Tokyo Ravens - Volume 1 - Chapter 3.2

Part 2 

The firework festival had been the day before, and the sky was gray and hazy, completely lacking the beautiful weather from yesterday. 
A typhoon seemed to be gradually approaching, and its effects were expected to be the greatest from the evening until daybreak. Thick clouds filled with moisture were right around the corner, and the wind was picking up, mercilessly blowing around the hair of pedestrians. 
At eleven in the morning, before lunchtime, in an empty fast food store... 
Harutora and Touji sat by the second-floor window. 
Summer remedial classes were still held as usual on this kind of day, but today they had been released from school very early. They sat on the cheap chairs, looking at each other across the table with a heavy atmosphere that didn't lose to the weather. 
"So--" 
Touji fingered his bandanna, staring at Harutora. 
"You haven't reached Hokuto after that?" 
"......Right, I sent her a text message but didn't get a response, and she didn't pick up the phone." 
"But you confirmed that she was completely okay." 
"......At the least, she was like that when I saw her last." 
Harutora replied, his gaze beginning to move away from Touji. 
Touji raised his head, looking as if everything had been wrapped up. 
"Then that's alright." 
He said that, and then reached his hand out to the iced coffee on the table. 
"That was really a stormy night, and the typhoon hadn't even arrived yet." 
"............" 
Harutora lowered his head with nothing to say. 
Indeed, last night had been an appalling night. Even if Harutora believed that his luck was definitely worse than others, last night could be called the worst night of his life. 
First he had fought with Hokuto, and then been mistaken for someone else, threatened by a Divine General, and even involved in a magic battle, and finally had a nightmarish - and his life's first - kiss, and had been happened upon by Hokuto, who confessed to him while sobbing. He really wanted to yell 'what did I do wrong?' 
...Hokuto...... 
Hokuto's sobs still resounded in Harutora's ears. 
He didn't know much about love. Actually, even after a night, he still didn't know how to look at Hokuto's confession. 
Harutora obviously liked Hokuto, but those feelings were different from love. Hokuto's manner of speaking was like a boy's and Harutora had naturally come to think of her as a male friend. 
...No, it seems like it's a bit different. 
Thinking back on it now, he hadn't seriously thought about whether the 'like' he had towards Hokuto was love or not. Whether intentionally or not, he hadn't tried unraveling the truth because he had been satisfied with his situation. 
At the least, things had been that way until yesterday. 
...What about now? 
He asked himself, but he had no way of easily getting the answer. Unfortunately, his brain wasn't very good, and the more he thought about himself and Hokuto, the more he felt like his brain was a big mess, and the answer gradually became hazy. 
All he knew was that he didn't want to lose Hokuto. 
Because of the scene from yesterday night, the relationship between the two of them might change in the future. Regardless of what change happened, he wanted Hokuto to still be with him. 
That mood was completely genuine. 
...Yeah. 
Harutora raised his head, shifting his thoughts to something else. 
He hadn't spoken about the kiss or Hokuto's confession to Touji, just brushing over it, and telling Touji that Hokuto arrived, which led to his identity being exposed, and Suzuka released him because of it, and then he and Hokuto had fought, and the two of them had split unhappily. 
The whole thing had some unreasonable portions, and Touji seemed to be vaguely aware of some novelties. Harutora felt incredibly grateful at the fact that his friend hadn't asked any detailed questions. 
"......Never mind Hokuto for now. You haven't reached that childhood friend of yours either?" 
"I sent her a text message. She's the same, she didn't reply or pick up the phone." 
"That arrogant devil won't let you go easily, and she doesn't seem like she'll be arrested." 
"Yeah, I thought so too." 
Natsume should have heard about this matter. The news hadn't brought up Suzuka's existence at all, but he had already told her via text message about the warning Suzuka had left behind, but he still wanted to meet with her and explain clearly in person. 
Harutora had reunited with Natsume the evening before, but the two of them had disagreed, argued, and because of this, she might not have opened her phone to look at his text messages even though he had sent many of them. 
"She shouldn't have returned yet, so I'll go to the main family's place to check later." 
Unfortunately, Harutora's parents were away for business, and they were currently in Tokyo, so he couldn't communicate with the main family because of this - no one had answered the main family's phone - and there wasn't anyone else he could ask for help from. With that, he felt even more that he had to warn Natsume to be vigilant as soon as possible. 
"It's better if you went, since, after all, that little devil feels like an unscrupulous individual." 
