Chapter 134: Inside Story
As the sun set, Kyoto's gray sky slowly darkened.
The entire city was still shrouded in Yin energy. Before long, even that dim gray faded, plunging the ancient capital into a deadly darkness.
The peak of bloodshed was approaching.
Yokai emerged more openly than before.
From houses, basements, office buildings, and alleyways, they crawled out, drawn by the uniquely sweet scent of human blood. One after another, they began hunting the surviving residents as prey.
Fear.
Screams.
Collapse.
Death.
These things repeated endlessly throughout the city, spreading from street to street like a plague.
Those hiding in corners, storerooms, bathrooms, and underground spaces silently prayed for the protection of gods who had long since ceased to answer. At the same time, regret gnawed through their hearts.
They regretted their recklessness.
They regretted their greed.
They regretted believing they could outlast disaster simply by refusing to leave.
Unfortunately, time could not be turned back.
There was no medicine in the world for regret.
Every person had to taste the consequences of the decisions they had made.
Yet within this vast Kyoto swallowed by darkness, the courtyard complex of the Keikain Clan remained brightly lit.
It stood like the only beacon beneath the blackened sky.
Above it, a Strategic Barrier had been activated, powerful enough to withstand even the invasion of a Great Yokai.
Inside the courtyard, chaos had taken on another form.
"Hurry! We need disinfectant and gauze here!"
"We're running low on pills. Someone go to the warehouse and bring another batch. The authorities prepared a large amount of medicine in advance for exactly this kind of situation."
"Good. The bleeding has stopped here. Move him away on the stretcher."
"Over here!"
"Someone help!"
Footsteps, urgent voices, and pained groans filled the air without pause.
The scene was shocking.
Corridors, rooms, and even reception halls had been cleared and covered with simple tatami mats. Wounded people lay everywhere, their injuries varying in severity.
Those with the worst injuries, such as Otomo Jin, had been arranged in rooms and living halls.
Those with lighter wounds could only lie in the outer corridors.
There was no other choice.
There were simply too many wounded.
And they were not only Onmyoji.
More importantly, there were ordinary people who had risked their lives to reach the Keikain Clan for help.
Anyone who could cross streets crawling with Yokai and make it here alive was already fortunate. Aside from a very small number of people blessed by luck, almost all of them carried injuries of varying severity.
For some, losing an arm or a leg could even be considered light.
The duty of an Onmyoji was to subdue Yokai and protect ordinary people.
Naturally, the Keikain Clan could not turn them away.
Fortunately, the authorities seemed to have anticipated this possibility. Before the situation reached its worst point, they had sent doctors, nurses, and a large amount of medicine to the Keikain residence.
Otherwise, the scene before them would not merely have been filled with groans of pain.
It would have been filled with death.
Inside the Keikain Clan's conference hall, the high-ranking members of Onmyōdō who were not too severely injured had gathered.
Tsuchimikado Arima.
Kurahashi Genji.
Tsuchimikado Yasuzumi.
Keikain Hidemoto.
The Thirteenth Generation Keikain Hidemoto.
Amami Daizen.
And others with the authority to make decisions regarding this supernatural incident.
Yet the one sitting in the main seat was not any of them.
It was the deity who had suddenly appeared at Kinkaku-ji.
The woman who called herself Imperial Princess Shōshi.
Shōko.
Imperial Princess Shōshi was recorded in history as the granddaughter of Emperor Daigo, a famed talented woman of the Heian Period, skilled in waka poetry and the seven-stringed koto.
She was also the final Saio of the Ise Saigū.
Those familiar with history knew that the long-standing Saio system had come to an end because of her existence.
When everyone first learned that she was a deity, they already understood she must be an ancient existence from a thousand years ago.
But none of them had expected her identity to be so distinguished.
The last Saio of the Ise Saigū.
And since she referred to herself as Shōko Saio, it was clear that the Ise Saigū had not disappeared into the river of history after all.
It had very likely survived in secret.
Thinking about it now, the successive High Priestesses of Ise Grand Shrine had always possessed remarkable divine power.
Clearly, the source of that divine power was Shōko Saio herself.
At the same time, one past doubt was also resolved.
Imperial Princess Shōshi was connected not only to Emperor Daigo, but also to Emperor Suzaku. Emperor Suzaku's reign had been short, and in history he appeared almost like a puppet. He flashed briefly across the historical record before his younger brother, Emperor Murakami, seized the throne.
