Chapter 29 (Patreon)

Classes were over, but it was still too early for their work as demons. The student council was busy with school matters. Tsubasa was on patrol, keeping an eye on the grounds and making the rounds of the clubs. Her kohai—and martial arts teacher—Taro was with the kendo club for its scheduled practice. Momo and Reya were helping Sona, while Tsubaki had gone into town with Tomoe to take care of several matters.

That was when Genshiro informed his Mistress that they had a visitor.

An elderly man in traditional Japanese clothing entered the student council room and bowed respectfully.

“Sitri-san. My respects to the heiress of the Great House.”

“Hello, Tsuchimikado-san. I’m glad you came,” Sona lied, inclining her head slightly in return. “Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you.” Tsuchimikado Soichiro took the comfortable visitor’s chair opposite her desk with quiet dignity.

“Would you care for some tea?” Sona offered.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.” The representative of an old family of human sorcerers inclined his head.

“Not at all.” She smiled warmly. “Members of the Tsuchimikado family are always welcome guests of House Sitri. Momo, please.”

“Your words warm my heart,” the elderly mage said, courteous and sincere. At the assurance that his family was welcome, relief flashed in his eyes for an instant.

The reason for his visit was clear: what was happening to the Tagawa family and the two families Ken’s friends came from.

Several members of the ancient and distinguished Tsuchimikado family of Japanese sorcerers lived in a house in Kuoh. The man seated before Sona was the eldest of them—not the head of the entire family, merely its senior representative in the city. The Tsuchimikado were not as influential as the Kamo, the Abe, or the dark mages of the Ashiya family, but they held a firm fourth place among Japan’s mortal sorcerer families. That was due at least partly to their numbers, and especially to their relative openness: they offered services to ordinary people and had built successful diplomatic ties with the supernatural world.

The Tsuchimikado dealt openly with biblical demons, had some contacts among the Fallen Angels, and maintained cordial relations with representatives of the Christian Church and followers of Buddhism and Shinto. Even independent yokai and certain insular, aggressive akuma who knew where to draw the line sometimes met with members of the family for one reason or another. And that was to say nothing of the lesser beings.

House Sitri had begun offering… a measure of support to certain branches of the Tsuchimikado family several centuries ago. It started when a son of an elder from the outskirts of Kyoto became the servant of a member of a lesser branch of the Sitri family. The arrangement had proved quite beneficial: since then, the Great House had recruited servants from among the Tsuchimikado onmyoji more than once, while the Tsuchimikado occasionally turned to the Sitri for help.

“You’ve come about the Tagawa family?” Sona finally turned to business after ten minutes of small talk, during which her guest had praised the excellent tea and slipped in a discreet sales pitch for one of his granddaughters.

“Indeed, Sitri-san.” Tsuchimikado-san nodded, watching gratefully as Momo refilled his cup with Taro’s tea yet again. “Some time ago, that unworthy Ken Tagawa came to my door. But I sensed traces of your Great House’s magic on him and his equally unworthy friends, so I turned them away.”

“The male members of the Tagawa family have incurred my House’s wrath,” Sona said calmly, answering his unspoken question. As heiress, she had the right to speak for more than her own clan, particularly on a matter this minor. “Certain members of the Furano and Kobe families have also committed offenses for which they will be punished.”

“I see.” The elderly sorcerer sighed and pressed his lips together in disapproval. The expression was directed, of course, at neither Sona’s clan nor her House. “But… would it be too presumptuous of me to ask what these people have done? Knowing their offenses might help others avoid acts that would incur your wrath.”

Sona nodded in satisfaction. Tsuchimikado-san had not come to plead for mercy. Most likely, Kuoh’s powerful families had asked him to find out what lay behind the strange run of misfortunes afflicting three families that had once been comfortable and well-to-do.

Old Japanese families respected the onmyoji. Mortals might not know the details of the supernatural world, but they had eyes and brains. They could draw conclusions from events in their own families’ histories. Hanaka Momo, Sona’s Bishop, was one example of a mortal who had understood what she was seeing.

“It’s all in here.” The Sitri heiress took a thick folder from her desk drawer and held it out to the mage with both hands. “Forgive me, Tsuchimikado-san, but I would find it unpleasant to describe the contents aloud, so…”

“That’s quite all right, Sitri-san.” He accepted the folder respectfully, also using both hands. “May I read it here?”

