“….I can’t be sure. However, it’s possible that my aunt has entered Kou Shuurei.”

Sensing that Shuurei had awakened, Shuuei, Jin, and Riou looked at the bed. Riou shivered a bit, but Shuurei, who had gotten with sleepy eyes, looked around the room, noticed Shuuei, Jin, and Riou, and looked at them—and tilted her head. Putting a hand to her temple, she shook her head two or three times. When she had figured out that it wasn’t a dream by slapping her own cheek, there was silence for awhile. Then she looked at the three of them in order one more time, and a half smile appeared on her face.
“….Um, I have no idea what happened, so just one thing. I had only though I would take a rest after I was tired after finishing my work at the province border, so what in the world happened?…”
Where was this place, what time was it now, why was she here, and why were Shuuei, Jin, and Riou making that kind of mysterious face at her? All of those questions that she was breaking into now, were wrapped into that one exact, simple, clear-cut question.
Everyone there thought that was natural.

*****

When Riou knew that it was not Ruka but Shuurei, he was relieved. If she possessed her, then “Shuurei” would be gone. It seemed it wasn’t full-on stealing the body, but a spell on the level of possession.
“Before that, how’s your condition?”
“Eh? Condition? I feel like I’ve had a lot of strange dreams….Ah! Amazing.”
Having been questioned by Riou, Shuurei tried moving her arms and head. Her body was light, as though she had sprouted wings. The heaviness of her head, as though she were dragging something made out of lead, the unpleasant fatigue, as if she were wrapped in spider’s silk which refused to disappear, all were gone. Although she might have slept too much,and she had muscle pain, it was totally different form how she had been on the trip to Kou Province. It was like she had returned to how she was before. Then, Shuurei remembered the trip to Kou Province. Her heart then sank a bit. Although she didn’t know why.
“….Riou-kun, did I properly finish my task as imperial messenger?”
Rioiu’s eyebrows moved towards each other.
“Yes. After you finished it all, you started to die. How dutiful. Since Suou and Ensei have carried on the other work, how about forgetting work for awhile and convalescing?”
She had started to die. At those words, she felt the agony she had felt in the carriage reawaken. Really, at that time she had felt as though she could even hear herself dying. At the same time, she understood the circumstances a bit. It seemed that she had collapsed and then begun to die. Certainly, considering the circumstances at that time, it was possible.
“Our clan….might be able to do something to help you.”
Before, when she had been asked if her health had been strange, Riou-kun had said if something happened, she should come. Even in Kiyou, thanks to Riou-kun and Uu Uu-sama, her body had become much better. Come to think of it, her condition at that time resembled that on her trip to Kou Province a bit. Although it wasn’t as bad. Like that time, she had gotten back to normal immediately. Our clan. Forget about your work, and get better ,he had said.
“Could it be that this is Riou-kun’s house? After I collapsed, you brought me here?”
Riou made a strange face. ….His house. Certainly, that was so, but her way of saying it gave him an incredible feeling of discomfort. It was pathetic that ‘Hyou clan,’ which had a ring of it being someone else’s affair fit better for him.
“….Yeah, my house. The Hyou clan.”
My house. What was that, this violent discomfort.
Although Riou did not know why this didn’t show on his face, Shuurei thanked him.
“? But why is General Ran here? Then, you over there. Who in the world are you?”
She looked at Jin confusedly. She was always running into this person in strange places.
“It’s been awhile, little lady. Hmph. Who am I, you say? Actually, that’s a philosophical question. I’ll be able to answer after about a hundred years.”
“….You have no intention of answering, I see. …. But, General Ran, why are you here?”
Although he wasn’t a general anymore, that way of talking to him fit. Jin froze, wondering what Shuuei’s first words would be, and what expression he would make. However, Shuuei approached her with unhesitant footsteps, and bent over her a little to see her face a bit. Shuurei was keeping up appearances with her usual face, but she was grasping the edge of the blanket. He could see in that a bit of confusion, and a drop of anxiety and tension. What would he say to her? He felt that probably, that was what was fluttering in the depths of her unconscious. Yes, what would he say to her?
