Yae knew that word because of an old burial ground that was discovered in her hometown in Japan. She had visited the ruins on field trips as a kid.
“That’s right. It’s not a name; it’s a word to describe what she is.”
“…You know what? I don’t want to hear any more. I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Yae said firmly, and Arai smiled. She was charmed by his unexpectedly cute expression.
“Hold on, I’m not done. She was a divine being from the land of the dead. Similar to me, but also different.”
“I told you I don’t want to hear it, Mr. Tiger.”
“The purpose behind carving Himogari into the pillar was so that no one would forget who she was,” Arai finished, staring at Yae with the smile still on his face.
“…May I ask you something? Did you carve those characters on the pillar?” she asked, making an effort to be polite. He nodded right away. Oh yeah, he said earlier that he was the one who drove Lady Bihin away! Yae put her fingers to her temples, deep in thought. He had said so many other shocking things that she must have let that one slip by.
“Yae, I don’t want my soul to transform completely like hers.”
“Huh.” She wanted to look away, but his strange, intimidating air locked her in place.
“Drifting here from somewhere else is essentially the same as being reborn in this world. But if a soul drifts here without the divine protection of the karmic cycle, it ends up getting warped.”
Did he mean that because, unlike an uroko, he had come to this world unexpectedly, his soul had been distorted immediately after he arrived?
“Even the black sword was bigger and longer in my last life. It was so large that ten people were needed to hold it.”
“Ten people?!”
She felt like she had heard of a sword like that somewhere before, but she couldn’t quite remember.
“That’s why I have a great, urgent need for someone to bind me and keep me from losing myself,” Arai said with a broad grin. Yae backed up from him a little, and he leaned his face toward hers. “You just drew characters in the air, didn’t you, Yae?”
“Uh, did I do that?”
“You must have come from the same world as me. There’s no way you would be able to draw kanji so easily otherwise.”
…Crap. There were plenty of other uroko who could write simple kanji, but the characters in Bihin were way too rare and complicated for just anyone to be able to recall off the top of their head.
“Your soul isn’t warped. It’s smooth, as if polished by clear water. You’re definitely an uroko brought here by the wheel of fate, but unlike the others, you’ve retained your memories, haven’t you? That’s why you know kanji that are rare in this world.”
Yae tried to slide away from him, but he followed her and peered into her face. The circles of his ring crest spun energetically in his sunflower-colored irises.
“On the topic of memories… I don’t know much about myself, but there are things I do remember,” Arai said. He rested the black sword on Yae’s lap and tapped the hilt lightly. “I have siblings.”
“Really…? How many?” Yae asked.
“I don’t remember exactly. It could’ve been two, four, six…eight, maybe? No, it was ten. Or was it twenty?”
“Whoa now, how high is that number going to climb?” It seemed like he might go on indefinitely. After calling his joke, Yae frowned disapprovingly. Arai was probably just trying to get her attention and keep her from running away from him.
“Sibling might not be right. Maybe spiritual family is closer, or blood relative…?”
Yae looked away from the muttering Arai and flicked the center of the black sword. Sometimes I can’t tell if your master is smart or a bit of an airhead, she thought. It rattled violently in her lap. Goodness, why is this sword so scary?
“Anyway, I only remember one of them clearly,” Arai said, glaring at her as if telling her not to play with his sword. She wished he would teach his pet some manners. “My younger brother Sui. He was taken away when I was sealed. They were probably afraid he would break me out.”
“Are you saying your brother is sealed somewhere else?” Yae asked.
Arai patted her on the head. Her hair was already like seaweed, and now he was messing it up even more—how rude.
“Just so you know, my brother isn’t like me. He’s delicate. He has a heart as gentle as moonlight. He’s been sealed for a long time, so it’s likely his soul’s transformation has progressed further than mine.”
“…Does he have deformation?”
“This world is funny, isn’t it? Whether you’re a divine being, an object, or a flower, we all catch disease the same,” he said self-deprecatingly, and then he turned to Yae. The circles in his eyes were moving back and forth like pendulums. “This world is like the dawn. Things haven’t become fixed yet, which makes them prone to change.”
