Chapter 102: The Girls
"It's not attacking the seal, and it isn't backlashing either," Kagura said, her face growing paler by the second. "It's more like... it wants to come out. It's trying to come out on its own."
The words sounded contradictory.
If Byakuei was neither attacking the seal nor turning against its master, then what was the difference between that and losing control?
Yomi did not understand.
She only knew that Kagura was frightened.
And that alone was enough to make her glare at Gin Tsumugi as if she wanted to cut him down where he stood.
But Kagura's description, strange as it sounded, was exactly what she was feeling.
When she had first inherited Byakuei from her father, the agony of that moment had carved itself deep into her memory. The spirit beast had thrashed against the seal, its malice scraping against her flesh and soul at the same time. It had been pain beyond anything she had ever imagined.
It was only then that Kagura finally understood how much suffering her father, Tsuchimiya Garaku, had endured beneath that stern, composed expression of his.
This was different.
Right now, Byakuei was not trying to tear her apart from within.
It felt closer to when she normally summoned it to fight, except this time, she had not given the order. The command had come from elsewhere. A portion of the control she possessed over the Tsuchimiya family's spirit beast had been stripped away without warning.
But that was impossible.
It should have been impossible.
Kagura's gaze shifted toward Gin.
A moment ago, he had formed a hand seal.
Could it be...?
Before she could finish the thought, Gin answered her suspicion with action.
"Byakuei," he said, his fingers forming an even more intricate seal, "come forth."
Mysterious ripples spread from him, silent and deep, like a stone dropped into still water.
The next instant, the seal inside Kagura collapsed open like a dam losing its gates.
She could no longer suppress Byakuei.
"Awooooo!"
A roar tore through the Shinomiya Manor.
Vast spiritual power and thick malevolence burst outward in a violent wave. The air trembled. Leaves scattered from the surrounding trees. The koi in the nearby pond dove beneath the water, and even the barrier surrounding the manor gave a low, strained hum.
The Onmyoji gathered elsewhere in the estate all turned at once.
"What was that?"
"Such pressure... Is that a shikigami? A spirit beast?"
"No, that level of spiritual power has surpassed Professional Level. It's at least comparable to a National Level Onmyoji."
"Did Miss Shinomiya invite another National Level expert?"
A middle-aged Onmyoji with far more experience than most of those present narrowed his eyes and carefully sensed the aura.
"No," he said after a moment. "It's a spirit beast. If I'm not mistaken, that spiritual fluctuation belongs to the Tsuchimiya family's Byakuei."
"Byakuei?"
"The spirit beast fused with a sesshōseki?"
"So someone from the Tsuchimiya family came as well. I heard they recently appointed a new head. A young girl named Tsuchimiya Kagura, I believe."
"She inherited the Tsuchimiya family at such an age? Another genius of the new generation, then."
The brief unrest among the Onmyoji slowly settled.
If it was Byakuei, then it made sense.
The Tsuchimiya family's name might not echo across Japan like the Tsuchimikado or Keikain clans, but they were still an old Onmyoji family with more than a thousand years of history. In Tokyo, their influence was far from negligible.
"White Fox, Dairenji Suzuka, Tsuchimiya Kagura, Isayama Yomi..." one Onmyoji murmured. "The new generation is terrifying."
"Good. The more of them there are, the more hope we have in this era."
While the gathered Onmyoji spoke among themselves, the true center of the disturbance stood by the bamboo pavilion.
A white, dog-god-like spirit beast emerged from Kagura's body.
Its form was long and serpentine, almost dragon-like, with pure white fur rippling along its body. Heavy chains as thick as a man's arm coiled around it, and embedded in its forehead was a fist-sized purple-red gemstone that radiated an ominous aura. It was identical to the sesshōseki hanging from Kagura's ear.
Byakuei's presence was fierce enough to make the surrounding air grow heavy.
Then, under the stunned eyes of Tsuchimiya Kagura and Isayama Yomi, the great spirit beast lowered itself before Gin.
It bowed.
No, it prostrated.
Its massive body folded down, its head pressed low, and even its jaws clamped shut as if afraid that another roar would be disrespectful.
At that moment, it did not look like the Tsuchimiya family's ancient spirit beast.
