"That's it for today's training!" At the orders of the captain of the third unit, the soldiers, who had been orderly standing in formation, each headed off as they pleased like scattering baby spiders.

"I'm exhausted." The one who hit to Shuusei Ryuu's shoulder was Taimei Kou, who had also been conscripted from Seisengou.

"Yeah. Today's peace is also over. After we'll just eat a meal and sleep. Alright!" Shuusei said, and for some reason began counting numbers on his fingers.

(Three more days...)

Shuusei was reminded of a girl who was smiling almost until bursting. His face grew slack without thinking.

Taimei, who had glanced at Shuusei just then, whispered into the ears of the soldier from the same village, "Hey, have you heard any rumors lately...?"

"Rumors? What kind?"

"...um," The tone of Taimei's voice fell a little. "We might not be able to go back to the village..."

"WHAT!?" said Shuusei loudly, and Taimei quickly covered his mouth.

"Hut, in shree days time our going hack to the village will hinally¹...!" he whispered after Taimei silently put his index finger to his lips.

"That's right. If things go as they should, in three days time our going back to the village will finally... happen, but..." With that he folded his arms. "Somehow, the indications seem to point to an extended military service, don't they?"

"H...how?" Shuusei leaned closer to Taimei. "We've come this far with our three year contract. Would extending it to the beginning of the month do anything for them? My point is, it's been so peaceful that during our military service we weren't even dispatched once."

"You're so naive." Taimei looked at Shuusei with a side glance and weakly smiled. "They're saying that Kutou has launched an invasion of Konan."

"What~!? There's no way. I mean, aren't Kutou and Konan under a peace treaty?"

"Idiot. That's why I say you're naive." Taimei narrowed his eyes to mere slits. "Listen. There's no diagram, but I've heard Kutou's invasion plans are already done. If that's how they feel, then Kutou will smash Konan. At any rate, military might is a totally different thing."

"T...then will we be dispatched to Konan although we're about to go home to our village"

"That's right."

Shuusei muttered, No way... and craddled his face.

"You should forget the girl," whispered Taimei and Shuusei snapped his head up

"Wh...what are you talking about? There is... no girl..."

"Idiot. Every night you're going on about Kouran, Kouran loudly in your sleep."

"......"

"Shuusei thought, Is that so... as he looked down.

"You've always been cared for by the village head, right? Taking even his daughter Kouran on top of that is being the world's worst scum." At Taimei's cold words, Shuusei looked down and chewed his lip.

Shuusei Ryuu didn't know what his real parents looked like.

When he was a baby, he was abandoned in the overgrown Japanese pampas grass on the bank of the Hijiri River along with a scrap of paper reading the name Ryuu. The mother who found and raised that baby was the now deceased wife of Kenmin Ou. As he was born in the fall, they named him Shuusei² and decided to raise Kouran, who was a year younger than him, and him as if they were really brother and sister.

And then after the day when Kenmin told him the truth, a natural romantic love budded and grew between Shuusei and Kouran.

"Why!?" Even now Shuusei clearly remembered Kouran's proud voice as she protested against her father.

"Why can't it be Shuusei?"

"Listen carefully. I also want both of you to marry people you like. However, the Ou family has a lineage of Seisengou village heads that stretches back for generations. In other words, the man who marries you will follow in my footsteps... It's unfortunate, but the villages won't accept Shuusei..."

"Because Shuusei was an abandoned child?"

"No one knows if he was born in Seisengou..."

Shuusei unexpectedly overheard the conversation between Kenmin and Kouran while he was outside the room the day before he was conscripted.

"That's not it! That's so cruel!"

"Hm, things might be different if Shuusei had a really, really distinguished service in a vangard, but..." Kenmin said indistinctly. "Furthremore, Shuusei is like a real son to me... Could you please understand how I feel? Look, as an example, how about Taimei of Mr. Kou's family... There's other men around your age, isn't there?"

"No way! I'm not going after that rude guy with narrow eyes!"

