Keikain Yura's voice was a little hesitant. Seated beside her, Ashiya Douman (or rather, Limbo) responded with a gentle smile.
"Fufufu~ No need to be so nervous, really. I couldn't very well leave a little girl like you drooling outside the shop now, could I?"
"Ugh…"
He'd brought up her earlier embarrassment so casually that Yura let out a tiny whimper of shame.
"I-I'll pay you back as soon as I can!"
"Oh, that's nothing. What I am curious about though…" Douman leaned in slightly, an inquisitive note in his voice. "From your clothes, you don't exactly look like you come from a struggling household. So, what happened? Where's your family?"
Yura hesitated, like she'd remembered something deeply embarrassing. She rubbed her hands together and mumbled softly.
"Ugh… I did bring money originally. But everyone at home has been training so hard lately, and it made me feel like I needed to keep up… So I left in a rush and accidentally brought the wrong wallet. The one I grabbed only had discount coupons in it… And most of those can only be used at stores in Tokyo, not here. So I…"
Her voice grew smaller and smaller, and her head sank lower with each word. If Douman didn't have sharp hearing, he probably wouldn't have caught the last third of that explanation.
"But once I get home, I'll definitely repay you, Mr. Limbo!"
"Yes, yes, of course. I believe you, Miss Yura. No need to worry."
Douman chuckled, clearly amused by her earnestness. His gaze drifted to the empty bowls in front of her—completely clean, not a drop of broth left. "So, just a few bowls of ramen really were enough? There's a great Chinese place nearby, you know. I wouldn't mind treating you again."
Temptation sparkled in Yura's eyes for a moment—but after a brief internal struggle, she shook her head.
"N-no, you've already spent too much on me today."
She still couldn't figure it out: why did she feel so tense around this Mr. Limbo? That stifling sense of formality, like facing an elder in the clan… no, maybe worse than that. It was almost like meeting a patriarch.
It had been the same earlier. The moment he offered to treat her to dinner after hearing she had no money, she hadn't even had time to process it. Next thing she knew, she was already seated inside.
"A few bowls of noodles isn't really extravagant… Mmm, but I do admire your resolve. That glint in your eyes—it reminds me of a finely cut gem."
Their meeting… you could call it chance. But when you've got as many shikigami and avatars running around as Douman does, the odds of an "accidental" encounter increase exponentially.
And the Keikain Clan—supposedly descended from this world's Ashiya Douman—wasn't something he could truly ignore.
Still, it wasn't the clan that intrigued him most. It was her, Keikain Yura. Not for her talent, but for a novel he'd read long ago.
In that novel, which featured Inari as the main character, the real Ashiya Douman had never actually met Abe no Seimei. Instead, it was Douman's disciple—using his name—who clashed with Seimei. That explained the rumors that "Douman died more than once."
In that story, Inari traveled a thousand years into the future and shared a meal with Keikain Yura to repay her past life's hospitality. That scene, for some reason, had left a faint trace of melancholy in him.
Of course, he knew that was just fiction. Maybe true in some world, but not this one. In this world, he himself was the true Ashiya Douman. And this girl before him wasn't his reincarnation.
Even so, he'd gone to see her. And when she didn't have money to eat, he'd treated her. Just a few bowls of ramen—but she devoured them like they were a gourmet feast.
Seeing that left Douman oddly amused.
Yura, realizing he was watching her laugh, blushed like a child caught doing something naughty. From then on, she ate more primly.
After they left the noodle shop, Yura bowed deeply in gratitude. Then, curiosity won over hesitation.
"Mr. Limbo… are you a monk?"
Given how he kept referring to himself as "this humble monk," the question made sense.
"I am ordained, yes. But my main trade is as an onmyōji."
He seemed perfectly normal—kind, patient, even warm. Nothing threatening at all.
"I suppose now you could say I'm… unaffiliated. No sect, no house. Completely free."
"Eh? You're an onmyōji too?" Her round eyes blinked in confusion. If he hadn't told her directly, she would've assumed he was just a kind-hearted civilian.
"Exactly. That's how I recognized you, Miss Keikain."
Douman smiled, patting her lightly on the shoulder. Then, with a light tone, he added:
"Compared to the great Keikain head onmyōji, I'm just a no-name amateur. So it's only natural you'd be surprised. I take no offense."
"Ugh… sorry."
Yura flushed again. Wanting to change the topic, she asked something she'd been meaning to:
"Since you're an onmyōji… does that mean you're also investigating the yōkai causing trouble in this city? You were here before I arrived—have you figured out where they're hiding?"
"Ahh, so that's why you came here," Douman mused. "Still so young, and already going after yōkai alone? How impressive."
His sudden praise made Yura shy again.
