Five months later, Fumiko stands in front of a bronze mirror in the bedroom she shares with her husband of two months.
She stands sideways, places her hands on her belly. Then she cups her breasts gently and finds them so sore she winces just from this gentle contact. In the cabinet, there's a wooden cycle tracker, and she keeps moving the slide each day even though she hasn't bled since they married.
A physician told her it was too early to tell, but she just knew.
Being married is a dream.
Michizane is a genuinely good man who treats her like the most wonderful woman in the world. He tells her all of his secrets, his hopes, his dreams, and she tells him hers—with one notable exception.
She genuinely wants to be made good, and to make the world a better place than it is, but the darkness in her heart is festering. Quietly. Slow.y.
Now that she lives with Sugawara and Tengen, and Tengen's student Harumi, and her little brother Tomo, she is constantly reminded that this family of orphans is bound together by love and in some cases, shared pain. They were loyal and they shared their hearts with each other.
Tengen suffered from the absence of her sister every day. It wasn't just that she thought she died, and that pain was in the past. It was ever-present, following her into a future that would probably go on forever.
Fumiko could save Momo from her pain at any time, but then the inevitable question would come about how long she knew and why she didn't tell anyone.
So every day, she chooses to let Tengen suffer.
Fumiko thought that when she left Nara that she would be able to focus on her exciting new life and she just wouldn't think about what she'd done or who she had done it to, but her mind drifts back to Sakura constantly. Obsessively, even.
It's absurd, really, for two of the greatest men of their time to love her, but she's beautiful.
Raised by a mother who constantly told her she wasn't pretty enough, Fumiko always comforted herself by saying her mother was wrong, but she wasn't. Michizane didn't fall in love with her for who she was; their relationship was arranged, and he decided to love her. It wasn't like he would have fallen in love with her if they just met one day, at a market or in some public place.
Why is that fair?
Kikyo said while they were drinking that one night during the visit, jokingly, that Sakura's beauty provokes people to evil, and it really feels like those words are a curse, because Fumiko knows she did evil, and she's consistently still doing it, every day, as this lie spreads through her soul like a wasting disease.
And always, there's a little voice in her head that always reminds her that she's not the one he really wanted. Everything she has, she stole from someone who was only kind to her.
She wonders what would happen now, if she told them?
Fumiko wants them to find out some other way, a way that won't implicate her in any way, but she's not sure if that will really work. On the day that Michizane speaks to that woman again, she will probably remember that day in the garden where she knew Fumiko had figured something out and wouldn't tell her.
If they never found out, that would help her avoid this, but it would also mean they'd live their whole lives and never know someone they loved like family wasn't dead, but safe and living happily. They'd suffer forever, until they died.
Fumiko does her best to push it out of her mind, because even if she did something terrible, on a day-to-day basis, everyone was okay. She assumed Sakura was happy and still spoiled. Michizane seemed happy too. Tengen was happy, building the Jujutsu Society. She hadn't ruined anyone's life.
A month passes, and her belly continues to grow, making it clear that she's most definitely having a baby.
In the winter, when she's in her fifth month, her brother comes to visit, quite unexpectedly.
Daisuke congratulates her on her belly, and they spend an afternoon catching up over tea.
When they're joined by Michizane after an hour, Daisuke greets him with a slap on the back.
"Sugawara, what did you do to my dear sister?"
He blushes a bit and answers, "We are married, you know."
"Are you excited?"
"Infinitely! Beyond infinite!"
"You're kind of corny. Turning into a dad already."
Katsuragi listens to his sister and her husband gush about the blissful excitement that comes along with being newly married and expecting a baby. They're cute, and he's glad that his sister is happy.
Sugawara asks if he'll reconsider joining the Jujutsu Society, and he just laughs and calls it 'Momo Tengen's silly little sorcery club.'
"You hear the drama out of Fujiwara house?" Katsuragi asks.
Michizane answers, "Drama?"
"Kenjaku Fujiwara, the son, has some disgusting, taboo technique."
Michizane is surprised by this information, not by the information itself because he is the one who read Kenjaku's technique and told Fujiwara what it was after he brought the boy to Sugawara a few months ago. The family had become a little unnerved by his little behaviors over time, and already suspected that his technique involved dead bodies.
What's surprising is that Katsuragi has that information, because matters pertaining to small children among the clans are usually kept as private as possible except among the closest allies.
It's a delicate situation, because Kenjaku isn't some monster. He's just a little sweet boy who didn't choose his technique or all the consequences that are going to come to him as a result of it.
He decides not to acknowledge that he knows anything about the situation.
Fujiwara is part of a marriage contract from when he was young that stipulates his heir has to be born to a woman from the Kamo clan, but he only has Kenjaku.
His clan is pressuring him to have other children, and if Kikyo won't do that for him, he's supposed to father children with someone else from her clan, an option he has also rejected.
Amidst all this drama, he got his concubine pregnant, which wasn't supposed to happen. His marriage contract states he can't have other children, and if they're born, they have to be disinherited and separated from him and the clan along with their mother.
To make things more interesting, the concubine doesn't have a cursed technique, so the probability that she'll have a powerful child is unlikely, and this means his own clan isn't happy with him, since he has one unsuitable candidate for heir and has likely just made another one.
Sugawara says, "All of that actually sounds really terrible."
"The Kamo clan is making threats. My guess is that woman is going to die mysteriously before her baby is born."
"That doesn't seem right to me."
Katsuragi says, "Fujiwara should do the right thing and make the pregnancy go away if he doesn't want trouble."
Fumiko actually didn't know about any of this, but if her brother is openly telling Sugawara that the Kamo clan intends to kill Sakura, that decision has already been made. Her brother is just here so Michizane understands the situation and doesn't interfere. He's there to condition Sugawara into accepting what's going on so he doesn't intrude with his unenlightened, apolitical brain and cause other issues.
She knows the Kamo clan doesn't actually care about any of it; the head of the Kamo clan passed away earlier in the year and his son and nephew have been eager to start a fight. They are convinced that they can topple the Fujiwara clan, but only if Sugawara sits on his hands. These whispers were already all over Katsuragi House before she got married, because Katsuragi and Kamo are closely aligned.
If Fujiwara starts a war on his own, and without a good reason, Sugawara will probably not join him.
Fumiko has a better idea about all of this than her husband does and is actively aware that her brother is trying to manipulate Michizane.
The poisoned part of her mind points out that if Sakura dies, the probability that Momo and Michizane will find out about her plummets. Even if they find out there was a pink-haired woman, if she's dead and buried, they'll never know for sure, and without talking to her or understanding all the connecting points, there's no way to draw that line.
