Chapter 85

PROLOGUE Let’s go back two years. Ouen Sarano’s plans to reinstate the Sacred Blood Empire had entered the final countdown before implementation. At this point, a good handful of Sacred Blooded had come to live in Akinomiya. They were, of course, agents in the movement for independence. Once Ouen, the leader, gave the signal, all would rise to action. And by the end of the day, Akinomiya would become the Sacred Blood Empire. The Sacred Blooded, who had vanished into the shadows of history, were one step away from obtaining their long-cherished hope: their own country. All that was left to determine was how long they needed to wait, so that their chances of success could be as high as possible. Failure was not an option. The schedule was worked out in painstaking detail, and at last, they settled on their day of revolution. But right before revolution came, there was an incident. Someone had murdered Ouen Sarano. And his lover, Sairi Sarano, had abruptly vanished. Soon after, it was revealed that she was Sairi Fuyukura, a spy for the Virginal Father. The upper echelons of the empire worked frantically to salvage the situation. They were at a critical moment that would decide whether their country could be restored, or if it would be forever lost. First, though there was no evidence against her, Sairi Fuyukura was publicly declared as the person who had killed the emperor. And her daughter with the emperor—Shiren Sarano—was demoted to a commoner and became Shiren Fuyukura. If the nobles were to act mindlessly on their hatred for Sairi, it would only wreck all their carefully laid plans. At that point, even if they had found Sairi, it wouldn’t contribute anything to the creation of their country. And so the leaders prevented the situation from becoming worse by making her daughter their scapegoat. Meanwhile, Ouka Sarano, the emperor’s eldest daughter and successor, would rule as the legal emperor. She was daughter to Ominaeshi, his legal wife, so her lineage was fully acceptable. The only problem was that she was still in junior high school. Could such a child guide them through this crisis? The leaders had no choice but to gamble their future on her. That bet turned out to be a success. A huge success, in fact. Ouka Sarano immediately got the chaos under control and decisively launched the Sacred Blooded into action two years later. The only reason it took two years was because she had to remake the old leadership into something she could trust. In her eyes, those who had no influence aside from their noble birth were in her way. People like that would scorn her simply because she was young. Once Ouka had solidified her position with trusted attendants, she put her plan into action. From that day forward, the city of Akinomiya became the Sacred Blood Empire. Her blitz tactics took not a single life—it was almost beautiful. The Empire, which seemed rather sloppy and haphazard in Ryouta’s eyes, had been through many dramatic ups and downs in the past. After some trials and tribulations, Ryouta had also worked to help Ouka and Shiren reconcile, and now the Empire was running in its own disorganized way—or so it should have been. That is, at least, until the letter came. My dearest Shiren, I’m so sorry to have left you alone for so long. We can finally have a happy life together, because I now stand at the head of the Virginal Father. I’ll be coming to get you soon. Let’s live in Japan. Together. - Sairi Fuyukura P.S. They opened up a fantastic pastry shop near the station. It’s all you can eat for just thirteen hundred yen on a weekday! The seasonal tarts are sooo good! It’s heavenly! We have to go! Five times a week! I’m telling you, it’s seriously the best! I’d say it’s the best in Japan! Oh, and I found a really high-quality chicken hot-pot place, and there’s this thing called collagen soup? That stuff is exquisite. We have to go there. It’ll make your skin shine! I also found a really good soba place! Their hours are kind of short, but it’d be so worth it to eat there! I might stick with just their soba for a while. Oh, I found an organic veggie buffet, too. It’s always so crowded, but lining up for it is never a painful experience. But meat’s good, too, you know? I know a place with good offal. Anyone would go carnivorous if they saw the broth they serve there (the rest omitted, as it continues for another thirty lines). “She’s basically just writing about food! Does she think this is funny?!” Shiren was furious when she finished reading. “Shoot! Now I’m hungry… We are having hot pot today, Ryouta. Soy-milk hot pot!” “Now’s not the time!” “Right, I need to pick whether we’ll top it off with udon noodles or rice! I’m feeling rice