Chapter 190: ~Chapter 66~ Part 1

I let out a pent up breath the moment we arrived back home. Snowy was still in the living room at the moment, but the extra range I recently gained allowed me to Phase directly to my room, if only barely. Teleporting to the very edge of my range was both more tiring and unpleasant than usual, but I had little choice in the matter. Time was of the essence, so once I got my bearings, I unceremoniously handed the wrapped up sword in my hand to the tiny miko who came along for the ride.

"Hold on to this for a moment, and don't come down unless I call you."

"Do I have to?" Ichiko whined in a low voice as she looked at the blade she held in both hands. "I don't like Onikiri anymore."

"I'm not telling you to go inside it, just to hold it for a while," I chided her as I hastily combed my hair and straightened my hoodie. I probably didn't look particularly imposing in my casual clothes, but I didn't exactly have the time to change into something more formal, so it had to do.

Without further ado, I opened the door and walked downstairs with all the tensely maintained veneer of nonchalance I could muster under such short notice.

"Oh, Leo! Welcome back, or... Uuu... welcome down?" my sister greeted me the moment I reached the bottom of the stairs and scampered over to me in a hurry. Once she was right next to me, she whispered, "He appeared in the room without triggering any of the wards, but doesn't seem hostile. He wanted to talk to you, so I sat him down, gave him a glass of orange juice, and told him you would be come and see him in a minute."

"You did great," I soothed the nervous girl with a pat on the head. "I'll take it from here."

Declaring so, I entered into the living room with measured steps, and my gaze immediately crossed with our unannounced guest's. He was sitting in a dignified, if somewhat stiff posture on the couch, holding his drink with both hands. He was on the shorter side, his skin was a light brow (though it looked more like a heavy tan than his natural skin color), and by the looks of it, he was at least in his fifties, possibly older based on the number of white streaks in his long, straight beard.

Speaking of which, now that I could take a proper look at his facial hair, I very nearly let a breath of relief escape my mouth. When I originally Far Glanced at him, I could have sworn that he had an honest to goodness Fu Man Chu mustache, but instead it turned out he had one of those really long 'wise sage' cuts, which made a striking contrast with his completely bald head. I couldn't help but wonder; if unique and elaborate hairdos signified importance, then what would the lack thereof mean? Or was it his beard that acted as the signifier this time around?

Moving past his head, I also made note of the thick, layered Japanese style robes he was wearing. I didn't know the exact name of the garb, but in my defense, I wasn't exactly an expert in the field. What I have quickly recognized, however, was the color; it was the exact same shade of deep purple as the shroud covering Onikiri when not in use. On top of that, he also had a string of impractically huge wooden prayer beads around his neck, each one the size of my fists and engraved with some Asian characters or symbols I didn't recognize. Still, I had a vague recollection of Buddhist monks (or rather, the stylized fantasy variety) being depicted wearing something similar, but then what was with the sage-beard and the small ying-yang symbols on his sleeves?

Yet, more important than his physical appearance was the immediate sense of irritation that assaulted my subconscious the moment I laid my eyes on the man. By this point I was decently familiar with the reaction, yet at the same time it felt subtly different from before; more 'palpable', for a lack of better expression. It was like a small wedge or awl inside my head, slowly sinking deeper the longer I looked at him, but instead of pain, it induced a sense of discomfort that immediately triggered my fight or flight instincts.

I calmed my breathing and focused my mind, looking at the phenomenon as rationally as I could under the circumstances. So far, I have felt a similar sense of antagonism towards three people on our first meetings: Snowy's brother, the dragon-butler, and the Arch-mage. Out of the three, two turned out to be two-faced, scheming assholes, while Sebastian was... merely annoying and pompous, but otherwise mostly okay. This meant that, as irrational as my reaction was, it had a decent track-record at sniffing out dangerous individuals. But then again, I never had such reaction to Brang, Rinne, or the two knights, so there might have been something else required to qualify for the honor of being found instinctively irritating by yours truly. Maybe it had something to do with some sort of magical presence, or their demeanor, or maybe even something more outside-context, like importance in the narrative. I had no idea, nor did I really have the time to ponder.