Does she…want Sakura to die?
It would absolve her of her responsibility. She wouldn't be the one killing her. Yet, she would be dead, so when Tengen or Michizane think 'Ayame is dead,' it would become true.
Fumiko finds this to be a test of loyalty, where she can tell Michizane what's really going on, or she can keep her mouth shut and let him remain somewhat confused. In any other circumstances, she would absolutely be on Michizane's side and use all of her knowledge to help him.
What makes Kikyo Fujiwara valuable and powerful as a partner is that she is wholly loyal to her husband and not to her clan, so Kenji trusts and empowers her. She wants to be like that, wants to side with her husband against her clan, but it's just that she's got her own liability to cover.
Michizane struggles to understand why it's anyone's business what Kenji does within his own family. It really just sounds to him like other people are looking for a reason to start trouble, and he can tell Katsuragi is there to try and manipulate how he responds to that trouble.
It's a little insulting to him, that Katsuragi thinks he's that naïve. He might not understand all the nuances of arranged marriage because the only experience he has is his own, but he knows a troublemaker when he sees one.
Michizane says, "Abortion was really common in the valley when I was growing up because there was no food. It brings despair to mothers, and sometimes death too."
"You just don't understand how thinks are in our world," Daisuke answers.
Fumiko says, "It's best if we don't get involved."
Michizane answers, "No one should be trying to kill anyone's family. I'm about to have a family myself."
Katsuragi says, "But your family is Katsuragi-blooded. The Kamo clan isn't going to fight with you if you don't fight with them. You need to stay out of this, Michizane. This isn't your war."
Fumiko says, "Michizane, you have to think of the people of your territory. Going to war over Fujiwara's problem will just kill people here."
Michizane watches his wife speak to soften her brother's message, and realizes they are both trying to manipulate him. The idea that his own wife would try to sway him actually does piss him off.
He stands and says, "It's time for you to go home, Daisuke. Make sure everyone knows where I stand on this issue."
Michizane is annoyed with his wife and remembers being warned by more than one person that it would be a mistake to get involved with Katsuragi house. In his mind, he didn't really think of Fumiko as being a part of the clan because they treated her poorly. He always assumed that because of that, she wouldn't do their bidding.
Realizing that he was wrong is really disappointing. She very clearly wants him to stay out of a situation where allied clans are trying to find an excuse to initiate violence. Taking away the excuse is a temporary fix that will cause lasting pain. There's no reason for Fujiwara's family to be hurt because the Kamo clan is bloodthirsty and it's convenient for Daisuke Katsuragi.
Fumiko can sense his irritation, and despite trying to smooth things over by distracting him after her brother leaves, he remains frustrated.
She can't stand having him mad at her, and she would have supported his position if it had involved a bunch of strangers.
It's just…it's her. Always her.
Fumiko is tense as she considers all the way these potential tensions, if they continue, might lead to the accidental discovery of Sakura's true identity.
The next day, his mood has improved, and over breakfast, he says, "I'm going to warp to Nara. I might stay overnight, but not longer than that."
"Nara? Why?"
"I just have some things to do. I want to talk about everything with Kenji."
"What things?"
"Are you going to tell your brother if I tell you?"
"Of course not! Whose side do you think I'm on?"
Michizane answers, "I just found it surprising and kind of disgusting that you are carrying a child and spend all day talking about how happy it makes you and what a miracle it is, and then you sat there and tried to convince me that some other woman who is feeling the same things as you should be forced to kill her baby to solve some imaginary problem that uninvolved people are creating so they have an excuse to kill people."
She answers, "There is a difference between a wife and a concubine. Anyone in the Fujiwara clan would tell you this too. Your heir is not the same as a baby some woman's child. She's not even married to him, and when concubines get old, they just get sent away with their children."
But she knows that under no circumstance, would Kenji do that to Sakura.
"Unless the baby signed an agreement saying the Kamo clan could kill it, I'm on Kenji's side. And you and your brother and the Kamo clan can say whatever you want. I'm about to be a father, and not just because it is the right thing to do, but keep in mind that if we look out for Fujiwara's family, he will look out for ours if the situation ever comes to that."
That poisonous seed just keeps growing and growing and growing.
She could stop it by just uttering one sentence, but if she does that, everything will come crashing down on her, and her sins are even greater now that she's advocated for such a bleak solution to a problem that was exactly as Michizane described it: an excuse for violent people to fight.
Fumiko doesn't believe in anything she's said, and once again, her mind circles around the fact that she would say and do righteous things, support her husband, and only believe in the moral actions, but the moral actions might lead to Michizane finding out her secret.
Michizane doesn't understand anything that's happening; the thoughts and opinions his wife has expressed has don't reflect who she is as a person.
As they argue, Momo Tengen comes to the kitchen where the couple, who were up late arguing, has had a late breakfast and has resumed bickering.
It's like their blissful marriage, done for political reasons, has finally reached the hangover stage.
Mom has noticed that Fumiko's mental health seems to be in decline for some reason or another, and she assumes it's probably due to pregnancy. She also knows that Michizane can be a bit of a pain in the ass now as he gets older and becomes firmer in his resolve. Bold people can be incredibly unpleasant when they're in their element.
He's stubborn. Having a stubborn husband is probably inconvenient.
Tengen doesn't feel like she needs to get involved or to pile on Michizane's wife. She clearly knows what she did was wrong and seems oddly terrified that she lost some of her husband's respect.
He reiterates his plans to travel to Nara to Tengen, and Fumiko panics, because he might warp to Nara and be introduced to the person at the center of this controversy and her life will collapse in a mere half hour.
He is very determined to go, and she does what makes sense to her panicked mind at the time.
She gets up from the table and clenches her belly. "Owwww…"
Fumiko is not at the stage of her pregnancy where her belly should hurt like that, and as she doubles over in feigned agony, it causes panic.
A doctor is called, and she lays in bed and pretends she's having sharp cramps.
At her stage in pregnancy, this almost always means the pregnancy has failed and miscarriage or stillbirth is imminent.
To cover up one lie, she has to keep on lying.
The doctor can't tell that she's lying, so there's grave concern.
Michizane's spirit sinks, and he descends into incredible fear at the idea that their precious child might be lost. Then he thinks it might be his fault for causing her stress. When the doctor was asking about her stress level and if she'd been resting, she told the doctor they'd been fighting, and she hadn't slept.
She'd actually slept just fine, but much like her imaginary pains, she had to keep the lies going. If she suddenly got better, Michizane would go to Nara.
