The fan stuffed into his breast pocket was enrobed in heat, like static electricity.
He thought it over for three seconds. Four. Then, it was useless waiting any more, he thought.
Even though really, he had wanted and wanted to ask, but he had desperately endured, thinking there was nothing to be done.
This was the limit.
“~~~~~~~Sorry, Riou-kun!! You’re probably going to get angry and say now’s not the time or place, but I’ll ask anyway. I’m going to ask you, because after that I won’t mind how much you yell—Is it really true that Shusui-dono is safe?!”
Jin had hidden his location, and could not be found anywhere. Shuuei was anxious about Jin, but he saw it was stupid to worry about Jin’s safety. With Shusui, that was not so.
“Yes, she should be okay. Shusui sometimes wanders around near us.”
Shuuei’s eyes went into points. She was sometimes wandering around them? He wondered whether Riou had gone strange in the head, but after considering that this was the Hyou clan’s main residence, he went deathly pale.
“….Could it be, that it’s already too late, and she’s become a ghost?! She’s floating around somewhere?!”
And also, what was this, Riou could see her, but he couldn’t?! If it were Shuurei-dono, he’d forgive that, but Riou?!
(Wait, what is this?! My love of ten years hasn’t reached her at all?! How insulting.)
Riou was irritated. Shuurei was okay—but it seemed that to the “outside” people, the Hyou clan was totally seen as a “mysterious clan.” Even though he couldn’t completely say that it wasn’t so.
“You fool! No. There’s a white mouse who wanders around here. That’s her. Sometimes she comes in here.”
“Wha? A white mouse, you say….. eh?”
Certainly, there was a white mouse which sometimes wandered in. Shuuei had also observed it with interest, because it was a mouse which gave off a different feeling from normal.
Remember that, Shuuei declared definitively:
“No, that’s not Shusui-dono.”
“….Why can you say that so surely? You’re a normal human.”
“Instinct. It really does have a female-aura, but it’s a stern sort of noble beauty, that mouse.”
“Are you a mouse expert–? Are you going that far on only instinct?”
“No no, I’m an expert on women, not on mice. My eyes can’t be fooled.”
A sure declaration. In this Hyou clan, where men were below mice, this was the first time he had seen a man with this much courage. Riou wished that he could make Ruka and all of the men of the Hyou clan listen to this.
“Riou-kun, you’re also a normal human. Why are you sure it’s Shusui-dono?”
“That’s–”
He had seen with his own eyes the mouse use lightning magic to revive Shuurei, and somehow, the dispelling of the illusion of Shiba Jin seemed to be that mouse’s work. The was no way it was an ordinary mouse.
(…But, certainly, although he had said it was Shusui, the mouse hadn’t nodded…..)
Riou’s chest made an unpleasant sound. The hair on the nape of his neck stood up.
(….Hey, what if that mouse isn’t Shusui? If it’s someone else.)
Now, all of the high level magicians and priestesses had been sent away, and there was a person who could easily employ the lightning revival spell.
—There was one, only one.
Definitely, if it was that person, they would be inconvenienced by Shuurei’s death. More correctly, by the death of Shuurei’s ‘body.’
(Could it be that that mouse is—-)
Shuurei had been left alone in the room. Riou had said to leave her there. Because he had thought that one of the reasons that that person hadn’t done anything to Shuurei might have been because it was the “Room of Tranquility.” The rule was that people in the “Room of Tranquility” were under the Hyou clan’s protection. That was why he had chosen that room from the first. The rule might be enough to feel secure about it, and if in Ruka there remained the pride of the Hyou clan— Also, the white mouse had come, so even if Shuuei and Jin weren’t there, if push came to shove, Shusui would probably protect her.
….At that time, Shuurei had oddly, obediently said “I understand. Go, then,” and withdrew.
Then, she had stayed put in the room with the white mouse.
Riou ground his teeth.
“I understand. Go, then.”
It wasn’t ‘I’ll wait.’ Go, then. It was as if something might happen even in that room.
Riou could hear in his ears the unpleasant pounding of his heart.
…..In other words, if she has my body, then Ruka-san can live.
I’m asking you to please stop. I didn’t bring you here to do that.
I’m asking you.
“….Riou-kun? What’s wrong?”
“—-Nothing.”

