#tbh i didn't remember much about this plot bunny so i had to go digging around a bit

[yuesya]

“Araya Souren is dead?”

How unexpected. As far as Kosaku was aware, the quiet hojutsu specialist was someone who liked keeping to themselves and their research. Araya-san was a little brusque sometimes, certainly, but surely that was not enough of an affront to warrant killing him over it.

“Yeah, haven’t you heard?” Kosaku’s cousin leans in secretively. Almost unconsciously, Kosaku also leans towards the other man, tilting his ear. “Apparently, he got done in by that girl he adopted.”

Kosaku’s jaw drops, “You’re kidding!”

“I’m not! I got this from a reliable source!” His cousin insists. “They found her standing over his bloody corpse with a knife, can you believe it? Not even a complete corpse. She sliced him into pieces.”

“… Isn’t he her adoptive father?” Kosaku asks, morbidly curious by the horror story that he’s hearing.

“He is! He’s raised her for years, even –and this is how things turned out in the end,” the other young man shakes his head pityingly. “Such a shame, isn’t it? Araya-san was nice enough, he didn’t deserve to go out like that.”

Hmm. Kosaku wouldn’t say that Araya Souren was nice, exactly. There were many individuals much more personable and affable than stoic, silent Araya-san. But he was a decent sort who took his research seriously and was dedicated to his work. He didn’t deserve to go out like that –not from a knife in the back from the child that he’d raised.

Really, one would think that the girl would be grateful for the man who’d rescued her from the pitiful fate that awaited her as a servant of the Kamo Clan. It wasn’t unusual for sorcery clans to purchase themselves some ‘new blood’ every so often, and Kosaku is well familiar with the sort of despicable things that his former clan practices. Not a day goes by when Kosaku is not fervently glad that he left the toxic cesspit that was the Kamo Clan when he did; he’s also done fairly well for himself since striking out on his own, even coming under the service of Special Grade sorcerer Tsukumo Yuki–

It’s a pity that things hadn’t gone nearly as smoothly for Araya-san’s career.

Once, the man had been in the midst of negotiations to become one of the Kamo Clan’s retainers… right around the time when Nanami Shiki had been sold to the Kamo Clan. From what Kosaku recalls, Araya-san had even been offered generous terms for his unique specialty and for his research, but he’d turned it all down.

Spurning the Kamo Clan was reckless, but he’d done so anyway. Araya-san chose to save the girl.

… If Araya-san had any enemies, then it would almost certainly be the Kamo Clan, who didn’t take well to having been slighted and stolen from. But it had been almost a decade since then. Even though the Kamo Clan had naturally retaliated in the beginning, Araya-san had proved his defenses competent and eventually they’d settled into an uneasy balance…

There’s no use musing over any of that anymore, though. Araya-san is dead. Killed by the ungrateful girl whom he’d raised like his own daughter.

Kosaku sighs. “There’s really no justice in this world, huh?”

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co