"A wife, General," said Yae Miko, her voice practically bubbling with laughter. "I'm sure you are familiar with the term."

Gorou didn't immediately respond. He looked to Reyna, who was looking at him in wide-eyed alarm. The volume of his outcry must have startled her. If she'd lived most of an existence as a living deity, perhaps shouting in her proximity was relatively rare. Or maybe it was just because she had no memories of any sort. Either way, Gorou was not keen to further startle Reyna, and so forced himself to calm from his own shock.

A wife? What an absurd idea!

"What do I tell my neighbors when I return with a wife out of the blue?" said Gorou, trying to point out the flaws in this farce.

"I'm sure you will think of something," said Yae Miko, her smirk returning. "You can't expect us to do everything for you."

Gorou blinked at her. Was she being serious?

"You are literally expecting me to do everything. For you."

Yae Miko blinked and placed a finger on her chin again. "Oh. Yes. I suppose we are, if you look at it a certain way."

"What other way can I look at it?"

The whimsical expression faded from Yae Miko's face and she now became deathly serious for the first time in their conversation: "You can look at the fact that the only reason thousands of the Shogun's soldiers are not burning your villages, destroying your temples, and enjoying the beauty of your precious priestess is because the Raiden Shogun does not will it to be so."

Gorou was stunned into brief silence. He said the first obvious thing: "We would resist."

"You would try," said Yae Miko, saying the next obvious thing.

Gorou's hackles now began to rise as the blatant threat sank into his consciousness. "You asked me here to threaten Kokomi to my face and to-"

Yae Miko raised her voice to cut him off. "I BROUGHT YOU HERE-... General. To present you this choice: Do this favor for Raiden Shogun, your god and lord. Or don't."

Rage was boiling through Gorou's body now, but he fought to keep it in check. Priestess Kokomi wanted the peace, and he could not be the one to ruin it. If he messed this situation up, he would doom all they had fought to preserve.

"And what of her?" Gorou said, indicating Reyna with his arm. "Does she have a choice, in this?"

"She is not yet capable of making her own choices," said Yae Miko, still deathly calm. "What of your own choice?"

"I don't have one. Obviously."

The smirk returned to Yae Miko's expression and she settled back into her couch. "We can add 'sharp political mind' to your long list of accolades, General. It seems we are in agreement. Reyna, dear? You may leave now. Go to the next place we discussed."

Reyna stood, looking somewhat frightened, but she bowed to Yae Miko, and then to Gorou, and quietly left the room. Gorou watched her leave and then returned his attention to Yae Miko who lounged in her couch, arms up on the back of it; her long, slender legs crossed and displaying heavenly thighs. To Gorou, she just looked like a she-wolf after having eaten a good meal. She watched him silently, smirking, as he glared at her.

"So. How will this work?" said Gorou.

"Reyna will leave Inazuma City as a veiled member of the tax collectors traveling to Watatsumi Island. It is a private charter of trusted people. You were called here, by the way, to escort those tax collecters back to your island. And then: when the top of Tenchukaku sinks below the horizon of the ocean behind you, Reyna will become your wife in every way except the traditional way. The kabuki will begin, We might say."

That seemed simple enough. Gorou was calming down a bit, and could not find any fault in that plan. He could come up with some lie about why he was returning with a wife. Maybe… he had promised himself to someone in the city during his trips there and the war had delayed their marriage. There. That- that wasn't too bad actually.

Yae Miko was watching him, and he realized her face had become serious again. "There is one more thing I need to advise you of."

"Another threat?"

Yae Miko ignored him. "It would be somewhat accurate to regard Reyna as my little sister. And also something like Raiden Shogun's daughter. Reyna is the closest to divinity you will likely get in your life, Gorou. You best remember that if you somehow come to think that your marriage to Reyna is a real thing and try to assert your… traditional rights as a husband."

Reyna was astonishingly beautiful, but the idea of…!?

"I would not!" said Gorou, aghast at the idea.

Yae Miko leaned forward, again deathly serious. "I do not think you will, either. That's one of the main reasons you are in that sofa right now.. But- I am a little older than I look, General. And I have seen many a good man tempted to strange acts by a pretty face. So I think it prudent to give you a taste of the consequences of that path. A little taste of your fate if you should exploit Reyna, violate her person, or otherwise cause her to come to harm."

'I would not-" Gorou began, but then Yae Miko's face transformed. Her pupils narrowed to vulpine slits, her eyes darkened purple-black and were suddenly veined in red. The perfect skin of her face tightened to the skull, her nose sharpened, and her jaw took a slightly lupine shape with fangs to match.

And then Gorou fell through the couch, through the floor, into a black nothing. Above him, the gleaming purple-red fox eyes of Yae Miko enlarged like dual moons in a black sky. He looked around, but there was only black nothing in every direction. He heard the barking of foxes. They were surrounding him. Playing with him. They should be close enough to see plainly, but everything was just black. Everything was black except Yae Miko's eyes staring gleefully down from above.

