That soft laugh made every hair on Shin's body stand on end. On pure instinct, he pulled Yachiyo behind him before she could react.
Beside him, Melusine was on full alert in an instant, the dragon-breath beneath her armour coiling and poised.
There, beneath the backdrop of the Lunar Capital's collapse, a woman stood on the other side of the terrace — there was no telling when she'd arrived.
She was extraordinarily beautiful, but in a way that felt less like a living creature and more like something that had been refined to the absolute extremity of existence — a beauty approaching the nature of the Tao itself.
Seven fox tails blazed like living flame in the void behind her, each slow wave sending tremors through the surrounding spiritual energy and the fabric of space.
"Lady Junko…"
Yachiyo peeked out from behind Shin, her voice carrying a slight tremor — but it was not the tremor of fear. It was the tremor of hope materialising.
"This mother isn't deserving of any title. Call me Junko."
"Or… if you're willing — you may both call this mother 'Mother.'"
Junko drifted in the air — exactly like Shin's loli-mother, the Great Witch, back home.
That headache-inducing, bone-deep hatred, which had consumed everything she'd ever had — when she turned it toward Shin and Yachiyo, it transformed into something warmer: an appraising, maternal tenderness.
Do all the powerhouses drift around like this?
"Pity. Chang'e and that Tsukuyomi woman ran fast — I couldn't quite keep her there permanently."
"But destroying her divine domain can at least count as a down payment of interest."
She didn't pay any attention to the tense Shin, speaking only to herself, her gaze drifting to the Moon with a tone both composed and faintly wistful.
Shin blinked.
The Saint's Corpse confirmed there was no killing intent from this woman for now — but the unease from the sheer difference in power tier was entirely real.
A wise man does not stand beneath a crumbling wall. Being kept alive at the discretion of someone who could erase his existence was not a comfortable feeling, especially when her intentions remained unclear.
Right now, Shin just wants to leave.
"Er — Lady Junko, if there's nothing else, this junior will take his leave—"
Even as he said it, he was quietly reaching for the chat group's return function, and subtly gripping Yachiyo and Melusine's hands.
[System Notice: The current entity "Yachiyo" is a spiritual remnant and cannot be selected as a valid transport target.]
Shin froze.
He stared at the red text, his mind flooding with question marks.
A spiritual remnant — what?
Surely last night hadn't been some elaborate hallucination produced by his own XYY tendencies? But the experience had been far too vivid and real to be imagined—
"Don't bother trying, little one."
Junko turned her gaze back, a faint smile playing at the corner of her lips as she looked at Shin:
"The little girl before you is nothing more than a fragment of memory and a thread of spiritual essence, forcibly purified out of a shattered past."
She extended a finger, tapping Yachiyo's forehead across the air. When the veil obscuring Yachiyo — obscuring the "Kaguya-hime" — fell away, Shin realised that Yachiyo's silhouette was faintly translucent, wavering between presence and absence.
"She has no body. No foundation. She's the obsession of a girl from the past. Leave this world, and she will vanish without a trace."
Yachiyo pursed her lips, bowed her head, and tightened her grip on the hem of Shin's robe — but said nothing.
Shin's brow furrowed:
"Then what do we do? How do we take her with us?"
"Simple."
Junko smiled gently:
"Find the truly existing Kaguya-hime — the one who hasn't yet begun The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter — and let this thread of spirit return to where it belongs."
"This little girl, she really is something else… She had already made a deal with me to ensure her fated meeting with you, and yet she still couldn't help herself and did this as well…"
Junko shook her head with a faint sigh. At her age, romantic entanglements between men and women weren't something she could fully relate to — but that willingness to give everything for the one you love was something she recognised. It was real, the same way hers had been.
She had even prepared to sacrifice herself to let the other version of herself go.
After all, if the fragmented "her" had been taken to the Lunar Capital and used as an impurity-scrubbing tool, it wouldn't have lasted long — but that window would have been enough for the young man to rescue the sealed Kaguya and complete the mission…
"The true — no, the other Kaguya. Where is she?"
"Far in the sky, yet right before your eyes."
Junko raised a hand and reached casually toward the distant wild mountain bamboo forest.
The void rippled.
With a sharp whistle of displaced air, a thick, lush green bamboo stalk — still beaded with morning dew — came flying in and landed perfectly upright in the centre of the terrace.
Simultaneously, from the group chat—
[Moon Princess]: BLEGH!
[Moon Princess]: Help — what's going on, I think something picked up the bamboo I'm in?!
[Moon Princess]: Stop spinning, STOP SPINNING! Getting so dizzy — AHH!
Shin stared at the bamboo still wobbling and spinning from invisible forces, his expression going through several transformations at once. He couldn't tell if this was Junko's eccentric sense of humour or something else entirely.
Either way — this was fine. The two of them had already done all the hard work. Letting the NEET princess who'd been loafing in the chat group pick up some of the suffering was, if anything, long overdue.
"Go ahead."
Junko spoke lightly, as if giving instructions for a household errand.
Yachiyo turned her head and looked at Shin for a long, deep moment, her eyes full of everything soft words couldn't carry.
