Inside the Hozuki residence, little Yayoi looked at Miketsu, who was still sipping her coffee. After thinking about their previous conversation, she remained silent for a long while before slowly replying.
"Fine... if you say so, I have no choice but to believe you..." Yayoi said. At this moment, she vaguely realized that the level this miko occupied was something she couldn't touch. If the other party was unwilling to reveal her identity, it was best not to ask too many questions.
Hearing Yayoi's words, Miketsu smiled slightly and responded in a reminding tone.
"Though you are highly talented, the reverse side of this world still holds thousands of things you cannot understand—things that defy common sense. A single misstep can lead to eternal damnation... For example, just now, cultivating evil spirits to such a degree is not something a child like you should be doing."
"I know that... but there are things I must accomplish that require relying on these evil spirits..." Yayoi continued, then looked at Miketsu with a determined gaze. Miketsu met her eyes, paused for a moment, and then smiled.
"Is that so... Hah, if you put it that way, did I just destroy one of your important collection pieces?"
"It's not like that. After all, Graduates are difficult to control. Since the High Priest had already lost control, it could only be disposed of," Yayoi replied. There wasn't much regret in her expression. Seeing this, a hint of approval flashed in Miketsu's eyes.
"I see... It seems you are well aware that you are walking along the edge of the abyss, yet you can still maintain your sanity. In that case, as compensation and a reward, take this..." As Miketsu spoke, she slowly walked to the other end of the hallway where she had been standing before. She picked something up from behind a cabinet. Seeing the object, everyone present was startled. Keitaro cried out, and Miko covered her mouth.
"This... this is..."
"That god?!"
What Miketsu held in her hand was a Demon-Slaying Arrow radiating golden light. Impaled upon the arrow was a head—it was the pale god, now reduced to nothing but a head.
At this moment, the pale youth's body had been almost entirely consumed. The head skewered on the Demon-Slaying Arrow was opening and closing its mouth, emitting painful, low moans. Its breath was as thin as silk, yet it had not yet perished...
"Even a god of over five hundred years... has ended up like this?"
Looking at the scene before her, Yayoi murmured. Miketsu slowly walked up to Yayoi and placed the head and the arrow on the table in the room.
"Though its strength is far from what it once was, it can still be of some use. I'll leave this fellow for you to deal with..." Miketsu said as she picked up her coffee, drained the last of it, and turned to walk out the door.
"Let's go back... Miko..."
"Yes!"
Watching the miko walk away, and then looking at the god on the table, Yayoi slowly spoke.
"As I thought... the one on the bus that day was you, wasn't it?"
Miketsu reached the bottom floor. Just as she was about to leave, she saw the spirit of Keisuke Shindai floating there. He silently gave her a deep, solemn bow.
"Thank you..."
Looking at Keisuke Shindai, Miketsu let out a soft sigh and slowly walked past him.
"Go apologize properly to your sister, then head to the Underworld for reincarnation. May you find a good family in your next life..."
With those words, Miketsu walked out of the Hozuki residence and disappeared into the night with Miko.
...
A few days later...
During the day, the morning sun shone upon the school campus as another ordinary day arrived.
Sunlight streamed through the windows into the classroom. The spacious, bright room was filled with a quiet, serious atmosphere. Every student sat in their seat, focused on their desks, writing busily. The teacher paced back and forth in the aisles between the desks.
Clearly, the students in this classroom were taking a test. However, not all students could face this test with such seriousness. Some were writing furiously, some were lost in deep thought, some were scratching their heads in frustration, some were indifferent, and some seats were simply empty.
Rin Hayakawa was one of those scratching her head. Evidently, this girl's brain wasn't particularly sharp when it came to studying.
'Argh... it's English... I clearly memorized everything normally, so why have I forgotten it all now... I basically don't know how to write any of this...' Looking at the multiple-choice questions made of countless piled-up letters on the exam paper, Rin Hayakawa scratched her head with a distressed expression. Facing a mountain of questions she couldn't answer, she felt extremely panicked.
'What should I do... if this keeps up, won't my grades be terrible... how will I face my mom then... No! I have to find a way!'
Thinking this, Rin Hayakawa began to subtly look around, trying to see if she could copy anything from someone else's paper. However, because the neighboring desks were across the aisle and hard to see, she turned her attention to the desk in front of her.
'Based on her usual performance, Inaba-san's Japanese grades are excellent. Although I don't know how her English is, it probably isn't bad. At least she should be much better than me. I'll copy whatever I can!'
Having made a secret decision, Rin Hayakawa watched the teacher's movements while leaning forward slightly, trying to see Fushimi Inaba's exam paper. Because the girl in front was petite, it was relatively easy to see.
However, while Rin Hayakawa successfully saw the paper, she also saw what the other girl was doing. Upon seeing the actions of the girl in the front seat, her expression froze on her face.
At this moment, the short-haired girl in the school uniform wasn't answering the questions. Instead, she sat calmly at her desk, tossing an eraser with her hand.
'Is... is that an eraser die!?'
Indeed, Fushimi Inaba was currently tossing an eraser that had been carved into a tetrahedron with a craft knife. Each side of the eraser was marked with the letters A, B, C, and D. After rolling a letter, Fushimi Inaba would fill in an option on the multiple-choice section and immediately roll again.
Seeing this, Rin Hayakawa couldn't help but daze for a moment. Suddenly, she felt that copying from Fushimi-san was an unwise choice.
You couldn't exactly feel at peace copying answers that were filled in entirely based on random luck...
'Sigh... I'll just do it myself...'
With a sigh in her heart, Rin Hayakawa finally decided to grit her teeth and do the test herself.
...
The test ended. Miketsu turned in her paper with great ease and then took out her phone at her seat to start playing. On the screen was a mobile game she had just downloaded yesterday—a very popular, heavy-spending gacha game.
