Shiki left the house and made his way toward the headland. The salty sea breeze started to blow against his skin as he neared the exposed area. Right at the tip of the headland, he could see a young girl—Ayura, her loose, long hair flying about in the wind.
Shiki paused. “Where’s Hakurai?”
Ayura turned around and looked up at him with her coal-black eyes.
“Hakurai. Don’t you know where he is?” he asked again, more slowly this time.
Ayura simply stared fixedly at the man, then shook her head from side to side. It was unclear whether she didn’t know the answer or if she just wasn’t going to tell him.
Hakurai’s whereabouts were currently unknown. No boats had been able to leave the port since the eruption, so he had to be on the island somewhere.
Shiki had heard that it was Hakurai who had found him and his companions washed up on the shore—but by the time Shiki had come back to his senses, he’d disappeared. Nobody had seen him since.
It was thanks to Hakurai that Shiki was safe. That said, it wasn’t clear whether Hakurai had intended to save him at all.
Shiki certainly hoped not. He didn’t want to believe that Hakurai was the sort of person who’d bother trying to help anybody. He was his younger sister’s nemesis, not a decent person.
“It was her,” said Ayura, pointing toward Shiki’s sleeve. “She was the one that told him you were there.”
Shiki’s younger sister was clutching onto his sleeve. He was able to catch a glimpse of her—or at least, her pale hand—every now and then.
“Are you talking about Hakurai? What do you mean?”
“She asked for help. She called for help for you,” Ayura said.
Feeling like he couldn’t breathe, Shiki grabbed hold of his sleeve.
Shomei!
Inside his own mind, Shiki screamed his younger sister’s name. His breathing still labored, he fell to his knees.
“Why…?” he asked.
He dug his nails into the earth and groaned. How can this be?
“You never know where and how you’re going to meet someone…”
That was when Senri’s words came flooding back.
“You never know where and how you’re going to meet someone or whether they’ll be able to help you. It’s so curious how one single person can lead you to another, and then another, and another…”
Shiki had then asked Senri a question. “Do only living people count?”
With a tender look in his eyes, Senri had given him this response. “No,” he’d said. “It applies to the dead as well.”
“The god is searching for him too…” Ayura murmured. Her voice was so soft that the sea breeze drowned it out, leaving Shiki unable to hear what she was saying. “After all, he took the missing part of the Raven with him…”
Hakurai was traveling through the mountains. He was a considerable distance away from the Jo family residence now—and far away from the sea, as well.
There was very little flat land on Je Island. The few plateaus and gentle inclines that did exist had all become port towns, and all the remaining areas were mountains, mountains, and more mountains. Waves had carved sharp cliffs into the edges of the mountains, and they had been eroded further to create caves and curiously shaped headlands. The island’s geology and the sea currents that surrounded it gave the coastal areas a unique landscape, and the mountains that stood against the shore revealed colorful inner layers—some white, some red, and some even with patterns.
There were stone quarries—or stone pits—dotted throughout the mountains. Whether it was hard rock—which was used for everything from walls and staircases to stone coffins—or soft rock, Je Island was truly a treasure trove when it came to stone. The stone cut from these rocks had two highly prized features. It turned a bluish color and developed slip-resistant properties when exposed to water. Unsurprisingly, such stone was primarily used for bathroom flooring. There were also pits from which silica stone—a type of stone utilized in the glass manufacturing process—and alunite were sourced. Sea merchant trade had started with the trade of these sorts of stones.
Extracted stone was transported to the port using a special road built for such a purpose, and that very road happened to be the one Hakurai was currently walking down. Stone that was transported to the port would then be taken to Sho’s mainland or to foreign lands via boat.
Some of the stone pits were no longer in use—in some cases to avoid completely depleting all the rock, and in others because they had already been depleted. Hakurai set foot in a stone pit that hadn’t been used in many years. There were large pieces of extracted rock here and there with the mark of the pit’s proprietor carved into them, but it looked as if there hadn’t been any need for them.
Hakurai sat down next to one of those pieces of rock. He clutched a sword in his hands—a black sword with a bare, unsheathed blade.
He raised the black sword in front of his eyes and gazed at its edge. Hakurai could see his own face reflected in the jet-black material. Suddenly, the image of a young girl flashed in his mind. Alarmed, he turned around, but there was no one there. Hakurai let out a sigh, then inspected the blade from one end to another once again. It possessed a mysterious radiance and exuded an extraordinary divine power—just like the Saname clan’s divine treasure that he’d gotten his hands on long ago.
Why did I leave?
He’d acted like he was trying to make a run for it. In fact, he was still acting that way.
This sword was most likely Uren Niangniang’s missing half—the one that the ao god had ordered him to find.
The message that had been passed onto him through Ayura crossed his mind as well. The ao god had demanded that he locate the Raven’s missing part. If he didn’t, he was going to eat both Ayura and Ishiha. It was a clear threat, and one that left no room for interpretation.
He was supposed to give it to the ao god right away, and that would be the end of it. Hakurai and his companions would be saved. He knew that, and yet right now, Hakurai was on the run.
He was getting the feeling that something bad was about to happen. And every time this happened, he always turned out to be right.
Hakurai got back on his feet and disappeared into the woods.