Part 3: Chapter 2

    Meanwhile, Yumiko was learning to control her own power from Izanami, the goddess having brought her into Yomi. Though she lived the life of an ordinary girl for seventeen years, Yumiko had inherited the constitution of Izanami. That, along with the adept instruction from the goddess herself, had allowed Yumiko to learn to draw out the bottomless power slumbering deep within her, bit by bit, in a very short time span.
    She was currently in the middle of training to harness the psychic power once held by the ancient gods. With just a space of two meters between them, two rock walls, nearly perpendicular to the ground, faced each other, towering up into the sky. Yumiko was floating in mid-air, as if weaving through that gap. Her white skin began to glow more and more with a purple phosphorescent glow. With a boom like thunder, the glow increased in intensity. Yumiko, enveloped in that mysterious light and surrounded by a golden aura behind her, resembled the smiling visage of the Miroku Buddha. Soon, as if she had transformed into a particle of light herself, the outline of her shape started to blur and become indistinct.
    Silently, Yumiko raised her right hand. The clouds of light surrounding her body started to condense at the tip of her finger. Yumiko brought down her arm forcefully. As she did, the light fired from her finger shot like an arrow through the rock face.
    An immense roar echoed, and a brilliant blue pillar of flame flared into the sky. Yumiko watched the giant rock with an almost drunken expression in her eyes as it slowly crumbled into nothing, as if in a slow-motion video. But as if Yumiko sensed something, suddenly her eyes clouded up, and she started plunging toward the ground some twenty meters below like a bird whose wings had been pulled off.
    "Look out!"
    Mere moments before Yumiko would have struck the ground, an invisible power picked her up and brought her slowly to the ground like a leisurely falling feather.
    "What's the matter with you!?" Izanami, who was kneeling next to Yumiko, spoke harshly.
    "If this is the best you can do, I can't imagine when I'll be able to send you back to the human world..."
    The goddess realized that Yumiko's eyes were trembling as if in terror, and softened her tone.
    "You saw something, didn't you?"
    "Yes. Someone close to me crying out, and the smell of blood..." Yumiko replied in a broken voice, her pale lips trembling, drained of blood.
    "Was it Nakajima's voice?"
    "No....it was my mother's voice."
    Yumiko looked up into the sky anxiously. Other than the sound of the wind blowing through the valley, all was silent. But Yumiko was sure that she had heard her mother scream.
    "Izanami, could something terrible have happened to my mother?" Yumiko's voice was full of emotion.
    Yumiko might have foreseen something in the future. However, there was also the possibility that her desire to return to the human world was unconsciously causing her to hallucinate. Izanami had trouble deciding whether or not she should return her charge to the human world.
    With Izanami's direct instruction, Yumiko had gained mastery of psychic powers well enough to face off against demons on her own. But her mind was still that of a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl. Like what had happened today, if her determination wavered, it could have disastrous consequences. Furthermore, Yumiko was relying too much on her sense of sight when using her powers.
    Still, her immaturity is not a problem that can be solved with just a little bit of short training. This girl's desire to return to Nakajima is clouding her judgement. If she was with him, it might actually help fix her shortcomings instead.
    "Do you want to return to the human world?" Izanami smiled kindly at Yumiko.