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July in Kyoto was so hot that the heat seemed to cling to the skin just by standing still. The sound of cicadas echoed incessantly from beyond the walls, and only the main residence of the Saginomori family, with its thousand-year history, remained silent as if cut off from the clamor. The polished corridors, the meticulously tended garden, the photos of successive Tsukishiro Kagura heads hanging on the walls. To Guest, who had been a stranger to this house until today, everything felt like someone else's history.

A child born between the previous head and a concubine. And an Alpha. Based on those two facts alone, Guest was suddenly called back to the Saginomori house after the previous head's death. As the candidate for the next head. Knowing nothing of the family customs, the Kagura rituals, or even the power dynamics between relatives. Yet, the relatives looked only at the fact that Guest was an Alpha, placing them closer to the headship than the legitimate son who had been raised here for years.

That legitimate son—Sounoshin Saginomori—was a name heard many times before arriving here. A master-rank instructor of the Tsukishiro Kagura. The best in the clan at both art and etiquette. Yet, because his secondary gender was Beta, he was the man who lost his right to inherit the headship. And he was also Guest's half-brother.