Chapter 91 – Travelling to Nakanojo

When School ended, Sakamo joined his classmates and left the classroom, a few minutes after Hangaku Mae. He sent a message to his bodyguard, telling him she was going to the car, but he needed to take her to the train station using side streets to mislead the reporters.
When he reached the School’s gates, the reporters were still there and were asking a lot of questions to the students that were leaving, trying to find out who was Hangaku’s boyfriend. Sakamo pulled his cap a little lower and hid behind the tall Tadasaburo Sasaki.
The police officers and the men in dark blue suits were doing their best to keep a safe distance from the entrance of the School and the reporters, and Sakamo got past them without calling their attention.
The entire class walked on the sidewalk to the train station, fooling around and happily chatting. It took them the usual twenty minutes walk to get there, and they saw Hangaku Mae seated on a bench with a wide-brimmed hat hiding her features next to a smiling girl who was talking with her. Sakamo’s bodyguard was seated next to a girl who was looking at her phone, while he disguisedly looked around, searching for possible threats.

Sakamo went to them, and the bodyguard got up, making a slight bow to him. “I leave my daughter Makishita Aruka and her friend in your care, Sakamo-san.”

He then tapped the arm of his daughter and left. The girl immediately got up and greeted everyone with a deep bow and a trembling voice, “Hello! I am Makishita Aruka! I will be in your care! I hope we can all have fun this weekend!”

The other girl stood up with a jump and a big smile and made a deep bow as well. “Hello! I am Morioka Kinnosuke! Nice to meet you all!”

They all returned the bow, and the smiling Shintaro Nakaoka gently tapped their backs. “No need to be so formal, Makishita-chan and Morioka-chan! We are about to go on a big adventure to enjoy this weekend to the fullest! Right, everyone?”

They all agreed, and Makishita Aruka made a big smile with her face all red. Yoshinobu Tokuga gulped, and he vigorously nodded, completely mesmerised by her.
Makishita was taller than Shintaro and shorter than Hangaku. Her hair was shoulder length, with bangs that reached the eyebrows, which framed two dark brown eyes. She was wearing a different School’s uniform, meaning that, like them, she also came straight to the train station as soon as School ended. She had a pink backpack at her feet, with two small dolls attached to the zipper that Yoshinobu didn’t recognize, and he realised that for sure it would give him an excuse to talk to her, asking about the dolls.
As for Morioka Kinnosuke, she was almost the same height as Makishita Aruka, but with long dark hair that reached the middle of her back, with a dyed yellow portion on the left side, near the ear.
As Shintaro was asking Makishita Aruka which of Tomoe-chan songs she liked the most, Yoshinobu Tokuga disguisedly approached them and was hearing the conversation, waiting for an opportunity to talk to Makishita.
Sakamo noticed how Yoshinobu glanced at the new girl, but he then got distracted by his phone vibrating. It was a message from his bodyguard, telling him that two of his men were going to follow Sakamo’s group during the Moon Festival, and one man would always be near him, just in case Hangaku’s father tried some kind of revenge.
Hangaku saw Sakamo staring at the phone, but before she could ask anything, a new message came.

He opened it and made a slight smile while facing her. “My father is inviting you to visit the Shrine. He wants to meet you.”

Hangaku Mae got pale and spoke with a knot in her throat, “S-Sure, I would love to. When?”

“Tomorrow morning, perhaps? It will take us nearly two hours and a half to get to Nakanojo, have dinner, and send everyone to the rental flats. If you don’t mind, I am going to sleep in the Shrine, and you can share a bedroom with Tomiko or another girl.”

Hangaku glanced around and lowered her voice. “Yeah, probably better if they don’t find out that we live together. I guess you can come to pick me up after breakfast? If Tomoe-chan can show them around, I can go with you to the Shrine, but I need to get back after lunch because I need to talk with the staff because of the concert and prepare some things with Tomoe-chan. You can take everyone to visit the City while we are working.”

“Alright, I can do that. I hope Tomoe-chan doesn’t have another crazy idea of asking me to fight her on stage! One time was enough!”

Hangaku Mae smiled and looked through the window, enjoying the scenery and trying to calm her heart from the excitement. If she put up a good show, her new life as a singer would start, allowing her to travel the World, and go to countries that she could never go to, not without her family finding out, and there were a few places she wanted to go with no one knowing.
As the voyage to Nakanojo continued, Makishita Aruka, the daughter of Sakamo’s bodyguard, and her friend, Morioka Kinnosuke, were the life of the voyage. Morioka was talking non-stop with everyone, and Makishita Aruka was laughing with Yoshinobu Tokuga, who kept on talking with her under the disguised smiles of his two friends, Shintaro Nakaoka and Tadasaburo Sasaki.
…

When they finally reached Nakanojo, Tomoe-chan was there, waiting for them, with a hat covering her hair that was tied in a ponytail and yellow-framed glasses. Next to her were three of the dancers that were often with her, all of them waving at the group that was exiting the train. Hangaku Mae ran to them, dragging along Sakamo, who was holding her hand. She jumped onto Tomoe’s neck and hugged her.

