Chapter 95

“No need to worry. I’m waiting.” She smiled with glee. “Waiting for the one?” “For the laws to be amended so that brothers and sisters can get married!” “Wait, wait, wait! What does that mean?!” “Exactly what I said, Ryou.” A mischievous smile crossed her face. “I can keep on living so long as you’re around!” She puffed out her chest in pride and made a peace sign. She looked more like a younger sister than an older sister. “Oh, another fit…” Thud. “Are you sure about that?!” She woke up three minutes later. She’d recovered relatively quickly this time. “I think Owen dragged me back. But the police arrested him for interfering with the living, so things should all right now.” “Your existence is way too fragile, Rei.” After that, Rei finally went home. With just Shiren and Ryouta alone now, there was a shift in the air in their house. It was a change that no one besides them could sense. Although they hadn’t spent decades together, it had been long enough to notice this kind of thing. “I know this is obvious, Ryouta, but things are so ordinary.” “Of course. Nothing unusual has happened.” “If only things could stay ordinary forever. I’m going to answer all my science questions with photosynthesis tomorrow, too.” “You should at least show improvement in that department!” “Tomorrow, we’ll be starting the Sengoku period in Japanese history, so I’m going to answer Himiko for all the questions.” “No! She’s from, like, a thousand years before the Sengoku period! At least write down Nobunaga Oda!” “Don’t you think they might take us by surprise and ask a question like Hideyoshi Toyotomi unified Japan, but who was the queen of Yamatai-koku?” “No! Yamatai-koku isn’t Sengoku period, I keep telling you! And if you know about Hideyoshi Toyotomi, then you should at least get one answer right!” “I can remember right now, but I’m the kind of person that goes blank as soon as I’m faced with the test. I won’t be able to tell Hideyoshi Toyotomi from Commodore Perry.” “Their era, pronunciation, spelling, and even nationality are totally different. They don’t have one thing in common.” “Anyway, I’m going to answer Himiko for everything tomorrow! No, actually, I’ll answer Perry for everything, because it’s shorter!” “At least pick Hideyoshi Toyotomi or Nobunaga Oda!” “I don’t want easy success. Success only has meaning when you put effort into it.” “Sure, it sounds cool when you say it, but in this context, it is beyond uncool.” “Actually, I’ve come a long way. I used to draw pandas in the answer columns.” “You really just gave up on it entirely!” “Look, my panda drawings were really good, okay? Maybe I should have been an artist instead?” “You should apologize to all the artists of the world for saying that! Take this seriously! You really won’t get into college at this rate, will you…?” “Don’t worry. If it comes down to it, I’ll use my privileges as daughter of the emperor and force them to let me in.” “You really plan on getting in through the back door, huh?” Her thinking was much worse than he had imagined. “Ryouta, whether the door is the front or back is not important. All that matters is whether or not I put the effort into getting into college.” “Don’t put your efforts into committing fraud, then! I’m serious! I’ll get upset for real!” “I guess I’ll be a high school graduate, at least…” “So you really have zero intention to do any work! You know, I’m worried you won’t be able to graduate high school!” “………To tell the truth, I might not be able to graduate.” This seemed genuinely grave, and Ryouta was at a loss for what to say. “Sigh, even this conversation is just the same as always, isn’t it?” “Well, I could have sworn I heard something pretty dire in there, but… Whatever, I’ll just ignore that for now, yeah…” Shiren was lounging around, her arms stretched out. “That’s right. That’s what a daily routine is. It’s exhausting when there’s too much change. See, maybe it’s hard to experience it here in the Sacred Blood Empire, but people get tired when they travel. Even though you’re just sitting there on a train or an airplane, it saps your energy. I think it’s because just going somewhere unfamiliar takes a lot out of you.” “Now that you mention it, you almost died when you went up that mountain with Sasara… Travel is a terrifying thing…” “Well, no, that was because I was fighting… That’s totally different…” It wasn’t like he was having life-and-death sword battles on every trip he went on. “I really wish my mother wasn’t coming,” Shiren whispered. “Things are fine, and she has no right to be my mother if she’s just going to come and mess all that up. I’ve finally found ways to enjoy life without her. She’s too late. She’s