“Of course.” Sona smiled warmly, holding back a laugh. She had noticed the glances the old man kept casting at the teapot. “I’ll return to my work in the meantime.”

“Thank you.” The elder inclined his head again and immersed himself in the documents, though he continued to reach for his cup between pages.

Sona did return to her work. As student council president, she had plenty of it. Almost immediately, though, her thoughts drifted away from the document in her hands and back to her recent tea with Asia.

How does he make food taste that good? she wondered for what felt like the hundredth time.

The nun had said “two portions,” and the note in the kitchen cupboard had said the same. There had indeed been a lot of sweets. At first glance. Sona loved cakes and pastries, but she had never imagined she would… stuff her face with them, racing to eat more treats than her… rival.

She had watched Asia clear the plates with something close to fury, and it had taken all her restraint not to snatch every last sweet for herself. This was no exaggeration: Sona had seriously considered teleporting the desserts from the table to her room, teleporting there herself, and DEVOURING them alone behind doors and windows sealed with locking spells.

Nothing like this had EVER happened to her before. The greed she felt for the sweets her servant had made said more than anything about just HOW delicious they were. They seemed almost unreal. Delicate, pure sweetness, wonderful aromas, a taste beyond anything she could have imagined.

After classes today, Momo had brought cakes from a good pastry shop to go with their tea. The girls often treated one another, and Sona joined in too. But when the heiress of the demonic House tried Momo’s cakes, she nearly spat them out. Compared with Taro’s sweets, they tasted like… cardboard. She could barely hold back tears of disappointment. Her hopes had fallen that far.

And so, for the second day running—ever since yesterday—Sona Sitri, heiress of a Great demonic House, was thinking about neither her plans for the future nor her student council work, nor even her duties as heiress. She was trying to work out how to get herself invited to tea with Taro’s sweets again.

Because Asia clearly wasn’t going to invite her a second time.

She’d seen it in the nun’s eyes. Sweet, kind, virtuous Asia had been demolishing pastries, cramming them into her little mouth practically two at a time, all while watching Sona devour the sweets just as quickly. In those gentle green eyes, the demoness had clearly read: Next time, I’m eating them all myself.

The Sitri heiress might have said something about the greed so plain in Asia’s gaze. She might even have brought up the sin of gluttony. But she didn’t want to hurt the girl’s feelings. Besides, Sona herself had looked no better. And nothing like this had EVER happened to her before! Well, not since she had grown out of childhood and learned to control herself at the table.

No, seriously, how does he make food taste that good? The same question surfaced again, carrying a trace of irritation and even a little envy.

It wasn’t Taro’s many talents in general. He was her servant, and his abilities benefited both her and her reputation. Sona envied his cooking because she… couldn’t cook. At all. She desperately wanted to learn and kept trying, but every attempt seemed to end in another embarrassing mishap.

“Sitri-san, forgive me for interrupting.” The onmyoji’s voice pulled her from her thoughts.

“You’ve finished reading, Tsuchimikado-san?” Sona pushed aside the thoughts distracting her from work and focused on her visitor.

“Yes.” He fell silent for several seconds, frowning at the pages in his hands. “What Tagawa and certain members of the Kobe and Furano families did was truly vile. Thank you for ridding our city of…”

“Trash,” Sona supplied when Tsuchimikado Soichiro hesitated. She was a little glad Tsubaki and Taro weren’t there to hear her. Momo, meanwhile, grinned from behind her desk.

“Trash is the only word for such sinners,” the mage agreed. “With your permission, I’ll let certain mortals know that these families’ misfortunes are the consequences of their bad karma.”

“I trust you completely in that matter, Tsuchimikado-san.” Sona gave him a gracious smile. “We don’t usually interfere in human lives, as you know, but sometimes…”

“Even patience runs out.” He inclined his head in agreement, then glanced at the teapot. “As, alas, does this wonderful tea.”

“If you enjoyed it that much…” Sona smiled to herself at the sorcerer’s subtle hint. “Reya, if you would…”

“Here you are… Tsuchimikado-san.” Understanding her Mistress at once, the quietest of Sona’s servants took a small carved wooden canister from the cupboard and offered it to the onmyoji with both hands.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly…”

“Please, don’t refuse.” The Sitri heiress smiled warmly again. “Accept this small gift as a token of House Sitri’s goodwill toward your family.”