Tengen finds this very suspicious, but she doesn't say anything. She wonders of Fumiko might be losing her mind? Sometimes people just fall apart, and she's sure there's a reason for it. She tries to talk to her about how her mind shattered when her sister died, and how she eventually completely lost it, and how she still struggles with feelings of despair and hopelessness now and then because she misses her sister, but Fumiko clearly doesn't want to talk about any of that.
Fumiko stays mostly in bed for a month, pretending to be suffering from pains, and Michizane stays close because he is worried that they will lose the baby at any time, and that keeps him from going to Nara.
Instead, he ends up writing back and forth to Fujiwara instead.
Since Sugawara already declared his disapproval for whatever the Kamo clan was threatening to do, the politically stressful situation surrounding Fujiwara's baby seems to end as they all accept that's not going to be the reason that anyone fights unless they want to fight Sugawara too.
After things calm down, Fumiko 'recovers' from the pains that left him sleepless and worried.
She wonders if Tengen is right and she is simply losing her mind, because she wanted to be a good person, who just did that one little bad thing. But she is becoming a villain in the lives of the people she cares about, and every day, piles on more and more dishonesty.
Things calm down in his marriage and they move on from what happened to focus on their lives together.
They're happy.
Everything is happy.
In the spring, he learns a healthy baby boy was born, and Fujiwara jokes in his letter that they should place bets on who has the fattest baby. This would require them to convince one of the new mothers to allow their newborn to go on a trip to participate in this competition.
Michizane and Fumiko's baby is due to arrive at any time, so Michizane thinks the two babies were probably conceived right around the same time. He hopes that maybe they'll become friends.
Fumiko feels like the madness she experienced before has mostly passed from her mind as the baby's birth grows nearer and she thinks less about her sins and thinks more about her family.
The day a courier brought him the letter for Fujiwara, another letter from Nara arrived for his wife, this one from Sakura. He is a little curious about why she'd be writing to Fumiko as Fumiko said she couldn't remember if they met.
When he opens the letter, he finds that pretty handwriting almost reminds him of Ayame's.
The letter is sweet, wishing her a safe and happy delivery, and inside the metal tube holding the scroll, there's a little red mizuhiki knot tied into a symbol for good luck. She talked about her pregnancy and delivery, all of which went apparently very well. Sakura made no reference to the fact that people were trying to assassinate her at one point.
She apologized for some event that happened when they met, which apparently involved Fumiko getting very upset at her.
Fumiko said she couldn't remember Sakura, but it certainly seems like Sakura remembers her. Strange, and mildly suspicious, but women could be catty with each other for a lot of different reasons.
When he hands the letter off to his wife after an afternoon nap, she reads it and seems visibly angry about the letter for some reason.
"What is it?"
She throws it in the fireplace. "Just a little insulting, that's all. She's a terrible person, you know."
"I hope you don't mind, but I read it. I guess I was curious about why Sakura would be writing to you. I don't think I understand the insult? There was a good luck charm?" he asks.
"Is this an interrogation?"
Sugawara is confused, but he remembers that the last time she was that snappy with him, it was also about an incident involving his person she claims not to remember meeting.
He decides to leave it alone, as he doesn't as a man want to meddle in interpersonal issues between women. If they get along or they don't, it's probably just some personal offense that isn't worth an argument.
Her pains begin later that day.
It's exciting.
Exciting!
Exciting!
Tengen sits with Michizane in the living room, along with her student and her brother, until the kids go to sleep and he's left with his old friend.
Tengen watches his palpable glee, excitement, fear, nervousness; it's like he is going through a hundred emotions all at once. Michizane becoming a parent was one of the cutest things, because there was a week after he first felt the baby kick where all he wanted to do was lay on his wife's tummy. He barely got anything done and she had to fuss at him to remember how many responsibilities he actually had.
They hear occasional groans of discomfort coming from the bedroom, where a doctor and midwife are assisting Fumiko.
Sugawara says, "It can take around two whole days for a first baby, did you know that?"
"That sounds unpleasant."
"I think it starts out not so bad, and then it gets worse. And then really bad, then baby."
"The most scientific description of labor."
They drink tea, talk, reflect on how far they've come.
Hours pass.
Michizane was hoping it would be short and sweet, like the woman who wrote the letter, but labor drags on through the night and into the morning, then through the day and into the night again.
In the bedroom, Fumiko goes through contraction after contraction, but labor doesn't seem to be progressing.
"Your womb isn't opening as it should," the doctor says.
It's really not until this moment that she notices the doctor a little worried that she starts to worry as well. Up to that point, she kept telling herself she was having her first baby, and labor was supposed to take a long time.
When the doctor brought out metal instruments to try and help her open up, she felt scared, but then after that, there was only pain, like she was being forcefully torn open, even though, according to the doctor, they were barely stretching the opening to her womb and her body just wasn't responding well even to the slightest interventions.
Michizane heard when she started yelling and went to the door in a panic.
Fumiko heard the midwife explaining the situation to him, and his worried answers before he left her again. Of course, this isn't a place where men are allowed, except the doctor. The pain had this strange blinding effect where she felt like somehow the doctor was hurting her for no reason.
It hurts so much that she didn't even know pain like this existed, and after an hour, the doctor tells her that they've barely made any progress at all.
Wave after wave, it never ends. Time seems to stop or be moving in slow motion. Reality seems to distort and all she can do is lie there and weather the pain. The world spins, and she becomes desperate for it to be over, hoping every time the doctor examines her that he will say that it's almost over, but he just looks more worried.
The third day passes in this hellish manner, with Fumiko screaming until she loses her voice while her husband sits on the floor outside the room.
A grim mood is starting to settle on all of them.
As labor enters the fourth day, Fumiko feels like she's been suffering for an eternity.
The midwife comes out to tell Michizane that once labor enters day four, the chances of a good outcome plummet, because labor is stressful for the baby, and it simply can't bear it for so long. And mothers too, can only survive the strain of labor for a set amount of time.
Being told to prepare for a bad outcome for one or both leaves him feeling like everything is slipping through his fingers. They were so happy, and now?
He feels guilty, a little crazy, tired, scared…in the beginning he had a wild mix of positive emotions, but now he was just full of random negative emotions. They churn inside of him like a storm.
Tengen is sleeping in the living room, having dosed off.
Fumiko's mind starts to rapidly decompensate as she continues this endless, seemingly pointless suffering.
Where is her baby?
Why won't it come?
Was it her fault? Was it the baby's fault?
What if it never came? What then?
Of course, she knows the answer to that; if the baby doesn't come out, she'll die. She starts to wonder how long that will take, if she'll just suffer until body finally breaks under the pressure of this endless labor. If it goes one way, they'll both die. But, the doctor might tell Michizane that maybe they can save the baby if they cut it out. Then only she will die.
