The courtyard was the loveliest corner, a clear pond far from the hall’s stale air. Here, quiet pooled like moonlight under bamboo eaves. Quiet beat everything else; Yun Shi let herself drift, a lone leaf on still water. Maybe solitude had become a habit. No footsteps rippled her surface.

Annoyance pricked like a thorn as a voice came from behind. It split the calm like a pebble in the pond.

“Got something on your mind, Miss Four Pupils?”

Of course she wouldn’t say it to her face.

“Nothing.”

Keep the heart locked. Let the thoughts settle like silt where no one sees.

Nostalgia rose first, warm and sharp, like steam from a winter cup. Yun Shi missed the former life, the days she’d been a boy; those were her brightest fragments. The now felt wrong, like a robe worn inside out. She truly didn’t like it. She’d escaped that suffocating hall by “taking Kananin Rin for a walk,” yet nothing changed.

She hated the dress on her skin. It clung like vines.

With a boy’s memories, swallowing girl’s clothes felt like forcing down bitter tea.

“So you are thinking about something.”

“…I’m fine. Thank you for your concern, Miss Kananin.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Rin stepped forward with a soft smile and blocked her path, a willow twig laid across a stream. Birds called overhead, bright notes skipping like pebbles; with only two of them here, the air felt more forest than house. Rin tilted her head and met the cool gaze of the girl before her.

“Four Pupils… no. Miss Yun Shi fits better. To me, you’re just playing the good child, aren’t you?”

Yun Shi went wordless. Truth hit like a blade; it left no room to parry.

“The biggest difference between you and your brother is this. He bowed to reality but kept his own mind. You’ve become a caged bird—wings itching, yet afraid to beat them.”

Each word needled her chest. Her heart knotted tight like wet rope; her calm mask began to crack. She knew the bird had no sky. And yet—

Weren’t the people under the three strongest Clan Heads in the Underworld all the same?

“…Why are you telling me this?”

She cooled first, then asked the core of it, voice steady as a drawn line.

Rin only smiled, a crescent as thin as a new moon.

“Your brother Yuuya’s a good man. I owe him a favor. Since you’re his sister, it’s not strange I want to help.”

“You’re a strange one.”

“Why say that?”

“He is he, I am me. Don’t drag him in. And I never said I wanted help.”

The word help tasted like sand. She hated it. Her nature ran hard as iron; even if she hit a wall, she wouldn’t allow other hands on her life.

“I see. Then Miss Yun Shi finally shows her real face.”

Rin didn’t bristle. Pride flickered in her smile like a fox’s tail.

A jolt ran through Yun Shi, too late, like thunder after the flash.

“I noticed back in the receiving room. You looked perfect, spotless, a shrine lamp without smoke. You surprised me again and again. But I saw it—the hollowness in your eyes.”

Rin stepped closer and looked down, high ground claimed like a ledge above a valley.

“Your heart told me you’re lonely. You’re alone. You carry no light. All I see are clouds.”

Reality offered no grounds to argue. She knew it. She knew it like winter knows frost; still, her core trembled.

Hollow. Dim. Unfree.

A bird in a cage.

Wings that never beat.

Each image struck her inner world like hail on thin glass. Yes, Yun Shi had everything and nothing; the outside glittered like lacquer, inside she was a single, corroded hole.

In the Four Pupils Clan, this rang like iron truth. In the Flamebu Family or the Divine Ling Family, it was common weather.

“…It’s none of your business.”

She didn’t want anyone touching this. Not one finger.

Yun Shi shifted, trying to glide past, but Rin caught the hem of her robe like a hook in silk.

“You don’t understand. You’re Kananin Family, not one of us.”

Beside the darkest Clan Heads of the Underworld, Kananin Rin lived in better light.

“But Yuuya’s trying to change things. He moves in the Underworld to slip the Clan Head’s grip. Your Clan Head hasn’t interfered much with him because of that, right?”

“…”

“Only you, Four Pupils Yun Shi. Only you stay put, letting the Clan Head arrange you like a piece on a board.”

“Are you done? Who are you to me? What right do you have to judge me?”

