Because of the chaos caused by the unexpected Sankourou run-in, the girls called it a day early.
After Hana returned home, Aoi found out she had been injured and flew into a rage. He pulled his sword, having every intention of running out of the house to find that Yukizasa guy and cut him down. Miyabi calmly stepped in and quieted him with a swing of her giant squeaky hammer. Then she brought out the first aid kit, saying that taking care of Hana came first.
“Master, are you really okay?” Aoi asked.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“So you say, but I can’t forgive him for marring your beautiful skin,” Miyabi said.
“See?! You agree with me. Then let’s go pay him a visit and show our thanks,” Aoi said.
“You have a point.” Miyabi’s lips curved into a grim smile—her eyes weren’t laughing. From her expression, it was clear that she was equally outraged by the bruise on Hana’s arm.
“I told you already— No,” Hana said.
“But whyyy?” Aoi whined in displeasure.
“Yukizasa is the successor of the Sankourou clan, so he must be very strong—strong enough to capture Azuha without breaking a sweat,” she said. “He’s on a different level. If you pick a fight with him blindly, you might end up hurt, and that would make me sad. So no, you can’t go.”
Of course, the one who had stood up to such a dangerous person and openly glared at him as if to say Come at me anytime! was none other than Hana herself. If Hazuki hadn’t been by her side, she undoubtedly would have thrown at least one punch at him.
But in hindsight, thinking about it logically, her opponent had been the next head of the Sankourou clan. As the wife of the Ichinomiya clan lord, her actions might have sown the seeds of discord between the clans. It was a good thing she hadn’t laid a hand on him.
Not that he had shown her the same courtesy, given the bruise on her arm… She wondered if her injury was grounds enough for her to complain to the Sankourou clan, but she decided to defer to Saku’s judgment.
“Let’s take care of your wound first, Master,” Miyabi said.
“I’ll deal with it. You may all leave,” Hana said.
“But…”
“I can treat myself.”
She couldn’t bear for her shikigami to see the bruise, which had gradually turned a horrifying color. She didn’t want to worry them.
“Go on already. Bring me a snack and tea,” Hana requested. “We were going to eat lunch together, but thanks to that a-hole, we missed our meal. Oh, and bring some to Hazuki, too.”
Miyabi stared solemnly at Hana for a while, but then she sighed in defeat. “I understand. We’ll prepare something, so please treat yourself properly.”
Hana laughed softly. “I got it already.”
Miyabi and Aoi cast her one last concerned glance, then left the room. Azuha followed them.
Once she was alone, Hana sighed deeply.
“Ugh, geez, he did a number on me. Monster,” she grumbled as she opened the first aid kit and started to treat her bruise.
The throbbing pain seemed to have only gotten worse as time had passed. She had put on a brave face in front of her shikigami, but it seriously hurt. No one could blame her for the dark mutterings that came pouring from her mouth.
She let out a steady stream of complaints as she cleaned her wound, but since she was limited to using one hand, she wasn’t having as much success as she would have liked, and the inconvenience only fueled her irritation.
“I should have just let Miyabi do it,” she muttered.
However, Hana knew that Miyabi, despite looking as beautiful and gentle as a goddess, actually had a shorter fuse than Aoi, and she hadn’t been able to ask that of the shikigami.
While Hana was wrestling with the kit, Saku entered the room.
The moment she saw his face, she started airing her grievances. “Sakuuu. What’s with your friends?”
“I heard. That’s my bad.”
“Why are you the one apologizing? It’s not your fault.”
“Because mainly, I was the reason he did it…” Then, unable to watch her struggle with the attempted treatment any longer, he said, “Give that here,” and offered to take over.
Hana obeyed and handed Saku the kit, and he started to tend to her injury.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Badly.”
In front of Miyabi, she had been able to play it cool and say she was fine, so why had she told Saku the truth?
She didn’t have to put on airs around him and could say what she was thinking without holding back. He was older than her, but they faced each other as equals.
The more she thought about it, the more curious their relationship seemed.
“Sorry,” Saku said.
“Seriously, why are you apologizing?”
“Yukizasa recently found out I married and has been hounding me to get divorced. I refused, obviously. He was being extremely annoying, so I started rejecting his calls, and it seems like that only piqued his interest more.”
“How does he have the gall to tell someone else to divorce?”
“He’s a my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy, and he thinks you’re not suitable for me. He believes we only married for the sake of the barrier. On top of that, he’s irritated that I didn’t tell him beforehand. But how was I supposed to contact a guy in the middle of the Obsidian-rank exam?”
