“PLEASE STOP ALREADY!!!”

BOOOM

Murasaki Shikibu, widely acknowledged as the strongest existence in Japan, the head protector of the royal family and the deterrent that keeps the Minamoto clan at bay, is now reduced to nothing more than a rag-doll.

She’d been enduring Uehara’s onslaught for more than a day now. She couldn’t even transform because she’d immediately be beaten into the ground once she even tried to. Faced with such misery, she really wanted to cry.

Finally, after two whole days of trying to force Shikibu to trigger that phenomenon where her emotions came out in droves, Uehara gave up.

Exiting his sage mode, he calmly walked over to Shikibu who just got out of the lake he had dumped her in.

While Shikibu was still on all fours as her wet clothes and hair sagged, she looked up and a look of righteous indignation flashed on her face as Uehara neared closer.

“Y-you monster! How can you treat this fox so pitifully?!?!”

Uehara stood in front of her, his dark black eyes gazing into her own crimson eyes with no hint of emotion. Chizuki got nervous when Uehara just stared at her.

Closing her eyes tightly, she spouted.

“Just do what you want to do! I don’t care anymore!”

As she waited for the familiar fist, she was surprised when she felt his tiny hands gently grabbed her head. Thinking that her skull was going to be crushed, she was shocked when she felt a soft sensation on her forehead.

Opening her eyes, she never expected to see Uehara kissing her on the forehead. Seeing such a sight and even feeling his lips, her entire face become red.

Instantly, myriads of emotions emanated from her. They ranged from confusion, happiness, embarrassment and many more.

Uehara had already stepped back and feeling the intense emotions she was releasing, a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.

[Seems like my theory worked. It’s not quite the same as before but they’re very strong. They’re almost the same as what Chizuki emanated when I first met her. But in all honestly, it was completely out of my expectations for her to no feel hatred towards me. I was calculating that if the person who brought her to such a miserable state performed such an action of lip-to-forehead contact, there would be hatred and anger. And why was she happy? Is she possibly a masochist?]

Looking at her blushing like a teenager while muttering some incomprehensible words, Uehara started to wonder whether the woman in front of him was really an elder yokai who had lived for more than nine centuries.

Choosing to dismiss the thoughts, Uehara gave one last glance at Shikibu who was on her knees and had suddenly taken an interest in counting the number of pores on her thighs. If it wasn’t because her face was completely flushed, she would’ve gave off the same aura as a woman who just found out her entire family was exterminated.

As a swirl of darkness covered him, he began thinking about making a summoning scroll so that he could contract the blood titan overlord that hails the mountain regions as its territory.

[I’ll contract every single overlord on this island.]

With that last though, he finally vanished. With Uehara gone, Shikibu still didn’t move from her spot.

Clenching her fists, she muttered.

“Scoundrel who doesn’t know how to respect his elders! Wait for me to condense my fifth tail.”

She lifted her head up. Her cheeks were still flushed in embarrassment.

“I-I’ll repay what you did to me tenfold!”

…

Uehara didn’t daddle any longer and went to find Chizuki. Sensing her through the soul-connection, he appeared right next to her. Chizuki was currently curled up on his bed and sleeping peacefully.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

It wasn’t the first time Chizuki slept in his bed so he didn’t think much about it.

As he was about to leave, he gave her a quick look-over.

[She does possess a certain amount of beauty. I should get her a veil in the city.]

Sensing Sakura’s chakra, he decided to let Chizuki rest as he teleported over to Sakura.

Sakura was currently on training ground one, an island a few kilometres east of Aokigahara. After hearing the cries of Shikibu, she chose to not get involved and ran across the ocean to training ground one.

When she was about to perform her next set of daily excercises, she was surprised by Uehara appearing in a dark swirl in front of her.

Quickly adjusting her disheveled appearance, she pouted.

[I still can’t sense Aoki-sama’s chakra whenever he teleports like that.]

When Uehara fully appeared, he pointed his finger at Sakura.

“I choose you.”

Not waiting for Sakura to respond, he shifted into his dragon form and took his spot on her head. Even now, he had barely grown. He was still sixty centimetres long with his tail taking up half the length. He was just above ten centimetres in height and his skin was midnight black with rows of spikes arranged in several rows lining his back. Two short horns protruded from his head while four legs lined with small claws resembling talons supported his body.