way too late…,” she mumbled to herself, her head drooped to the floor. Indeed—Shiren had had it tough these past few years, all because of her mother. It was hard for her as an ordinary citizen, which was her legal status. But it was also hard for her as the daughter of the human who’d killed the emperor. Even though she was an “ordinary” citizen, she had still been dropped from the royal family—a humiliating demotion. Despite everything, she was supposed to be a princess, and all her privileges had been taken away from her. Even though she had done nothing wrong. And so though Ryouta didn’t know what kind of parting they’d had, he understood well why Shiren would hate Sairi Fuyukura so much. Maybe without that hatred, she wouldn’t have been able to keep herself going. But… “Shiren, I’m the only one here. You don’t have to force yourself to badmouth your mom.” Ryouta also knew it couldn’t be that straightforward for Shiren. This was about parent and child. Even Ryouta would one day have to return to see his mother, still affected by his curse, even if that time was far in the future. “What? Why, does it look like I’m forcing myself?” Shiren huffed, staring hard at him. “Not all your memories with her are bad, right? She was still your mom way before the incident happened.” Shiren’s shoulders shook slightly. Of the many things he’d heard about Sairi so far, they all had one thing in common. None of them were before the incident. Almost as if time itself had begun when her father was tragically murdered. “O-obviously… No matter how much I hate her, I still have a lot of fun memories of her… Going on picnics with her, begging her for a toy until she bought it for me, being comforted by her after I fell and started crying… I know it’s all cliché, but I have memories like those, too… It’d be weirder if I didn’t…” She did have them, after all. Warm memories of parent and child. “I especially remember the festivals. She’d buy me cotton candy, but she’d end up eating seventy percent of it. And she’d eat seventy percent of my okonomiyaki, too. She’d say the caramel apples were too big for me, so she’d eat seventy percent of them. Then she would say that I’d get brain freeze if I ate all the shaved ice, so she’d eat seventy percent of that, too…” “Your mom sure is a glutton!” “But it was nice having her buy so much stuff for me.” “Of course, of course.” “It traumatized me when she ate my goldfish, though.” “What an absurd thing to do to your kid!” “She said it was discrimination that we eat salmon and tuna but not goldfish.” “That’s some extreme logic there!” “But I have so many memories. Lady Ominaeshi was Dad’s legal wife, so he couldn’t just dote on me all the time; I remember he always looked so conflicted. I think he thought he’d be in trouble if he paid too much attention to the child of a consort. So in comparison, I have a lot more memories of my mom.” “See, that’s why you shouldn’t have to force yourself.” “No. That’s exactly why I can never forgive her!” A hint of a sob crept into Shiren’s voice. “She was my dearest, most beloved mother, and then one day, she suddenly…she suddenly disappeared. She didn’t tell me anything, obviously. How could she? She didn’t even say good-bye.” She must be remembering the day it happened. The day she had lost everything. “It’s like yesterday in my mind. I could never forget it. There was a commotion in the house. A voice came from Mom’s room saying that Dad had been killed, and then came another yell that Mom was gone. They didn’t let me into her room, and they didn’t even let me see the body…” Ryouta was at a loss for words, too. There was nothing he could say to comfort her. There was nothing to say except how horrible it all was. No, it was even worse than horrible. And it had suddenly barged its way into the life of an impressionable teen girl. “For a time, they shut me away in my room. They treated it like it was for my own safety, but in reality, they were conducting an investigation. They kept asking me if my mom had ever said anything that might suggest she planned to murder the emperor, or if she ever told me that she was a spy—they asked me the same things over and over again.” Rather than sympathizing with Shiren after she’d lost everything, they were treating her like a suspect. Of course they were. The emperor had been killed right before the Sacred Blooded revolution, and in Sairi’s room—a member of the Virginal Father. Of course suspicion would fall on her daughter, the one who was closest to Sairi besides the emperor himself. “I cried as I told them so many times, she would never, how could I have known? I said there was no kid on Earth who would stand by and let their