Saku gently stroked Hana’s bruised arm apologetically. His usual fire was nowhere to be seen.
“Anyway, it’s my fault for letting him off his leash,” he added.
Hana was overcome by an urge to pet his head. She withdrew her arm in alarm.
“You’re friends?” she asked.
“I guess you could say that…”
“Huh? That’s vague.”
“He’s a buddy from my rebel days.”
“Rebel? Who? You?”
Considering that Saku was now the exemplary lord of the Ichinomiya clan, Hana couldn’t picture him as a teenage rebel in the slightest.
“I was pretty wild in my student days.”
She looked at him with surprise. “Really?”
“Shocked?”
“Yup,” she replied without hesitation.
Saku chuckled. “I hated everyone and everything back then. I saw the whole world as my enemy.” He sighed and paused. “Those aren’t days I like remembering…”
Hana watched Saku as he told her about his past, but his eyes were focused somewhere far away.
“You said before that you understand how Nozomu feels, but I empathize with Hazuki,” he admitted. “I faced expectations and pressure from everyone around me. To answer them, I pushed myself to the brink, and as a result, I broke down. For a time, not even my mother could deal with me.”
His tone was light, but his words were anything but.
“Not to copy what you said, but why does everyone and their mother feel the need to compare…?”
In his expression was a trace of loneliness—and pain.
Saku was a tyrant and a narcissist. He was strong and had walked the path of a practitioner all his life without straying. That was what Hana had thought.
But he had his own woes.
It felt like this was the first time she had seen his vulnerable side.
Without thinking, Hana embraced Saku.
His eyes widened in surprise. “What are you doing?”
“You did the same for me before. Now it’s my turn.”
His lips curved in a tender smile, and his eyes slipped shut. He gathered her in his arms.
“…That was when I met Yukizasa. Back then, he was just one of the candidates to succeed the clan, but he was also the most powerful. We shared the same worries and frustrations, so it was easier to breathe when I was with him. That’s why I say our relationship is a little different than friends.”
“I see. He seemed really concerned about who you married.”
“There’s a part of him that still can’t let go of the past. That’s why he’s still fixated on me to some extent. But it’s impossible for us to stay the same as we were back then.” Saku snickered. “What a little punk he is.”
Their gazes locked.
Saku’s eyes showed his usual unwavering strength of will.
His hand came up around her head, and he drew slowly closer. She could have dodged if she had wanted to, but she stayed where she was.
Their lips touched. They felt each other’s warmth through the kiss.
“…People say if pushing doesn’t work, try pulling,” Saku said.
Where had his fragility from earlier gone?
He smirked. The usual cocky despot was back.
Hana gaped.
“When Yukizasa pressed you to divorce me, unlike the time with Kikyou, you shot him down flat, or so I heard.”
“Y-you heard wrong.”
“I don’t think so,” Saku said. “You’re always going on about getting divorced. I never imagined you actually loved me so much. I’m thrilled.”
“No! I just said that because he was pissing me off!” Hana protested.
Her fluster and desperate excuses only made him happier.
Delighted by her reaction, he laughed. “Ha-ha-ha. Don’t be embarrassed.”
Hana shot him a glare. “Dumbass!”
She had been genuinely worried about him, and he had cruelly tricked her. She hammered him with her fists, but he only seemed more pleased than before.
“Stop that. You’re a patient. You’re going to hurt yourself,” he said.
“It already hurts! Whose fault is that?”
Saku cradled her injured arm and continued the treatment. He finished off by binding the wound securely.
“Aren’t you overdoing it a bit?” Hana said.
“Just in case. Go to the hospital if it gets worse.”
“Sure, sure.”
Saku had finished treating her injury, but he still wouldn’t let her go.
She looked at him, wondering what was up.
He leaned over and dropped a kiss on top of the bandages.
His touch was tender as if he were handling something broken.
Hana was suddenly at a loss for words. Her mouth opened and closed.
With his lips still pressed to her arm, Saku peered up at her.
She was paralyzed by his solemn gaze.
His lips slowly lifted away.
“I will warn Yukizasa off. If the same thing happens again, come to me for help right away,” he said.
“…Okay.”
“Good girl.”
Saku stroked her hair gently one last time before leaving her room.
Alone, Hana blushed fiercely and hid her face with both hands.
“What the hell…?”
She thought back on the range of emotions Saku had shown her. She knew she had been played by him, but she couldn’t fight the feelings blooming inside her.