Feeling the long-missed weight curled up on her head, Sakura finally came out of her stupor.

“Heh?!”

Uehara gently slapped her with his tail, being careful not to hurt her with the spikes running along it.

“Let’s go to Nara city. I want to get a scroll parchment.”

Choosing to not over think it, Sakura smiled.

“Okay!”

Uehara’s ears vibrated. He slapped her with his tail.

“You’re.Too.Loud.”

Nara City, Japan

Walking through the city gates, Uehara looked no different from a black cat. Sakura on the other hand, attracted attention as soon as she entered. With the festive atmosphere, there were more people here today to celebrate the birthday of the city lord’s daughter. As such, nearly everyone stopped what they were doing just to look at her.

With her vibrant red hair and a pink casual dress that reached just above the ankles, she looked like a princess. Although Uehara had told her to simply travel while wearing her martial robes, Sakura begged him to let her change into a dress.

Seeing the reactions of everyone, especially the men, Uehara looked at Sakura to gauge her reaction but imagine his surprise when he saw her smiling. Just her smile alone caused people to have the illusion of sunshine and plum-blossoms floating around her.

Uehara was genuinely confused about this. Normally, Sakura wouldn’t even allow anyone to gawk at her. But now, she acted as if she didn’t even notice them. In fact, Uehara was beginning to suspect she truly didn’t notice them at all, regarding the people around them as lower than ants.

Seeing how Sakura was humming an excited tune and emanating emotions of happiness, Uehara tilted his head in confusion.

[Did she comprehend the second path of death to the extent that even these humans are not worth anything in her eyes? That would be extremely unprecedented.]

Unfortunately, Sakura was having completely different thoughts.

[How long has it been since I travelled to a city with just master and me? I really missed this and I’ll make sure to treasure today.”

The dress Sakura was wearing today was the same colour dress she wore when she and Uehara first went to the market district of Heiankyo during the new year’s festival ten years ago back in 1011. It was the first time they had left the household purely for enjoyment. Sakura had begged Uehara to go and enjoy the festival and he reluctantly agreed.

Wearing a pink dress, the little eight-year-old Sakura went out onto the streets with Uehara in his cat form on his head. She fully enjoyed her time in the festival and Uehara even helped her win a few prizes from the stalls.

[Now that I think about it, I was eight and yet no one tried abducting me within the crowd.]

In 1017, a year after Uehara had left with Chizuki for training, she had learned from one of the soldiers who was a subordinate of her brother that due to the war against the chinese, orphan, abandoned children and children who lost their parents in the crowds would be abducted, especially during festivals and be shipped off to special camps where they would be trained separately. Boys would be trained into soldiers while girls would be trained into stress relievers for the soldiers.

With this new revelation dawning on her now, the rumors of the dead bodies found a few days after the 1011 festival ended suddenly made sense.

Feeling the warmth of the demon above her, she smiled.

[Hehehehe~ Aoki-sama truly does care about me~]

Uehara flinched at the sudden influx of tender emotions emanating from her, making him furrow his eyebrows in confusion.

[Does she have a lover here? Is this the so-called spring time of youth?]

Seeing Sakura try multitudes of treats from the stalls, he wanted to remind her why they were here but he hesitated after seeing her smile.

He curled up into a tiny ball and chose to sleep.

[Maybe tomorrow.]

When Sakura felt Uehara shift his position to sleep, she smiled, further emanating another burst of tender emotions that made Uehara’s ears flinch.

[As if her loud voice wasn’t enough.]

Looking at the cute doll she just won from the stall owner, Sakura cheered in excitement.

“YAY!!!!”

Uehara’s expression darkened.

[I’ll kill her.]

(AN: Sorry about the delay. I did promise that due to my tests and assignments, I would temporarily decrease the upload times to one chapter every two days, but I failed to do that since I vastly underestimated the amount of work I would have to put into my assignment, on top of studying.

This caused me to postpone uploading chapters since I was especially focused on studying. I’ve uploaded two extra chapters to make it up to you guys.

A donation will also be really appreciated to my PayPal account @MnrHolyGambler. My account has a picture of a cat wearing a hat with a quote underneath it. Your donation will help greatly with my transport fees to and from college until I can land a part-time job.

Thank you)