I let out a pent up breath the mont we arrived back ho. Snowy was still in the living room at the mont, but the extra range I recently gained allowed to Phase directly to my room, if only barely. Teleporting to the very edge of my range was both more tiring and unpleasant than usual, but I had little choice in the matter. Ti was of the essence, so once I got my bearings, I unceremoniously handed the wrapped up sword in my hand to the tiny miko who ca along for the ride.
"Hold on to this for a mont, and don't co down unless I call you."
"Do I have to?" Ichiko whined in a low voice as she looked at the blade she held in both hands. "I don't like Onikiri anymore."
"I'm not telling you to go inside it, just to hold it for a while," I told her as I hastily combed my hair and straightened my hoodie. I probably didn't look particularly imposing in my casual clothes, but I didn't exactly have the ti to change into sothing more formal, so it had to do.
Finished, I opened the door and walked downstairs with all the tensely maintained veneer of nonchalance I could muster under such short notice.
"Oh, Leo! Welco back, or... Uuu... welco down?" my sister greeted the mont I reached the bottom of the stairs and scampered over to in a hurry. Once she was right next to , she whispered, "He appeared in the room without triggering any of the wards, but doesn't seem hostile. He wanted to talk to you, so I sat him down, gave him a glass of orange juice, and told him you would be co and see him in a minute."
"You did great," I soothed the nervous girl with a pat on the head. "I'll take it from here."
Declaring so, I entered into the living room with asured steps, and my gaze imdiately crossed with our unannounced guest's. He was sitting in a dignified, if sowhat stiff posture on the couch, holding his drink with both hands. He was on the shorter side, his skin was a light brown (though it looked more like a heavy tan than his natural skin color), and by the looks of it, he was at least in his fifties, possibly older based on the number of white streaks in his long, straight beard.
Speaking of which, now that I could take a proper look at his facial hair, I very nearly let a breath of relief escape my mouth. When I originally Far Glanced at him, I could have sworn that he had an honest to goodness Fu Man Chu mustache, but instead it turned out he had one of those really long 'wise sage' cuts, which made a striking contrast with his completely bald head. I couldn't help but wonder; if unique and elaborate hairdos signified importance, then what would the lack thereof an? Or was it his beard that acted as the signifier this ti around?
Moving past his head, I also made note of the thick, layered Japanese style robes he was wearing. I didn't know the exact na of the garb, but in my defense, I wasn't exactly an expert in the field. What I quickly recognized, however, was the color; it was the exact sa shade of deep purple as the shroud covering Onikiri when not in use. On top of that, he also had a string of impractically huge wooden prayer beads around his neck, each one the size of my fists and engraved with so Asian characters or symbols I didn't recognize. Still, I had a vague recollection of Buddhist monks (or rather, the stylized fantasy variety) being depicted wearing sothing similar, but then what was with the sage-beard and the small ying-yang symbols on his sleeves?
Yet, more important than his physical appearance was the imdiate sense of irritation that assaulted my subconscious the mont I laid my eyes on the man. By this point I was decently familiar with the reaction, yet at the sa ti it felt subtly different from before; more 'palpable', for a lack of better expression. It was like a small wedge or awl inside my head, slowly sinking deeper the longer I looked at him, but instead of pain, it induced a sense of discomfort that imdiately triggered my fight or flight instincts.
I cald my breathing and focused my mind, looking at the phenonon as rationally as I could under the circumstances. So far, I had felt a similar sense of antagonism towards three people on our first etings: Snowy's brother, the dragon-butler, and the arch-mage. Out of the three, two turned out to be two-faced, scheming assholes, while Sebastian was... rely annoying and pompous, but otherwise mostly okay. This ant that, as irrational as my reaction was, it had a decent track-record at sniffing out dangerous individuals.
