Extra 2: Momonosuke's Death

Several-meter-tall waves of emerald rice swayed like the sea in the breeze. Every stalk was as thick as a tree trunk, their heavy, full heads bowed beneath their weight.

A gray-green-haired boy sat with his back against the thickest rice stalk, leaning against its rough stem as he slowed his breathing.

He neither looked around nor took out his terminal to pass the time. He simply waited quietly for a reunion separated by twenty years.

After an unknown amount of time, the air high above suddenly rippled with distortion.

Space seemed to be crumpled by an invisible hand, then violently pulled open.

Four tall figures and a small child staggered out of the void and plummeted rapidly toward the rice field below.

"What's going on? Why were we teleported so high up?!"

Kin'emon's face turned deathly pale, his Adam's apple bobbing wildly.

A fall from this height meant certain death.

"[Sparrow in the Painting]!"

Kanjuro gritted his teeth, drew Tsuji Shigure, and swept it through the air.

Ink formed into strange birds with chestnut-colored crowns and napes, snow-white faces, and sausage-like lips. They caught the falling people one after another and wobbled down toward the ground.

When the strange birds landed and melted into puddles of ink on their own, the five stood on the ridge between the fields with blank expressions.

Beneath their feet lay neat black soil. Around them stood giant rice plants taller than people. There was no choking smell of gunpowder in the air, only the fresh scent of rice leaves mingled with earth.

In the distance, the outline of a city flickered through the twilight. Neon lights and floating projections spread out like something from a dream.

Above them, a massive holographic screen looped an animation of a scantily clad beautiful girl. Kin'emon and Momonosuke