"...Kouran."

"I love Shuusei. I don't want anyone but Shuusei! That's enough, father, I hate you!" Kouran burst out of the room, crying as she ran. Even now the back of that figure was scorched on the inside of Shuusei's eyelids.

Shuusei was indulging in a reverie when Taimei said to him, "Kouran's also around seventeen. She might have been married a long time ago." Shuusei suddenly grabbed Taimei by the collar.

"Kouran is... waiting for my return!"

"Oh? Is that so?" Taimei said as he forced Shuusei's hand to open.

"No matter what, we still will not be returning home for the present. Well, from now on we do our duty. It makes a man's blood jump for joy. If you're even part of a man, don't you think you should try for at a distinguished service in battle and not depress yourself over things like girls?"

"...distinguished service..." When Taimei said that, Shuusei remembered Kenmin's words. If he had a distinguished service, Kenmin and the villagers might acknowledge him... If he was awarded a brocade here and wore it to his home town, he and Kouran would even be allowed to marry and everything would be so wonderful.

"If I'm active in a great number of battles, some day I'll be able to command thousands of soldiers like that cool blue-eyed general." As Taimei spoke of his dream arduously, his thin eyes sparkled with all their might, and he said condescendingly to Shuusei, "You want to meet that girl? If fear you'll die in battle, you could even desert. However, up until now not even one person has managed to do it... What happened after that, well, use your imagination." Taimei sliced his hand across his neck.

"......" Shuusei Ryuu felt something beginning to stir in his heart.

*

That night, Shuusei was unable to sleep at all and kept tossing and turning.

(Was I the only one who didn't know the rumors about Kutou's invasion?)

Including Taimei, there were ten youths who had been conscripted from Seisengou along with Shuusei, but wherever they were returning home to, it seemed everyone's young blood was boiling for battle.

"Don't depress myself over things like girls... huh?" Even when Taimei's words hurt his pride as a man like they did earlier, Shuusei still thought about Kouran.

"Kouran..."

"Shuusei..."

On that night three years ago, as they watched each other only by the light of the moon, two people drew each other close beneath an ancient pear tree on the riverbank.

"Come back alive..." Kouran said as she gazed into Shuusei's eyes. "You don't need to have a distinguished service in battle. No matter what live and return to me...!"

"......" It was the conversation that he had unintentionally heard sometime ago between Kouran and her father. Shuusei's heart jumped.

"But... you know. Who can know what will happen three years in the future? Man can't know if we'll break up during that long time, you know," Shuusei intentionally answered in a blunt manner after he realized that.

"What are you talking about?" Kouran stiffened her face and peered at Shuusei's eyes.

"Like I said, I'll get a new lover there, and here you'll..."

Smack-----!

Kouran slapped him violently.

"Don't say such disturbing things! Don't you trust me?"

" It wasn't disturbing things, though³..." Shuusei answered with his hand on his cheek.

"After three years if you are discharged, come here. And then take me somewhere far away."

"......Kouran..."

"There we can live happily... Forever... just the two of us." Kouran's heated look as she resolved to abandon their beautiful home town, where they had been born and raised, pierced Shuusei's heart.

"I believe in you, Shuusei, and will be waiting the whole time."

"...Kouran." Shuusei quietly embraced the girl around the chest.

It was an evening in the spring of Shuusei Ryuu's fifteenth year and Kouran Ou's fourteenth---

The evening breeze blew the falling pear blossoms toward the Hijiri River as the couple kissed for the first time.

I might not be able to grant Kouran's wish that I return alive and then we go live somewhere far away. Instead, if I prepare for death in battle and somehow have a distinguished service, the path may open up again...

The worries in his heart would not abate. Trying not to awaken his comrads, Shuusei quietly left the room. If he got some fresh air, it might calm him down a little.

After exiting the barracks in the Imperial Palace and walking around a little, he saw the magnificent palace. Within it was the emperor of Kutou, who Shuusei had never seen.

