Kikyo slowly raised her head.
Her forehead lifted from the back of her hand. Her light brown eyes calmly met Himiko's face, twisted with fury. Her lips were pressed together in the faintest curve, without the slightest hint of retreat.
"Queen Himiko."
Her voice was steady and clear, carrying the distinctive serenity and solemnity of a shrine maiden. "The great god Susanoo-no-Mikoto is already dead."
"There will be countless opportunities to investigate how he died. Amaterasu-Ōmikami can wait. Takamagahara can wait. The gods can wait."
"But the people of Fusang are suffering day and night."
"They need help more urgently."
"I did not choose wrong!"
Himiko clenched her jaw so hard her teeth grated.
Did not choose wrong?
Once this chance was gone, there would never be another!
It had taken that supreme slut Tamamo-no-Mae, along with herself, the Queen of Yamatai, to finally get that bastard Yongye to relent. Takamagahara would never have such a strong hand to play again.
Surely they couldn't actually make Kaguya-hime give herself to a mortal and suffer that humiliation?
Himiko stepped forward. The hem of her dark red shrine maiden robes dragged across the carpet, and her foot struck the floor with a dull thud.
"They are only mortals!"
Her voice squeezed through her teeth, every word laden with fury burning up from deep in her chest and a sense of utter absurdity. "No matter how many die, they cannot compare to the gods!"
"The fall of a single Susanoo-no-Mikoto concerns the very survival of the entire Takamagahara Divine Kingdom! You would weigh the lives of a swarm of ants against a chief god's divine core?"
She abruptly turned toward Yongye on the sofa. Rapid calculations and urgency churned in her light gray eyes as her voice shifted from fury to a hurried