In the blink of an eye, Hikigaya had been living in Nijo Castle for several days. The yokai could more or less guess what kind of purpose this contemporary Rakshasa King had in mind, but they continued to serve him well every day.
The yokai felt that Hikigaya was actually quite easy to wait on. Aside from his fondness for making them go out every day to buy different kinds of food, he didn't seem to have many high-maintenance requirents. For the rest of the ti, he just let the yokai with beautiful appearances act as wine servants or sing and dance. It was so easy!
In fact, many female yokai had actually beco addicted to dancing and serving wine every day. They felt out of sorts if they didn't sing or dance for a day. For example, Jorogumo and Ubu had now completely adopted dancing and singing as the second greatest hobbies of their demonic lives. Then there was Nekomata; originally a fairly powerful yokai, she now spent all day wandering the castle in a maid outfit, holding either a plate or a broom. Crucially, she was quite happy, feeling as though she might be a hidden "Maid Boss."
Several cadres desperately wanted to complain: Could these females please not forget their proper business? But since Kidomaru, the local power, said nothing, they felt embarrassed to speak up. After all, as the host, Kidomaru was frequently called away by Hikigaya Hachiman for chats, which could be considered taking a hit for the other yokai—because no one wanted to talk to the Rakshasa King. They were all terrified of dropping dead because of a single misplaced word. To drop dead right when their long-cherished wish was about to be realized—how tragic would that be!
Another presence that concerned them, yet made them even more awkward, was Tamamo-no-Mae. It couldn't be helped; Tamamo-no-Mae was the earliest ruler of the Kyoto yokai, and many of the current cadres had once been her subordinates. In the end, she hadn't abdicated for any particular reason other than she simply thought it wasn't fun anymore and quit.
Compared to Hagoromo Gitsune, whose "career drive" was through the roof, Tamamo-no-Mae was a standard "salted fish" yokai who had no goals and only knew how to post on her social circle every day to show off her beauty and bags. Whenever the cadres recalled the days under her rule, their mories consisted only of sleeping during the day or playing gas in the nest, and coming out at night to soak in hot springs, eat late-night snacks, and praise Tamamo-no-Mae's beauty together. When dawn broke, they went back to sleep or play gas. Thinking carefully... eating and sleeping, sleeping and eating—weren't they just pigs!
But Tamamo-no-Mae was back. So, everyone could only bite the bullet and serve her just as they had a thousand years ago, speaking in the archaic style of the Heian-kyo era and doing boring things all day long. It was as awkward as could be.
However, there was still business to attend to: up until now, no enemies had appeared. Normally, the yokai wouldn't mind soone looking for trouble, but with Hagoromo Gitsune's
birth imminent, they only wished for no accidents. Yet, after Hikigaya had been squatting in Nijo Castle for a few days, an accident finally happened.
The battle broke out at the gates of Nijo Castle. The invaders were also yokai. The fighting was intense from the start, loud and chaotic, and it even woke up Hikigaya, who had recently taken a liking to sleeping on the roof of the Ninomaru Palace.
When Hikigaya opened his eyes, he happened to see a handso young man leading a large group of yokai breaking through the gates and crossing the walls of Nijo Castle. Opposing them were the Kyoto yokai stationed at the castle. However, Hikigaya felt sothing was off about the Kyoto yokai. He observed carefully for a while and realized that their emotions were primarily characterized by excitent.
Hikigaya thought about it and decided he hadn't done anything too outrageous to the Kyoto yokai these past few days. Was making them get him takeout outrageous? Those yokai were presumably "dining and dashing" at human shops every day—that was outrageous!
But well...
Looking at the handso young man charging around like a wild boar in the field, and a few unfamiliar Onmyoji mixed in with the yokai group, Hikigaya figured this was likely the Nura Clan. Sure enough, after a while, one of the Onmyoji spotted Hikigaya lounging on the roof watching the show.
One of them said sothing to his companions and then ran straight toward Hikigaya, "taking it easy" while fighting off yokai along the way. This Onmyoji carried a set of bamboo tubes filled with water; his Onmyoji arts used water as a dium. Hikigaya had an impression of this; he rembered an Onmyoji from the Keikain family in Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan who was like this—wearing a black trench coat and sporting a face that looked like everyone owed him money.
The black-coated Onmyoji seed to have decent combat strength; he actually wasn't stopped on his way over. About fifteen minutes later, he successfully leaped onto the roof of the Ninomaru Palace and stood before Hikigaya. He was panting quite hard. After catching his breath, he asked Hikigaya with an unfriendly expression: "A human?"
Toward soone who so clearly divided their stance by labels, Hikigaya showed he could be very broad-minded. If he rembered correctly, the guy in front of him was an anti-yokai extremist. As a human sorcerer, this was considered "correct thinking," and Hikigaya always felt that no matter what one does, one must first decide which side they are sitting on.
However, the man's tone wasn't very good. Hikigaya felt it was necessary to make this person a bit more sensible. So, he nodded with a smile and said, "Oh? So you can distinguish between humans and yokai?"
"What do you an?" The expression of the black-coated Onmyoji didn't change, but his eyes were full of confusion. "I am Keikain Ryuji. Who are you?"
Keikain Ryuji was indeed very confused. The person sitting on the roof didn't look like a yokai no matter how he looked at it, yet he sat on the roof of the Ninomaru Palace without being attacked by yokai. Not only that, Ryuji noticed that from the mont he leaped onto the roof, the yokai that had been intercepting him didn't dare follow. He could sense the fearful gazes of the yokai.
But the person before him didn't seem quite like a human either. For no reason at all, Ryuji just had that feeling. Could it be that there was another yokai like Hagoromo Gitsune?
"You seem very confused?" Hikigaya smiled. "Aren't you going to join forces with your yokai friends and fight?"
"I never make friends with yokai." Keikain Ryuji's expression grew increasingly solemn. "You're very strong, aren't you? Otherwise, those yokai wouldn't be so afraid of you. Then do you know what these yokai are trying to do?"
"I know. I'm just waiting; I've been bored to death these past few days."
"Since you aren't a yokai, why don't you stop them?" Keikain Ryuji almost exploded. "The Nura Clan from Tokyo has already joined the battle. We need support."
"I don't feel that way. Or perhaps I misheard—why do I get the feeling you're saying these yokai who ca with you are protecting humans?" Hikigaya looked at him strangely.
The Nura Clan was the protagonist organization in Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, but that certainly didn't an they were allies of humanity. If Hikigaya rembered correctly, there were cadres in the Nura Clan who previously specialized in hunting human children; although not approved by the upper echelons, no one had ever stepped in to stop them. Furthermore, the older generation of cadres had always placed yokai above humans, believing it was ridiculous for a yokai to help a human.
So in essence, the Nura Clan and Hagoromo Gitsune were not that different. In fact, Hagoromo Gitsune might even be better than the Nura Clan—at least her killing was highly targeted; ordinary people simply couldn't beco her targets. Hikigaya felt the Keikain family's operations were a mystery: why would Onmyoji of this family not contact their peers like the Kansai Branch and instead fight one group of yokai alongside another group? What kind of logic was that?
Before he could complain, the entirety of Nijo Castle suddenly began to shake.
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