It wasn’t that he had thought to do that, but maybe it had become the same as the smile he had shown to Jyuusan-hime.
“In place of the king, I came to see your face. I heard you had collapsed.”
Shuurei made a confused face. To see her face?
“….Eh? Um, only that?”
“Only that. It’s still an important duty.” On Shuurei’s face, while she considered what that meant, many feelings appeared and disappeared. Shuuei was very subdued, and looked at her narrowly. At last, Shuurei smiled a bit, with a tearful, but relieved face.
“Really?….”
Shuuei thought that her relief stemmed from not being asked something. That is, ‘when will you return?’ Shuurei pulled a bit at the ends of her hair. She sighed.
“Then, Riou-kun, how is my body, really?”
That was something she needed to ask, sooner or later.

“Your body has gotten better. But, you’ll only be like this while you’re in the Hyou clan’s palace.”
Riou had made some medicinal broth, and gave it to Shuurei. He was relieved that she had broached the topic for him, but at the same time, he felt some dislike of himself because it had to be done for him. While sipping the broth, Shuurei turned her face towards him. Riou chose his words and carefully relayed the truth. He did not want to lie.
“….Your body has become very weak. It’s been that way ever since Kiyou. The reason your body is better here is because the pure atmosphere here suits you. As long as you are in the Hyou clan’s house, there will be no problems. This atmosphere lessens the burden on your weakened body. It’s like a cane. If it’s there, your body becomes freer and you can walk. This house has mountains more of beneficial herbs than the Ministry of the Cave of the Immortals.”
“You said I can rest here. For how long?”
“….I’ll say this straight. If you don’t want to die, forever.”
There were tree beats of silence, and Shuurei’s eyes widened. So did Jin and Shuuei’s.
“….’if you don’t want to die,’ you say.”
“I’m not hiding anything when I say this. It’s because if I didn’t say this from the beginning, it looks like you’d go flying out of here on your own. —If you leave here, it probably will not be long before you die.”
Riou was speaking honestly. This time, if he regretted not saying it, he could not redeem the situation.
In the Hyou clan there were medical magicians and famous doctors. However, Shuurei…
Shuurei’s case… was the will of heaven.
Actually, she should have exhausted her remaining life long ago. “Bara-hime” had made the mercilessly flowing away of her life go very slowly. The speed at which the sand was flowing had slowed.
Because of that, Shuurei, unlike To Eigetsu, still had a living body. And her life was still flowing. If it were to completely stop, that would be by definition “death.” Eigetsu had been the only one in his village not to catch the plague, and and no matter how much blood he shed, he did not die, because he was already dead. Had “Yougetsu” not controlled it, his body would not have grown either.
Bara-hime, an immortal with vast power, maybe could have done the same thing. Waited until her daughter had completely died, and then made her a walking corpse. It would be as though a “Kou Shuurei” who did not grow, die, or become sick had been made.
….However, Bara-hime had chosen not to stop this, but to slow it. “Life” rather than “death.” Even if slowly, she would certainly walk to death, and like ordinary humans, her life would have a limit to it. Why that was, Riou did not know. But, he had a sense he understood a tiny bit.
That was why, now that the seal had started to loosen, the speed of the flow had once again returned back to how it was before.
No one could add to the amount of life she had been given. Even the Hyou clan.
If they could, then elite magicians wouldn’t use up their lives, and then die young one after the other. ….Yes, no one could unnaturally extend their lives.
But, it wasn’t that nothing at all could be done.
“I don’t think that the instant you leave the Hyou clan, you’ll revert to the condition you were in on the journey to Kou Province. In this past year, you’ve continued to use your body and spirit to an abnormal extent, and you haven’t slept properly. Even a large man would die from that overwork. This happened because you drove yourself to such a terrible state of exhaustion.:
Shuuei slightly lowered his eyes.
“If it’s the same as how when someone may be able to walk with a cane, but a lost leg can’t be grown again, then if you lose the ‘cane’ of the Hyou clan, then you won’t be able to walk. If you overdo it, you’ll get worse at once. I said ‘it won’t be long,’ but how long it is, I don’t know either. The only thing I can say for sure is, if you leave, your body will quickly worsen. It’ll be very bad.”
