Outside the window, the pink silhouette on the paper pane shuddered violently.
Yaha narrowed his eyes.
Shinobu Kocho turned to look as well.
Mitsuri Kanroji pressed herself tightly against a pillar in the corridor. One hand clamped over her mouth, and her pale green eyes were wide as saucers.
She had heard the commotion in the guest room and rushed over.
The nights in the Swordsmith Village should have been quiet, but first came the dull crack of a wooden wall breaking inside this guest room, followed by harsh, desperately restrained breathing. Then a woman's voice drifted out, soft and almost resigned-
"If you want to bite me, then bite."
Mitsuri's feet might as well have been nailed through to the wooden floor. She could not move a single step.
Through the thin paper window, she saw two completely overlapping silhouettes. A tall, overwhelmingly imposing figure had a slender one pinned firmly against the wall.
The slender figure's clothes were disheveled, and she had even tilted her neck upward of her own accord. Then she was pushed away and slid weakly down the wall an inch.
Mitsuri's head, always brimming with rosy fantasies, simply shut down.
Pinned against a wall. Panting. Disheveled clothes. Willingly offering her neck.
Each detail was harmless on its own, but put together, they set off an explosive drama in her head: a domineering tyrant taking what he wanted, a doomed beauty clinging to him in desperate passion.
Lord Yaha had pinned Shinobu against the wall and was bullying her.
Shinobu had even obediently told him to bite if he wanted.
Mitsuri's face burned from her ears all the way down to her neck. Steam practically threatened to boil off the top of her head. She covered her scorching cheeks with both hands and shrank back