A week had passed since Naoya realized just what kind of twisted world he found himself in, and it could be said that he was doing fairly well when it came to laying low. Not a single lessons has been missed so far, even if he’s really tempted to stop attending Yone’s lesson. There’s improvement that even he could tell, for example, he managed to…”tolerate” the calligraphy teacher's endless corrections, and sat through Kenji's accounting lectures with an attentive face. He ate his meals in silence, returned to his room, and slept. He did not scream. He did not throw things. He did not punch anyone.
I am a model son, he thought bitterly. A perfect little flower vase.
The morning air was cold against his cheeks as he stood on the small wooden balcony outside his room, looking down at the courtyard below. His bandaged arm rested on the railing, and his breath misted faintly in the chill. The sky was gray, snow will soon come falling, and the compound was already awake—servants moved through the corridors, carrying supplies and murmuring among themselves.
He had not intended to eavesdrop.
"Look, that's the head's child."
Naoya's eye twitched. He did not turn around. From the corner of his vision, he could see two servants—both male, both young, both dressed in plain gray kimonos—huddled near a wooden pillar, stealing glances up at him. They clearly thought they were being discreet.
"I heard he got beaten up by the Hei Captain and because of that, he turned to be really cold. Like, every time he speaks or just gazes at you, you’ll feel chill crawling up your body.”
A second servant shook his head. "Huh? Isn't it the Kukuru Unit Captain? I heard Oiko was the one who did it."
A third voice joined in, older and reedy. "No, no, you're both wrong. He got beaten by both, on the same day no less. First Oiko in the training yard, then the Hei dragged him to Naobi-sama and who knows what happened after. And I heard the reason he got beaten up is because he said men should also become military operatives of the Zenin clan."
Naoya's fingers curled around the railing.
That is not what happened, he thought. I said men should be in the Kukuru Unit because in my world they were. I said Zaiki should be captain. I said women had no place there. The truth has been twisted into something almost admirable. And that’s not even how the events unfolded! I got kicked by Naobi first, you fools!
One of them—the youngest, with a round face and eager eyes—lowered his voice even further, as if sharing a great secret. "You know, I think he's right. Why should women have all the glory? My father wasn't even from the Zenin clan originally. He was a sorcerer from a minor family who married in. He said in his own clan, men fought alongside women. He said men fought just as well. Better, even."
The second servant scoffed. "Better? Don't let the women hear you say that. You'll end up in The Pit. And besides, the boy is five. What does he know about fighting?"
"More than you, apparently. He lasted three exchanges with Oiko before she put him down. Could you last three exchanges with Oiko?"
The second servant's face reddened. "That's different. I'm not a sorcerer. He is. Supposedly."
"Supposedly? He got back up after Oiko beat him. That's more than most."
The older servant clicked his tongue. "Foolish, all of it. The boy should keep his head down and learn his place. Men who speak out against the clan's traditions end up married off to some backwater family or worse. He's young. He'll learn. Or he'll disappear."
Naoya listened to all of this with his face turned toward the gray sky.
Idiots, he thought. Do they not know that sorcerers have keen senses? Even a child like me can hear every word they're whispering. Their quiet conversation might as well be shouting.
He could pick out every syllable, every breath, every nervous swallow. The acoustics of the courtyard were designed for efficiency, not privacy. Stone walls carried sound. Wooden corridors amplified it. And these fools stood directly below his balcony, gossiping as if he were deaf.
If I can hear them, so can any other sorcerer walking past. So can Naobi's spies. So can the Hei.
If he were a better person, he’d warn them. But alas, he was not, and not even a single feeling of pity could be felt inside of his heart.
One voice—the round-faced one—continued, now tinged with something like admiration. "I don't know. I think it's brave. A five-year-old boy, standing up to the entire clan? Saying what everyone else is afraid to say? That's not foolish. That's… inspiring."
Naoya almost laughed.
Inspiring? I wasn't trying to inspire anyone. I was angry. I was confused. I thought I was given a new chance at life, in MY world. But realizing it was gone, I lost control. And you have turned my tantrum into a heroic act worth singing praise for.
The second servant grabbed the younger one's sleeve. "Keep your voice down! Do you want to get us both killed? The boy isn't a hero. He's a spoiled brat who didn't know his place and got corrected. End of story. Now come on—we have work to do."
Naoya remained on the balcony for a moment longer, watching the snow begin to fall in earnest, then turned back inside. His stomach reminded him that breakfast awaited, though the thought of food rarely brought pleasures these days.