Shuurei was in a strange mood. Although this was about her, she felt as if she were hearing about someone else….. Shouldn’t she have realized that something was strange about her body, faintly? …. Probably, she had. She had a faint memory, far in the past, of feeling as if something was flowing little by little from her. She thought that the sandglass her mother had stopped had now once again flowing.
“Now, I’m researching whether there aren’t any other methods. You may want to return, so I won’t say you shouldn’t. You’ve got a family and important people, so that’s natural. But this once, I’d like you to think of your body more than that. Right now, you’re in a state where even if you want to go back, you can’t, but even if that weren’t so, please think about what will become of you after you leave this house, and then choose.”
While speaking, Riou had realized something. He had spoken sincerely, but probably that was because he wished that she would make an effort to protect herself. He had wanted to tell her to put herself first. That was because the most important thing for raising the chances of her living was her own will.
When he looked at Shuurei, she nodded ambiguously, with a look on her face as though she both understood and didn’t.
“….what did you mean when you said ‘even if you want to return, you can’t.’?”
“Ah. This sky palace is a hidden palace, and so from the beginning, it’s been made remote from the outside work, but there are several means of going to and from it. Those have now all been for some reason completely cut off. Even if you try to return, you can’t, and even if you want to know something, there is no way of knowing it. Even if that were not so, the sense of time here and “outside” are a little different—”
Even if she tried to return, she couldn’t. She could hear an echo of ‘you don’t need to return’ there.
She didn’t need to return.
“Your father has probably been told that you’re here, I think. When the means of contact come back, you’ll be able to contact him directly. Anyway, your body is still not back to normal, so for awhile sleep and don’t think of anything …….although, since there’s nothing, it’s boring here.”
Riou was troubled over whether he should talk about his aunt Ruka. But, if even if he told her to watch out—
“Tell her. It would be better to tell her.”
Jin spoke as though he had read his mind.
“Even though you told her about her body, why can’t you talk about what Ruka’s trying to do? Do you think that it’ll end without you talking about it?”
….That was right. He really knew what the reason he didn’t want to say it was. It was because if he talked about his aunt, he would have to talk about another truth.
“If she’s in the Hyou clan’s palace, sooner or later, the little lady will know. Tell it to her properly. It’ll probably be necessary for her to know. Shuuei and I saw Ruka at Nine Colors Cove. It’ll be better than if she hears it from someone else. No matter how much I think it’s strange that she herself doesn’t know.”
Shuurei’s eyes went round. It seemed that this was about something besides her body.
“Riou-kun?”
Riou was silent for around three beats after Jin’s words, and he violently combed through his bangs.
“I said, I know. Kou Shuurei, I brought you to this Hyou clan, and maybe the worst case scenario hasn’t changed. —My aunt wants your body. Actually, she wants to possess you and make you hers.”
Shuurei’s eyes went into points. She didn’t understand the meaning of what had been said to her at all.
“What? My body? Possess?”
“Ren of the Jyasenkyou—you must have seen how Eigetsu’s master, even though he should have been dead, moved and talked. She’s trying to do something like that with you alive.”
Shuurei tried to make her head roll that around. Certainly, there had been a big commotion afterwards, regarding Eigetsu’s master. It had been put aside as ‘a kyonshi came out!!,’ but for Riou to say that the Hyou clan had been involved in that was akin to a surrender. She recalled that Riou had talked to Eigetsu’s master, and then unnaturally appeared and disappeared. However….
“Why me? Is there something good about me?”
Riou was silent…. Of course, it was because there was a slight chance that by this she might be able to obtain his father, her younger brother, Riou’s heart. However, Riou was unable to speak of that. And honestly, he had begun to doubt now that this was the sole reason for which Ruka wanted Shuurei’s body. There was no evidence for this, just a doubt which had come up from somewhere even he didn’t know of. Right now, he knew that Ruka’s partiality towards his father was abnormal, and that she wanted the body of Bara-hime.
