Chapter 24 — The Sorcerer And The Fox (5)

The next morning, when Shin Hweein rejoined the party restored to his own self, they were crushed.

“In the end, I never once got to see her face.”
“Ahh, my Tenkohime.”
“Don’t call her Tenkohime.”

Shin Hweein was still rebuffing Makoto with a stern face when Father Lucas, curiosity all over his own, spoke up.

“Brother, then what became of that mask?”
“Here.”

When he drew Ushi-gozen’s mask out from inside his robes, the priest, sharp-eyed as ever, picked out the change at once.

“The color seems to have faded a little. And a crack looks to have spread across it as well.”
“Yes. In absolving the curse, this fellow too spent some of its power.”

That spent power had not vanished outright, though.

When a curse was absolved through the Indulgence, the target’s power was drawn off into Shin Hweein, and this time was no exception.
His spiritual power had grown again, and his body felt lighter besides; the strength in his arms, especially, had improved considerably.
He still held the blade-resonance ability too, so as long as his legs gave him no trouble, he could take up a sword and, by imitation, pass for a decent swordsman.

Only… the gain in my own power doesn’t quite match what has drained out of this mask, I feel.

If anything, this round’s gain in spiritual power seemed to owe almost entirely to a side-effect.
Ushi-gozen’s power had, in rather forcible fashion, improved Shin Hweein’s bodily condition, and several of his weaker curses had come undone along with it, swelling his power as a consequence.
Where, then, the rest of the spiritual power and yokai aura had gone was the question; but he had never set out to wring this sorcerous implement dry of its last drop, and so he had no mind to chase its traces down with grim resolve.

To escape a curse at long last, only to fret over hunting down its lingering trace, was that not, in its own way, to remain in the curse’s grip still?

“That it spent some of its power means, I take it, that its power is not yet exhausted.”
“Yes.”

Shin Hweein nodded readily at the priest’s remark.

“Put this on again, and the same form would return. And once more I would be put to all that trouble for another absolution.”
“Dear me.”

Yet for some reason, even as he said it, Shin Hweein felt certain the time would come again someday.

To put the mask back on was indeed to take on a most dreadful form, but in the end that form was powerful, and would almost surely carry him through whatever crisis loomed before him.
If it could undo a sacrifice nearly come to pass, and all the more if it could prevent another’s, Shin Hweein knew himself well enough to know he would not hesitate.
That was why he kept the mask in his bosom rather than destroy it then and there.

Of course, next time may not be as strong as this, and the mask will weaken further in the absolution, so I won’t get many more uses out of it like this. Even so, that’s enough. More than enough.

He was running his fingers over the mask, reckoning that the next absolution, or the one after at the latest, would surely destroy it for good, when Makoto, who had sidled up beside him and was staring fixedly at it, said something quite preposterous.

“Then if I put it on, can I become Tenkohime…?”
“As if you could.”

Seeing Makoto thus thoroughly snared in the myth’s lingering shadow, Shin Hweein shook his head firmly.

“Tenko… no, Shinhwa was born of the bond between Ushi-gozen and me. Were another to wear it, no such thing would come of it. If you are so very curious, would you care to try it on once?”
“Wh — what?!”

At that, Makoto stared at the mask, racked with inner conflict, and at last shook his head.

“It would be impudence on my part to so much as touch her trace. I will keep her only within my heart. Thank you, grand-master, for giving me a chance to take a step forward from here.”
“…Even the way you give thanks is unpleasant.”

His face souring, Shin Hweein tucked the mask back into his bosom and turned to Yun Jubaek.

“Has the mopping-up of Honwondorae’s remnants all been finished?”
“To be precise, we won’t know until we meet them tomorrow, but the Onmyo Bureau hasn’t been idle either. In clearing out Honwondorae’s strongholds, they seem to have gotten a sense of the cult’s methods. The awakened belonging to Honwondorae who had spread across Gyeongdo, and even beyond it, are being dealt with one by one, they say.”
“And the rank-and-file followers?”
“That’s no go.”

