[Masamichi Yaga's funeral was exceedingly simple. In fact, in the Jujutsu Society he had once done so much to uphold, it seemed almost painfully deserted.]
[He had never married or had children, devoting all his efforts to education and cursed corpses instead. By the time he passed away, none of his blood relatives remained alive.]
[The fellow jujutsu sorcerers who had once fought alongside him, and the old acquaintances with whom he had shared drinks and laughter, had long since withered away one after another along that cruel road, crumbling into the mud.]
[In the end, you did not personally arrange the farewell ceremony. Instead, through a brief message, you entrusted all the funeral arrangements to Megumi Fushiguro.]
[The reason you had not chosen the ever-reliable Mei Mei to handle it was that you understood better than anyone that time was an engraving knife both cruel and absolutely fair.]
[It left indelible "marks" on everyone equally. Even someone as shrewd as Mei Mei was no longer young.]
[You had tasted enough of the helplessness of birth, aging, sickness, and death at Masamichi Yaga's bedside. You did not want to further drain what little energy your old friends had left.]
[And when the day of the funeral actually came, you did not attend.]
[A fine drizzle fell from the sky. You stood alone atop a mountain far from Tokyo, gazing in its direction through the endless veil of rain.]
[In your heart, the true farewell had already taken place in that hospital room thick with the smell of disinfectant, amid that wisp of smoke as it rose and dispersed.]
[You felt that you had already witnessed the final afterglow of Masamichi Yaga's life and heard his last sigh. That was enough.]
[To you now, formal mourning had instead become an unnecessary