However, that strange feeling of incongruity hadn’t vanished.
Riou began to speak, as if trying to put himself in order.
“My aunt Ruka has reigned as the high priestess of the Hyou clan for around eighty years.”
That astounding power was said to have even excelled that of the previous head of the clan, the ‘miracle child.’
Ruka had with that power imprisoned her father, the ‘miracle child,’ and coldly swung a blade smeared with the blood of her clan. Literally. She was known as the empress of bloodshed, not only by her own clan, but by the world.
“But, the greater the magician, the shorter their life. Using power for the magician is the same as using their life, so Uu Uu of the Ministry of the Cave of the Immortals is a rare exception. Although, by nature, our clan, by the blood of our ancestors, and through the purity of the lands of the Hyou clan, tend to have longer life and more sturdiness than people ‘outside.’ If they watch for using it too much, even if they use spells, they can live around sixty years, just like the people of ‘outside.’ If they overuse their powers, their lifespan shortens. But, my aunt has continued to use her enormous power, even by the standards of our clan, and has lived over eighty years. It’s abnormal. However, it’s not a miracle. She has used that method, and added to her life.”
Shuuei felt as though he were listening to a ghost story. He had a bad feeling about this.
“….I don’t want to ask, but I will. There’s a way?”
“It’s as you’re thinking. She possesses the bodies of the daughters of our clan.”
….Shuuei felt cold sweat break out on him.
“Even if she uses magic, what will be used up is the life force of the girl she’s possessing. When she uses her up, she has prepared another priestess.”
Used up. Wrinkles formed above Shuuei’s nose. Should he say that it disgusted him?
“….not a corpse, but….living women.”
“Yes. Life is exchanged for magic, so a corpse would be impossible. For a long time, she’s done that, used up the bodies of the daughters of the clan, and maintained long life and great magic.”
“But, don’t the young priestesses who are possessed resist? Are they brainwashed?”
Riou slowly shook his head at Jin’s question.
“….No. From the beginning, in the Hyou clan, there have been born children who from their birth cannot speak and have no sign of consciousness. I have heard that if they grow, they sleep and cease to wake up, though they live and breath. It seems that those children….were at one time born in vast quantities in the Hyou clan.”
He had heard that since they remained like infants despite having grown up, they were called “white children.”
During the era of the previous clan head, the “miracle child,” an abnormally large number of magicians had been born, but around the same number of “white children” had been born, it seems. He didn’t know about the details…..but it wasn’t difficult to suppose that it was possibly the result of the abnormal behavior of the insane “miracle child.”
Now they were hardly ever born, so Riou had not seen one with his own eyes. However, he had heard that they were still somewhere in the palace.
“They have no consciousness, so they don’t resist, and are easy to possess. Actually, I don’t know how many priestesses have been used up like this. Doing this, my aunt has continued to live for a long time.”
“Then, this time it’s Shuurei-dono? Why this time is it not someone from the clan, but Shuurei?”
“And her life force is weak. I don’t want to say it, but even if she possesses her, won’t she not last too long?”
Shuurei nodded. Although she was weakened, she was to be taken over?
“That would be because that was ‘outside.’ In the Hyou clan, it is quiet, so you should be able to live, actually, less…….than normal, but some tens of years. My aunt doesn’t leave this palace in the sky, so that won’t be a problem. “
The pure atmosphere and medicinal herbs would ease her body. Most importantly, in the sealed lands of the Hyou clan, the loosened lid of Bara-hime’s seal would return, and the life that was flowing away like a torrent would once again slow terribly. Some decades. Shuuei couldn’t speak. That was a lot. There was no way he could ask her to return.
Another thought had occurred to Riou. Because Bara-hime was inside her, possibly Ruka could, by use of spells, use her as an inexhaustible supply of power. In that case, she wouldn’t need to use up Shuurei’s life. If that was so, then it was possible that his aunt’s reason for wanting her, apart from his father, was something like this.
“Ruka-san……what about her? About her original body. Has she become a ghost?”