Yae thought about that. She wondered if he meant dawn like a beginning, before the day had begun, or like an end, the time after the night was already over. She couldn’t help but think it was the latter.
“I’d like to meet your brother,” she said sympathetically to shake off that grisly thought. Arai’s lips curled into a smile.
“I’d like to see him, too. Yeah, that’s a great idea. I’ll introduce you to him.”
“…Huh?”
Arai whispered softly to the frightened Yae. “You are my life. And conveniently, you know how to perform ceremonies.”
“No, I don’t. I just do what I’m told—”
“Find a way to free my brother like you did me. His soul has likely transformed to some extent, but we might still be able to save him if we start now.”
“Like I have any idea how to do that!”
“If you successfully save my brother, I’ll return you to Kaki Province.”
Yae froze for a moment, then relaxed and smiled awkwardly. “It would be great if I could save your brother…but that offer isn’t going to tempt me. I’m not planning on returning to Kaki Province anytime soon.”
The truth was that she couldn’t return. Arai smiled with a mysterious look in his eyes, as if he sensed the tangled feelings in Yae’s heart.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take responsibility and make sure you have no problems living there.”
“How?”
“I’ll kill everyone in the village,” he declared, smiling boastfully as if it were a brilliant idea. Did this mad tiger want to make her into one of the greatest villains in history? “We might as well kill all the people in Miya Province while we’re at it. Those men left you to die, right?”
“I’m not mad enough about it to want you to kill all of them,” Yae responded immediately. It wasn’t every day someone asked you about slaughtering a whole village as casually as if they were asking you out for lunch. Even his sword was clattering violently in her lap as if saying “Let’s make heads fly!” She really wished it would stop.
“Oh, come on, I’d mostly be doing it for myself, so don’t worry about it. The people who sealed me a century ago were from Miya Province, too,” Arai admitted.
“You need to create more of a mood before you confess heavy stuff like that! Stop smiling. And the answer is still no.” Yae shook her head, and Arai looked at her quizzically.
“Why are you stopping me? Weren’t you just yelling about how hard and painful all that was for you?”
He just had to dredge up the moment she was trying hardest to forget. What a demon.
“A Wild Nature was forced upon me when I drifted to this world. I find you dull and uninteresting as a Natureless woman, too.”
“Way to make me feel better.” She glared, and Arai crossed his arms and reclined confidently.
“But I’m not looking for you to be interesting or have luck with men. You mean something to me, so I couldn’t care less about your Nature.”
Yae did wish he would stop hitting her with surprise kindness like that right after putting her down; this seesaw business wasn’t easy on the heart for a simple girl starved for kindness. There was one thing she couldn’t allow herself to forget, though: This man had swung his blade at her head with all his might.
“Does my Nature not matter to you because you’re planning to kill me?” Yae hadn’t meant to give him a biting retort like that, but it escaped her mouth thoughtlessly. She regretted it immediately. The surprise in Arai’s gaze was palpable. She might as well go ahead and ask another question. Yae gripped the black sword with sweaty hands and opened her mouth again.
“Why did you save me as Lord Kuroashi and then try to kill me after I released you from the stone monument?” Her theory was that she had served her purpose when she released his real body. She stroked the black sword and prayed she was wrong.
“…Why does it matter? I wasn’t able to kill you in the end,” he answered. That wasn’t the answer Yae wanted. She was too afraid to look up and see what kind of expression he was wearing. “You’re the one who’s been singing ‘serve me, serve me,’ for all these years. You have a responsibility toward me.”
Yae was startled. She looked up reflexively and saw he was smiling wickedly. Arai still hadn’t opened up to her at all. His eyes were cold and conveyed that he was only here with her because of some specific reason.
“‘By the earth and by the heavens, I offer my body to you. So even if we’re separated, obey and kneel to me for all eternity.’ You’ve been demanding that from me for years. And you know what, I’ll grant your damn wish. How can I turn down someone saying they want me so passionately?!” Arai said.
“No, that wasn’t my intention,” Yae protested.