The more Lily got engrossed in executing this swordstyle, the more she felt the exquisiteness of its seemingly basic movements, especially so when she practiced it with a real sword. Unlike the mental practice she performed previously, she obtained a deeper and tangible insight.
Lily felt a certain kind of joy extend from her heart to her blade via her limbs while she executed the movements.
These sword movements that actually resembled a dance produced joy in Lily that emerged from gaining a profound comprehension of the fundamentals and basics of the sword.
So, this was the reason. No wonder I ran into a bottleneck when I practiced the Tsukuyomi Swordstyle previously. It wasn’t because my perception was lacking, but rather because my foundation wasn’t solid enough.
The Minamoto clan of the East did have a pretty solid and practical swordstyle for samurai, but it wasn’t on the same level as Tsukuyomi Swordstyle.
After practicing this swordstyle, Lily obtained a deeper understanding of women-oriented sword fundamentals and also obtained new insights regarding some of the bottlenecks she faced when she practiced the Tsukuyomi Swordstyle previously.
Lily practiced this set of foundational swordstyle over and over again for a whole day unconsciously.
Meanwhile, Yoriko, who had been tasked with guarding this location, had long fallen asleep at a corner.
She even doubted whether she really slept overnight when she woke up as Lily was still engaged in meticulous practice like the day before.
A lot of sweat had formed on Lily’s body because of the hot temperature and had even left clearly visible deep footprints on the ground. The fact that Lily was able to leave such footprints within a day despite having a light weight proved that she had executed the movements of the footwork accurately and stepped on the same spots without any deviation.
There were even a few puddles on the ground, so it could be said that she had really literally sweated out buckets, and the wind blowing through this space was accompanied by a musky1 feminine scent2.
Although Yoriko was a normal woman, she felt admiration towards this woman who possessed both perfect martial skills and feminine charm from the bottom of her heart.
“Miss Lynne is quite amazing no matter whether it’s in terms of the sword or the bust… Why does such a perfect woman exist in this world?3”
Even though she was a woman too, Yoriko didn’t feel any frustration or jealousy, but it was perhaps because the overwhelming gap between them made it impossible for her to feel jealous.
Lily stopped suddenly, pondered for a moment while standing and smiled faintly when she saw Yoriko after raising her head, “I might need to meditate for a while.”
“Ah,” Yoriko got up somewhat wearily, “Feel free to do so, Miss Lynne…”
Lily arrived at the entrance of the house and gazed at the vast and gloomy landscape of the underground space before sitting down in a seiza and closing her eyes.
The thin, frail and soft masculine body of Lily’s donned in a revealing celestial maiden’s raiment from head to toe appeared within the octagonal stone room of the mirror space in the next moment.
As Lily had appeared right next to the demon hound, he ended up frightening it and made it bark at Lily, but it calmed down pretty soon and sized him up and down after that, “You… are Miss Lily?”
“Yes. I am Lily, but please don’t refer to me as ‘miss’ in this mirror space.”
Lily felt a bit uncomfortable having this humiliating dress seen by others as it was pretty flimsy and revealing in a lot of spots.
“A-Are you a man or a woman?” The demon hound asked puzzledly.
“Alright. You better return to the cursed katana now and refrain from asking things that shouldn’t be asked. Also, you’re forbidden from speaking about master’s identity in front of Nanako’s consciousness,” Kagura stated after coming out as she had just finished practice.
“Huh? Who are you? Are you really Lily? Hahaha. What a cute boy you are. Why does your soul possess the form of a boy? It looks so perverted,” Yuki-Onna stated after inspecting Lily closely.
“S-Stop talking nonsense! Do you think I wanted to dress like this?” Lily stated with a flushed face, feeling that even he wouldn’t have the courage to wear this dress in his female body, especially so in front of his acquaintances.
“Hehe,” Yuki-Onna came over and said, “I don’t hate boys like you. Do you want to have some fun with this sister? Letting this sister punish you for instance.”
“Enough,” Lily stated furiously. He didn’t like it when others made fun of his male form. It wouldn’t have mattered if it wasn’t a male form, but since it was, he hoped to have some dignity.
“Go back to doing whatever you were doing. I’m going to practice for a while. Don’t disturb me.”
Lily entered the cave room that had the three huge stone monoliths glumly and used the Art of No-Thought to close the door before beginning his practice of the Tsukuyomi Swordstyle.
His form, grace, glance and mien also began to resemble Goddess Tsukuyomi further and feminized even more.
Lily stopped suddenly and fell down to his knees while drenched in sweat all over.
The practice had gone pretty smoothly, but he felt nearly lost…
Lily’s understanding of the Tsukuyomi Swordstyle had become deeper and detailed at this moment because of the foundational swordstyle that he had learned.