That said, now that I was fully aware of this odd reaction of mine, it was trivially easy to shove it to the back of my mind for the time being and greet the uninvited guest lounging on my couch with an unperturbed expression.

"You have exactly one minute to explain what you are doing in my house."

... Okay, I admit the actual response still needed some work, but considering that my gut reflex told me to immediately throw him out and slam the door behind him, I think I still acted rather cordially.

"Please do excuse my unannounced arrival," the older man responded in a smooth baritone, his words tinged with a light but distinct Japanese accent.

So, this guy had an accent, Rinne had an accent, yet Ichiko, the hundreds of years old Japanese fox-miko didn't, but instead she peppered her sentences with random honorifics. That made a looooooot of sense. But putting my linguistic gripes aside, since I didn't respond, he very slowly put the half-empty glass onto the table and proceeded to introduce himself with a barely noticeable nod of his head.

"I am known as Hige. I am the second elder and representative of the Kage clan. I presume you already know of us."

"Naturally. For ninjas, you are hard to miss," I responded with just the tiniest of barbs, yet he completely ignored the jab and spoke on with a controlled voice.

"Before I say more, allow me to ascertain: are you Leonard Blackcloak, the fabled Chimera slayer of the land of Critias?"

"Yes for the Leonard portion, an ambivalent yes for the Blackcloak part, a grudging yes for the Chimera slayer bit, and a categorical no for being 'fabled' in any shape or form." Based on my guest's bemused blinking, my answer was obviously too complicated for him, so a short sigh later I told him, "Yes, some people call me that."

"I understand. In that case, allow me to come to the point of my visit without any minced words." He paused here for a solid three seconds while his bushy eyebrows descended into what I presumed was supposed to be a dignified expression, and then he finally blurted out, "What can you tell me about the current whereabouts of the one called Onikiri no Tsukaima Rinne?"

Instead of answering right away, rolled my eyes at my overly dramatic interloper's expense and leisurely made my way over to my usual seat. I took my sweet time to sit down, and then waited for a few seconds before answering, because when my head hurt, I was petty like that.

"Why do you think I would know?"

The old samurai/ninja/sage/whatever measured me from head to toe, and regardless whatever he was looking for (or whether or not he found it), he soon eased up on the hostile body language.

"I was told you are a seller of information with numerous connections," he explained, but then he continued with, "Also, she was last seen in your company."

"Sooo... you would have looked for me even if I wasn't an information-broker," I stated, but he was only giving me a confused look, apparently not getting my point at all. "Never mind. Yes, I have accompanied her a couple of times."

"Were you by her side when she fell?"

I was just about to give him a snappy answer, but then my thoughts came to an abrupt halt and my response turned into an uncertain, "Pardon?"

"I asked if you were by her side when she died," the older man repeated with extra emphasis, but it only got me even more confused.

"I think there is a misunderstanding here. She is still alive."

All of a sudden my guest's body language tensed up again and he uttered a single, flat word.

"Impossible."

I wanted to point out that no, it was very much possible, considering I have talked with her just a couple of minutes ago, but before I could do so, he continued to speak while reaching into his loose left sleeve with his right hand.

"Onikiri no Tsukaima Rinne failed to make contact with us for the time of two days. During the last time we communicated, she reported that she would soon face a fearsome beast of the underworld in single combat. She has not shown any sign of life since then, therefore we concluded that she had lost her life in the endeavor."

"It wasn't exactly single combat," I objected a little weakly as I tried to untangle this man's thought processes. "Also, as I have said, she is still alive."

"Falsehood," the bald man in front of me declared with some gravitas before he finally retrieved a piece of folded up purple paper with some kind of thick red string hanging from one of its sides. "Know, that I am not here to accuse you, and therefore there is no need for you to tell anything but the truth. Her demise is unfortunate, but in the line of our eternal duty, such is often the fare of the ones bearing the responsibility of the sacred blade of our clan. Please do not tarnish her sacrifice."

