Vol 7 Chapter 12 (1/2)
Chapter 12: Laughing Conqueror
Narita Yuzuru had been kidnapped
Ayako heard the news fro word fro held captive within the Tsutsuga Mirror
“What? How the hell did that happen?!”
“Sorry I screwed up There were too many of them”
Chiaki was calling from a public telephone outside the Matsuht up until that moment
“I had the police check the license plate, but the car was stolen No surprise there They’re looking for it, but it’s gonna take tih, so we can figure out what direction he’s going with a Bell-Ringing Ritual”
“Hold on, Nagahide! Start fro! You said someone took him—so he’s been kidnapped? Do you knoho did it? You don’t think—”
“One thing I’ a spell to strangle uess it could be some onshou short on funds for his war,” Chiaki replied calmly Cool-headedness under pressure had always been one of his strengths Takaya, on the other hand, would probably be tearing his hair out by the handful right about now
“I’er brother, the one Naoe said saved hi about his ”
“Date’s?” Ayako questioned in surprise Date? But the Date vassal Katakura Kojuurou ith Naoe right now “Are you saying that it was the Date who carried hi for the Tsutsuga Mirrors in Nikkou with Naoe”
“Tsutsuga Mirrors? What’s that?”
“Huh? Oh! Right! I haven’t told you about that yet!” Ayako recalled, and relayed the events in Nikkou in detail
“What?! Kagetora asked Naoe for help from within the mirror?!”
“I got another call earlier fro for Odawara Which o to Nikkou”
“That idiot, what the hell is he doing?!”
BAM! Chiaki struck the phone box glass Putting aside Yuzuru’s kidnapping for the etora’s gone and gotten hia, and you think this is all the Houjou’s doing?! That stupidaround like that, Goddammit!”
“Anyway, I think we can leave Kagetora to Naoe for now Locating Yuzuru-kun is our first priority! Listen, I’ to Nikkou toto do with it, I’ll probably be able to at least learn more than we kno He said Kousaka was in Nikkou, too”
“Whaaaaat?! That bastard Kousaka is there? What the hell was Naoe doing there alone? Why the fuck hasn’t he been keeping us in the loop about all of this?!”
“Anyhow, I’ot a contact address, so write this down It’s the japanese inn Naoe’s been staying at Katakura-san should be there too”
After hurriedly relaying the details and asking him to ‘stay in touch,’ Ayako ended the call
“fuck!” Fued down the receiver and exited the phone box “So noe gotta worry about Kagetora too?!”
One little chink in their armor io soft on them; this was an opportunity they would not pass up
(Not to mention the fact that it’s his birth family this time)
They were just asking the enee Chiaki kicked the phone box in his frustration
Why had Yuzuru been taken? To make use of his power? Whatever the case, they had to find him as soon as possible, or they would end up with a catastrophe on their hands If anyone made use of that terrible power they saw in Sendai, all hell would break loose
I shall take that jewel from you
Chiaki ground his teeth as he recalled Mori Ranmaru’s words
(Does Date’s younger brother have any connection to the Oda?)
It was not a pleasant thought But Mogami, who had sheltered Kojirou, had in turn been backed by the Oda It was not outside the realm of possibility
“Aargh, fuck fuck fuck! None of this would’ve happened if that blockhead wasn’t such a fucking flake!” Chiaki cursed as he clii license plate had taken YuzuruRitual was a type of seeking spell using Mikkyou ritual i a vajra bell, whose sound (or, in this case, spirit-wave) reverberating froeneral direction The process was like activating a sub the place of the pinger and the seeker’s own sixth sense in place of the sonar systeous was the fact that the echo faded with distance; the seeker’s search area was limited by his reisa ability
In Chiaki’s hand was a vajra bell tuned to the frequency of the Hakku Dharani carved into Yuzuru’s bracelet It took time despite his preparations, but at last Chiaki heard the echo at the very edges of his range
The reverberation had coreat distance away Which probably i
(Nikkou, then?)
