“Nanako…” Shimizu looked at Nanako with an indescribable look on her face1.
Nanako held the mirror and shuddered all over, “Y-You…”
Shimizu tried to put on a friendly expression, but her smile looked extremely abnormal, “Nanako, listen to me. This was an accident, you hear me, an accident.”
Shimizu attempted to stand up.
“Don’t come over!” Nanako retreated in vigilance and looked at Shimizu as if she was a demon.
Shimizu’s gaze fell on the mirror, “Nanako, I will explain it to you slowly, so will you return the mirror to me first? I don’t have anything anymore and can’t live without this mirror. Return it to me, okay?2”
Nanako’s gaze turned cold, “Keep dreaming! If it weren’t for the fact that I’m lacking in strength, I would have killed you right away!”
“What do you mean by that?! I told you it wasn’t intentional, right?! It was an accident! An accident, you hear me?!” Shimizu grabbed the blade that was brimming with dark grudge, “Give the mirror to me! Return it to me! It’s my little sister’s thing! My final reason to keep living! Return it or else…”
“Or else you’ll kill me as well?” Nanako responded coldly.
Shimizu trembled all over and her hand holding onto the blade also shuddered, her gloomy gaze struggling with grief.
“Sis wouldn’t have died, and if she’s really dead, Nanako shan’t live in solitude,” Nanako’s eyes glistened with tears as she said these words decisively.
And then, Nanako closed her eyes and allowed her body to fall off the cliff behind her without the slightest fear and hesitation3.
“Nanako!” Shimizu leaped forward to grab her, but it was too late.
Nanako had long disappeared into the abyss.
Shimizu sat down powerlessly in a daze with her dark blue hair cascading down, the final brilliance from her eyes extinguishing itself.
“Why? Why did this happen… It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t push Lil’ Sis Lily and loosen my grip intentionally and didn’t force Nanako to jump off the cliff… It wasn’t me…. It wasn’t me… IT WASN’T ME!!!”
A powerful dark mist emerged from Shimizu’s body and seemed to extend towards the nightly sky.
“Hehehehehehehehehehehehe….” Shimizu began chuckling strangely all of a sudden and black lines extended on Tranquil Bamboo, creating a pitch-black sword rune on her grudge-filled straight sword!
At this moment, a mystical space took shape deep within Shimizu’s body, around her abdomen, and the dark mist condensed into a pitch-black magatama within that space.
Shimizu suddenly felt a deep hunger rise from the depths of her body and felt an unprecedented thirst for spirit power. This thirst allowed her desire to take over her consciousness and made her stand up slowly before making her walk towards the mist aimlessly in her torn black kimono while dragging Tranquil Bamboo which now had a dark, blood-like sword rune on it4…
At the same moment, Nanako held onto the mirror tightly with one of her hands while falling down into the dense mist filled with powerful winds and took out the Sakura Parasol from behind.
“Open!”
“Bam!” The Sakura Parasol unfurled and slowed her fall5, allowing her to descend down like a fairy that had fallen into a misty valley6.
“Nanako, go to the left. I can sense master’s aura from there,” the Sakura Parasol voiced out.
Nanako operated the Sakura Parasol such that she floated towards the left of the canyon.
A fissure within the abyssal canyon appeared within her eyes momentarily. It was a considerably huge fault that was 20-30m wide at its widest spot and covered a range of about 100m.
The Sakura Parasol was a very peculiar treasure. Nanako didn’t have to spend any effort at all yet she landed right above that fault, and within it, she discovered a red silhouette lying powerlessly.
Nanako closed the parasol and landed on that fault. The endless Abyssal Rift laid behind the cliff and spouted out creepy eldritch energies from time to time that seemed to come from Hell. However, the land above the fault was lush with greenery and under the shade of an ancient tree with luminous wildflowers blooming under it. The cries of the autumn insects were also audible even on a night like this, and it was completely out of her expectations that such a beautiful scenery existed on a fault within the Abyssal Rift.
“Sis!”
Nanako sprinted towards Lily after landing on the ground and saw Lily lying there weakly with her clothes torn and hair disheveled. She seemed to have lost her consciousness.
“Sis! Sis!” Nanako shook Lily worriedly but Lily showed no reaction at all.
Nanako stretched her hand towards Lily’s bosom and grabbed onto her left breast firmly.
Her hand was small, so she wasn’t able to grab all of it, but she was still able to feel a rhythmic pulse from the warm ball of softness.
Only then did Nanako sigh in relief.
“Master… is still alive, but she’s very weak and has depleted almost all of her spirit power,” the Sakura Parasol stated.
Nanako inspected Lily’s body and from the looks of it, it seemed that Lily had expended her remaining strength to don a spirit armor at the moment she was about to strike the ground. Even though this protected her from gaining any serious injuries, the strong impact had made her faint and fall into a deep coma, preventing her from waking up in a short while.
“Although she isn’t injured, she had depleted all her spirit power. This is quite dangerous! Master’s body is different from yours, so it’s very dangerous for her to fall into a coma while not having any spirit power!” the Sakura Parasol stated worriedly.
“W-What do we do then?” Nanako asked anxiously.
“Hmm. Although your spirit power is quite weak, it’s still better than nothing. I also have some animas stockpiled within me. If you are able to awaken her, she should be able to recover swiftly using the spirits,” the Sakura Parasol explained.
“All right! It doesn’t matter to me even if all my spirit power is taken away! But how do I transfer my spirit power to Sis?” Nanako inquired worriedly. “Hmm. The method is… too complex so you won’t be able to learn it in time. I don’t have any esoteric technique for it, but I do know a simple way to do it…” “What is it…”
At this moment, a slow and heavy noise sounded out from the dark ancient tree behind Nanako and Lily.
A fiendish aura that was much stronger than Nanako arrived from behind her.
Under the illumination of the moonlight, a deep blue image of a samurai shadowed Nanako and Lily’s bodies.
Nanako turned around and unsheathed her dagger, “Who is it?!”
Nanako saw a terrifying masked samurai donned in worn-out armor with a dark gold crescent horn on the wide helmet walk towards her and Lily while dragging a broken tachi behind it.
The samurai was shrouded in an inhuman aura and seemed to yell in an unclear guttural voice, “Kagami… Lily…”
Nanako pointed her dagger towards this samurai nervously and questioned, “W-Who are you?! Don’t come over here!”
However, the samurai seemed to have not heard her pleas and continued approaching them. At this moment, Nanako finally noticed a terrifying wound at his abdomen under the armor of his torso that had long dried up7.
Nanako didn’t dare to fight with the samurai. When she noticed his slow movements, she stretched her hands under Lily’s underarms and pulled her towards the walls of the canyon. Over there, she discovered a cave, so she retreated towards it while pulling along the unconscious Lily.
The samurai’s reactions were too slow, and it seemed to only have a fleeting consciousness, so it just continued to walk towards Nanako and Lily while calling out Lily’s name eerily.
When Nanako arrived at the entrance of the cave, she saw a stone outside it which had the ancient letters ‘Mt. Yoshino’ carved on it in red.
Although these letters were carved on an ordinary moss-covered stone, they emanated a very extraordinary aura.
However, Nanako had no time to consider it and retreated into the cavern while pulling Lily alongside her.8