"But I'm telling you, she is not dead," I told him with my voice raised and my patience running dangerously low.

"An abject untruth," the man proclaimed while holding the aforementioned piece of paper, which I soon realized was some kind of talisman, between his right index and middle fingers. "Can you perceive the lack of the familiar light emitted by her life lantern?"

"I can't see the lack of something that I have never seen before," I told him while channeling my inner Judy, but got completely disregarded as the man continued to talk.

"It shows that Onikiri no Tsukaima Rinne is no longer one with our sacred blade. One bears the blade for life, so it can only mean one thing: she is dead." He paused here, I was pretty sure just for even more dramatic flair, and then he let his hand down before continuing in a more amicable tone. "Fear not, young one, for you are not being held responsible for her demise. We merely seek the location of our sacred sword and her body, for funeral rites. We merely ask for your cooperation."

The longer I was listening to this guy, the harder it was to keep the irrational irritation bubbling up from the back of my mind in check. I once again wondered; maybe I wasn't feeling annoyed by these guys because of some supernatural outside influence, but instead as a result of some sort of sixth sense telling me, 'Hey, this idiot is going to annoy you in the future, so here's a primer', or something along those lines.

"... We are not getting anywhere like this," I admitted with a tinge of defeat. I let out a long breath, and turned towards the stairwell, yelling out, "Ichiko, come down please! I'm going to need you for this after all!"

There was a long moment of silence in the room, soon broken by a high-pitched "Comiiiing!", followed by a pair of small feet thundering down the stairs two steps at a time and coming to an abrupt halt at the bottom.

"Aaaa! It's Baldy-kun!" the little girl exclaimed with apparent delight as she dashed over and raised her arms over her head, tossing the sword she was holding into the air in the process. My danger-sense immediately told me that it was coming right towards my head, so I reflexively used my finely honed weapon-catching technique... except I did so with my numb right hand, so I completely botched it. The hilt of the spinning katana hit my wrist, eliciting a hiss that had more surprise than actual pain in it, and it got deflected to the side. I had to practically jump out of my chair to go after it and I hurriedly used my other hand to reach out towards the falling weapon. In the end, I barely managed to wrap my fingers around the blade, just under the round guard. Thankfully the whole length of it was still covered with the purple shroud, so I didn't get cut, but it was still a close one.

"Ichiko!" The slight hint of indignation made the little girl twitch and turn towards me with a face that said she didn't know what she did wrong. Therefore, I told her. "Who told you to throw Onikiri like that? It could have poked someone's eye out!"

"But… But ue-sama caught it?" she defended herself while giving me the puppy-eyes, but I remained firm.

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"It doesn't matter. You should not throw swords around like that, even if you are excited that you met—" I paused here for a second as I glanced at the robed man frozen mid-motion in his seat, and gestured towards him with my free hand finishing the thought with, "… this guy. Are you two related by any chance?"

"Ah, you see ue-sama, Baldy-kun was the little brother of Onikiri's wielder!"

"I'm fairly sure you don't mean Mountain Girl," I ventured a guess, and she confirmed it with an aghast look.

"Of course not! She was the wielder two generations ago!" the little girl explained as if it was obvious.

"Okay, and?" I prompted her to continue.

"I was always one with the person who wielded Onikiri, like Rinne-san, and Sakura-san, and Aoi-san, and—" I gave her an 'I get it, get to the point' look, and when she noticed that, she hastily told me, "So, since I was one with her, we were both his big sister, so I'm his half-big-sister now!" she declared with a grin that said this was all completely self-evident. In her head, I mean.

"I… don't understand. What's going on?" Baldy-kun muttered in a state of profound bewilderment, and while a small part of me found that absolutely hilarious, I knew that we would get nowhere fast if I didn't clear things up soon.

