Many years later, Yamanashi Natsuo would remember that afternoon in second grade. The twilight was closing in, the sky burning fiercely, every cloud soaked in the colors of dusk. The sea breeze blew in from the south, gust after gust, stirring the hair of a girl named Yukinoshita Yukino.
She lay on the ground, peaceful and still, not saying a word.
Because she was dead.
…
Eight years after coming to this new world, Yamanashi Natsuo found himself an orphan. He had a house, a small hill, and on that hill stood an abandoned shrine. According to the old shrine maiden who had taken him in and given him his name, the shrine was quite profitable. If he was willing to take over running it, he'd never have to worry about food or money for the rest of his life.
Natsuo didn't doubt that. He just wasn't all that keen on becoming some kind of shyster priest.
Besides, before she passed, the old shrine maiden had also told him that if he inherited the shrine, he'd need to find a young shrine maiden to run it with him. It was a rule that had been passed down for years, the shrine always had to have a maiden around.
Find a shrine maiden?
That sounded like a bit of a pain to Natsuo. According to current customs, only unmarried women could serve as shrine maidens. Once they got married, their duties came to an end.
So he'd find a shrine maiden, she'd eventually reach marriageable age and get married, and then he'd have to go find another one?
The only difference between that and being a player was that a player kept finding new girlfriends and kept dumping them, while he'd be finding new shrine maidens and watching them all get married one by one. It felt… a little strange.
Not that customs mattered much to him, honestly. The truth was, he just couldn't be bothered.
Closing his book, Natsuo got up from the grass in the school courtyard and made his way toward the shoe lockers.
That's when he heard it, the shrieks of those shoe-stealing degenerates.
…
It was rare for Yukinoshita Yukino to go home late. She'd made a point of telling the driver to come later, though she hadn't explained why.
Because today, she was going to personally catch the person stealing her indoor shoes.
Standing at the bottom of the stairwell, Yukino concentrated hard, listening for the sound of anyone opening a shoe locker.
When she heard that distinct noise of a locker being opened, she cautiously peered out and spotted three male students giggling among themselves, crowded around the lockers.
She raised her phone and opened the camera.
If it was them, she'd get solid proof first.
With a serious expression, Yukino watched them go through one locker after another, looking around.
And then, they passed hers.
Huh? Not me?
Her brows furrowed slightly, and her finger paused over the shutter button. But she still kept the phone up.
Regardless of who the target was, those three were clearly about to do something bad, campus bullying. It was only right to have evidence.
"Found one, haha."
"Open it, open it! Let's toss it in the river!"
Yukino's finger moved back to the shutter button.
"Aaaaah!!!"
"Mom!!!"
"Help!!!"
Yukino froze. She saw one of them fling away something long and thin, and then all three screamed like they'd seen a ghost, scrambling and stumbling away from the lockers.
Her gaze shifted to the object writhing a few times on the floor after being tossed aside. Her expression stiffened as she took a step back.
A snake? There was a snake in someone's locker?
Caught off guard, Yukino heard footsteps approaching.
On the other side of the lockers, a boy stood against the light, walking in from the courtyard. He reached out, closed one of the lockers, picked up the snake, and looked her way.
Yukinoshita Yukino met his gaze, slightly surprised.
She knew this boy. Yamanashi Natsuo. Her classmate. Always ranked first in exams. She'd heard his family ran a shrine. Most days, he spent class reading all kinds of books that had nothing to do with the lesson.
He also had a bit of a strange personality, sometimes he'd mutter to himself or talk to a black cat, and whenever anyone tried to strike up a conversation, he'd shut it down in just a few words.
From what she'd observed, he was a good-looking guy but definitely not easy to get along with.
They held each other's gaze for a moment. He didn't seem inclined to say anything and turned to leave.
"Um." Yukino called out to him before she could think. When he gave her a puzzled look, she pointed. "That snake..."