It looked like a shikigami greeting its true master.
"What..."
Yomi was the first to recover, but her voice still carried disbelief.
"What exactly is going on? Gin Tsumugi, what did you do? Why is Byakuei acting like that?"
She had heard of Byakuei, of course. She knew how dangerous it was. She knew how many heads of the Tsuchimiya family had died young because of it.
Yet now, that same spirit beast was lying obediently at Gin's feet while he patted its head like a household pet.
Kagura, however, had grown quiet.
She looked at Byakuei, then at Gin, and her expression gradually turned complicated.
By now, how could she not understand?
The reason Byakuei had suddenly gone out of control was not because it had rebelled against her.
It was because Gin Tsumugi had called it.
"The secret technique your family uses to control Byakuei is incomplete," Gin said, gently stroking the lowered spirit beast's head. "To be more precise, the technique your ancestors used a thousand years ago was flawed from the beginning. That is why the Tsuchimiya family eventually resorted to sealing Byakuei inside the body of each successive head."
His tone was calm, but his words struck Kagura like a bell.
Incomplete.
Flawed.
Those two words were enough to explain a thousand years of suffering.
Gin looked down at Byakuei.
In truth, even he had not expected the core of the Tsuchimiya family's control method to originate from one of his own secret techniques.
More accurately, it shared the same root as the technique that had once allowed Hokuto to attach itself to him at the Tsuchimikado clan.
Unfortunately, the Tsuchimiya ancestors had clearly failed to obtain the complete version.
They had taken an incomplete technique as the foundation, then spent generation after generation modifying it until it became the current method of sealing Byakuei inside their own bodies. It worked, but only barely. It forced a connection where proper command should have existed, and the cost was paid by every head of the Tsuchimiya family thereafter.
One after another, they died young, worn down by Byakuei's backlash and its attempts to break free.
Part of it was due to the incomplete technique.
Part of it was because their ancestors had been too impatient.
If they had not forced Byakuei to fuse with the sesshōseki from the start, if they had trained it slowly instead of chasing overwhelming power, things might never have ended up this way.
After a thousand years, Byakuei might not have reached the level of a Great Yokai, but attaining the strength of an ordinary National Level existence would have been well within reach.
A highly aggressive spirit beast like Byakuei was fundamentally different from a dragon like Hokuto, which was born to accumulate and store spiritual power. Their paths of growth were not the same.
In some ways, it resembled the difference between Aoragi Village, which raised the Wedding Dress Tree through sacrifice, and Yeyu Town, which nurtured its sacred tree through faith.
One sought quick results.
The other endured.
And the consequences spoke for themselves.
"In the end," Gin continued, "I only seized a portion of Byakuei's control. After all, after so many generations of alteration by the Tsuchimiya family, the technique is no longer identical to its original form."
As he spoke, he released that borrowed authority.
Kagura felt the change immediately.
Byakuei's connection returned to her, familiar and heavy. She carefully guided the spirit beast back, and this time, it obeyed. The great white beast dissolved into spiritual light and returned to the seal within her body.
For a while, silence settled over the bamboo pavilion.
Yomi stared at Gin, her expression dark.
"It was a backdoor, wasn't it?" she said. "Something left behind by the creator of the technique."
Gin did not deny it.
"When Onmyoji create a spell, especially a secret technique, many leave a path only they can use. It prevents the technique from being turned against them. In critical situations, that backdoor can also be used to crack, seize, or disable the spell."
He glanced at Kagura.
"And by coincidence, I happen to know both the original technique and the backdoor within it."
Yomi's gaze sharpened.
Coincidence?
From this bastard's mouth, that word sounded especially suspicious.
Gin turned fully toward Kagura.
"Kagura, I cannot say the complete technique and its backdoor will free the Tsuchimiya family from every consequence of the past thousand years. That would be irresponsible."
Kagura looked up at him.
"But I can guarantee this. If you master the complete technique, you will no longer need to fear Byakuei's backlash or its attempts to break the seal."
His voice remained steady.
"Consider that my compensation for you joining the Myriad Law Supernatural Department."
Kagura opened her mouth.
No words came out.
Refuse?