Yun Jubaek cut off the question flatly and shrugged.

“As long as those people don’t actively give off that distinctive aura of theirs, their spiritual power is essentially no different from a layman’s, and there’s no way for us to single them out and arrest them on our own. They’re still doing all they can to coax information out of the followers they’ve already caught, but they keep coming up empty. The bond among them seems pretty thick. I had a look at the doctrine, and it’s a shambles.”
“I see. Then Aeshin has scored yet another merit.”
“What?”

Shin Hweein drew a rounded bronze token from his bosom.

Engraved upon it, of course, was Honwondorae’s distinctive mark: the image of a tightly sealed gate being broken open.

“Bring this near any of their followers, and that follower will, without fail, give off his aura and react. Hand it to the Onmyo Bureau for analysis, and sweeping a wide area all at once should be more than feasible.”
“Oh, oho….”

Sealed within it was no ordinary yokai aura.

It was, of course, the aura of Honwondorae’s overseer.
When Shin Hweein had first found it, it had been on the verge of dispersing of its own accord, and he had hurriedly bound it in place with sorcery.

“Don’t go probing it idly with sorcery.”
“Wow, this is truly absurd. How — where on earth did you get this? The onmyoji combed the inside of the Specter Realm Gate from one end to the other. We were searching too, in our way, but couldn’t turn up a single solid lead.”
“Before they reached it, the foxes found it and brought it to me.”

What the foxes had found and brought him was not only this token, of course, but he had decided to hide the rest away and tell no one.

There was no need for others to know, and knowing would only put them in danger.

“Ah, that’s right! What in heaven’s name was that, anyway? Did you really meet the god Inari?”

That Shin Hweein had become a woman swinging a katana could be chalked up to the misuse of a cursed sorcerous implement, and that much he could be made to accept; but appearing at the head of a host of foxes, the god Inari’s messengers, was an event of an altogether different order.

Only now grasping this fact, Yun Jubaek put the question, and got from Shin Hweein a meaningful smile by way of reply.

“Well, who can say. It may be that in that moment I truly became the god’s messenger.”
“Don’t do that, it’s frightening…. You really do sound like Master Shin, the head of the house.”

He had meant it only as a joke, but the answer that came back only soured Shin Hweein’s mood.

When he drew the token back, Yun Jubaek hurriedly apologized and received it with both hands.

“With just this one thing, I’ll be able to flatten the noses of those Onmyo Bureau fellows who keep crowing nonsense like ‘Tenkohime’s victory is Japan’s victory!’ Thanks, Hweein. You really do carry us from beginning to end, you know that?”
“Has that pointless rivalry between our two countries truly carried on this long?”

Shin Hweein could only shake his head from side to side.

Come to think of it, during yesterday’s battle beyond the Specter Realm Gate, that bristling hostility he’d felt at the first meeting between Aeshin’s sorcerers and Hwa-guk’s onmyoji had scarcely shown itself.

He saw now that this was all because, watching him perform in his Shinhwa-incarnated form, the Onmyo Bureau had taken it as ‘To protect Japan, the god Inari has sent down one of her lower-rank deities.’

Since Tenkohime, that is, Amagitsunehime-no-Mikoto, was a divine spirit of Hwa-guk and had led them, Hwa-guk had in no way been outdone by Aeshin in resolving this incident; on the contrary, it had left behind an even greater feat.
And not only that.
In an age when even hearing a god’s voice had become hard, they had newly gained a divine spirit who had willingly descended for the sake of humankind, and who would in all likelihood appear again. Hwa-guk had reaped an overwhelming gain, this they sincerely believed!