"Unscrupulous, huh......" 
Harutora murmured quietly upon hearing Touji's words. Touji looked curiously at Harutora, like he had noticed the sliver of doubt hidden in his voice. 
"What is it?" 
"Uh...... well......" 
With Touji's questioning gaze and the chaotic state of Harutora's thinking, it would be best for him to bring his internal thoughts to light. 
"That person - Dairenji Suzuka - when she was dealing with the Mystical Investigators, she had a big advantage, but she suddenly ran away, right? That was actually to keep a pair of kids who hadn't escaped in time from getting involved in the chaos." 
-- '......I want to revive my brother.' 
The words Suzuka had spoken last night flashed through Harutora's mind. Maybe she had seen her past self back then in the pair of young siblings who almost got involved. 
"She told me she wanted to revive her brother. I didn't believe it was possible, but she wanted to use Natsume to try." 
"......Judging by the current situation, that's accurate." 
"But......" 
"What? Say it, if you have something to say." 
Harutora honestly brought up the doubts in his heart. 
Of course, he believed that he had to do whatever he could to stop Natsume from getting involved regardless of whether he owed Natsume or not, and he would obviously make every effort once she was in danger - even if it was no use at all - to stop Dairenji's attempt. 
It was just that Harutora's eyes had seen the Suzuka that everyone else had, and had also seen her escape from the fight to help the children, as well as her vague unease as she expressed that she wanted to revive her brother. He didn't know what crimes had led the Mystical Investigators to hunt for her, but he believed that the goal she wanted to achieve - reviving her brother - shouldn't be condemned. 
Touji listened, and didn't immediately reply to Harutora's question. 
"......Honestly, I also did some investigation afterwards." 
He leaned back in his chair, speaking leisurely: 
"First, just like 'General', the 'Imperial Onmyoudou' that brat brought up is often termed 'Imperial'. This 'Imperial' is an ancient magic system that is no longer formally taught. That person also said, though it's ancient, it was used mainly for military purposes, and the majority of it is powerful-strength magic for actual wars. There are quite a few magics among it that are designated as forbidden magics, but some still survived to today." 
"Is soul magic included in that?" 

"No, that's another matter." 
A cold smile flashed across Touji's face, and Harutora tilted his head in incomprehension. 
"Is soul magic really that powerful? Isn't interaction with ghosts very much something that an Onmyouji would do?" 
"That's a situation from folk tales and legends. At the least, in current magic there are no magics relating to souls. A basic pillar of 'General' is that we 'don't know' whether souls exist." 
Touji's explanation surprised Harutora. 
"Is that so? But aren't there things like aura and spiritual disasters?" 
"Right, and that portion is the so-called gray area. The 'spirits' that 'General' concerns itself with doesn't mean 'spirits' like souls, but the 'flow' that composes everything - or perhaps which everything contains. The 'aura' and 'miasma' we always talk about are that kind of 'flow'. The so-called 'spiritual disasters' are actually disasters brought about by a chaotic 'flow'." 
The foundation of Onmyoudou was the 'Onmyoudou five elements', and this doctrine prewar and postwar - the past and current Onmyoudou - interpreted things differently, with large disparities, but it still formed the foundation of Onmyoudou. 
"The world is composed of Yin and Yang, and they are further divided into the five flows of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water - I think it would be clearer if you asked your childhood friend about these matters." 
Saying that, Touji shrugged his shoulders. 
"As for souls, of course humans are included in the things formed by 'flow', and so 'General' recognizes that human bodies possess spirit - they are 'flow'-possessing bodies. What's mixed is that there are also people who call these souls, and among them there are people who talk about residual spirits - it's already been confirmed that for some time after a person dies, the soul continues lingering in the human world, and that kind of thing is actually very much like a ghost." 
Touji drank his iced tea, explaining in a torrent. He had originally particularly understood Onmyoudou and the magic community because of what had happened to his own self, and it seemed that he had also put quite some effort into investigating this time. 
"Though 'General' proposes definitions for spirits and residual spirits, it's a different matter once it touches upon 'human souls'. In the end, they don't resolve the question 'what are souls', so it’s impossible to derive magic affecting souls when we 'don't know what souls are'." 
"But, Dairenji Suzuka spoke of soul magic--" 
"So I'm saying, that's not 'General', that's a magic belonging to 'Imperial'. I investigated this portion especially thoroughly, but unfortunately I didn't get a conclusive result even from the inside." 
"W, Why?" 