“So that was the reason…”
“The subtle incongruence that barred me from advancing further wasn’t just because my foundation wasn’t solid enough. I can feel that incongruence much more clearly now that my foundation is solid enough…”
The graceful male form of Lily lifted his head dazedly, “I faced that barrier because I insisted on practicing this Tsukuyomi Swordstyle with a male form. Although I can sense that there’s still a lot of room for improvement, I’ll definitely be unable to make much progress on the Tsukuyomi Swordstyle Pathway as long as I remain a boy…”
Lily left the cave room and entered his senior sister’s room while ignoring the demon hound and Yuki-Onna’s gazes before closing the door.
He then cried his heart out on his senior sister’s body…
“Senior Sister. I’ve done so much and even donned such humiliating garments all so that I can protect and awaken you, but I also preserved my final pride as a man for you because you ought to be what we call a straight woman in our world. You don’t like Lily’s girl form, right?”
Lily sobbed intermittently and shuddered while holding his senior sister’s hand, “Answer me, Senior Sister. Please give me an answer. I won’t hesitate anymore if you’re able to accept the fact that I’m a woman and won’t insist on keeping this male soul form. I know that I’m just lying to myself, that this is my consciousness and that I can take the form of that tall, lank and busty appearance with just a thought, but I don’t want to face you with a humiliating appearance like that… Tell me, Senior Sister. Are you going to continue sleeping deeply and refrain from answering even such a thing?”
The senior sister, however, remained asleep gently and charmingly like before without any response.
Lily got up and said, “I shall continue keeping this form for a while longer in that case. However, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold on as the Tsukuyomi Swordstyle assimilates with my body. At the very least, I should be able to practice the first segment successfully without a female form since I learned the basics of this swordstyle coincidently just now.”
“Senior Sister…”
Although Lily still possessed a male form when he left the senior sister’s room, his looks and mien seemed more like a girl’s and his cheeks were tinged with a blush as well.
He had come up with a solution that satisfied both sides, which was to imitate a girl even further with his looks and mien while keeping a male form so that he could make further progress on the Tsukuyomi Swordstyle Pathway.
Lily then entered the cosmetic room and applied eye shadow, lip gloss, eyeliner before changing into a set of black, bikini-like celestial maiden’s raiment that was adorned with streamers and jewelry. He resisted the urge to escape from the sharp gazes of the demon hound and Yuki-Onna and forced an explanation out of his mouth while blushing, “A-All this… is for the sake of practice! So don’t you get it wrong! I don’t like wearing such indecent, revealing dresses… forget it! You won’t get it even if I explain it to you…”
Lily stated weakly in the end, “Don’t look at me…”
He then approached the dark cave room and prepared himself mentally to act like a girl with his male form thoroughly in advance by taking a deep breath and steadied his gaze like still water.
The heavy stone door closed slowly then…
Kagura, who was lying back against the foot of a wall in the corner of the octagonal room, revealed an enigmatic smile upon seeing this4.
Around the same time, in the outside world, although Yoriko was unaware of Lily’s gravest struggle, she saw Lily’s skin take a crimson hue along with the quickening of her breathing while Lily mediated there.
Yoriko approached Lily to get a closer look for some reason and noticed that sparkling droplets of sweat had formed over the deep cleavage in between Lily’s bosom.
Yoriko’s breathing quickened for some reason when she saw this.
“You’re so beautiful, Miss Lynne.” “She isn’t aware of anything at this moment, right?”
Yoriko’s quivering hand grabbed the edges of the front of Lily’s dress and pulled them outwards to look inside5…
“They’re so huge… and have such an intense feminine scent,” Yoriko’s face blushed as well, “We’re both women, so it wouldn’t be that much of a crime if I feel her up a bit, right?”
Yoriko’s hand stretched underneath the hem of Lily’s kimono unconsciously and touched her smooth, warm thigh.
“Hmm? This is… Don’t tell me…” Yoriko’s face blushed even further.
A bone-chilling roar resounded from the village at this moment, followed by an uproar and a girl’s scream.
“A monster?!” Yoriko withdrew her hand hurriedly and was about to grab her pike, but she dazed out momentarily as she might have to fight the monster this time and may die in the process.
She brought her hand near the tip of her nose all of a sudden and covered her mouth to take a deep breath and lick her palm simultaneously.
“Miss Lynne’s scent… Goodness, just what am I doing?!”
Yoriko grabbed her pike and rushed towards the direction of the monster’s roar.
One of the mud houses in the village had collapsed at this moment, and a 3 meter or so tall, ferocious-looking monster shrouded in cloud-like black mist with a pair of huge, dark, glowing eyes glared at its surroundings.
It stood on top of the ruins of the house with its blood-stained mouth wide open and held the half-eaten corpse of a woman in one of its hands.
“Kyah!” Yoshika wailed her heart out while lying down at a corner of the ruins, “Mommy! Mommy! Don’t eat Mommy! Help us! Aaarggh!”
However, the underground monster that was shrouded in miasma continued to consume the remaining half of the woman.
“You abominable monster!” Yoriko emerged from the alley while holding the pike with hatred and bravery written all over her face as she charged towards the massive figure of the sinister man-eating monster.6
