"Lady Alluka..."
Looking at the boy before her, Takako Uro found herself at a loss for words.
"Say, why don't I just kidnap you and take you away?"
Ignoring Takako Uro, Sugawara Satoru pulled a folding fan from the sleeve of his Kariginu and fanned himself vigorously, his azure eyes gleaming in the candlelight.
He had no burning sense of justice that drove him to save others, nor could he empathize with the weak. He had blurted that out because all these unsettling developments had begun to affect his family.
Compared with the two-faced, four-armed demon god who had appeared later, he felt that the Rope Person incident, disastrous as a natural calamity, seemed more like the work of Alluka and the Fujiwara Clan.
After all, they had not even bothered to cover their tracks.
"..."
Hearing the intruder say that, Takako Uro glared at him before turning a worried gaze toward Alluka.
Aside from her, the squad captain, this shrine housed ten other members of the Sun, Moon, and Stars Squad, dozens of maids and attendants, and an uncounted number of resident monks.
If this man from the Sugawara Clan truly persuaded Lady Alluka to waver, every last one of them would be sent to die with her.
When Takako Uro was first assigned to serve as a guard, she had resented it. She thought they were wasting her abilities and wondered whether she had unknowingly offended someone and was being quietly sidelined.
But after arriving here, she learned that all those fears were unfounded.
Lady Alluka was the sweetest child. She diligently studied the lessons assigned by the monks, and whenever Takako Uro injured herself during training, she would apply medicine to her wounds with concern written on her face.
She never complained about how unpleasant her circumstances were. Whenever the dignitaries came to make wishes, Lady Alluka listened to their desires with the utmost earnestness.
Her presence was like the warm, gentle glow of a rainbow in the afternoon, with a power that soothed the heart.
Takako Uro truly adored Lady Alluka. She believed the deaths were the work of the entity inside Alluka's body and had nothing to do with Alluka herself, but she had never said so aloud. She knew those words would upset Lady Alluka.
"Thin Ice Breaker!"
At that thought, Takako Uro crossed her wrists and turned her palms outward, unleashing her ability.
This was one application of her Cursed Technique. It attacked not the person before her, but the plane of space itself.
"What's this? Lashing out in embarrassment?"
Sugawara Satoru stepped back and activated his Limitless.
The girl's Cursed Technique had distorted the space around them, affecting quite a wide area. Alerting the enemy was hardly the outcome he had wanted.
As he dodged, the Cursed Tool hanging at his waist lit up with a fluorescent yellow glow.
This was the signal he had arranged with his friend who specialized in Barrier Technique. If anything unexpected happened outside, his friend would activate the Cursed Tool to urge him to withdraw.
Sugawara Satoru paused mid-dodge and gave a quiet chuckle. "I actually forgot to have my fortune read before heading out today."
Before venturing out, nobles would invite an onmyoji to perform a divination for them. If the result was inauspicious, most nobles would stay home.
Sugawara Satoru generally did not believe in such things, but today he felt there might be some sense to them after all.
With that, he turned and left without waiting for anyone's reaction.
Takako Uro naturally had no intention of letting him escape. She folded space to pursue him, but he teleported to a nearby covered walkway with astonishing speed.
Before leaving, he even made a point of waving at Takako Uro in provocation.
She was so furious she nearly spat blood. By the time she returned to Alluka's bedchamber, it was already tightly surrounded.
That single use of her Cursed Technique had awakened everyone in the shrine. Some servants had even rushed through the night to the Fujiwara Clan's residence to notify the dignitaries.
Everyone was now awake. People bustled along the corridors outside, while torches and standing lanterns lit the night as brightly as day.
They all feared the attacker might return to harm Lady Alluka, but Alluka herself, the person at the center of the incident, merely rubbed her eyes sleepily.
Light from outside filtered faintly through the shoji doors. Weariness washed over Alluka, and she fell onto her bed without a trace of wariness.
When she fell asleep, the others grew even more frightened, terrified that the intruder had done something to her.
When she woke again, a gaunt middle-aged man sat beside her bed. That deeply lined face belonged to Fujiwara Daolong, head of the Northern House of Fujiwara.
This time, he looked at least ten years older than when they had last met.
"Lady Alluka..."
Seeing that the Black-Haired Boy was awake, he let out a long breath, his body slowly slackening. Yet his expression could hardly be called relaxed; instead, he looked utterly deflated.
"You're unharmed. Thank goodness."
Last night's incident had frightened him into rushing to the outskirts overnight. He had even had the Emperor call off the court session he should have attended on the pretext of illness. They had been worried all along about what that man might have done to Alluka.
Although Takako Uro swore up and down that nothing had happened, they refused to believe her.
Still groggy from sleep, Alluka rubbed her eyes and looked over in bewilderment.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but as Fujiwara Daolong looked at Alluka's face bathed in the morning light, he suddenly felt the tension of recent days ease for a moment. An urge to unburden himself rose within him:
"Lady Alluka, why must everyone oppose me... They... those useless Five Void Generals actually let some woman from the countryside drive them back...
"And that Monster is heading toward Heian-kyō. Has it come for revenge... Then there's that woman called Tengen, planning to establish some sort of Pure Realm within our borders... She even says she wants to assimilate a star plasma vessel. Are they all trying to rebel?"
The resentment in Fujiwara Daolong's heart had been building for far longer than a day or two.
Beneath its splendid exterior, the Northern House of Fujiwara was far from harmonious.
His father had five sons, and every one of them had his own private designs.
He had merely happened to inherit leadership of the clan by virtue of being the eldest son. He was the clan head, yet he did not trust his own kin. His younger brothers and nephews were all eyeing his position.
He wanted his brothers and nephews to obey his commands, but he did not want to turn his kin into emotionless puppets.
Yet those people kept meeting secretly, time and again, coveting his position as clan head and the power in his hands.
With Lady Alluka's power at their disposal, if he did not fight back, might his own mind be erased someday without his even knowing when?
Fujiwara Daolong felt like a dead leaf underwater, unable to escape the fear and unease pulsing in his heart.
"Dao Long, everything will be all right."
Alluka smiled faintly and gently closed her eyes, praying for him with an air of holiness.