Ren Ming turned away, mind already shifting toward his promised date with Kuroka—
—and paused.
A familiar, subtle tug brushed against his senses. Not hostile. Not urgent. Just… insistent. Like fingers plucking a single thread in the weave of his Dao.
He followed it with his eyes.
A shrine maiden waited at the edge of the courtyard.
It was the same Shinto priestess who'd once stood in his Kuoh training grounds, carrying a sliver of divine attention like a lantern. Now, under the quiet hum of the manor's wards and Saint Kingdom, she seemed even smaller, her white and red garments heavy with travel and responsibility.
She bowed low, forehead nearly touching the polished stone.
"Ren Ming," she said, voice steady despite the faint tremor in her shoulders. "Amaterasu-sama requests an audience."
Ren studied her for a heartbeat.
Her Ki told him everything her face tried not to. Sleep debt stacked like ledgers. Shoulders tight from carrying invisible loads. Nervousness—not of him, interestingly, but of failing to deliver this message.
He exhaled through his nose, the smile at the corner of his mouth lazy but warm.
"Yeah," he said. "Figured we'd get to this sooner or later."
He glanced toward the manor, toward where Kuroka's presence curled like a smug, drowsy cat in the back of his awareness.
He murmured, mostly to himself. "Cat date can handle a slight delay."
He straightened, hands sliding into his pockets.
"Lead the way," he told the priestess.
She bowed again in relief, then turned, tabi whispering over stone as she walked toward the gate.
Ren followed, Saint Kingdom folding itself tighter over Kuoh as he stepped out.
...
The path to Amaterasu wasn't a straight staircase into heaven.
Not for him.
The priestess did not open a gleaming portal with fanfare or draw some grand summoning circle. Instead, she took him through the human-world layers that still clung to the Shinto faction's territory: a small roadside shrine with peeling paint, a temple tucked between apartment blocks, a hilltop torii overlooking a sea of tiled roofs.
At each site, she paused, bowed, and traced a short, practiced pattern in the air.
Ren watched quietly.
At the first shrine, his senses brushed old divinity asleep under dust and incense. At the second, he felt the faint echo of countless prayers—muted but sincere. At the third, the air thinned, brightened, like the world itself taking a deeper breath.
By the time they reached the last torii, sound had grown distant. The cicadas' cries seemed to come from another room. Wind moved differently, rippling through reality in visible shivers.
The gate stood alone on a ridge, red paint impossibly fresh, wood older than the town behind it.
"From here," the priestess said softly, "please step carefully. We are… close."
Ren arched a brow. "Closer to your boss or closer to a cosmic bug zapper?"
Her lips twitched despite herself.
"…Both," she admitted.
He chuckled.
"Good to know."
He stepped through the torii.
Light caught.
For a heartbeat, the fabric of reality thinned so much he could see the stitching—interlocking layers of Shinto belief, myth, and authority. The world inside his Soul Palace hummed in answer, his Dao acknowledging another system's architecture without bowing to it.
Then the threshold seized his step and pulled.
...
The High Plane of Heaven—Takamagahara—unfolded around him.
It didn't resemble any mortal temple. It didn't resemble any of the other heavens he'd brushed against, either.
There was no sun overhead in the usual sense.
Instead, the entire sky was luminous, a boundless expanse of soft gold and deep azure, layered like silk. Floating islands drifted through it—some lush with sakura trees and rivers of light, others bearing shrine complexes and palaces woven from sunlight, clouds, and meticulously shaped white stone.
Rivers of energy flowed in empty air, glittering streams of pure, refined power. Where they crossed, small shrines and pavilions hung suspended, their roofs tiled in gold and vermilion. Torii gates framed pathways that didn't need ground to exist.
At the center of it all, on a raised platform of pale stone that floated above everything else, stood a single hall.
It wasn't the biggest structure here. It wasn't even the most ornate.
But it was the one the world itself tilted toward.
The sun felt… closer here. Not just as light, but as will. Every particle of warmth seemed to originate from that hall and spread outward, bathing the realm in a glow that was not heat but presence.
The priestess led him along an invisible path. Saint Kingdom adjusted around him, careful not to shove against the local laws too hard. His Dao was an intruder here, but not a hostile one—more like a visiting king strolling through someone else's capital.
They climbed the last few steps to the raised platform.
Waiting on the hall's open porch was a woman.
