Chapter 24 — The Sorcerer And The Fox (4)

The onmyoji had hurried into the Specter Realm Gate lest Korea claim even a sliver more of the credit, and what rose before their eyes was a goddess of death.

“O — oh, oh.”
“It’s the wrath of a god come down upon us…!”
“Beautiful. So very beautiful.”

Robed in an aura that could be called nothing but death, fused with her blade as she drove Jocheonhu back, she struck the onmyoji with instinctive terror and awe and, at the very same time, left them fatally entranced.

That she wielded a katana while wearing an oni-mask, the very symbol of Japan, had surely worked its absolute influence. But that was not the whole of it. She also handled a mystical, dreadful power that no human body could possibly muster, and that did its part as well.

Naturally, a Special-Grade sorcerer, had one been present, would have seen through it at a glance and known she was not actually so very strong. But none was. The head of their company was a First-Rank onmyoji, of about the same caliber as Yun Jubaek, leader of the Korean sorcerer party, or perhaps a shade above.

“That’s no human. That is a god.”
“Now that you mention it, is there not, here on Mount Inari, the Mitsurugi-sha, where they enshrine the Tsurugi-ishi (the sword-stone)? They say that Sanjo Munechika, with the help of the god Inari, forged the famed sword Kogitsune-maru!”
“Oh, of course, of course! Though the blade looks a touch longer than the legends report.”
“There’s no mistaking it. She is the sword-spirit of Kogitsune-maru, come at the god Inari’s bidding!”
“So that is where Kogitsune-maru had gone, taking the breath of a god and being reborn as a lower deity!”

Having quite unilaterally cast her as the incarnation of the famed sword, the onmyoji at last nodded in satisfaction.

It was, in truth, an act of monumental impertinence. Yet, absurdly enough, it even helped her: once her identity as a god had been established this way, the faint faith that until now had been pouring out of them with nowhere to settle began to gather to her instead, growing her power, if only by a little.

Of course, none of it would have been possible had she been an ordinary human. It was made possible because the foundations of the form were Ushi-gozen’s mask, which had belonged to a great yokai, and a blade forged from the horn of a Gyuki, and because Shin Hweein had separated her identity from his own.

“What galls me, though, is that at so historic a moment, the god is coordinating her breath with sorcerers from Korea.”
“No, no. There’s a foreign Father here too, and a shrine custodian of our own Japan.”
“That fellow… my understanding is that even at the Jinja Honcho he wasn’t well thought of.”
“Well, can’t be helped. He’s a son of Yamato¹ all the same, and he’s cooperating with the sword-spirit of Kogitsune-maru. There must be something about him that caught her eye, surely, or she wouldn’t be working with him?”
“We ought to get in touch with the Jinja Honcho. I hear he runs an impoverished little shrine. Wouldn’t it be a fine thing to bring it under our jurisdiction proper and treat him well? Then the sword-spirit of Kogitsune-maru, too, would look upon us favorably.”
“That’s a fine idea.”

In this age, when meeting a god directly had become an impossibility, a divine being had descended to the side of humankind for the first time in a very long while, right before their eyes. The onmyoji had forgotten even why they were here, and they were beside themselves with eagerness to draw nearer to her. But the situation did not allow that much leisure.

She and the sorcerer who had come over from Korea, the Father, and the shrine custodian who had accompanied them, the four of them, just barely holding their breath in concert, were driving Jocheonhu back, and if someone here cut in carelessly they might well disrupt that rhythm.

“Let us, too, fight the yokai. The god Inari has gone so far as to send us the sword-spirit of the famed blade. Shall we just stand and watch?”
“Yes — to battle!”

Their hearts thus set, the onmyoji at last began to fight.

The quicker-witted among them moved to search out the traces Honwondorae had left behind, but the foxes had moved one step ahead and pre-empted them, and there was not much left to be gleaned.

The numbers of cult followers rounded up within Kyoto alone had already been beyond imagining. They had hoped that beyond the Specter Realm Gate, too, no small number of combatants, perhaps even captured initiates, might be found. But that turned out to be mere wishful thinking.

The members at the organization’s core had already fled and were gone. Those they had earlier fought were about the level of leadership left among the remaining forces. And all those who had not been able to follow the ones who left Kyoto, every last one of them, had become part of the host of gangsi that Jocheonhu commanded.

“What an outrage against heaven and earth.”
“And the proportion of tourists among them is high, too. An international incident is going to be hard to avoid.”
“Hyakki Yakou breaks out in any country, so what’s the problem? What, pray, has Japan done wrong? Perhaps we, too, should just pretend we know nothing…”
“Hotenshi-no-Kami!”

Some of the onmyoji, while the work was not even finished, had already begun to worry about the uproar that would arise once this incident was made public, and to think about how to cover it up.

At the shrine custodian’s thunderous shout, a vast pillar of light bridging heaven and earth appeared and trapped Jocheonhu within it.

— Kraaaaaaaaaaaagh!

