Chapter 62

“Oh yeah, this might be my first-ever date, too…” He didn’t even have a girlfriend when he’d lived in Japan. He was sure plenty of girls would have gone on dates with him because of the curse, but he wasn’t really into the idea of getting a girlfriend through brainwashing. He also wondered if his outfit was okay. He’d tried to pick something that would look decent on him, but he wasn’t entirely confident in his fashion sense. And since he kept hearing about fortunes and bad luck, he brought his sword. It did feel a bit like overkill, like bringing an umbrella on a dry and sunny day, but he didn’t know what other option he had. “Oh, you’re here already.” Sasara had arrived five minutes before their meeting time. Of course, she wasn’t wearing her school uniform, but she wasn’t dressed up like a noble or decked out in armor. Her outfit was something he’d see anyone wearing in town. Plus the sword. But he was used to seeing her sword anyway, so that wasn’t weird. “Whoa…” “What is the matter? Am I dressed that strangely…?” “No—if anything, it’s the opposite. It really suits you…” The youth and maturity in her look coexisted peacefully. Maybe it was her age, but Sasara really did look good in anything she wore. “Oh, please! Do not tease me!” Sasara said with a disgruntled expression that was a bit endearing. “I did take a look at magazines to choose something nice, you know… I have never really dressed like this before…” So this was new to her, too; Ryouta had never thought about date clothes before. “Now, where will you be taking me today?” “Oh… I didn’t really look into it.” The existence of the impending date was the only thing that occupied his mind, so he had nothing in terms of a detailed schedule. He didn’t have any experience anyway, so he had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. “Honestly, how irresponsible. We must treat this as a proper date, even if only in form. I wish you had thought at least a little about it.” “But I don’t really know any date spots in the Empire…” He’d visited a café with Shiren back when he’d just become her minion, but that was all he knew. “Wait, this is a train station, so there has to be a map or something here.” There was a large sightseeing map in front of the station; maybe he could find something for them on there. Akinomiya was an odd combination of half-rural, half-commuter town anyway, so he doubted there would be any sightseeing spots that high schoolers would enjoy. He just had to find something, although he wasn’t expecting much as he wandered over to the map. He quickly found a picture of a castle on top of a mountain and a cable car leading up to it. “Wait, this has been here the whole time?!” “Yes. That is Akinomiya Castle, which belonged to the feudal Lord Akinomiya. Were you not aware of that?” Sasara did not seem particularly shocked about this new information. “Wait… Is this common knowledge?” “The Akinomiya family originally lived near Akinomiya Shrine, and they controlled this area in the early sixteenth century. They built their castle on Mount Hatatate. Their most famous member is the one depicted by this statue here, Masakane Akinomiya.” “Huh…” “He enjoyed the blessings of the Akinomiya clan’s golden age. Just when it seemed he might have been able to have a chance at possibly ruling all of Japan, luck did not favor him, and he was attacked by the underlings of the men under the command of Oda Nobunaga and perished.” “What a weakling! He’s barely a footnote in history!” In short, he didn’t even have a snowball’s chance in hell. “Ah, well ‘perished’ is a figure of speech. When the castle was surrounded and he offered to surrender, they told him the lord could save his soldiers by committing honorable suicide. He replied that he was much too scared to kill himself, so they said, ‘Oh, whatever… Just leave your weapon and get out of here…’ And thus, he successfully surrendered the castle without any bloodshed.” “That’s embarrassing! That’s humiliating, Masakane Akinomiya! Your disgrace lives on through the generations!” “But it is thanks to him that the Akinomiya family has survived to this day. Their family motto is ‘Don’t be a loser.’” “His descendants are embarrassed, too! How can they take any pride in that?!” When he looked back at the statue to study it, he saw there