"No!" As soon as he said it he knew he was making too quick a denial. Jabi would now not believe that he wasn't replacing her. Perhaps Rin would write to her, or she would hear through others that no one else had been appointed, "Rin wouldn't accept it, and I don't want her to have another mentor. She will be on her own."

Tsubasa didn't think he needed to say that she would miss Jabi. He knew what it was like to grow up without friends. Even now he wasn't sure he'd ever had one, and that was something he didn't wish on Rin. A female presence in her life might have been valuable up until the point where it began to lead her away from full devotion to her place as a Makai Priestess, "We are grateful to you, but there's no other way."