“Thank you for such a generous gift,” he said with complete sincerity. He accepted the canister with both hands and bowed. No wonder: an experienced sorcerer had surely noticed how much good the tea had done his aging body. “Then I won’t take up any more of your time, Sitri-san.”

“Goodbye, Tsuchimikado-san.” Sona inclined her head slightly.

“Goodbye, Sitri-san.” The elderly man returned the gesture and headed for the door.

“Let’s hope Himejima-san doesn’t rob him,” Momo giggled as she cleared away the dishes after their visitor left.

“You’re exaggerating her love of tea.” Sona chuckled and returned to her papers. But she had barely begun reading the page that had been stubbornly resisting her efforts to “finish it off” when she clicked her tongue in irritation.

“Sona-san?” The white-haired girl looked at her in surprise.

“Another visitor.” The Sitri heiress sighed as the surveillance spells laid over the school supplied more details. “A woman, to be precise. And this time, she isn’t human.”

Today, everything seemed determined to keep Sona from getting any work done.

Classes were over. The students had either gone home or were busy with their clubs—like the girls in the kendo club, whom I was “hanging out” with now.

They were pleasant company, if a little rowdy. Nothing wrong with that. They weren’t cultivators, after all, and while kendo was an important part of their lives, it wasn’t their sole purpose. They were young. They liked swinging a shinai, winning felt good, and so did being strong and healthy. But they were still human, with all the strengths and shortcomings of mortal youth.

So while kendo remains the focus of our sessions, the atmosphere is fairly relaxed. I’m not saying the club members goof off—they train hard, with dedication I can respect. But it’s nothing like my sessions with Tsubasa-chan and Issei-kun, after which my student and my sort-of student have to master the art of crawling, either on their bellies or on all fours, because they no longer have the strength to stand.

“Murayama-chan, your head’s in the clouds today.” After my “blade” touched her armor, ending the sparring match in my favor, I lifted my face mask. “Something happen?”

“Sorry, Chiba-san.” My opponent lifted her mask too. “I think I bombed today’s test. All I can think about is the lecture I’m going to get at home.”

“A serious concern,” I said with a faintly ironic chuckle. “In that case, drill your strikes on your own today. Imagine you’re facing your lazy self—the one who didn’t study enough for the test.”

“Ooh, I’ll give myself hell,” she said without a trace of enthusiasm. Looking thoroughly miserable, she went off to remove her armor and mask.

Well, what did she expect? She needed to study, and if she hadn’t prepared, that was on her. The team had a captain to keep everyone motivated. Katase-chan was already eyeing our classmate with a look that said it all. If something serious had happened, I might have stepped in—winning the next competition mattered to Sona-san. But this was a minor problem, and Murayama could handle it herself with her captain’s support.

“All right, Ando-chan. Ready?” I nodded to my next sparring partner.

“Ready, Chiba-sensei.” Taking Murayama’s place, she lowered her mask.

“Don’t call me that.” This time I was the one who grimaced. “Now, last time you had trouble with vertical downward strikes. Did you work on those with Katase-chan?”

“Yes, Chiba-san.”

“Excellent. Let’s see how much you’ve improved…”

All in all, training was going well. The club had been fairly capable from the start: solidly average, with Katase-chan, their captain, earning a B in my book.

Now the others were climbing toward that B, while the captain was working her way toward an A. Slowly, sure, but at a satisfying pace. Considering I hadn’t done anything… extraordinary, the results were excellent.

My Mistress and I had also spoken briefly about the kendo club. We’d discussed whether to boost the girls’ “fighting potential” through unconventional means, but decided against it.

Katase-chan and the others loved kendo. They practiced it for their own enjoyment, as well as for the thrill of winning. That was why I felt elixirs, pills, magic, or cultivator tricks would do more harm than good. They wouldn’t damage the girls’ skill; they would twist their Path, make it… dishonest. False. The girls might never know, but their success wouldn’t truly be their own.

Sona-san heard me out. She didn’t use such methods herself, either, however much she wanted the students of her school to succeed. Perhaps those were simply the rules of the mortal world?