was nothing stately about it. Masakane Akinomiya was stooping slightly, and his center of gravity was toward his back. Nothing about this man suggested he was capable of ruling all of Japan. “The castle itself is rather magnificent. It is strategically difficult to attack, but it still fell in no time at all. That is why posterity has said, ‘Masakane was garbage. Honestly useless.’” “Please, just stop insulting the dead! I’m starting to feel sorry for him!” He’d never heard such specific contempt for a historical figure—but that also made him especially interesting. “Hey, so should we go to the castle, then?” They had nowhere else to go anyway, so it was the perfect spot. “What? That is where we’ll be going…?” Sasara did not look at excited at all. Ryouta wondered if he’d made the wrong choice. “Oh, maybe not, then… Just tell me if this isn’t an option. I’ll think of somewhere else to go…” “I am not particularly interested in the mountain due to personal reasons, but… No, this must be fate. Let us go. I doubt anyone will realize we are there.” Sasara smiled, somewhat bitterly. “But what do you mean by fate?” “Oh, you know.” EMPIRE BUSES AKINOMIYA STATION TO MOUNT HATATATE CABLE CAR: 3,500 SACRED YEN They rode the bus for fifteen minutes and came to the station where they could get the cable car up. MOUNT HATATATE CABLE CAR MOUNTAIN BASE TO SUMMIT: 500 SACRED YEN The cable car was empty of passengers except for Ryouta and Sasara. “This really is a minor castle…” “I—I suppose so… But it is the weekend. I thought there would be a few more people here…” It was a bit awkward being in there alone together. “I—I…have never been locked in with a man in such a small space before. What a strange feeling…” “Y-you’re exaggerating… You’re not locked in here at all; it’s just public transport…” “But I do not frequently associate with the opposite sex, unlike you… You have been on plenty of dates before, have you not?” “What are you talking about? I’ve never been on a date. This is my first time.” “Your…first time? It is…?” “I-I’m not lying… Your parents won’t be very happy if this isn’t a real date… So it’s gotta be a real date…” “You are correct… This has to be a real date…” It was hot in here. Probably the lack of ventilation. “But I am surprised. I was under the impression that you were constantly going on dates with your master. After all, you do live together.” “What? No, that’s not how we are at all. The master-minion relationship isn’t exactly a romantic relationship.” Of course, they’d gone out alone together plenty of times, but Ryouta didn’t think that counted as a date. “Ah… I thought you two had progressed beyond that… I am disappointed for some reason.” “I mean, girls liked me plenty back in Japan, but that was all because of the curse. They don’t actually have any interest in me.” Ga-thunk. The cable car started going up. “Ah, what a nice view.” Sasara, who was sitting opposite Ryouta, leaned forward toward the window. “Yeah, it is. We can see over the whole empire.” “That must be our school.” “Hey, you’re right. I never get to look at things from this angle, so it’s a new si—” Squish. A strange sensation made contact with his face. Location-wise, it was Sasara’s chest. “Hey, Sasara, you’re, uh…” “Eek! I-I’m sorry!” Ryouta was starting to notice how weird the mood was. If this had happened any time before this, then she would have yelled, “What are you doing, you pervert!” and punched him. Or jumped back in a panic or something. But none of that happened, and Ryouta’s heart was madly pounding. The sound was quiet, but he could feel the heat in his chest. Whoa, whoa… Aren’t we acting a little too much like a real boyfriend and girlfriend…? Their eyes naturally met—and then locked. This was bad. Ryouta knew it instinctively. One more push would set off some kind of chemical reaction, and then their circumstances would fall by the wayside. The reaction would run its course, no matter whether it was good or bad. Ryouta didn’t dislike Sasara, and he was sure the same could be said for her about him. And that was enough to set things in motion. “I’m sorry, Lady Ouka,” Sasara whispered quietly, almost as though speaking to herself. “What do you mean by sor—?” “Welcome aboard and thank you for taking the Mount Hatatate Cable Car today.” “Agh!” “Eep!” Both of them