Riou would not go back.
“Please return after making all of the tightly shut doors of the Hyou clan open, from that side”
He had chosen to fulfill the duty of the Hyou clan.

******

Shuurei, alone in the room, sat down on the bed. She put her knees together and put both hands on them. The white mouse scuttered in, and very slowly approached her, and stopped right in front of Shuurei.
Shuurei regarded the elegant white mouse.
Why was it that from the beginning, Shuurei saw that mouse as a woman?
A beautiful woman, with sparks of flame left in her coal black eyes, like a young girl, like an elderly noblewoman.
White mice were the guardians of the house. The small messengers of the gods.
Thus, she especially was the person who had always continued to protect the Hyou clan.
The white mouse fluffed the fur under its throat. Its beady black eyes, at the same time, resembled a bottomless darkness.
From somewhere there was a sound of leaves rustling, like the sound of waves.
For a moment, she thought she could see a gigantic pagoda tree, its top branches swaying.
The moment she blinked in surprise, the sound of the leaves and the shadow of the pagoda tree vanished.
In place of them, before Shuurei’s eyes, appeared the figure of a girl beautiful enough to make one’s eyes close.
“Hmph…..You are brave, girl. Are you choosing to confront me all alone?”
Shuurei remembered this girl.
Hair the color of darkness, pale white skin, lips like blood.
It was the girl who had appeared by Shuurei’s bedside, in the midst of the lonely blue moonlight pouring into the room.
–Hyou Ruka.
Ruka stretched her elegant, slender, transparent fingertips towards Shuurei.
Shuurei did not run away.
Ruka’s fingertips entwined around her wrist, a sensation more fleeting than reality, yet more certain than nothingness.
Something flowed from Shuurei to Ruka, like an electric current. Something was being sucked up—the next moment after she though that, along with an illusion that what was in front of her had shifted a half turn, her vision warped.
She was extremely dizzy, and her ears were ringing.
Spots of red and blue and black were in her eyes.
From somewhere came the rippling laughter of some girls.

*****

Shuurei was surrounded by some tens of beautiful girls, in their teens and twenties.
The girls were all innocently smiling.
Though they were in their teens and twenties, they had a defenselessness like that of infants.
Then, Shuurei, who was surrounded by them—- Shuurei, who was being looked down on by them, was a child younger then them, around ten. One of the girls pulled at her sleeve, as though she could not wait.
—-Hime-sama, our hime-sama.
Although it was as if she were speaking, Shuurei noticed that the girl’s lips were not moving at all.
—Today, please talk to us a lot.
—Please play your beautiful erhu.
—-Please sing to us the songs of evening.
—I’m so happy you’ve returned. Our hime-sama….
Small voices, like the rustling of leaves, gentle enough to make one dizzy.
One of the girls, making a puzzled face, touched Shuurei’s cheek with her fingers.
—Why are you crying? Did something sad happen?
She was crying. Streaks of tears, flowing down her face along with sobs, dampening her hand.
Someone answered. The clear bell-like voice, not yet aged, was beautiful, though twisted by sobbing.
“No…. The sad things have ended….. They’ve ended. Today, I have killed all of the foolish clan members, magicians, and priestesses who feared and flattered my father, who threw away their pride, their eyes clouded by desire and money. Therefore, we are fine now. You will no longer be called by father any more. I have shut up father. Father has become strange in the head, so I have shut him up in a place no one will find, in “Bara-hime”‘s tower. I’ve used strong seals, so no one will ever be able to see father again. Even I cannot enter….. So, he will not see anyone anymore. After this, we will not see that strange father again. We can do without hating him. So, there is nothing sad anymore. Everyone, the sad things have ended….”
The girls tilted their heads, and at the last word, smiled. As if to say, thank goodness.
Her entire body was dyed in dripping blood, and the voice finally muttered.
“The ‘master’ was father. As long as the human man doesn’t come, things will stay as they are over there. As long as no one kills father, he will continue to be the ‘master.’ However, there shouldn’t be anyone who can do that. There is no way that anyone can break my seals, and find him. There cannot be any other person who can kill father.”
Other than herself, born under the star of patricide, there should be no one else who would.