Her hair was black, falling like a silk curtain down her back, catching the light in glossy layers, darker than a raven's wing and edged with the faintest hint of flame when she moved. Her eyes were steady and bright—dark, but lit from within, like miniature suns set into a calm, perfectly composed face.
She wore layered robes of white and gold, simple in cut, impossibly refined in execution. Sun motifs were woven into the fabric in thread so fine it was more suggestion than decoration.
The air around her hummed with a warmth that sank past skin and straight into the bones. Not burning. Foundational. Like the difference between summer heat and the core heat that kept a world alive.
Amaterasu-Ōmikami.
Sun goddess. Ruler of Takamagahara. Chief deity of the Shinto pantheon, the one whose name shaped shrines and emperors alike.
Ren let out a low whistle.
"Finally face-to-face," he said, hands slipping a little deeper into his pockets. "I was wondering when you'd get curious enough to say hi."
Beside him, the priestess bowed so low her forehead nearly touched the porch.
"Amaterasu-sama," she murmured. "I have brought Ren Ming, as requested."
"Thank you," Amaterasu said.
Her voice was clear and serene, carrying no overt weight—yet the realm itself seemed to listen.
"You may rest."
The priestess bowed again, stepped back, and retreated, slippers whispering against polished wood until her presence faded into the palace complex behind them.
Ren and Amaterasu were left alone with the endless sky.
...
Amaterasu's gaze moved over him, assessing.
There was no hostility in it. But no automatic warmth either.
He could feel the way she tracked him—like a sunbeam, not just illuminating but measuring. She had watched worlds rise and fall, watched mortals pray, gods bargain, yokai plot. She had seen countless supplicants prostrate themselves before her throne.
This man stood there like he'd just walked onto a porch back in the human world.
"Ren Ming," she said. "Your actions have shaken the balance we have maintained for centuries."
Her eyes did not harden, but their light grew sharper.
"Loki's erasure. Your declaration over Kuoh. The veils you have woven over multiple territories. It would have been… negligent of me not to meet you."
Ren shrugged, a small, easy motion.
"Yeah, that's the official reason," he said. "The real question is: how are you?"
The sun goddess blinked.
It was a tiny motion. But in a being whose composure rarely cracked, it was as loud as a dropped plate.
"…How I am?" she repeated.
"Yeah," Ren said. "You're the one holding this whole sky together. Your priestess looked like she hasn't slept in a week. The Shinto faction's been juggling rogue heroes, foreign devils, dragon gods, and now me. That's a lot, even for the goddess of the sun."
He wasn't probing her power. He was looking at her shoulders.
Amaterasu studied him for a long moment, as if searching for the angle of manipulation in his words and finding… none.
"Few ask that," she said at last. "Most ask for blessings. Power. Protection. Some wish to offer alliances. Some to threaten. Their concern for my personhood is… limited."
"Sounds about right," Ren said. "Welcome to management."
A corner of his mouth quirked.
He walked forward without waiting for permission and sat down on the edge of the porch, legs dangling over open sky as if it were a balcony in Kuoh.
He patted the space beside him.
"Come on," he said. "Sit. I promise I won't combust if you relax for five minutes."
For a heartbeat, the universe held its breath.
Takamagahara watched.
Then Amaterasu, most sacred goddess of the Shinto pantheon, quietly stepped forward and sat beside a mortal cultivator on the edge of her own palace.
The sky did not fall.
...
It started formal.
Amaterasu folded her hands in her lap, posture impeccable even seated. Her aura dimmed from blinding noon to a gentle late-morning warmth.
"I must first acknowledge your actions," she said. "You extended your… umbrella, as you call it, over Kyoto and other Shinto territories. You frightened potential invaders by drawing a bullseye on your own back rather than ours. You treated my priestesses with respect instead of as convenient conduits."
Ren listened, face tilted toward the strange, near-at-hand sun.
After a minute, he lifted one hand lazily.
"Alright," he said. "Gratitude officially received. Stamped and filed. Let's skip to the part that actually matters."
"And what," Amaterasu asked, a faint spark of amusement touching her tone for the first time, "is that?"
"How you feel about all this," he said.
He turned his head to look at her properly.
"You've been working overtime for centuries," he continued. "Then some lunatic from another cultivation system shows up, starts eating gods, handing out alien charms, promising to protect your people, and criticizing your world's code as 'clunky'."
His eyes glinted.
"Are you relieved? Offended? Suspicious? All three?"
Her lips quirked.