She doesn't want to die by being cut, she doesn't want to suffer these waves of suffering until her heart can't take it anymore. Actually, she doesn't want to die at all.
She thinks about Sakura, with her half night of labor, and her healthy baby boy.
That's right, she's living the life she stole from that woman. She's the one who is supposed to be in this bed, slowly dying in more pain than a human body should be able to bear.
Fumiko drifts off, and that's scary—she knows it means she's losing her strength.
She dreams of that strange, terrifying vision she had, of the torii gate surrounded in human skulls, and when she awakes, she feels the urge to push.
The doctor seems relieved now. "When you feel the next pain, let's try pushing."
Tengen falls off the chair in the living room where she dosed off when she senses it, and Michizane, who is still sitting outside the door, jumps to his feet in alarmed confusion.
After all these years, that presence fills their home, thick, powerful, and tainted with a kind of malevolence that causes the midwife and the doctor to run from the room purely on instinct.
Is whatever was in the dark idol in the castle? Had it returned somehow? Right now, at this moment?
Michizane rushes in the bedroom to find the source of this intensely dark, angry power is his wife, who is screaming as she pushes out the baby. She is so pale so almost looks like she is already dead.
It's not a sight husbands are meant to see, but the doctor and midwife ran away, and there's no time for him to do anything but run to her. Tengen is similarly stunned and confused and is standing at the side of the bed as the baby slides into Michizane's hands.
Except, what came out of Fumiko could scarcely be called human.
The baby, a boy, doesn't have a face at all, just hair all over the head, a wrong number of deformed limbs sticking out of a lopsided torso. The baby is born wriggling a bit frantically, but he has no eyes, no way to breathe because it has no nose or mouth.
They all just stare at him as Michizane holds him in bloody hands, horrified that all this time, this is what had been growing inside of Fumiko. Or maybe he had been normal and the curse did this to right before he came.
It's monstrous, traumatizing to even look at, because this was the baby they'd been waiting for.
Fumiko's eyes are wide with terror as Michizane stands there with the convulsing, faceless lump of deformed arms and legs.
Michizane feels love toward this lump.
Fumiko reaches up to cover her mouth. "Please. Take it away."
Tengen watches these two, with deformed baby, which stops twitching after a minute and lays limp.
The afterbirth passes with a squelch in a room that is otherwise silent.
Tengen steps backward and then runs to get the doctor again, hoping he'll return now that the evil presence has seemingly vanished.
Fumiko is so tired and has lost so much blood that she simply passes out while still holding the baby, and Michizane holds him for a while, and then walks out to immediately cremate the baby.
Tengen follows him to the crematorium, where he is standing stone-faced, staring distantly into the flames.
When he finally speaks, he says, "We'll just say the baby was stillborn. No one needs to know about this. I'm sure things like this just happen sometimes."
"Of course. Okay."
Tengen can hardly believe any of it, because Michizane and Fumiko were just the happiest couple. They were getting ready for their baby, feeling him kick. There's a corner of their room filled with things for the baby. By all accounts, Michizane was going to be the kind of dad who doted on his baby without end. He was going to be a good dad.
Momo had become incredibly excited about becoming an auntie and told many jokes about how the benefits of being an auntie meant plenty of access to hold the baby and also full nights of sleep.
But really, she was willing and prepared to stay up snuggling Baby Sugawara. She was excited about watching her friend become a dad and continue his growth and watching him live happily.
They'd already seen so much tragedy, but this was supposed to be a source of joy.
The business of life is dangerous, and scary. Sometimes things go wrong. Mothers die. Babies die. Those are natural sources of misfortune and despair.
But whatever happened in that room, it wasn't natural.
Michizane put his hand over his chest and says, "I feel like my heart is going to explode and I'll just die right here. I don't…I don't understand. Was it me? Has that thing been attached to me all this time?"
Tengen answers, "No. Fumiko is the one who is cursed. Even though we are the ones who have a history we know about with the power of the dark idol, your wife is the one who bears its curse. That means that she has encountered its power at some point. The mechanism is different, but that trapper who died in the mountains was probably similarly cursed."
Michizane nods. "That's right. The curse tormented him too. I wonder if the curse is done, if it's taken what it's going to take and done all the hurt it's going to do, or if it's still just tormenting Fumiko until she dies. She's a good person. She's my wife, Momo. We're supposed to get old together."
Tengen feels like Michizane always knows how to comfort others, but she's not as good at that. There is a more urgent matter than comfort, so she doesn't think too much about it. "I wonder how she came into contact with the power of the dark idol. She is not a trained sorcerer. Has she ever fought cursed spirits or other sorcerers?"
"No."
"I wonder if then if the Katsuragi clan possesses the power of the dark idol, and she became cursed in some sort of handling incident."
That's the obvious explanation, and the only one that makes any sense. There's something else that's incredibly disturbing about all of this, an idea that doesn't fit in Michizane's mind.
Tengen will do the worrying for both of them.
The power of the dark idol is a neutral power on its own, making it somewhat unique among sorcery oddities, like a blade in a sheath. The fact that the power was cursing people to torment and at least in the trapper's case, death, meant that the power was attached to someone's mind. It was expressing purposeful harm.
Tengen says, "The trapper ultimately died, Michi. I think we should assume that the curse intends to kill Fumiko."
Michizane looks away from the flames. "Yes."
She adds, "Fumiko may not be a trained sorcerer, but when she was cursed, she probably sensed that terrifying power. Even if she didn't understand that she was being cursed, or the danger she was in, she probably remembers coming into contact with something unsual. If we can find the vessel, if it's an object, sealing it away will probably save her. If it's a person, that's even easier to deal with."
Michizane knows Tengen is right; anyone who had even the briefest contact with that power would never forget it.
"Do you want me to ask her so you can stay here? I don't think we can wait," she says.
"Please. I want to stay here with him. Until it's over. It won't be long. He's not very big," he says as his voice breaks.
In the bedroom, the midwife and doctor tend to Fumiko, who needs stitches due to what happened to her body when her malformed baby finally came out. She doesn't even stir and remains unconscious as the linens are changed by moving her from one side of the bed to the other. They give her a bed bath to wash the sweat and body odor from days of life-threatening exertion and change her into fresh clothes.
Tengen tries to wake her up to speak to her, but even if she opens her eyes, she's simply too tired and too emotionally unraveled to fully engage in a conversation.
The doctor says she seems to be stable, so she wonders if the curse is done with Fumiko.
After Michizane finishes with the baby, he comes and sits next to Tegen beside the bed.