"It's fake." Natsuo held up the now-still rubbery thing, then started walking again.
Yukino hesitated for a second. "Excuse me, do you have any more? Of these fake snakes?"
Without looking back, Natsuo stuffed the snake into his bag. "No. See you."
After walking a bit away from school, Natsuo glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then pulled the snake back out.
It was real. Just non-venomous. If those classmates of his had freaked out and gotten traumatized? Good. That'd be ideal.
Watching the snake squirm again, he frowned and tossed it to the ground.
"Get back up the mountain. Next time you come down into the fields and scare someone, I'm making snake stew."
The little snake hissed a few times, as if answering, then slithered away.
Natsuo looked around, thought for a moment, then headed toward a certain shop. He remembered they had decent oden, he'd brought Eru there once before.
Stepping inside, he grabbed a paper cup and moved to the oden compartments, picking out his choices one by one. His mind drifted back to the person he'd just run into.
Yukinoshita Yukino. Same class. Always ranked second. Daughter of a wealthy family. Really wealthy. The Yukinoshita and Chitanda families were both well-known in Chiba. She spent all her time either reading or reading some more, and she had a pretty sharp personality when people tried to talk to her, she'd usually shut them down in a few sentences, too.
All in all, aside from being cute, she seemed like nothing but trouble.
Oden chosen, paid for, Natsuo walked out with a cup in one hand, eating as he went, taking his time heading home.
He strolled along the coastal road, stepping on his own shadow, and with the sound of the waves in his ears, he found himself thinking about that girl again.
Come to think of it, something had been going on with Yukinoshita Yukino lately. For example, Hayama Hayato, the only person in class who could really hold a conversation with her, had recently parted ways with her.
It happened because she'd stubbornly stood up for a girl who was being harassed. But the guys responsible were friends of Hayama's. And Hayama, that nice guy, got stuck in the middle, not helping either side.
When Yukino faced off with those boys, the girl she stood up for didn't even thank her, just quietly slipped away.
After that, Yukino's reputation in class took another hit. At this rate, she might get bullied to the point of transferring schools.
Huh. Now that I think about it, maybe I should've said a few more words back there. Could've been our final farewell in this life, a last send-off for two years of being strangers who happened to share a classroom.
Turning the corner, Natsuo left the coastal road and headed into a quiet side street.
He walked through the narrow alleyways, popping pieces of oden into his mouth.
"Meeow!!!"
The shrill cry cut through the silence of the empty alley, sharp and piercing.
Natsuo turned his head toward the adjacent passage.
Less than ten meters away, a large white cat was pacing restlessly around a girl lying on the ground.
A flicker of surprise crossed his face as he walked over.
Swallowing the daikon in his mouth, he looked down and locked eyes with the cat.
"So, what's the story?"
The big white cat looked up at him, letting out a few uneasy meows.
Natsuo listened, his eyebrows lifting slightly.
"You're saying a snake showed up behind her, you tried to chase it off, but you ended up scaring her instead. She hit her head on the step and hasn't moved since."
His hand paused over the oden cup. He went quiet.
Then, with his foot, he nudged the cat aside.
"Nothing else for you to do here. Get lost."
"Meow, meow."
"I'll save her."
Only when the cat finally left, looking back every few steps, did Natsuo look down at the figure lying there, Yukinoshita Yukino. A strange expression crossed his face.
The twilight was closing in, the sky burning fiercely, every cloud soaked in the colors of dusk. The sea breeze blew in from the south, gust after gust, stirring her hair.
In the warm glow of the fading light, her quiet, delicate face had a strange kind of holiness to it.
Oh, little Madonna, why'd you have to go and close your eyes?
He crouched down, set his oden aside, and reached out to touch the back of her head.
That snake… was probably the one he'd let loose.
Looking up, Natsuo met the gaze of Yukinoshita Yukino's spirit, which had just stepped out of her body. His expression turned serious.
"Congratulations. You just won your resurrection match."