I watched everything unfold in stunned disbelief from inside my car. Kaede had darted into the station restroom. As soon as she’d come out, that man had driven away with her.
“He couldn’t have shown up at a worse time,” I muttered.
I called Hainuzuka, asking her to meet the client in front of the station, then peeled off in pursuit. The kidnapper, Xu Fu, was an immortal human turned ayakashi, who’d opened a chain of hot spring resorts for our kind around Saga.
Fortunately, the spiritual energy imbuing Kaede’s transit card told me the direction Xu Fu’s car was headed, and I tailed him onto the municipal highway. Based on the interchange he’d used, he was bound for his resort in Futsukaichi.
I could sense Kaede through the card as well, and she showed no signs of being hurt. He probably intended to poach her. With proper training and her inherent spiritual energy, she could become the perfect massage therapist for ayakashi. The likes of Xu Fu would be desperate to recruit her.
I chased him toward Futsukaichi, and at each red light and stop in traffic, my chest squeezed in panic at the memory of Kaede’s sorrow.
“Do you love your former master?” she’d asked, her lip trembling. Racked with guilt over “forcing” me to kiss her.
“Idiot,” I said under my breath. “You’re the victim here, remember?”
No one had forced me to kiss Kaede; she had no reason to apologize. That she was born with powerful spiritual energy and frequently targeted by ayakashi wasn’t her fault. She was a victim of fate.
If anyone should have felt guilty, it was me. I’d kissed Kaede under the pretense of protection and, in doing so, stolen something precious from her. I wouldn’t have blamed her for despising me.
No. Part of me wanted her to despise me. I couldn’t bear to watch her fall prey to the supernatural and die.
Just as Sakura had.
“Not even I expected everything to get so screwed up,” I mumbled. Pausing at a red light, I leaned over the steering wheel with a deep sigh. When I closed my eyes, an image of Sakura, my former master, appeared before me.
“Sakura…”
Memories of my beloved came flooding back. I’d lingered on the Near Shore for over four hundred years to see Sakura one last time. When I encountered Kaede in front of Tenjin Station, she’d looked almost identical to Sakura on the day we’d parted. Unfortunately, she didn’t remember me, not even after I absorbed her spiritual energy and revealed the sigil on my chest.
At that moment, I’d realized that Kaede would be happier if she remained ignorant and away from me. Although I’d longed for a second chance to marry her, Sakura’s spiritual energy had dictated every aspect of her life and, in the end, killed her. Because of her ability, she was adopted as a miko and later compelled to form a master-servant contract with a kitsune. After our farewell, she’d died defending Lady Ginchiyo.
If not for her spiritual prowess, Sakura wouldn’t have become a priestess or met the shapeshifting fox of Chikushino. If not for her spiritual prowess, she would have lived as a normal woman. She wouldn’t have fallen to a curse.
But Sakura was far too extraordinary. She couldn’t have chosen a normal life during that period of history.
Reincarnated in the modern era, however, Kaede was free to follow her own happiness. Her own path in life. If she learned to control her spiritual energy, she could enjoy a normal existence. Wouldn’t that bring her the most joy?
Besides, I was initially an utter stranger to Kaede. While I viewed her and Sakura as a continuous soul, from her perspective, she and Sakura weren’t the same person. Obviously, I couldn’t profess my love to Kaede based on a former life she didn’t remember. After observing humans for over a thousand years, I knew that all too well.
Regardless, I would always love that oddball, no matter how many times she reincarnated. And that was the basis of my unease. Would Kaede have no choice but to endure another life dictated by spiritual energy and ayakashi?
I’d procrastinated: Should that spiritually gifted woman and I become mates and live together once more? Or, because she’d reincarnated into an ordinary existence, should I have solved her spiritual energy leakage and returned her to the normal world immediately?
“How…?” I murmured. “How can I ever tell Kaede that I’ve loved her since her previous life?”
Would it be kinder to tell her that she was my former master? Would she be able to abandon her normal life after learning my feelings for her?
Sakura had perished at the bottom of a well. Involvement with ayakashi only brought death. Did I deserve to hold Kaede in her current life when I hadn’t been able to save her previous one?
“Of course I don’t,” I muttered. “What am I even thinking?”
The light turned green, and I gripped the steering wheel. First and foremost, I needed to rescue her from Xu Fu.
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✦ ✦ ✦
MY abductor wore round glasses and chic, classic Chinese garb. His black, midback-length hair, almond-shaped eyes, and long limbs were bewitchingly sensual. His many rings and thin, metal earrings were additionally striking.
He hummed as he steered onto the off-ramp. The uniformed women had vanished after pulling me into the van, evidently illusions of some kind. In any case, I found myself alone in a vehicle with my kidnapper.
My eyes widened when I looked outside the window. “We’re already so far from Hakata Station.”
After passing Fukuoka Airport on our left, the van zipped through Tsukushi Plain, mountains towering over us on either side. The weather was perfect for a drive, and I would have enjoyed the scenery if not for the circumstances.
“Loosen up a bit, why don’tcha?” my abductor said from the driver’s seat. “Would a snack help?”
“No thanks,” I replied from the back. “So, um, where are you taking me?”
“One of my hot spring resorts. Most of my establishments are in Saga, but we’ll go to the nearest one in Futsukaichi for now.”
“O-Okay…”
“Or would you rather go all the way to Ureshino?” the kidnapper asked. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”
“Well, I would mind! Let me go! This is a crime, y’know!”
“A crime, eh?” He glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “The shapeshifting fox of Chikushino made you cry, did he?”
“Huh?” I recoiled in surprise, touching the corners of my eyes.
“Aha!” laughed the kidnapper. “Nailed it.”
“I was crying for personal reasons. Shinozaki didn’t make me cry.”
“Either way, please enjoy my hot spring to your heart’s content. You can always turn down my offer afterward, right? I’ll even assign one of my best girls to you.”
“One of your best girls? What does that even mean?”
“You’ll find out when we arrive, sweetheart.”
I glanced down at the Hayakaken card dangling from my bag. Surely Shinozaki could pinpoint my location through the makeshift amulet.
For the time being, I had no choice but to believe he would save me.
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