Abnormalities

When Miketsu saw the gate guards, she noticed something amiss. The two guards, who appeared no different from ordinary people, gave Miketsu a strong sense of disharmony. Although their faces were rosy, their breathing natural, and their expressions full, with no abnormality detectable in their every movement, Miketsu still concluded that they did not belong to this world. The reason was that the threads of causality on their bodies were not those of living people.

In Miketsu's causality vision, the threads of causality for ordinary people typically appeared bright red, darkening if tainted by excessive karmic obstruction. However, the threads on the two gate guards were not only grey but also extremely sparse, less than a tenth of what a normal adult would possess. No ordinary human with even a slight social connection would have such threads.

After entering the old manor, Miketsu observed the other people within the residence. These servants and attendants all had very few grey threads of causality on them. After a slightly more careful observation, Miketsu found that these extremely sparse threads of causality were interwoven with the manor itself, with none extending beyond the residence. This was highly unusual; it meant that the causality entangling these people existed solely within this courtyard, and beyond that, they had no further connection to the world. Everything outside the manor was irrelevant to them.

Any entities that could generate causality with them no longer existed in the outside world. All traces, including blood relatives and friends, had vanished with time.

Seeing the scene within the courtyard, numerous questions arose in Miketsu's mind. From the current situation, it seemed that the yokai, presumably Hata no Kawakatsu's mask, had killed everyone in the manor, transforming them into the deceased and confining them within the residence. It used special methods to delude them into living normally as if nothing had changed. What exactly was its purpose in doing this? Was it to amuse itself with them as playthings? Or to use them as bait to attract victims? Miketsu could not yet know any of this.

Miketsu's objective on this trip was to expel and subjugate the yokai entrenched in the Hata old manor. In the past, if she received similar tasks, she would simply use an Explosive Current Wave from the perimeter to raze the entire ancient residence and everything within it to the ground. However, this time, the ancient residence itself was her target; she needed to clear the yokai while preserving the manor. This inevitably meant she couldn't use overly direct or brutal methods.

Based on the mission's objective, Miketsu first needed to ascertain the yokai's true form and locate it within the manor. However, the problem she now faced was that, despite the Hata old manor's eerie abnormalities, there was not a single trace of demonic power. The yokai's exceptionally strong concealment ability made it impossible for Miketsu to pinpoint its whereabouts, leaving her at a loss as to where to begin.

Therefore, when the attendant addressed Miketsu as a great Onmyoji and said that her companions had already gone inside, Miketsu did not expose or contradict him. Instead, she let the attendant lead her in. She was unsure if the attendant's actions were purely accidental or a deliberate arrangement by the yokai lurking in the shadows.

What Miketsu wanted was to ferret out the yokai from this eerie residence without alarming it. To do this, she pretended to be an ordinary Onmyoji who hadn't noticed anything unusual about the manor, going along with this opportunity, whether it was coincidence or a deliberate setup, to enter the estate.

Miketsu followed the attendant deep into the manor. As she passed a long corridor by a courtyard, Miketsu felt a gaze. She turned her head and saw, beyond the corridor, within the lightly frosted courtyard, across a pond in a small pavilion, a young girl watching her.

By human appearance standards, the girl looked slightly younger than Miketsu. She wore a thin, white floral robe, her neatly combed raven-black hair falling straight down. Her fair, slender legs were bare on the ground, and she held a small mask in her arms. On her delicate, beautiful face, scarlet eyes gazed curiously at Miketsu on the corridor across the pond.

“Such a beautiful girl... Was she also one of the deceased in this manor?”

When Miketsu felt the girl's gaze and turned her head, the girl, whose eyes suddenly met Miketsu's, showed a hint of fear. She recoiled as if startled by something. Then, a man wearing a fox mask appeared from nowhere, stepping in front of the girl, looking directly at Miketsu and blocking her gaze.

Seeing this, Miketsu did not linger but continued walking forward, slightly quickening her pace to catch up with the attendant ahead, and asked him.

“Just now, I saw a girl and a masked man over in the courtyard. Who are they?”

Hearing Miketsu's words, the attendant's expression became slightly flustered. After glancing around, he whispered to Miketsu.

“That girl is our young mistress, the master's most beloved daughter. And the masked one is the young mistress's friend. There are five more like him.”

“Five? Do they all wear masks?”

“Yes, they all wear different masks. In any case, great Onmyoji, they are very strange individuals. Not long after the master left, they suddenly appeared in this house. The young mistress, for some reason, insisted they were her friends and refused to let them leave.” The attendant spoke to Miketsu with an uncertain expression; from his tone, he seemed to dislike these so-called 'young mistress's friends'.

“You don't seem to like those people much?” Noticing the hidden emotions in the attendant's expression, Miketsu asked directly.

“Of course! You wouldn't know, great Onmyoji, but these fellows usually look down on us, relying on the young mistress's trust. They act high and mighty all day long, especially the one with the large, horrifying mouth mask. He constantly drives us around, claiming it's the young mistress's command.” The attendant lowered his voice even further, clearly terrified of the masked figures.

“The young mistress's command... Are her words so weighty?”

“Of course, the young mistress is the master's youngest and most cherished daughter.”

“From what you say, your master doesn't seem to be in this manor. Do you know where he is?” Miketsu continued to ask, and the attendant on the other side thought for a moment before answering with some difficulty.

“Well... the master left not long ago, but he didn't say goodbye to anyone except the young mistress.”

A favored youngest daughter... masked friends appearing out of nowhere... a vanished clan head... Was this truly what this residence experienced before it became a ghost realm? After hearing the attendant's words, Miketsu nodded thoughtfully, then gestured for him to continue leading the way. Miketsu proceeded deeper into the old manor, and before long, she was led to a spacious room.

“The great Onmyoji from the capital are all here now. They are currently questioning the other people in the manor,” the attendant said, sliding open the room's fusuma door.