"So, your little girlfriend isn't joining you for dinner today?"
The person speaking at the dining table was decidedly impolite, with both legs propped up on the table. His entire center of gravity was leaned back on the chair, causing it to tilt slightly. The young man looked utterly casual as he spoke.
"Mei and her family are going to visit relatives and then attend some kind of business banquet. I'm not really interested, so I didn't go," Xin Yu said, picking up a french fry, dipping it in ketchup, and popping it into his mouth.
"Then what are you calling me out for if you're so free? That woman, Cocolia, has already arrived in Nagazora. She's probably already plotting to get Raiden Ryoma and his wife sent to prison."
As the young man spoke, he snatched a piece of fried chicken from the air and stuffed it into his mouth.
"I just wanted to eat. And I needed someone to eat with," Xin Yu said with a shrug, his tone exceptionally nonchalant.
"Fine, that's a reasonable excuse. You're the ultimate winner, after all. I'm just an illusion you created from your memories."
The Heart-Demon Illusion shrugged. In the end, he was just an illusion that this bored guy had manifested from his own consciousness just to have a dinner companion. By that logic, couldn't he be considered some kind of God of War in his own right?
After all, if Xin Yu willed it—with his ability to rewrite reality with a mere thought—this illusion of his could possess a portion of that combat power. In a sense, if he wanted to, he could really pull off an infinite god of war scenario!
He could, but in essence, that would just be multiple shadow clones, not a true infinite god of war.
"Even illusions have rights, you know! Don't just read my mind whenever you feel like it!"
"I don't have a bad habit of reading other people's minds. You are a thought of mine. How could I not know what my own thought is thinking? It's not like I've completely severed myself from you."
Xin Yu glanced at this self-dramatizing and utterly chaotic thought-illusion of his. It seemed his old habit of reading too much weird stuff had come flooding back along with his complete memories.
"Ah, why can't knowledge be carved into one's DNA? Why is it always this random junk that gets etched in?"
Xin Yu lamented tiredly. His past self had been terrible at studying, yet he could pick up all sorts of bizarre skills in no time at all. He even learned lockpicking after just a little online research when he was bored at home during the pandemic.
You could say he was a true genius of the unorthodox.
After trading complaints with this thought of his, Xin Yu finished his meal and stood up. The arrogant, ill-mannered thought-form vanished like a wisp of smoke.
Even the crumbs from the fried chicken he had dropped on the table and floor disappeared in that same instant, as if they had never been there at all.
"Kiana... I won't interfere over there for now. I'll see how things develop. But there is one other person I should go and awaken."
Xin Yu locked the front door of the flower shop and glanced up at the clear sky. He then wheeled a motorcycle out from the back, seemingly from nowhere, and rode off towards the outskirts of Nagazora City.
In the suburbs of Nagazora stood a shrine that had been in operation for an unknown number of years. It was said that this shrine was worshipped by the original inhabitants of this land, long before the city itself was even established.
The name of the village that once stood here was lost to time. All that was known was that this village had produced many famous figures recorded in the annals of history. It was for this very reason that the special economic zone of Nagazora City was built on this site.
Just like any other day, the shrine's Miko was sweeping the front grounds when she noticed someone walking up the stone path. She stopped her sweeping, bowed slightly, and spoke with a polite smile, "Hello, this is the Yae Shrine. How may I help you?"
"I'm just here to see an old friend."
As the Miko looked at the young man's gentle smile, she felt a momentary trance. It was such an ordinary smile, yet for some reason, it made her feel as if she were gazing upon a god.
No, this wasn't just her imagination.
The Miko looked at the young man's features. That was it. A painting had been passed down in her family for generations, and every Miko who inherited the Yae Shrine had to firmly commit the face of the person in that painting to memory. That person was the god who descended upon the mortal world, washed away the sins of their ancestors, and granted them a future of beauty and hope.
Even though she had only been fortunate enough to view that ordinary painting once when she had just become a Miko, she was certain now, as the man from the painting stood before her, that this was the great god her ancestors had worshipped for generations.
Xin Yu's gaze, which had been taking in the surrounding scenery, returned to the Miko before him. He saw her face flush with excitement and couldn't help but feel a little exasperated.
"I seem to recall saying that I'm not a god and that I don't need people to keep worshipping me."
"But you stayed in this world for 200 years. The faith of our ancestors has been passed down through generations. Even if you are not a god, you have already become one."
A slightly aged female voice emerged from the shrine as a stooped, elderly woman walked out.
"It has been many years, Lord God. You have once again descended upon the mortal realm."
After speaking, the old woman tried to kneel and kowtow, but she found that her body simply wouldn't bend, as if an unseen force were holding her up.
"I have never thought of myself as a god."
With those words, Xin Yu walked to the offering box. Remembering what happened back then, he once again took out some coins from his pocket and dropped them in.
Is this considered making an offering to myself?
He looked at the wooden statue carved by Yae Sakura's father. He hadn't expected it to survive so many years and even become an object of worship.
Xin Yu passed through the Yae Shrine and continued up the mountain for some distance, arriving before two renovated graves.
Grave of the Miko, Yae Sakura.
Grave of the Miko, Yae Rin.
Xin Yu looked at the two graves, which he had dug with his own hands and where he had laid the remains of his old friends. For a moment, an indescribable sense of melancholy filled his heart, but it didn't last long. With a flick of his hand, the two graves vanished, replaced by two coffins resting flat on the ground.
Xin Yu personally opened the two coffins, which looked as if they had just been custom-made. Inside lay the bodies of Yae Sakura and Yae Rin. They did not look like they had been dead for many years; there were no skeletal remains. Instead, they looked as if they were merely in a deep sleep, their forms and features the same as they were back then. There was even a faint blush on their cheeks.
If not for the lack of breath and heartbeat, no one would believe these two were already dead.
"Sakura, I told you. You were just tired, so you took a nap. But you really slept for a long time. It's time to wake up, my Miko."
A slow heartbeat suddenly sounded from the lifeless body, followed by the sound of gentle breathing. The woman's closed eyelids trembled slightly, and then, she opened her eyes.
When Yae Sakura opened her eyes, she saw that familiar face, though it looked much more mature than she remembered.
"Am I in the underworld? Lord God?" the newly awakened Miko asked, still in a daze.
"Sakura, you didn't die. You just had a very long sleep."
"Then it seems I slept for a long, long time. So long that even Lord God's appearance has matured. To sleep for so long as the wife of a god... I've been truly derelict in my duties."
"I'm back, Xin Yu."
"Mm. I love you, Sakura. This isn't a lie, not a deception, not a pretense. I truly love you. My Miko."
Cherry blossoms drifted down from the heavens. Amidst the fluttering petals, the Miko awakened from her long slumber and was once again by her god's side.