"All three," she admitted. "And… curious."
She let her gaze drift out over Takamagahara.
"We have faced external threats before," she said. "Sacred Gears. Dragon gods. Exorcist factions. But none of them stood so clearly outside our framework. You do not belong to this world's code, and yet you are rewriting parts of it."
Ren tilted his head back, looking at the luminous sky, eyes half-lidded and perfectly at ease in a realm that was not his.
"Feels weird, doesn't it?" he said. "You've been the light everyone orients around. Then something shows up that casts its own shadows at angles you're not used to."
"Some of my kin fear you," she said plainly. "Some, like Susanoo, itch to test your strength. Some see opportunity. I see… change."
"Change is inevitable," Ren replied. "The question is whether it tramples people or carries them."
He glanced sideways at her.
"You've been trying to carry them alone for a long time," he added. "That's exhausting. Trust me—I've seen people carry entire sects on their backs by themselves. It never ends well. And if your people are anything like devils or angels, at least half of them don't appreciate it."
A soft, breathy sound escaped her.
It took him a moment to realize she had laughed.
"Your manner is… inappropriate," she said. "But refreshing."
"Story of my life," he said, smiling.
...
Time blurred.
They talked first of expectations.
Of what it meant to be worshipped but not truly seen.
Amaterasu spoke of centuries balancing the whims of gods, the fears of humans, the stubborn pride of youkai and kami. Of endless councils where every faction representative spoke of "balance" while meaning "my advantage." Of shrine maidens burning out under pressure they never chose.
Of the fear that Ren's presence would shatter everything.
"…And the hope," she admitted, eyes on the distant rivers of energy, "that perhaps it will break the right things."
In turn, she asked about his Dao.
Ren did not give her the full blueprint, but he sketched the edges.
He told her of Fate Palaces and Immortal Physiques, of Scriptures that turned waste into power, looping energy so nothing leaked needlessly. He spoke of Soul Palaces as inner worlds where devils, angels, humans, dragons could all anchor themselves. Of the Calamity-Shearing Veil draped over territories he'd claimed, turning curses and invisible attacks into puzzles he could take apart.
He spoke, most importantly, of intent.
Of his refusal to let this era stay "gods on top, everyone else scrambling underneath."
"I'm carving a path," he said quietly, watching the way her light shifted with her attention. "One where anyone under my umbrella—devil, angel, human, yokai, shrine maiden—can walk without being twisted into weapons by someone else's rules. I'm not interested in propping up a rotten balance just because it's old."
"You speak as if you intend to… take responsibility for this era," Amaterasu observed.
Ren's shoulders rolled in a casual half-shrug.
"Not exactly," he said. "Most of your current top dogs are too invested in the status quo. I'm not from here. I don't care about their old grudges. I care about making sure my women, my students, and the places I like aren't turned into collateral damage for someone's 'balance' fetish."
"Blunt," she murmured. "But admirable."
She studied him, the bizarre mixture of laid-back mortal and terrifying Ancient Saint sitting on her porch as if this were a lazy Sunday.
Eventually, the conversation drifted.
...
They found themselves, to Amaterasu's faint horror and quiet delight, discussing mundane things.
Food stalls in Kyoto she liked but could not visit openly. Terrible human-world TV dramas that some of her priestesses secretly loved and forced onto the shrine communal screen. Tourists who ignored purification rituals and still demanded blessings for exam scores.
She confessed—very reluctantly—that she sometimes watched the human world at night simply to see people live small lives untouched by divine politics.
Ren listened.
"Can't say I blame you," he said. "For most of them, the supernatural is just stories. They get school, jobs, relationships, dumb internet arguments. Messy in a different way, but still theirs."
He didn't say the rest out loud—that this ignorance was enforced by most factions, and that he was already quietly loosening those seams in places he controlled. That was a talk for another day.
At one point, Amaterasu realized the light around them had shifted.
The "sun" of this realm did not move in clean arcs the way the human-world sun did, but its quality shifted with her attention. It had slipped from crisply focused midday to something softer, more like late afternoon.
She had allowed it to drift.
Her eyes widened, just a fraction.
"Ah," she said softly. "Time… has passed."
Ren stretched, joints popping comfortably. The Dao around him flexed with the motion, unconcerned at being this close to a foreign heaven.
"See?" he said. "Talking like a person instead of a job description doesn't kill you. Might even make your next council meeting less annoying."
She eyed him sidelong.
