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The mountain ranges of Mino had also welcomed the first snow of this year’s winter.
Lily and Shimizu traversed through the vast snow-covered cedar expanse with a red and black parasol in hand respectively.
Lily had put on a red dress that was illustrated with the immemorial panorama of Lake Biwa and also wore a light purple cardigan made from wool.
Shimizu, on the other hand, had put on a short-sleeved black kimono that had azure flowers and aquamarine leaves illustrated on it.
Unlike Lily, Shimizu had set out with just a single set of garments and a few pieces of underwear, all of which were stuffed inside the knapsack supported behind the ingeniously bow-knotted sash.
Lily had long mentioned the ancient mirror’s secret to Shimizu and wished to take Shimizu’s consciousness into the mirror space so that she could take a look, but it proved impossible for her to do this. The fault didn’t lie with just her though as Shimizu was also averse to the ancient mirror since it had given her a pretty unpleasant memory.
The snow was cold to the touch, but Lily’s body was still as fiery as ever. The spring sake’s effects had yet to dissipate and even Lily was clueless about how to alleviate the ever-intensifying heat inside her. Fortunately, her body hadn’t gone out of control yet1.
The fact that she had actually adapted to such a sensation, however, left her with a wry smile with regards to the talent possessed by her body.
The duo had been journeying through the mountains for several days now since the vast mountain ranges of Mino were pretty difficult to trek past.
Shimuzu would send glances towards Lily at every few steps like she hadn’t had enough of the view.
This caused Lily’s gaze to meet with Shimizu’s occasionally and left her in a dazed state with a throbbing inside her.
W-What is this feeling? I never felt like this in the past, so why does meeting Shimizu’s gaze embarrass me now? Could it be that I have developed feelings for this girl? No, maybe it’s the aphrodisiac’s effect.
This was a quality possessed by the bodies of girls, they tended to develop a favorable impression towards their savior.
As for Shimizu, Lily never doubted her as she was someone who only had Lily in her eyes and would lay her life willingly if needed to save Lily.
Shimizu noticed that Lily was avoiding her gaze intentionally while walking and felt a little miffed about it. Hence, she hardened her grip on the parasol’s handle and questioned Lily, “Are you feeling cold, Lil’ Sis?”
“N-No, I’m fine.”
“Let me hold up the parasol for you.”
“Eh?”
Shimizu folded her parasol quietly and stuffed it inside the knapsack on her back before taking Lily’s Sakura Parasol and holding it up between them. Although Lily was taller than Shimizu, the latter actually wasn’t that short, and she held up Lily’s parasol from a relatively natural position as well.
However, this left Lily with no place to put her hand, but at the same time, she felt that it would be pretty heartless of her to keep walking like this while minding her own business.
“It’s because of the parasol, there’s no other meaning behind it.”
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Lily hooked her arm through Shimizu’s and though unintentional, this caused her bosom to squeeze against Shimizu’s arm because of its enormous measurements.
Shimizu felt a girl’s warmth and softness in the truest sense of the words at this moment as she experienced an unfathomable tenderness.
As a girl in the prime of her life, Shimizu had feelings of love too.
“Just who is it that you like, Lil’ Sis Lily?” Shimizu surveyed the vast snowy plain ahead of them with misty eyes as she asked this question.
“Eh?”
“Is it me, or her?”
Lily found herself at a loss on how to answer this question, but she also didn’t want to deliberately pretend that she hadn’t understood the question. Although it was possible to interpret the question in multiple ways, Shimizu’s tone had made it clear that it only had one interpretation.
Lily lowered her head. Although she had linked arms with Shimizu and even pressed her bosom against the latter’s arm, it was only because they were holding the parasol together.
“If it’s the feelings between sisters, I really like them all, but if it’s the feelings between an older and younger sister, I hate them all,” Lily knew her tone sounded a little weak.
It really wasn’t her intention to give such an ambiguous answer, but there were some things that she simply couldn’t explain.