“Hk, hk—!”

“That flighty little shrine custodian. Was he really that strong?”

It was a great sorcery the like of which even a First-Rank sorcerer could not easily produce. Even Jocheonhu could not readily extricate himself from it, and he let out a scream. And just as the onmyoji, beholding it, were on the verge of being overwhelmed.

“I’m going in too!”

— Kwh-hah…!

The Korean sorcerer Yun Jubaek did not let the chance slip and unleashed a powerful piece of sorcery, and one of the Hu’s hind legs was annihilated.

Now that two of its four limbs were lost, the eerie momentum Jocheonhu had first displayed sank, hollowly, to the floor.

— Do you think the likes of you could stop even a fragment of His will?! This world shall be returned to the form it ought rightly to have taken. The sealed gods will be set loose, and the world of men shall fall to its end!

“Even were that so, in the new world there will be no place for you.”

When the sword-spirit, voice grim and cold, declared this and lifted her blade high overhead, the sky above began to thicken with dense black clouds.

Realizing that the situation was no ordinary one, Jocheonhu tried to flee, but the shrine custodian and the sorcerer, and beyond them the Father’s prayers as well, bound him and held him pinned to the floor.

— Kwa-rr-r-rng!

A bolt of lightning struck down upon the blade in the sword-spirit’s grip.

As though the heavens themselves were following her will, the lightning struck unerringly upon the katana, lingering on her blade alone and swelling its aura to monstrous size.

It was the death-sentence handed down by a god.
There would be no path of escape for anyone from it.

— You — could it be —

“Die.”

The blade, brimming with lightning and death, cut the Hu’s head clean off.

Something had been condensing inside that throat, and now, as though responding to the lightning-aura still on her blade, it shone with a light and came flying out. Together with the Hu’s head, the sword-spirit snatched it up, examined it, and quietly tucked it into her bosom.

“There won’t be anything more worth salvaging. Arong, eat to your heart’s content!”

At her voice, stern as a sentence, a beast that had been cutting across the battlefield came tearing in, pounced at once upon what remained of the Hu’s corpse, and devoured it.

The sight was grisly and dreadful indeed, and yet, as a fitting end for a monster that had committed such ghastly evil karma, it was also, somehow, gratifying.

“A tenko.”
“Indeed. A fox that moves by the will of a god and handles the power of the heavens… a tenko, surely.”
“‘Kogitsune-maru,’ though, that’s a bit awkward as a title for a lady, is it not? Amagitsunehime-no-Mikoto. What do you think?”
“Rather modern, but not bad. For young folk these days to grasp it, simple is best.”
“And in casual address, we call her Tenkohime.”
“Perfect.”
“Adorable.”

The onmyoji had now arbitrarily settled not only her divine pedigree and rank but her formal title and even her pet-name, and they were clapping their hands in self-satisfaction.

And meanwhile Tenkohime, Shinhwa, having achieved her purpose, simply vanished from sight.

“Pft.”
“Don’t laugh.”
“Pf-hhh —”

Shin Hweein said it through gritted teeth, but Yun Jubaek finally lost the battle and burst into great rolling guffaws.

Departing that place for the moment and rejoining the rest of the party had been all very well, but until just now Shin Hweein had not noticed the change that had come over him.

“Why, in heaven’s name, have I sprouted animal ears…!”
“Puh-hahahaha!”
“Pft, pfhh.”

Each time Shin Hweein ground his teeth, the triangular ears that had sprouted atop his head pricked up and then folded down, until even gentle Father Lucas could no longer stifle his laughter, never mind Yun Jubaek.

— On Mount Inari there’s a legend that a swordsmith, with the god Inari’s aid, forged the famed blade Kogitsune-maru, and a small shrine that commemorates it. The onmyoji must surely have taken their idea from that and unilaterally decided young master was Kogitsune-maru’s incarnation. And as it happens kitsune means fox, convenient for marking your individuality, isn’t it?
— Whether they decide it of their own accord or not, what I am asking is why beast’s ears are sprouting atop my head!
— You showed divine wonders in so sacred a place, before so very many people, and people of strong spiritual power, no less. Did you think you would go untouched? Surely their faith took form as power and has gifted young master with new ears.

To stress it once again, it was a thing that could not happen to a human being.

It was made possible only because Shin Hweein, transformed under the influence of a yokai, was acting as an entity independent of his original self.

And now that, under the name Shinhwa, he had been elevated, lower-rank or not, to one corner of the pantheon, and had even acquired a fancy little nickname, it was truly an occasion for celebration.

— I’ve had enough. I’ve had quite enough of all of it.
— I love it. Young master is just too adorable.
— You above all, Moa, I have had quite enough of.

“So… so, grand-master? Truly?”

Meanwhile Makoto, who still could not accept reality, watched him chat companionably with the rest of the party and wore an expression of utter dumbstruck dazedness.