"You are very bold."
"It's more fun to be bold," he said. "Look. I'm not here to replace you. I'm not here to seize your sky. I'm here to open doors. If you ever need someone outside your hierarchy to sanity-check a plan or punch a problem, use the same communication network I gave the others."
He tapped the air lightly, where soul-locked talismans and links lingered unseen, threading through Kyoto, Heaven, Grigori, and Kuoh.
"Or poke me through Yasaka or your priestesses," he added. "No need to be a stranger."
Amaterasu considered him—this strange man from another world, who spoke to her like an equal yet treated her title with effortless respect.
She had dealt with arrogant gods, simpering courtiers, desperate mortals.
This was new.
"…Very well," she said at last. "I will… keep that option in mind."
He rose, dusting nonexistent dust from his jeans.
"Then I'll get out of your hair," he said. "Can't keep a certain cat waiting too long. She'll claw up the furniture."
He walked toward the edge of the porch, Dao already folding around him as he prepared to slip back toward Kyoto's layered reality.
"Ren Ming," Amaterasu called.
He glanced back.
"The light you carry," she said slowly, "is not of my making. But it illuminates paths my own rays cannot reach. I am… grateful."
He smiled, that calm, infuriatingly relaxed smile that made enemies grind their teeth and his women breathe easier.
"Good," he said. "That's the point."
Then he stepped off the palace edge and was gone, Saint Kingdom's subtle weight retreating with him.
Amaterasu sat alone on her porch, Takamagahara stretching around her in its usual, endless splendor.
Her duties waited—unchanging. Prayers to answer. Councils to attend. Factions to keep from tearing each other apart.
For the first time in a very long time, the weight of them felt… slightly lighter.
...
The next Sunday dawned clear and bright over Kuoh, sky washed clean by a night of rain. The town smelled of wet asphalt, damp leaves, and new sunlight.
Inside Ren's manor, morning was… suspiciously quiet.
Kuroka noticed first.
She padded down the corridor in a borrowed oversized T-shirt and shorts, bare feet silent on polished floors. Her tail swished lazily, but her ears flicked toward every sound.
Usually by this hour, Asia was humming in the kitchen, Akeno was brewing tea with entirely too much grace, and Rias' presence pressed faintly through the walls like warm, steady pressure.
Today, the manor breathed slow and soft.
Wards hummed, Saint Kingdom folded neatly over the property like a second sky. No explosions. No yelling. No dragons arguing over the TV.
Kuroka narrowed her eyes.
"Too quiet," she muttered. "Feels like a setup, nya."
"Good morning to you too."
Ren's voice drifted from the living room.
She turned the corner and stopped.
He was waiting by the door in simple dark jeans and a light jacket over a black shirt, hands in his pockets, hair tied back in a lazy knot. No armor. No robes. No crushing aura.
Just him. Relaxed. A smile already tugging at his mouth.
Behind him, the main hall was empty.
The dragons' presences were distant, off doing… something. Rias and the others were gone from the manor entirely, their Soul Palaces humming somewhere across town.
Kuroka's ears flattened in suspicion.
"…Where is everyone?" she asked.
"Exiled," Ren said.
She blinked.
"…Nya?"
He chuckled.
"I bribed Rias with help on paperwork and extra training time," he said. "Threatened to tell Serafall about her secret snack stash if she argued. Promised Koneko more sparring sessions and Asia additional guidance. Everybody's busy."
He tipped his head, eyes warm.
"Today's reserved," he said. "For you."
Kuroka's tail puffed out in pure reflex before coiling tight around her leg.
"J-Just for me?" she asked, voice going higher than usual despite herself.
"Whole day," he confirmed. "No classes. No emergencies. No gods. Just us and however much trouble we can get into before midnight."
For a heartbeat, the mask cracked.
The woman who'd learned to survive by floating above everything, laughing and teasing and never staying anywhere long enough to hurt, just stood there staring at him. Her mouth parted. Her golden eyes, usually lazy and half-lidded, went wide and shiny.
"…You're serious, huh," she whispered.
Ren stepped toward her, unhurried.
He reached out and flicked her forehead lightly.
"Ow."
"I don't make promises as a joke," he said, voice softening. "You matter, Kuroka. When I say I'm taking you out, I mean it."
Her tail uncoiled, then very deliberately wrapped around his wrist.
"…Then Ren-nyan," she said, mischief fighting its way back into her gaze, "you'd better hold on tight. I claw if my date is boring."