So every achievement the kendo girls earned was theirs. My help stayed within the bounds of what a visiting instructor could offer. And that was right. When they succeeded, they could proudly say it was thanks to their own hard work and talent.

It would be the honest truth. Sona-san and I, the girls themselves, their parents, and their friends could all take real pride in those victories.

“That’s all for today.”

The session flew by and was fairly easy. As usual, I sparred with each girl a few times, offered advice, demonstrated techniques, and helped them work on their weak points. Nothing difficult, especially with so few students. There was considerably more work at Goto-san’s dojo.

“Thank you so much, Chiba-san.” The team captain smiled at me. “You’ve been a huge help.”

“You’re welcome, Katase-chan. It’s a pleasure working with you.” I smiled back, and meant it. “Do you mind if I…?” I nodded toward the changing room.

“Not at all. It’s all yours,” she agreed at once.

There was only one changing room, and since I was the sole guy in an entire squad of swordswomen, they’d started letting me go first. I didn’t argue. Changing out of my training clothes and into my school uniform took me twenty seconds or so.

The kendo girls, though, took forever. They showered, discussed the session, talked about how they felt, made plans for the evening, shared their hopes for tomorrow. All at their leisure, with plenty of jokes along the way. I’d let them go first during some of our earliest sessions, but I’d stopped doing that. My time was precious!

Training here put no strain on me at all, so I never even broke a sweat. I simply lied and told the girls I’d shower back at the dorm rather than keep them waiting.

I quickly untied my belt, took off the top and bottom of my training uniform, and folded them neatly to put in my gym bag… That was when I heard a strange rustling just outside the changing room door.

A word about hearing: demons have sharper senses. More precisely, their demonic power heightens those senses. A “newborn” demon gets that buff from sunset to sunrise, but once they’ve had time to adjust, sunlight causes them less trouble. Even Issei no longer feels physically uncomfortable in it, largely because Gremory-san puts our little pervert through his paces every morning.

Nothing extraordinary: “Run! Pump abs! Do push-up!” Pull-ups, warm-ups, the usual. But it helps a great deal with the discomfort caused by sunlight. Physical training like that is also effective without requiring the specialized equipment I use when I train Issei in the Underworld.

In the case of yours truly, a demonic cultivator—a label I find both funny and unpleasant—cultivation sharpens my senses even further. At my current stage, I can’t hear a mosquito buzzing a kilometer away, but the difference is noticeable.

There are drawbacks, too. Even though I’ve broken through a couple of stages and left the lower levels behind, I’m still a long way from the truly powerful ranks. My dantian’s affinity with dragonfire will speed my progress—far more than ordinary fire would. For now, though, I’m still making my way upward. The real heights remain something I can only dream about.

So right now I have excellent hearing, superb eyesight, an astonishing sense of smell… and all of it is hell on my brain. To avoid the sensory overload, I keep my senses dialed down to just above human levels. I turn them up when I need to overhear something, get a better look, or stay alert in a dangerous situation.

When I heard those suspicious noises outside the door, I did exactly that. And got one hell of a surprise.

I moved aside at an unhurried pace, slipping out of sight, then approached the door and quickly put my eye to the gap. Beyond it was a many-eyed monster known as the kendo club. There was a muffled, panicked squeak, and the girls’ eyes vanished. Someone seemed to fall over.

“Well, damn…” Shaking my head, I went back to my locker and started pulling on my school uniform. Even I hadn’t expected Katase-chan and the girls to go over to the dark side.

I dressed quickly—not because I was embarrassed, but because I was in a hurry—grabbed my gym bag, and left the changing room.

Heh… What a sight. The training room looked like a greenhouse full of ripe tomatoes: every girl was red with embarrassment. They made a great show of keeping busy, moving mats and equipment back and forth. Murayama-chan, who was in the same class as the captain and me, was absorbed in tying her shoelaces. Ando Oi studied the ceiling with intense concentration…

“See you later, Katase-chan. See you, girls.” I kept my voice perfectly calm, without a hint of mockery, and received an uneven chorus of mumbled farewells.

“Chiba-san…” The captain’s eyes darted around the room as she turned a deeper shade of red. She didn’t seem to know what to say next.

“By the way, girls, how would you feel about going to a water park this weekend? If you’re interested, I could talk to the president. Sitri-san was already thinking of arranging an outing for the whole student council.”

