Masamichi’s heart skipped a beat in joy at Shino’s words. But those words seemed absolutely hilarious to Kagiroi.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha. What a surprise. An unexpected feast has come to me. All I was doing was having a little pick-me-up meal before my concert. Whatever your intentions, that human’s chi looks quite tasty. Hmm. Let me see. I suppose these others can be the appetizer, that small human I’ll take as a side dish, and you will be the main dish. Yes, it appears I’ll have a good meal tonight. You may be weakened, but it’s been a while since I last ate a specter of your caliber. I can hardly wait.”
Kagiroi flicked his long tongue to quickly lick his blood-colored lips. His eyes had narrowed and become crescent-shaped, and his gaze flitted between Shino and Masamichi.
“Now, who should I start with? Would it be better to let your servant see his master being eaten? The same way that you could only suck your thumb and watch Tokifuyu Tatsumi die?”
“Kagiroi. You…bastard…!”
As soon as he realized that Masamichi was Kagiroi’s target, Shino formed his left hand into a knife and swung it sharply from the upper right to the left.
The silver chi he wore all over his body flew like a boomerang and tore a part of the barrier that pulsated eerily with a thud.
However, the torn blood vessels immediately fused, and the sliced hole became narrower.
“Masamichi, run!” Shino yelled, without looking back. Kagiroi twisted his lips in disapproval.
“Trying to be clever, are you? Well, he won’t get away.”
“I won’t let you go near him.”
Shino stood between them, blocking Kagiroi’s path.
“Shino…!”
He’s really going to use himself as a shield to let me go. Forget it, Shino. I don’t want you to do that.
Tears welled up in Masamichi’s eyes.
Finally, after a thousand years, Shino stood before the enemy who had killed his master, yet he had no way to avenge his death. Masamichi was painfully aware of that frustration after always being an inferior student, a dropout, and an outcast among his peers.
Even in the midst of that searing frustration, Shino was trying to protect his servant’s life. Masamichi could never leave someone like that behind and take off by himself.
I’m scared. Of course I’m afraid, but it’s more scary to run now. I’m much more afraid…of being separated from Shino.
“Masamichi! I’m telling you to run! Quickly!” Shino raised his voice, frustrated to see that Masamichi hadn’t budged.
The sharp voice that seemed to strike straight into his eardrums was rather like the sound of a pistol announcing the start of the event for Masamichi.
His still-weak body was quickly filled with the chi that Shino had given him earlier. He could see the golden chi spurting out from his skin and surrounding his body.
I’m not going to run! For once, I’m definitely not going to run!
I’m going to protect Shino.
Shino would either snicker or be furious if he heard that. But Masamichi was full of that grand resolve and began to run—not outside the barrier that was starting to close, but toward Shino.
“Masamichi?!”
“I’m giving you back what you gave me! I’ll give you everything I have. So do something! We’ll get away together!”
He embraced Shino, who looked stunned, and touched his lips to Shino’s. It was probably more accurate to say he bit into the other man’s lips.
Having never kissed anyone of his own accord, Masamichi frantically pressed his lips to Shino’s. Shino’s body tensed for a moment, but then he clutched Masamichi tightly.
With Shino now devouring his lips, Masamichi felt the chi flow from his body into the specter.
It was nothing like moments earlier. The feeling of weakness that overcame him was intense. But he wasn’t worried, because Shino was holding him tightly.
“Hah! What difference does it make if you suck on that human? You will never measure up to me, Shino.”
“Don’t say my name like we’re friends. My…servant believes in me. Then I shall have faith in my master as well. That is how the world should be.”
With one arm holding his limp servant, Shino used his other hand to dig into his pants pocket. He pulled out a small item wrapped in a gauze towel, which he had dug out of the dirt in a hedge outside an apartment building earlier in the day.
He unraveled the towel, picked out a small, flat item that was still covered with mud, held it high, and called out to the sky in a sharp voice, “Tokifuyu! I don’t know why you left this for me, but for once, make up for your betrayal!”
Kagiroi laughed out loud.
“What the hell? Now you’re going to depend on your dead master? I don’t think he’s going to help. What good could a spiritual medium dead for a thousand years do? You really are funny, Shino. It’ll be a shame to eat you. But it might be a bit of a nuisance to let you live, I think.” Kagiroi held his hichiriki in his right hand, aimed its mouth toward Shino, and said, “Okay, time for dinner. Thanks to that servant of yours, I can savor the chi of two individuals at once. Now, where should I start sucking…?”
Oh, no… I couldn’t protect Shino. I guess it was to be expected… I’m sorry, Shino.
