"Could I just be too tired?"
Ch'en wasn't entirely sure either. She had no idea how long she had slept. Dusk had long since passed, and it was already late at night. Raising her wrist to check the time, she found it was past midnight, and the sweat on her body had completely dried.
Hoshino reassured her further. "If there really is a... female ghost like you described, think about it. This is a shrine. I'm a shrine maiden who exorcises evil. What kind of ghost would dare cause trouble here?"
"That's true..."
Ch'en was almost convinced that she had merely hallucinated.
She got to her feet, intending to go home and take a bath. Wearing clothes that had been soaked through with sweat and then dried against her skin was incredibly uncomfortable. Once she had bathed and changed into clean clothes, Ch'en didn't know whether she would still make it to work in time to clock in.
She stretched lazily.
Every time she slept with her head on the shrine maiden's lap, she felt a little more refreshed. She didn't know if it was just psychological.
Maybe this was what a pillow with warmth and fragrance felt like.
Ch'en turned back. The shrine was submerged in darkness, moonlight casting half-real, half-illusory shadows across it. Her mood eased as her gaze drifted between the vermilion torii gates.
Then, her gaze froze.
A bone-deep chill descended upon Ch'en, racing down her spine until even the tip of her tail trembled.
"So it wasn't a hallucination?"
A striking red-haired female ghost stood at the shrine gate. A pitch-black greatsword rested behind her, and the black mist curling around her made her flicker in and out of sight beneath the night sky. Though they were extremely far apart, Ch'en could clearly feel that