And even so, every time the ears atop Shin Hweein’s head twitched, his gaze chased them this way and that, proof beyond doubt that he had still not crawled out from under Shinhwa’s bewitching spell.

“…It will all subside in a little while, so do not ‘worry’ overmuch.”

Guessing at his confused state of mind, Shin Hweein deliberately stressed the word ‘worry,’ but Makoto did not even register the consideration and only despaired.

“Damn it — she was completely my type—!”
“That’s most distasteful. To dare to think such things about someone whose face you have never even seen.”
“On that note, then, grand-master, couldn’t you just show me your face, just once—”

Shin Hweein, without mercy, kicked Makoto in the face.

Had the Hotenshi-no-Kami’s power not strengthened his durability along with everything else, it might well have been a blow that left him grievously injured.

Yun Jubaek watched Makoto rolling on the floor with an expression that said pathetic, yet the words that came out of his own mouth were not so very different.

“Honestly, even I’m a bit curious about the face. Just keep the face you had as a man and you’d already be a peerless beauty.”
“Big Bro, shall I kick you?”
“How much do I have to pay for that?”

It galled him not to be able to show directly the disgust on his face, but to do that he would have had to take the mask off, so he ground it out and held it in.

“As I said earlier, it will subside soon. Until then, don’t even think about coming near me.”
“What a stingy fellow you are.”
“There are things a man cannot yield on.”

Pointlessly checking that his mask was still in place, Shin Hweein let out a sigh and spoke.

“And so, how did the talks with the onmyoji go?”
“Whether thanks to your appearance or not, the atmosphere softened considerably. They were really quite cooperative. As for how this is going to be announced to the various countries, we’ve agreed to meet someone higher up on the evening of the day after tomorrow to settle that.”
“The day after tomorrow evening? It’s still early enough in the day that business hours are open. Does it take that long to make up their minds?”
“Hwa-guk is slow on this sort of thing as a rule. Or it may be that Aeshin alone is unusually fast.”

When Yun Jubaek went on to say that, if they had not been so actively engaged on this matter and had let things drag, it would hardly have been strange for the actual operation to hunt down Honwondorae’s traces to end up taking place a full week from now, Shin Hweein shook his head from side to side.

“Then tomorrow and the day after, we shall be at our leisure.”
“Since we’re in Gyeongdo anyway, let’s enjoy ourselves a bit. There are plenty of sights to see.”
“If I can return to my original body, I’ll do that.”

Now that he had met the god Inari today at Fushimi Inari, his curiosity had been piqued about whatever other traces of Aeshin remained here in Gyeongdo.

Beyond that, seeking out the famed shrines of Gyeongdo and tracing the auras of the gods still lingering there would be good as well.

In any case they were all tourist sites, and he could pursue them in parallel with the party’s leisure-time well enough.

“Then, once the curse subsides, I’ll return. The three of you, go have supper together.”
“You won’t eat with us?”
“Are you teasing me?”

Tapping his own mask, Shin Hweein turned to leave, and as if she had been waiting for just that moment, Geum Moa stepped forth and slipped her arm through his.

“Then tonight, you and I, on a date—”
“My anger has yet to subside.”
“Yo-oung master——!”

Yun Jubaek, who had been staring vacantly at the backs of the two of them as they walked off arm-in-arm, shouted after them.

“Today, too, it’s thanks to you, Hweein, that we made it through! Well done, and thank you!”
“That thanks I shall accept on behalf of Shinhwa, not Shin Hweein.”
“Shinhwa… ah, that’s a fine name, too.”
“…Brother, do please come back to your senses a little.”

Whether Ushi-gozen’s curse was heavy, or the cost demanded for the Indulgence’s use was rising, or whether, because he had subjugated the Hu alongside companions, the karma gained from finishing it off had been dispersed, by the time of his next Indulgence-activation he was just a touch short of the requisite karma.

And yet, astonishingly, that karma was replenished by the time Geum Moa, after wheedling and wheedling, had finally managed to bring him to a private room in a washoku restaurant for an intimate supper.

All he did was sit there receiving fish flesh that Geum Moa deboned, piece by piece, and fed to him, while he sipped sake. And yet, suddenly, the Indulgence began flashing with a fearsome intensity.

And together with it, the cheers of the people outside the private room reached even his ears within.

Sensing somehow an ill omen, Shin Hweein pricked up his ears and eavesdropped on the voices outside.

— The Onmyo Bureau has identified this individual as Amagitsunehime-no-Mikoto. The incarnation of the famed sword Kogitsune-maru, how splendid! The god Inari, loving our people of Yamato, has personally sent down a messenger to us!
— That is to say, Amagitsunehime, or, simply, Tenkohime!
— Adorable!

“Adorable!”

Geum Moa, having likewise eavesdropped on the news, chuckled and said the same.

After shooting her a fierce glare, Shin Hweein at once took up the Indulgence and threw himself into the work of absolution.

— Pa-jik. From somewhere there seemed to come an ill-omened crackling sound.