Somewhere far away in the dark, he heard Priestess Kokomi screaming and crying out his name, and there was the amused laughter of men.

"Kokomi!" shouted Gorou desperately. And that made the fox barks and giggles louder all around him.

There was a sharp pain in his ankle. He felt himself bleeding. There was another in his wrist. On his ear. The fox things in the dark were taking bites of him, and he flailed with his fists to fight them away, all the time running towards the sound of Kokomi's screaming, but it changed location, seemed to move as he tried to reach her. And more bits of his body vanished, the pain coalescing into one condensed hell.

Garou had been in battle. He'd been grievously wounded more than once. He had killed more than one man with his own hands in a narrowly won struggle of daggers and teeth. But what courage he might have from those victories entirely abandoned him now. There was some force tickling every instinctive fear response in his mind and body. All coherent sentient thought was flushed away, leaving only raw animalistic emotion behind. This was no battle. This was a hunt and he was food and the pack of invisible creatures about him were going to tear him apart, devour him bit by bit, while Garou was alive to experience every excruciating second of it. And worst of all- he could not save Kokomi, and she just kept screaming.

Gorou screamed in the deepest fear and despair of his life, his throat seeming to tear from the ferocity of it.

And then he was again sitting on the couch in a room with walls of gilded flowers and peacocks. Gorou's heart was hammering in his chest, his pulse was thudding through his ears, while Yae Miko, returned to her pretty human self, smirked at him from the couch opposite. She watched him gradually come down from his mad panic, and Gorou thought that if she had a tail, it would be idly swaying back and forth behind her in satisfaction.

Yae Miko spoke after a long silence: "And that would last a thousand, thousand years. I promise you. Until the last bit of sand that once was Watatsumi Island sinks back under the sea. Do you understand?"

Gorou had never felt so defeated in his life. "E- entirely."

Yae Miko smiled and clapped her hands together in cutesy glee. "Oh, good. Then you should head for the docks right away. Pier One. Your ship, and your bride, will be waiting for you."

Trying to summon up any sort of pride or confidence seemed almost impossible. He'd been right about Yae Miko not being what she had seemed, but that had done little to help him. It would also do little to help Watatsumi Island or Priestess Kokomi. All he could do was… take excellent care of his new wife.

"My farm is-" began Gorou, trying to inform Yae Miko's departing backside.

"Oh, We know exactly where your little plot of dirt is," said Yae Miko as she half turned back to him, her eye nearest to Garou reverting to its vulpine slit once more. "We know everything about you."

That statement hung in the air with obvious menace. Yae Miko exited the room, her voice drifting back:

"Safe travels, General Garou. Trusted persons will stop by to see how you both are doing, from time to time. You will know them by the charm they carry. "

Gorou remained sitting for a long moment, still collecting the fragments of his shattered reality.

There was no palanquin waiting for Gorou as he exited the castle. Whether that was intentional or a mundane oversight of hospitality, he did not particularly care. His psyche was shaken, deathly shaken. The long walk downhill to the harbor was a welcome span of time to put himself back together.

Yae Miko had shown him the meaning of helplessness, and forced him to look long and hard at how precarious was his position and that of his homeland. He and Priestess Kokomi had had no illusions that their rebellion would not be dangerous, but at the time, they'd felt that they had no true choice but to do it. Defiance against the Vision Hunt Decree was their only option, and that singular choice made everything so simple.

But Gorou had not for a moment anticipated the consequences of victory. Maybe Priestess Kokomi had, she being much smarter than he. But this new world was… scary. It seemed now that they were in more danger than they had been when the Shogun's army had literally been battering down their front gates. Then, their backs had been against the wall and there were no choices.

Now, with the war over… they had something to lose.

Garou realized he was wallowing. He used both palms to slap himself on the cheeks. Hard. Get a grip!

Winning was not actually defeat. The Vision Hunt Decree was over. Watatsumi Island was free. Priestess Kokomi was safe. And all he had to do to keep things that way was to… do exactly what he had planned to do anyway: grow sweet potatoes on a farm. Just now while he did so, he simply needed to show basic kindness and care for another human being- who wasn't exactly a human being.

But Reyna looked so human, was that even really that much of a challenging distinction? She looked more human than Gorou did himself, what with his wolfhound ears and his tail! Simple, when put like that. Wasn't it? All so simple. And he would do it! Because he had to!

By the time Gorou reached the harbor, he had successfully rebuilt his psyche. He was eager for the boat trip home. To finally see the farmland he'd purchased, somewhat sight-unseen. And to build a new life with…

…with his "wife".

Gorou stepped onto the ship after showing his paperwork to the captain. The grumpy looking seaman immediately called out for lines to be cast off. They had all been waiting for him, apparently. Oops.