After admiring the very provocative blonde fox-eared girl on the splash screen, Miketsu clicked into the gacha screen. Using the ten-pull provided by the system, she gave it a go. A massive burst of gold erupted on the screen as extremely rare characters and items appeared one after another.
'Ah... I couldn't control myself again... if this keeps up, I won't be able to play this one for long either...' Miketsu thought to herself as she looked at the screen. Every time she played this kind of game, she couldn't help but instinctively manipulate fate. The result was that within two days, she would get almost all the rare items for free, lose the motivation to keep playing, and then uninstall it.
'No... actually, I did try to control myself before and play with a normal mindset, but when I couldn't get any good drops, I got a bit annoyed and couldn't help it... No matter how I think about it, the drop rates in these gacha games are just too low...'
Miketsu thought back to a time when she had tried to restrain her powers and kept failing to pull anything. In a fit of rage, she had inadvertently triggered causality and paralyzed that game company's servers for several hours...
'Forget it... I should play these kinds of games less in the future...'
Miketsu closed the game on her phone. Just then, the chirping chatter of several female students nearby caught her attention.
"Hey... did you see? That news from this morning... apparently an exploration team found a sealed village deep in the mountains. They say the people inside were still dressed like they were from the Edo period..."
"Of course I saw it. According to the news, the people in that village were so fierce. When they saw the exploration team, they rushed at them with knives. Luckily, the team had many people and self-defense tools, so nothing happened."
"Yeah... but thinking about it is so scary. What would happen if someone accidentally wandered into a village like that?"
"Exactly... the report mentioned that there had been missing person cases in that area before..."
...
'They've already been found... quite efficient...'
Sitting to the side and listening to her classmates' gossip, Miketsu thought to herself. After the matter with the Shindai siblings ended, she had issued an order to Inari Honsha, telling them to influence the government to send an exploration team to the area Keisuke had told her about. Ultimately, they successfully found the hidden village tucked away in the deep mountains.
Out of fear of being consumed by the Inari faith, the pale wild god had blockaded this place for nearly four hundred years. Under such long and cruel rule, the villagers had become extremely conservative and solitary. Such a change was deep-seated; even though the pale wild god was gone, getting them to return to normalcy and contact society would not be easy. It would take a very long time and would be a significant test of the local government's capabilities.
Still... a change had been made, and that was better than staying isolated forever... All of this was thanks to those siblings, or rather... thanks to that older brother... If no one had the courage to escape from there, that village might have lived in fear forever.
Looking at the sky outside the window, Miketsu began to recall the countless ghosts attracted by the wild god's blood yesterday and the large pile of evil spirits Yayoi had collected in her room. Combined with the tunnel spirit from before, she couldn't help but frown slightly.
Was the appearance of evil spirits and ghosts in Tokyo becoming a bit too frequent? Had something gone wrong?
As she watched the birds in the sky, Miketsu pondered.
...
Soon, it was time for school to end. Miketsu didn't linger and left the classroom immediately. She walked out of the school and set off on her way home.
Taking the train, Miketsu quickly returned to Mount Kagami-oboro. However, just as she walked up the sando and was about to cross the torii to enter the shrine, the mailbox beside the shrine suddenly caught her eye.
"A letter has arrived..."
Walking forward, Miketsu took the letters out of the mailbox. She then went to the room behind the shrine to examine them carefully. There were two. Miketsu opened the top one, and a photograph slid out.
Picking up the photo, Miketsu looked closely. It showed a young girl.
She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, sandals, sunglasses, and a straw hat. A gold chain hung around her neck. Her features were almost identical to Miketsu's, though her skin was much tanner. This girl was striking a pose in the middle of a desert, a wide grin on her face. In the background far behind her stood tall, grand pyramids.
Looking at the girl in the photo, Miketsu pursed her lips and then turned the photo over. On the back, something was written in scrawled Japanese.
"I've reached Egypt~"
"Heh... she's traveling quite fast. She didn't fly there herself, did she... she originally said she was just going back to her hometown to look around, but now she's turned it into a world tour..." Miketsu murmured as she looked at the text on the back of the photo.
Indeed, the girl in the photo was Dakini-ten. Her current identity was Fushimi Inaba's twin sister, Fushimi Chaba.
When she had repaired her godhead and reincarnated, Miketsu had brought Dakini-ten—who had merged with her—along for the reincarnation. During this process, Miketsu specifically separated Dakini-ten from herself, allowing her to obtain a new body as her sister. She had also awakened alongside Miketsu.
However, unlike Miketsu, who wanted to experience human life from an ordinary person's perspective, Dakini-ten was someone who couldn't sit still. Not long after awakening, she had run off to various places to have fun. Just a short while ago, she said she wanted to visit her hometown and went to Nepal and India to travel.
But the end result... she didn't come back after India. Instead, she headed west on a world tour. She would probably have to circle the entire globe before she could return.
"I hope she doesn't cause any trouble over there..." Miketsu sighed as she tucked the newly arrived photo away with the others. To be honest, she was quite worried about Dakini-ten getting into trouble abroad. Because of Miketsu, she was one of the few beings who could exert the power of an orthodox god in the mortal world.
If she went on a rampage in the hidden world over there or even got into a conflict with the authorities, it would be bad... For example, if she soloed the Roman Curia and ended up with the Light Orb God knocking on Miketsu's door, that would be awkward.
After putting away Dakini-ten's letter, Miketsu picked up the next one. Upon examining this letter more closely, her expression suddenly sharpened.
"There's demonic energy..."
As she spoke, Miketsu opened the letter and pulled out a piece of formal stationery written in calligraphy.
"This is... a formal visit request?"
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