Yun Shi slapped Rin’s hand away, a sharp crack like bamboo in wind, and almost roared. Image, eyes, crowds—none mattered. She chose herself. She was a mess, a powder keg; why swallow it now?

“Kananin Rin, I don’t need your busy hands. Got it? This is the life I want! I—”

“Isn’t it better once you say it out loud? Keeping it bottled only sours the jar.”

Rin’s tone was light, like rain on eaves.

Yun Shi choked again, words clumping like damp tinder.

So that was Rin’s plan. From the start, she’d led the thread to pull Yun Shi’s voice free. The first act had been theater; now came the tie-off.

Yun Shi’s anger had been in the script too. Rin had asked Yuuya about his sister long before.

Now, time to end it.

“I…”

“Yes?”

“You were setting me up from the beginning…”

“Mm. That’s right.”

This time Yun Shi had no answer. Heat drained; resignation settled like dusk.

This Kananin Rin—how was she this capable? She’d led Yun Shi by the nose the whole way.

“Thinking I’m a clever woman, aren’t you?”

“…”

“You just aren’t at that age yet. One day, you might be the one leading others by the nose.”

“You’re sharp. I bet that’s why my brother let you trick words out of him.”

Knowing Rin’s style, Yun Shi saw the source at once; it had to be her brother. No one else.

She could only trudge off, a cloud with nowhere to rain.

Rin smiled and fell into step, a shadow following a lantern.

“Mad?”

“Yeah. Very mad.”

Rin only smiled. She’d expected this ending like spring expects plum blossoms.

“You and your brother are nothing alike.”

It was true. Measured against Yuuya, Yun Shi shared almost nothing on the surface, at least for now. Of course—she carried another life’s memories; how could she mirror Yuuya’s temper?

There was more. Yuuya had strength. Yun Shi didn’t even have independence.

Shitou Yuya knew the Four Pupils Clan’s secret art, Blood Pupil. Yun Shi did not. While Yuuya moved brightly through the Underworld, Yun Shi sat, frowning over a technique her hands couldn’t hold.

Cruel facts, cold as iron. Truly.

“You’re annoying.”

“Hehe. Maybe. I like it, though.”

Yun Shi’s cool distance didn’t faze Rin; she only wore that small smile. Unlike before, Yun Shi now showed her real edges. That alone felt like enough.

Yuuya had said his sister never acted like this with outsiders. Rin felt a quiet pride bloom, a hidden flower behind her back.

While Rin smirked in secret, Yun Shi stewed—why was the woman still tailing her?

They walked the courtyard path. Before long, their feet drifted into the corridor, and silence stretched like a pale ribbon.

“So I said, you can’t do that.”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Stupid brother, you don’t get me at all!”

Voices floated up ahead, two strings plucking at each other, a quarrel without thorns. Yun Shi stepped closer and saw a boy and a girl, about her age. The boy looked a touch older; the girl seemed the same age as Yun Shi.

“Mia, Eil, what are you doing?”

The siblings were familiar faces; so her greeting came easy, like knocking on a neighbor’s door.

“Ah, Miss, welcome back!”

“Forgive us, Miss!”

“Mm.”

Yun Shi answered offhand, a breeze through reeds. Their tempers were similar; she let the moment pass.

“Um, Miss, you look so pretty today—”

“Oh.”

“…Um, Miss…”

“What?”

“…It’s nothing.”

Silence fell, a sheet of thin ice.

“Oh, you must be Miss Kananin. Forgive us.”

Eil had been staring at Yun Shi’s different air; he finally noticed the other presence.

“It’s fine. Is Miss Yun Shi your friend?”

“How could she be? I don’t have friends.”

“Is that so.”

Rin caught the flicker of sadness in Mia’s eyes but let it glide by, answering as lightly as dust.

While they spoke here, Yuuya had already left the hall for the open air. At the gate, the guards didn’t dare stop him; they let him pass like wind through grass.

He had only one destination.

“Yo, Kanade.”

Yuuya smiled. The boy before him turned slowly, tossed aside a training dagger, and let a strange face loosen into a sliver of warmth.

“Welcome, Yuuya.”