Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item4 Chapter3 (section)

===Between the Lines 2===

Either hang her head or bear with it.

Those were her only options as a child.

In the Mugino Family, it was a foregone conclusion that the Bloodline would compete.

You couldn’t let your fragility and weakness show.

Because the rest of the family would actively use that as a target to strike.

So Mugino Sakuya always left the house and went somewhere deserted to tremble all alone.



She couldn’t make friends at school and even the teachers only nervously watched her from a distance, never approaching. She wasn’t treated like anyone else. Because she had been born to the Mugino Family. The true nature of that family never leaked out, but everyone in the honest world could just tell she didn’t fit in.

The family head was always assessing her, the adults were already disappointed in her at her age, and she was forced to compete with the brothers, sisters, and other relatives of her generation even though she knew she couldn’t win. In that shadowy world, it seemed like everyone indulged in the dark joy of tearing down people weaker than themselves.



There was no ordinary love there.

There was no rest for Mugino Sakuya. She knew she would only be worn down little by little no matter where she went, but she had no chance to recuperate. The heart in her small chest would only continue to be torn apart until there was nothing left. She knew that, but there was nothing the helpless girl could do about it.

No one was coming to save her. And she didn’t expect anyone to. When the police or her teachers saw her scraped and bruised body, they would only click their tongues and look the other way.

But then.

During it all.

“Oh, dear. Is this where you got off to, Sakuya-sama?”

There was one kind voice.

Whenever Sakuya went missing, he was always the first one to find her. Not her parents, not her siblings, and not any friends or teachers. It was the butler in a black tuxedo and monocle who always found her first.

Mujinayama had been Mujinayama since long before Sakuya was born.

He seemed permanently unchanging, like the sacred tree at a Shinto shrine.

When Sakuya was weeping and feeling crushed by the weight of her own weakness, he would rub her head and speak to her.

Patiently.

As many times as it took.

“Listen. Strength comes in many forms. Eika-sama has her form of strength, but you too have your own form of strength. You simply have yet to realize it. If you are only given the opportunity, you will become stronger than anyone.”

“…Even stronger than the head?”

“Yes.”

“Even stronger than you?”

“Of course.”

“Nuh-uh. No one can beat you.”

Mujinayama smiled gently.

Thinking back, that had less to do with the small girl’s words and more with the fact that the girl who could only hang hear head or bear with it had finally shown him an awkward smile.

Mugino Sakuya asked a question as they returned to the mansion, hand in hand.

Hesitantly.

“Hey, Mujinayama?”

“Yes?”

“Nothing can stop the fighting between the Bloodline. And the struggle over the Management is only going to heat up. …Will you stay with me to the end?”

“That has always been my intention.”



''And so.

''And yet.

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