Mirai hung her wet washcloth on a drying clothesline outside her window. So, demons came from a human, who then became greedy for more power. Despite the conversation she and the group had with Jin-sama was hours ago, she couldn’t rid her mind of the story.

Jin-sama had explained that after the first Shogun, Toma, and his friend, Shun, used their magical abilities to help the people’s lives around them to be better, Shun eventually came to an experiment of whether he could revive the dead or create new kinds of species. As time passed, Shun secluded himself in solitude while Toma’s kindness made him the first Shogun of the nation. But when Shun discovered that his magical powers weren’t strong enough because he wasn’t a complete deity, he asked the same lady, but she denied him, saying that his idea was immoral. Angry, he committed a horrible and irreversible deed to the young lady and murdered Toma when he found out that it would be the only way for him to receive complete possession of the young lady’s abilities. Once he had gained possession of it…he abused his power after he failed to become the next Shogun and created his own followers—the Demon race.

Jin-sama also said that it started the next legend, ‘The Curse of the One.’ That legend was about how in every eleventh generation, a powerful demonic child, the reincarnation of Shun Oguri, would be born to a pure demon bloodline of his and would cease the existence of humans and let his race walk the Earth.

Mirai sighed in exhaustion. “This legend is passed down from Shogun to Shogun… Why, though?” This curiosity, including many others, made her think of an idea—a very dangerous idea that only she decided she’d do alone. Pretending to sleep in her futon, she listened closely for the surrounding doors to close to confirm everyone’s sleeping presence. Once verified, she got up and got dressed in a dark black robe. When she had gathered everything, she jumped out of her window and landed swiftly onto the ground. Checking all sides before continuing, she made her move to the palace.

Because there were more guards at the entrance when it was nighttime, she had to make a detour around the palace guards and palace walls. When she found a way in, she immediately headed straight to the Royal Library. After finding it, she went to the back and looked for a window. If there wasn’t one, she’d have to break in.

Fortunately, there were two windows with wooden bars for barricades.

Using her conjuration abilities, she turned the wooden bars into sand so that when she needed to leave, she could conjure the sand back into its original form. The moment she stepped in, a hand aimed at her, but her fast reflexes allowed her to dodge. The attacker didn’t stop there. The attacker rushed over to throw a flying kick in the air, and she blocked it with her wrists. Still blocking his attack, she counterattacked by turning over and elbowing him in the chest. The stranger was thrown back with a sound in pain. Running to the person, she leaped up into the air and was about to finish the attacker off when the person showed his face through the shining moon’s lights.

“Yamada-san?” She dropped back down on one of her knees. Shimatta, I added ‘-san’ to his name.

Ryosuke stood up while touching his chest. “Who are you?”

Mirai took off her veil to reveal her face.

“Mirai!” he gasped. “What are you doing here?”

Avoiding his question, she threw it back at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I came here to search up more about what we had heard today.” He looked around. “Your friends aren’t here?”

She nodded as she looked at the lined-up books on the nearby shelf. “And yours?”

“They don’t know I’m here.” He paused. “The books don’t have any information about it, but I found something that might give us more than we need.”

She looked at him, and he sent a smile.

“I’ll show you.” He walked to the front and moved a small picture hanging by the wall, and behind it was a string.

A string? she questioned.

He pulled on the strings gently and to her left, a huge poster rose and showed an entrance to another room.

She couldn’t believe her eyes.

He stopped pulling the strings and let go of it. Pointing to the secret room and looking back at her, he said, “Let’s go.”

When they entered the secret room, there was a table with a small lantern placed in the middle. Surrounding it were shelves with rows of books.

“Before your arrival,” he said, “I’ve searched this place. It contains the journal entries of our Shoguns while the books outside this room are information regarding incidents of the past between humans and demons.”

She looked at him with surprise. Wow, he’s gotten all that down in that short amount of time before I came? She looked away to smile secretly. As expected, he deserves to be a Royal Demon Slayer.

“This room must’ve been made after the Burning Revolution in revolt against Shogun Tomohisa’s attempt to coexist with the Demons since the journals belonging to the Shoguns before him can’t be found.” He sighed. “Well, now that you know this, you can come whenever you want.”

