Part 4
After that, Harutora and the others went to the arcade center, leisurely passing time, and separating when the sun began to drop.
In the last few days, they had been living this kind of life. Hokuto and Harutora weren't attending the same high school, but once summer vacation came, the three of them got together almost every day.
"Peace is really peaceful......"
"Boredom is also really boring."
Harutora replied to Touji's words as they walked along the shop-lined street towards the tram station during the evening. Since the direction back to Hokuto's home was different, she had separated from them earlier. The two males were together, both giving off the same lazy air.
The shopping street was bustling, and there was a swarm of people everywhere who had come to buy dinner. The smell of cola drifted by from the food stores, stimulating Harutora's hunger.
He noticed that posters announcing the fireworks festival were stuck on the walls of the stores and the utility poles. The fireworks festival was a festival held at the local shrine, and with the fireworks performance, it was highly attended every year.
The festival would be held tomorrow, and of course Harutora and the others, with nothing else to do, had decided to join in the fun together.
"Speaking of festivals, Touji, this is your first time attending."
Touji had moved here this spring, and the two of them had become friends at that time.
"Last year you went with Hokuto, right?"
"Right, I remember we went last year and the year before."
"Is that alright? This year there's gonna be a third wheel like me."
"Hey hey, Hokuto and I are normal friends, you couldn't be thinking that that tomboy and I are going out, right? The way she talks is the same as a guy."
Though she looked cute, she was a person who would throttle other people's necks from behind without thinking about it. The way she talked wasn't like a girl either, but rather the same as a boy, though he could only freely and casually hang out with Hokuto because of this.
After Touji heard Harutora's response, he slightly raised his right eyebrow.
"You two are just normal friends?'
"Right, the very first time we attended the festival, I only said something like 'It really seems like we're on a date'..."
"...She got mad, and denied it?"
"Right, I frantically explained that I was joking, and who knows if she heard it, since she kept making me treat her to things. That time was really unfortunate."
"......Harutora."
"What?"
"The nickname Bakatora is quite apt."
"What!"
Harutora stared at Touji, unconvinced. Touji was too bored to make a reply, but instead the faint trace of a smile passed by his lips.
"But, Hokuto wasn't that annoying at the time, and she wouldn't bring up Onmyouji matters much. It probably started at the beginning of this year? She suddenly started pestering me...... But actually, I don't know what evil ideas she's planning."
Harutora could understand if she wanted to become an Onmyouji herself. But he didn't know what was in her brain, trying to make a person who just happened to be in a notable family become an Onmyouji on the basis of his family's history. Even if she were just having fun, this kind of attitude was way too annoying.
"......She can't accept that you're being looked down upon, huh?"
"No one's looking down on me. To say the truth, she's the one who's looking down on me the most."
"That's true."
"Also, she doesn't get the circumstances, the Tsuchimikado lost their position long ago."
Harutora didn't stop muttering complaints.
A clearly deriding smirk emerged on Touji's face as he listened.
"You can't fault her for that, since after all she's not clear on the inside information. You should just flat-out tell her that the current Tsuchimikado family can't be called notable, and they're actually pushed out of things."
Touji's words were icy, and Harutora couldn't help but display his bitterness.
Hokuto had spoken the truth. The Tsuchimikado family had truly been the legitimate clan through the Heian era, a famous Onmyoudou family.
However, that name had become much harder to say in the onmyoudou community since modern Japan.
The Tsuchimikado family's ancestor Abe no Seimei, of whom countless stories were told, was well known even today. But his children, the Tsuchimikado family, were almost unknown to anyone, and for the most part only people 'in the industry' would react upon hearing that name.
After the Meiji Restoration, the Onmyou Bureau - the organization in charge of the various Onmyouji - was abolished due to the implementation of new policies, and the Tsuchimikado no longer held a famous name in Onmyoudou. The decline of the Tsuchimikado could even be traced further back to the Tokugawa Shogunate, when a large part of the actual Onmyoudou-related power was shifted to the Kurahashi and Wakasugi branch families, and though Tsuchimikado was the main family, it was reduced to an empty shell.
But, when the Meiji era ended, after the Taishou era ended and entered the Showa, Japan was enveloped by the fires of war, and the Tsuchimikado family unexpectedly received attention again.
On the eve of the outbreak of the Pacific War, the higher ups in the Japanese military who believed in religion and supernatural powers planned to utilize magic in the war effort.
This group of people revived the Onmyou Bureau, and appointed the youth who had just become the head of the Tsuchimikado family - Tsuchimikado Yakou - to lead it.
However, things might actually have been just the opposite.
The military revived the strange, ancient Onmyou Bureau, wiped off the dust and reconstructed it, and even invested large sums of money into research and development, all because they had been clearly shown the effects of one man's 'magic'. And that person was Tsuchimikado Yakou. His strength and incomparable magical talent provoked the military's attention.
The young head of the Tsuchimikado family received the military's support with funding and manpower, succeeding in a historic reform of Japanese magic.
Not only did he study magic, moreover, he integrated Esoteric Buddhism, Shugendo, Shinto, and other Japanese religious denominations with magic, and added unique insights, forming a brand-new system of magic. At the same time, this was a completion of the kind of extremely viable and useful magic that the military had requested.
Near the war's end, the completed system of magic was refined and development was further streamlined, becoming the Onmyoudou of modern Japan--
'General Onmyoudou'. In other words, Tsuchimikado Yakou could be said to be the father of modern magic.