The scene changed.
Quickly, her line of sight rose.
“–Eiki has run off to the ‘outside?’ That foolish girl! Pursue her, even to the ends of the earth, and bring her back!!”
From the sound of the angry voice, which had hit like lightening falling, the owner of it was in her thirties.
Her vision wavered, and she dropped to her knees. She scratched at her chest as though she were a fish on dry land.
“….Have I…used too much power?…. Guh, that foolish girl…. I knew that soon this would happen, so I raised her dearly as my successor, but….. I waited and waited, and finally she was born, the sole priestess who possessed the divine power befitting my successor…. Of all things, to run off after a third class nobleman who chose that accursed prince, how idiotic can she be…”
There was the sound of her life flowing away like the the rapids of a river. That was a sensation which Shuurei could recall.
“At least until…. Eiki comes back, I must live—Someone…..protect…”
There was no one else. The priestess possessing enough power to succeed Ruka, magicians, no one.
But—-her life, and her body, she had continuously used them hard, and so they had become worn out.
The empress of bloodshed, wielding vast divine power. The speed at which her life was flowing away, was not half-rate either.
Even so, she had not changed. She had something she must do. Work she had to do. She did not have time to worry about her own life or body.

To exist for the sake of the many weak people, who she had to protect, was the pride of the Hyou clan. Ruka’s pride.
If she let go of that, Ruka would no longer be Ruka.
‘My hime-sama,’ came a familiar voice from somewhere. A voice which she hadn’t heard for over ten years.
—Let us meet again at twilight.
‘Until then, please do not die, please wait for me’–even if she had to betray Uu Uu’s words. Because her pride was the difference between Ruka and her maddened father.
Dying was better than losing it
Shuurei’s heartbeat could be felt near her ears. That was too—
She knew she was crying. It was not Shuurei. The owner of the voice’s cheeks were wet with hot tears, and dampened her sleeves. Frustration? Anger? Misery? It could be any of those, or all of them mixed together. It was all alone she cried, in this way.
“I still….have a mountain left of things I must do….”
With footsteps like leaves falling, someone knelt by her side.
Girls who had become adults, ceaselessly smiling their unchanging innocent smiles.
—Oo-hime-sama….um, um, please use us.
—Our bodies, please use them.
—-So, don’t cry.
—-You’ve talked to us so much, sung so many songs for us.
—Please let us return the favor. You have always protected us, beloved oo-hime-sama.
—Like our other sisters, we’ll little by little go blank white, and someday only fall asleep and die. Hime-sama, please enter us. Then, we’ll be happy.
—Then, we can live for a long time with you. We won’t be lonely. Right….?

That was why.