“You hate them all, huh. Are you planning to remain single forever, then? Or could it be that you will wed a man and have kids with him?”
“Of course not. You know I hate men,” Lily swayed her hips in grudging denial.
Shimizu shifted the parasol to her other hand and turned around to press closer to Lily, which in turn caused the latter to delink her arm from Shimizu’s and retreat continuously. However, she ended up leaning back against the trunk of an old tree moments later.
Shimizu slammed the tree’s trunk with her free hand while holding the parasol with the other hand, leaving Lily with no place to run.
A few clumps of snow fell down from the tree because of the vibrations and landed on the red parasol.
“Who do you like more, me or Uesugi Rei?”
“Eh? That’s
 Sister Shimizu, why are you asking such a thing so suddenly?”
“You must have compared us in your heart, right? Answer me. Who do you like more? Give me an honest answer.”
“I
” Lily seemed to have a vague answer inside her and intended to say it out2.
“You don’t need to say it,” However, Shimizu tiptoed suddenly and pressed her luscious lips against Lily’s with quick movements, giving her a fleeting kiss.
Shimizu felt as if a current had traveled through her body.
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“I fear I have my answer,” Shimizu lowered her head with a melancholic yet bashful expression.
As for Lily, even though the fleeting kiss wasn’t that passionate and ended in an instant, it still made her feel over the moon.
Her eyes filled with reluctance.
Shimizu also kept her head lowered to hide from Lily’s gaze, “Forget it. I won’t force you. Let’s go.”
Shimizu pulled away from the tree trunk and turned around to leave.
However, Lily reached out with her dainty little hand at this moment and almost grabbed one of the sleeves of Shimizu’s kimono despite knowing what kind of tempestuous treatment awaited her if she did that. Fortunately, she was saved by her rationality at the last moment and released her fingers, which caused them to just brush past Shimizu’s sleeve.
Shimizu’s keen senses had nonetheless alerted her and made her turn around to look at Lily who now had a fully flushed face and didn’t even dare to meet Shimizu’s gaze.
“Let’s go!” Lily sprinted across the snow-covered land despite not having the cover of her parasol.
Shimizu also folded the red parasol in her hand while looking at Lily’s graceful back and chased after her.
She leaped towards Lily and grabbed her hand.
“I won’t let you run!”
The duo tumbled into the snow as a result.
Shimizu chucked all of a sudden as she saw Lily put up a weak resistance with a misty look in her eyes and grabbed a ball of snow before stuffing it into her cleavage.
“Kyah!” The sudden chilling sensation caused Lily to yelp, and Shimizu seized this chance to run forward.
“You’re so naughty, Sis!” Lily grabbed a ball of snow and threw it at Shimizu as well.
The two girls had fun playing with snowballs by throwing them at each other cheerfully in this silent and secluded mountain range.
They looked each other in the eyes once they were tired of playing and exhaled a white cloud of breath, which was then followed by cheerful laughter.
Lily felt happiness fill her.
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The two of them walked in the snow one after the other, their bodies drenched in faint sweat from playing in the snow.
A small, thatched hut situated on a hillside ahead of the woods they were in came into their view a while later.
“Look, Lily. There’s a thatched hut ahead of us. It looks abandoned, so let’s rest inside it while also taking shelter from the snow.”
It was about three to four o’clock in the afternoon right now, which wasn’t that early a time for them to rest, so Lily also nodded in agreement. The duo then employed spirit probes and determined that there weren’t any issues with the hut.
The duo then climbed up the hillside and went into the thatched hut.
The walls of the hut were made of wooden planks and even the window wasn’t made of paper. A wooden board had instead been installed above the windowsill to act as its shutter. A few wooden planks were laid out to one side of the hut and the floor had an elevation of half-a-foot from the ground with some hay piled up at a corner. The hut’s entranceway was built from mud and also had some weeds growing on it. A circular stove made from stones was also present inside the hut and it had a pot on top of it.