Since Fumiko doesn't seem to be coherent and they desperately need to find out how she became cursed, Tengen sends one of the hawks she uses to communicate with the Jujutsu Society sorcerers to Heian Kyo, since the most likely explanation is that the Katsuragi clan has taken possession of the dark idol's power.
Daisuke receives a letter three hours later telling that his sister is near death from complications of childbirth, and they desperately need to talk to him because she has been cursed.
He has no idea how his sister might have become cursed, as she wasn't a fighter, had never faced a cursed spirit, and never tangled with a sorcerer. He doesn't even think she's ever touched a powerful cursed object before. It is easy for objects to curse people, but sorcery clans have existed for long enough that they know how to handle their treasures.
Daisuke uses his lightning technique to bolt across the distance between Heian Kyo and Sugawara's castle.
It's the middle of the night again, but Tengen is waiting outside for him. "Thank you for coming. We would not have asked you to come if it wasn't critical."
"How's Fumiko?"
"Not well, but her condition isn't worsening."
"What happened?"
Tengen says, "Her labor was complicated. Took too long, took too much from her. The baby was stillborn. This was due to a curse."
"A curse? Are you sure?"
Tengen explains everything that happened, and while she does say that the baby didn't look normal, she doesn't go into any further detail.
Both Tengen and Michizane identified the curse as being related to the power of the dark idol, one of the most famous objects in the land—at least, until it was broken and the power disappeared. The general assumption is that it is out in the world somewhere, either concealed by someone or being very quiet so it's not discovered.
Daisuke doesn't understand how Fumiko might have become cursed, much less by some legendary power like that one. Yet, he doesn't think there's any possibility that Tengen or Sugawara are wrong. They were at the impact site when the curse activated and between Tengen's bizarre powers, and Six Eyes, and the fact they both had experience with the dark idol before, he didn't think they made a mistake.
"Do you think my clan has it?"
"We're not interested in taking it from you or having any kind of tensions. Sealing it away again will probably save Fumiko's life. We know of at least one other person that was cursed like her, and he died," she answers.
Katsuragi understands why Tengen would assume his clan had it. It's the most reasonable thing to conclude, but this whole affair is just very confusing to him. No cursed objects or weapons they've obtained since the dark idol went missing could be the dark idol. And if they did come into possession of something like that, they certainly wouldn't let non-combatants get anywhere near it. By all accounts, the dark idol was a massive hazard and needed specific care and protection.
If he found it, he'd probably just give it back to Tengen because keeping something like that was more of a pain in the ass than anything. Too many things could go wrong.
But if they didn't have it, and if Fumiko was definitely cursed by that power, how the hell did it happen?
Daisuke shrugs. "I'm sorry. Obviously, I want to help my sister, but I genuinely don't know anything and could not even begin to guess how she might have come in contact with that thing. I want to say that maybe it happened here, but you were one of the dark idol's keepers. I think you'd know if it was somewhere around here. We will probably have to find out from Fumiko. I'm at a loss."
Tengen generally believes Daisuke is a liar, but that he is not lying at this moment about this thing.
Fumiko's condition remains critical, and when she regains consciousness, it's with intense thirst from losing most of her bodily fluids during labor. She's too weak to even hold the cup, so Michizane helps her drink.
She slips out of consciousness after that.
Daisuke stays through the next morning in an extra room, when Fumiko awakens in a haze, and before reality catches up with her, she reaches for her still-swollen belly. It's still quite big, looking maybe like it did three months before, although as her hands rest on it, it's different. Floppy. Empty.
That's right.
The baby died.
She doesn't know what day it is, or what time it is.
Michizane is sprawled out on the bed; his face looks twenty years older.
When she tries to get out of bed, her body feels heavy, but she needs to relieve herself. This is also incredibly painful. Everything down there seems so damaged, and she can feel stitches under her fingers.
She hobbles back down the hallway and runs into the doctor who is coming to check on her. He helps her back to bed, and Michizane wakes up.
"Fumiko? My dear…" he whispers, reaching for her hand. "Are you okay?"
"No," she cries.
He moves to her side as the doctor checks on her.
The doctor says her condition is improving, but that Fumiko cannot, under any circumstance, ever become pregnant again because there is almost no possibility she would survive a second delivery.
Nothing could be farther from their minds, so this information doesn't really mean anything to them at the moment.
After the doctor leaves, he sits by her side, holding her hand.
"You're looking better," he says.
"Michi…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault. Sometimes sad things just happen. It doesn't have to be anybody's fault," he gently answers.
That's what he and Tengen said to each other when Ayame died, wasn't it?
Michizane thought that was the worst pain a person could feel, but this is so much worse. He's supposed to be a dad. There's supposed to be a baby in his arms. They're supposed to be happy, so why did this happen?
Fumiko withdraws her hand from his and puts it on her empty belly.
Tears sting her eyes, and she tries to understand why everything happened the way it did.
There is a rocking cradle in the corner of the room, made up and ready to receive a baby that came and left without being rocked.
The hellish trauma of the birth almost makes her tremble just to think of it, it makes her feel frantic and scared even though she knows it's over.
Michizane says, "I don't know how much you remember. I know it was a really intense and painful experience, but right before the baby was born, the power from a really intense curse came from you. We need to find out how you became cursed, Fumiko. Your life is probably in danger."
Fumiko remembers then, the vision of the torii gate and the skulls. She saw it before she delivered the baby, the same as that day in the garden with Ayame Tengen.
Did that woman curse her to this fate?
Was Ayame just pretending to be a sweet person, but secretly, she held this dark power?
Everything Fumiko stole with her lie has slipped through her fingers. She thinks back to that conversation a few months ago, where she tried to explain to Michizane about how things worked in their world, about how Fujiwara had to comply with his contract.
Michizane has one of those too.
There are provisions for what will happen if she can't have an heir.
Maybe she could try getting pregnant again, call it an accident if he won't let it happen, hope for the best. But she is terrified, and she doesn't want to go through that pain again.
If the curse is going to kill her, killing Ayame Tengen is probably the only way to save her life, and she knows that's not going to happen. She was the one who was doing evil when the curse happened.
She denied Ayame her identity in order to steal her life, and then gave birth to a baby without a face to remember, a jumbled mess that reflected the ugliness that had grown inside of her all of these months.
What should she do, then?
Just die?
Michizane drones on in the background about the dark idol, but her mind is elsewhere, so she doesn't realize the obvious answer, that she is a vessel for the dark idol. She only knows that she was cursed by Ayame Tengen.
"Your brother is here."
"Why?" she abruptly asks.
"Because he cares about you. He's worried."
"Can I talk to him, alone? Really, really alone?"