*****
She felt as though she had been thrown somewhere by a giant hand. She stood up, wavering. She knew there were spots dancing in front of her eyes.
(Now was—-what….)
That time of “something” was like a second, but also like a hundred years.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead, and raised her head. Shuurei’s eyes widened in a flash.
This was not the room she had been in before.
The pure blue moonlight. Lamps lined up like a funeral procession.
Between them were some tens of long white boxes.
They were coffins.
“———!”
Ruka appeared in the air and made as if to walk between the coffins.
Her transparent slender feet stopped in front of a coffin. She slowly turned towards Shuurei.
“Now, girl—Kou Shuurei.”
A tone as cold as the snow left unmelted in the summer, and eyes like the darkness of the abyss.
“You must have heard this already. The paths you have to choose from are few. However, there are not none. If you were waiting for me, then it seems you have chosen one.”
That gaze, and an oppressive authority. Without knowing it, Shuurei made a sound in her throat. Although Ruka was glaring at her, she was not threatening her. Though she was only standing there, Shuurei felt like her knees were about to bend.
The empress of bloodshed. Somewhere….she didn’t recall where she had heard that, but that name suited her.
Shuurei pooled her strength in her gut, and looked up at Ruka. Since the scenes she had seen earlier for a second were not mentioned, it seemed that by some work of chance or something, Shuurei had been the only to see them.
Ruka smiled, the ends of her lips curling up slowly.
“….However, before I ask you, shall I give you a single guarantee? Truly, I did not intend at all, though, to open this path for you.”
Ruka made as if to tap the lid of the coffin she had stopped before. That seemed to be as if she thought, for a few second, that the person within might awake.
“If you wish to test it, then open whichever one you wish. Don’t be afraid, all of them are empty. Except for this one.”
Even though this had been said to her, Shuurei had not been especially ordered to open them, but since the world ‘empty’ bothered her, she slowly, just a tad, opened a nearby coffin.
There was a sweet smell of flowers. She peeked within it it… and definitely, it was empty. There were only pure white flowers, spread within like a carpet. Shuurei, her stomach jumping, opened one or two more, but all of them were the same. There were only beds of flowers.
“You must have heard how I have extended my life. I wanted to live. For this reason, I have mercilessly used up many daughters of this clan. The number of these empty coffins is the number of girls I have used up. Now, all of them have passed away, and sleep below the ground.”
Shuurei was speechless.
There were some tens of white coffins. Nearly all of them…
However, Ruka’s expression did not change a bit. Her expressionless eyes dispassionately passed over the coffins.
“A special spell has been cast over these coffins. The girls can remain alive for some tens of years sleeping. When the body I am using has passed its limit, I chose a body from one of these coffins, and use it as my new body. Now there is only one coffin left.”
Ruka stroked the coffin whose lid she had tapped at earlier, with a touch as light as a feather.
“—Only one body is left.”
She threw a glance at Shuurei’s face.
“Now, aren’t you lucky? If I had used this girl’s body before, there would be nothing left for you. Of course, I have no reason to give this precious body to you. …. But, this time, a small whim has appeared within me. You may use this girl’s body. For whatever reason: if you wish to live ‘outside,’ if you wish to live, if you have some desire, any is fine. If you want to live more—then I will give this girl’s life to you. I guarantee that I shall move all of your ‘soul’ to this girl’s body. I swear on my name that this is no ploy.”
Ruka landed three steps before Shuurei. Her haughty gaze poured onto Shuurei, like an arrow.
“…Then, after that, I shall ask you again. Kou Shuurei, what will you do? Will you choose the same method as me? Will you use this girl’s body and return to the ‘outside’?”
Shuurei slowly turned her gaze to the last coffin.
“….May I open it and see what is inside?”
For some reason, an odd silence fell. After this unnatural gap, Ruka disinterestedly nodded.
Shuurei approached the coffin, and opened the lid. There was the sweet smell of flowers. But unlike the other coffins, a girl slept there, surrounded by the flowers. She appeared to be older than Shuurei, a few years past twenty. Her hands were crossed below her breast, and there was some pink in the cheeks of the girl sleeping in the midst of the flowers, and when she stretched out her hand and touched her, they were soft and warm. Enough to make it hard to believe that she would never again awaken. Shuurei gazed at the girl. She was sleeping there as if she had been buried in the flowers a hundred years before.
“….She is beautiful. If I moved to her, this person’s face would become mine.”
“Yes.”
Shuurei smiled slightly, then….closed the coffin.
“It would have been nice to have been born as such a beautiful person. …. But, I like myself well enough.”
“You dislike changing your face?”
“No.”
“You don’t want to live?”
“No, I want to live. I want to live for a long time. There are many things I want to do. If there were a way, I’d fly at it. But, I will not choose this method.”
Ruka’s eyes narrowed. She was not angered or irritated.
Rather it was as if she was carefully trying to pick up in detail every little change in Shuurei’s words and expressions.
