Chapter 88: Crisis Ends
Tension spread through the cordon like a fever.
The armed personnel stationed around Sitinge Mansion had already heard enough from Iwanaga Kotoko to understand why the White Fox Office had mobilized nearly every force Shibuya Ward could spare. Fear, urgency, disbelief—one emotion after another pressed down on them until even breathing felt heavy.
The enemy's goal was not simple slaughter.
It was worse.
A curse.
A curse meant to be released beneath Shibuya itself, spreading through the roots of the Weird Wood Spirit and infecting every human in the ward.
Many of the officers present had families nearby. Parents. Wives. Husbands. Children sleeping in apartment buildings under the same illuminated night sky. The thought that those people might be twisted into yokai, dying in agony and despair, made several men grip their weapons until their knuckles turned white.
The Onmyoji responsible for the barrier were no better.
Once they realized that the supernatural incident before them concerned the life and death of millions, they pushed their spiritual power to the limit. No one dared to conserve strength. No one dared to slow down. The sooner the barrier rose, the sooner Sitinge Mansion could be sealed—and the sooner the thing inside could be destroyed.
Swish, swish, swish, swish!
Four translucent walls rose from the ground around Sitinge Mansion, shining like immense panes of crystal. They joined at the edges and locked together, enclosing the entire unfinished building inside a transparent spiritual coffin.
From a distance, it looked as though Shibuya itself had prepared a glass tomb for the yokai buried within.
The moment the barrier stabilized, Kotoko turned to Ibe Tomoya and Kohara Daisuke.
"Chief Ibe. Chief Kohara. There's no time to waste. Begin the suppression immediately. The faster we destroy the Weird Wood Spirit's main vein, the faster this crisis ends."
"We've been ready from the beginning," Ibe Tomoya replied.
Kohara Daisuke raised a hand.
The order passed through the ranks.
Onmyoji and armed personnel surged forward, entering Sitinge Mansion from every accessible route. Their movements were tense but disciplined, a wave of human will crashing into the nest of something inhuman.
Kurazaki Fuko watched from behind the cordon and noticed that the firearms carried by the official personnel were not ordinary weapons. They looked standard at first glance, but each barrel and magazine had been reinforced with Onmyodo modifications. Talismans were embedded into metal frames. Spell formulas ran along the stocks in thin black lines.
Weapons made for killing yokai.
The thought had barely formed when the mansion answered.
Boom!
Boom, boom, boom!
The ground inside the barrier buckled.
Thick bronze vines erupted from below like pillars, smashing through concrete floors and unfinished support columns. They burst from windows, stairwells, and half-built corridors, writhing madly through every level of the mansion.
In a blink, countless beams cracked.
The entire structure groaned and began to tilt.
The battle had begun.
"Assault Squad!" Ibe Tomoya shouted. "Fire Boundary Spell!"
The Onmyo Agency branch Onmyoji moved at once. Each drew a talisman from within his robe with military precision.
Dozens of voices overlapped in solemn chant.
"Namaḥ samanta-buddhānāṃ, sarvathā-vigate-bhyaḥ, sarva-mukhe-bhyaḥ, sarvathā—swiftly, as the laws and decrees command!"
"Fire Boundary Spell!"
Flames ignited across the talismans.
Dozens of Fire Boundary Spells merged into a single roaring blaze, surging forward like a dragon born from crimson light. The fire slammed into the bronze vines and swallowed them whole, charring the monstrous growths as they thrashed against the night.
For an instant, Sitinge Mansion became a furnace.
"Even though it's only stacked Imperial-Style Fire Boundary Spells, the power far exceeds a single Ancient-Style casting," Kotoko murmured, watching the flames surge.
But she knew better than to relax.
This alone would not kill the main vein.
As expected, more bronze vines tore free from the mansion's depths. They were thicker than before, darker, angrier. They whipped through the burning floors like furious serpents, lashing at the invading Onmyoji and official personnel with the force of collapsing cranes.
"Mounted mechanical weapons—fire!" Kohara Daisuke ordered.
The armed personnel raised their modified firearms.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
A storm of bullets tore through the air. Sparks flashed. Spell-loaded rounds hammered into the bronze vines, each impact bursting with spiritual force. Wherever the bullets struck, the vines blackened, decayed, and crumbled into streams of foul smoke.