Masamichi could hardly keep his eyes open at that point, and he apologized to Shino in his mind as he braced himself. This time, he was really going to die. But he didn’t feel as empty as he did before, because he was with Shino.
But the next moment—
—Masamichi heard a tremendous cracking sound that seemed to tear through the earth, and then he was enveloped by an extraordinary light. Even with his eyes closed, his retinas were scorched white, and his entire consciousness seemed to have been blown away.
Wh—…? What was that?
He thought he heard Kagiroi screaming. But…that was when his consciousness faded entirely.
“Hey. Why don’t you get up already? Breakfast is almost over.”
“Huh?! Oh, u-um, right. Good morning… Huh?” Awakened by Shino’s familiar voice, Masamichi tried to get himself up in bed but was immediately struck by vertigo and his head sunk into the soft pillow again. “Ngh. I feel dizzy…”
“Idiot. It’s because you poured all your chi into me. Of course you won’t recover after a single night’s sleep.”
Shino sat on Masamichi’s bed, looking as cool and poised as usual, and Masamichi was totally confused.
“Huh?! What? Was last night a dream? It couldn’t have been, because I’m weak all over. Oh, so…did we manage to get away from Kagiroi? How?”
Shino spread the morning paper he was carrying and wordlessly showed Masamichi an article.
The headline read, GAGAKU MUSICIAN KAGIROI CANCELS TODAY’S CONCERT DUE TO INJURY.
Surprised, Masamichi glanced back and forth between the article and Shino.
“Don’t tell me you beat Kagiroi?”
“I told you I can’t do that as I am now,” Shino said casually as he tossed the paper on his bed, reached for an item on the bedside table, and showed it to Masamichi.
Unlike the day before, the soil had been removed, but Masamichi couldn’t immediately tell what it was.
“It’s flat… A piece of wood?”
“It’s a comb,” Shino said in a low voice, his eyes downcast, with a pained look on his face. “Tokifuyu bought it for me one day long ago. When he sealed me in the jar, he erected a shrine on top of it. This is why the shrine was called Comb Shrine. I thought it had been long lost, but Tokifuyu must have put some curse on it. It survived with me for a thousand years, and through the repeated construction work at the site, it was lost in the soil.”
“You’re saying this is a thousand-year-old comb?”
“Yeah. It’s chipped considerably, but knowing Tokifuyu, I had a hunch he might have done something to it and applied our mystical power to it… Then a gigantic thunderbolt struck Kagiroi on the head. He must have let down his guard, thinking I was no competition for him. I grabbed you and ran when he went down.”
“Kagiroi isn’t dead, is he? Won’t he come after us?”
“We’re okay for now. But that doesn’t mean the connection between us and him has been severed. We’ll probably have to fight him again someday, but at least on this occasion, Tokifuyu saved us.”
Masamichi stared at the battered and worn-out comb in disbelief.
“Is that comb sort of like…a weapon that Tokifuyu prepared for you?”
“I don’t know if he did it for me or for himself. Either way, it proved useful. I can give him a little credit for it. The lightning hit the riverbed by the Kamo River so hard that much of the grass burned. Kagiroi shouldn’t be able to move for a while. I got a little scorched, too.”
Masamichi started laughing when he noticed that, though Shino spoke with a straight face, the specter’s hair was a little burned and frizzy.
“Aw man, Shino. Why do you have to tell me that when we’re having a serious talk like this…? Oh, but wait.” He touched his hair and face, then looked up at Shino’s grumpy mug. “I’m not burned at all. Does that mean you protected me…?”
“Shut up. There’s no need to speculate.”
“But! I want to thank you, at least.”
“I may be the one who should be thanking you.”
“What?!”
Embarrassed to the limit, Shino sternly said, “If you hadn’t pushed your chi on me, I wouldn’t have remembered Tokifuyu’s…comb. My chi alone may not have been enough to cause that lightning. It’s a slight bit of gratitude, but you can have it.”
He cut himself off there, then suddenly grabbed Masamichi by the chin. Masamichi yelped in pain.
“Oww… This is your way of showing gratitude to me?”
“Idiot. That wasn’t it. Here… I’ll give you a bit of it.”
Shino then leaned his upper body toward Masamichi. He touched his lips much more gently to Masamichi’s than he had the night before, although his were still as cold as ice.
Oh…I knew it. I don’t mind this at all… I…
Masamichi obediently accepted the action. The chi that flowed in from Shino was cold but strong, and it ran through every millimeter of Masamichi’s body.
I wanted to tell him last night that I might be developing feelings for him, but maybe he already knows that.
Somehow, he didn’t want to put that into words just then. Instead of voicing it, he willed the thought into the palms of his hands as he wrapped his arms around Shino’s back…