Twenty Minutes Later – Kyoto Station

  “Are we actually running away?” Harry asked as Daphne shoved a duffel bag into his hands.

  “Yes,” Daphne said firmly.

  Luna was now wearing her fox mask again and waving politely at a group of actual kitsune who were following her like paparazzi.

  Harry blinked. “Why?”

  Daphne leveled him with a stare. “Your girlfriend got spiritually married. To a goddess. Of foxes.”

  “…Oh.” He paused. “That actually expins a lot.”

  “I know.”

  Another pause.

  “So are you jealous or just mad?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Daphne said without hesitation.

  Luna popped up between them. “Technically, it was a festival marriage and only counts in the spiritual registry of the local kami court.”

  “Luna, we are literally being chased by divine bureaucracy.”

  “Okay but—”

  “No.”

  They sprinted to the train ptform, just in time for the doors to close leaving the kitsune following behind right as an unnatural whoosh of wind to announce the arrival of a figure in white and red robes… The train was gone.

  The train lurched forward, leaving the ptform—and the flurry of confused shrine foxes—in its wake. Daphne colpsed into her seat with all the grace of someone who’d been holding together her sanity with dental floss and coffee.

  “That’s it,” she muttered. “We’re never going back to the countryside again. Ever.”

  Harry sat down beside her, pcing his duffel on the rack above them. “You know, when I imagined our trip to Japan, I didn’t think it would include fleeing from divine beings.”

  Luna leaned her head on Daphne’s shoulder, ponytail flicking zily. “To be fair, I didn’t pn on getting fox-married either. It just… happened. Kind of like how Harry got adopted by Hestia during that trip to the States.”

  Daphne huffed. “Yeah, well, at least he didn’t come back with a legally binding celestial marriage license.”

  Harry raised a hand. “Technically, it was more of a spiritual guardianship.”

  Luna beamed. “Exactly! And mine was a spiritual marriage! We’re just really good at attracting divine paperwork!”

  Daphne looked at both of them. “I need a drink. Or an exorcism. Maybe both.”

  ===

  Tokyo International Airport – 3 Hours Later

  “I cannot believe we are doing this,” Daphne muttered, gring at the departure board like it had personally offended her.

  “Do you want to get arrested by celestial immigration?” Harry joked,

  “I’m just saying, this wouldnt have to be so difficult ” Daphne hissed, “if we didn’t have to flee the country like international fugitives.”

  “We weren’t just fleeing the country,” Luna chimed in, practically glowing in an oversized hoodie and sungsses combo. “We were fleeing divine responsibility. Totally different.”

  “Because that’s better,” Daphne muttered.

  The three of them stood in line at a very specific terminal gate—one that didn’t show up on any standard map of the airport. The signage above read in shifting runes, briefly transting to “Non-Mortal Departures.”

  Harry adjusted his hat. “So… how exactly does this work?”

  Luna grinned, pulling out what looked suspiciously like a boarding pass made of moonlight and gold ink. “Simple. We’re using the Night Path. It only opens once a month on the new moon, and lucky for us, that’s tonight.”

  Daphne crossed her arms. “And you just had that pass lying around?”

  “Goddess of the Night and Dreams,” Luna reminded her, smug. “This is literally one of my perks.”

  As the line moved forward, the gate ahead shimmered into a swirling portal made of stardust and shadow. The sound of distant chimes and wolves howling echoed faintly.

  The agent at the counter was a dryad with a security badge and a clipboard. “Destination?”

  “Underworld, central sector,” Luna said sweetly. “We’re visiting family.”

  The trio nded with a soft thump in a polished obsidian hall, lit by ghost-fme chandeliers. A very startled succubus in a pencil skirt looked up from her reception desk.

  “Oh! Lady Crocell, Princess Luna, and—oh, you brought the hearth child too. Welcome home.”

  Daphne rubbed her temple. “We are never going on vacation again.”

  Harry gnced around. “Honestly? This is starting to feel normal.”

  Luna stretched, wings twitching. “Well. That was refreshing. Anyone want to do karaoke?”

  Daphne turned slowly. “Luna. No.”

  ===

  The chamber shimmered with divine energy, suspended high above the mortal world. Clouds rolled underfoot, shifting in hues of vender and gold. A breeze carried sakura petals through the open air like time itself had slowed to watch. But inside the circle of ancient stone pilrs, the mood was anything but calm.

  “She married Inari and then vanished.” Susanoo’s voice was thunderous, his long white hair whipping in the wind conjured by his own frustration. “Who does that?!”

  “She technically didn’t vanish,” Benzaiten said, holding a glowing scroll up to her face. “She politely blessed the rice, thanked the shrine maidens, signed exactly one ceremonial fan, and then disappeared into thin air.”

  “That’s worse!” Susanoo bellowed. “That’s like throwing a party and then robbing the pace on your way out!”

  “The spiritual paperwork is a mess,” muttered Tsukuyomi, who looked more annoyed than usual as he flipped through another registry. “There’s no entry for her—no divine birth, no ascension record, nothing. She just… showed up. And got married. And left.”

  “She had an aura I couldn’t read,” Tsukuyomi muttered, narrowing his eyes. “And I don’t like that.”

  All eyes shifted to the raised ptform where Amaterasu sat, framed in gentle sunlight. She sipped her tea with divine grace, as if she wasn’t listening to the storm raging below her. But she was.

  Eventually, someone asked, “Elder Sister… do you know who she is?”

  Amaterasu smiled faintly behind her teacup. “I have… an idea,” she said quietly. “But I see no reason to interfere. If this Moon goddess meant us harm, she would have done so. I believe her pantheon is among the more friendly ones.”