On the Witch's Island, in the mansion.
The Great Witch, who had been idly sipping tea and waiting to watch her son's triumphant performance, found that the teacup in her hand had been reduced to a perfectly uniform powder by the accidental activation of her [Herculean Strength] spell.
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: How lovely. Truly lovely.
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: My little Shaya has grown up. Didn't want to meet anyone I introduced you to, but it seems you have no trouble throwing yourself at women in other worlds.
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: Wonderful. I'll go fetch your little sister right now and use a spell to project this image for her — let her see exactly how her dear big brother makes it love at first sight with someone else.
The Great Witch's tone had gone several degrees colder.
[Queen of Britain]: ???
[Queen of Britain]: I seem to recall, Great Witch, that you yourself were the one looking for a daughter-in-law just recently in this chat —
Morgan was confused. After all, the Great Witch hunting for a good match for her son in the group chat was still fresh in everyone's memory.
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: That was then. This is now.
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: Right now my little Shaya doesn't need any other women. Even if he did, he'd have to wait until after I —
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: [Recalled a message]
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: In any case, as Shaya's mother, I do not approve of this courtship.
The Great Witch made the executive decision to disavow her past self.
[Moon Princess]: What about my feelings? Does nobody care about those?
[Moon Princess]: Someone is using my face to do this sort of thing, and I am socially deceased, okay?!
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: …Your Highness Kaguya, is the one appearing in the livestream truly unrelated to you? Not some aspect of you, or a partial manifestation?
The Great Witch was floating a theory — every member of this group was exceptional in their own way.
Besides, before she'd understood Shin's place in the group, she hadn't been paying close attention to [Yearning to Become the Perfect Human Being]. Who was to say her son hadn't gone to another world and gotten involved with someone while she wasn't looking?
[Moon Princess]: It's truly not! …Probably?
Kaguya had been about to deny it flatly, but watching through the group livestream, she genuinely couldn't tell the difference between that "Kaguya-hime" and herself.
The experience of watching "yourself" live-stream yourself throwing yourself at a group-chat junior — essentially a younger generation — was honestly more torturous than being imprisoned on the Lunar Capital.
At this point, unless someone came and dug her out of this bamboo, she had no way to confirm anything.
Meanwhile, high on the platform in Heian-kyo, Shin's mind was completely clear.
Unnervingly, exquisitely clear — he could even feel Yachiyo's faint cool-skinned warmth as her head rested against his shoulder, could catch every thread of the delicate fragrance rising from her.
But his body had gone completely off-script.
Like a soul watching from outside its own body, seeing everything done to it while being powerless to object.
He didn't know if the friends watching the group livestream were feeling more helpless than he was, but he could tell he'd already lost the ability to crush the [Rift Talisman].
"Come, my dear."
There's something fundamentally humiliating about this, Shin thought somewhere in the back of his paralysed mind.
"Let these commoners see what it means to be chosen by me…"
Yachiyo's jade hand wrapped gently around Shin's, leading him to the very front edge of the pavilion.
Below — a sea of humanity, dense as water.
The nobles who'd been recovering from their tiger-induced panic, upon seeing "Kaguya-hime" personally take a strange man's hand, went utterly still.
Silence.
And then, like a volcano —
"That's — there's a man beside Kaguya-hime?"
"How?! He's just some nobody ronin!"
"Your Highness! You are a celestial maiden — how can you lower yourself to a worthless warrior like him?!"
"Kill him! Take back Her Highness!"
The nobles who'd been maintaining the barest veneer of civilised conduct now had crimson eyes — exactly like the golden tiger they'd set loose — in their unhinged desperation.
Like someone had stolen the most precious thing in the world from them. The screams of jealousy nearly toppled the gold and silver pavilion.
Some even tried to storm the structure directly, only to crash into each other in their frenzied scramble.
Shin stared down at those contorted faces below, and felt a strange, quiet grief rise in him.
Wasn't this precisely what The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter had always been, stripped of its poetry? Remove the flourishes and this was all that was left — humans behaving no better than beasts.
"Look, my dear."
Yachiyo leaned close against Shin's side, her voice as soft as a lover's murmur in his ear.
"Aren't humans hideous? Like animals. No — perhaps worse than animals."
"Greedy. Selfish. Ugly… They kneel at my feet not out of love, but out of desire."
"Such base creatures — what purpose is there in keeping them? My dear, why must you keep calling yourself one of them?"
Yachiyo turned slightly, glancing at the Fairy Knight standing motionlessly to one side.
"Melusine."
"At your service, my lady."
Melusine's golden dragon-pupils responded in a blank, hollow voice. Her small frame turned mechanically.
"Help me tidy up this crowd of humans. Then continue clearing away the next batch. Spare my dear the trouble of concerning himself with them in the future, won't you?"
Yachiyo smiled like the languid blossom of a flower, giving orders as though it were the most trivial thing in the world.
"Right then, Melusine."
"Not one human left."
"As you command, my lady."
Melusine nodded, turned, and her mouth moved like a machine —
"Human Extermination Operation — confirmed initiated."
To be continued…
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