He laughed, low and pleased.
"Guess I'll have to keep you entertained, then."
...
They didn't teleport straight into some mystical wonderland.
Ren took her through town like any human couple.
Kuoh's Sunday streets were leisurely. Shops rolled up their shutters. Kids chased each other past convenience stores. Couples held hands under shared umbrellas, even though the rain had already stopped.
They started at a small café near the station—one of those places most devils ignored because it looked too plain.
Wooden tables. Big windows. Handwritten menus pinned to corkboard. The smell of coffee, butter, and sugar drifting in the air. A sleepy barista who glanced up, sensed absolutely nothing unusual thanks to Ren's Veils, and relaxed again.
Kuroka pressed against his side as they walked in, tail curling deliberately around his arm.
She'd already been matching the others in physical closeness. Whenever another girl was nearby, she'd flirt and tease and drape herself over him, half to stake a claim, half because it was fun.
Today, with no competition in sight, she simply clung.
Ren noticed.
He liked it.
They slid into a corner booth. Kuroka carefully slid onto the same side as him instead of across, pretending it was just her usual skinship.
Ren draped his arm along the back of the seat, fingers resting near her shoulder. Not quite touching. Close enough for warmth to leak through.
Her heartbeat jumped.
They ordered pancakes, coffee, and an unreasonable amount of whipped cream.
"So," Ren said, stirring his drink lazily, eyes on her rather than the menu. "Tell me something you've never told anyone else."
Kuroka blinked.
"Starting heavy, huh," she said, trying for a joke.
"Starting honest," he corrected. "We can do light later. I want your real, not just the cat show."
She rolled the question around the way she did a piece of candy, staring at the way morning light caught his jawline. No pressure in his gaze. Just patient, steady curiosity.
"…When I first ran," she said quietly, "I believed I would die alone."
Ren didn't interrupt.
"I thought… that was my fate," she went on. "Kill or be killed. No home. No sister. No place. I acted like a carefree cat because if I stopped moving, if I stopped talking, I heard the silence."
She made a small, self-mocking sound.
"It was loud," she murmured. "Too loud, nya."
Her fingers twisted in her napkin. Her tail tightened around his arm.
"But then Shirone… Koneko… she started to move again. And now I'm here, eating sweet human food with a man who kisses both of us in front of the other without letting it become ugly."
Her ears flushed, golden eyes flicking away.
"It feels… like a dream," she admitted. "I keep waiting to wake up back in some alley."
Ren's eyes stayed on her, steady as bedrock.
"That's the thing about fate," he said eventually. "People treat it like it's the final word. To me, it looks more like a habit. A groove you fall into because it's familiar."
He tapped the table lightly.
"You broke yours," he said. "You're here. With your sister. With me. You're not waking up back in that alley unless you walk there yourself."
She swallowed.
"You say that so simply," she whispered.
"It is simple," he said. "Not easy. But simple."
He tilted his head.
"You're not alone anymore," he added. "Even if you run, I'll drag you back by the tail."
Her lips trembled, then curved.
"You'll… hold on that tight?" she asked, voice shaky but teasing creeping back in.
"I already am."
His thumb brushed the base of her ear in a lazy, affectionate stroke.
Kuroka shivered.
"You're sexy when you're draped over me like this, you know," he went on, tone casual. "And it's cute as hell that you're this clingy and still pretending you're not."
She made an undignified noise.
"Nyaaa, Ren-nyan," she complained, half-hiding her face behind her sleeve. "Don't say it out loud…"
"Why not?" he said. "It's true. I like that about you. The woman who always floated above everything is now trying to see how close she can get."
Her heart flipped.
"Idiot," she muttered.
But she scooted closer anyway, leaning fully into his side, cheek resting against his shoulder. She stole a bite of his pancakes without asking.
He let her.
...
The rest of the day blurred into a string of vivid scenes.
He led her to a retro arcade tucked down a side street, a place plastered with old posters and lined with machines humming softly.
Kuroka's eyes lit up like a kid's.
She immediately declared war on every claw machine in the building.
The staff watched in dawning horror as her senjutsu-keen senses and nimble fingers turned the notoriously rigged games into her personal hunting grounds. She timed swings perfectly, nudged the machine's Ki just enough that plastic claws held when they should have slipped.
Ren stood back, arms crossed, thoroughly amused as cats, small dragons, and assorted plush monsters piled up behind them.
