There seemed to be a moment, vaguely, he smelled a wisp of tranquility.

It's not an aroma, it's like water flowing through white paper. But it was really captured.

The girl in front of her fell to the ground, her long crimson hair covering the ground beneath her, flowing like a stream of cherry water.

"Yes . . . I'm sorry..."Xiu stood there dumbfounded, a little flustered

She looked up at the panicked boy in front of her, and there seemed to be some haze in her eyes.

When she realized she had been knocked down, she slowly sat up.

When Xiu saw her lips squirm slightly, he was ready to be blamed.

However, the gentle voice brought a sentence of "Unhappy?" ”

He lowered his head a little crampedly, not just how to be good.

It took a long time before he nodded.

The pale red lips pursed slightly. But it pressed out a trace of arc.

She stood up and dusted her hands.

One step, standing in front of Xiu, looking at his eyes.

"That's... Ready to apologize to me? ”

These blue eyes, Xiu has no way to face them. He couldn't help but tilt his head, full of apologies.

She suddenly smiled.

"If you help me up, I'll forgive you."

"That's... That...", but he couldn't help but bow his head.

"There's no next time." She leaned down and looked up sideways, looking into her lowered eyes.

"Hmm...", but it was even lower.

"Alright. Father must have said something about you, right? She said gently.

“... Nope. It's just that I suddenly realized... There are a lot of things that don't help. He looked up at the surroundings of the shrine.

"How could it be, thanks to you for taking care of us when my father was away." She stood up and walked out little by little. "In the past two days, I've been talking to me about you a lot." The gentle voice carried a slight smile.

Xiu followed her slowly. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have caught a cold...", but before he could finish speaking, he found that the girl had stopped, and her eyes looked at her with an inexplicable meaning.

I don't know why, every time she looks at herself with such eyes, she can't say what she wants to say.

"You've said it many times, and so have I." She said, "You've been helping for a long time, too." You still have the wounds left by the mountain god on your body, but you have done many, many household chores. You're also very lucky. ”

"That's what I should...", Xiu wanted to explain.

"You've apologized, so there's no need to blame yourself for being wrong for so long again." She said in a somewhat didactic tone, "Otherwise... I'm going to find it annoying. ”

Xiu's fingers shook slightly. After a while, he whispered, "Got it." ”

Sakura smiled.

"Well, let's take a look at the shrine." She proposed.

"Hmm... However, this is your home, you should be familiar with it, what are we going to visit? Xiu asked.

"But you don't know much about it." Her smile suddenly took on a hint of mystery. "In the past few days, you seem to have kept yourself very busy and busy, and you haven't been familiar with it well."

"Most of them still know," Xiu wanted to prove something.

"So this time, I'm going to take you to places you haven't seen before." Her smile became more and more mysterious, looking at...

It's like a child who wants to show off a toy to others.

Xiu knew that he only had to say yes.

This is her home after all, and she must be the most familiar with it.

It's like...

is not as familiar as his sister.

They walked slowly. Sakura seemed to have deliberately slowed down, just a step or two in front of Shu's body. It's like taking advantage of the first rays of sunshine in the morning to go out.

The weather is starting to warm up, and after the coldest days of ice melting, the smell of spring is starting to spread. The most obvious point is that a very small drizzle has begun to appear. Of course, there is still some chill when the wind blows occasionally, but it is far less terrible than in winter.

The planks of the cloister are suspended, without touching the ground, and are framed with a lot of wooden villages, so that it will not be affected by the dampness of the ground, and it will not be so cold to walk.

When a glimmer of golden sunlight passed through the new, verdant young leaves of the small courtyard and imprinted on his body fragmentarily, he could clearly feel a new vitality in the land around him.

It was a feeling he had never felt before. Or rather, a feeling he never paid attention to before.

But now... It's an amazing feeling.

He couldn't help but keep looking at the small courtyard around him, until a wall completely blocked his view.

When he came back to his senses, he realized that he had somehow come to a somewhat unfamiliar place.

Sakura was right in front of her, looking at him with a mysterious, but somewhat impatient, look.

"Here," Xiu looked around curiously, "I haven't been here." ”

"Of course." Sakura seemed to want to hide her smile a little, but she couldn't hide it after trying several times, so she turned around.

"This is behind the shrine enshrinement. Very few people come to this place, not even ourselves. Because you don't need to come here to do housework, the villagers who worship the gods don't pass through here. She led Xiu to a small wooden house.

"However, strictly speaking, this is a forbidden place. This is because only the shrine deity can come here. They walked to the door of the cabin and stopped, looking at Xiu.

"This is—" Xiu wondered.

"This is Yae Shrine, the place where the spirit sword that has been worshipped for generations is located." She said mysteriously, "The Yae Spirit Sword is a divine sword that can only be touched by the witches of the shrine or the god master, and can only be used during sacrifices. During the sacrifice, a sword dance is performed with a spirit knife to please the gods, and then prayers are made to the gods for good luck in the coming year. ”

Do you use a knife to dance? It's weird like that...

"Want to see it?" Sakura said.

But... No matter how you look at it, it looks like I wish I could see it...

Xiu nodded.

"You can only look at it from afar! You can't go in. ”

Gently, as if afraid of disturbing something, she opened the door with a look of respect.

The room was empty and simple. There was no decoration, and there was no tribute.

In the whole room, there was only a long dark brown wooden table and a pair of red knife holders.

On the knife holder, a dazzling cherry long knife.

He hadn't seen the knife yet, but he could already see the same color as Sakura's hair.

He finally knew why the place of worship was so simple. The knife itself is the best thing, and any ornament placed with it is a desecration against it.

Maybe... Only with such a long knife can dance to please the gods...

Under such a cherry light, what kind of god would not be amazed by such a color?

The blade of the long knife was hidden by the scabbard, and Xiu could not see his blade. However, just the hilt and scabbard of the knife already made him feel an inexplicable feeling.

He didn't know how to describe it.

The hilt of the knife had no handguard, and was all wrapped in unknown white metal, but at the end there was a small blush that told him the true color of the hilt.

Although the gauntlet is white, it is engraved with a mysterious, unknown gray rune, which seems to have some special meaning.

Its gauntlet was strangely made, like a few overlapping petals, but it only protected one end, and the other end was snaked out of a pale gold gauntlet like a blade, and after a small arc, it was fastened to the back of the knife, but again extended a small inverted blade. Xiu felt that maybe this small section of things was already sharp enough to bring terrible damage.

It's even stranger in the previous point. As if to hold the entire blade of the sword, there is a section of a crimson iron as thick as the handle that extends from the back of the blade and half of the blade, but there is no blade there. The entire extension of the red color forms a folded line, so that the knife looks very stable.

The knife is so beautiful that it looks more decorative than practical.

But also, this is a sacred sword used for sacrifice, and it must be different from the weapon used to fight.

Sakura slowly closed the door, bowing slightly as if to confess.

Then she looked up at him, "How's it, isn't it beautiful!" ”

(End of chapter)