Awazuki thanked whichever god had allowed the sky to stay overcast even as she cursed the one who had decided the wind should remain wintry and bitter. Direct sunlight made the coloured streaks in her hair pop out, and more than once she had caught Meizuki staring at them even after they had mercifully dimmed to a more manageable seaweed hue.
Not that Meizuki was looking in her direction at the present moment. Her gaze was focused on a seemingly innocent pine tree growing by a faint animal trail partially covered by melting snow, her usually smooth brow contracted into a deep frown. Of course, Awazuki knew why: though sight couldn't reveal it, the tree marked the edge of the outer barrier keeping them at bay from the inner one.
"One walked..." Meizuki made a sweeping gesture with her hand over what looked like an untouched snowbank. "Right there." Her brow furrowed further, to where Awazuki wouldn't have been surprised if the lines had remained permanently etched on her face. "There were many of them here last night, but all but one of them retreated back in."
Awazuki nodded and buried her hands in her sleeves as Meizuki continued tracking the youkai's path, resisting the urge to use her magic to summon a warm breeze. Of the two of them, Meizuki had always had a closer connection to the gods, and since Awazuki's instincts had recently waned in equal measure to the moon without ever quite waxing back, all she could do was to trust her sister.
"And one of them was the one who killed that man?" she asked.
"I believe so, yes." Meizuki closed her eyes as though the darkness allowed her to see the wandering youkai she had unexpectedly sensed and dragged Awazuki to the back of the shrine to find. "What did you say it looked like, again?"
Awazuki recounted her fading memories of the tattered youkai. She had blurted out an edited version of her experiences as soon as she had woken Meizuki up, leaving out the manner by which she had crossed the initial barrier and instead focusing on Grandmother's words and the strong suspicion she had that the youkai were up to something. Ever since her words had given it shape, the lie had become more real in her mind than the true events, to where if it hadn't been for her hair and the curious itching of her ear that came and went as the sun rose and fell, she would have been able to convince herself the whole experience was merely an elaborate dream.
Meizuki listened to what little details she could still remember with a stoic expression. "Very well. I'll know it when I see it."
"Why would it come back?" Awazuki asked, speaking more to herself than her sister. "Do you think it was hungry?" It had been a lean winter, after all. But even then, why leave behind whatever lay behind the barrier, surely a much safer place for youkai than even the outskirts of Reishoumiya.
Meizuki straightened her back. "Does it matter?"
"It might help us find it, is all." She tried to keep her tone airy, wary of the note of suspicion she thought she had heard in her sister's voice.
"Of course." And that was it. When Meizuki turned towards her, she was her usual calm self. "I think I should stay here for a moment longer."
"Will you be warm enough?" She allowed this question to substitute for all her other concerns, including her recurring nightmare about the inner barrier suddenly collapsing with Meizuki nearby.
"I will." Meizuki's smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "You'll come tell me at once if word has arrived, won't you?"
"Of course."
Not that it will have, Awazuki thought as she trekked towards the village, avoiding slippery patches on the path where the snow had melted and reformed into ice. As soon as Meizuki had stopped asking for further details, they had decided that whatever was going on was too big for them to deal with by themselves, and had dispatched messengers to seek help from the outside world. The young man whose father had been killed had been all too eager to volunteer, but now, two months later, neither he nor any of the others who had dared to brave the snow and the stifling cold had yet to return. There was nothing to do now but to wait and hope, waking up every morning expecting a calamity and being mildly surprised that life went on as before, that the sun rose a little higher each morning, and that by now one might even say spring had arrived without a single soul returning to Reishoumiya.
A single soul...
She lengthened her stride. Who knew? Perhaps she would enter the village to see the people gathered around the familiar figure of a former nun with bizarre hair.
She smiled at the thought, then halted and stared as she reached the centre of Reishoumiya and saw there genuinely was a commotion. Doing her best to hide her excitement, she approached, the dim hope soon snuffed out and replaced by confusion.