How could she refuse?
She was the current head of the Tsuchimiya family. No matter how young she was, no matter how unprepared she felt, she could not possibly turn away from a chance to change the fate that had tormented her family for a thousand years.
If Gin's words were true, this technique could save her.
It could save the future heads of the Tsuchimiya family as well.
But asking her to suddenly leave the Super Disaster Countermeasure Office, leave Bunkyo Ward, and join the Myriad Law Supernatural Department in Shibuya Ward...
It was too abrupt.
Her thoughts tangled together.
At the end of the day, Tsuchimiya Kagura was still only a middle school girl. Her experiences with supernatural incidents had forced her to grow faster than most children her age, but that did not mean she could calmly make such a major decision on the spot.
Gin saw her hesitation.
He stood up.
"Kagura, my offer remains valid at any time. There's no need to answer me now. Think about it carefully."
After saying that, he waved his fingers and released the Spirit Speech binding Yomi.
Then he left the pavilion on his own, giving Kagura the space to decide.
"...Kagura."
Yomi looked at the girl beside her, her expression complicated.
She understood.
Of course she understood.
The technique Gin had offered was too important to Kagura and the entire Tsuchimiya family. If it could truly remove the danger of Byakuei's backlash, Yomi would be happy for her from the bottom of her heart.
But the moment she thought about how that bastard Gin had succeeded in scheming right in front of her, she could not help grinding her teeth.
Worse still, if the director and the others found out that she had brought Kagura to Minato Ward only to lose the Super Disaster Countermeasure Office's future core member to the Myriad Law Supernatural Department, she would absolutely be scolded.
And there would be a report.
A long one.
Possibly handwritten.
Just thinking about it made Yomi want to punch Gin's smug face.
But there was nothing she could do.
The bait he had thrown out was not something Kagura could ignore. Not just Kagura. If the Tsuchimiya family knew of it, they would likely agree even if Gin's request were more unreasonable.
Yomi let out a deep breath, feeling strangely powerless.
Kagura, whom she treated like her own little sister, was about to be stolen away right under her nose.
That fox really had no shame.
Meanwhile, Gin had not gone far before he noticed something unusual.
Near the entrance to the hall where the Onmyoji had gathered the day before, more than a dozen young women had appeared.
They were all beautiful. Delicate, charming, well-dressed, and clearly not ordinary maids of the Shinomiya Manor. Their expressions carried excitement and anticipation as they looked around, but whenever their gazes fell on one another, there was faint hostility hidden beneath the smiles.
That hostility was not murderous.
It was the kind reserved for romantic rivals.
Gin stopped.
"Who are those women?"
He called over a passing maid.
The maid bowed respectfully.
"Mr. Tsumugi."
She followed his gaze, then answered truthfully, "Those young ladies are the eldest young master's lovers. They will be staying at the Shinomiya Manor for the next few days."
The Shinomiya Manor did not belong solely to Shinomiya Kaguya.
Most of the time, her father and other members of the family were too busy with the conglomerate's affairs to stay here for more than a few days each month. Because of that, Kaguya usually appeared to be the only master of the manor.
But in name, this was still a Shinomiya family estate.
If the eldest young master wanted to send people here, no ordinary servant could stop him.
"I see," Gin said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, Mr. Tsumugi."
The maid bowed again and left to continue her work.
Gin looked at the young women gathered near the hall.
"So the young master Imai Takumi mentioned was Shinomiya Ōkō, the eldest son of the Shinomiya family."
His gaze deepened.
"This is the move he prepared? Is he not afraid that if it goes wrong, it will come back to bite him?"
Those women looked ordinary at first glance.
Beautiful, yes.
But ordinary.
However, Gin could sense it.
A faint, familiar aura clung to them.
It was weak enough that most Onmyoji would overlook it, but to him, it stood out like a thin red thread against white paper.
For a moment, the morning breeze seemed to cool.
Then Gin smiled.
"Very well."
Since they wanted to play, he would play along.
He only hoped the result would not disappoint him.
Gin turned and walked back toward his room.
He had no intention of telling Shinomiya Kaguya.
Not yet.
For now, he would train quietly and preserve his strength for tonight's battle.
…..
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