Part 3
He quickly caught up with Hama.
Waiting for him was Suzuka sitting on her shikigami. She approached Harutora mid-flight and flew next to him.
"Bakatora!"
Her loud, scolding voice quavered. Of course, Harutora didn't have anything to retort.
"Suzuka...... It's been a while."
"What the hell do you mean, it's been a while!? Liar! You said you'd come back with Natsume, you said you'd come back!"
"Yeah, sorry. Honestly. It's been delayed."
Harutora's heart was filled with warmth from Suzuka's moistened eyes. Speaking of which, they had been flying next to each other in the sky like this when he left.
He had returned.
Finally. The many emotions crowding his heart were hard to overcome.
"Come with me."
Saying that, he descended to Hama. Suzuka followed without saying anythging at all.
"Ah!"
Suddenly, Akino cried out from next to Suzuka.
"Ah! Ah! I thought of it! Harutora-kun - Sensei! I, I have a message for you!"
Saying that, she reached out, ignoring the shikigami's balance. Suzuka froze out of panic.
"Sorry, tell me later."
"B-But!"
"Rabbit ears! Stop crawling around!!"
Harutora landed on the edge of Hama's chassis, leaving Suzuka's wobbling shikigami behind. "Harutora-kun!" The first one to call out to him was Tenma, who had seen the black coat in the rearview mirror from the driver's seat. He had fainted while being carried out, but it looked like he was awake now. Fortunately, he didn't look hurt.
Hakuou and Kokfuu seemed to have dematerialized, but the interior was still cramped. Other than Tenma in the driver's seat, Hishamaru and Kakugyouki were in the passenger's seat, the unconscious Natsume and Ohtomo lay in the backseat, with Kyouko to their right looking after their conditions. Further to the right was Touji, who had re-sealed himself. Mezu had been stuffed into the trunk [28] , and Gozu was on the roof since his body took up a lot of space. Hama would have been unable to move long ago if it weren't armored [29] .
With his back against the passenger seat, Kakugyouki leaned against the door, an elbow hanging outside the window.
He looked up at Harutora.
"...You got him, huh."
He smiled wryly.
Kakugyouki's giant body was wracked by lag no less than Hishamaru's. Honestly, it was a wound that threatened his continued existence. Harutora felt pain deep inside his heart.
"We're trying to isolate Hishamaru with a barrier for now, but isn't that meaningless from this close?"
"......No, it's not a problem of distance anymore, ever since the two of them became aware of each other......"
"I see."
Kakugyouki replied tersely. That voice and his expression didn't give away any of his inner feelings. But even so, he still conveyed the same sorrowful emotion as Harutora felt.
Suzuka on the shikigami also descended next to Hama and flew next to it. Akino tried to say something again, but before that, Touji spoke to 'Harutora' as the representative of the friends.
"There are a lot of things I want to ask, but right now Natsume's the most important. Something similar happened to her before. What's the reason? Can you deal with it?"
Touji's question didn't blame Harutora. But that question increased the sorrow in Harutora's heart.
There was no longer any reason to hide it.
"I......"
Harutora fished for an explanation.
"During the summer two years ago, I performed the Taizan Fukun Ritual in order to wake Natsume. Then...... I failed."
"Failed? But Natsume--"
"More accurately, I half-succeeded. I summoned Natsume's soul. It returned...... but two souls responded to my call. One was Natsume's dead soul, and the other was......"
Saying that, Harutora cast a gaze at the loyal defensive familiar sleeping in the passenger seat.
"Hishamaru...... my shikigami who's unconscious over there. Natsume and Hishamaru have the same soul...... Or more accurately, Natsume and Hishamaru's soul are the same thing. Normally that would be impossible. It definitely shouldn't happen. But no matter how I investigated, I came to the same conclusion."
"If they're the same......"
Touji and Tenma couldn't respons to what Harutora said. Also, they couldn't imagine what having the same soul meant. Actually, Harutora couldn't completely understand it either. Even Harutora - or perhaps Yakou - couldn't completely understand what human souls were. You could even say that they were things that couldn't be understood.
But one person,
"No way!?"
The one who objected was Suzuka, who had researched soul magic on her own before.
"The same soul can't exist in two different places at the same time, that's impossible!"
