In the end, I couldn't make it to my part-time job.
Before lunch break was even over, messages arrived on Miroku's and Yoshitsune's smartphones at almost exactly the same time.
Report to the palace.
The message was as concise as possible, without the slightest consideration for the existence of a right to refuse.
Miroku stared at the screen for about three minutes with the message marked as read, then quietly set his smartphone facedown and decided to pretend he hadn't seen it.
Five minutes later, his father called, but he ignored it.
A minute after that, his homeroom teacher came to the classroom. Apparently, the school had been contacted directly as well.
Every escape route was completely blocked.
“Abuse of state power!”
Miroku muttered it as he watched the black car parked in front of the school gate.
“What is someone on the state-power side doing complaining?”
“My soul already submitted its resignation.”
“It hasn't been accepted, though.”
Yoshitsune laughed.
They shoved us into the back seat of the car. The door closed.
It was over.
Miroku's paycheck, that is.
Today's shift was five hours. He calculated his hourly wages in his head.
Ouch.
Very much ouch.
“Is your paycheck really that important?”
“It’s a matter of life and death.”
Yoshitsune gave him a wry smile.
The car started moving.
Outside the window, the Tokyo streets flowed past, unchanged from usual.
Skyscrapers. Giant video screens. People coming and going.
Among them were inhuman beings as well.
Humans and yōkai.
It had been a long time since the boundary between them had become blurred.
In this country, that was everyday life.
Eventually, the car left the main road, and the scenery gradually changed.
The buildings grew lower, and the roadside trees became more numerous.
And then.
A gigantic wall came into view.
White walls. Black tile roofs.
Stretching endlessly onward, it was far too out of place to exist in the heart of a modern city.
The Imperial Palace.
The residence of the Emperor who ruled this country, and the center of its governance and sacred rites.
The place where descendants of the Dragon God had sat in power for more than a thousand years.
Though, of course, the current Emperor was Yoshitsune's grandfather.
Beyond the vermilion-painted main gate, roof after roof rose in layered succession.
And farther outside them.
Towering around the Imperial Palace were enormous towers.
At least three were visible from here.
In reality, multiple towers had been arranged in a ring around the Imperial Palace.
The Calming Towers.
They had an official name different from that, but everyone called them this.
Ordinary people knew nothing about what was sealed inside them.
And they didn't need to.
Gods who had lost their names.
Gods who had lost their worship.
Gods cursed by humans and fallen into supernatural anomalies.
Things once called gods that were no longer even permitted to be enshrined.
Gods couldn't be killed.
At least, not by human hands.
That was why this country had chosen to seal them away instead of exorcising them.
To use the Dragon God's power possessed by the Emperor and maintain the seals.
The towers had been built to encircle the Imperial Palace.
The warning bell installed in one of them rang.
It hadn't rung the first time.
Miroku narrowed his eyes.
At least, not as far as he could remember.
The spring he was sixteen.
There had been no white woman in the north building.
The warning bell of the Calming Towers hadn't rung, either.
He had no memory of discovering the supernatural anomaly in the north building yesterday.
Something had changed.
Because he had returned?
If so, that made no sense.
His regression had happened this morning.
The white woman had already existed since yesterday.
Which meant she had existed before Miroku returned.
In other words, the world itself had changed first.
It was an unpleasant thought.
“You've got a scary look on your face.”
Yoshitsune said it.
“I was born with it.”
“That’s twice today.”
“You remember well.”
Yoshitsune narrowed his eyes just slightly.
“It’s because you’re Miroku.”
He said it casually.
Yoshitsune probably didn't mean anything deep by it.
He was kind to everyone and smiled at everyone.
And yet, for some reason, he never showed Miroku the slightest restraint.
“I was thinking you have a nice face. Annoyingly nice.”
Miroku said it.
“...Thanks.”
Yoshitsune smiled.
The same smile he'd had since childhood.
The face Miroku hadn't been able to see until the end, surrounded by flames in the Imperial court.
Had this guy survived that day?
What about Himeuo?
Himegashi?
Yozuru?
Shigure?
Miyabi?
His younger sister?
His father?
Sensei?
Who had lived?
Who had died?
He didn't know.
He had died without confirming a single thing.
If someone asked whether he regretted it, he wasn't sure.
But.
With Yoshitsune beside him like this.
He felt a little relieved.
The car stopped.
A huge vermilion gate split open to either side with a low rumble.
At that moment, the air changed.
A small amount of tension left Miroku's expression.
Purity.
That was the closest way to describe it.
The Imperial Palace itself was one enormous barrier.
Ritual formulas layered over one another.
The land.
The buildings.
The trees.
The waterways.
All of it formed one enormous altar.
Yoshitsune probably couldn't tell.
For him, as someone descended from the Dragon God, this was his family home.
Miroku, on the other hand, had always been bad at dealing with the Imperial Palace.
Places that were too stiff made it hard to breathe, and he could never feel comfortable there.
“Lord Kayō, Kannagi exorcist. This way, please.”