"No, no… I'm still far behind my brothers. That's why I wanted to go out and train—so I can catch up."
Douman smiled, eyes like polished obsidian, faintly amused.
"You really are diligent. In that case, allow me to guide you. The yōkai nest is in the abandoned eastern district. You might get lost going alone."
"R-Really?! You're such a good person!"
Yura's eyes sparkled, but a hint of guilt flickered across her face.
"But… if you already found them, doesn't that mean they're your targets? Are you really okay with me handling them?"
"Mmmmmm~ such a thoughtful young lady. But you're overthinking it."
Douman leaned down slightly, tapping his chest.
"As you can see, I'm just a frail, ordinary onmyōji. I may have found the nest, but I can't handle them alone. I was hoping to find someone to help. If you came along, that'd be a huge help!"
"I see… Then leave it to me!"
Yura puffed up with pride, standing a little taller.
"I'll exorcise every last one of those yōkai in the name of the Keikain Clan—and I'll make sure Mr. Limbo stays safe too!"
"Fufufu~ Miss Yura, you're so reliable."
She really was like a child, Douman thought. So easy to coax, so earnest. Probably because her family sheltered her so well. She'd never seen the darkness in people.
Good thing that Keikain elder isn't around. If he were, getting close to her would be far more difficult.
Douman knew how suspicious he looked. Most of the Nura Clan yōkai attacked him on sight.
So before he approached her, he'd cast a charm to make her overlook his more questionable qualities. Not a particularly advanced spell—but it might be enough to fool Yura, even if not her brother Ryuuji or the clan elder Keikain Seimei.
Yura was the most talented onmyōji of her generation. She could command multiple shikigami at once and had inherited the clan's seven guardian spirits, each aligned with a star of the Big Dipper.
The strongest among them—Pōjun (破軍)—was actually the souls of past clan heads. Keikain Seimei, Yura's ancestor, had been the most powerful of them all.
But it seemed Seimei's spirit was currently dormant. Otherwise, a suspicious man like Douman wouldn't have gotten anywhere near Yura before being chased off.
"I get it, I really do," Douman muttered to himself with a crooked smile. "If I had a daughter like that, I wouldn't let her near someone like me either. I'd be afraid she'd turn into some lunatic who finds joy in the world's disasters. What a tragic fate that'd be."
He said it so casually, so self-deprecatingly, it was hard to tell whether he meant it.
As he led Yura toward the eastern ruins, he recalled the two shikigami he'd posted in Hell to "guard" the Fantasy Tree.
They're doing a great job. I just told them to pose as Ibaraki and Shuten for fun—and wouldn't you know it, they never broke character once. If I didn't know better, I'd think they were the real ones summoned straight from Chaldea.
Thanks to the memory-sharing among his shikigami, he'd seen everything "male Ibaraki-dōji" had done.
Every time he recalled it, it gave him immense satisfaction—like lounging in an air-conditioned room on a sweltering summer day while a beautiful woman massages your feet.
All across Japan, his other shikigami had been watching too, shouting nonsense like "He believed it! He actually believed it!" and "MVP goes to Red Dragon Boss!"
---
Night had fallen.
In a traditional Japanese estate, a single cherry tree stood proud under the quiet moonlight. The scent of blossoms mingled with the breeze.
Beneath it, a mirror-still pond reflected the stars, the petals, and the silhouette on the tree's branches.
Lazily sprawled across one of those branches, Nura Wakana—or rather, Ashiya Douman in Wakana's form—clutched his stomach and burst out laughing.
"Fuhahaha! That look of disbelief—priceless! Deceiving people is so much fun! I could get addicted to this! Have I been corrupted by Jōdo teachings? Ahahahahaha!"
This was the Nura Clan's main compound.
After using Wakana's appearance to wipe out a wave of Hyaku Monogatari yōkai, he'd stuck around—for various reasons.
The little yōkai wandering the estate all heard "Wakana's" wild laughter and exchanged awkward glances.
"Isn't that the one who rescued Lady Wakana last time?"
"They really do look identical. Totally indistinguishable."
"No wonder he tricked those intruders. One of them even disguised themselves as a clan member, and no one noticed."
"It's terrifying… If anything happened to Lady Wakana, who knows how the First and Third Heads would react. What would happen to the Nura Clan…"
"Hey, someone's coming. That's Lady Wakana, right?"
Wooden sandals clacked against the stone path. Backlit by lamplight, a woman approached the tree—identical in appearance to the figure lounging in its branches.
"Limbo. I may owe you my life, but could you not use my face to laugh like that? It's the kind of laugh that'd make little kids cry."
She stopped beneath the tree, hands on her hips, chin raised in a mock stern posture.
"You're making things… complicated for me."
----
T/N: makes so much sense :sob: