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Tokyo Ravens - Volume 11 - Chapter 2.3




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Part 3 
It was six-thirty in the evening. A car entered the entrance to the Kurahashi family residence. 
Kyouko, who came out from the backseat, thanked the driver and closed the door. 
Then, she entered the residence through the main entrance. "......Hah." She sighed with an expression of letting down a heavy burden. 
She looked over her shoulder, but the shikigami that had been closely following her to 'watch' up through before was on standby on the other side of the closed door. The shikigami that the Onmyou Agency - or rather, her father - had prepared monitored Kyouko all the time. But only when she was in the residence was there an exception. She had made him accept that condition with her personal privacy as a pretext. In the end, the entire Kurahashi residence was covered by a tough barrier. There was no reason for a surveillance shikigami. 
...How tiring. 
The shikigami had been following her around for a year and a half already. In the end, she was used to it, but she wasn't no longer concerned. Although she admitted that she understood that she was the 'precious daughter' of a famous family, she never would have thought that she would be treated like a secluded princess in this way. 
Of course, she wasn't being secluded because she was a 'princess'. The reason was the complete opposite. 
"Well, it's because I'm a super delinquent girl." 
As she snorted, she realized that a maid of Kyouko's home was hastily running over to welcome her. 
More than half of the Kurahashi residence maids had been taken in by the Kurahashi family. Their attitudes had become quite estranged after 'that incident'. In short, they treated her carefully like a bomb [7] After superficially greeting that maid, Kyouko headed to her room. 
At the start, she had once become impatient and had spoken scathingly to them. But she had stopped doing that very quickly. Because they had showed hurt expressions. 
The ones taken in knew about the general incident that Kyouko had been involved in. After all, it was a generally-known fact that Kyouko had been friends with Harutora and Natsume. But they seemed to believe that it had completely been the Tsuchimikados in the wrong, and thought that Kyouko had committed a crime to shield the Tsuchimikados because of their friendship. 
Though she felt that it was hard to explain, they understood it that way more out of firm trust in Kyouko's character than worry about her father. That was why they were hurt by Kyouko's satire and shot back sad gazes. 
There was no helping it even if she was angry, and feeling bad about herself was also foolish. But it wasn't something she could explain in detail. So it was enough to stay like this. That was what Kyouko thought. This was much better than being turned a blind eye and secretly slandered. 
But it would be a lie to say she didn't feel lonely. Both in the residence and the Onmyou Academy, the current Kyouko didn't interact normally with anyone. 
"So, I started talking to myself more." 
Kyouko quietly said this, but she couldn't even speak up when she talked to herself out of concern for the shikigami outside. Her phone had been seized, and her personal computer had also been taken away. Was she the only one nowadays who was completely 'secluded' like this? 
"I'm not cut out for this......" 
She smiled and spoke softly, but her voice was even more depressed than she imagined. "No, no." Kyouko shook her head, smiling impertinently and straightening her back. 
No matter what anyone said, she had become weaker. Slowly, slowly. But she ought to be able to stay aware and suppress such internal weakness. 
Toughly. Cheerfully. Actively move forward. She consciously continued pointing her heart in a lively direction. Kyouko spoke to herself while heading to her room through the long hallway. 
She put down her backpack after entering the room, changing her clothes and taking a bit of a break. She relaxed while sitting in the chair and thinking back on each and every thing that had happened today, no matter how trivial. 
"......Yeah." 
A natural smile emerged on her face and Kyouko faced the desk and started to study. 

Though she had been forbidden means of contacting the outside and tools for gathering information, nothing else had changed from before. Rather, she could read things like books on magic unrestricted even if they were very possibly 'improper' to be memorized by a girl. She hadn't been deprived of the use of the defensive shikigami Hakuou and Kokfuu that she had used in the dress rehearsal today either. 
Perhaps things of that level wouldn't be any assistance at all to her father. But such things didn't matter. Kyouko was undoubtedly being given the environment to study and raise her power. 
Kyouko had recognized and been conscious of the fact that she was the Kurahashi family daughter for the eighteen years up till now and had accumulated training and studies every day. 
But she had never studied seriously like the past year and a half. Also, the more she seriously studied, the more painfully she felt how much she 'had to study'. There were truly a blindingly large amount of things she had to learn, more than she could fathom. 
Magic was profound and vast. Kyouko had finally started to realize that fact. "Could it be--", Kyouko recalled. Back then - maybe Harutora had felt the 'sensation' that Kyouko was currently feeling after watching the magic battle between Ohtomo and Doman. He had felt the sensation of sincerely facing the world of magic for the first time. 
An hour later, her maid came to inform her about dinner. Kyouko stopped studying and headed to the dining room. She ate the food that had been prepared alone and then returned to her room to continue studying. She continued studying single-mindedly until ten at night. 
At ten, the alarm clock that had been set up rang. Kyouko turned off the alarm clock, cleaned up her desk and then left the room. 
The place she went was an annex [8] of the residence. It was the place her grandmother currently lived. 
She first circled around to the back of the courtyard. Though the sun had set, the various stone lanterns placed in the courtyard were lit. Narrow bamboo stepping stones were hung up into a small stone bridge across the pond that connected to the annex. 
The annex was a Japanese-style two-story building. It was a clearly gorgeous building and was fully-equipped for a person to live in. But her grandmother was currently forbidden from taking a single step outside this annex. When she thought of that, more quiet anger directed towards her father spilled forth than what came from her own treatment. 
But her grandmother had said herself that 'anger' was an unnecessary emotion for their current selves. Nothing would come of it even if they got angry. All they had to do was calmly and indifferently complete what they needed to do. 
The interior of the annex behind the sliding door was brightly lit. 
Kyouko called out upon entering the annex. "Grandmother?" 
A reply came from the second floor. Kyouko walked up the stairs to the second floor. Her grandmother was facing a Japanese desk in a room on the second floor. After Kyouko entered the room, she turned her head and smiled sweetly. 
"Welcome, Kyouko-san. How was your day?" 
The same basic dialogue as before. A dialogue completely the same as the ones they had shared before the incidents. Kyouko agreeably replied "The same as always." 
"There was just the New Year's Ceremony dress rehearsal in the afternoon. Since the New Year's Ceremony is tomorrow. ...Ah, also, I passed by Tenma in the hallway." 
"Oh my, is Tenma-san still doing well?" 
"Yeah. Just like always, it looks like he's getting along very well with his classmates." 
"That child would definitely be like that. Rather, was he uncomfortable when he passed by you?" 
"Because he's the only one living peacefully? Haha. It's Tenma after all, so it's very possible. Well, that's certainly the truth, so I won't be too bothered even if it concerns him." 
Kyouko spoke happily, sitting on the tatami in front of her grandmother. 
But she checked her grandmother's appearance while giving an account of what had happened today - the condition of her body as well as her mental condition. No matter what, her grandmother was already old. She couldn't ignore the effects of living under house arrest. Also, Kyouko was the only one who could worry about her grandmother right now. 
But whether she understood her granddaughter's worries or not, Kurahashi Miyo wore a full, composed smile no different from before. "Then." She said, offering the Japanese-style desk to Kyouko. 
Two wooden 'boards' were placed on the small Japanese-style desk. A round board representing 'heaven' was placed directly above a square-shaped board representing the 'earth'. They were Liu Ren boards that had been used by Onmyouji for astrology since ancient times. 
"Let's begin, Kyouko-san. Your training to 'read' the stars." 
 



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