The crowd had formed around two village women, neither of whom Awazuki was particularly familiar with. The older one of the pair was hurling abuse at the younger and trying to swipe the bundle she held tightly against her chest. The general noise was punctuated by the weeping of a third woman standing slightly apart from the other two, very young and dressed in rags, obviously a stranger.
Whatever was going on, it was firmly within the Hakurei clan's jurisdiction. Awazuki gathered herself and waded into the growing crowd.
"It's an abomination!" The older woman cried out, panic evident in each syllable.
"It is not our place to decide!"
"You know what Lady Hakurei's decision will be just as well as I do. Hand it over!"
By then, the villagers had recognised Awazuki and allowed her direct access to the three women. "What's going on here?"
At the sight of her, the bickering pair bowed. The one holding the bundle eyed her suspiciously, the one trying to snatch it away from her with hope.
"Lady Hakurei," the older woman began, her tone at once more soft and respectful. Awazuki was suddenly conscious of the dozens of pairs of eyes on her, and hoped her hair didn't look too strange at the moment. "It's a matter of this drifter and the monster she's carrying with her."
She nudged the younger woman with her elbow, and reluctantly, she held the bundle out for Awazuki to inspect.
The stranger began to tremble.
Awazuki was just about to ask what she was seeing when the bundle began to wail with the unmistakable high-pitched warbling of a baby.
"One look at it will tell you all you need to know," the older woman said grimly. "It is clear the moment you clap eyes on it that it has youkai blood. You know the stories, Lady Hakurei."
Awazuki did know the stories. "Right. I'll take it."
The younger woman bit her lip, but handed the bundle over without dallying. Awazuki cradled it to the best of her ability and shifted some of the cloth aside for a better look at the child. It was indeed a baby, perhaps from the previous autumn — Awazuki wasn't familiar enough with infants to say exactly how old — and indeed, it didn't take an expert to tell it wasn't human. Its few tufts of hair were bright yellow, and the eyes that stared back at Awazuki with tired indignation were a deep vermilion.
"Right." She adjusted the bundle in her arms. "This will be seen to. Back to your business, everyone!"
The crowd mostly dispersed, but Awazuki noticed the younger woman hovered nearby, obvious pity in her eyes. She ignored her for now and instead focused on the stranger.
The stranger, wiped her face in her sleeves and focused her red-rimmed eyes on Awazuki, desperately holding back hiccups. Though the shape of her face marked her as a foreigner, she was still obviously a human.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" Awazuki asked.
The stranger nodded, her eyes wide.
"Good. Walk with me."
She followed the path just outside the village centre, relieved beyond measure that the child stopped screaming after a while. The stranger shuffled after her with a resigned air.
After they were far enough to talk without being immediately overheard, Awazuki turned towards her. "Let's start from the beginning. What is your name?"
The stranger closed her eyes. "...They call me Akasei, here."
Probably a translation that sounded less odd in her own tongue. Awazuki sighed. Knowing the mother likely had no family to return to in Japan wasn't going to make this any easier. "And is this your child?"
Akasei shuddered. "Yes."
A year ago, the thought of holding a half-youkai child would have filled Awazuki with revulsion. Now, it simply made her feel very tired. "Then I'll take you to nearest road south. They say there are fewer youkai there, so maybe—"
She halted, feeling very foolish as Akasei began to shake her head.
"No matter where we go, humans will not accept her." Her accent was strange, but it didn't detract from the gravity of her tone, nor from Awazuki's horror when fresh tears sprung to the stranger's eyes. "Miss shrine maiden, is there anything you can do? The eyes? The wings?"
"Wings?" Awazuki felt through the fabric and paused dead in her track after tracing the curious shape of the child's shoulder blades. "She can change her eye colour herself if she learns magic, but that will be too late to help. And the wings..." She shook her head. "I don't know any way to remove them that will not harm her."
