You could only say the description "damned cat" was never unearned.
Ten minutes later, when Hanakain Fubuki emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered with a towel draped around his neck, he turned to see the cat-eared girl already beside the dining table. She had opened the box containing the sealed object and was sitting on a chair, holding the purplish-black finger, wrapped tightly in talismans, up to the overhead light, examining it from all angles.
"Hey, hey, Hana, come look! Isn't this something you Onmyoji use?"
"...Let me see."
Although he had told her not to open the box before he went into the bathroom, the young man knew his casual words wouldn't curb Kuroka's curiosity. Seeing the scene before him wasn't much of a surprise.
So, Hanakain Fubuki walked over and sat down beside her at the dining table.
However, Kuroka didn't hand over the sealed object. Instead, she shifted her entire body onto his lap first.
Through the thin fabric of her kimono, she could clearly feel the warmth of the boy's body, her nose picking up the faint scent of lingering steam mixed with the fragrance of shower gel.
Like a cat finding its favorite spot, Kuroka curled her lips in satisfaction, leaning sideways to rest her cheek against his chest before finally presenting the sealed object.
"Here."
"Hmm..."
Hanakain Fubuki took the talisman-wrapped finger from the cat-eared girl's hand. After just a quick glance, he shook his head.
"It has nothing to do with Onmyoji. This should be the work of a Jujutsu Sorcerer."
"Is there a difference? They both look like crude scribbles to me?"
Kuroka pouted towards the densely wrapped talismans on the finger.
"...It's precisely because they're all crude scribbles that it belongs to a Jujutsu Sorcerer."
Hanakain Fubuki gently scraped the talisman with his thumb, catching an edge near the fingertip of the sealed object. With a light tug, he pulled the entire wrapping off.
Layer after layer, nobody would have expected the mass of talismans wound tightly around the whole finger to actually be one single... no, perhaps "strip" was a better word.
It was like a plastic pipe covered in duct tape due to age and disrepair, one continuous strip wrapped from end to end.
Hanakain Fubuki placed the finger back on the dining table and stretched the talisman strip out from beginning to end, displaying it for Kuroka.
"You should be able to see the difference now, right?"
"To be honest, I still don't see it."
"How could you not see it... Haven't you noticed how repetitive the content on a Jujutsu Sorcerer's talisman is? In comparison, our Onmyoji talismans aren't so long-winded. They're concise, focused only on achieving the necessary effect."
"I feel like you get really aggressive whenever Jujutsu Sorcerers come up, Hana?"
Kuroka reached up, gently poking the boy's cheek with her fingertip and blowing softly.
Hanakain Fubuki shrugged. "It's not aggression, just stating facts. Ultimately, most Jujutsu Sorcerers in the world are ordinary people whose powers awakened later in life. Setting aside the lack of lineage, when an ordinary person suddenly gains superhuman power... it tends to affect their personality somewhat. To put it bluntly, they're like upstarts. Plus, Jujutsu Sorcerers mostly grow wild; almost no one helps them organize, simplify, or refine their techniques. Basically, however their power manifested upon awakening is how it stays for life. In a word: unrefined."
"Even the so-called Three Great Families of the Jujutsu world, who 'claim' to have the most heritage, aren't much better off in this regard."
"First, the Zen'in family, let's not even bother. Their signature technique is the Ten Shadows Technique. They claim that anyone who masters it can unconditionally become the head of the Zen'in family. Yet, the current head of the Zen'in family didn't even inherit the Ten Shadows Technique himself."
"Next is the Gojo family. Their signature is the Limitless Technique. But the prerequisite for using Limitless is possessing the Gojo family's ancestral trait, the Six Eyes. Otherwise, it's unusable. It's said that thirty years ago, the Gojo family produced a 'strongest' member, born with both the Six Eyes and Limitless. The problem is, such exceptions occur only once every few centuries. The Gojo family managed to survive the last century, credit to them, but whether they can survive the next one after that 'strongest' eventually passed away... that's hard to say."
"Finally, the Kamo family. Their signature is Blood Manipulation. The requirement for this talent isn't too high, making it relatively easy to learn, but... it can only use the caster's own blood as a medium. So, their family members are chronically anemic. Even if they win a fight, it's a case of inflicting a thousand damage on the enemy while suffering eight hundred themselves."
"But in contrast, our Hanakain family—"
Having said all that, Hanakain Fubuki suddenly changed his tune. He clenched one hand into a fist, pointed his thumb at himself, his tone becoming impassioned.
"Our Hanakain family's ancestral technique, Hagun, is essentially a portable, mobile ancestral shrine! The more generations pass it down, the more past family heads can be summoned, making it stronger. That is true inheritance, unlike those self-proclaimed Three Great Families who, in the end, still rely on mutation-reliant upstarts."
Oh...
After listening to the long explanation, Kuroka suddenly piped up.
"So, Hana, can you use that Hagun?"
Hanakain Fubuki's voice paused for a fraction of a second before he nodded firmly, though vaguely.
"It's alright, I guess. It's not that hard to learn, anyway. My younger sister, Yura, is already using it, and she's still in middle school."
"Is that so."
Since Hana's little sister can use it, Hana must be able to as well, Kuroka thought.
Then, she turned her gaze back to the purplish-black finger on the table, now stripped of its talisman.
"Hey, so what do we do with this thing? The seal's already been torn off. If we just leave it here, won't some weird monster pop out of it?"
"Theoretically, just rewrapping it should be fine, but this talisman looks like it's about to expire anyway. Forget it, I'll just make a new one..."
Spiritual pressure flared at Hanakain Fubuki's fingertips. He lightly touched the briefcase they had brought back earlier.
Instantly, the spiritual pressure transformed into intricate characters that imprinted themselves onto the briefcase's surface. They flowed like living things, quickly forming intersecting lines of a sealing array across the case.
"There, that should do it. Later, just toss it inside and close the lid."
"But speaking of which, what exactly is this thing?"
Hissing softly through his teeth, Hanakain Fubuki tilted his head, examining the finger again from left and right. After pondering for a moment without conclusion, he picked up his phone from the side, took a picture of the finger, and then opened a certain online forum app.
Kuroka leaned in curiously, glancing at the screen. "What forum is this?"
"An occult forum. It's run by people from Jujutsu High here in Tokyo," Hanakain Fubuki explained.
"Most users are Jujutsu Sorcerers, with some occult enthusiasts mixed in. I've taken a few jobs from here before."
"Taken jobs?" Kuroka blinked. "But I remember you looking down on Jujutsu Sorcerers earlier, calling them a bunch of upstarts..."
"Hey, making money isn't shameful."
The boy, currently posting, flexibly adjusted his standards, his fingertips tapping the screen as he added text.
[How did you guys know I caught this while night fishing?]
Then he attached the picture of the finger he just took and clicked "Post."
"...And that's it?"
Watching the "Post Successful, EXP +3" message pop up on the screen, the cat-eared girl tilted her head as well.
By this time, Hanakain Fubuki had already turned off his phone screen, put the finger away, closed the case lid, set it aside, and freed his hands to pat the girl's bottom through her kimono.
"Of course. You don't expect me to stay up all night waiting for replies, do you? We can check it tomorrow morning."
"Mmm..."
Kuroka hummed in response but didn't get up obediently as Hanakain Fubuki had expected.
Instead, she deftly shifted in his lap again, turning another ninety degrees from leaning sideways to facing him directly. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs under the kimono skillfully settling on either side of him. Leaning closer, she whispered softly in his ear.
"Since we've eaten dinner, and you've bathed... isn't it time to... 'eat' your big sister?"
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