Kagura of the Moonlight: The Immortal Bride and the Reincarnated Programmer
Sora Kagura had everything—until a single virus erased every line of code he'd ever written and dragged him into a world where the moon hangs three times too large and nothing follows the rules he knows.
Now he's stranded in a parallel world with no stamina, no combat skills, and no way home. His only lead: a torn nameplate reading "Yuzaki." His only guide: Kougetsu Kaguya, a masked girl in a black kimono who claims he carries the "blood of the moon" and that she needs his power.
But what powe
Kagura of the Moonlight: The Immortal Bride and the Reincarnated Programmer - Dull-Colored Gears: The Choice to Live in This World
The Yuzaki household smelled faintly strange in the morning.
The scent of miso soup, the steam of freshly cooked rice. And beneath it, the smell of old wood. Kagura Sora lay on the futon in the guest room, staring at the ceiling for a while.
(That's right. They let me stay the night.)
Last night, he'd met Tsukasa for the first time at the entrance, and then they'd treated him to dinner. Honestly, he didn't remember much of the conversation. But the fact that Tsukasa's cooking had been absurdly good, and that the air at the dinner table had been warm—those things were seared into his body.
Sora slowly sat up. His back ached a little. The futon had been soft, but his whole body felt stiff—probably because he'd slept in an unfamiliar place.
He checked the old digital watch on his left wrist. Eight-twelve in the morning.
(Overslept, huh.)
Sora ran his fingers through his short black hair. It was messy from sleep. His deep brown eyes narrowed against the morning light streaming through the window.
Beyond the curtains, he could hear birdsong.
It was different from yesterday.
The quality of the air was clearly different from when he'd woken up on that park bench. Back then, his whole body had been tense with the cold of night and the anxiety of an unknown world.
Now, he was a little calmer.
(The Yuzaki house, huh.)
Sora stood and set his feet on the tatami. The cool sensation traveled up through the soles of his feet.
Tsukasa had apparently prepared a change of clothes for him last night. A white shirt and black slacks, neatly folded. The same color scheme as his own clothes.
(She didn't have to go to the trouble.)
Sora changed and left the room.
The hallway was wooden, creaking softly with each step. An old house. But it was well-maintained—not a speck of dust on the floor.
"Oh, good morning."
He turned toward the voice. Yuzaki Tsukasa stood there.
Her long black hair was gathered behind her, held by a deerskin barrette. Pale skin, a gentle smile. The small girl in an apron carried a tray with two teacups on it.
"Good morning. Did you sleep well?"
"...Yeah, thanks to you."
Sora looked away slightly. Tsukasa's smile inevitably overlapped in his mind with that fleeting, almost-tearful expression he'd seen at the entrance last night.
(What was that face about?)
"Breakfast is ready. Please come to the living room."
"Thank you."
Sora followed Tsukasa toward the living room.
---
The moment he stepped into the living room, Sora's feet stopped.
In the corner of the room—three computers.
No, four, to be precise. Two on the desk, one on the floor, and one on his lap.
A man sat cross-legged on the floor, watching three screens at once while typing on a keyboard.
Yuzaki Nasa.
His black hair was carelessly long, and behind his glasses, his eyes darted rapidly across the screens. The movement of his fingers was extraordinary.
Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack.
The sound of the keyboard poured down like rain.
"Morning, Sora-kun."
Nasa spoke without taking his eyes off the screen.
"...Good morning."
Sora found himself staring at his hands.
Program code scrolled across the screen. White text on a black background. The cursor moved at a speed the eye could barely follow, code rewriting itself one after another.
(Fast.)
Sora had won a programming contest. A national competition where high schoolers gathered from all over the country—he'd prided himself on writing code more accurately and faster than anyone.
But before this man, his own skills felt like a child's game.
"Ah, don't mind me. I've got some work I want to finish before the morning's over."
Nasa laughed and reached for another keyboard.
Typing code with his left hand while typing different code with his right.
(He's writing two separate programs with both hands?)
Sora forgot to breathe.
"Oh, this is interesting. This error—I planted it last night. Sure enough, it tripped."
Nasa laughed happily.
"...Um, what are you doing?"
Sora finally managed to force out the words.
"Hm? Work. I take on programming jobs from home. Right now I'm debugging a server build for a certain company."
"Debugging... at that speed?"
"Yeah. Well, this much is nothing. I'm the man who reaches light speed faster than NASA, after all."
Nasa said it casually.
Sora couldn't help but laugh.
"...Ha."
(What kind of catchphrase is that?)
(The man who reaches light speed faster than NASA.)
Just like Kaguya had told him yesterday. But hearing it from the man himself, it had a strange persuasiveness.
"You laughed, huh? But it's true. To keep people from laughing at this name, I've done everything faster and more accurately than anyone."
Nasa's voice turned just slightly serious.
"Written with the characters for 'starry sky,' read as Nasa. When I was a kid, people laughed at it a lot. But if you don't want to be laughed at, you just have to produce results with no room for laughter. That's what I told myself—and I threw myself into studying and programming, all of it."
Sora looked at Nasa's profile.
(So this guy was laughed at for his name too.)
Sora had similar memories.
The name "Kagura Sora." He'd been told countless times it was unusual. He'd been teased more than once or twice.
(That's why I ran to programming.)
Sora felt a sense of kinship with Nasa.
"...That's amazing. Really."
"Thanks. You do programming too, Sora-kun?"
"Yes. I won a high school contest, actually."
"Whoa, that's impressive!"
Nasa's eyes lit up.
"Show me your code. What kind of stuff do you write?"
"...My phone's battery drained pretty badly last night. Right now's a bit..."
"Ah, I see. Then show me later. I'm looking forward to it."
With that, Nasa turned his gaze back to the screen.