Akasei nodded, having likely known the answer before even asking the question. "Then she is doomed. Humans will not accept her, and her father is in the Well of Spirits and hasn't come back."
Awazuki very nearly pointed out Reishoumiya was the Well of Spirits, but something about the way Akasei pronounced the words made her think she meant another place entirely. She had a gut feeling about which place it was, too. She had to wonder. Which had been named first: the village, or the realm behind the barrier?
"...You are the ruler here?"
She jerked back to reality to find Akasei eyeing her with unbridled curiosity. "Well. Not exactly, but..."
"I saw how they looked at you and spoke to you. Like you were an important person. And you told them to go away and they did."
"I mean, sure. It's my duty to protect this village, and that means—"
Akasei nodded along with her words. Then, abruptly, she set her jaw and placed her hand on the bundle, pushing it snugly against Awazuki's chest.
"Wha—" She held on out of instinct, cradling the child.
Akasei had already stepped back before she could complete her protest. She brought her hands to her chest. "They will kill her if I take her. You can protect her."
"What?!" Awazuki stared at Akasei, then at the baby, who had at some point during the conversation fallen asleep, then at Akasei again. "I'm sorry, but I really can't!"
"You must!" Determination mingled with desperation. "The child did nothing wrong by being born. If I die, that is fine, but the child... she is just a child. She should live."
Awazuki kept staring at her. What else could she do?
Akasei clasped her hands together. "Please." She stepped forward and placed them over Awazuki's hands where she held the baby. "You are a great lady and can keep her safe. You can make them love her."
Awazuki remained as still as a statue. Perhaps it wasn't her being a foreigner that made her so strange: the longer she spoke, the clearer it became Akasei was simply mad. All the same, her pleas made Awazuki's chest ache.
"I think I knew..." Akasei continued when she said nothing, "that my life was over before I came back. That is fine. But the child..." She squeezed her eyes shut, then stepped back once more. "You keep her. You keep her safe. Please. Please..."
If she said more, it petered to silence. Awazuki was left standing uncertainly with the slumbering baby in her arms as Akasei doubled over in despair.
"Look, um, Akasei..." She eventually said, to fill the deafening void with something. "I can promise to take her and make sure you get a meal and a good night's rest before you leave."
Akasei looked up, fresh tears in her eyes. "You promise?"
There was a lump in Awazuki's throat. "I promise."
Akasei broke into a smile as her tears streamed freely forth. "I knew it. A saint. A true saint..."
It took them little time to find the woman who had tried to protect the child earlier. She flinched at the sight of Awazuki, then relaxed after seeing she was still carrying the baby.
Already, Awazuki felt like she had made a terrible mistake, but there was no taking back what she had said. She would take the matter to its conclusion, like a true Hakurei. "Can you look after her," she nodded in the direction of Akasei, "for tonight? And make sure she gets safely back on her way?"
The young woman eyed the other nearby villagers, who were now either pretending to be preoccupied by other things or whispering to one another. At length, she nodded. "It should be no problem. It wasn't her they wanted."
She sounded like she didn't believe her own words at all, but Awazuki took them at face value nonetheless. "Make sure she gets a good meal before she goes."
"Of course, Lady Hakurei."
The young woman gestured at Akasei to follow, and she did so, slowly shuffling ahead like a woman thrice her age.
It was only after they had already made it to quite the distance when Awazuki remembered something and ran after them, slowed down by the weight of the child in her arms.
"What's... what's her name?" She panted once she had finally reached them and tapped the surprised Akasei on the shoulder.
"Oh..." Akasei appeared to think. As Awazuki began to wonder if the child didn't have a name at all, she spoke again. "She is Kurumi."