today!” “I’m not talking about hot pot! There was something really important before all that!” “Right, we can’t ignore a good pastry. Once the chestnuts are in season, we’ll get a whole lot more variety, though.” “Before that! Before that! The part that doesn’t have anything to do with food!” Like mother, like daughter. Both get distracted by the same things, Ryouta thought. “O-oh, right… My mother said she was coming…” Shiren’s expression quickly clouded over. Indeed—despite how briefly it was mentioned, the letter came with shocking news. In terms of length, the message was overwhelmingly weighted toward food, but volume does not always translate to importance. The essence of the letter was that Shiren’s mother would be taking her back to Japan, and it was spelled out quite clearly. Shiren quietly placed the letter on the table. “So I’m not really sure if I should be asking this, but…I know I can’t not ask you, so I’m going to.” “You don’t need to preface it like that. You’re my minion, Ryouta. Ask me what you like—but depending on what it is, I might poke your eyes.” “Then I can’t actually ask what I like, can I?! Don’t add conditions for retaliation!” “You can ask me about pretty much anything besides my weight. Go ahead.” Apparently, her weight was completely off-limits. “What do you want to do, Shiren…?” All Ryouta knew was what had been written in the letter—Sairi’s one-sided notice to her daughter. Of course, he had no idea how Shiren felt about it. Shiren stared silently at the letter on the table. She looked far from ecstatic about it, but Ryouta wasn’t sure if he should say anything. No way she could come up with an answer that quickly. I need to give her time to think… Shiren let out a sigh. She plopped onto the sofa, an exhausted look on her face. “This isn’t about what I want to do. The Empire and Japan have no official diplomatic relations. I can’t leave for Japan.” “I know that’s how the system works, but—” “And can I even go back to Mo—my mother after all this time? Sairi…killed my dad.” Sairi was a first-rate criminal. And that was precisely why Shiren had suffered for so long under the Fuyukura name. Ryouta had become the go-between in Emperor Ouka’s and Shiren’s relationship, but until that point, Shiren had been partially treated as a criminal herself. It went without saying that Shiren was not responsible at all. She was no murderer—she was one of the bereaved, having lost a father. But because she was Sairi’s daughter, she had been subject to painful discrimination. “Do you…believe all that, Shiren?” The letter had not touched on the previous emperor’s assassination at all. Ryouta had once looked into the incident himself. What he’d learned was that the case had essentially stalled at circumstantial evidence. Though no one had been there to see it happen, the emperor was killed in Sairi’s room, and afterward, Sairi had vanished. So based on those facts, the culprit was probably Sairi. It might seem like that was enough, but it wasn’t. What if, for example, there had been another group of people looking to assassinate the emperor, and they had tried to kill both him and his lover? And though the emperor was killed right away, his lover alone had managed to escape—wasn’t that a possibility? Or maybe a fundamentalist had tried to oust a mistress who was not of Sacred Blood? Ryouta could think of plenty of scenarios. But there was one powerful truth that shot down all those hypotheses. Sairi Fuyukura was a member of the Virginal Father. The Virginal Father was an organization that sought the demise of the Sacred Blooded. The idea that a member of this organization had killed the emperor on the eve of their revolution was much easier to grasp. Logically, it made sense. That’s still just one-sided logic, though. If her intent really was to kill, then would she have had a child with him, spent over a decade raising said child, then kill her husband? I guess there’s a possibility she got an order and had to kill the man she loved. But if I were in her shoes, I…couldn’t do it. Whatever the organization or ideology, would it have been important enough to make her kill her family? If their aim was to bring the downfall of the Sacred Blooded, then she and the organization should have acted much sooner. It would have been safer to strike well before the Empire began planning their revolution. Waiting until the final hours would have left her with no room for error. Or maybe I’m giving them too much benefit of the doubt… Ryouta could tell from her demeanor that Shiren was feeling depressed. Her pigtails always drooped when her spirits were low. “A-anyway…I don’t want to see my mother. And living in Japan with her? Ridiculous! I’d be throwing my