“Always finding new ways to land people in trouble, that sister of mine…”
Aoko couldn’t help grumbling.
Setting aside whatever future events the boy claimed might come to pass, the truth was she still didn’t understand why he’d come looking for her—or, to be precise, for “Aozaki Touko.”
“So you’re after my big sister.
Is there something you need from her, Minato?”
“Yes.
I was hoping Aozaki Touko-san could tell me the whereabouts of her old classmate, Araya Souren.”
And who’s that?
Aoko turned to glance at Alice, but the young witch only shook her head—she didn’t know the man either.
“Uh, so you’re saying the future you saw actually has something to do with this Araya Souren.
That’s why you want to reach Touko through me, and then reach him through Touko?”
It sounded convoluted, but Aoko grasped the heart of it at once.
“Mm.”
Ryōgi Minato nodded.
Since he still needed to rely on her connection to Aozaki Touko to learn what he wanted, he answered honestly.
What he didn’t realize was that he’d overestimated the “warmth” between the Aozaki sisters.
“I see…”
Understanding dawned on Aoko’s face.
But having come this far, she couldn’t help asking one more question out of curiosity.
“Can I ask why you want to find this Araya Souren person, Minato?”
“Because in the future I saw, he may bring harm to my fiancée.”
The boy spoke in earnest.
The danmaku sometimes said things he couldn’t make sense of, but on certain matters they had never lied to him.
So Ryōgi Minato was willing to believe in this possible future, and meant to confirm ahead of time just what sort of man this Araya Souren was.
Yet the moment the words left his mouth, the living room fell silent.
Even Aoko, who’d never been in a relationship, caught the sweet-and-sour tang of young romance, and was left with mixed feelings.
As for Alice, the look she turned on the boy carried open surprise—and, knowing now the reason behind his actions, she found herself a little more inclined to believe he wasn’t a magus.
“Going to seek out a magus for the sake of your fiancée—what fairy tale did you crawl out of?”
Aoko’s retort slipped out before she could stop it.
Setting aside the sheer fact that a boy his age had a fiancée at all, she could tell from his bearing he wasn’t joking.
But if that was the case, it raised a new problem.
If this child really did track down the man called Araya Souren someday—then how, exactly, did he plan to deal with him?
Pressing further, though, might start trespassing on private matters.
Aoko scratched her head, vaguely irritated, unsure whether someone now privy to the situation had any business standing idly by.
Letting a grade-schooler go face a magus head-on—someone born to “this side of the world” might not give it a second thought, but she was still a novice, hadn’t yet fully shed the common sense and conscience of a normal person, and found herself caught in a knot of indecision.
Just then, the young witch seated beside her seemed to recall something, and spoke up.
“Ryōgi Minato.
Ryōgi… are you of the Ryōgi family in Mifune City?”
“Hm?
Alice, you know this kid?”
Hearing her housemate bring up the small guest’s origins, Aoko’s face filled with puzzlement.
Ryōgi Minato didn’t understand how she knew where he came from either, but he nodded all the same.
“No, I don’t know him—I just happen to know a little about the surname.
The Ryōgi family seems to have once belonged to ‘this side of the world’ as well.
If so, it would explain why he has something like Future Sight.”
Recalling some of the materials on this country’s native magecraft families that she’d leafed through when she first moved here, Alice remembered the origin of the “Ryōgi” name.
“You mean Minato’s family is actually a magus lineage too—he’s just been kept in the dark about it?”
Aoko’s expression turned subtle.
So the boy really wasn’t just some ordinary child.
“Perhaps.
But the Ryōgi seem to be something like a Demon Hunter House.
I don’t know whether they study magecraft.”
After all, when it came to a word like “demon,” the first thing Alice thought of was the “demons” the Holy Church set itself against.
But that domain lay outside what she knew.
“Sounds awfully complicated.
So even Alice has things she doesn’t know?”
For the first time, Aoko saw her housemate stumped by knowledge of “this side of the world,” and surprise flickered in her eyes.
“Aoko, no magus knows everything.”
Alice held no foolish pride in such matters.
She lifted the black tea from the table and took a light sip—only, after talking so long, the tea had gone unpleasantly cold, and she frowned.
Listening to all this talk of the Ryōgi family, Ryōgi Minato blinked in confusion.
A Demon Hunter House?
What’s that?
Chichiue-sama never said a word about it…
[Oh right, Minato-chan doesn’t even know the Ryōgi are a Demon Hunter House yet.]
[Doesn’t really matter whether he knows tbh — those “demons” never actually show up, and the Demon Hunter Houses are pretty much all washed up anyway.]
[There were four Demon Hunter Houses, weren’t there?
What were they again…]
[Ryōgi, Asakami, Nanaya, Fujou.
Bankrupt or wiped out, take your pick — only the Ryōgi are doing alright.]
[Yeah, ’cause they work both sides of the law — and they’re in real estate on top of it.]
[Wait, so Minato-chan’s loaded?
Then reeling Touko in should be a cakewalk lol]
[Pretty much.
Touko’s puppets have always burned through cash.
Sit her down for a proper talk and trading money for Araya Souren’s whereabouts isn’t out of the question at all.]
Picking up a few more things about the Ryōgi family from the danmaku, Ryōgi Minato quietly committed the remaining three so-called Demon Hunter House surnames to memory—not that he meant to look into them, just plain habit.
Of course, the “settle-it-with-money” approach the danmaku proposed wasn’t something he hadn’t already considered.
And looking at it now, the method seemed rather promising.
I’ll have to find time to let Akitaka know, so he can start making the arrangements…
So the boy thought.
As for funds, Ryōgi Minato had a portion of his own.
After all, over these past two years he’d entered a number of small kendo tournaments and taken home no small amount of prize money.
But prize money alone probably wouldn’t be enough, so he’d need to find a way—through Akitaka—to persuade his foster father to advance him part of the sum.
Still, all of that could wait until he returned home.
Since he hadn’t gotten Aozaki Touko’s contact information from Aoko, the boy felt it wouldn’t do to keep imposing as a “guest” in someone else’s home.
So he stood, glanced out the window, and—finding the heavy rain still falling—spoke up.
“Excuse me, might I borrow an umbrella?
I’ll return it tomorrow.”
“You’re not seriously thinking of running home in this weather, are you?”
Just listening to the wind and rain outside sent a faint chill through Aoko.
She couldn’t begin to imagine what might happen to a child this small, sent home in weather like this.
“Please don’t worry.
I can look after myself.”
The wrapped sword clutched to his chest, Ryōgi Minato’s words carried their usual childish politeness.
“No, it’s not a question of worrying…”
Aoko shot Alice a troubled look.
She said nothing, but the young witch already knew what she wanted to convey.
After a silent moment’s thought, the girl who was mistress of the mansion finally, reluctantly, parted her tightly pressed lips.
“One night.
One night only.
Tomorrow morning, you go home.”