Convergence

Part 1: chapter 7

The Aoi Matsuri Festival parade has just started.

At the very beginning of the procession, we can see the Norijiri, riders who participated in the kurabeuma horse race earlier this month, then various high officials and bureaucrats from the Heian imperial court. Next, men dressed all in white could be seen holding various offerings and gifts for the deities. The imperial messenger Chokushi, who traditionally read the imperial edict during the ritual, is in the middle of the parade. He is followed by numerous imperial guards mounted on magnificent horses. Finally, musicians and dancers accompany the end of the procession.

After entered the women's procession. First, we can see beautiful noble women parading, they a are all dressed in a kimono style called kouchiki. The size of their parasols indicated their rank and social position at court. Then entered the jewel of the festival, the imperial princess and ceremonial priestess. She is accompanied by all her ladies-in-waiting, servants and eunuchs.

The crowd burst into applause when they saw the palanquin of the imperial princess appear.

Utahime was extremelly confused.

Luckily, no one could recognize her with the layer of makeup she wore on her face. She had never been so much the center of attention in one day.

She smiles in the sweetest way possible to the hundreds of spectators who sometimes come from the four corners of the world.

This parade attracted as many Japanese as foreign tourists.

Among these spectators, she sometimes saw curses hidden on the shoulders, arms or heads of the spectators, but she did not let anything disturb her facial expression.

She was nevertheless disturbed by the flow of occult energy from one specific body of the spectators.

She was a young woman with very short black hair. She had a scar, or tattoo, on her forehead. She was accompanied by a man with light pink hair and glasses. They were holding hands and seemed very in love with each other.

Utahime didn't know how to express it but the aura of this young black-haired woman was particular, even disturbing.

It was as if the young woman was inhabited by the occult flow of another person.

Then the procession crossed the first torii (鳥居) (the Japanese gate commonly erected at the entrance to a Shinto shrine to separate the sacred enclosure from the secular environment), then a second and a third. The procession continued along a peaceful path to the entrance to the Kamigamo Shrine.

The grooms helped Utahime get off her litter.

As soon as she set foot on the ground, several tourists approached her to ask politely for a photo with her.

Utahime was more than ill-at-ease. With a shy voice, she agreed and asked them to come closer to take a photo in front of the sanctuary door.

Then, little girls dressed in colored kimonos grabbed her and took her inside the shrine.

While outside the noisy crowd was bustling in all directions to be able to enter this sacred place which was forbidden to them, the interior of the sanctuary was extremely calm and solemn.

The difference in atmosphere immediately stunned Utahime.

The little girls in kimonos brought Utahime to the more sacred building of the sanctuary reserved for deities.

At this place all the members of the Gojo family, but also those of the Kamo and Zenin family, were already gathered.

They were all dressed in their most beautiful kimonos. Important political figures and their families could also be seen. Utahime really felt out of place.