With a final lingering glance at the child, she turned away and kept walking, the young woman gently guiding her. Awazuki stood in place only long enough for other villagers to began gathering around her again, then walked away herself, fearing the sight of those final, despairing tears would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Meizuki's eyes lit up at the sight of the baby, only to dim immediately after seeing her eyes. Still, she took the child to her arms when Awazuki offered it to her, cooing at it as she would at any human child. She smiled at it, but Awazuki could tell her smile was stained by a similar melancholy as the baby's mother had been: the knowledge she would soon have to let it go.
Indeed, as soon as the baby's eyes fluttered momentarily back shut, she gestured at Awazuki to sit down for a talk. "Is it a villager's?"
"No. A stranger's."
Meizuki nodded, as if that was all the further knowledge she needed. "What are we going to do?"
Awazuki shrugged, as though stalling was going to make things any easier. "All I promised is that I'd take her."
"Well, you have done that." Meizuki rocked the baby gently back and forth. "You poor child." Her voice was gentleness itself, but when she looked up to meet Awazuki's eyes, every inch of her face was wracked with anguish.
She halted. "Perhaps we could... let her live."
"We could," Awazuki agreed. "We could find someone to raise her, or else raise her here ourselves. And if anyone complains, all you have to do is tell them to deal with it because that is the will of their shrine maiden, and..."
An awkward silence fell. They had both known taking care of the child in Reishoumiya was never an option. Trying to raise something part youkai among humans wasn't a murmurs and rumours kind of issue, but the torches and assassinations kind. It was like placing wolf pups in a litter of dogs and not expecting it to end in tears and torn throats.
That meant...
Meizuki resumed rocking the child as though the discussion had ended, which in a way it had as neither could utter the only remaining choice. Slowly, tears rose to her eyes before rolling down her face, falling softly on the cloth bundling the child.
By the time the third tear fell Awazuki could take it no longer and bounced to her feet. "I'll do it."
Meizuki looked up, wiping away her tears. "What?"
"I'll deal with it. You don't have to worry about a thing. I'll..." She took a deep breath. "I'll figure it out. I promise."
Meizuki stared at her, and when Awazuki reached for the child, she only relinquished it with the utmost reluctance.
Awazuki cradled the baby against her chest, where it nuzzled, heedless of the fact it would find no milk there. "Right. See you later."
Meizuki had stood up after her. "Sister, you won't really..."
"We have to do something." The words made her blood feel like lead, and she groped for anything at all she could use to change the subject. "Do you know where that youkai went?"
"What? Oh..." Meizuki's frown was only partially that of concentration. "I thought it had headed eastwards, but I couldn't find it."
"That's fine." For whatever reason, youkai were easier to track down when they were in their own element, the night. "It's a long-shot, but I'll see if I can hunt it down later."
"Don't overburden yourself." For all her recent good health, Meizuki looked as sad and distraught as she had at her worst during the winter. "I'll see to it later. I don't want to become a complete burden, do I?"
Night still fell early, and had done so by the time Awazuki slipped away with the baby. The sky was a gorgeous silken blue, but that did nothing to alleviate the heavy weight in her arms.
She crept by the jizou statue with a spell of silence to mute her footsteps, then walked haphazardly. No matter how she tried, she couldn't stop thinking about the child's mother. Had removing the burden of an ensorcelled child from her really been a mercy? Or had she merely consigned her to a different sort of hell?
The baby began to grizzle once she reached the thawing fields closest to the woods, and Awazuki weaved a wreath of warm air around its small frame. It was then that she realised she had no idea where she was going.
She paused, staring down at the baby. How could she possibly leave such a small, helpless creature in a forest to be feasted upon by youkai and animals?
The baby kept crying, more urgently now, almost as if it could sense the fate awaiting it. Cruel claws and fangs ripping into its tiny, still-beating heart... No, surely allowing that would be the greatest sin of all. A greater mercy would be to kill it before, but how? Was she supposed to smash its head in?