“Do you dislike exchanging your body for that of a living person’s body and heart, even if they can never wake up?”
“It’s not a question of good or evil.”
The scenes which she had glimpsed for a second before reawakened within her. If that was the past, and true, then the girl who had been called ‘hime-sama,’ perhaps had been Ruka.
….Ruka had not possessed the girls against their will, but rather, they had offered their bodies to her of their own will. They had wished for her to use their bodies when they would someday fall into a death-like sleep.
The body of the girl in the coffin was soft, warm, had a heartbeat. Perhaps she was more human-like than Shuurei, who had become cold up to her fingertips. However, she could never re-awaken.
As long as they couldn’t awaken. Exchanging your heart with that of another living person.
Was that ‘killing’ the girl in the coffin, or making her ‘live’?
There was no right answer, but an fruitless going around in circles. It was up to the heart of the person asked.
Yes, it wasn’t about whether it was good or evil.
For whatever reason: if you wish to live ‘outside,’ if you wish to live, if you have some desire, any is fine. If you want to live more—then I will give this girl’s life to you.
“Ruka-hime….I want to live. Whether I have a reason or not. Since I have some things I want, then even more. That’s why I don’t think the method you’ve chosen is mistaken. Though only you know whether you were right. However, my reply is different. It’s not whether this method is good or evil, but whether I will choose this path or not—That is what I think.”
A question without a right answer. Up to the heart of the person asked it.
After she had heard about it from Riou, she had thought about it for awhile.
“Even if I change my face, surely my father and the others will understand. They’d say that it was okay that I had received someone else’s body and extended my life. I think they’d say, ‘thank you for living.’ If my father had gotten in the same condition, I’d wish that he would live on, no matter by what means. I don’t dislike that method. I only want to live up till the end staying myself. I prefer to live, even with my average face, even with my worn out body, up until the end, totally staying myself.”
“You prefer? Hmph, you have an interesting way of putting it.”
Ruka liked that way of speaking. It fit better than ‘good or evil.’
If it wasn’t a question of good and evil, then that left her own tastes. She preferred a way different from Ruka’s.
“Even if you use up your life?”
Shuurei smiled painfully, pulling at the ends of her hair.
“Because, up till the last, I will stay wholly myself. It’s what I received from the beginning. What is mine I’ll take good care of it. So, Ruka-hime, I will not open this coffin.”
“Then, will you live out your remaining days in the Hyou clan?”
“No.”
“Then, will you obediently cede your body to me, a step before you leave this world? Because, of course, my preferred way of living is to live, having received your body. I, more than you, can make use of that body more than sufficiently. It’s a solution of mutual interest.”
“—No. I won’t give it to you.”
Shuurei quietly, but confidently, answered. On that alone, she was certain.
“Riou-kun got angry and me and told me to think of myself first. Definitely, wouldn’t it be cruel that after he has brought me, dying here, given me medicine, and searched with all of his might to find a method, to easily give in to you?”
He had said ‘please protect yourself.’
“Please think about what will become of you, and then make your choice.”
At that time, she had only vaguely understood and nodded her head.
Up until now, when Shuurei had made an important decision, she had not really thought about herself. ‘However, even if you choose the same path in the end, rather than choosing without thinking of yourself, consider yourself and then choose, please,’ perhaps it was because she had wanted to say that, that she had passed her time in the Hyou clan, she suddenly concluded
‘Because if you think about it and choose, then we won’t have any complaints’
That was, even if the result was the same, truly a great difference.
She had realized that by not thinking of herself, and only of the other person, that she had continued to make mistakes.
“….It seems like my body was at home in this quiet, mysterious palace in the sky, so I liked it. When I heard that I could live if I always stayed in the Hyou clan, I thought that would be fine. Rather honestly…. When I came here, I was in a state of confusion, and even I didn’t know the meaning of it. …. I didn’t want to go back to Kiyou. I had a feeling that I had made a horrible mistake, but I didn’t know what this mistake was, so if I returned like this, I wouldn’t i continue to roll down the hill of my mistakes? That was why.”
That was why.
“….When I heard that I wouldn’t need to return, I was relieved. Also, when I heard that this was a place of refuge, where I would be protected from all authority. There was the problem of my body, but as long as I was here, and didn’t return to the court, although it wasn’t the best, at least I would avoid the worst case scenario, wouldn’t I? I thought.”
Ruka’s eyebrows jumped. …She had hit on it.
Shuurei closed her eyes, and took a long, long breath.
“But, no matter what, I ended up thinking about my work.”
“Isn’t that a good thing.”
“I’ve had a mountain of time to think slowly. —Ruka-hime, I will ask you some things, as a censor.”
Shuurei fixed her gaze straight on Ruka.
“….Is there some connection between the Hyou clan and the Jyasenkyou?”
“……..”
“Was the Hyou clan involved in the assassination of the Undersecretary of the Military?”
“………”