At the same time, the Onmyoji's next spell was already forming.
"This art severs evil and eliminates misfortune—swiftly, as the laws and decrees command!"
"Demon-Subduing Thunder Curse!"
Dark clouds gathered above Sitinge Mansion.
The pressure in the air changed. Hair rose on skin. The night itself seemed to inhale.
Among the gathered Onmyoji were Ibe Tomoya and Kohara Daisuke, both possessing strength close to the ninth rank of Professional-level Onmyoji. With them supporting the formation, the gathered thunder took on a terrifying density.
No matter how strange the Weird Wood Spirit was, it was still rooted in the nature of trees and vegetation.
And all trees feared fire.
All vegetation feared lightning.
The Fire Boundary Spell and Demon-Subduing Thunder Curse were perfect counters.
Rumble!
A massive bolt of lightning fell.
For one blinding moment, a dozen streets around Sitinge Mansion flashed white as day. The lightning devoured the entire unfinished structure, crashing down like divine punishment from an ancient chronicle.
The roar shook the barrier.
Only after several breaths did the radiance fade.
Kurazaki Fuko stared at the ruined mansion, now reduced to scorched rubble and blackened concrete.
"Dozens of Demon-Subduing Thunder Curses stacked together can actually reach this level..." she muttered.
Then another thought crawled into her mind.
At Mount Fuji, countless National-level Onmyoji had gathered. If they had released their arts together, the resulting power should have exceeded this by an unimaginable margin.
And yet, even with that kind of strength, they had failed to destroy Yamata no Orochi.
They had barely sealed it for three months.
For the first time, Fuko felt her confidence in Onmyodo waver.
When that mythical yokai truly awakened three months from now, could humanity really stop it?
"Is it over?" Kasugano Sora whispered, staring at the scorched ruins.
"Probably not," Kotoko said.
Her expression remained grim.
Ibe Tomoya and Kohara Daisuke shared the same look.
The next second, the answer came.
"Awooooo!"
A fox's howl echoed from the rubble.
Two enormous gray-black foxes rose from the scorched remains, each as large as a truck. Bronze vines coiled around their bodies, some wrapped around their limbs, others piercing directly into their flesh.
The two creatures' eyes were murky with pain and madness.
"What are those?" Ibe Tomoya blurted.
Was the yokai inside not only the Weird Wood Spirit's main vein?
Kotoko's gaze turned cold.
"Those are Kuda Mai's parents. They were afflicted by the fox curse long ago. The Weird Wood Spirit's main vein has been using them as the source of the curse, cultivating and multiplying it through their bodies. The humans devoured by the Weird Wood Spirit branches, and the blood-red fruits produced from them, were all nutrients for this purpose."
Kohara Daisuke's face darkened.
"That's monstrous."
"Destroy them quickly," Kotoko said. "Destroy them and the main vein together before anything else happens."
She looked toward the darkness in the distance.
"Director," she murmured, "I'll leave that one to you. I'll finish things here as quickly as possible."
At the sparsely populated outskirts of Shibuya Ward, the night air smelled faintly of damp earth.
"Hiss... hiss..."
A woman stood beneath the darkness, looking toward Sitinge Mansion. She was unnervingly beautiful, with long hair trailing across the ground, her entire body soaked as though she had just crawled from the sea.
A sinister smile split across her face.
"The plan isn't perfect, and those hateful Onmyoji ruined part of it... but this is enough."
The battle at Sitinge Mansion continued in the distance, fire and spiritual energy flickering against the sky.
"Farewell, Shibuya Ward," she whispered. "You will become the finest gift I can offer my lord."
Just as she prepared to command the Weird Wood Spirit's underground roots to erupt and release the fox curse across the entire ward, a calm voice sounded behind her.
"Barrier."
In an instant, a barrier the size of several football fields unfolded around her.
The woman's expression changed.
"That hateful Onmyoji caught up?"
Demonic energy surged from her body. She lashed out at the thin-looking barrier, intending to smash through it before it could fully settle.
But the next second, her face twisted.
The barrier did not break.
Her demonic energy never even touched its surface. It was suppressed, dispersed, and erased before contact.