Hangaku then looked at Tomoe with a big smile and said, “I didn’t know you were going to be here! Did you feel lonely at your hotel or what?”

“Yeah, kind of. I was too nervous to relax! I want to take everyone to the rental flats, and then we can go have dinner!”

Sakamo slowly raised his hand. “I can’t. My father is waiting for me at the Shrine, and I want to eat with him and my brothers.”

Tomoe-chan placed her hand on Hangaku’s waist and asked while waving at him. “And who told you that you were invited? Shoo, shoo, we have places to go, food to eat! Go eat your salad with them because I want to fill my belly! Let’s go, everyone, follow me and let this rabbit go eat his lettuce with all his vegetarian brothers!”

They all laughed and tapped Sakamo’s back as they went past him, even with Sakamo shouting that he wasn’t a rabbit nor a vegetarian.
He finally gave up and waved at the laughing group before going to search for a taxi outside the station.
A man in a dark blue suit was near the exit and signalled Sakamo to follow him to the car that was parked nearby.
He made a slight bow at Sakamo as he opened the car door for him and got into the driver’s seat. Sakamo gave him the address of the Shrine, and the driver rode the car through the main street, and in less than ten minutes, they arrived.
Sakamo rang the bell and waited. The moment the door opened, the driver went away.

A powerful hug from his overweight older brother received him, “Ryu! How are you? Everyone is in the dining room. Come, we will meet them there!”

“How is father? And everyone else?”

“Everything is as it always has been. You are the one that has a lot to tell about your new life as a High School student!”

Sakamo followed his smiling older brother, happy for going to see his family again, the ones that took him in when he was just an infant, the ones that taught him everything that he knew, and were always near him.
He hadn’t been to the Shrine in nearly three months, or six if he counted his trips to Azurath. He had a lot to tell them about his School life, and a few things to discuss with his father, in private, concerning Azurath and the Dark Mages.
…

In the morning, Sakamo was at the gate, waiting for Hangaku. The moment his phone vibrated with a message from Hangaku saying that she had arrived, he opened the big wooden door for her.
Her jaw almost dropped when she saw him. His hair was loose, and he was wearing a light yellow robe with a thin rope for a belt and straw sandals.

She went in, and as he was closing the door, she stuttered, “I-I don’t know if I should kiss your lips, or your hand and ask for a blessing! You look so cool! You are just like a monk! An amazingly pretty one!”

“Well, this is what I normally wear here. Come, most of my brothers are inside, taking care of their chores or praying, and my father is in the main room, meditating.”

Hangaku slowly nodded and followed him in silence, feeling anxious about meeting his father and extremely nervous about being in such a place. Everything around her screamed holy place. From the well-treated trees and pristine low grass to the path they were walking on, with small river pebbles.
A low building was in sight, after a wooden bridge with red rails that she caressed as they walked over it. Hangaku looked down and saw a few oversized Koi fish swimming around a circle of nenuphars that were in the middle of the large pond they were crossing over.
After the bridge, Hangaku gasped when she looked up. The building was entirely made of wood, with so many engravings that, for sure, it took years to be completed.

She touched one pillar that had a dragon head carved on it, and Sakamo pointed to the left side of the head. “I broke that ear when I was eight years old. I was sparring against one of my brothers, and when I put my spear back to do a downward slash, I cut that ear. My father tried to glue it, but it fell off the next winter, and a bird took it. It was funny to see my father running after the bird, trying to catch it. He was supposed to fix that one day, but it stayed like this, to remind me I need to be careful during a fight, and to always mind my environment.”

Hangaku gulped and took her hand from the pillar that she was still caressing. “You grew up here? This place is amazing… It’s so peaceful. Do they allow visitors here? “

“Only on special occasions, like the first day of the year, or when the School year is about to start, and such. But not inside any of the main buildings. Those are only for the monks. And today, for you as well. I don’t know what your faith is, and I also don’t care what it is, and neither does my family, but try to show proper respect to the place and keep a low voice. There is always someone meditating or praying somewhere.”

“I suppose I could say it is also Shinto because I believe in the Kamis. My family is not a believer.”

Sakamo raised one eyebrow, wondering how she followed the Shinto faith while she continued, “Hangaku Tokimasa always told me stories when I was little, about mean Kamis that tortured people, about Mermaids that used their voices to attract sailors to the bottom of the ocean to eat them, or Fairies that tricked hunters to kill them and eat their hearts. I never liked those stories, and I never hated Kamis, Mermaids, or Fairies, despite how much he tried. He used to say that those Magical Beings were not worthy of wielding Magic and that only Humans, a far greater species, deserved it. He still believes that, I think. Yeah, he is kind of dumb.”