A ritual exorcist in a white kariginu robe bowed his head.
Cherry blossoms were blooming in the garden.
They were just past full bloom, and petals scattered every time the wind blew.
The sight was so beautiful that he found himself staring for a moment.
“Miroku!”
Before he could turn around, something slammed into him at full force.
“Ugh.”
“Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”
“You’re heavy, Shigure.”
“Oh, sorry!”
Shigure Takamatsu quickly pulled away.
“I heard the white woman attacked you.”
“News travels fast.”
“Of course we’d worry.”
Behind Shigure, Yozuru Sasazuki leaned against a pillar in the corridor and spoke.
“You look fine.”
“Glad to see you’re alive and well too, Yozuru.”
“...What kind of greeting is that?”
“A greeting.”
“I don’t think it’ll catch on.”
Yozuru studied Miroku for a while.
His eyes seemed to be probing for something.
Yozuru had always had an uncanny instinct for odd details.
“Something happen?”
“I was attacked by a supernatural anomaly.”
“Besides that.”
“Not really.”
“Huh.”
Yozuru left it at that and didn't press him further.
He didn't look convinced, though.
Himeuo walked over.
Himegashi was beside her.
A little later, Miyabi Tōgetsu appeared and brushed her hair aside with an annoyed look.
“You're late.”
“Yeah, I had a little trouble getting here.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Miyabi, calm down!”
Shigure cut in.
“Shigure, shut up.”
Some things never changed.
Miroku looked over everyone gathered there.
Himeuo.
Himegashi.
Yozuru.
Shigure.
Miyabi.
And Yoshitsune.
He had seen their faces more times than he could count since he was five.
Ceremonial observances.
Sacred rites.
Training.
Studying.
Sometimes playing.
They'd fought, too.
They had helped him countless times.
And then.
Two years later.
He had died, leaving them all behind.
A small sense of wrongness stirred deep in his chest.
It wasn't enough to call it pain.
It was simply nostalgic.
That was all.
Probably.
“I was thinking that everyone here is alive.”
Miroku said it.
“Don't say things like that. It's bad luck.”
Himegashi looked exasperated.
“Sorry, sorry.”
At those words, Himegashi's eyes widened slightly.
Apparently, Miroku sincerely apologizing was unusual.
“Yep, you're definitely the same old Miroku.”
She smiled as if reassured.
Miroku said nothing.
The wind blew, and cherry blossom petals scattered.
Pale pink petals skated across the white stone pavement.
Beyond them.
To the north.
A tower came into view.
Miroku's eyes stopped there.
From a distance, there was no visible abnormality.
The tower stood silently, towering into the sky.
The barrier.
The seal.
Both were functioning without issue.
But.
“The Divine Scales.”
He hadn't meant to say it aloud.
He had only thought the words in his head.
Clink.
A sound came from his pocket.
Tension shot through the air around them.
Miroku took out the Divine Scales.
One of the pans had been sunk all the way down from the start.
An ancient divine-age ritual implement possessed by the Kannagi family.
A troublesome artifact that could devour even the life of whoever wielded it.
And now.
It was trembling in Miroku's palm with a faint rattle.
“What are those measuring?”
Himegashi's voice dropped.
“I don't know.”
The Divine Scales themselves slowly turned to face north.
The Calming Tower.
Not there.
Farther.
Below it.
Underground.
Miroku's expression went blank.
He didn't know what lay beneath the Imperial Palace.
No one had told him.
Not even though he was a member of the Kannagi family.
Then.
The object tucked inside his clothing grew hot.
He gripped the white bone he'd picked up in the north building through the cloth.
It was hot.
The object that had shown no reaction until now.
It was pulsing.
Thump.
Thump.
As if it were alive.
“Miroku, what’s wrong?”
Yoshitsune took a step closer.
Miroku was about to answer.
Then.
A voice spoke.
“—Miroku.”
He froze.
The voice he'd heard in the north building.
“Give it back. That’s—my—”
The voice cut off there.
Gooong.
The bell.
It was far closer than before.
The air itself trembled, and the cherry blossom petals all soared into the air at once.
The pan of the Divine Scales bounced.
At the very top of the northern tower.
Something.
Was there.
A human silhouette.
It was too far away to see the face.
White clothes.
Long hair.
It was looking this way.
“Yoshitsune.”
“I see it.”
The usual lightness had vanished from his voice.
His Dragon Eye turned gold.
“Who is that?”
Himegashi whispered.
No one answered.
A chill of unpleasant sweat ran down Miroku's back.
There had been nothing like this in his first life.
Not the woman in the north building.
Not the bone carved with divine-era script.
Not the anomaly in the tower.
Not whatever was standing up there.
All of it.
Unknown to him.
And yet.
The bottom of his soul was screaming at him to run.
The thing atop the tower slowly raised an arm.
It pointed at Miroku.
And then.
It smiled.
Its face shouldn't have been visible.
But Miroku knew, without a doubt, that it had smiled.
“...This is the worst.”
The next moment.
A single crack raced across the barrier covering the tower.