father be killed if they knew it was going to happen. If I really were her accomplice, I would have been long gone by then—I wouldn’t have stayed. My mind was blank, but I somehow managed to be logical. I was desperate, because I knew if they deemed me a coconspirator, they would probably kill me…” “Ugh…” Just listening to her almost brought Ryouta to tears, too. This was awful. Shiren hadn’t even been given space to grieve her parent. All she could do was plead her own innocence so that she wouldn’t be suspected. That in itself must have felt like an unbelievable disgrace to her, considering she had been brought up as a princess. In one day, she had suddenly been made a suspect in a murder. “I said, I am a proud Sacred Blooded, I have the blood of the emperor in my veins. It is unthinkable I would ever assist in the dealings of a foolish cult…” Shiren’s sobs briefly cut off her words. “Luckily, Big Sis helped me out… She said there was no definitive proof that Sairi was the culprit. In fact, since she had been with the emperor for over ten years, we should also consider the possibility that she was kidnapped as a traitor by the Virginal Father. She told them to stop with the pointless interrogation.” “I see, Ouka saved you…” Ryouta felt sincere relief knowing Shiren had had even the slightest bit of help. “But it was really unlikely that other members of the Virginal Father had been able to infiltrate, so it became official opinion that Sairi had killed the emperor. I was removed from the Sarano family. You know the rest, right?” Shiren’s face was twisted in pain. “Yeah, I know…” “I only wish she’d said something before leaving…” It was a bitter regret. “I wish she’d told me that she only bore me to get close to the emperor, or that she never loved me. Anything like that. I’d have felt refreshed. Then I could have found something else to keep me going…” Not even Ryouta could say he understood how that felt. “But I only learned about the incident after the fact…” Shiren’s shoulders shuddered. “I didn’t know, so I…I…could only wait… Are things supposed to be this painful? Are things supposed to be this unfair?” Shiren most likely cursed not only her mother, but also her own fate. After what she’d gone through, anyone would have done the same. “And now she’s suddenly inviting me to live with her in Japan…? She’s so selfish… Of course I don’t know how to answer… And I’ve started a new life here on my own, too…” “Yeah… It was so shockingly sudden…” “If only she’d told me before you showed up… Then it would have been easy…” “Ah…” Before Ryouta came, Shiren didn’t have Ouka’s pardon. She was treated terribly; it wasn’t overt discrimination, but she didn’t have many friends and was basically all alone. Had this all come to light then, she probably would have chosen to go with Sairi in a heartbeat. It was better to be in Japan with her mother than in a country where she had no one. But now things were different for Shiren. She had made so many ties here in the Empire. “If I have to be honest, I…haven’t made up my mind yet. I think I could refuse her even if she came to see me. But…I won’t know until that happens…” Even though she had declared that going back was unthinkable, the will in her words was fading. But that’s normal. Whose resolve wouldn’t waver? If she turned Sairi down, there was no guarantee of a second chance. She didn’t know where her mother was staying, after all. And if Sairi gave up on her, then they might never have the chance to make contact again. But despite the uncertainty, Shiren would still have to make a decision when the time came. If she froze in place, unable to decide between stay or go, then the choice to stay would be made for her. There was no way to put off the decision. “Sorry… This is all my fault. I really didn’t understand how you felt. You’re right, there’s no way it could be that easy…” He had tried to assess what was going on in front of him based on the assumption that every parent and child would love each other. It was so stupid. What she had here in the Empire was precious, irreplaceable. Choosing one meant discarding the other. “You don’t have to apologize. You’re doing well, Ryouta. If you knew my feelings inside and out, that would make me much more uncomfortable. You’d be a psychic.” Shiren grabbed tightly on to Ryouta’s hand. “You’re so thoughtful when you speak to your master, and you apologize immediately when you think you’ve made a mistake. You’re a model minion.” “Th-thanks…” “I’m glad you’re my minion, Ryouta.” “Your provisional minion.” “I don’t want you to be provisional. I don’t want you to be anyone else’s.” She tightened her grip. “Let me drink your blood.” But her hand