But then again, I never had such reaction to Brang, Rinne, or the two Knights, so there might have been sothing else required to qualify for the honor of being found instinctively irritating. Maybe it had sothing to do with so sort of magical presence, or their deanor, or maybe even sothing more outside-context, like importance in the narrative. I had no idea, nor did I really have the ti to ponder.
That said, now that I was fully aware of this odd reaction of mine, it was trivially easy to shove it to the back of my mind for the ti being and greet the uninvited guest lounging on my couch with an unperturbed expression.
"You have exactly one minute to explain what you are doing in my house."
... Okay, I admit the actual response still needed so work, but considering that my gut reflex told to imdiately throw him out and slam the door behind him, I think I still acted rather cordially.
"Please do excuse my unannounced arrival," the older man responded in a smooth baritone, his words tinged with a light but distinct Japanese accent.
So, this guy had an accent, Rinne had an accent, yet Ichiko, the hundreds of years old Japanese fox-miko didn't, but instead she peppered her sentences with random honorifics. That made a looooooot of sense. But putting my linguistic gripes aside, since I didn't respond, he very slowly put the half-empty glass onto the table and proceeded to introduce himself with a barely noticeable nod of his head.
"I am known as Hige. I am the second elder and representative of the Kage clan. I presu you already know of us."
"Naturally. For ninjas, you are hard to miss," I responded with just the tiniest of barbs, yet he completely ignored the jab and spoke on with a controlled voice.
"Before I say more, allow to ascertain: are you Leonard Blackcloak, the fabled Chira slayer of the land of Critias?"
"Yes for the Leonard portion, an ambivalent yes for the Blackcloak part, a grudging yes for the Chira slayer bit, and a categorical no for being 'fabled' in any shape or form." Based on my guest's bemused blinking, my answer was obviously too complicated for him, so a short sigh later I told him, "Yes, so people call that."
"I understand. In that case, allow to co to the point of my visit without any minced words." He paused here for a solid three seconds while his bushy eyebrows descended into what I presud was supposed to be a dignified expression, and then he finally blurted out, "What can you tell about the current whereabouts of the one called Onikiri no Tsukaite Rinne?"
Instead of answering right away, rolled my eyes at my overly dramatic interloper's expense and leisurely made my way over to my usual seat. I took my sweet ti to sit down, and then waited for a few seconds before answering, because when my head hurt, I was petty like that.
"Why do you think I would know?"
The old monk/ninja/sage/whatever asured from head to toe, and he soon eased up on the hostile body language.
"I was told you are a seller of information with nurous connections," he explained, but then he continued with, "Also, she was last seen in your company."
"Sooo... you would have looked for even if I wasn't an information-broker," I stated, but he was only giving a confused look, apparently not getting my point at all. "Never mind. Yes, I have accompanied her a couple of tis."
"Were you by her side when she fell?"
I was just about to give him a snappy answer, but then my thoughts ca to an abrupt halt and my response turned into an uncertain, "Pardon?"
"I asked if you were by her side when she died," the older man repeated with extra emphasis, but it only got even more confused.
"I think there is a misunderstanding here. She's still alive."
All of a sudden my guest's body language tensed up again and he uttered a single, flat word.
"Impossible."
I wanted to point out that no, it was very much possible, considering I just talked with her, but before I could do so, he continued to speak while reaching into his loose left sleeve with his right hand.
"Onikiri no Tsukaima Rinne did not contact us for two days. During the last ti we communicated, she reported that she would soon face a fearso beast of the underworld in single combat. She has not shown any sign of life since then, therefore we concluded that she had lost her life in the endeavor."
"It wasn't exactly single combat," I objected a little weakly as I tried to untangle this man's thought processes. "Also, as I have said, she's still alive."
"Falsehood," the bald man in front of declared with so gravitas before he finally retrieved a piece of folded up purple paper with so kind of thick red string hanging from one of its sides. "Know, that I am not here to accuse you, and therefore there is no need for you to tell anything but the truth. Her demise is unfortunate, but in the line of our eternal duty, such is often the fare of the ones bearing the responsibility of the sacred blade of our clan. Please do not tarnish her sacrifice."
