"The Holy City? That place certainly was beautiful, I'll give it that." Xuanzang was still bleary-eyed, but she had already started stuffing the rice balls she had not finished last night into her mouth. She spoke while chewing. "But I always felt that something about that place was off."
"Finish your food before you talk." Tawara Tōta gave Xuanzang a chop to the head.
"Mmgh..." Xuanzang's eyes welled with tears as she forcefully swallowed what was in her mouth.
"How should I put this... this humble monk is not someone who cannot bear to slay demons, especially now that I have become a Heroic Spirit." Xuanzang sat cross-legged, her expression turning serious.
"Those Dragons may have seemed like abominations to me, but they had never harmed any of the Holy City's residents. Some children could even play by riding on their backs, and the Dragons simply let them do as they pleased, as though they had been tamed."
"So the Dragons were not what concerned me."
"The Holy City's true problem was... that it was too wonderful." Xuanzang looked directly into Fujimaru Ritsuka's eyes from across from her and spoke with certainty.
"Too wonderful...?" Fujimaru Ritsuka furrowed her brow.
"Why would being wonderful make it feel wrong?" Mash was equally puzzled as she asked Xuanzang.
"People are imperfect creatures. As long as people are still people, they can never attain the level of perfection found within the Holy City. It is unrealistic, impossible." Xuanzang spoke earnestly. "Everyone there was like that. Could it be that everyone had attained Buddhahood? I did not think so."
"That perfection was false." Xuanzang declared firmly.
"It was perfection achieved through some means—not something voluntary, but something forced upon them. It was absolutely wrong. That was why I refused the Lion King's invitation, left the