“Ah… um… ahem…”

“Think it over. There’s still time. You can tell me what you decide at our next session.” I waved goodbye and left the tomato greenhouse, chuckling to myself.

It was my imagination, of course, but with the girls blushing that hard, I could almost feel the temperature rising in there. And I hadn’t lied, though I couldn’t resist teasing them: Sona-san really had been thinking about taking the whole student council somewhere for a bit of fun. I doubted she’d object to the kendo club coming along.

“Come to think of it, it would be pretty ironic if I grabbed a shinai and chased them around for peeping.” I couldn’t help laughing quietly as I followed the path back to the school building.

I honestly hadn’t expected the kendo club to start acting like their sworn enemies, the Pervert Trio. It wasn’t as if I minded girls peeking at me… Honestly, I didn’t mind at all. If they wanted to look, let them. I was proud of my body.

I just didn’t understand the appeal of voyeurism. So they saw me in my boxers—what was the big deal? Besides, what’s the difference between everyday underwear and swimwear? Why isn’t there the same fuss at the beach? Back when I was still human, I went to a water park and saw dozens of girls in swimsuits so revealing that ordinary underwear looked modest by comparison. And it’s not as if the guys go there in spacesuits.

What’s the point of peeping when you can just visit a water park and ogle half-naked beauties until your eyeballs blister? Or, if you’re a girl, all the fit, good-looking guys?

“There are questions that remain unanswered forever, even if you possess all the wisdom of Heaven,” I recalled one of my masters saying. His wife had beaten the shit out of him after her sister caught her own husband with a mistress.

Though… I suspect the beating had more to do with his response. When his wife told him what had happened, he nodded, clicked his tongue in sympathy, and then remarked that the temptress had a truly magnificent ass. Strange, isn’t it? Another man cheated on another woman, and my master was the one who got his fucking face smashed in by his wife.

Yeah… As a swordsman, he was incredible, though even he couldn’t overcome my lack of talent with a blade. When it came to common sense… Mm. Let’s just say this was far from his first blunder, or his last.

“Hm?” I sensed someone approaching from the school building, someone with magic. It wasn’t the familiar demonic kind, nor was it holy power like that wielded by Angels, Fallen Angels, and some priests. This was something else, something I didn’t recognize.

I tensed for a moment, but… whoever was coming toward me wasn’t trying to hide. From demons, at least. I could gauge his strength, too: nothing extraordinary, though I wouldn’t call him weak.

Her, I corrected myself.

A priestess was walking along the academy path. Not a nun of the Christian Church, but a miko serving some Shinto deity. And she wasn’t human.

A lamia, I realized from the telltale signs. She looked human for the most part and appeared to be around forty. Her robes suggested she held a fairly high position at her shrine. Without the pearlescent scales at her temples, the reptilian eyes, pointed ears, and formidable nails that looked more like claws, she might have passed for a mortal. And, of course, a veil of magic surrounded her, making ordinary people look away.

A servant of Benzaiten, I concluded when I spotted the serpent patterns on her robes and the snake-shaped brooch. Then I can relax.

A priestess of one of the Seven Lucky Gods visiting our school was unusual, but hardly cause for alarm. As I understood it, demons were forbidden to enter Shinto shrine grounds—without permission, that is. At first, my Mistress had forbidden me from approaching any religious building at all, simply because a newcomer wouldn’t know what was allowed and what wasn’t.

By now, I knew I could visit Benzaiten’s shrine, for example, if I had permission from a member of the priesthood who knew about the world behind the scenes and understood what I was. Besides, biblical demons and Shintoists had no particular feud. They weren’t friends or allies, either. Relations were rather cool, but that didn’t prevent them from speaking now and then.

As she drew near, the woman nodded, regarding me neutrally with her yellow, serpentine eyes. I bowed slightly in return, showing respect to someone older than me and, most likely, a guest of either the Sitri or Gremory clan.

And that was… pretty much it. We acknowledged each other and went our separate ways. I liked meeting sensible humans and nonhumans: no throwing their weight around, no contest to see who was tougher. The priestess greeted me first, then quietly went about her business. If only everyone were so reasonable.

I’ll ask Sona-san about this miko, though, I decided as I continued toward the student council rooms.