“I see…
Mr.
Saito truly looks far ahead.”
After listening to Saito Shigeru’s grand speech, the underlings in the private room immediately put on expressions of sudden enlightenment.
Flattery followed at once.
“As long as we can control a real oni, forget Tokyo.
In the future, all of Japan will have to obey the Meiyuan Church.”
“When that time comes, money, women, power…
won’t we have whatever we want?”
The men sank into their own beautiful delusions and burst into wild, triumphant laughter.
Outside the door, Mizuki Mirei felt sick.
These people were insane.
They had no understanding of what an existence like Ibaraki-Douji truly was.
They had seen only a fragment of terror, only a few blurred images and confidential reports, and already they dared to fantasize about controlling an Oni God.
It was not ambition.
It was madness.
“But speaking of which, Mr.
Saito…”
One of the underlings, a slightly sharper-looking man with a flattering smile, rubbed his hands together and leaned forward.
“I heard the little shrine maiden from the Mizuki family is quite beautiful.
Are we really just going to take the shrine land and clear their debts?
Isn’t that letting the old man off too easily?”
At that question, a vile smile spread across Saito Shigeru’s face.
He reached out and pinched the cheek of one of the girls beside him, then spoke slowly.
“Of course I won’t let that old fool off so easily.”
He gave a soft snort.
“Once Shihou Shrine is gone, the Mizuki family will have no value left.
I already arranged the acquisition terms.”
His voice was low, but the cruelty in it was unmistakable.
“Once the old man signs the transfer agreement, he will discover something very interesting.
In our contract to acquire Shihou Shrine, the Mizuki family is included as part of the shrine’s attached property.”
The underlings paused.
Then their eyes widened with understanding.
Saito smiled.
“In other words, they will be acquired together.”
He swirled the wine in his glass.
“When the time comes, not only will they receive no money, they will not be allowed to leave.
They will serve us like dogs and work like beasts until the day they die.”
“As for that old priest, he is dull.
Weak.
Useless.
If he becomes troublesome, we can simply dispose of him somewhere.”
Saito’s tongue slid over his dry lips.
His eyes gleamed with lecherous greed.
“But his daughter…
hehehe.
I have heard for a long time that she is a famous beauty in the area.
When the time comes, perhaps I should have her wear her shrine maiden robes and perform kagura for me.”
His smile grew more twisted.
“Or perhaps something more interesting.
Just thinking about it makes me impatient.”
“Hahahaha!
Mr.
Saito really knows how to enjoy himself!”
“I wonder if that girl will cry when she learns what’s waiting for her.”
“To be noticed by Mr.
Saito must be her greatest fortune!”
Even filthier laughter erupted in the private room.
Outside the door, Mizuki Mirei stood completely still.
The moment Saito Shigeru’s words reached her ears, something inside her seemed to snap.
A buzzing filled her head.
Her face, already pale from tension and fear, drained of its last trace of color.
The final hesitation in her eyes disappeared.
What replaced it was a dead, bone-chilling calm.
So that was it.
In the eyes of these people, she and her father were not even worthy of the most basic human dignity.
They did not simply want to take her home.
They wanted to crush her father, destroy their future, and reduce what remained of the Mizuki family into something they could control and humiliate at will.
And her.
They had even prepared such vile fantasies for her.
An indescribable cold fury surged up from the deepest part of Mizuki’s chest.
It burned away the last thread of goodwill left in her heart.
Now that she had seen the true faces of these cruel, cold-blooded scum, these humans who were uglier than oni, she no longer felt any guilt about using Ibaraki-Douji’s power to do something beyond the boundaries of ordinary society.
Some trash did not deserve to remain in this world.
“There’s no need to wait for my father to hand over the shrine.”
A cold, emotionless voice sounded from the doorway.
“Because I’m already here.”
Mizuki pushed open the half-closed door and stepped inside.
One step.
Then another.
The obscene, noisy atmosphere in the private room froze because of her sudden arrival.
Every gaze turned toward the door.
When they clearly saw that the person who had entered was the very shrine maiden they had been discussing, Saito Shigeru and his underlings all went still for a moment.
None of them had expected this.
This frail girl, who should have been dozens of kilometers away at a suburban shrine, trembling over the fate of her family, had appeared alone in the middle of the night at their headquarters.
After the brief surprise, Saito was the first to smile.
He pushed the two girls beside him away, rose from the sofa, and leisurely straightened his suit and tie.
“Well, well.
If it isn’t the shrine maiden of the Mizuki family.”
He looked Mizuki up and down with the gaze of a cat toying with a mouse.
“What’s the matter?
Couldn’t wait to join the Meiyuan Church?”
His tone became flippant.
“Or did you hear our conversation just now and rush over because you wanted to experience being cherished by me ahead of schedule?”
“Hahahaha!”
His words immediately drew laughter from the underlings behind him.
In their eyes, Mizuki’s actions were no different from a lamb walking into a slaughterhouse.
A powerless girl had barged alone into a den filled with wolves.
There could only be one result.
“Bold little thing, aren’t you?”
The thug closest to the door grinned maliciously and reached out with his greasy hand, aiming for Mizuki’s shoulder.
“Couldn’t wait to be trained by Mr.
Saito?”
But before his hand could touch even the edge of Mizuki’s clothing, his wrist was caught.
By a small, pale, delicate hand that appeared out of nowhere.
“Huh?”
The thug froze.
“A kid?”
He followed the hand with his eyes.
Only then did he see that behind Mizuki Mirei, a petite figure in a golden kimono had appeared at some unknown point.
She was short, less than one hundred and fifty centimeters tall, and looked completely like a little girl, though her clothing was strange enough to resemble a costume from some theatrical performance.
Why had the Mizuki family’s shrine maiden brought a little girl here?
“That is…!”
Unlike his shallow underlings, Saito Shigeru shot to his feet the instant he saw the figure behind Mizuki clearly.
Every hair on his body stood on end.
His eyes widened in terror.
He had seen that figure before.
In the top-secret file sent from the Metropolitan Police Department to the Church Leader.
The leader of Mount Ooe.
The oni from the Heian period.
Ibaraki-Douji.
“Yes.”
As Saito’s mind crashed under the weight of fear, Mizuki’s icy voice sounded again.
There was no fear on her face now.
No panic.
Only a chilling indifference.
“I couldn’t wait any longer.”
She lifted her eyes and swept her gaze across every face in the private room.
It was the gaze one gave to the dead.
“I couldn’t wait to send all of you worthless scum, who only waste rice by staying alive, straight to hell.”
The moment her words fell, Mizuki no longer hesitated.
In her mind, with all the strength she possessed, she issued the first and most ruthless command of her life.
Lady Ibaraki.
Kill them all.
Leave none alive.
“As you command, my Master.”
The corner of Ibaraki-Douji’s mouth lifted in an innocent, cruel arc.
In the next instant, a vast demonic aura erupted from her petite body.
It was like a dam bursting.
The temperature in the entire private room plummeted.
Every breath turned cold.
Every instinct screamed.
Boom!
The thug whose wrist Ibaraki-Douji held did not even have time to scream.
His body burst apart like a cheap water balloon.
Flesh, blood, and shattered bone sprayed across the private room in a violent red storm.
Blood splashed over the walls.
Entrails struck the ceiling.
The laughter died.
For one frozen moment, every mind in the room stopped working.