whole life in the Empire away!” “That’s true. You have lots of friends here, too.” Shiren would be leaving way too much behind if she left for Japan solely for her mother’s sake. “And—” Shiren hugged Ryouta tightly. “I can’t bring my minion to Japan, can I? I don’t want that…” “Well, if you were going, then I’d come with y—” “If you go back, then you’ll have a hard time because of your curse…” “Oh yeah, I forgot about that…” Thanks to his grandfather’s curse, Ryouta was irresistible to women who weren’t Sacred Blooded. The curse was so dangerous, in fact, that it was part of the reason why he was living in the Sacred Blood Empire. Japan was a perilous place for him. He had almost been kidnapped on more than one occasion. “So anyway…I…don’t care about my mother… I really don’t…,” Shiren murmured, still embracing Ryouta. But her words sounded somehow forced. I can’t think of any kid who wouldn’t want to be reunited with their mom after being separated for so long. Well, except for me, considering my curse… Ryouta genuinely did not want to go back to Japan. His mother had done so many things to him, even poisoning his food. “Then without going to Japan, if you could see your mother for just a little while, would you want to?” “M-maybe for fifteen minutes… No! I don’t want to see her! I don’t! I don’t want to see that harebrained woman who talks about food at every waking moment!” “I think she’s passed that down to you…” “She eats like a horse. She’s always going on about the three extra stomachs—an extra stomach for sweets, an extra stomach for snacks, and an extra stomach for midnight treats!” “So the more powerful version of you, then.” “She would go to the gym super early in the morning to burn all her fat so she could eat even more.” “She wanted to eat more that badly?!” “I told you, she’s a real glutton! I hate people like her. But her tomato porridge and her griddled tomatoes and fish were good…” “So your obsession with tomatoes comes from your parents…” “And whenever I asked for a snack, she would feed me tomato pancakes or tomato chocolate cake, then give me tomato tea or tomato coffee or a tomato soda float after meals… But I don’t want to see her!” “I gotta say, her use of tomatoes makes it hard to tell if she’s a gourmet or if her sense of taste is totally broken!” After living here for a while, Ryouta sometimes felt that the Sacred Blooded liked tomatoes more than blood. “But you sure were spoiled growing up, weren’t you…? Maybe that’s why you’re so haughty… But I guess you were like a princess in the past…” “Allow me to restate my decision! I don’t want to see her! Why would I?!” Shiren said, her face red. She did, to an extent, seem to be putting on a brave face, but even Ryouta could tell that she was conflicted on the inside. She really did suffer… Even though it was only for a couple of years, they all still treated her like a criminal. She must feel both love and hate in equal turns. Furthermore, her mother might really have killed her father. And if her mother was the culprit, would she be able to forgive her? It was such a unique circumstance that Ryouta could hardly imagine it. “Okay, let’s set your mother aside for now. That’s something you need to decide on your own.” “Yes, of course. But like I said, I have an answer already.” “We need to tell the government that you got this letter.” Ryouta figured they needed to draw a clear line between public and private affairs. “There’s a chance that the Virginal Father will attack, with Sairi at the helm. I’d say war could even break out. Are you sure Sairi even actually wrote this?” Shiren’s face returned to its natural state. “What do you mean, Ryouta?” “The guys in the Virginal Father could be baiting you into a trap.” There could still be radicals in Japan who were bent on decimating the Sacred Blooded. They couldn’t ignore the possibility that this was some kind of scheme. “No, this is my mother’s handwriting. I know that much. If she came, she’d come alone.” “If her daughter says so, then that’s probably right. It would certainly be better for us if the enemy isn’t sending an offensive force.” “No… That’s not exactly right…” Shiren was shaking. “The Empire might be in its biggest bout of trouble yet…” “Wait, you have to be exaggerating, right…?” “Sairi isn’t just an average person… She only got to marry my dad because he wanted her power. She was his bodyguard. If not, I doubt his advisers would have allowed him to marry just any Japanese person.” “Then the secret behind her strength was that she was a warrior for the Virginal Father…” Yet another enemy might be closing in on them. And this was no stranger. This was Shiren’s mother. I really don’t want any more brushes with death…