He nods and sends Daisuke up to their room, assuming that this means that she knows exactly how she was cursed, but she doesn't want to talk to him about it. Maybe it's a Katsuragi family secret.
Michizane doesn't think anyone is entitled to keep secrets.
It was his son that died, after all.
Michizane doesn't have a fight in him. He's just frustrated and disappointed, and he wishes he'd listened to Fujiwara when he told him not to get mixed up with these people. Fujiwara promised him that they'd stab him in the back if he wasn't useful to them.
Daisuke is meanwhile stunned—stunned, just absolutely floored by the story his sister tells him.
He met Michizane before he became a lord, when he carried delivered a letter from the late Lord Tanashiro to him in Heian Kyo. They started a friendship then, because Daisuke was hoping he could Tanashiro's monster against him. He actually knew even back then that Michizane was sweet on some cute little shrine maiden, and that if he got free, he wanted to live with her.
The next time he saw Michizane, he teased him and asked him if he and the shrine maiden were together, and he said she died and then never spoke of her again.
Fujiwara and Sugawara unknowingly being in love with the same woman was so juicy, if he'd learned about this under better circumstances, he would have caused so much trouble.
It seems clear to Katsuragi from everything that he knows from talking to Tengen and his sister that when the dark idol broke, it chose Ayame as its vessel. Yet it's almost unbelievable that something like that could be hiding under Fujiwara's nose. It must have been very quiet and very careful.
Daisuke met Sakura and never registered any sort of anything coming from her. She really just seemed like she was around to be sweet and look pretty—a secondary character in the story of the Fujiwara clan until she got pregnant.
Then again, not everyone was getting cursed either. If the power was cursing people indiscriminately, it would be discovered right away.
Fumiko was cursed while being cruel to the dark idol's vessel. Whether the dark idol is protecting its host or it perceives acts against the host as acts against itself, or some other third thing is happening, from context it is clear that Fumiko was cursed because of her own actions.
That didn't make it right. People did all kinds of fucked up things to each other all the time, and for what it was worth at that point, Fumiko was mostly a good person who did this one terrible thing, but it was to someone carrying an unspeakably dangerous power.
This discussion with her showed him that the years of their mother tormenting Fumiko made her so insecure that she did something she probably shouldn't have done. Then to protect that error, she slowly began to adapt all those crazy, manipulative behaviors herself.
As terrible as all that was, the real crisis at hand was that they didn't know if the curse was done with Fumiko. A curse that powerful probably wasn't going to let her live in the end, so it was only a matter of time before it came back to torment her again.
Under normal circumstances, someone playing vessel to a dangerous power would be eliminated for the greater good. But this case is different, because the power isn't indiscriminately using Ayame's body for evil. Perhaps it is even protecting her. Even if Ayame didn't purposefully curse Fumiko, Fumiko still got cursed for doing her dirty.
So what then? Should he just let his little sister, who he has never stood up for, die from being cursed to death? Fumiko has suffered enough, and the losses in her life have really only just started. The fallout from this incident is going to follow her for the rest of her life. Maybe what she did was unconscionable to most, but there aren't people in power who haven't done much worse.
Getting cursed was bad fortune. Everyone knows going outside during a thunderstorm can lead to a person getting struck by lightning, but it happens so rarely no one knows anyone who has been struck by lightning.
Michizane, resentful of the secrets they are keeping, creeps up the hallway and presses his ear to the wall.
Daisuke says, "I have one way that I can make this go away for you. You know there's only one way, right? It'll break the curse, and it might make it so things are okay. If they don't find out, you'll be okay. We'll figure your marriage situation out, see if there's any healing sorcery the Kamo clan knows that can fix what's happened to you."
"Big brother…"
"It's okay. I'll make everything okay. People make mistakes all the time. Sometimes good people do things that aren't good, but I don't think anything that happened justifies what you've been through. But you can't ever yell anyone about any of this. Your husband, Tengen…they especially can't ever find out. You have to take your secret to the grave."
Michizane can tell the conversation is almost over, and heads back downstairs, where he considers what any of that meant. Because it really sounded like Fumiko knew exactly how she'd become cursed, and she didn't want him to know. He didn't really care if she did something bad; he was trying to save her life. He doesn't except true goodness from anyone anymore. Maybe Momo.
People are evil, and sorcerers are especially evil.
Sugawara feels stupid for allowing himself to suffer and worry about his wife, when she won't even tell him why their son died.
Fumiko notices he doesn't come to check on her for the rest of the day, and when she comes downstairs, he's just sitting in their tearoom with a cold pot of tea, staring out into the courtyard at two little birds playing on the porch.
"Are you okay?"
Michizane answers, "Just thinking."
"About what?"
"I know it was a political thing, but I thought you loved me. I loved you. Maybe it wasn't sensational or anything, but I would have done anything for you. I thought you'd be the only person I'd ever share my bed with, that we would raise a family together, and that we'd grow old together and be happy."
"Michi."
He pours himself a cup of cold tea and watches the somewhat settled liquid as the ribbons turn in his cup. "I just want to be alone right now."
XXX
In Nara a few days later, Fujiwara finishes penning a condolence letter to his young friend and ally, and then after finishing some other work, heads upstairs to check on the family.
Baby Kenshin Fujiwara was born with a birthmark that only appears on those who possess Ten Shadows, so his clan's concerns about him having children with a woman who didn't have sorcery lineage or a technique have been silenced.
Kenshin possessing the clan's prized legacy and Kenjaku having his unfortunate and quite disgusting technique almost guarantees that Kenshin will eventually become his heir despite everything else that's going on.
At the moment, Kenjaku doesn't know how much his brother's birth is going to affect his life, and he's enjoying being a big brother and learning all about the world of his baby brother. Someday, he's probably going to look back on all of this and think that his life would be better if Kenshin had not been born.
Or maybe he'll love his brother enough that it'll be okay.
Kenshin yawns as if he's just completed a long day of hard work when his father picks him up.
He's very different from Kenjaku, because when Kenjaku was a baby, he'd eat a decent meal every couple of hours and relax outside of that. Kenshin just wants to constantly have access so he can take a sip every now and then if it suits him. He fusses about being put down, needs to be the center of attention at all times, and by his third day already showed disdain for his father taking attention that his mother would otherwise spend on him.
So, despite being a very distinguished little baby with his black hair and dark eyes, his Ten Shadows inheritance, and his poetic and deeply meaningful name, Kenji calls this beloved son by a name he thinks suits him.
"How's Piglet doing?"
"Stop calling him that. Do you have idea how hard I worked to grow this baby just so you can call him that?" Sakura says.