The barrier stood like an immovable mountain.
"This is..." Her voice sank. "A strategic barrier?"
Her expression turned ugly.
She had lived for hundreds of years. Naturally, she understood what a strategic barrier was. Such a barrier required immense preparation, materials, manpower, and time. It was not something one person could casually deploy in the middle of the night.
Yet the impossible was now standing before her.
Worse still, this strategic barrier had sealed her methods and severed her connection with the Weird Wood Spirit's main vein.
She could no longer order it to release the curse.
If this continued, the Onmyoji at Sitinge Mansion would destroy the main vein, and everything she had prepared would be reduced to nothing.
Her master would not forgive failure.
The thought alone made her shudder.
"So it's a Nure-onna."
Gin Tsumugi slowly appeared inside the barrier.
A Nure-onna.
A yokai of the shore. Some legends called her Isonna, Ama, or Kaihime. A drowned woman's vengeful spirit, with the upper body of a beautiful woman and the lower body of a dragon or serpent, her long hair forever wet and trailing on the ground.
The creature before him wore a human lower body only as a disguise, a convenience for walking among people and concealing her aura.
The moment Gin saw her, several conjectures in his mind hardened into something closer to certainty.
A Nure-onna would not serve just anyone.
The identity of the other hidden existence behind the Weird Wood Spirit Incident was now almost clear.
"How did you find me?" the Nure-onna asked, her expression dark.
With the strategic barrier deployed and her identity exposed, she knew the situation had become dangerous. Unless she killed the Onmyoji in front of her, her mission would end in failure.
Gin looked at her calmly.
"Why do you think I arrived 'late' after Kuda Mai appeared? If you hadn't been so cautious, I might have caught your tail even sooner."
At first, when he used the True Words of the Dead on Kuda Mai, he had not discovered that her soul had been tampered with.
But after listening to her speak, the flaw became obvious.
Kuda Mai had been transformed into a cursed yokai, twisted beyond recognition, and driven by suffering no ordinary human could endure. Yet when she explained her experiences, she did so too smoothly. Too logically. Too completely.
There was pain, yes.
There was sorrow.
But her mind did not collapse. Her narration held together far too neatly.
That was the strangest part.
"Kuda Mai's words were nine parts true and one part false," Gin said. "You controlled her from behind the scenes, guiding her to say what you wanted me to hear. You wanted me to blame everything on someone else."
"I don't understand what you're talking about."
The Nure-onna's voice sharpened.
Gin ignored her denial.
"From the beginning, you exposed too many flaws. The framed photo in Room 405 was left there deliberately by you while controlling Kuda Mai. The fox cries were meant to push anyone investigating toward the word 'fox.' Of course, that part wasn't exactly wrong."
His eyes were still, almost indifferent.
"The two hunts during the Wedding Dress Tree Incident at Houjuo High School were also most likely guided by you through some method. As for the so-called voice of the Wedding Dress Tree that Kuda Mai mentioned—nonsense."
The Nure-onna's face stiffened.
"The Wedding Dress Tree was sealed," Gin continued. "How could it contact someone outside? The hairpin did not possess a medium capable of that. And you expect me to believe an ordinary person could follow the command of a sealed Yokai and break that seal herself? Do you take every Onmyoji in the world for an idiot?"
The Nure-onna's expression grew uglier with every word.
"The hairpin was crafted with imperial craftsmanship, proving its connection to the Imperial Family. A Goddess. A Noble Lady. Both indicate someone of extremely high status from the Heian Period. Sacred trees and Wedding Dress Trees—I have not found direct records tied to her yet, but there are rumors that many tree-like yokai once grew around her temporary palace."
Gin's voice lowered.
"The one you were plotting against was that white-faced, golden-haired nine-tailed fox. The Great Yokai famed alongside Shuten-dōji and the Great Tengu."
The Nure-onna went silent.
Then she smiled.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"A fine explanation," she said, clapping softly. "I did underestimate you, Onmyoji."
Her eyes turned bloodthirsty.
"But as long as you die, nothing has failed."
Her voice became venomous.
"Humble human, did opposing the Wedding Dress Tree make you arrogant enough to think you could oppose me?"