He left his room and walked toward the dining annex, the corridor cold against his bare feet. In his hand he carried a small bundle of papers—his notes from the accounting lessons, carefully copied in his own uneven script. He had taken to carrying them everywhere, claiming he needed to study during meals, during breaks, during any spare moment. It was a believable excuse. After all, what else would a five-year-old boy do with his time?
But the truth is simpler, he thought, glancing down at the columns of figures. I have no idea what I'm looking for.
A week had passed since he had begun his quiet investigation, and he still had not narrowed the list of suspects. Not by a single name. The ledgers were vast, spanning years, filled with transactions and signatures and dates that blurred together into a meaningless sea of ink. Every time he thought he had found something—a number that was too high, a signature that appeared too often, a pattern that seemed suspicious—Kenji would provide a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Supply disruptions due to a curse attack near the eastern border. A failed business venture by a clan member that required emergency funding. Negotiations with the government over Jujutsu School quotas. Special allocations for winter preparations.
Each anomaly had a story attached. Everything was documented, signed off, and approved by someone above Kenji's pay grade. Nothing was missing. Nothing was obviously forged. The ledgers were, as far as anyone could tell, truthful.
And that is the problem, Naoya realized. If the embezzlement is happening, it is buried so deep that even the accountants cannot see it. Or perhaps they can see it, but they are too afraid to look.
He turned a corner and entered the dining annex, where a tray of rice, soup, and pickled vegetables waited for him.
But no. From Hanaya’s subtle prodding—what she told him anyway—or even Kenji, they all seems to be clueless and give no indication that they knew something else was up.
He sat down, set his notes beside the tray, and began to eat without tasting. His eyes moved across the numbers even as his chopsticks lifted food to his mouth.
In my first life, how did the elder get discovered? He tried to remember. Did Naobito investigate? No. The old man was many things—ruthless, cunning, lazy—but he was not an investigator. He did not pore over ledgers or interview witnesses. He sat in his room, drank sake, and waited for problems to come to him.
So how did the scandal break?
Naoya chewed slowly, staring at a column of rice expenditures from three years ago.
Someone must have brought it to him. Someone who had access to the ledgers and the courage to speak. An accountant, perhaps. Or a rival elder looking to eliminate competition. Or a servant who noticed something strange.
He set down his chopsticks and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Hanaya has been useful, he admitted. She had spent the week poking around the accounting office, asking about supply orders, and noting down anything that seemed unusual. But every time she brought him an anomaly, he asked Kenji about it, and Kenji produced a reasonable explanation. Curse attacks. Failed businesses. Government deals. The excuses were plausible. They even had documentation.
Either there is no embezzlement, Naoya thought, or the thief is very, very good.
He did not believe the first option. His memory was faint, but it was not false. Somewhere in this clan, an elder was stealing. He could feel it in his bones, the same way he could feel cursed energy flowing through his body. The problem was not whether the crime existed. The problem was finding it.
And I have no idea how.
He pushed the tray aside and picked up his notes again, flipping through page after page of copied figures. Sweat poured out as he glared at the characters with intensity. And still found nothing.
This is impossible, he thought. I am five years old. I have no resources. I have no authority. I have one frightened pawn and a stack of ledgers that doesn’t tell anything. How am I supposed to find a thief when everyone else—people who have done this for decades—has seen nothing?
He wanted to throw the notes as hard as he can, scream, then find the nearest servant and punch them in the face as hard as he can.
Instead, he folded the notes neatly, tucked them into his sleeve, and picked up his chopsticks to finish his breakfast.
Patience, he reminded himself. Patience and time.I know the future. It’s going to be fine.
Breakfast ended without incident. Calligraphy followed, equally unremarkable—his strokes remained clumsy, his teacher remained annoying, and Naoya remained silent. He endured the lesson the way he endured everything else now: with a flat expression and a quiet curse muttered only inside his head.
But now, finally, came the part of the day he actually anticipated. His meeting with Hanaya.
They had stopped pretending to read. Most of their sessions were now spent with Hanaya reporting what she had found and the two of them speculating in low voices. The reading room had become his war room.
Hanaya knelt across from him, her hands folded in her lap, her bruise now faded to a sickly yellow-green. She still flinched when he moved too quickly, but she no longer trembled every time he spoke.
"Naoya-sama," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "I finally found a lead."