was shaking. “…Even if you are provisional, you still have to obey your master’s orders.” “Yes, of course, Master.” Ryouta bent down a little for her. Maybe things would be a lot easier if he actually was her minion, he thought. He felt he was causing problems for a lot of people by leaving everything so ambiguous. “I’ll try not to hurt you…” “Idiot. This stuff hurts. Don’t worry about it, though. I’ll make it through.” “You haven’t put wasabi on yourself, have you?” “No, I haven’t. Come on, do it. This position is making me tired.” “Very well…” He couldn’t see her face anymore. But he didn’t need to see her to know what she looked like. They had done this so many times, but she still looked embarrassed every time as she tried to suck his blood. He decided not to ask her why she was always so embarrassed about it, even though she wanted to do it. Not everything was so simple and clear-cut. Just like the relationship between parent and child. “Haum…” There was a piercing pain, like getting a shot. He could stand it, but he probably wouldn’t ever get used to it. It was a new sensation every time it happened. At least the paralyzing effect would eventually kick in. The Sacred Blooded probably evolved this trait so the humans they made their minions wouldn’t resist. But it didn’t make him very happy, because the paralysis could make him forget about everything, even Shiren, for a brief time. The effect made his consciousness hazy, even obscuring the things right in front of him. All that would be left for him was a pleasant feeling. I’d be a failure of a minion. He had to accept this pain as something that belonged to Shiren. She was the one biting him, after all, and her heart was in pain, too. “Haugh… Hmm…” Ahhh, I know this feeling… It’s similar to when Alfoncina bit me… Shiren must be growing up. It’d been said before that she couldn’t make complete minions because she was half human, but Ryouta wasn’t so sure. She was maturing. And that was why Ryouta would stay in the Empire and be Shiren’s minion. He would live for her. That wouldn’t be so bad. There was something more captivating about it than living entirely for himself. If I became her complete minion now, then I’m sure she’d stay here in the Empire. It was practically impossible for Ryouta to lead a normal life in Japan. If Shiren managed to make him her minion, then she would probably agree to stay for him as well. In other words, she was biting him to deepen her roots here. Please, please succeed, Master… But Ryouta had the feeling they would be interrupted—there were still things keeping them apart. Ohhh nooo~ This is baaad~ Very baaad~ Really bad, if you know what I mean~ So bad~ “What’s this stupid music…?” A melody Ryouta didn’t know echoed throughout the castle grounds. I’m not singing to advertise baked sweet potatoes~ I’m not advertising bamboo poles~ I’m not advertising warabi-mochi~ I’m not a ramen truck~ I’m not collecting waste, either~ What, oh, what could I be~? “Tell us already!” I’m a siren! This is baaad~ This is so very baaad~ “Lead with the siren part! Stop listing things that you’re not!” The Virginal Father might be attacking~ This is baaad~ Don’t panic, at least not too quickly~ “Tell us how to evacuate! Panicking will help no one!” It’s fine, it’s not a problem~ “Prove that it’s fine! It definitely isn’t! We’re kind of in danger here!” Our enemy today doesn’t seem interested in average civilians~ So we’ll probably be fine~ “So that’s what they meant. But we’re not average civilians, are we?” If anything, Shiren was the main target. “Let’s go to the evacuation shelter in the castle, Ryouta. We should still be able to make it if we go now.” “Yeah. We should go while we have the chance. You should be safe there. No—” He couldn’t pretend this wasn’t personal. “I’ll keep you safe.” He grinned and took Shiren’s hand. “Th-thank you…” Her face went red in response. “But it kind of scares me when you say that…” “What do you mean?” “When a character smiles confidently, it usually spells disaster…” “Don’t point that out.” He was well aware of the danger. He had toed the line of death countless times since coming to the Empire. But he already knew what he was capable of and what path he needed to take. “Get ready. I’ll get the most important thing.” “What?” When he came back, he held his sword in his hand. “Noblesse oblige, was it? I’ll fight to protect you, Master.” “Thank you. Keep me safe…from Sairi.” Ryouta would fight, trusting that she was telling the truth. “Yes. I’ll do exactly as you wish, Master.” Ryouta grasped Shiren’s hand again. This time, he held it much tighter. “Let’s go, Master.” She squeezed his hand in return. “Serve me well, Ryouta.”