“Is there some connection between the Hyou clan, and the fact that Li Kouyuu once fell into a coma?”
“…..”
“–Did you order an assassination on the king at Nine Colors Cove.”
For the first time, Ruka smiled, the ends of her lips curling up. However, she did not answer.
“There are people who heard you say to kill the king. This suspicion of rebellion, which is one of the ten great crimes, is a serious matter.”
Shuurei’s face had become that of an official’s. Ruka smiled amusedly, looking down on her. One wouldn’t think that this was the little girl who had wept with that wretched face.
“I had thought that it would be good to stay here forever, passing the time carefree, but unfortunately, I must return, remaining myself. Though, after I have done what I must do here.”
“Oho? What’s that?”
“This is a sealed territory outside of imperial authority. As long as someone does not leave here, they will be in a place that the ‘outside’ can not reach, I have heard. —-However, the ten great crimes are different. I think you know this.”
Ruka chuckled in her throat.
“That’s right. It would be a beneficial plan to dispose of you without letting you return.”
“But, up till now, you haven’t possessed me or killed me. Why is it that you have let ‘me’ remain ‘myself,’ and let me wander around as I please?”
Ruka had gone silent, and looked down upon Shuurei. With a quiet gaze.
Shuurei gazed without fear into those unearthly, strong eyes.
“It’s because if ‘I’ were to disappear now, you would have a problem—is it not? Actually, not me as ‘Kou Shuurei,’ but me as a ‘censor.’”
“….So, what have you figured out?”
“Regarding that earlier incident, the way you tried to possess my body then, wasn’t directly connected with it, was it? For you to revolt against the king and then try to take over my body, is totally meaningless. Moreover, it was far too much of a half-measure. But, what if there was ‘someone’ at court with whom you were cooperating, and at that time, out of mutual interest, you joined forces, and so to an onlooker, it seemed a strange way of obtaining me?”
Jin had said, the ‘old lady of the Hyou clan.’ At Nine Colors Cove, he had used the words ‘my master.’ However, no matter how much one thought about it, those were two separate people. The one behind Jin was a separate person. With an important enough post to tell Uu Uu-sama to send Jin to the Hyou clan.
“….There is another person besides you. Once ‘that person’ knew that I was at the Hyou clan, there was a possibility that I would return to court and report on the ‘one of the Ten Evils.’ If it were one of the Ten Evils, then even a high official could be executed, no question about it. If I chose to spend the rest of my life here, then that ‘someone’ could leave me be. The same if you possessed me. But, if the possibility that I would work as myself and return occurred, then that person would be inconvenienced. They sent someone to see what would happen.”
“Probably because this is an area outside imperial authority. If someone were to kill you here, there would be no problem.”
“–That’s right. At the same time, if someone were to kill you here, it would not be a crime either.”
Shuurei looked up at Ruka.
“That person wants to only avoid the situation where I remain a censor, and hear the name of that ‘someone’ at court, and return. Then, killing both me and you would be the fastest way to do things. Especially, now that there has been an embargo and locusts, the Censorate cannot send anyone out. Also, for some reason, you have sent out the people of this house I think that something must have happened so that you had to send them all away. There are few people who can protect you. That was why you allowed me to stay as myself and left me free. Because the possibility that I could protect you would only exist if I were a ‘censor.’”
Since all means of contact had been sealed off before Shuurei had come—Then that meant that Ruka had thought there was a danger of assassination before that. If there were a person who wished to assassinate Ruka, then she must have thought that ‘someone’ would come whether Shuurei came or did not come.
Shuurei, who had innocently come at such a time, could turn into one of Ruka’s pawns.
Ruka smiled.
“Then, what will you do?”
“…..How you left me alone, only interfering with me once, was deliberate.”
If, once she had gotten her hands on Shuurei, she waited to make direct contact with Shuurei, then ‘someone’ would come in. In that by itself did Ruka gain sometime.
It would buy time for Shuurei to notice that something was strange. Even if she didn’t, Ruka probably wouldn’t mind. From the beginning, she had not expected Shuurei to arrive. If Ruka had decided that Shuurei was of no use when she arrived, she might have possessed her by force then.
‘What a clever person,’ thought Shuurei, making a face as though she had bit down on something bitter.
Definitely, something had happened in the Hyou clan. She didn’t know what that was, but since the magicians and priestesses had been sent out, then probably Ruka’s forces were extremely few. There was no one who could protect her. Therefore, of all things, Ruka was trying to make Shuurei, who she had tried to possess, protect her.
Because if Ruka were gone, then Shuurei could no longer return to the ‘outside.’
There was also the matter of the locusts. Many things had happened at the same time.
Ki Kouki’s words stirred once again in the depths of her memory.
“Until you return, you are under my command.”
Yes. It was ridiculous to say that her work was over. Until she came before that person once more, Shuurei was a censor. She was a censor. She had things to do. Things she must do.