“No. The soul and the body are linked. If the body dies, then the soul also dies.”
That was true of Ren of the Jyasenkyou. He had possessed the corpse of Ka Shin, and although that didn’t seem to die, when the head of Ren’s original body was cut off, Ren also died.
“If the body they were born with dies, then the soul also dies. It’s the same with my aunt. That’s why my aunt’s ‘true body’ is still living, and is guarded somewhere in this shrine.”
“Hmph.”
Shuuei noted that there was something strange in Jin’s voice…. Like he was thinking of something else.
(….Could Jin’s goal in coming here be…..)
Maybe it was not about Shuurei.
Shuurei muttered.
“Why was that?”
“Eh? No, you said why…”
“Mmm. That isn’t it. Why did that person—”
That person.
Riou was froze at those words. She shouldn’t have ever met her.
(As I thought, did she come without me knowing about it?)
Shuurei cut off of her words, and while pulling at the ends of her hair for awhile as if turning some thoughts over in her head, nodded several times.
“…In other words, if she has my body, then Ruka-san can live.”
Riou and Shuuei were both outraged.
“—-Hey!! Don’t mess around!”
“Shuurei-dono, even I would get angry.”
Shuuei’s innards especially froze. Maybe this was something they shouldn’t have let Shuurei hear.
—if she has my body, then Ruka-san can live.
(Would that kind of thought normally come to an eighteen year old girl?!)
Jin alone, seeing Shuurei’s expression, hit both Shuuei and Riou on the back of the head.
“Calm down. The little lady was probably only confirming the truth. Shuuei, didn’t you say that you wouldn’t interfere with what she had decided?”
“That’s a different matter. This is my personal opinion, so it’s okay. She’s the same age as my little sister. If Jyuusan-hime said that, I’d whack her and be angry. Even though Shuurei-dono’s dying, what’s with giving her body to an old……lady of over eighty and dying? That’s totally strange.”
Perhaps it was because he was so angry, that his level of speech had crumbled.
At the name ‘Jyuusan-hime,’ Jin flinched as though stabbed unexpectedlly.
“….well, uh.. it’s not only that, that I wanted to say.”
While messing with his bangs as if to hide his expression, he looked at Shuurei.
“There’s another you want to ask, so what about drawing that out? Little lady.”
“…..Yes.”
“I’ll ask. You answer. —-Hey, Riou, then isn’t the opposite also a possibility?”
Riou made a startled face. When he saw that, Jin saw why he could not talk about Ruka. He was afraid that they would realize that. However, it was important.
“I said the ‘opposite,’ but it could be a bit different? In other words, Ruka, as a result of doing the Hyou clan’s work, and using up more of her life than necessary, was going towards an early death and so she possessed young priestesses, and extended her life. Am I right?”
Shuuei gave a start. Jin had said it in a rather easy to understand way, so he had immediately realized it.
“….Now Shuurei-dono is in a similar condition? Then, Shuurei-dono could, perhaps…”
“If she does the same thing Ruka did, would the little lady be able to live “outside” normally? If she can live some decades here, then she can leave her “real body” in the Hyou clan. Then, borrow some other body.”
“……”
“You talked like Ruka was the only one who had used this life extension method, so it’s impossible for anyone who’s not a high level magic user to do it—–in other words, she can only ask Ruka? “
“…….”
“The reason you can’t say it isn’t because it can’t be done—–but because there’s no other way, right?”
In the room, there were numerous books and scrolls chaotically scattered around, in heaps like mountains. He couldn’t say it, because he couldn’t present alternative methods. Because that was the only way.
Only the same method Ruka had chosen.
After a long, long silence, Riou nodded.
“Ah, it is. It’s like you say.”
For some reason, Riou could not see what kind of face Shuurei was making at this moment.

Notes:
Commentary: Kudos to Jin for making Riou tell some of the truth. But hasn’t anyone thought that someone should explain to Shuurei that there is an Immortal living in her? Hmmmmmm?

Anyway, this part is exposition after exposition. In the latter half of the chapter, something will actually happen, but it will be sort of annoyingly of unclear significance. XD

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