At that moment from a long corridor in the palace, he could see a shadow of a walking man cutting the air. He was a tall, muscular, well-proportioned figure with battle armor, somewhat long gold hair, and blue eyes set in his cold, emotionless face...

(Isn't he the general...!)

Shuusei instantly hid himself in the shadow of a nearby pillar. He had seen this young golden haired general, who held two-thirds of Kutou's army, one or two times before from a distance. That graceful figure did not speak, but had an air of intellectual composure, as if absolutely everything he did was calculated, and was the aspiration of just Taimei or maybe the target of all the soldiers.

(So a general has to work until this late hour of the night.)

The blue-eyed general passed by Shuusei and continued walking inside. Unnoticed, Shuusei stealthily followed behind the general.

*

The general entered a magnificient room facing the palace courtyard. The palace guards in front of the room quietly dispersed from there when the general whispered into their ears. Probably he was clearing them out. Shuusei came before the now unoccupied room, and put his ear close to the door.

"Please excuse me for coming so late at night, your highness." He heard the general's voice, and at once Shuusei's tension increased. This was the emperor's bedroom.

"Hmm. I don't mind..." answered the unrefined voice of someone in their fifties. "By the way, does the assault on Konan seem to be going well?"

"Yes. Please leave it to me. I plan on dispatching troops at once and quickly getting them into position," said the general in a calculating voice. They were going to be dispatched to Konan, after all.

(But, isn't assaulting Konan, with whom we have a peace treaty, a terrible thing...?) Shuusei thought at least.

" As always, you are adept at doing things."

The general interrupted the emperor's words of praise. "No. If I am not quick, things would get bad. I have received information that Suzaku's Miko has appeared in Konan."

"What, Suzaku's Miko?"

"Yes. So, we must capture Konan before they gather the Suzaku Shichiseishi and summon Suzaku."

As a child Shuusei had heard about the legend of Sukazu, Seiryuu, Gembu, Byakko, each of their mikos, and their shichiseishi from Kenmin Ou. If he remembered correctly, in Hokkan and Sairou the animal gods Gembu and Byakko had already been summoned by their mikos and shichiseishi, and they received eternal peace between them. The remaining two were Suzaku of Konan and Seiryuu of here, Kutou.

Shuusei wondered whether the appearance of a miko in Konan was true.

"One might wonder whether the completion of an aqueduct is necessary for the march."

The general had made a concrete proposal. Shuusei pressed his ear closer.

"The Shoryuu River, which has its upper stream in Kutou and passes through Konan, due in part to its large meandering, will cost the march time and money."

"Hmm. So...?"

"In a nook of the river's meandering there is a small village called Seisengou, which has an insignificant population of just one hundred, under our country's rule." Shuusei's heart pounded hard.

"The Hijiri River, a tributary to the Shoryuu River, passes by this village. If this tributary were to change the main river, our problem would be solved."

(What is he saying?) The palm of Shuusei's hand was totally covered in sweat.

"That is, in other words, submerge the village...?"

"Yes, your highness." Shuusei desperately resisted the urge to cry out.

"And, how will you persuade the villagers?"

The general answered without any hesistation to the emperor's question, "There is no need. I have arranged for all of the useful youths to be conscripted."

"Ahh⁴... You're also a suitably bad person, aren't you?"

"Construction work and starting construction work have been taken care of. It will be here in two or three some-odd days."

"Is that so... There is nothing wrong with what you have done. Dismissed."

"Thank you very much, your highness." With those few words, Shuusei collapsed where he stood.

In two or three days Seisengou would be submerged under the river!?

"Anyway, how are things going here? Has Seiryuu's Miko appeared yet?"

"Probably things here will soon..." the general replied ambiguously.

"If we can just summon Seiryuu, the world will be ours without lifting a finger." Having said that, the emperor laughed in a condenscending voice, "Isn't that so, Nakago?"

"Yes." Shuusei again felt like he had just taken a direct punch.