“–I will not give you my body. But, actually I have some attachment to the idea that it might be good also if I could persuade you, and staying myself, do some useful work in the Hyou clan. On that note, I’m still lost withing myself about it.”
“Hmph. How honest.”
Ruka’s ‘original body’ was guarded under high security somewhere, and no one knew where it was. If her ‘original body’ died, then Ruka would also die. If there really was someone who wished to dispose of Ruka, they would definitely go there.
“—First, I shall go to meet you. As a censor, and also for my own sake.”

Ruka smiled bewitchingly.
“Also, that one of the Ten Evils is rebellion against the current king. After you have protected me, we do not know whether it will be one of the Ten Evils.”

Notes:

Commentary:
See, I told you Riou did something stupid without realizing it. Now he’s all like ‘eeep, I pulled my scary aunt’s fur! D:’ Also, why is Riou angry at Shuuei for thinking that Shusui might be a ghost? A ghost! How dare he! She’s turned into a mouse! Riou is doing a great job creating the impression that the Hyou clan is normal. So I wonder… is Riou really going to try that method he thought of?

Ok, so Ruka fears being assassinated by the ‘someone’ she worked with, but why is this someone trying to kill Ruka? Because they fear that she will tell on them to Shuurei, however, that fear of assassination preceded Shuurei coming, and neither Ruka nor that someone was sure that Shuurei would come? Therefore, without Shuurei coming, why is there a motivation to kill Ruka? And also, what is Ruka’s motivation for telling on the ‘someone’? Since Ruka opposes Ryuuki being king, what is her motivation to tell this to Ryuuki, especially since she would also incriminate herself?

Well, since rebellion against the king is a capital crime, are we going to see some executions?

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