and his overall doll-like appearance. Yet even when Nekohiko expected Arata to mock this obvious lack of humanity in him, the man didn't. He seemed to not fully be aware of where he was or why now.

"You are Spirits -- all of the Empire's Spirits -- embodying a human. You are the Empire. You cannot even comprehend what you do wrong," Arata said, only now turning a bit to Sakami. "We, individual people, do not matter to a thing like you."

"Explain yourself!" Nekohiko snapped. "Enough with this nonsense! If you have something to tell me -- then just do! I want to know the truth! What happened five years ago and why you wanted to murder me! Why?! You swore to protect me yet you betrayed your oaths so easily when you had the chance! Why?! Why! Explain to me this! You owe me at least this small answer, Arata!"

You all do.

You, Daichi, Etsuko -- the whole rest of you bastards!

Arata's stare did nothing but pass through Nekohiko. "No."

...no?

No -- what?!

"It's a small thing, to tell me the truth, isn't it?" Nekohiko growled low in his throat. "Why not? Why would you keep it to yourself? What do you have to lose if you tell me, after all?"

He was starting to sound desperate, and he hated it.

He just wanted to know. To understand. What was so hard about that?

"No," Arata repeated. "We swore not to speak of that. I cannot betray that oath."

Aaaargh! You broke so many already!

"And you do not deserve the truth," Arata said with the heavy weight of finality to his words. "Kill me, then. Kill me. Like I know you will." Lower, he added, "I have heard what happened to Daichi and Etsuko already. So I do not have delusions about my fate. Not when you are involved, no."

Cold, ruthless anger swelled inside Nekohiko. He unclenched his fists with a creaking sound of his tense ball joints. It sounded terrible, as though his hands had been partly broken.

On the floor beside Sakami's feet, Aomi's small bronze knife lay, and Nekohiko lifted it, weighting in his hand thoughtfully. Cocking his head, he watched Arata.

"You know what? Oh yes, I absolutely should kill you. You are so useless to me, after all. This was the precise reason I killed Daichi and Etsuko as well, by the way -- oh wait!" Instead of digging the knife into Arata's smug face like he wanted with all his might, Nekohiko merely grazed the tip against Arata's chin. "No, I didn't. I killed them because they attacked me first with the intent to destroy me. Without giving me a chance to explain or to even speak to them. That said, I could torture you for information instead or raid your memories with a Towa spell--"

"You wouldn't. If you cast an Utsuro Mirror Image spell, you'd be too spent to be able to cast a Towa Memory," Arata said through gritted teeth.

True.

Towa Memory was a very long and strenuous spell. Much simpler than the Utsuro Mirror Image in the amount of physical and mental strain it used, but incredibly long in preparation and the actual casting. Nekohiko would simply not have the time to waste half a day making that spell work.

"What about torture, then?" Nekohiko hissed, pressing the dagger's edge deeper into Arata's tender underside of the chin.

Arata gulped, his throat bone bobbing with the motion.

But even though Nekohiko knew it would be so easy to do, he doubted Arata would tell him anything. This bastard who would rather prefer to die than to be defeated by him?

Not worth anyone's time. Even the time it would take to scorn him.

With a tired wave into the heap of the broken furniture on the floor, Nekohiko discarded the knife.

"Well, guess what. I am not the monster you think I am. I will even let you go after this. Yes. With your hands intact and your pitiful, useless life." For the last time, Nekohiko paid attention to him. "How very monstrous of me."

He didn't need Arata's recount of the events of five years ago. He would have Abihiko for that. Just in a few hours, and for however long Nekohiko wanted.

"Sakami, I am beginning," he said, snapping her out of her daze and back into anguish. "Please forgive me."

Then dug into her very essence with all the powers at his disposal.

 

 

---

***

 

 

When he was done, he felt sucked dry of all his energy -- like a piece of fruit. He reeled, swaying on his feet, not falling solely because Kotone and Haehime caught him from the back.

"Ahh," he gasped in an oddly sweet, high voice.

It shocked him how easily he could gasp because he wouldn't generally do that if he was stumbling. Now, he even felt relieved to be held like this instead of being cranky at someone touching him as usual.

Why? Because he had lifted much more from Sakami than her looks.

He had also lifted her base personality aspects and her emotional range.

The casting of the Mirror Image spell had been scary for him, too. He had never done this before -- manipulating another person's selfhood to such a degree. If he had merely taken her appearance as he had wanted at first, it would have been enough for their plan to overtake the wedding and for him to marry.