Demonic energy erupted from her body.
"Die!"
Her lower body twisted, illusion breaking apart as it transformed into a massive serpent tail hundreds of meters long. Countless evil spirits clung to its surface, wailing and gnashing. The power gathered there was enough to rival a National-level Onmyo Art.
The tail struck.
It tore through the air with crushing force, its pressure alone enough to shatter stone.
Gin watched it approach without moving.
"So you compressed the power of your entire spirit domain into a single-target attack. This method is far more refined than the Wedding Dress Tree's."
He drew out two talismans.
"But I don't have time to play with you."
His fingers loosened.
"Come forth—Zendō, Myōdō."
The world darkened.
Dense Yin energy erupted into a black pillar that pierced the sky. The air trembled. A pressure belonging to legendary yokai gods swept outward, heavy enough to force even the night itself to bow.
The Nure-onna's strike, which had been no weaker than a National-level Onmyo Art, was blasted back.
"How?" Panic flashed across her face. "He's only a National-level Onmyoji. How can he possess shikigami this powerful?"
That pressure—
It was the pressure of Great Yokai.
"Awooo... Master!"
A roar rang out from within the black Yin energy, like an elephant and tiger merged into one monstrous cry. Chains rattled. Heavy footsteps struck the ground.
Then two towering figures emerged.
Each stood three to four meters tall, bodies wrapped in brutality and divine malice. The moment the Nure-onna saw them, her eyes widened in disbelief.
"No... impossible. Them? Weren't they sealed within the Tsuchimikado Clan?"
Her blood seemed to freeze.
Seeing ordinary Great Yokai would not have terrified her this much.
But these two were different.
Gin did not bother answering.
"Zendō. Myōdō. Eliminate her quickly."
"As you command, Master!"
Zenki moved first.
The giant axe in his hand swept down, becoming a cold arc of light that seemed capable of splitting heaven and earth.
The Nure-onna's face went pale.
I have to dodge.
But before she could move, Koki stomped on the ground.
A binding force pinned her in place.
She could not shift even an inch.
Puchi!
The axe fell.
Blood filled the air.
The Nure-onna was severed in two and collapsed to the ground, screaming as the life force within her shattered apart.
In her final moments, through the haze of agony, she stared at Gin standing beside the two yokai gods.
That image overlapped with one from her oldest memories.
A young Onmyoji.
Two yokai gods.
A shadow from a thousand years ago.
Suddenly, the Nure-onna understood.
With the last of her strength, she turned her gaze toward the Imperial Palace.
"So that's how it is... It wasn't my master and I who schemed against you. You schemed against us... What a move..."
Her voice faded.
"Master... be careful. Something even more terrifying than the chaotic Yamata no Orochi has appeared..."
Then the Nure-onna died.
The culprit behind the Weird Wood Spirit Incident, the Wedding Dress Tree Incident, and the Human Eating Incident had finally reached her end.
"Return."
Gin recalled Zenki and Koki, then withdrew the strategic barrier.
The strategic barrier was exactly as the Nure-onna had guessed: it had not been cast through his own power alone. It had been deployed through the Senji Ryakketsu rooted in his mind.
Now, he could release it almost at will.
It was, in effect, a portable strategic barrier capable of sealing attacks from a Great Yokai. Whether for defense or trapping enemies, it surpassed the replica of the Yata no Kagami that Shinomiya Kaguya had given him.
"The matter here is settled," Gin murmured, looking toward Sitinge Mansion. "Now I wonder how Kotoko is doing."
That was the true critical point.
There could be no mistakes there.
Just as he prepared to use Uho and rush back—
Boom!
The entire Shibuya Ward trembled.
It was slight, like a minor earthquake caused by a shifting foundation, but it spread across the district in a single pulse before vanishing.
Then silence returned.
Gin closed his eyes.
Through his Spirit Insight Power, he could clearly perceive the roots of the Weird Wood Spirit buried deep beneath Shibuya rapidly withering, their spiritual presence collapsing layer by layer.
Without the main vein, the underground network had lost its anchor.
The roots were dying.
Gin opened his eyes.
"It seems Kotoko succeeded."
The crisis threatening all of Shibuya Ward—
was over.
.....
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