"But I'm telling you, she's alive," I told him with my voice raised and my patience running dangerously low.
"An abject untruth," the man proclaid while holding the aforentioned piece of paper, which I soon realized was so kind of talisman, between his right index and middle fingers. "Can you perceive the lack of the familiar light emitted by her life lantern?"
"I can't see the lack of sothing that I'd never seen before," I told him while channeling my inner Judy, but got completely disregarded as the man continued to talk.
"It shows that Onikiri no Tsukaima Rinne is no longer one with our sacred blade. One bears the blade for life, so it can only an one thing: she is dead." He paused here, I was pretty sure just for even more dramatic flair, and then he let his hand down before continuing in a more amicable tone. "Fear not, young one, for you are not being held responsible for her demise. We seek the location of our sacred sword and her body, for funeral rites. We rely ask for your cooperation."
The longer I was listening to this guy, the harder it was to keep the irrational irritation bubbling up from the back of my mind in check. I once again wondered; maybe I wasn't feeling annoyed by these guys because of so supernatural outside influence, but instead as a result of so sort of sixth sense telling , 'Hey, this idiot is going to annoy you in the future, so here's a prir', or sothing along those lines.
"... We are not getting anywhere like this," I admitted with a tinge of defeat. I let out a long breath, and turned towards the stairwell, yelling out, "Ichiko, co down please! I'm going to need you for this after all!"
There was a long mont of silence in the room, soon broken by a high-pitched "Comiiiing!", followed by a pair of small feet thundering down the stairs two steps at a ti and coming to an abrupt halt at the bottom.
"Aaaa! It's Baldy-kun!" the little girl exclaid with apparent delight as she dashed over and raised her arms over her head, tossing the sword she was holding into the air in the process. My danger-sense imdiately told that it was coming right towards my head, so I reflexively used my finely honed weapon-catching technique... except I did so with my numb right hand, so I completely botched it. The hilt of the spinning katana hit my wrist, eliciting a hiss that had more surprise than actual pain in it, and it got deflected to the side.
I had to practically jump out of my chair to go after it and I hurriedly used my other hand to reach out towards the falling weapon. In the end, I barely managed to wrap my fingers around the blade, just under the round guard. Fortunately, the whole length of it was still covered with the purple shroud, so I didn't get cut, but it was still a close one.
"Ichiko!" My indignation made the little girl twitch and turn towards with a face that said she didn't know what she did wrong. Therefore, I told her. "Who told you to throw Onikiri like that? It could have poked soone's eye out!"
"But… But ue-sama caught it?" she defended herself while giving the puppy-eyes, but I remained firm.
"It doesn't matter. You should not throw swords around like that, even if you're excited that you t—" I paused here for a second as I glanced at the robed man frozen mid-motion in his seat, and gestured towards him with my free hand."… this man. Are you two related by any chance?"
"Ah, you see ue-sama, Baldy-kun was the little brother of Onikiri's wielder!"
"I'm fairly sure you don't an Mountain Girl," I ventured a guess, and she confird it with an aghast look.
"Of course not! She was the wielder two generations ago!" the little girl explained as if it was obvious.
"Okay, and?"
"I was always one with the person who wielded Onikiri, like Rinne-san, and Sakura-san, and Aoi-san, and—" I gave her an 'I get it, get to the point' look, so she hastily switched gears. "So, since I was one with her, we were both his big sister, so I'm his half-big-sister now!" she declared with a grin that said this was all completely self-evident.
"I… don't understand. What's going on?" Baldy-kun muttered in a state of profound bewildernt, and while a small part of found that absolutely hilarious, I knew that we would get nowhere fast if I didn't clear things up soon.
"In short, this here is Ichiko, the… spirit? Person?"
"I prefer person!" the tiny miko interjected.