But then, what had happened to him in the coma spell...

When Abihiko's aura had reached him, Nekohiko's body and mind had reacted in such a violent, dramatic manner. The Dark Sisterhood's twisted magic inside him. It was bound to respond to Abihiko violently. Every single time they were too close to each other and Nekohiko could strike him -- he would have no choice but to strike.

Nekohiko didn't understand how it worked after Kataji had suppressed the Dark Sisterhood's magic with the Master Order. But apparently, it had rooted itself too deeply inside Nekohiko. It could not be negated so easily.

And if Nekohiko had just assumed Sakami's looks and went off to wed Abihiko in the main Nara Shrine -- he would likely just attack Abihiko on sight instead!

This could not be allowed.

He felt free to attack Abihiko only when they were in private, not in front of an entire city.

Thus, he ended up taking Sakami's personality so that it overruled his behaviors by force. It sounded odd, to wear another person's emotions and attitudes, but he didn't care as long as it got him what he aimed for.

A smooth, agreeable wedding ceremony.

"This is insane," Aomi told him when she came over. Behind her, Mikawa also seemed taken aback by Nekohiko's changed image.

"You look exactly like her. You sound exactly like her!" Aomi breathed, studying him with vivid distaste. Stunned, she squeaked. "Neko, you are even blushing and cowering away from me exactly like her! This is so freaky..."

...

Cowering and blushing? Oh Heavens...

But that was the exact point.

Nekohiko wanted to tell Aomi off, and found that he couldn't. Instead, he felt very much compelled to apologize to her for inconveniencing her.

"I..." he said, tremblingly. "I did not mean to worry anyone. Please do not mind me. I am so sorry..."

"You don't have to apologize for anything, sweet child," Kotone cooed at him from the side, gently patting his head. Nekohiko had trouble deciding if Kotone noticed the difference between him and Sakami -- or not.

It didn't matter anyway.

But to Aomi, it mattered. A lot.

Her face scrunched up with frustration and her small fists raised to her chin as though wishing to strike someone. "I hate it," she told Nekohiko as he gently tried to sneak away from being in the spotlight by being as unnoticeable as he could be. "I hate it, Neko! Can you not act too much like she does? It makes me feel as though it's not even you!"

Aaargh, of course it's me! Who else do you think I am?

Can't you feel my powers surging all across the room and from within my body after the Mirror Image had been cast?!

Inside, Nekohiko seethed at the silly girl, but outwardly -- he could scarcely even look her in the eye. He felt ashamed and inadequate and only bit his lips in dismay.

"Please let us forget about this and move on," he murmured, failing to steady his voice. "Young Master Mikawa now needs to have his Mirror Image applied as well--"

Just now, Nekohiko noticed that Mikawa was standing a bit away, gaping in deep disturbance at Sakami on the floor.

Or -- as Nekohiko realized when he glanced there himself -- at whatever was left of Sakami.

She was still alive and well, of course. The Mirror Image was lifting and copying, not actually stealing aspects from a person.

But since it was an Utsuro spell, and its Splitting magic had always had the same void-like, empty feel to it -- once Nekohiko had lifted the aspects from Sakami, the girl's entire body ended up looking like a black, bottomless hollow in the fabric of the world.

Where Sakami sat before, there was now seemingly only a void in her overall shape.

And gods, was it horrifying to look at. It was as though she had been erased from reality, and even knowing that she was still there -- Nekohiko couldn't help but shudder, looking at her absence.

"That... No," Mikawa said, backing away. His eyes flicked from the void of Sakami to Arata sitting beside her. The boy's features twisted. "If you do that to his image, too, when you transfer it onto me -- it will be the same?! No! No, I don't want to--"

"It's all right, shhh, shh," Haehime told him, softly enfolding in her embrace when he bumped into her. She was just as ethereal and dreamy as always, the fight and the Image-Splitting done in front of her not bothering her in the slightest. She lay her chin on Mikawa's shoulder and pointed at Nekohiko. "He'll only give you the appearance of that Angry Ice-Man, don't worry. No void will be in his place since most of his selfhood would remain intact. And the sweet Mind-Fucking Lady --" she nodded at Sakami "-- may seem void-like to the human eye. But she's fine. Her Spirit is untouched and you could even talk to it! If you took care to see it. I know I can!"

