"That's someone else's private matter. You can't ask about it!... Hey! What kind of look is that...?"
Yuyuko stood up under Mei's gaze.
"Nothing..."
"Lord Mei, how about you stay at White Jade Palace tonight? It seems the route map you need isn't here... We'll need to draw it again."
After Yuyuko finished eating, Youmu cleaned up the remains of the meal before speaking to Mei and Crimson Crow's Wing.
"It's not here? That's fine. Then we'll trouble you for the night..."
"It's no trouble! No trouble at all!"
Youmu hurriedly shook her head, looking very welcoming.
"Mm, right... Could you show me around some more? We hadn't finished looking around before." Mei looked at the cherry blossoms around them. Though this was the underworld, she had to admit... it was still very beautiful.
"Th-That... won't be a problem."
Youmu hesitated. After all, she still had Yuyuko to look after, but... after thinking for a moment, she nodded in agreement.
"Thank you..."
"You don't need to thank me..."
In the courtyard, unlike the cherry blossoms blooming throughout an ordinary garden, the enormous and magnificent Saigyo Ayakashi had only bare trunks and branches, as though it had withered away. It stood alone before the splendid White Jade Palace.
Having followed Youmu here, Mei looked at the Saigyo Ayakashi—the cherry tree—before her and roughly guessed why it had not bloomed like the other cherry trees.
The Saigyo Ayakashi had the ability to lure people to their deaths. Yuyuko had sealed it with her own corpse, so it would not bloom.
Once the Saigyo Ayakashi bloomed, the seal would be undone. And because Yuyuko was already a ghost, she would disappear the moment the seal was broken.
So... Yuyuko's corpse was sealed beneath this tree, then... Of course, Mei was merely