It felt as though a hand had gripped her heart, making it beat frantically and hollowly within a cramped, displaced space. Her eardrums throbbed in sync.
Something invisible seemed to be calling her from the darkness. A sudden jolt of the soul woke Higurashi Kagome from her sleep. She hastily changed out of her pajamas, grabbed a lantern, and ran toward the shrine's back hill at top speed.
The thought of notifying her grandfather or waking her mother or brother never even crossed her mind. A mysterious magic seemed to have snatched Kagome's spirit; starting from her chest, a searing heat made even her brain feel like it was burning.
She didn't care if she tripped. She didn't even stop when her lantern flickered and died. Kagome simply ran toward the back hill without looking back.
The forested hill should have been pitch black at night. Under the weave of dense branches and leaves, her vision should have been blocked. Tonight, even the moon was hidden behind dark clouds. The shadows that were bright and welcoming under the daytime sun became ominous at night, as if hiding something unspeakable that rustled in the dark.
That's how it should have been.
But in the eyes of the accelerating Kagome, the bumpy path felt as smooth as level ground. Even without the lantern, she could see perfectly.
Countless tiny motes of light... Kagome was certain they weren't figments of her imagination. They weren't a sea of fireflies disturbed by a summer night either, but real, glowing points of unknown origin. Like fireflies, they wove through the forest and branches, fluttering up and down as they moved in the same direction.
Curiously, she reached out, only to find that these lights vanished beneath her skin the moment her palm touched them. Yet, they could easily pass through one side of a tree trunk and emerge from the other... Thinking she had taken their lives, the young girl instinctively clenched her fists, trying to make her already small frame even smaller.
However, such a gesture was useless against such a dense swarm of lights. Eventually, Kagome gave up all pretense of being ladylike and simply sprinted, determined to reach the destination of these motes as quickly as possible to minimize the number that collided with her.
With this resolve, when Kagome broke through the final stretch of forest and stepped onto the back hill, she saw it: a vast, sweeping magical formula covering the surface of the soil and grass. It looked like a series of incantations—symbols of all sizes that looked like characters she couldn't understand. The motes of light that had accompanied her all the way flowed through these formulae and finally vanished into the massive Goshimboku.
And there, in front of the sacred tree whose canopy she couldn't even see as a child, Kagome immediately spotted the Yōkai who had flashed before her eyes months ago. Even after all this time, she hadn't forgotten his face—especially that beautiful platinum-blonde hair, which looked like the sun and was even more prominent in the night.
And then she screamed.
It was a purely subconscious reaction, one that Kagome quickly suppressed by covering her mouth—Why am I screaming?
The young girl realized the absurdity of it.
She had finally seen a Yōkai again. This wasn't an unconscious brush or a storybook description; it was a real Yōkai standing right in her line of sight. Moreover, the translucent spirit floating beside the male Yōkai, radiating a warm golden glow, only further proved the extraordinary nature of her current situation—was that a ghost? Or another kind of Yōkai?
With hair that waved as if in an ocean, a waist one could wrap their hands around, and a stunning figure, she made Kagome—who was only a middle schooler—feel a twinge of feminine self-consciousness. And those long ears...
So beautiful...
The girl murmured in her heart.
Walking toward the front of the Goshimboku, Kagome saw the male Yōkai finally notice her presence. He slowly turned around and looked at her with a smile.
"Yo, little Kagome~"
He greeted her like a friend he had known for ages, but that simple, overly familiar greeting sparked a sudden flame of rage in Kagome's heart.
She finally remembered.
"Who are you calling 'little Kagome,' you Yōkai!" Though she was short and young, she didn't lose an ounce of momentum as she thrust her hand forward in accusation.
And why wouldn't she? After all, this was a girl's indignant protest.
"If you're going to leave, then leave! What was with that statue?!"
She was practically roaring—or rather, it was a roar laced with shame and fury. At the mere thought of that statue, which her grandfather had solemnly placed on the high altar of the shrine, Kagome felt her face burn. She had a sudden urge to dig a hole and crawl into it like Taro.
That emotion had peaked when she protested loudly and tried to throw the statue away, only to be stopped by her grandfather, her mother... and even her brother.
And they said it was a 'blessing sent by a Yōkai' and had to be preserved... Stupid Grandpa! The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Her resentful gaze could have practically set Sū ěr hair on fire.
However, Sū ěr... had forgotten.
He had forgotten entirely. Or rather, he hadn't cared enough to keep it in his memory.
"Statue?"
Under Kagome's gaze, which was spitting literal fire, the handsome Yōkai simply tilted his head and asked with utter confusion.
"What statue?"
He truly didn't remember.
"It's the one you made out of gold to express your gratitude before you left, right?" Withdrawing her gaze from the Goshimboku's trunk, which was still absorbing spiritual energy, Think reminded him nonchalantly. "It still lacked a bit of artistic flair. You have a long way to go in that department~"
"Well then, I shall trouble the great Lady Nirvalen to guide me over the long years ahead... Ow!" After bantering with Think, Sū ěr turned back to Kagome and smiled. "I remember now. So you were talking about that statue?"
"Although I replicated the scene exactly, it came off a bit stiff because it was a perfect copy. It lacked a bit of soul, but overall it was quite good. It vividly preserved your cute side... Not bad, right?"
"NOT BAD, MY FOOT!!!"
Higurashi Kagome let out a scream that could wake the dead.