Even so, the name Yakou had now become taboo amongst the magic community.
The source of this taboo happened during the final days of Japan's defeat in the Pacific war.
At the time, the military turned to the Onmyou Bureau in their dead end, escaping from reality and gradually losing their sanity. The military pleaded Yakou to hold a large-scale magic ritual to turn the tables - which ultimately ended in failure.
There were no detailed records left behind related to this ritual, but it led to quite devastating aftereffects. Yakou who was performing the ritual was killed, but not only this, as an effect of the ritual, the aura of Tokyo was heavily disrupted, destroying the original balance and leading to a huge spiritual disaster like never before.
It was rumored at the time that the Hyakki Yagyou [3] had strode into the capital overnight.
But, Tokyo was being hit by a United States military raid at the time, and the city was almost paralyzed, so in actuality there was no way to grasp the truth of the situation, and what had actually happened was unclear.
"......But it sounds to me like these were a long time ago...... It was just a big blunder made by your ancestor during the last century."
"Right." Harutora replied quietly in a dry voice.
In any case, the disruption of aura had gradually stabilized to some degree as time passed, but a complete recovery of the disruption still couldn't be seen even after the war was over. The researchers all believed that during Yakou's ritual, some sort of critical change had occurred.
As a result, during the occupation by the United States government, the Onmyou Bureau was assigned to deal with spiritual disasters that continued occurring even after the war - everything was handed over to the Onmyou Bureau to dispose of. After Yakou's death, the half-ruined Onmyou Bureau also separated from the military, focusing on countering Tokyo's spiritual disasters. Ironically, what they used was Yakou's powerful completed Onmyoudou.
Now, the Onmyou Bureau had changed its name to the Onmyou Agency, and supervised all of the various magic-users of the country, but its main duty was to suppress spiritual disasters that broke out in Japan - most of which were in Tokyo.
The traces that Yakou had left behind still bound Japan's magic community, and Onmyoudou history went hand in hand with the Tsuchimikado family's woes. It wouldn't be too much to say that the situation of the modern Japanese magic community had deep roots in the Tsuchimikado family.
"You really were born in a complicated family."
"You don't say."
There were piles of books related to this history, of which not a single part was left in the dark.
But, except people like Touji who involved himself of his own initiative, no one would have the opportunity to come in contact with this knowledge.
"Why don't you go find Hokuto and explain to her what a complex situation the Tsuchimikado family is in right now?'
"But, I'm scared she'll reply to me 'Then it's up to you to wash off your ancestor's stigma!' and get even more excited."
"There's a good chance."
"Speaking of which, does she really not know about these things, seeing as she's so excited to persuade?"
"The great spiritual disaster was mentioned in the textbooks at school, but Yakou's name doesn't appear."
"But she somehow knows that the Tsuchimikado family was famous. That's quite obscure knowledge."
"Talking about it right now is no use, and more importantly she was full of mystery from the start, so it wouldn't be strange whatever the circumstances."
"Yeah......"
Harutora crossed his arms as he walked on the road, becoming vexed.
He and Hokuto had known each other for a long time, but actually the two of them had met each other by chance. The two of them were of a similar age, but he didn't know what high school Hokuto attended, where she lived, or even her last name. In addition, Hokuto always avoided those matters with a laugh.
"Could it be that she's a spy for the Onmyouji?"
"It's a national organization, what 'spies'."
"Then, could it be that she's a member of an underground magic organization?"
"To think you even started thinking about the underground."
Touji's cold gaze glanced over at Harutora who was deep in thought as useless thoughts unfolded before him.
She had finally finished it.
Her taut nerves were released, and the girl exhaled deeply.
She had been staying alone in the personal research lab that she had specially prepared, and a sharp smile of victory emerged on her face. Before her eyes was a square glass case one meter long, placed on a large table, and a black cat impatiently walked back and forth inside the case.
Just one hour before, that black cat had been in a state of death.
This was just an experiment, but she had already fully grasped the procedure, and all that was left was to fulfill all of the requirements.
In other words - she just needed to prepare the altar and the priest.
She reached her hand to the phone in the research lab, dialed an outside line, planning to call for the target with some fabricated reason.
But, the reply from the other side was outside of her expectations.
"Summer vacation?"
Her lips unconsciously thinned. She had lived a life isolated from the world for so long, she hadn't had time to pay attention to her target's schedule.
After hanging up the phone, she turned around to look at a corner of the room. There was a giant container there with a strong magic placed on it, but it wasn't just any container.
It was a coffin.
The coffin's lid was closed tight. A slight trace of emotion flashed through the depths of the girl's eyes.
Just then, a faint sound came from behind her. She turned back around, and the black cat in the glass case had collapsed again.
She had failed. She ground her teeth strongly, driving herself on.
"There's no problem...... I'll definitely succeed."
Just then--
The doors of the research lab were kicked open, and a group of men wearing suits rushed in.
They held guns or gripped talismans.
"Don't move! You're under arrest for suspicion of using forbidden magic!"
The man who was the leader pointed his gun at the girl, showing proof of his identity. They were investigators of magical crimes - known as Mystical Investigators. They must have always been performing secret surveillance on her to have broken in at this time.
The corners of the girl's mouth curved in an arrogant smile.
"......Who do you think you are?"
In that moment, the girl launched the plans that she had been preparing for a long time.
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