“What a headache….”
“I find it absurd too, but however they choose to take it, in the end the decisive lead was found by us, and thanks to you this token’s been added on top of it, so it’s fine. The only ones who’ll take such talk seriously and really believe Hwa-guk did well are the general public.”
“That’s exactly what’s giving me a headache.”

Just yesterday, in the very restaurant where he’d been having a meal with Geum Moa, the people inside had chanted the name Tenkohime, and how mortifying that had been.

The thought that such a thing might spread nationwide across Hwa-guk made Shin Hweein’s skin crawl.

“By the way, Big Bro, the onmyoji who cooperated with us yesterday were, as I recall, of a fairly young age.”
“They were. Even the oldest among them looked to be only in his early forties.”
“As I understand it, the Onmyo Bureau ranks among the very strongest organizations in Hwa-guk. In which case they must surely have at least two Special-Grade sorcerers.”
“From what I know, the Onmyo Bureau has three Special-Grade sorcerers on its rolls. And one of them, I hear, is quite young. Recently promoted to Special-Grade, they say.”
“Yet yesterday, not one of them was present. No, never mind Special-Grade — even a seasoned First-Rank sorcerer was hard to find among them. The Onmyo Bureau’s strength can’t possibly sit at that level, so why, when they’re so conscious of their rivalry with Aeshin, did they send out a second string?”
“That part’s simple. If they collaborate with Aeshin, the setup inevitably becomes one of rivalry, and if by any chance they were to lose, it’d be too embarrassing.”
“…Hm? Ah.”

Yun Jubaek’s prompt answer drew a reflexive question from Shin Hweein, who understood the very next moment and set his face.

If the so-called first string of the Onmyo Bureau, their high-fliers, had been sent out and then outdone by Aeshin’s sorcerers, no room for excuses would have been left.

That, then, was the reasoning: they had put together a force with a First-Rank leader and promising Second-Rank sorcerers, just enough to keep up appearances, while leaving a second string with room for excuses should Aeshin outshine them.

“When the lives of people — of their own citizens, no less — are at stake, how could they.”
“What of it. It’s not as if the nation’s on the verge of being overthrown, or, at the very least, a nuclear missile has dropped on Gyeongdo. Our own country wouldn’t send out Special-Grade sorcerers for a matter on this scale either. It’s the same everywhere. Everywhere, people think about their face, and fuss pointlessly over the weight of their positions….”

True enough.
Hwa-guk’s people would not have been taking Honwondorae as seriously as Shin Hweein took them, and their position differed from his to begin with.

Even so, watching Shin Hweein nod with an unmistakably displeased look on his face, Yun Jubaek let out a small laugh and added,

“If I add one more thing to that — within the Onmyo Bureau itself, the older men dislike the very idea of moving together with Aeshin’s sorcerers. The seasoned, formidable onmyoji who could properly be called the first string most likely bowed out for that reason.”
“That… I can grant. Our own elders have that streak in them too.”

If those two groups did try to collaborate, a picture of them spitting nothing but unspeakable things at each other and the whole thing falling apart rose easily enough in his mind.

“Now I understand everything. Those we met yesterday were… still on the unjaded side.”
“Same with us. The very fact that we can collaborate with the sorcerers of a neighboring country, even in a form an inch from falling apart, is proof that we’re young and pure.”

Once it was out of his own mouth, the feeling of it was a little strange.
Realizing as much himself, Yun Jubaek wore a faintly embarrassed look, then clapped his hands to draw the party’s attention and said,

“Thanks to Hweein the last worry’s off our plate. Today let’s enjoy ourselves properly. Where do you want to go first?”
“First, I should call on Bishop John and let him know how things turned out, to set his mind at ease. After that, the other cathedrals in Kyoto.”
“My little sister told me to bring back some chocolate-mint nama-yatsuhashi (a Kyoto specialty confection). Ah, and picture postcards, and Toraya yokan, and Uji tea too….”
“….”