By the time they left, he was carrying three large bags full of stuffed animals. He'd quietly woven talismans into them so they wouldn't interfere with his barrier network.
Kuroka skipped at his side, triumphant, hugging a black cat plush to her chest.
"I will name this one Ren," she announced.
He snorted.
"You named a plush after me?"
"You're soft on the inside," she said airily. "Fitting, nya."
"You sure about that?" he asked. "Most people say I'm terrifying."
Her smile softened, losing its sharp edge.
"…You are terrifying," she agreed. "But not to me."
His hand tightened around hers, just a little.
They found a hidden park, small and quiet behind an apartment block. A handful of stray cats lounged in sun patches, tails flicking lazily.
The moment Kuroka stepped in, every cat's head turned.
Nekoshou aura rolled off her in gentle waves.
Within minutes, she was sitting cross-legged on the grass, surrounded by purring fur, senjutsu humming softly as she stroked backs and scratched chins. Smaller cats crawled into her lap. One bold kitten climbed her shoulder and settled like a furry epaulette.
Ren sat beside her, arms resting over his knees, watching the way her face softened when she thought no one was looking.
"You'd hoard every stray in town if I let you," he said.
"Of course," she replied calmly. "I'm a cat. Cats collect good things."
Her tail curled around his wrist again.
"You're one of them now," she added. "Can't let anyone else take you."
He huffed a quiet laugh.
"Possessive."
"Efficient," she corrected.
He didn't argue.
...
As afternoon stretched toward evening, they climbed a small hill overlooking Kuoh.
The sky was painted in orange and purple, clouds edged in gold. Below them, the town's lights began flickering on one by one—windows turning into constellations, each tiny square a human life unfolding in ignorance of dragons and gods.
Ren leaned back on his hands, gaze on the horizon.
Kuroka sprawled half across his lap, claiming space without hesitation now. Her tail had migrated from his wrist to his waist, looping comfortably around him as if she were anchoring herself.
"So," he murmured, looking down at her. "How's the Veil feel now?"
She blinked up at him, then closed her eyes, sensing inward.
Calamity-Shearing Veil hummed along her senjutsu flows—threads of alien Dao wrapping every point where curses or outside influence could latch onto her. It felt like being wrapped in invisible silk. Not constricting. Secure. A net that filtered out poison while letting her move freely.
"…Like you're watching my back from the inside," she admitted. "I could get used to it."
"Good," he said quietly. "Things are going to get messier. I want you protected when they do."
She studied his profile.
"You'll be there," she said simply. "So it's fine."
He arched a brow, amused.
"You sound awfully sure."
Her smile turned slow and sultry.
"You are mine now," she said, parroting his own earlier claim back at him with a purr. "A Nekoshou's mate doesn't get to run off."
He laughed, genuine and warm.
"Fair enough."
The first stars pricked through the deepening blue above them.
Ren's hand slid from her waist up to her cheek, fingers calloused but careful.
"C'mere," he said.
He kissed her unhurriedly, deeply, a lazy promise drawn out under the open sky. Her claws dug into his jacket, tail tightening, body pressing flush against his. Senjutsu rippled outward with her heartbeat, the cats in the distant park perking up for no discernible reason.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing a little harder, she rested her forehead against his chin.
"…More," she murmured.
He laughed, low and pleased.
"Greedy."
"Cat," she corrected again.
They stayed there until the stars brightened and Kuoh's glow turned the horizon into a ring of soft gold.
...
By the time they stumbled back into the manor late that night, Kuroka was draped over his back, half-asleep.
Her ears drooped. Her tail hung loose. The black cat plush—Ren Junior—dangled from one hand, bumping against his shoulder with each step.
Ren carried her like she weighed nothing, bare feet silent on the hall floor. Saint Kingdom parted around them, the manor's wards relaxing at his touch.
In her room, he laid her gently onto the bed. The plush rolled out of her hand; he picked it up and set it beside her pillow.
She cracked one golden eye open, pupils thin with drowsy contentment.
"…Best day," she mumbled. "Don't… forget our next one…"
Ren brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, his thumb lingering at the base of her ear.
"I won't," he said.
Her lips curled into a small, utterly sincere smile.
She drifted off, tails curling around the plush cat, breathing deep and even.
Ren stood there for a moment, watching the rise and fall of her shoulders, the way the Veil shimmered faintly over her like a second blanket.
Life, he decided, really was very lively.