She imagined herself hoisting up a large rock and shattering the baby's vulnerable skull. She saw the blood, heard the cries ceasing at once, replaced by a deafening silence that stretched no matter where she went. And the stench of copper...
She held the baby closer, never mind how it was bellowing. No. She could never. But then what?
It was then that she saw a light in the woods ahead. Her shoulders shot upwards as she straightened her back, suddenly fully alert. She did her best to shush the baby, and almost as if it had understood how vital it was to stay quiet, its cries quickly turned to a low rumble, then silence.
The light vanished behind some trees, then appeared again. A villager looking for a hidden cache of food with a lantern? No, not at this hour. It had to be either a stranger or a youkai.
Awazuki stared at the light, uncertain how to proceed. Approaching a hostile youkai with her hands full was suicide, but every moment she spent on her shrine maiden duties was another moment before she had to make a decision regarding little Kurumi.
As she waited, the light appeared closer to the edge of the woods, where she just could make out the outline of the creature holding it. The silhouette told her nothing but that its owner had a human shape.
Then, she saw the lantern's wielder wasn't alone. Her jaw dropped.
She was rushing across the field before she even finished her thought.
"Ichirin!"
The figure, which was indeed Ichirin, Awazuki could see her clearly now, straightened her back and turned to stare, continuing to do so till Awazuki was by her side. Looking at her startled expression, Awazuki wished she could have thrown her hands around her right there and then.
"Awazuki!" The wide smile that spread across Ichirin's face was almost as good as a hug.
She raised the lantern for a better view, then stared at the baby. "Is that yours?"
"Of course not!" Despite everything, Awazuki found herself smiling freely. "Where's Hijiri?"
"Back at camp. We just made it here and are setting up. I'm looking for kindling." She exchanged glances with Unzan. "It can wait, though. Want to go see her now?"
Awazuki nodded at once, then glanced upwards. Dark though it was, it likely wasn't midnight yet.
The first day of spring.
And just like that, she knew the worst of her problems were over.
In twenty minutes' time, Awazuki was sitting opposite Hijiri by a roaring fire, waiting for the water to boil, with Ichirin and Shou sitting placidly on another log, the former occasionally stoking the fire and the latter occupying herself with the now slumbering baby. Minamitsu Murasa was nowhere to be seen — she had stayed behind for now, apparently, having missed the ocean despite all the misery it had caused her.
Apart from the dust around the hem of her robes, Hijiri herself looked just as Awazuki remembered, with the same kindly eyes and strange hair. It was almost as if she had never left.
Her voice was the same, too, as was the small nod she gave Awazuki after she finished relating the gist of her wintry excursion. "That is indeed a concern."
"Time's running out, whatever it is." Awazuki poked at the fire with a stick, her peace impugned by visions of flames and corpses.
"If things come to a head," Shou suddenly said, looking up from the flames that were still reflected in her eyes, "I'm sure Nazrin can go and fetch some help."
Awazuki nodded at her. Apart from the ever-elusive Nazrin, who she was yet to meet at all, and the immensely terrifying Murasa, Shou was the follower of Hijiri's she knew the poorest. All the same, she quite liked her: she had a kind of quiet dignity she would never have expected in a youkai a year before.
"We'll have to investigate the matter as soon as possible," said Hijiri. "As for your most pressing matter..."
The baby gurgled, as if aware it was being spoken of.
"Of course we can take her in."
"Thank you!" Awazuki exclaimed, bowing her head before catching herself. Perhaps it was just how long it had been since she had last seen Hijiri, but something about her calm gaze made her feel skittish the way her re-union with Ichirin hadn't. "I mean... I'm very grateful."
Hijiri chuckled, then accepted the burden as Ichirin offered the child to her. She smiled down at the swaddled bundle. "Hello, there." When the child didn't react, she turned her attention back to Awazuki. "Even now, I must admit I'm surprised thay you are willing to entrust us with a human child."
"Half human," Awazuki corrected her. "Half youkai. In other words, it's your kin too."
