The instant the arrow broke through all resistance and pierced the invisible barrier, the barrier shattered. The entire Bamboo Grove and all the rabbits vanished in a heartbeat, leaving only an empty stretch of grass with a few small rabbits scattered across it.
On noticing strangers, the rabbits began hopping away.
Though the scene seemed to have returned to normal, the girl still felt that something was off.
This time, that feeling came from the rabbits before her.
The sword in the silver-haired demon's hand flew faster than her arrow, shooting straight toward the rabbits and embedding itself deep in the grass, directly in front of one of them. All the other rabbits fled at once, leaving only that one trembling on the spot.
When the rabbit tried to change direction and flee after the others, an arrow blocked its escape again, just as the sword had done.
At last, the rabbit stopped trying to escape. Instead, it turned and lunged at the two of them with the resolve of someone prepared to die.
Unfortunately, Sesshomaru moved far faster than the rabbit. A long, well-defined hand seized its two long ears with unerring precision. Suspended in midair with nothing to brace against, the white rabbit's soft body swung back and forth.
The girl beside him burst out laughing. One moment, she had been moved by the rabbit's courage; the next, she was looking at this scene. The expressionless silver-haired Dog Demon holding a pair of rabbit ears, and the white rabbit struggling beneath his hand, instantly made the whole atmosphere merry.
"Let me go! Let me go!" As the struggling rabbit looked at the cold silver-haired demon before it and the laughing girl beside him, it grew utterly miserable. Its childish voice carried a faint sob.
"Oh, so you really were the rabbit talking?" Han asked in surprise.
"I'm not just a rabbit! Yunai is a White Hare of Inaba from Gensokyo!" The rabbit's voice suddenly turned aggrieved, as though it resented being treated like an ordinary rabbit, and its struggles grew fiercer.
"Gensokyo?" The silver-haired Dog Demon softly repeated the name. From his tone, he seemed to have heard it before.
Han stopped smiling and carefully studied the seemingly ordinary white rabbit before her.
The White Hare of Inaba was a famous demon, too. The Kojiki recorded how it had deceived sharks, only to be flayed, before Ōkuninushi helped heal its wounds. In return, it helped Ōkuninushi win Princess Yagami's hand, and was later worshipped as a rabbit deity.
But the White Hare of Inaba should have been worshipped at Hakuto Shrine near the Hakuto Coast in Tottori Prefecture, farther south, while they were already in the north. As for Gensokyo, she had never even heard of it.
"Yes, you've heard of it too, haven't you, great demon?" Seeing that Sesshomaru knew of Gensokyo, the white rabbit immediately perked up and was no longer miserable.
"Gensokyo disappeared more than a decade ago. Humans and demons are said to have built a barrier together to prevent either side from invading the other." Sesshomaru shifted his gaze from the rabbit in his hand to the distance. "How did you get out of Gensokyo?"
"I don't know." The rabbit answered honestly. Then, sensing the faint killing intent from the demon before it, all its fur stood on end. At some point, its two long ears slipped from Sesshomaru's hand, and it dropped to the ground. This time, however, it made no attempt to flee.
"We White Hares of Inaba live in the Lost Bamboo Grove. It's a small barrier within Gensokyo. But five years ago, something huge happened. Even Gensokyo, which had been gradually separating from the outside world, was shaken. Many barriers were damaged, and some even cracked. Yunai was swept into one of those cracks, and now I'm wandering outside." The rabbit explained earnestly, but grew dejected as it spoke, its two long ears drooping pitifully.
Seeing the tiny rabbit standing there so miserably, Han could not help crouching down and gently stroking its fluffy head. The rabbit obediently nuzzled her palm.
"Five years ago..." There had indeed been upheaval in the Demon World not long ago. His father had died around that time, and many demons had run rampant, for he had not yet secured their submission.
A treasure was said to have appeared then, and the demons had fought one another in an attempt to claim it. In the end, a powerful miko had reportedly taken it away. Now it seemed that the treasure might well have referred to this girl. But that had happened more recently, not five years ago. In fact, nothing capable of shaking another world had happened five years ago. Sesshomaru was certain of that.
"Then, do you want to go back now?" Han asked softly. She was gradually coming to understand what it meant to long for home.
"I can't go back." The little rabbit shook its head sadly. "Gensokyo is too far from here. Yunai doesn't know how I got here."
Sesshomaru's gaze sharpened as a possibility suddenly occurred to him. If the crack had caused not only a shift in space but also a leap through time, everything made sense. This little demon might well have come from a world several years in the future, accidentally crossing both time and space to arrive here and now.
"You can't go back," Sesshomaru said, agreeing with the rabbit.
"What?" The girl and the rabbit looked up in shock at the same time. The white rabbit had actually been hoping these two could take it home. It was too weak to make such a long journey alone, and would probably be skinned and eaten by another demon along the way. Hearing such a powerful great demon say this was no different from having its hopes shattered. Yunai missed Gensokyo, the Lost Bamboo Grove, its rabbit friends, and their leader, Tewi Inaba.
"From what you've said, you must have come from Gensokyo five years in the future." Sesshomaru's cold voice rang out. "That crack carried you across not only space, but time as well." If that shattered rift had brought the white rabbit from Gensokyo five years in the future to this place five years earlier, an immensely powerful shock must have caused it. Otherwise, a stable barrier should not have developed a rift with such a vast discrepancy.
It was not that the white rabbit could never have thought of this. It had simply been doing its best to deny it. Even if it was far from home and far from its friends, at least they could still see the same sun, the same moon, and the same starlight.
Perhaps arriving only five years in the past was already fortunate enough. Worse still, it could have become lost in the rift, or even ended up in another world. Perhaps this, too, was a different kind of luck belonging to the White Hare of Inaba.
"Then, would you like to stay with us for now?" The girl's warm voice sounded above its head. "You can return to Gensokyo in five years. It should be the world you know by then." Her limited experience meant that she did not understand such things very well, but she hoped this rabbit could return home, too. She looked up at the silver-haired demon, and Sesshomaru did not object. That was already a sign of his consent. A delighted smile spread across her face.
"Does it have to be five years from now?" Yunai the rabbit wanted to return sooner.
"If you go back earlier, there will be two of you, and one of you will most likely disappear." And the one that disappeared would probably be the one from the future. This was a fundamental rule of time and space: they could not accommodate each other. Sesshomaru did not finish explaining, but the rabbit understood.
"Then... then I'll be in your care. Yunai will bring you good luck!" the rabbit said earnestly. White Hares of Inaba were born with the ability to bring good fortune, especially their leader. If a four-leaf clover were used as a comparison for the luck their leader could bring, it would be luck on the order of finding a forty-leaf clover.
"Mm." Han nodded just as earnestly and held out her hand. "I look forward to getting along with you, Yunai."
The rabbit had revealed its name long ago. Yunai nodded, cleverly hopped onto the girl's hand, then shook out its fur and gradually returned to its original size. A snow-white rabbit the size of a fist appeared before her.
Finally, the rabbit obediently settled on the girl's shoulder and nestled down quietly.
Han stood up carefully, but Sesshomaru had already set off. She hurried to catch up, and their journey began anew.
Before you continue