"I see. Let's go with 'spirit' then," I stated with a thoughtful nod, earning a sulky 'Ue-sama is an' in the process. "So, she used to be inside this sword here, but so things happened, and now she's not."
"Inside… Wait, is that Onikiri? Why do you possess our sacred blade!?" the older man suddenly sprung to his feet and pointed at , apparently only just realizing what I was holding in my hands.
"It's a long story, but for the ti being, I'm holding onto it because Rinne had so anger managent problems and attacked and my allies."
"Rinne-san got better though," Ichiko chid in.
"So she is… Onikiri?"
"No, Ichiko was inside Onikiri," I corrected him, but the guy was giving a totally blank expression, so much so that for a mont I wondered if I was mistaken in my initial assessnt and he was just a slightly unique placeholder.
"Can you… prove that…?" he finally asked the obvious question. It was also a good one, as I had no idea how to do that conclusively, so after so consideration, I left it to the girl in front of to demonstrate her identity.
"Ah, I know!" she suddenly perked up, apparently thinking of an idea. "Baldy-kun? Do you rember that ti, when you stole the panties of the girl you liked, and we found you when you tried to hide it under the floorboards?"
All of a sudden the bald man's face slackened with shock. It only lasted for a blink of an eye, as he quickly made so kind of gesture with his fingers and cald down.
"I have no idea what you are talking—" he began, only to be cut short when the little girl's eyes descended into an uncertain frown.
"Uuuu… But I'm very sure it happened. I don't keep all the mories after the wielder dies, but I clearly rember this one! You even had so kind of book in there, and you cried a lot when we burned them all! It was really funny!"
I admit I was almost feeling bad for the guy for getting his ancient sha unearthed in front of a stranger, and by a little girl no less, but then I rembered that I didn't actually like him, so the feeling quickly subsided. In its place, I found a question that I imdiately vocalized.
"Hey, Ichiko? How exactly is this story supposed to confirm your identity?"
"You see ue-sama, it's because we were the only ones who knew about this! It would have been shaful if it beca public knowledge that our little brother was stealing panties, so we destroyed all the evidence, and I even made Baldy-kun take to his secret hideout where he kept the—"
"Nee-san, yate kudasai!" the robed man called out with a panicked expression. "I-I an, you have already proven your identity! There is no need for further proof!"
"Really? Wow, I was sure this was going to drag out for at least three more embarrassing stories," I whispered under my breath. My relief didn't last long though, as I soon noticed that he was eyeing the sword in my hand. "What?"
"I just wonder… If she is the spirit of Onikiri, and she calls you 'ue-sama', then does that make you her master?"
"Yes," the little girl loudly declared in the company of an unnecessarily proud nod. "Ue-sama gave this body, so ue-sama is ue-sama."
"That was atrociously redundant," I noted on the side, but neither of the other three people in the room cared. Oh, yeah, Snowy ca by to bring in so drinks, but she already disappeared. That's how little she cared. That was also pretty cold of her, leaving to fend for myself like that. Not that I could bla her; I didn't want to be here either.
"So if he is your master, and you are Onikiri, then it makes him Onikiri's master," Mr. Baldy reasoned, employing the best thods insane troll logic could offer. Truly an inspirational thinker, this man was.
"No way! Ue-sama can't be my wielder!" Ichiko protested right away, and she even waved her hands around like a windmill for so reason. "Ue-sama is a boy, so we can't beco one! It would be gross!"
"So he cannot use Onikiri?" our guest pressed on, not at all disheartened by her declaration of grossness.
"He can, but—" she began, only to cut herself short and silently mouth sothing along the lines of 'Oh, right! I'm no longer in Onikiri anymore!'. Either that, or she was telling my parrot's tabolic processes were a matter of interest only to historians, which didn't make any sense in this context. Or many others, if we were at that.