Connecting that history with Shōko Saio's earlier words, the imperial lineage that had been slaughtered by that person was clearly Emperor Suzaku's line.
Some things aligned perfectly.
According to historical records, all of Emperor Suzaku's children seemed to have died suddenly in the same year.
Including Emperor Suzaku himself.
Looking at that piece of history from the perspective of the present, it was full of suspicious points.
If Emperor Suzaku had truly been only a puppet, why would that person have targeted his lineage for massacre?
Useless people were not remembered by others.
Let alone a puppet without the ability to act on his own.
There had to be a hidden story unknown to outsiders.
But now was not the time to explore the truth of history.
The most urgent matter was to clarify Shōko Saio's purpose.
Shōko seemed to see the worries and guesses of the Onmyōdō leaders before her.
She spoke bluntly.
"You need not worry."
Her voice was cold and calm.
"My purpose in coming here is the same as yours."
She looked at them.
"To make that fake disappear completely."
"Fake?"
Tsuchimikado Arima, Kurahashi Genji, and the others were puzzled by that word.
Who was the fake?
Who was she talking about?
Only the Thirteenth Generation Keikain Hidemoto showed a thoughtful expression. He seemed to have grasped something important and immediately asked, "Imperial Princess Shōshi, by 'fake,' are you referring to what Hagoromo Gitsune is about to give birth to?"
"Give birth?"
Tsuchimikado Yasuzumi, Kurahashi Genji, and the others were shocked.
"Hagoromo Gitsune is trying to obtain the source of Yin energy in order to give birth?"
This was the first time many of them had heard of such a thing.
"I did not deliberately hide it from you," the Thirteenth Generation Hidemoto said apologetically. "Before this, I only had some vague guesses. I did not dare confirm anything."
His expression grew grave.
"In my speculation, the thing Hagoromo Gitsune intends to give birth to is the object long pursued by the Great Yokai. Their long-cherished wish."
He paused slightly.
"That naturally made me think of certain legends regarding that person."
His eyes lowered.
"But it seems there was a deviation from the very beginning."
"Your speculation is not entirely wrong," Shōko said.
Everyone's attention returned to her.
"You may regard what Hagoromo Gitsune is about to give birth to as a derivative of that man."
Her voice remained steady.
"A derivative of Abe no Seimei."
"A derivative of that person?"
The sudden revelation left everyone in the conference hall stunned.
They could not understand how the thing Hagoromo Gitsune was about to give birth to could be related to him.
Shōko lowered her gaze slightly.
"This matter can be regarded as a sin created by me and a certain woman."
Then, under the eyes of everyone present, she began to recount the cause and effect.
"In the late Heian Period, that woman and I collected the residue of his soul."
The conference hall fell silent.
"We used secret arts to fuse those remnants together, intending to return them to the host body."
Her voice was quiet, but every word carried the weight of a thousand years.
"We wanted to use that method to achieve a different kind of rebirth."
She paused.
"In the end, it succeeded."
Then her tone changed.
"And it failed."
Shōko sighed softly.
"Those soul residues had already been tainted by the darkness of that great war. They became the embodiment of his dark side."
The light in her eyes turned distant.
"During the late Heian Period, as the supernatural gradually began to fade, that thing attempted to dominate both humans and the Yokai who had already retreated into seclusion."
"Under the name Nue."
"It set off bloodbaths neither of us had expected."
Her fingers tightened slightly within her sleeves.
"And in order to escape the control of me and that woman, it began reincarnating."
The room became even quieter.
"Now that he has truly returned and been reborn, that fake is naturally no longer necessary."
Tsuchimikado Yasuzumi, Tsuchimikado Arima, Keikain Hidemoto, Kurahashi Genji, and the others exchanged glances.
None of them had expected the hidden story behind Hagoromo Gitsune and Nue to be this complicated.
A failed resurrection.
Soul residue.
A dark side.
The name Nue.
And two women who had tried to bring back the myth of Onmyōdō, only to create something they could no longer fully control.
At the very least, one thing had now been confirmed.
When it came to dealing with Hagoromo Gitsune and the thing she was about to give birth to, Shōko Saio stood on the same side as them.
.....
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