Chapter 21: The Approaching Storm
"A storm is brewing..."
Looking at the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrouded in darkness in the distance, a middle-aged man sighed. He had been crouching there for quite a while.
As the member of Ryozanpaku who loved art the most, Akisame Koetsuji was relatively well-informed about the matter of yokai. Yokai were a part of culture, after all, and those who pursue art must naturally be people of culture.
It was just that the "culture" this time was a bit too aggressive. The one causing trouble was actually Hagoromo Gitsune, who was notorious in history for her demonic deeds.
Akisame Koetsuji was considered a big shot in the Japanese underworld. Although his hobbies didn't involve making money, gathering underlings, or engaging in politics—favoring instead things like woodcarving—he knew of Hagoromo Gitsune.
Japanese folklore widely cites the "Three Great Evil Yokai" as Shuten-doji, Tamamo-no-Mae, and the Great Tengu, but in reality, the "Tamamo-no-Mae" mentioned there often referred to Hagoromo Gitsune. In other words, because the Tamamo-no-Mae "brand" was so famous and Hagoromo Gitsune was a reincarnator who often didn't surface for over a century at a time, the blame eventually shifted to Tamamo-no-Mae.
Precisely because he knew how formidable Hagoromo Gitsune was, Akisame Koetsuji had to set aside his two favorite things and rush to Kyoto. Which two things, you ask? Training his disciple and training his disciple intensely, of course. After all, he couldn't allow the Buddha statue carved onto his disciple's back to be devoid of a soul.
"Why hasn't that girl Shigure returned yet?" Akisame stroked his signature mustache, feeling a bit worried. Could someone blind have offended the girl on the way, leading her to beat them up and delay her return? Now was not the time for such things.
He never expected Yomi's movements this time to be so massive. Yomi coming to Kyoto to suppress demons was a good thing, but the problem was that in Yomi's eyes, practitioners of the "Saving Fist" (Katsujinken) were also damn monsters—and the authentic kind, at that. By comparison, these actual yokai in Kyoto were practically counterfeit products.
At the thought of both sides fighting yokai and then bumping into each other halfway—likely resulting in them stopping the monster-slaying to fight each other instead—Akisame felt a headache coming on. He wanted to sigh again.
However, he didn't get the sigh out because he sensed Shigure Kosaka. Why were the footsteps so much heavier? Akisame glanced back and was instantly startled.
He saw Shigure running toward him, carrying a person in each hand, her face expressionless. What on earth was this? And why was there a hint of joy in the girl's eyes? Could these two be low-level yokai minions? One big and one small, they were quite asymmetrical.
"Akisame." Shigure's figure flickered a few times before she landed in front of him. Only then did she set down the people in her hands.
"Big sister, what are you doing?" Hattori Heiji felt like his hair had become a bird's nest, but he didn't dare complain too much. He had never seen someone run like a speeding car. While Kyoto had many old buildings and wasn't filled with skyscrapers like Tokyo, was it even human to leap a dozen meters and glide with a single kick? And with that figure of hers, how did she maintain her balance? Every sword-fighting girl he knew with high skill was flat-chested.
As for Conan, he was currently vomiting.
Akisame watched this scene, his eyes narrowing into slits. You could kill him and he still wouldn't believe these two were yokai.
"Akisame, am I late?" Shigure's brow furrowed slightly, looking dissatisfied.
"A bit late." Akisame stroked his chin. "Shigure, who are these two children?"
"Akisame, look at him." Shigure pointed at Hattori Heiji. "This is a good child."
"Oh?" Akisame knew Shigure well. Although he hadn't thought in this direction at first, hearing her words, he began to understand. "Young man, sorry about this, but please stand still for a moment." He reached out and felt Hattori's hands, feet, waist, and other joints. As he felt around, his eyes lit up.
"Young man, your basics aren't bad at all." Akisame nodded as he continued his examination. Truly a good prospect.
Hattori Heiji didn't dare speak; he was terrified. What was wrong with this guy? Grabbing and feeling someone up immediately—was this some kind of Japanese etiquette?
Just as he was thinking this, Akisame released him and turned toward Conan, who had finished vomiting. "Little friend, stand still. Uncle is going to take a look at you."
Thus, the freshly-vomited Conan looked up into the most lecherous-looking face he had ever seen in his life. Then, in a daze, he was felt up by the man.
"This child is strange." Akisame, the master of bone-reading, frowned. "Why does it feel like something is wrong?"
'Aren't you the one who's 'wrong'?' Hattori thought to himself.
However, he was completely unable to grasp the situation now. There had been too many abnormal sightings today; he needed a moment to recover. Conan didn't seem to have reacted yet, but he heard the creepy uncle refer to him as a "child."
Subconsciously, Conan grabbed Akisame's leg and blinked his eyes: "Uncle, I want to go home!"
Shigure: "一_一"
Akisame: "???"
Hattori Heiji: "..."
"Shigure..." Akisame couldn't help but stroke his mustache again. "Let me ask just to be sure... you didn't kidnap these two kids, did you?"
"No. They were seen by the people of Yomi." To someone unfamiliar with Shigure, she would look expressionless, but in the eyes of Akisame—who could read "Shigure-style" micro-expressions—he saw a sense of being perfectly justified.
"Just seen?"
"Mhm. They met Hikigaya Hachiman and tried to stop him from killing someone."
Akisame was instantly horrified.
No one had told him that Hikigaya Hachiman had come too.
Wait, if Hikigaya Hachiman was here, was there even a need for them to come? No matter how strong Hagoromo Gitsune was, she couldn't withstand the "One Shadow, Nine Fists" attacking together, let alone Hikigaya Hachiman, who could beat all of them even if they were tied together. There must be something fishy going on!
However, he approved of Shigure's actions. Having offended Hikigaya Hachiman, those Yomi warriors would definitely look for an opportunity to kill them later; they wouldn't care if they were children or not. Unless Hikigaya Hachiman specifically ordered those warriors not to harm them.
Hikigaya Hachiman was not a "bad man"—this was a consensus formed within Ryozanpaku—but similarly, it didn't mean he could be counted as a "good man." To say he killed without blinking was an understatement. During the trip to America, he personally slaughtered a hundred thousand warriors of the Weapon Division and wiped out the "Eight Shining Blades." This wasn't modern warfare where a missile kills hundreds without the perpetrator feeling a thing; those hundred thousand lives had each passed directly through Hikigaya's hands.
Akisame thought of Kenichi. He suddenly understood why Shigure specifically brought these two back for him to see instead of sending them away. It was because they couldn't be sure if Hikigaya Hachiman would issue a specific command to the Yomi warriors on-site regarding these two.
In that case... only by becoming the disciple of a "Saving Fist" master could the relative safety of these two be guaranteed. Once they became part of the Saving Fist faction, even if Yomi wanted to kill them, they would follow the rules: disciple against disciple.
Wait, hold on a second...
"Shigure..." The more Akisame thought, the more something felt off. "Do you want to take them as disciples?"
Wasn't that too hasty? Although having only one disciple was indeed a bit sparse, they couldn't just take disciples randomly just to save them.
"They are very good." Shigure nodded with certainty.
"I see..." Akisame scratched his head, wondering if Kenichi would get jealous.
As he was thinking, he suddenly sensed something. Akisame whipped his head around, only to see a thick black mist suddenly surging in the eastern sky over Fushimi Inari-taisha.
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