"In short, this here is Ichiko, the… spirit? Person?"

"I prefer person!" the tiny miko interjected.

"I see. Let's go with 'spirit' then," I stated with a thoughtful nod, earning me a sulky 'Ue-sama is mean' in the process. "So, she used to be inside this sword here, but some things happened, and now she is not."

"Inside… Wait, is that Onikiri? Why do you possess our sacred blade!?" the older man suddenly sprung to his feet and pointed at me, apparently only just realizing what I was holding in my hands.

"It's a long story, but for the time being, I'm holding onto it because Rinne had some anger management problems and attacked me and my allies."

"Rinne-san got better though," Ichiko chimed in.

"So she is… Onikiri?"

"No, Ichiko was inside Onikiri," I corrected him, but the guy was giving me a totally blank expression, so much so that for a moment I wondered if I was mistaken in my initial assessment and he was just a slightly unique placeholder.

"Can you… prove that…?" he finally asked the obvious question. It was also a good one, as I had no idea how to do that conclusively, so after some consideration, I left it to the girl in front of me to demonstrate her identity.

"Ah, I know!" she suddenly perked up, apparently thinking of an idea. "Baldy-kun? Do you remember that time, when you stole the panties of the girl you liked, and we found you when you tried to hide it under the floorboards?"

All of a sudden the bald man's face slackened with shock. It only lasted for a blink of an eye, as he quickly made some kind of gesture with his fingers and calmed down.

"I have no idea what you are talking—" he began, only to be cut short when the little girl's eyes descended into an uncertain frown.

"Uuuu… But I'm very sure it happened. I don't keep all the memories after the wielder dies, but I clearly remember this one! You even had some kind of book in there, and you cried a lot when we burned them all! It was really funny!"

I admit I was almost feeling bad for the guy for getting his ancient shame unearthed in front of a stranger, and by a little girl no less, but then I remembered that I didn't actually like him, so the feeling quickly subsided. In its place, I found a question that I immediately vocalized.

"Hey, Ichiko? How exactly is this story supposed to confirm your identity?"

"You see ue-sama, it's because we were the only ones who knew about this! It would have been shameful if it became public knowledge that our little brother was stealing panties, so we destroyed all the evidence, and I even made Baldy-kun take me to his secret hideout where he kept the—"

"Nee-san, yamete kudasai!" the robed man called out with a panicked expression. "I-I mean, you have already proven your identity! There is no need for further proof!"

"Really? Wow, I was sure this was going to drag out for at least three more embarrassing stories," I whispered under my breath. My relief didn't last long though, as I soon noticed that he was eyeing the sword in my hand. "What?"

"I just wonder… If she is the spirit of Onikiri, and she calls you 'ue-sama', then does that make you her master?"

"Yes," the little girl loudly declared in the company of an unnecessarily proud nod. "Ue-sama gave me this body, so ue-sama is ue-sama."

"That was atrociously redundant," I noted on the side, but neither of the other three people in the room cared. Oh, yeah, Snowy came by to bring in some drinks, but she already disappeared. That's how little she cared. That was also pretty cold of her, leaving me to fend for myself like that. Not that I could blame her; I didn't want to be here either.

"So if he is your master, and you are Onikiri, then it makes him Onikiri's master," Mr. Baldy reasoned, employing the best methods insane troll logic could offer. Truly an inspirational thinker, this man was.

"No way! Ue-sama can't be my wielder!" Ichiko protested right away, and she even waved her hands around like a windmill for some reason. "Ue-sama is a boy, so we can't become one! It would be gross!"

"So he cannot use Onikiri?" our guest pressed on, not at all disheartened by her declaration of grossness.

"He can, but—" she began, only to cut herself short and silently mouth something along the lines of 'Oh, right! I'm no longer in Onikiri anymore!'. Either that, or she was telling me my parrot's metabolic processes were a matter of interest only to historians, which didn't make any sense in this context. Or many others, if we were at that.