jumped at the sudden announcement. It really was the worst timing. “The total length of the cable is three hundred meters. It will only take a few minutes for us to reach the top of Mount Hatatate, which stands at a height of four hundred meters.” “They’re really rounding the numbers.” “Please take a look below you. You should be able to see the city center. If this car were to fall, you would die.” “You don’t need to tell us that! Don’t scare us!” This was when the announcement was supposed to talk about how the trees changed throughout the seasons. “This funicular was built in 1957.” “Wait, wait, it just said funicular, didn’t it?! This is a cable car! I know they both use cables, but don’t get that mixed up!” “The castle of the Akinomiya clan stands proud at the peak of Mount Hatatate. Though the castle fell in the Warring States period, the current castle was rebuilt in the mid-Showa era based on Himeji Castle and Tokyo Tower.” “Don’t copy Tokyo Tower! And Himeji Castle was part of a different era!” So this was a replica castle, built after the real thing fell into ruin. These kinds of castles were everywhere. The Sacred Blood Empire tended to take a “good enough” attitude to everything, but apparently, Akinomiya itself had been the same even before it became Empire territory. “This castle, made famous by Masakane Akinomiya, is feared as a reverse power spot, said to bring bad luck, bad grades, cheating spouses, overloads of spam mail, strange computer viruses, and other terrible things to whoever visits. It also has awful feng shui.” “I don’t think you need to tell that to people who are on a one-way ticket to visit! We would’ve called it off if we knew about this ahead of time!” “Abandon all hope, ye on this cable car.” “Shut up!” “Well, we’re almost at the top. Thank you for riding the cable car today. Please enjoy the sights this B-tier spot has to offer.” “Don’t call it B-tier yourself! That’s not something you say about yourself!” They arrived at the top station after yelling at the audio tour the whole way. In a way, they’d gotten lucky—the entire romantic atmosphere was destroyed. They arrived at Akinomiya Castle after a five-minute walk. Sure enough, as they approached, they found a building made of concrete, one that almost screamed it had been built in the twentieth century. Definitely not the spot to pick for a first date. “Well, we’ve come this far, so we may as well go in…” “Indeed…” They bought a ticket to enter for 2,000 sacred yen, placed their shoes in the shoe storage, and headed in. Floors one to three acted as a museum. On display were helmets and katanas of uncertain origin, and hanging scrolls from the mid-Edo era that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the lord of the castle. They may not have had any legitimate cultural assets. One display was just pictures of the general drawn by local elementary school students. “Yeah, this sure is a B-tier spot… Sorry, this is my fault. Sasara, I’m—” Sasara was examining the displays in earnest. “Hmm… Ah, I see. Hmm…” Surprisingly, she was carefully reading all the descriptions. “Uh, Sasara… Is it really that interesting?” “Oh, of course. One can attack the castle via this route.” “Hey, Sasara?” “But if a rock were to fall here, then it would be over for everyone. Perhaps a traitor from the inside?” “Oh, uh, yeah…” “Hmm, hmm. I see. Ah-ha.” The exhibits seemed to be exactly to Sasara’s interests. She was studying them so intently that she probably wouldn’t miss a letter in the entire castle. In the end, it almost took thirty minutes. “My apologies, I was more interested than I thought I would be…” Suddenly aware of how she’d been behaving, Sasara seemed somewhat ashamed. “No, it’s fine. I’m glad you were happy with it. Let’s go to the observation deck, then.” The stairs up were more like a ladder than anything. It was such a steep incline, they probably couldn’t fit in a proper staircase. After climbing up, they found panels about all sorts of castles. “Whoa… I feel like you’d see these at every castle…” But one of the panels was Western-style for some reason. It read SACRED BLOOD IMPERIAL CASTLE. Ouka’s castle. “Ouka considers this place a rival, too, huh…?” “This is a well-known castle, so it is not a problem. Now let us go out to the observation deck.” Once they were