"Mikawa, please," Nekohiko begged. "We really need to... go on. I feel faint after casting the spell. I don't think I can hold on for much longer. I am sorry, but can we move on?"

Gods, he sounded so timid and scared, not at all convincing.

In the last effort to push the boy forward, Nekohiko said, "Your Elder Sister is holding all those Hisome girls off on her own outside this room. I can't bear the thought that I am burdening her like this with this whole plan..."

Mikawa's disposition changed, albeit with a delay. His shoulders slumped. "Yes. I understand..."

Repressing an urge to bow and beg his forgiveness, Nekohiko only beckoned him closer and raised his arms to cast the second Mirror Image spell.

The second one, and after such a complex one he'd done for Sakami.

He, frankly, had no idea if he would even survive till the end of the day, wasting his powers so much now.

Yet it all worked out. Painfully, with an incredible amount of Nekohiko's energy and effort -- but it did. He had almost lost his consciousness during the second Mirror Image, but managed to finish the casting first.

He didn't even remember how he did that because the moment he felt the release of the aspects he stole from Arata, he had fainted and only resurfaced from his bleary weakness several minutes later. Already done and satisfied with the results. And utterly... exhausted.

Aaaagh, this feeling of heavy hollowness in his power reserves. He hadn't practiced magic for so long and had now used it on such intense spells one by one, with nary a rest between them.

"He's awake," Kotone breathed in relief, finally stopping with her pinching of Nekohiko's cheeks to wake him up faster. "He seems all right now!"

"Of course he is. He's just so tired he'd probably fall asleep somewhere during the wedding," Haehime mused from a few feet away. "We need to keep him awake, I think. Which is sad. Most brides are not so sleepy on the wedding day. I wonder if it'll feel embarrassing to the groom..."

"Mmm." Kotone pondered a moment, tilting her head as she blinked at Nekohiko, their noses almost touching. "We might have to drag you around like a... log, won't we?"

...

"A log!" Aomi exploded in laughter. She slapped her knee, then went on preening herself in front of the mirror. "You are so fun, Kotone. I love it when people make satisfying puns."

Kotone opened her eyes a bit wider. "...puns? About what?"

Nekohiko sat on the floor hunched and shaken, almost canting to the side as though preparing to fall down any second. He was also in front of the mirror and could see both Kotone and Haehime fussing around him as they prepped his face and hair for the make-up and hairdressing.

In the mirror, he saw... Sakami. But of course it was just himself. This Sakami stirred when he stirred, and reddened when he felt embarrassed to see himself in such a state. Her chest rose and fell as his breaths filled his lungs.

It was disorienting, so he didn't focus on it too much. He might faint or get dizzy again, just from trying to comprehend his Sakami-ness too deeply.

Instead, he looked behind him, to Mikawa and Aomi who sat in front of another mirror, making sure they looked all right after the scuffle.

Aomi had only needed to straighten her hair that had gone a bit loose during the fight. But Mikawa... he'd had to dress up in Arata's clothes and armor for their disguise to work. And the young boy seemed mortified by dressing up in another person's clothes, which was so unsettling to see when he was wearing Arata's usually glacial features.

Too tired to think about it all, Nekohiko allowed Kotone and Haehime -- and later, Aomi -- to have free reign of his wedding preparations.

The make-up? Tasteful and sparse. The hair? Elaborate but mostly free down Sakami's frail, thin shoulders and back. The jewelry? Of House Hisome colors -- in the subtlest hues of dewy, misty lilacs and crystalline pinks.

And lastly, the clothes. The incomprehensibly-complex maze of inner robes and sashes and undershirts and stockings. And above it all -- the pure-white wedding gown topped with the traditional Spiritway cowl²The Shinto wedding cowl is this white headdress thingie on the bride's head. It's very pretty ^^. , every last part of it trimmed with searing red from the inside. And on top of the white purity outfit -- the vermillion knockout gown for before the ceremony and after it, so as not to dirty the white that was reserved solely for the groom to enjoy his bride in.

Unfortunately, Nekohiko wasn't interested in it much -- so while his body sat perked up and attentive to every bit of clothing and jewelry that was put on him, his mind was wandering, trying very hard not to fall asleep.

It wasn't because he hated weddings so much, no.

He really was just too tired after all the magic he'd done.

Which, he guessed, was a good thing. Even after he'd remove Sakami's Mirror Image from himself in his and Abihiko's bridal chambers -- he would not attack Abihiko outright.

He'd be too wasted and exhausted to try. Right?