Naoya's expression did not change, but something in his chest tightened. "What is it?"
She leaned forward, lowering her voice even further. "So you mentioned that the reason you are telling me to do this is because you suspect that someone is embezzling the Zenin's wealth, correct?"
"Not suspect," Naoya said flatly. "I know I am right."
"Y-yes. Of course that is what I meant." She swallowed. "Anyway, I found a clue!"
Finally. "Just get on with it."
"It's marriage."
Naoya blinked. Marriage? "…Huh? Explain."
Hanaya straightened her back, gaining confidence. "So you know the Zenin clan has a policy of always bringing sorcerers into the family, commonly by marriage—male or female."
Naoya kept his poker face on, but internally he was scrambling. No. No, I did not know that. He had been operating under the assumption that his knowledge from his first life, inverted, would be enough. But this world had entire policies and customs that did not exist in his own. A frustrating reminder that he could not access this body's memories. The original Naoya—the soft, obedient, perfect little boy—had known these things instinctively. But that boy was asleep, buried somewhere deep, and his knowledge had gone dormant with him.
If only I could access his memories, Naoya thought bitterly. A lot of things would become a lot easier than just inverting things in my head. Sometimes that is not nearly enough.
But he showed none of this on his face. He simply nodded, as if Hanaya had reminded him of something obvious.
"Continue," he said.
Hanaya nodded eagerly. "Now, because those people are usually brought here by force or through other methods—"
Blackmail. Threat. The words went unsaid, but Naoya heard them anyway.
"—they rarely have any dowry. But the Zenin still has to maintain its image, so a dowry is sent anyway to the family. On paper."
Naoya's eyes narrowed. Now we are getting somewhere.
"But," Hanaya continued, "the dowry gets sent—but not really. Only in name. The families receiving it cannot complain, because only the other two great families can hope to stand a chance against the Zenin clan. So the money stays in Zenin hands. However—" she paused for effect, "—if it was never sent, it should return to inventory. But the record does not say that, because to maintain legitimacy, the transaction must appear complete. So there it is."
She smiled, clearly proud of herself.
"A perfect window to embezzle funds."
Naoya sat in silence, turning her words over in his mind. A dowry that is promised but never delivered. A family too weak to complain. A record that shows completion for the sake of appearances. And somewhere in the gap between what is written and what actually happens—money disappears.
He looked at Hanaya. Her face was flushed with excitement.
"Who manages these dowry transactions?" he asked
Hanaya's excitement dimmed slightly. "That is… complicated. Multiple departments. Multiple signatures.”
Naoya's eyes narrowed. Multiple departments. Multiple signatures. That means multiple people involved, each covering for the others. Not a lone thief skimming from the edges, but an organized network.
He turned away from the window and walked slowly back toward her, his small feet silent on the tatami.
Ah, I see, he thought. So maybe that is why nobody knew about it in my first life. The scandal that broke—the elder my father executed—was not the work of one person. It was a conspiracy. Multiple elders, working together, sharing the risk and the reward. And they only got caught because someone inside the conspiracy turned against the others.
He stopped in front of Hanaya and looked down at her.
"Multiple departments," he repeated aloud, his voice thoughtful. "Multiple elders, all in cahoot. That explains why no one has noticed.”
Hanaya blinked. "You think… more than one?"
"I think," Naoya said slowly, "that instead of one elder doing this behind everyone's back, it is organized. A ring. And in my previous—" He caught himself. "—based on everything I learned so far, if we caught them, only one person will be punished. The others will sacrifice him in order to protect themselves. They’ll feed him to my parents to eliminate a competitor and to end any attempts at investigation."
Hanaya's face had gone pale. "That is… a serious accusation, Naoya-sama."
"It is a theory," he said, though he knew it was more than that. The pieces fit. In his first life, his father had executed a single elder for embezzlement, and the matter had been closed. But if the theft had been ongoing for years, how could only one person be responsible? The ledgers would have shown patterns, connections, approvals from multiple sources. That means… the investigation had been deliberately narrowed. And in the end, the other conspirators had pointed fingers at a single scapegoat.
And Naobito, he thought, my useless, sake-guzzling father—he would not have cared about justice. He would have taken the excuse to eliminate a political rival and moved on. The rest of the thieves walked free.
In this world, the same thing was probably happening.
But if I can find the thread that connects them, Naoya thought, I can pull it and bring down not one, but many. And in their desperation, they will have no choice but to support whoever holds their secrets.