Confused and curious, she asked, “Me? Why are you allowing me to infiltrate the royal documents?”

He took out a book and scanned it. “You’re not infiltrating anything.” He closed the book. “You did receive permission to use the Royal Library, remember?” …and I trust you.

*

It had been almost two hours since Ryosuke and Mirai had been inside the hidden room reading the journal entries. So far, they had not gathered the information they wanted.

As she put her book back to the shelf she had gotten it from, she noticed the small numbers marked on the spines of each book. Intrigued, she looked at all the spines and saw the marked numbers on all of them and realized that the books were lined in numerical order from left to right but would go back to number one after reaching the twenties. After much thinking, she finally understood what the numbers on the spines stood for.

“What is the number on the spine of your book?” she asked him as she stood where she was.

He got up and closed his book to check the spine. “Number? I don’t see it.” He walked to her. “Where?” He handed her the book.

She held the book in the middle between them. As they brought their faces close to each other, side by side, she pointed to a small mark on the bottom of the spine. “Here.”

“Oh, it’s ten,” he said as he faced her.

At the same time, she also faced him, and their noses were inches apart. The only thing they could hear was their breath breathing in and out. They didn’t pull their eyes away.

Seeing her up close reminded him of when he was under the Sakura Garden on Hanami night when he was about to kiss her, but Haruma had interrupted him. He looked down at her lips, and she watched him lowered his eyes. He leaned in closer to take this chance to continue from that night. As he slowly crept closer, taken by the chance, she confusingly and nervously moved back and bumped into a huge shelf behind her, and the objects on the top shelf tipped over and hit him on the head, halting him to continue any further.

He moved back and touched his head.

Because of the ruckus, they heard the guards scurrying toward their building.

Knowing this, they bent down to hide from the guards’ shadows and to pick up the fallen objects.

I scared her. He bashfully looked at her ignorantly picking up the objects.

After waiting for the search outside to cease, they put the objects back to where they fell from, but she had some problems because she was too short, so no matter how much she tiptoed, she couldn’t reach them. Seeing this, he smiled and laughed to himself.

She pouted when she heard him. Just because you’re tall. I can do this! She continued to tiptoe, but it was no use. When he attempted to help her, she said, “I can do it.” I don’t want to thank you later.

Hearing this, he remembered that she always said that to Momoka when they played in the Sakura Garden. Whenever they tried to gather petals to throw up into the sky, she always reached for the petals on the branches that were too high for her, so when ‘Momoka’ tried to get the petals for her, she would pout and frown and say, “No, I can do it.” ‘Momoka’ would then let Mirai do it herself, but in the end, it came to ‘Momoka’ picking Mirai up to reach it.

And that was exactly what he did next.

He put a hand over her tiny and curvy waist and tightly hugged her as he pushed her up to reach the top. “Hai, do it yourself,” he gently teased. If Haruma won’t let me tell you who I am, I’ll just show you.

Taken aback, she responded with a quiet gasp and almost dropped what she was holding but immediately placed them on the top without setting it properly. “Finished.”

He gently set her down but didn’t let go of her waist. He took this chance to pull her closer and give her a back-hug.

She sensed their closeness and didn’t turn around. “Umm, you… You can let go now.”

He tightened the hug. No…just a little longer. I’ve missed you so much.

She felt uncomfortable, for she had never been in this situation before. Is he hurt? Is it from what hit his head before? Feeling guilty because it was she who made the things fall, she turned to face him, and doing this made them brush their lips together. Shocked at what happened, she quickly backed away but because he was still tightly gripping onto her, he also moved along with her. With their force, they once again bumped into the shelf and made everything fall again.

Fortunately, this time, the objects missed them…and…because of this mishap, he accidentally got what he had always wanted to do.

A kiss.

But on her cheeks

*

“Hideaki-sama,” the servant said. “Are you sure she’s a good informant?”

Hideaki smirked. “Of course, she is. We won’t stand a chance to get any of the others, so this little exiled girl, who just happened to stumble upon their lives…will also have to just stumble upon ours too.”

Beside Hideaki lied a motionless Mariko breathing faintly.