Hijiri stared at her, then raised the blanket obscuring the child's head.
"Oh, I see now," she said, twirling a blonde lock of hair growing on the child's head around her finger. "A hanyou, then." She tickled the child's chin. "You're a rarity, my dear. What is her name?" The last part was addressed at Awazuki.
"Kurumi." Awazuki followed up with a more detailed explanation of where she had come from: earlier, she had mostly stated that the child was in urgent need of anyone willing to look after her outside of Reishoumiya.
The youkai listened to her tale with deepening intrigue, and after it was concluded, Hijiri let out a soft sigh. "One of these days I would like to pass an hour without a single reminder of how much work there still lies ahead of us."
"The day will come, Lady Byakuren," Shou commented before focusing on the flames.
"I feel like it has been worse, lately," Ichirin chimed in. "Only recently, Lady Byakuren found herself hounded by a youkai exterminator."
Awazuki gave a start. "You were unmasked?"
Hijiri nodded. Though still maintaining an aura of serenity, she didn't look entirely pleased with the topic. "Really, Awazuki, you of all people should know that my appearance alone isn't a guaranteed safeguard."
Awazuki brushed that aside, fully aware of the silliness of her words: of course she knew she and Meizuki weren't the only people in the world who could sense youkai. "You should be more careful."
"I'm not sure there's much more I can do, really. All the same, we believe I have eluded her for now: she hasn't made a single appearance since we retreated from the residence of the Hieda clan."
"If you say so." The thought of a exterminator with her sights set on Hijiri made Awazuki's stomach turn, but she did her best to brush it aside.
Before she had to think of another topic to fill the silence, the baby did her job for her by letting out an ear-splitting scream. Ichirin, who had been holding her, jerked back and did her best to soothe the crying bundle.
"What do I do, Lady Byakuren?" she asked when her best efforts only made the small red face bunch up further and holler even more.
Hijiri took the baby in her arms and attempted to soothe it by cooing to it gently. The baby paused, her huge eyes fixed on the gentle hazel irises above her, hiccuped, and then began to scream twice as loud.
"Oh dear." Hijiri sighed, rocking the baby back and forth to no effect. "I must admit that I don't have much experience with babies."
Awazuki reached out. "Neither do I, but I can give it a try."
The baby was in her arms so fast she was convinced magic was involved. She rocked the baby, doing her best to mimic Meizuki's demeanour. She had always been good with the village children, gentle while still managing to act as an authority figure. Of course, a child this small didn't need discipline as much as it did food and sleep.
"...It's probably hungry," she said after trying to think just how long it had been since the child had been fed.
At once, Ichirin was on her feet. "I will go find something."
"A baby this small can only drink milk—" Awazuki began uncertainly, but by then Ichirin and Unzan had vanished into the woods.
"She knows." Awazuki looked down, a little surprised she wasn't just imagining things and that Hijiri really had placed a comforting hand on her arm. "It won't be an issue. We will find a way."
"Right." Was she so ready to believe Hijiri because it was more convenient for her, or because she actually trusted her? She could no longer tell. What she could tell was that it might take Ichirin some time to procure milk from whatever obscure source she had in mind, and if they had to listen to the baby cry till then they'd all go mad. "Think we can distract her?"
"Do you have something in mind?"
"Yes. Hey, Kurumi." She put on a smile even though the baby hadn't reacted to her name. "I'm going to show you something."
She secured her against her chest with one hand, then raised the other aloft and began to chant in a clear, light voice. Tiny spheres of light popped into existence above her open palm, rotating lazily around and orbiting each other in tiny ellipses. She focused, and the spheres grew in size till their glow rivalled that of the fire.
The baby's cries grew muted. She was now paying close attention to the lights, and cooed softly as Awazuki made the largest of them make a swoop around her wrist.