At some point in his exhausted musings, his mind shifted over to check on his dummy twin in Suminoe's bizarre escort to Izumo. And there, he found that...

Yep.

He had tried to cast something terrible in there as well. And that had notified all the people in the convoy about his powers and their capabilities. He found his poor dummy twin restrained within the sedan carriage, with both magic and actual leather binds to keep him still.

And somebody was even trying to talk to him now, in a concerned agitated voice.

Asking the dummy twin if he was all right or not.

And the dummy twin answering that with its usual small talk:

"The weather is nice today, isn't it? Huh. Well-well."

...

The silence outside the sedan carriage sometimes had a crushed feel to it.

"He has gone mad, completely mad," some woman said barely audibly. "Poor young man. He was such a nice person."

"And a great listener."

"Yes," came a saddened reply.

Nekohiko didn't even bother to feel aggravated at them anymore. He was just too tired to muster up the strength and instead fled back to the dressing room and his new, Sakami-looking body.

The last touches of checking and rechecking that everything was fine on Nekohiko and the others -- and Kotone finally went back to the Hisome girls and Arata and Sakami in the corner. She knelt before them, tender.

"I'll stay here with you a bit longer before we all have to leave for the wedding," she told them all. "Never worry. It's already done and soon you'll have all your hands back again."

Haehime was busy restoring the room around them with the help of the household Spirits she could summon easily to her aid. Aomi twirled before the mirrors. Mikawa sulked beside Nekohiko, constantly fidgeting and pulling on Arata's uncomfortable warrior clothes, especially since most of it had the distinct Towa arrays and spells on it. Mikawa's Nagare nature must have found wearing the icy and watery Bound clothes quite uncomfortable.

But the boy kept his cool, and so did everyone in the room.

Thank gods. Everything truly terrible was over.

Other than... other than Nekohiko's last monstrous act of today.

He turned to Sakami, all the small trinkets and jewels in his hair and clothes chiming with his smallest motions. "Lady Sakami," he said in Sakami's own melodious voice. "I want to tell you that nothing bad will happen to any of you and that all your powers and Image aspects will be returned to you before this day ends. Please forgive me for this disturbance. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. But before I leave..."

It took a lot of effort to push through Sakami's natural politeness and meekness. Nekohiko had to force the words out of his mouth, so harsh they were.

"If anyone of you does anything to upset our plan right now, while we are leaving this room and are no longer protected by this room's sealing spells... I am afraid we will have to Split all the taken aspects from you forever," he said, having trouble breathing from fright. He was blackmailing people now. Actually blackmailing them. "Your hands, and your images, and your Binding. We take them hostage till after we are in safety. Please understand that the rest now entirely depends on you."

With that, he reached his hand for the doors and pulled them open.

The room behind him was either tidied up by Haehime's Spirits or glamored by Kotone to look presentable. The taken Hisome girls, Sakami, and Arata sat behind the room separator screens, further glamored away by invisibility spells to anyone who would look at them from outside the room.

It had all been planned and thought out for days before this.

It had come to pass... not exactly as Nekohiko had planned it, but satisfyingly enough.

Above all, it worked smoothly even now, when the biggest part of the plan was already behind him.

He walked out the doors into the beautiful, sun-ray-filled hallway of the Spring Sunlight Shrine. Haehime and Aomi flanked him on both sides while Mikawa in Arata's fake image brought up the rear as any normal bodyguard should.

The rest of the Sakami's entourage of Hisome girls who had waited for her in the hallway turned to regard their mistress. Awe and hushed joy shone in their eyes and smiles as they bowed to her as they would to a beautiful Spirit descending from heaven.

"Your future sister-in-law Iokirihime and your parents are waiting at the front gates of the Shrine," Kiyoko told Nekohiko with a reverent flush on her homely face.

Her horse teeth and the overall blunt, rough manner -- it all changed into something quite sweet and charming when she looked at Nekohiko. At Sakami she thought she was seeing.

Which meant the most wonderful thing of all.

Nekohiko had managed to trick Kiyoko. He passed as Sakami. He had nothing more to do here but to go down this wide-open path before him.

And to Abihiko at the end of it.

"Lady Sakami," the rest of the Hisome girls murmured as he stepped past them and down the hallway to the Shrine entrance. "Congratulations."

"Such a blessed day."

"Best of luck, best of wishes."

And he could only smile and agree with them all.

He almost felt floating, so happy this day made him.