He started the engine, violently disengaged the side break, and stepped on the accelerator
Ayako sped through the night fro at dawn but passing Naoe in the darkness Her only stop had been at a gas station After cliIroha Hill, she descended to Lake Chuuzenji, where she located Asaoka Inn on a map and immediately set out to meet Katakura Her body, tempered by several onshou tours, betrayed not a trace of tiredness
“Katakura-san?” Maiko was there to receive her The inn’s ht expect But the real reason for Maiko’s dawn rising was her worry for Naoe, who had suddenly left for Odawara in the ht She had not slept a wink
“I’m a friend of NaoI mean, of Tachibana’s Please let him know Kakizaki is here”
“Kakizakisan?”
Maiko looked Ayako over with open skepticism She seemed bothered by the fact that Tachibana Yoshi+aki’s friend was female
(What a beautiful person)
She appeared to be around Maiko’s age, but with her extraordinary and ireater sophistication Maiko, who belonged to the class of people someorried about a little plumpness around her lower half, felt herself unable to coh jeans at the moment, but even if she were to dress up, Maiko froister as competition
In any case, Maiko was already so full of thoughts of Tachibana that her aching heart was ready to burst Was she the one he had called last night? The person he had described as being ‘too devious to defy’—?
(It probably is) Maiko scolded herself for the depression threatening to overwhelm her, but it had rather the opposite effect
“Just a moment,” she said brusquely, and went up to the second floor to call on Katakura
Boy, that didn’t go well, Ayako thought, scratching her head Since s of this kind were a not-infrequent occurrence around Naoe, she decided to leave it be for the ti
“Well! Thank you for co, Kakizaki-dono,” Katakura called from the top of the stairs, and Ayako looked up
“Katakura-sa—”
“Huh, here comes another one” The unexpected interruption came from Kousaka Danjou, who had appeared behind Katakura He seeetora’s been eaten by a tsutsuga, and Narita’s been kidnapped? Are the Uesugi just sitting around twiddling their thumbs?”
“Oh, shut up! Why are you here, anyway?”
“Infor the ones behind the theft of the Tsutsuga Mirrors”
“Let us talk inside,” Kojuurou interjected “We must discuss the details Asaoka-san, may I i a cup for Kakizaki-san as well Let us take on such serious matters with calm in both mind and body”
Though the inn looked like a Western-style house from the outside, and indeed had started out as such, Maiko’s father had re visitors’ with tatamimats laid out in the japanese style
Katakura’s room, the innermost room on the second floor, was said to be Asaoka Inn’s best The s gazed out on Lake Chuuzenji and Mt Nantai, and Maiko’s father boasted that no better view could be found in the entire Chuuzenji Hot Springs area Maiko had apparently commandeered the room for ‘Katakura-san and Tachibana-san’
Somewhat calmer after a drink of Maiko’s coffee, Ayako related Chiaki’s account of the circu
“Was it Lord Kojirou, truly?” Kojuurou looked dazed, disbelief written all over his face as Ayako finished
“So he claiahide has never seen the spirit vessel possessed by Kojirou-san If Naoe had been there he would have been able to corroborate, but”
“”
Kojuurou frowned, sighing deeply
“In truth, even we do not knohat form Lord Kojirou has taken As you know, after he and Lady Hoshunin re-awoke in this world, they took shelter with Mogami, who cast a curse on Sendai We have been unable to find him ever since My lord, too, is much concerned and dispatched ht but worrying rumors”
“Rumors?”
“That Lord Kojirou has been working with the one called Mori of the Oda”
“What? Oda?”
“Yes If you consider that ’twas Oda ami from the shadows, perhaps such rumors are not without basis Yet if that were the case, why did he not return to ainst my lord, why?” a arded him with sympathy
Even so, she had to be certain “Then the Date truly have had no news of Kojirou-san?”