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
The keyboard's sound filled the room once more.
Sora watched Nasa work for a while.
(I'm going to live in this world.)
(The foothold for that is right here.)
Something warm spread through his chest.
Until yesterday, he'd been nothing but a transfer victim dumped into this world, powerless.
But now it was different.
Here, there were people who saw the same world he did.
"Sora-san, breakfast is ready."
Tsukasa's voice brought him back to himself.
"Ah, yes. Thank you for the meal."
---
Breakfast was as good as last night's dinner—no, even better.
Grilled fish, rolled omelet, spinach ohitashi. And freshly cooked white rice with miso soup.
"Does it suit your taste?"
"...It's really delicious."
Sora said it honestly.
"I'm glad. I can make sushi too, you know."
Tsukasa smiled brightly.
"Tsukasa-chan's cooking is always delicious, no matter what. The best in the universe."
"Oh, Nasa-kun, honestly."
Tsukasa blushed and spoke a little faster.
(These two are married, huh.)
Sora chewed over their relationship anew.
They looked about his age. But between them was a span of time and a bond he couldn't begin to imagine.
(Yuzaki Tsukasa is an immortal girl.)
Kaguya's words came back to him.
Living for fourteen hundred years, still in the body of a sixteen-year-old.
(If that's true...)
(This girl has lived dozens of times longer than me.)
Sora glanced at Tsukasa's profile.
Tsukasa was smiling happily as she served Nasa a piece of the omelet.
(She doesn't look like that at all.)
---
After breakfast, Sora went looking for Kaguya.
"Where's Kaguya?"
"Ah, Kaguya-chan? She went out early to check around the house. She should be back soon."
"Outside?"
"Yeah. Lately she's been inspecting the area around the house every morning. Maybe something's up."
Nasa's tone was light.
But Sora understood.
(Kaguya's searching for signs of the Moon People.)
Sora left the living room and walked down the hallway.
The Yuzaki house was bigger than he'd expected. An old Japanese-style house with long corridors and many rooms.
(Let me see the network logs.)
After asking Nasa's permission, Sora borrowed one of the computers in the living room.
"Go ahead. I'll finish up my work over here."
"Thank you."
Sora sat down in front of the computer.
(First, what's connected to this house's network?)
His fingers moved across the keyboard.
He entered commands and opened the logs.
---
Thirty minutes later.
Sora noticed something abnormal.
"...This is strange."
"What's up?"
"There's unfamiliar traffic mixed into this house's network. And at regular intervals—like it's probing for something."
Sora pointed at the screen.
"Look, here. Only during this time window, external access is concentrated."
"Ah, that. I noticed it too. But it didn't seem harmful, so I left it alone."
"You left it... alone?"
"Yeah. I mean, no data's being stolen, and the system isn't being interfered with. It just feels like something wandering around the house."
Sora furrowed his brow.
(Wandering around the house.)
(Like it's probing the structure of the house.)
Just then, the front door opened.
"I'm back."
Kaguya entered the living room.
Black kimono, black mask. Her long black hair caught the morning light, gleaming faintly silver.
"Welcome back, Kaguya-chan. Want breakfast?"
"...Later."
Kaguya stood beside Sora.
"What are you looking at?"
"This house's network logs. There's suspicious access."
Kaguya's obsidian eyes turned to the screen.
"...The Moon People."
Kaguya's voice dropped.
"This access—it's a signal from the Moon People probing the house's barrier. Faint, but no mistake."
"Barrier?"
"The Yuzaki house has a barrier cast to protect Tsukasa. The Moon People are searching for weak points in it."
Sora looked back and forth between the screen and Kaguya's face.
"So the Moon People are already this close to the house."
"Yes. Last night, when I came to this house with you, I felt the moon's presence. That wasn't my imagination."
Kaguya gently touched the moon-patterned mark on the back of her right hand.
"...I'm going to inspect the barrier. You come too."
"Got it."
Sora stood up.
---
The backyard of the Yuzaki house.
Morning light filtered through the leaves of the garden trees, casting dappled patterns on the ground.
Kaguya stood at the four corners of the garden, checking something.
"Here. The barrier's gotten a little thin."
"Can you actually see this barrier thing?"
"Ordinary people can't. But those with moon blood can. You should be able to see it faintly too."
Sora strained his eyes.
(...I can see it.)
The air was slightly distorted. A transparent membrane seemed to stretch around the entire house.
"So this is the barrier."
"Yes. An old spell to prevent the Moon People from intruding. But it's not perfect. Over the long years, holes have opened all over."
Kaguya held her hand over the thinned part of the barrier.
Then the mark on the back of her right hand glowed faintly.
"...This should reinforce it a little."
"That's amazing."
"It's nothing much. Just first aid."
Kaguya spoke flatly.
Sora looked at her profile.
Expressionless.
But her eyes were serious.
"Hey, Kaguya."
"What."
"Why do you go this far to protect Tsukasa?"
Kaguya was silent for a while.
The wind blew, swaying the hem of her black kimono.
"...My mother was taken by the Moon People."
Kaguya spoke quietly.
"When I was ten. My mother fought to protect Tsukasa and lost. She was taken by the Moon People. I couldn't do anything then."
Sora held his breath.
"My moon-blood powers were still immature. I didn't have the strength to protect my mother. So she was taken. I don't know where she is now, or even if she's alive."
Kaguya's voice was flat.
But each word stabbed heavily into Sora's chest.
"Ten years since then. I've kept chasing the signs of the Moon People. To protect Tsukasa. In my mother's place. ...No—to clear my mother's regret with my own hands."
Kaguya turned toward Sora.
Her obsidian eyes looked straight at him.
"You might not understand. But this is all I have left."
Sora couldn't say anything.
(Her mother was taken when she w
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