"Can you really?" came the next question, this time aimed at me, and after keeping eye-contact with the man for a few seconds, I grudgingly grabbed the sword by the hilt and used my phantom limb to activate the jury-rigged enchantment inside it. I mean, I didn't see the harm in it, and if it would get this guy to leave five minutes earlier, it was worth the headache.

Half a moment later the shroud covering the blade unfurled to reveal a pristine white blade, and once the magic inside it kicked into high gear, it began humming with a soft yet pervasive sound.

"There, are you happy now?" I asked as I lightly waved the sword in front of him. At this point, I expected a number of reactions. The bald man suddenly going down onto one knee definitely wasn't one of them.

"Elder Hige greets the new matri— I mean, the new patriarch," he proclaimed with a solemn voice, and I found myself drawing a blank, completely unable to respond in any way.

My confusion thankfully didn't last long, and I quickly let the sword down and glanced at the equally stunned Ichiko by my side.

"What is he talking about?"

"I forgot to mention this to ue-sama!" she suddenly burst out in a panicked voice as she scampered over to my side and grabbed my sleeve. "Listen, ue-sama! The Kage clan is led by the elders because the wielder of Onikiri is always traveling around the world to hunt evil monsters, but in truth, they are the true head of the clan! Since now you wield Onikiri, it means that you are the clan head!"

… Oh, I see. So that was the harm I couldn't see. Lovely. I looked at the still humming sword and quickly turned it off, the purple shroud automatically wrapping itself around the blade in the process. In the meantime, I had a sudden idea. Rinne became very docile after I took Onikiri from her, and she even started getting along and sparring with the Faun. She was also part of the clan, even if I accidentally dethroned her, so… maybe she was getting on the same wavelength with Brang and company because she now also viewed me as her boss? Was this the thing she was trying to tell me in the secret base?

Anyhow, these were questions for later. For now, I unceremoniously threw the covered up blade to the foxy miko, who caught it with a surprised yelp, following which I stepped forth and placed a hand onto the kneeling man's bare head. He shuddered, obviously not expecting this development, and once I was sure I had a mark on him, I firmly told him, "We are not doing this."

"Sir, I… don't understand what you—"

"I said we are not doing this," I repeated with extra emphasis as I clamped my fingers on his head and kept him from standing up. "We are not in England, I'm sure as hell not King Arthur, and you are absolutely not going to suddenly invest supreme executive power in me just because of a bloody magical sword!"

Before he could react, I did the thing I should have done the moment I first laid my eyes on the man, and I immediately Phased him just outside my front door, fully leveraging the extra range I got.

"This discussion is over for today. Goodbye, sir," I growled as I let go of the confused man's head, and then immediately teleported to the other side of the door. I was about to let out a deep groan, but then I realized that I forgot something, so I opened the door, stuck my head through, told him "Oh, right, and do not even try to sneak into my house again without my permission, or I'll be forced to be impolite," and then slammed it shut. There, now that was better.

Still, this development was way too quick and troublesome. While having my personal ninja-clan sounded cool in theory, the last thing I needed right now was a group of professional monster-hunters trying to make me into their enforcer. I mean, no offense, but Mountain Girl was obviously not leader material, so I was pretty sure the whole 'clan head' thing was just some bureaucratic bullcrap I really didn't need at the moment. Also, so far I had contact with three people from the Kage clan (counting the tiny fox-miko), and each one of them was a different flavor of weird and annoying. Trying to imagine a small army of them was already enough to give me a migraine. In short, this was promising to be a giant mess, and if I wanted to avoid getting hopelessly entangled in it, I had to act quickly.

Thinking so, I returned to the living room, grabbed hold of the little girl still awkwardly carrying the sword in her hands, said a quick goodbye to my sister, and once I made sure Mr. Baldy was not trying to get back in, I immediately Phased away and reappeared next to the monster huntress standing near the training area with the words, "Listen up, Mountain Girl; we really need to talk…"

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