Awazuki grinned. "You've seen nothing yet." She focused and lobbed the magical construction into the air and allowed it to rise above the treetops. After that, she began to play with the colours, breaking the white into red and blue and green and purple, then placed the makeshift planets on an orbit.
The speed of the spheres kept increasing, and they started to make a humming sound, their lights pulsating wildly. For a finale, she closed her hand into a fist, and the entire thing exploded into a mess of shining fragments, firing into all directions and temporarily reflecting an illusion of a rainbow on the night sky. Glittering pieces fell down towards earth, mostly burning out before touching the ground.
Awazuki took a deep breath, her cheeks pink from effort and satisfaction. A fragment fell down close to her feet and she crouched to pick it up.
"There," she said triumphantly, as the glow of the cooling magic fragment briefly tinted her fingers blue before fading. "That was fun, right?"
Only now did she noticed how hushed both Hijiri and Shou were. She frowned and looked up just in time to see Ichirin rushing back, Unzan trailing after her with his enormous face knitted into a frown. "What, did I do something wrong?"
That broke the spell. Hijiri shook her head, and when she smiled at Awazuki, her eyes shone. "I had no idea you had become so skilled."
As if on cue, Shou and Ichirin began to clap, their expressions those of genuine admiration.
Awazuki felt her cheeks redden further in a flush of pleasure. "Well, I did have months to work on it."
"Even so." The smile on Hijiri's face was similar to what Grandmother had worn whenever Meizuki mastered yet another divine power. "You've taken everything I've taught you to heart and moved beyond it, finding your own branch of magic far sooner than most. You have the makings of a truly fine magician."
Awazuki shook her head, but despite her attempts at modesty, the compliments touched her to the very core. If Hijiri was being honest — and why wouldn't she be? She had been silly to ever doubt her — and the spell was as promising as she had hoped, did that mean she had finally found her field? She wouldn't have to worry about being a failure of a shrine maiden if she could carve out her own path, one of stars and magic.
"It was very bright," said Ichirin, looking back at the darkness she had emerged from. "I'm pretty sure everyone even miles from Reishoumiya saw it."
Awazuki shrugged. "That fine, isn't it?" She handed the baby back to Hijiri. "All the humans are fast asleep at this hour, and all the youkai already know you are here."
Ichirin's smile was fainter than usual. "I suppose so."
"Anyway, here's another human who needs some sleep." She gave the baby one last affectionate stroke before looking Hijiri in the eye. "Sorry about the hassle."
Hijiri raised her palm towards Awazuki. "It's quite alright. Besides," her smile brought sunlight into the dark night, "this may yet prove to be a boon to us all, the child and both races included."
Awazuki responded to the smile, the magic still tingling on her fingertips making it easy for her to forget her earlier reservations. They had been silly, anyway. "You're the best, Hijiri."
Hijiri chuckled and mumbled something modest. "Take care on your way home, now. We'll meet again tomorrow."
Awazuki nodded, then wrapped a spell of warmth around her as she exited the radius of the fire. The spring in her step fell as she realised she had to decide what she'd tell Meizuki about the baby. Could she get away with saying nothing at all, pretending the matter was too heavy for words? Would that just bring the horror she had seen lurking behind Meizuki's eyes more to the forefront?
"Awazuki."
For a moment, she was certain she had gotten so deeply immersed in her imagined scenario of what would happen when she got home that it had bled into reality and made her hear things. Her little sister never called by her given name, after all.
Then, she halted.
She turned.
Her blood ran cold.
Meizuki stood behind her in the woods, a mere minute's walk away from Hijiri's camp, with the gleam of the fire still visible between the trees. Behind her, she dragged the corpse of a small, clawed youkai, which Awazuki saw was the human-devouring wretch of the autumn prior. Her face were impassive, but her eyes were alight with cold fire.
"What were you doing over there, Awazuki?"
No words came to Awazuki. In fact, she had forgotten altogether how to breathe.