"Can you really?" ca the next question, this ti aid at , and after keeping eye-contact with the man for a few seconds, I grudgingly grabbed the sword by the hilt and used my phantom limb to activate the jury-rigged enchantnt inside it. I saw no harm, an d if it would get this guy to leave five minutes earlier, it was worth the headache.
Half a mont later, the shroud covering the blade unfurled to reveal a pristine white blade, and once the magic inside it kicked into high gear, it began humming with a soft yet pervasive sound.
"There, are you happy now?" I asked as I lightly waved the sword in front of him. At this point, I expected a number of reactions. The bald man suddenly going down onto one knee definitely wasn't one of them.
"Elder Hige greets the new matri— I an, the new patriarch," he proclaid with a solemn voice, and I found myself drawing a blank, completely unable to respond in any way.
My confusion thankfully didn't last long, and I quickly let the sword down and glanced at the equally stunned Ichiko by my side.
"What is he talking about?"
"I forgot to ntion this to ue-sama!" she suddenly burst out in a panicked voice as she scampered over to my side and grabbed my sleeve. "Listen, ue-sama! The Kage clan is led by the elders because the wielder of Onikiri is always traveling around the world to hunt evil monsters, but in truth, they are the true head of the clan! Since now you wield Onikiri, it ans that you are the clan head!"
… Oh, I see. So that was the harm I couldn't see. Lovely.
I looked at the still humming sword and quickly turned it off, the purple shroud automatically wrapping itself around the blade in the process. In the anti, I had a sudden idea. Rinne beca very docile after I took Onikiri from her, and she even started getting along and sparring with the Fauns. She was also part of the clan, even if I accidentally dethroned her, so… maybe she was getting on the sa wavelength with Brang and company because she now also viewed as her boss? Was this the thing she was trying to tell in the secret base?
Anyhow, these were questions for later. For now, I unceremoniously threw the covered up blade to the foxy miko, who caught it with a surprised yelp, following which I stepped forth and hooked my fingers into the back of the kneeling man's collar. He gasped, obviously not expecting this developnt, and once I was sure I had a mark on him, I firmly told him, "We are not doing this."
"Patriarch, I… don't understand what you—"
"I said we are not doing this," I repeated with extra emphasis as I began dragging him towards the front door. "We're not in England, I'm sure as hell not King Arthur, and you're absolutely not going to suddenly invest supre executive power in just because of a bloody magical sword!"
The ninja/monk/sage/elder didn't answer, probably because he was too busy trying (and failing) to get up, but in the end he barely managed to avoid falling on his butt while I reached the front. Once there, I did the thing I should've done the mont I first laid my eyes on the man, and I roughly turned him around and pushed him through the threshold before he could voice any objections.
"This discussion is over for today. Goodbye, sir," I growled and closed the door behind . I was about to let out a deep groan, but then I realized that I forgot sothing, so I opened the door again, stuck my head through, and told him, "Oh, right, and don't even try to sneak into my house again without my permission, or I'll be forced to be impolite," and then slamd it shut. There, now that was better.
Still, this developnt was way too quick and troubleso. While having my personal ninja-clan sounded cool in theory, the last thing I needed right now was a group of professional monster-hunters trying to make into their enforcer. I an, no offense, but Mountain Girl was obviously not leader material, so I was pretty sure the whole 'clan head' thing was just so bureaucratic bullcrap I really didn't need at the mont. Also, so far I had contact with three people from the Kage clan (counting the tiny fox-miko), and each one of them was a different flavor of weird and annoying. Trying to imagine a small army of them was already enough to give a migraine. In short, this was promising to be a giant ss, and if I wanted to avoid getting hopelessly entangled in it, I had to act quickly.
Thinking so, I returned to the living room, grabbed hold of the little girl still awkwardly carrying the sword in her hands, said a quick goodbye to my sister, and once I made sure Mr. Baldy was not trying to get back in, I imdiately Phased away and reappeared next to the monster huntress standing near the training area with the words, "Listen up, Mountain Girl; we really need to talk…"
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