A dwelling like this was a rare sight for Lily, but this was actually the most common dwelling for the commoners of the Heian Empire. A dwelling like this consisted of the bare minimum facilities to have food and sleep while also taking wind circulation and water leakage into consideration, but that’s all it had. The commoners live a pretty tough life even though the land was prosperous and peaceful.
However, such living conditions barely had any effect on a samurai woman’s constitution as they were used to eating and sleeping outside. It was also pretty hard for their skin to roughen up because they had spirit power protecting their bodies.
Shimizu stood beside Lily and this allowed Lily to view Shimizu’s incredibly smooth, round and slender shoulder. Although it looked a bit thin, that didn’t make it look skinny at all. However, she did feel that Shimizu’s bosom wasn’t that prominent.
So strange, Lily chided herself internally, Just where are you looking and what are you thinking?
“Sister Shimizu, is your body fine with the wind now?”
Shimizu nodded, “Grudge is the best elixir in terms of beauty and health for us blade maidens, isn’t that so?”
“Indeed. Haha
”
“However, I’m still not as wholesome and vivacious as you are, Lil’ Sis Lily,” Shimizu looked at Lily’s incredibly ample bosom from the side and then look at her own, feeling slight frustration at the obvious difference between them despite both of them being women. At the same time, she was overcome by an intense, impulsive desire to dominate the woman before her eyes, “I’m not as
 womanly as you are, Lil’ Sis Lily.”
Lily blushed when she heard this, “Don’t say that now, Sister Shimizu. You’re very pretty, too.”
“Really?” Shimizu lowered her head with a blush on her cheeks.
A moment of silence welcomed the hut and the cohabitation made them dread the silence.
The silence made Lily feel lonely. Although she had an exceptionally beautiful girl beside her, the fact that she had to pretend they were just ordinary partners filled her heart with emptiness.
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Patience and modesty are virtues. A beautiful woman needs such virtues.
Although such thoughts filled Lily’s mind, her bosom heaved deeply the more she looked at Shimizu.
Shimizu also felt her breathing quicken a little as she looked at Lily3.
This won’t do. If such a mood continues

“Sister Shimizu, well, how far are we from Omi now?”
Lily raised a topic hastily as a distraction.
It wasn’t actually to distract Shimizu as she had always held intense feelings towards Lily, and they wouldn’t change just because she had raised a topic suddenly. It was to distract her own mind forcefully!
This was what filled Lily with dread.
The goodwill shown by other girls, their playful words and even their passive touches were things that Lily could somehow cope with despite suffering some loss as she wasn’t willing in those cases and could use that as an excuse.
However, an aroused mind was no excuse even for her.
Is it because I withstood the aphrodisiac for a long time?
Lily shook her head with blushing cheeks and took out the map from her bosom with the belief that she would be able to divert her concentration by focusing on the old and murky map to look for directions, and that she would be able to forget the stray thoughts invading her mind temporarily with a rational mind.
Shimizu also leaned over to look at the map and this allowed Lily to relish in the blended scent of her own bosom and Shimizu’s hair.
Before she even realized it, Lily had planted a kiss on Shimizu’s earlobe.
“Eh?” As sensitive as she was, Shimizu’s earlobe flushed red immediately, and she looked at Lily with slight astonishment. This was because she knew that Lily was someone who never did things like this, “What happened?4”
“N-Nothing!” Lily felt hot all over, and her skin flushed wholly. She crumpled the map subconsciously and fled towards the window at the hut’s corner and looked at the faint snowfall weakly.
“I don’t know. I
”
Heavens! Just what in the world have I done?! How could I have taken such a bold, excessive and proactive action?
Shimizu, on the other hand, revealed a satisfied and knowing smile after seeing Lily so embarrassed, “Let’s continue discussing the map, Lily. Until where had you looked just now?”