Fujiwara takes the baby in his arms and makes pig noises at him, grunting and squealing. "He likes it."
"Kenji, stop speaking to the baby in your native tongue, it's going to confuse him," she teases.
Kenji sends his oldest son to play in his room for a while, and then says, "I got a letter today from Sugawara."
"Was their baby born?"
"Stillborn, and Fumiko almost died too."
"No. That's terrible. They must be devastated. Fumiko seemed like such a lovely person. How unfair."
"I wrote a letter. I don't know if I said the right things. Maybe later you can go over it and make it nicer. Michizane's a good kid. Have you ever met him?"
"Not yet."
"Maybe we'll invite them to come in the spring. Sugawara and I have business anyway."
Sakura is deeply empathetic, because they just had a child, and she can't even imagine how devastating it would have been if the miracle of bringing a new life in the world had gone so tragically. Even though Kenshin is a newborn, she feels like she became a new person when he was born, and these days with him have been filled with joy.
The next day, Kikyo goes into the city to find a gift and returns with a vase and some very delicate and finely painted porcelain flowers, an everlasting bouquet of sorts. The items are packed very carefully in a wooden crate, and Kenji opens the lid to tuck condolence letters to Michizane and Fumiko from their family.
It's not much, but it's what they can do.
He feels bad for Michizane, who had been writing to him now and then these past few months about his excitement.
These letters include an invitation to come to Nara in eight weeks, although once the courier is gone, Kenji wonders if maybe that was a stupid idea. If it had been his child that died, the last thing he'd want to do was go visit people with a baby that was born around the same time and witness their parental bliss.
He has to travel south in the morning, so that night, he spends some time with the family, with Kenjaku, and Kenshin, and the women, and then retires to his private room. As much as he loves Kenshin, if he needs to fight, he needs good rest and Kenshin doesn't believe in that sort of thing.
There's an attendant available if Sakura needs help with the baby, so he turns in to his own bedroom.
In the middle of the night, an invisible figure slips over the wall.
This is Higurashi, Daisuke Katsuragi's 'one way.'
Higurashi has a very special technique: Complete Concealment.
Even though he calls it that, he has learned there are limits to this. He once crossed paths with Michizane Sugawara while Sugawara was visiting the Kamo clan for the first time, and Michizane greeted him, unaware that he was invisible to everyone else.
It was kind of scary really. Higurashi wonders if there's anything in existence that can hide from those eyes.
There are a few other exceptions to this rule, but none of them should be present here.
Higurashi is the principal backstabber of the Katsuragi clan, loaned out now and then to Kamo clan. The Katsuragi clan has avoided trouble many times through assassination, so while Daisuke Katsuragi will proclaim he hates war, he still uses violence to control situations and turn them in his favor.
Whenever someone dies by assassination, there's always a question about if perhaps Higurashi did it, but his presence doesn't leave any evidence behind.
Higurashi is in his fifties, older than the young lord he works for. His hair is mostly gray, his dark eyes a bit discolored from drinking too much. Sometimes, his hands shake a little, and he thinks perhaps he should retire from this line of work. It seems like the delicate peace that has existed for a few years is about to shatter, and he really doesn't want his retirement to be into a world where the sky is falling, despite the fact that he understands he might be the one who starts that process.
He's decided that after this, he's going to go to the continent and travel, stay out of trouble, marry a young woman, and grow old in a place that's more peaceful than the island.
A few months ago, he was given the same assignment he has tonight, to kill the same person in the same place, in the same bedroom, even. Katsuragi agreed to let the Kamo clan hire him to eliminate the Kenji Fujiwara's concubine before she had her child, but at the last minute, the job was cancelled over fears he would interfere despite not being a party to any of the trouble.
Back then, wasn't it the heir that was the problem?
This time, he has explicit instructions not to touch the baby and to take extreme caution to ensure he is not harmed in any way as this would lead to the assumption that the Kamo clan is responsible.
Higurashi will do whatever he's told as long as he's paid, but he doesn't understand why Daisuke Katsuragi would just randomly decide to kill a random concubine. The concubine has already had a baby, the problematic thing that wasn't supposed to happen, and they're not bothering the baby.
Outside of his concealment ability, Higurashi doesn't have any notable sorcery abilities besides the generic things anyone with cursed energy can do. His barriers are okay, but slipping into a hotbed of powerful sorcerers, it's best if he avoids any other sorcery.
Katsuragi gave him odd instructions for this job:
First, he had to use a powerful cursed weapon called the Tiger's Claw to do the deed, something Katsuragi loaned to him from the family's armory. The Tiger's Claw is a top grade legendary item known to personally owned by Daisuke, so it was important that it be handled properly and returned safely.
Second, he was told not to engage the target if she was awake.
Third, he was told to kill the target instantly by stabbing her directly in the head with the cursed dagger.
Since the target is known to not be a trained sorcerer, this all seems a bit silly, but he proceeds, nonetheless. Becoming old is the privilege of those who can follow useful instructions. If Daisuke wants her done like a sorcerer, there's a reason for it.
Keeping the Tiger's Claw within his concealment technique is the most difficult part of this job, as murdering a woman who isn't a sorcerer who just had a baby is a little senselessly simple.
He sees two members of the Fujiwara clan out in the gardens late, drunk and loudly talking about some fight they got into when they were kids that they're laughing about as adults. One man is telling the other that his wife is going to be mad if he stays out any later, and they prepare to part ways, and then change their mind and go back inside to drink more.
Neither of them notices Higurashi slip right between them.
The staff are up late doing what looks to be a deep clean of the kitchen, perhaps something they do monthly or seasonally. The doors are open and there are people going in and out, chattering about how long they've had this or that, and who is going to move a table so they can clean under it.
Even if he's invisible, doors and windows are not, so entering a building without being seen requires finding a path that is already open or trying to make one without anyone noticing.
He enters through the kitchen and begins wandering the castle, which is asleep and quiet, with hallways lit by dim sunstones hung on the walls.
There's a big sliding door separating the private wing of the castle from the rest of the building, and an experimental tug revealed it is locked. And even if it wasn't, the track of the door is full of broken glass, a trick that causes the door to make a loud screeching sound when it's moved.
It's likely there are other ways into this part of the castle, secret passages or service doors, but he doesn't know where any of them are. He goes back outside, past the kitchen workers talking about what they're going to do on their day off.
Now spatially aware of where he needed to go, he walks around the castle to see if any windows are open, but finds the windows have an iron barred exterior shutters, so even though he sees an open window, he can't fit through the bars between him and the window.
It's almost like he's not the first assassin to try and get in.