He caressed her cheeks. “You really should’ve listened to him and never butted in.” He removed his hand away and smiled. “Now, you’re going to be the reason they’ll fall apart.”

*

A few seconds later, after batting her eyes, Mirai pulled away. “Gomen!” She blurted out in her natural tone of voice. Stuttering, she tried to explain herself. “Gomen! B-because I turned around, that-that happened.”

Taken back to reality, Ryosuke composed himself and sat up straight. He just smiled at seeing how unnatural she was acting.

“Umm, your forehead… Is it okay?”

He pointed to it with a puzzled expression.

“From before…when the things fell, it hit your head, right?”

He nodded.

“Can I see it?” She pursed her lips together. “It’s my fault that happened.”

He let out a quiet laugh. Actually, they’re all my fault.

Seconds later, she slowly crept to him to see his wound. To help her, he slightly lowered his head. Doing this, when he looked down, he saw her tiny feet and thin legs in the black clothes that lined her curvy and slim body. Right there and then, he wanted to hold her again in his arms to make up for all the years and time they had lost.

“It’s not bleeding anywhere but when you do go back, make sure you—” She had looked up at him, and their eyes interlocked once more as they faced each other. She immediately looked away. “Make sure you treat it properly, so it won’t be bruised.”

“Hai.” Once again, he was reminded of the times when he was bruised from training with his father and would run to the Sakura Garden, she’d always have a first-aid kit ready for him. Only after bandaging him would they continue to play and have fun before one of them had to leave. Most of the time, it would always be ‘Momoka’ being the first to leave. “You know how to bandage wounds?”

“Of course, I do.” It’s all thanks to Momoka.

He knew the answer to his next question but was tempted to ask anyway. He wanted to hear the answer. “Who taught you?”

It took moments before she could gather enough courage to say the name. “Momoka.”

He sat down with his knees close to his chest. “A friend of yours?”

She nodded and sat beside him in the same manner. “A friend.”

“Do you know where she is?” he continued to innocently ask.

She put her chin on top of her knees as she squeezed her legs closer to her chest to stop her from crying. With a low and solemn voice, she answered, “Not here with us anymore.”

Confused at her answer and her tone of voice, when he looked at her, he witnessed a teardrop stream down the side of her cheeks.

*

“I’ve already sent a message to Matsumoto-sama that we’ve confirmed the whereabouts of our future savior,” Hideaki explained as he walked out of the room where he had just finished mind-interrogating Mariko. He turned to look at a man sitting across from him at a table. “As for you, I hear that rumors are already spreading.”

The man chuckled to show that he was not worried. “Even if it spreads, as long as my name isn’t mentioned, there will never be a way they’d know.”

Hideaki smirked in response. “Of course. Who’d expect you to be working with us? If they were to ever find out, it’d be too late. That reminds me, the male Tengu... He looked familiar.” He touched his chin. “Find out more about him for me.”

“On it. Just make sure I get my equal share of this. If not, I can always kill you. I am a Demon Slayer after all.”

Hideaki laughed out loud. “Of course! Of course! A human for a right hand-man. Always better than a middle-class demon.”

The men stopped laughing, and the human man changed into a different subject he was curious about. “How did you find her? I thought she was gone for years and had always moved from place to place.”

“It was all coincidences, believe it or not. Remember the night we planned to attack when your human king’s daughter was possessed? When I was about to possess the ladies of the palace, she happened to run past me and got hit by my ability. I can’t harm her, but I saw the past. Her past.” He grinned. “That’s when I knew that the time has come.”

*

Awakened, thanks to the sound of birds chirping in the early morning with the sun rising from its side, Mirai and Ryosuke remembered that they had slept inside the secret room of the Royal Library. They were a few meters away from each other, with her near the corner and him slightly near another corner.

“Ohayou,” he greeted her, and she responded with a slight bow as she stood up to tap her clothes free of any invisible dust. “We should get going when it’s still early.”

“You’re planning to keep this a secret?”

“Why? You’re not planning to keep it a secret from your friends? Isn’t that why you came here alone?”

She headed to the door. “I can keep this a secret, but will it be okay for someone who works and is well-respected in the palace to hide something from its people?”

“Well, it won’t ever get out unless one of us tells.”

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