"Yeah. If it did, it could only be something like a phase five...... something like a god's vessel."
"That's a completely different meaning! That's dispersed aura spread over a wide area. It's not splitting a soul into two and taking physical form!"
Suzuka was right. The hypothesis that Natsume was a vessel constructed for a 'god' violated a premise. And Hishamaru - who had been a human girl before becoming a spiritual entity - had a soul formed before the war. And after Yakou died, she gave up her physical body to become a spiritual entity, existing up through the present. She had existed in this world as Hishamaru long before Natsume had been born.
Then had Natsume's soul been split off from Hishamaru's? Judging by the defensive familiar, there was no evidence of that. Hishamaru had lost many memories when she released the Tsuchimikado seal. But even so, if something as unreasonable as soul splitting had happened, she should have remembered it. Further, even if she herself didn't remember, there ought to be spiritual 'scars' lift behind. But there was nothing that pointed to thatk ind of possibility.
He had thought of everything else that he could. But not a single one could explain the current situation.
He had noticed the situation when Hishamaru had suddenly lost consciousness, just like today, while he was performing the Taizan Fukun Ritual. What he noticed because of that had stumped Kakugyouki and Saotome Suzu as well. He recognized that the same soul was living in two entities, but he still couldn't predict what kind of effects that soul would have.
"W-Wait. Harutora, this Hishamaru person is Kon-chan, right?"
She hastily looked back at Hishamaru again.
The seductive beauty sleeping next to them was a bit different from the loyal little girl that they knew.
The others were all stunned upon recognizing Hishamaru's fox ears.
"Kon-chan and Natsume-chan were together all the time before, so why didn't it happen until now?"
"......I think there are many overlapping reasons. For example, Hishamaru - Kon - was being sealed by a powerful spell when the two of them were next to each other. In other words, the seal kept Natsume's duplicate soul in a very suppressed state."
And then, since she had released the seal, Hishamaru had regained her original soul, and as a result, had become more resonant with Natsume.
"But......"
Harutora spoke carefully, seeming very troubled.
"The direct cause is the Taizan Fukun Ritual. Before that, these two unusual souls were completely oblivious to each other, and they only interacted once I called them back. Also, one side was in a critical condition, and the other side forced open the seal and ended up in a fragmented state......"
Harutora glanced at Natsume with a pained look as he spoke, then also looked at Hishamaru.
Magic that controlled souls was forbidden. The reason it was forbidden was because of the danger. He had realized the consequences, but hadn't been conscious enough. As a result, his companions had gotten involved.
Forbidden magic was a game that involved not just one's own self, but also 'part of the world'. Even now, the words Kogure said [30] pained his heart.
"Anyways, in that condition, even if Natsume's soul returned to her body I wasn't sure what other side effects there would be. ......No, what's more important was that I realized the chance of success would be very low. So there was nothing I could do to restore her to normal except for emergency measures!"
Harutora let out a long sigh as he spoke.
"And so, that Taizan Fukun Ritual to call back Natsume has continued all the way through tonight." [31]
The condition that had befallen Natsume and Hishamaru was very difficult to explain formally. Harutora explained it using the magic theories of General Onmyoudou and Imperial Onmyoudou, but those theories were incomplete with regard to souls and gods. It was hard to say whether those theories could even be completed.
But there were things that they could be certain of.
"This 'cheating' can no longer be concealed. Natsume and Hishamaru are both at their limits. And...... there's the advent of Tairan no Masakado. The spiritual nature around Kanda Shrine is already changing. With their conditions, the two of them won't be able to handle that change......"
Harutora said haltingly. "No way." Kyouko clenched her fists tightly in front of her.
Then, as if to prove Harutora's words, a spiritual flow of yin aura burst forth right underneath the rode Hama was driving on. Perhaps spiritual disasters would soon be happening all over the city if left alone. Right now it couldn't be said whether it would become a history-making great spiritual disaster like those of the past. But it wouldn't be oddi f the situation took a turn for the worse.
Suzuka was also silent, her face pale. She, who was familiar with the Taizan Fukun Ritual and soul magic, was also unable to think of a countermeasure.
No one said anything as Hama drove like the wind.
Just then,
"U-Um!"
Akino raised her voice.
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