Looking around at his party, who to the very end refused to fall in step on anything, Shin Hweein opened his phone, ran a few searches, and said,

“Let’s report at Kawaramachi Cathedral first, and after that just take the school-trip course around the city.”
“Yes, that’s better.”

Yun Jubaek nodded firmly.

He then dragged along Father Lucas and Makoto, who resisted to the very end, and set off to see the sights of Gyeongdo.

— Koong.

— Kyaeng! Kang!

But before they’d gone very far, watching foxes start to fasten themselves onto Shin Hweein one by one wherever he went, he gave up on any peaceful, quiet sightseeing.

“Why on earth are these creatures doing this.”
“They’re probably asking to be fed, I’d say.”
“They won’t take anything from me, though.”
“It seems foxes can be picky about people as well.”

At this rate, I am all but advertising that I am tied to Shinhwa, he thought, and the urge came to give them something just to drive them off; but he was already drawing as much attention as he possibly could, and feeding them now would only leave him at a net loss, surely.

Yes.
He, of the direct line of the Shin House, would not bow to threats.

— Kyaeng!

He would not bow; but the foxes looked hungry and piteous, and so, helplessly, he tossed them a few pieces of the inari-zushi left over from yesterday.

At that, the foxes cried out in thanks and came up to rub their bodies against him.

— One who is following your traces climbed the mountain path yesterday.

The instant his body touched theirs, the god Inari’s voice that he had heard the day before came through to him, and Shin Hweein stiffened.

— Fortunately, at the time, your spiritual power was closer to a yokai’s than to a human’s, so he didn’t find you and seems to have gone back. But you really must be in great demand, mustn’t you? A great yokai hidden in the present world ought to mind every breath he draws and every step he takes — and yet to set foot even into another god’s domain to search you out!

At the god Inari’s teasing voice he could only let out a sigh, and as he did the fox opened its mouth and disgorged a small scroll.

— Yesterday, with the kumiho present, I could not speak of it at any length, but what I told you then I meant in earnest. If the trials of the human world weigh on you and you would rest a while, I will welcome you at any time. This is a gift. It is a record of facts concerning your kumiho, and only those — so when your heart moves you to, open it and read.

Shin Hweein picked up the scroll.

Her work done, Geum Moa, who had revealed her form and was attending him close by, asked what it was; but he gave only a vague answer.

She then, in genuine curiosity, began to curse the god Inari, and from the look of it, gods being gods after all, her whisper had slipped past even Geum Moa.

— Living alongside that kumiho as you are, you no doubt know this well — but do not entrust everything to her alone. In the end, she too is only bound by a contract. There are parts she cannot help you with.

That, I know too.
That is why she is the one having a hard time of it, is she not.

Shin Hweein murmured this quietly, then burned the scroll to ash.

“Now, let us go.”
“Yes, lunch today had better be yubu udon.”
“As I thought — you, too, were a fox after all.”
“I, too, am a yokai, so I’m a little under the influence of the land. Whenever I come to Hwa-guk, somehow I can’t bear it unless I have yubu — fried tofu.”

The sightseeing was rather enjoyable.

But nowhere else in Gyeongdo were any traces of Aeshin to be found, and no gods, like Inari, who had revealed their auras.
In the end Shin Hweein could gain nothing beyond the rather ill-omened news that, as he grew, the number of those seeking him out was on the rise.

Even so, the sightseeing was pleasant, and the meals shared with good company were delicious, and with that he was content.

“Hey, you really can’t crack open that drink either?”
“The aura of demons… but if it’s to understand you, brother….”
“Big Bro and Father may have it, but Guji Makoto lacks the qualifications, so no.”
“Grand-mas-terrrr!”
“A hundred years too early.”

The following day, the party, having dutifully gathered up souvenirs as they made their way through the city, came away from the meeting with the Onmyo Bureau with gains enough to show for it, and returned home.

Leaving behind only Makoto, whom the Onmyo Bureau had detained with what they called a serious proposal.