outside, Sasara leaned over the railing. “What a beautiful view!” They could see the entire empire below, and Ryouta was getting a sense of what was where in a way he hadn’t been able to before. “This is wonderful.” “Yeah, I’m glad we came out here.” A movie theater would’ve been a safer option, but this one was probably better. But then, Sasara’s face suddenly went pale, the way it might if she’d forgotten something in the middle of a trip. “Ah… I am deeply sorry! So deeply sorry! I am deeply sorry!” She immediately flung herself to the ground in apology. “Hey, what’s wrong? Is this some kind of Sacred Blood Holy Church etiquette or something?” “I realized I was viewing Lady Ouka’s castle from above… This act is deserving of death…” “Don’t worry too much about that! Calm down! On a mountain, there’s no other way to view it!” “Oh, Lady Ouka! I am so deeply sorry for taking Ryouta!” “What…?” What did that have to do with anything? “Oh, I mean…I brought another one of Lady Ouka’s personal guard, who are obligated to serve her, up to the top of the mountain…” “I see… I was the one that suggested we go here, though, so don’t worry about it…” He got that strange feeling again. It was like Sasara kept hitting foul balls in impossible directions. “I suppose we should go now. We might seem like real romantic partners if we watch the view for too long.” “Yeah. It just has to be like a date. The marriage would be way off, anyway. And if you satisfy your parents, then we can probably shake this off…” Ryouta turned back and looked toward the stairs down, where he found another steep set of stairs going up. It said NO ENTRY. “Oh, there’s one more floor. But the sign says we shouldn’t go up, so I guess this is it.” Suddenly, he felt a prickle of impending danger. “Huh? Is this the lord’s curse? Let’s just head back…” Ryouta headed back to the stairs to descend. He went down facing away, which would’ve been dangerous if he wasn’t holding the handrail. “I really wish this castle was a little more accessible… Guess they couldn’t exactly fit in a spiral staircase, though…” Fwsh. Suddenly, a piece of cloth slid over his head. Startled, he looked up—and saw panties. They were a bright, blazing red. “Oh, red… I wonder if it’s a Sacred Blooded thing…” “Red? What are you talking about? …Eek! Why are you looking?! I cannot believe this!” “Sorry! I should’ve let you go down first! Please! Don’t kick me! It’d be really bad if I fall!” “That is not my problem! I would rather you fall from the castle tower instead!” Sasara took a few steps down to get within range, and she began to stomp on him. “Hey! I’m seriously going to fall! This isn’t funny! I’ll close my eyes! Please! I’m sorry!” He was genuinely losing his balance. He didn’t realize his hand had reached out to grab something, but whatever it was wasn’t enough to support him anyway as he fell to the floor. Fortunately, he’d come down far enough that he wasn’t injured. “Sheesh, that was close… I probably would’ve broken a bone if I fell from the top… Guess my fortune did say that I’d be unlucky today.” He then realized he still was holding something in his hand. Something warm. Something bright and fiery red. It’s warm… Wait, this isn’t—? It was. It was Sasara’s panties. The most unbelievable thing had happened. “The inside of my skirt feels quite breezy… Oh…” Sasara looked at Ryouta. She was stunned. No way. I was losing my balance, and I just happened to grab her underwear, and my fall was enough to pull them off her. What a twist… Oh, I guess she’s not wearing any shoes, so they didn’t catch on them… Ha-ha-ha… Ha-ha-ha… When a person struggles to believe what they are seeing, they typically stare blankly and try to parse the situation, and that’s what Ryouta was doing now as their eyes met. And because Sasara was still above him, he could see her butt. Welp, I’m going to die. This was going to be Ryouta’s death poem: Like a meal still hot in hand, my life ends with the rear. Meaning: What is in his hand is still warm from being worn. His fate is that of his meal, the last thing it sees being a rear before its warmth fades forever—he will die, his last memory being the image of buttocks. “Pervert, shameless, degenerate, creep, hormonal, despicable, lady killer, loin-driven beast, emotional ogre, er, and, what else was there?”