"My dear, please wait for me just a moment."
With that, her form dissolved into a stream of light and slipped effortlessly into the bamboo stalk.
"Lady Junko, will this cause—?" Shin hesitated, voicing the concern that every reader of far too many novels would have: the fear that one plus one might simply produce an entirely different person.
"Relax, it won't. Don't overthink it."
Seeming to read the young man's worry, Junko explained:
"They are one and the same — just like you are… well. Never mind. You can trust me on this."
Just like me?
Shin glanced at Junko, saw she had no intention of elaborating, and let it go.
You're the powerhouse here. Whatever you say goes.
Hmmm——!
The entire bamboo stalk burst with a piercing silver moonlight. The air around it thickened like syrup.
Shin could feel it: two streams of the same origin, merging within that bamboo without resistance — like the light and dark fish of a taiji diagram, each already carrying the seed of the other.
[Moon Princess]: Wha — huh…? This memory is…
[Moon Princess]: Oh my — I did not expect… ahem. Let me… process this for a moment.
The stream of messages Kaguya had been sending went suddenly, completely quiet.
Several heartbeats passed.
A hairline crack appeared on the surface of the bamboo stalk.
Crack!
The whole thing split into four pieces. A cascade of moonlight poured out like liquid mercury.
In the centre of that light, a mature young woman no larger than a thumb slowly emerged.
She stretched languidly, her long black hair falling in a straight curtain to her ankles.
"So exhausted — even though I personally didn't go anywhere while inside that bamboo, I'm still so exhausted~…"
The girl opened her eyes. Those crimson irises no longer held the lazy indolence or the old grief from before — what was there now was a depth and clarity born from the merging of the two.
She looked at Shin, and the corner of her mouth curved into a wicked smile as she straightened up.
"But now that I remember everything…"
"As the real one — naturally, I should face my dear in the most perfect possible form~!"
The aura around her began to shift violently. Her originally tiny frame rose rapidly in the moonlight, and the twelve-layered junihitoe on her body stretched taut with it.
But just as she was about to transform back into the transcendent goddess who was matchless under the heavens—
Swoosh.
A peculiar, deflating sound.
All the moonlight — like a pricked balloon — scattered and dissolved into the air, gone without a trace.
Shin stared. Even Melusine beside him blinked in visible surprise.
Because when the light faded, standing in the spot was not the gorgeous, world-captivating goddess Kaguya-hime — but a young girl who barely came up to his waist, even shorter than Melusine, somewhere around thirteen or fourteen years old. A little loli Kaguya.
The oversized junihitoe hung on her small frame like a costume, making her look hilariously like a little girl who'd stolen into a grown-up's wardrobe.
"...?"
Kaguya stared blankly down at her short little hands, then jumped up to look for a mirror.
"Wh — wh — wh — WHY?!"
"Where's my power?! Where's my PERFECT FIGURE?!"
"Heh heh."
Junko let her laughter show, making no effort to contain it:
"Little girl, did you forget? To plant those charm suggestions in the Watatsuki sisters' minds, you drained quite a bit of your reserves."
"The fact that you can even maintain this form — that's testament to how strong your foundation was to begin with."
Kaguya wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. She looked at Shin — all the perfectly-rehearsed lines she'd prepared for their formal reunion caught in her throat.
Looking like this — how was she supposed to be the "predatory wife" she'd planned to be?
Junko seemed entirely at ease about it, however. She folded her wide sleeves back and let her gaze move between Shin and the loli Kaguya.
"But — a match made in heaven, as they say. That part rings true."
She paused. A faint, solitary shadow passed through her eyes.
"If this mother's child were still alive, I imagine by now he'd long have wed, and be enjoying a union just as beautiful as this."
"Such a pity… what a pity…"
Junko let out a soft sigh. Her eyes held an emotion only she could fully understand.
Indeed — great as she had become, capable of reducing entire star systems to ash with modest effort, she knew: the moment she had ascended to "greatness," her child was gone forever.
She had been refined into greatness by the rage of losing him — and yet that same refinement made it impossible to purify her child back into being.
Like an anchor point in time. A paradox.
Shin looked at this woman who was utterly ferocious toward her enemies and yet so exquisitely gentle toward him and Kaguya.
In Yachiyo's dream-memories, Junko hadn't appeared — Shin still didn't know exactly what this bereaved mother had done in that other past. But as a child himself, standing before that fierce yet tender emotion, he understood it completely.
Something moved in him without warning.
He didn't rush to take the newly-whole Kaguya and leave. Instead, he released Kaguya's hand, walked to stand before Junko, and bowed to her — a deep, formal bow.
"Lady Junko."
Junko raised an eyebrow:
"What is it — does this old woman need company? Go. Go handle your responsibilities."
"I know you can see me, Shaya. Hmph. If you won't come back, then don't bother—"
Shin raised his head. His eyes were clear and earnest — and the words he spoke sent a certain Great Witch's face draining to white on the other end of the chat group livestream:
"I know this may be a presumptuous request. But if the opportunity ever arises, and you don't mind—"
"I'd like to look after you in your old age."
To be continued…
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