The tax collectors were arrayed in the stern of the ship, sitting on a small bench, somewhat obscured by sail and rigging. All three were women, all three in light purple kimono, and all three were thickly veiled. Perhaps that might fool anyone else, but Gorou immediately knew which one was his bride. Reyna's perfect beauty almost radiated from her body and from under her veil. Or perhaps Gorou only felt that way because he alone of everyone here knew her face.

Guards stood nearby, resting idle hands on katana hilts- but all seemed aware of Gorou's identity because they did not challenge him upon his approach. According to Yae Miko, everyone on board was someone to be trusted with the secret, so he did not need to display any reservations here. Meanwhile, he could sense Reyna's head tracking his movement through the ship. He sat down next to her in silence. A silence which almost immediately felt companionable.

The ship made its slow way out of port and out to sea. The afternoon was calm, and the ship moved smoothly, its sails snapping in a lively wind. Gorou took deep, satisfied breaths of the sea air. And- though it was hard to tell, he thought he heard Reyna imitating him from under her veils.

The last seabirds abandoned them, turning back towards their distant roosts. The sun sparkled over the blue and white waves of a restive ocean. Gorou turned his head to look behind them, just as the tower of Raiden Shogun's castle dipped below the blue horizon.

He looked back at Reyna. She seemed to be looking in the same direction. Perhaps watching for the same thing? Gorou had no idea how specific Yae Miko's instructions had been to Reyna herself. Or, come to think of it, how in-depth and broad of an instruction Reyna was capable of receiving and acting upon..

Suspicion suddenly simmered through Gorou's mind. Was this all a deeper ploy? Had Reyna received some secret orders, perhaps? Some dark command to infiltrate Watatsumi Island and do some sort of mischief? Or- perhaps even assassinate Priestess Kokomi?

While he was thinking these thoughts, Reyna took off her hat, freeing her purple hair to billow in the sea wind. She smiled broadly for the first time, her face lighting up with white teeth, her face somehow achieving the level above perfection. She was smiling with the simple novelty of that new experience. Her lilac eyes sparkled with such genuine innocent delight that all of Gorou's sudden suspicions vanished as quickly as they had emerged.

"Have you ever been to sea?" asked Gorou.

Reyna's smile vanished and she looked at him anxiously with wide eyes. She shook her head. Gorou nodded at her and tried to put on a reassuring smile.

"How do you find it?"

Reyna's anxious look continued and she made no attempt to answer. A tooth peeked out and bit slightly on soft lips. Garou remembered her stilting attempt at speaking her own name earlier. Perhaps that was not simple nervousness, but Reyna's actual current level of communication skills.

Omikami, blank slate, indeed.

"Don't worry! You only need to speak when you want to!" said Gorou, again trying to be reassuring. He cast about for an idea, and upon noticing that this little ship of theirs was a speedy little courier, the surface of the ocean wasn't that far away. He stood up, Reyna watching him with some concern, eyes fixated on his motions.

Gorou laid himself down on the deck of the ship on his belly. Reyna's eyes widened slightly in surprise. He put his head and shoulder out over the side of the decking and reached for the water, letting his hand trail through the passing waves. Reyna's mouth opened slightly as if in awe.

Gorou used his other arm to motion her to him, and he patted the deck next to him, trying to indicate that she should join him. Reyna looked around self-consciously. Gorou followed her gaze and realized that everyone on the ship was staring at the two of them.

"All of you! Kindly do not look upon me and my wife!" shouted Gorou playfully.

And much to his surprise, every single person obeyed the command. A dozen heads pointedly looked away from them. Reyna's head turned back and forth, looking all around in surprise similar to Gorou's.

"T- there!" said Gorou. "No one will see you but me! Come try this, Reyna! It's nice!"

Reyna scooted forward on her bench, as if some part of herself was fighting against the idea. But in the end, she walked over to him. Knelt as gracefully as a crane. Stretched out carefully onto her stomach in her tight kimono, and stared into Gorou's eyes at close range. The light reflecting from the sparkling sea water seemed to bounce inside her eyes like they were jewels. Her facial expression was- beyond Gorou's ability to interpret. Confusion? Realization of.. something? An appeal for further instruction? He had no idea.

Gorou reached again for the water, displaying the technique. And this time, Reyna followed suit, reaching down a long, lithe arm towards the ocean. She plunged her hand in a bit too deeply, and the force of the passing water bounced off her arm and splattered her face with seawater. She audibly gasped in surprise, a tiny length of her tongue coming out of her mouth in shock at the salty taste.

Gorou laughed. He couldn't help it. And after a few seconds of staring at him in shock, Reyna began laughing, too- seawater still dripping off her nose, chin, and cheekbones. It was a musical, spontaneous sound that penetrated into Gorou's soul, cleansing away the last of the dread left there by Yae Miko's dire threats.

This.

This wouldn't be so bad, at all.