(Did he say... Nakago!?)

Wasn't Nakago one of the Seiryuu Shichiseishi? For that general to be Nakago...

"Then, please excuse me." Shuusei became really panicked upon hearing that, and after turning around, from the hall dropped into a ditch in the garden.

The general, who had left the emperor's room, glanced at the courtyard. Shuusei's body grew as stiff as a rock. He lifted his handsome face inhaled sharply at the threat of the general noticing he had been tailed, and glanced up at the moon.

"...Idiot. Your term at Kutou is about to end. You should be peacefully dreaming empty dreams..." he softly muttered as he settled onto the nearby earth and clearly saw the blue character "heart" surfaced on the general's forehead.

*

Although Shuusei's determination was wavering, he couldn't hold out ten more seconds.

For a moment he considered whether he should consult his companions who were also conscripted from Seisengou, but quickly decided against it. He didn't know whether one person would be able to.

"...Kouran...!" He thought about the most important person in the world to him, Kouran. And then, about the man who had raised him, Kenmin Ou. And then about the kind village people. And then he thought about beautiful Seisengou.

That evening when he had listened to his friend Taimei's rumors about Kutou invasion, Shuusei had just thought of these three years and Kouran. He had just thought of Kouran's request that he live and return, disappearing without a trace.

At any rate, he hadn't been born in that village. It was inexcusable to Kenmin as the man that raised him, but he planned on starting a new life in some unknown land with Kouran, who had resolved to leave her hometown.

But now things were different.

Now that he had heard the frightening plans from General Nakago, things were different.

Kouran's beginnings and all the villagers had and were was wrapped up in Seisengou, and he thought of it as his irreplaceable hometown.

Hurry... I need to hurry and do something this instant.

It was outrageous that Kutou soldiers were going to fight in Konan to gain recognition. That Kutou was going to sink his hometown along with all its villages to the bottom of the river.

In the disorientation of the darkness, Shuusei continued to walk along the walls of imperial palace. However, the roughly twenty meter walls were impossible for him to climb over by himself, and there were palace guards vigilantly standing watch all around the area before the gate.

"...Geeze, there's no time to return to the barracks. Damn... It will be too late once dawn breaks..." At that point Shuusei knelt, heartbroken.

As someone's black shadow appeared before him, Shuusei's entire body stiffened.

"Are you a soldier?" a girl-like voice asked. Looking up in the dark, he realized there was a girl with excessively short hair standing there, wearing strange clothes like none he had ever seen before.

"Could you be a desserter?" she continued in an extremely cool voice.

"...W...Who are... you..." Seeing Shuusei finally speak up because of that, the girl chuckled and smiled a little.

"Want to see your lover back at your hometown?"

"..."

"Bullseye." The girl's face looked as if she was inspecting him as she said it.

"That's right," Shuusei answered curtly, just short of saying, "Boil me or grill me, do whichever you please," and immediately sat cross-legged on the ground with a thump.

"I have to go or she'll die..."

"Oh, so that's how it is..." The girl turned around and started walking.

And then she suddenly looked over her shoulder and said to Shuusei, "Follow me. I'll let you out of here."

Shuusei gaped at her, open-mouthed.

At the same moment, the thought passed through Shuusei's mind, (Could this girl possibly be Seiryuu's Miko?)

Didn't Nakago say earlier that very soon Seiryuu's Miko will probably appear...?

But would Seiryuu's Miko, who protects Kutou, help a desserting soldier?

He didn't have the time to think.

"...H...Hey! Wait up..." Feeling like it was do or die, Shuusei followed after the strange girl who had briskly walked on ahead of him.

¹ Translator's Note: In the novel this sentence was written with intentional errors to indicate he was whispering. Back to reading
² Translator's Note: The first character in Shuusei's name is "fall" and the second one is "birth." Back to reading
³ Translator's Note: In Japanese this line was slurred due to Kouran's slap. Back to reading
⁴ Translator's Note: This was a yawning sound. Back to reading