He walks around outside for an hour, goes back inside, and then comes out again, trying to figure out how he will gain entry to where his target should be sleeping.
Light from a lantern is seen turning on and off periodically during this time, through the edges of a wooden window, and he assumes that's probably the room where a new mother is caring for a baby.
Guards always have eyes on each side of the building, so that's complicated too.
As luck would have it, he hears thunder, and in a few minutes, a torrential downfall starts which reduces visibility so significantly that the guards don't see him scale up to the roof. He uses the thunder to hide the sound of using the cursed dagger to cut through the iron bars outside the window, and then waits for twenty minutes after the light goes off to force the wooden window behind it open.
The storm is noisy enough and Sakura is sleepy enough that she slept through his intrusion. A lantern turned down to its lowest barely flickers on a table by the bed.
He can see even with this minimal light that this is the woman with the pink hair.
The baby is swaddled and sleeping peacefully, beside his mother.
He raises the cursed dagger to bring it down into her head and hears the woman's soft voice speak in the same cadence she might use to sing to her baby.
"I see you…"
Glowing crimson eyes snap open, and a fierce, cruel grin greets him as the monster surfaces, if only for three seconds.
He hears a thud and thinks he's been knocked down for a split second, but in his field of vision, he can see a headless torso wearing the same clothes he was wearing earlier, blood spurting out of the neck and limbs detached.
His last thought is little more than 'well, nobody mentioned that.'
The monster goes back to sleep, and Sakura remains at rest, unaware that anyone had been in her room.
No one hears the commotion, as Higurashi hardly makes more noise than a thud, cut into pieces so cleanly.
But the little boy who has a natural sense for death awakens as soon as Higurashi is dead, and slides from his bed.
Kenjaku can detect where dead bodies are, how big they are, and that kind of thing it is if he's ever seen if before. There is a big dead thing, and that is exciting. A new thing. A kind of dead thing he hasn't seen yet.
He tiptoes across the hall and opens the door as quietly as he can, closing it just as gently.
Between the bed and the window, there's a pile of body parts.
It's a person!
A dead person!
He's never seen one of these before!
Kenjaku glimpses this mess like it is a fine work of art, and he approaches it almost reverently. He wonders who this person is, or where they came from, or why they turned into a corpse. With animals, maybe they die from falling, or the cats in the garden get them, or they get sick.
What happened to this man?
He picks up a hand, and a finger, and puts the finger on one knuckle, and then another until he finds the match.
It's like the man came into this room and just fell apart, not like pottery breaking, but cleanly, cut at joints. He admires how smooth and neat the cuts are, how it makes him seem like one huge puzzle.
The mystery of what took this man's body apart fills him with wonder and delight, and he unknowingly begins a thousand-year infatuation with this power.
He pulls the head onto his lap, and stares into Higurashi's horrified eyes.
"You look so scared, Mister. What did you see?" he whispers, as quietly as he can.
He touches and feels everything, lays out some of the parts in order, but he knows what he wants to do. He wants to open the head up. He wants to see the inside.
There's a dagger on the floor, and while he's not allowed to play with anything sharp, he decides he'll do it just this one time. He knows he's probably already going to get fussed at for playing with the corpse already.
When he picks up the dagger, it gives him a little jolt, because it's a powerful cursed object, and he's just a little boy. Then he starts to worry it might shock Sakura or the baby because they're right nearby.
He doesn't want his little brother to get a shock.
He decides his dad will be able to pick it up, so it won't hurt anyone.
Kenjaku quietly tiptoes again down the hallway to his dad's room, leaving little bloody footprints behind him. He enters his father's room and taps him on the arm.
Kenji rolls over and is surprised to find his son because he is literally the third person he will ask if he needs something in most cases. "What is it?"
"There's a dead man in Sakura's room."
"…what?"
"Dead."
"What do you mean?"
"There's a man. And he's dead. And a scary knife."
"Who?"
"I dunno."
Kenjaku just isn't communicating the kind of alarm the discovery of a dead body usually brings to a normal human being, so Kenji thinks maybe he's playing? Or just weird?
He follows his son down the hall and sees evidence of the pitter patter of bloodstained feet.
Kenjaku is correct.
There is a very disturbing collection of body parts that clearly used to be a man, some of which have been lined up in order, which he assumes means that before reporting that he found a dead human in their house, in the bedroom when the baby and his mother are sleeping, Kenjaku played with the corpse first.
What should he even respond to first?
The fact there's a dead man just there, without explanation?
That he clearly died a violent death; something obliterated this man?
That Sakura and the baby slept through the whole affair?
That his very young son found a human corpse, and instead of being horrified and traumatized, he played with it like a toy?
There's just so much.
As he stares down at the head, he recognizes it.
It's Higurashi, the so-called Invisible Man, who works for the Katsuragi clan. And then, on the floor, the Tiger's Claw, a very famous cursed dagger that belongs to Daisuke Katsuragi himself. There's just no way that Higurashi would have it unless Daisuke gave it to him.
If Higurashi is there, there's no chance there are other assassins around, so he sends the corpse into his shadow just to get rid of it, leaving a bloodstain on the floor, and then awakens Sakura, who stretches.
"What's wrong?"
Kenjaku says, "There was a dead man in your room! It was neat, all the parts were separate."
"A dead what?!"
Kikyo and her partner awaken to the noise and joined them, where Kenjaku is very happily explaining that he got to see a dead human for the first time, and all the parts were so neatly separated.
She offers groggy side eye to her weird son, who isn't mean or evil, he just really thinks this was very cool and doesn't appreciate the scary fact a man appeared in the place where they all sleep and then 'fell apart,' a description that Kenji does not dispute.
Kenji shows her the dagger, which she also recognizes, and says, "Invisible Man."
Kikyo crosses her arms. "Why would Katsuragi do something this stupid? And even if he's an idiot, who killed the assassin?"
The fact Higurashi died can't really be explained by any other information available to them, but the sorcery world is always full of strange mysteries. What causes a person to explode into pieces after they go into a place where they have not been invited, to do evil things to a person sleeping there?
Kikyo considers her suspicions that Sakura may have been cursing people unintentionally, but if she does have some secret ability that is unknown to her and it wasted an assassin, good for her—death to evildoers, all that.
No one is more rattled about the incident than Sakura, and once the storm passes and it becomes quiet again, she remains worried that there are more scary murderers lurking in the shadows.
Kenjaku tells all of his fellow clan members how excited he was that he got to touch a dead person who was still warm, describing in amazement how it was cut.
When morning comes, Kenji changes his plans.
After all, he has Daisuke's priceless treasure. It's only fair to return it before he feeds Daisuke to his demon dogs.