“’Tis quite true If we had any knowledge of his whereabouts, ould have returned him to my lord’s side forthwith, for that is an outcoine any reason for Lord Kojirou to kidnap Narita-dono”
“Can’t you?” Rumors abounded that the Date had set out to conquer the «Yaoku», and Ayako had her suspicions about how ive an enemy
“The danger here is immense,” Kousaka interjected “We don’t knohat they will do with Narita Yuzuru’s power What in the world have you people been doing? How many times did I tell you not to take your eyes off hii a bunch of incompetent idiots?”
“What did you say?!”
“They’ll probably kill a whole bunch of people or blow up a city, and it’ll all be on your head”
“Wh! Wh-h! Don’t you dare put the blame on us! What about you? If you know his true nature, just tell us already!”
“Humph! That’s why I call you incoi at spirit-sensing?”
“You’re a monster!”
Kojuurou interrupted before the exchange could escalate into so, let us do e can to aid in the search for Narita-dono If it has anything to do with Lord Kojirou, I must not overlook this incident I will apprise my lord of these events”
Still glaring at Kousaka, Ayako nodded sullenly Kousaka braced both elbows on the table and pointed out, “But it looks like we’ve got a few etora-dono has fallen victih probability that his soul will be tree-bound, and his face will appear in a tree as we’ve seen on the sacred trees at Futarasan Shrine Doesn’t that make it even a Mirror?”
“Katakura-san, do you have any ideas for locating the Tsutsuga Mirror?”
“Not yet However, though Uesugi-dono has been devoured by the tsutsuga, I believe his situation is slightly different”
“In ay?”
”Last night, when Uesugi-dono’s ie appeared to Naoe-dono in the mirror, both Asaoko-san and I were able to see him as well—unlike Asaoka-san’s brother, ere unable to see even when he appeared to her In other words, shi+nya-san’s soul had already been bound to the sacred tree, and he was projecting his ie before a particular person via the interas’ spiritual power
In Uesugi-dono’s case, however, the presence in the mirror was remarkably different Rather than a projection, it felt al on the other side of the reater spirit-sensing would be able to speak with hih the e directly froi-dono inside the mirror”
“So you’re saying that it’s not Kagetora’s reflection in the mirror, but actually him?”
“That is a Mirrors contains a story about a woa Mirror It is froht deduce Futarasan Shrine as the location of the ic transfora”
Kojuurou told them the story:
”A bandit entered the shrine one day and stole the feave it to his wife But the instant his wife’s reflection appeared in the mirror, the mirror sucked away her soul
The stunned bandit begged anyone he could find for help, but he sought in vain, and was left to spend his days in tears and lae case of a wo for help, and Holy Priest Shoudou set out to resolve the mystery He called the woman to his own mirror and learned the course of events from her Then the holy priest said: ‘If the bandit repents of his actions’ and placed the fe the woman from the mirror
In other words, when the woman was imprisoned within the mirror, she was shut away in the mirror world Mirrors can act as s to thethose within to converse with those without”
“So that a? He’s just trapped within the fea Mirror?!”
“Naoe-dono has gone to verify this hypothesis, using the ietora-dono as clues But if it is true that he is trapped within the fea Mirror”
“Then in order to free hia Mirror will be needed?” Kousakatowards the horizon
“—Naoe said that we a Mirror”
“Kousaka-dono Do you have any ideas regarding the location of the a Mirror?”
“As to that—I did use my specialty to perform a search for it I sensed that the ‘a Mirror formerly kept at Mt Kunou It was ceremonially transferred to another shrine in the early years of the Meiji Period, but that shrine was abandoned long ago and no longer exists What concerns me, however, is the man who performed that transfer”
“How so?”
“The man was a ed to a faht district It was said that when Yoshi+as first established, Shouji Jin’emon used the remnants of the Fuuma to secure its prosperity, and that Jin’emon himself came from the Fuuma”
“Ah!” Ayako and Kojuurou exclaimed