"Maybe many scholars believe soul magic exists within 'Imperial', but there are no records left behind to prove it. Not only that, but current Onmyoudou bans carrying out magical research related to souls." 
"Bans?" 
"Right, and it's not ethics-based, there are more practical considerations." 
Saying this, a sharp grin emerged on Touji's face. 
That kind of happy, cold smile was a smile that Touji showed when he was feeling excited. Harutora had a bad premonition. 
"......What do you mean by 'practical'?" 
"Harutora, you know about the final ceremony Tsuchimikado Yakou performed, right?" 
"Huh? I, I know, it was in the textbooks, because the Tsuchimikado family was crowded out, the failure of the ceremony led to spiritual disasters appearing in Tokyo--" 
Harutora stopped speaking, noticing the hidden meaning in Touji's words. 
Touji looked at Harutora, nodding his head with a cold grin. 
"Outsiders seem to believe the ceremony was like that." 
Harutora was speechless. 
There actually wasn't any related data left behind regarding Yakou's final ceremony. If it was a magic related to souls, he could understand why research into it was banned, and could also understand why Suzuka was being hunted by the Mystical Investigators, since it would be natural for that to happen. The spiritual disasters that repeatedly happened in Tokyo were a calamity brought about by the ceremony Yakou held. 
"......And many Onmyouji believe that Yakou didn't fail." 
"W, Why? Didn't Yakou lose his life because of that ceremony?" 
"The Onmyouji who believe Yakou succeeded in his ceremony advocate that 'The prodigy Onmyouji Tsuchimikado Yakou held the final large-scale magic of his career, letting his soul reincarnate'." 
"What?" 
Harutora gasped. 
--Yakou had reincarnated? 
This was the first time he had heard about it. As active Onmyouji - Though branch family members, they were still Tsuchimikado - his parents hadn't even spoken of that matter with him, which he found a bit hard to believe. 
The true shock was still ahead of him. 
Touji looked at the stunned Harutora, composing himself suddenly. 
A sharp light shone from his thin eyes. 
"Your power of observation is still bad - Harutora, think carefully about that brat's words." 
His tone was low and solemn. Harutora's heartbeat quickened. 
The words Suzuka had spoken. 
She had said...... 
...'There's only one reason I chose you, and it's because of your 'previous life'.' 
...'It seems like the outside sources were right, you don't seem to have memories of your previous life. Or perhaps, the rumor was fake after all...... But I'll still give it a try, since, after all, you are the successful user of this magic - the 'Taizan Fukun Ritual'.' 
"Ah......" 
Harutora shuddered, his eyes widening. 
Touji stared at Harutora, slowly saying: 
"......Your dad probably didn't tell you on purpose. This is quite a famous rumor in the industry. It's said that Tsuchimikado Yakou's reincarnation did not happen at the time when there was a strong feeling of failure from the war, but would come when the Onmyoudou he created was prominent - he would reincarnate into the Tsuchimikado child that would succeed his bloodline. Of course, that kind of thing doesn't have a speck of proof, it's just hearsay." 
"Ah......" 
Harutora felt blinded, gritting his teeth together. 
Natsume was...... Yakou's reincarnation? 
He felt that this wasn't real but couldn't feel confident in that denial. 
Natsume was indeed gifted, and thinking carefully, it had indeed been decided too early that she would be the next heir. Right now, she obviously wasn't at Yakou's level of Onmyoudou power...... Then was the current Natsume slightly inferior compared to the sixteen-year-old Yakou? 
Harutora had heard much news regarding Natsume, but in the end Harutora didn't actually know anything specific about her talent. 
Most importantly, Suzuka believed in this rumor. Suzuka, one of the Twelve Divine Generals, a researcher of Yakou, and the one recovering soul magic had judged - Natsume was Yakou's reincarnation. 
Could her judgment be wrong? 
Harutora couldn't say. Touji was silent and wordless, sipping iced coffee through a straw. A heavy silence pervaded the space between the two. 
Just then, Harutora's phone rang. 
It was a text message. He reflexively checked the sender. 
"Is it Hokuto?" Touji asked keenly. 
"No......" 
It was a message from Natsume. He hadn't been able to come in contact with Natsume since yesterday night, and when this text message came, it seemed as if she was watching from next to them. 
Harutora's fingers pressed the buttons, opening the message. The message's contents were very brief. 
'I have something to talk to you about, are you free tonight?' 
The first drops of rain before the typhoon lightly splashed against the second-floor window.