"Young Lord! Please don't say such things! The position of the Third Head of the Main House belongs to no one but you! You need to start taking on the duties of the Third Head!" On the long corridor beside the great mansion, a small Karasu-tengu shouted loudly at the chestnut-haired boy wearing glasses, his expression filled with obvious agitation.
"Ah... haven't I told you already, Karasu-tengu? I'm busy right now. Maybe in a couple of days..." The boy, Nura Rikuo, brushed him off while walking toward the exit. Seeing this, Karasu-tengu grew anxious, flapping his wings to fly quickly in front of Rikuo, continuing his urgent plea.
"In a couple of days, it'll be the same! Today is a special case. The leader of the Toyama Group is almost here. You have to be present..."
"But, but..."
"Forget it, Karasu-tengu..." Just then, an aged voice drifted from the other end of the corridor. Hearing this voice, Karasu-tengu and Rikuo froze for a moment, then turned toward the sound. They saw an elderly yokai slowly rounding the corner.
Wearing a light short-sleeved shirt, the elderly yokai was small and hunched, with an unusually long back of the head. He stood on the wooden floor of the corridor, hands tucked into his sleeves, looking at Rikuo and Karasu-tengu with a calm gaze.
"Grandpa..."
"Grand—Grand Commander!!" Rikuo and Karasu-tengu exclaimed in surprise simultaneously. Karasu-tengu then flew hurriedly to the old man, complaining loudly.
"Grand Commander! Please, you must talk to the Young Lord. He actually wants to go out at a time like this!"
Listening to Karasu-tengu's words, the old man didn't speak immediately. Instead, he looked at Rikuo in the distance with peaceful eyes.
This old man was the First Head of the Nura Clan and its current leader, Nura Rihyon, the Slippery Nura.
"Grandpa... um, I already made plans with my classmates today, so..." Meeting his grandfather's gaze, the young Rikuo felt a bit guilty and took a couple of steps back.
"Ha, if you've already made plans, then there's no helping it. Go if you must. Just remember to come home early~" Nura Rihyon said with a slight smile. Beside him, Karasu-tengu, who had expected the old man to scold Rikuo, felt his feathers stand on end in frustration.
"Grand Commander! How can you let the Young Lord out now? What happens when the Toyama Group arrives?"
"It's fine. I'll meet them personally. Those fellows from Toyama wouldn't dare disrespect me to my face..." Nura Rihyon replied. Hearing this, Rikuo shouted happily.
"Thanks, Grandpa! I'm off then!" Waving goodbye, Rikuo walked past the small frame of Nura Rihyon, who responded with a chuckle.
"Have fun, and stay safe..."
Finally, after turning a corner, Rikuo's figure vanished from the sight of Nura Rihyon and Karasu-tengu. Seeing this, Karasu-tengu slapped his forehead in resignation and spoke indignantly to Nura Rihyon.
"Grand Commander, you always spoil the Young Lord too much. It's because of your doting that he still can't accept his identity as the Third Head. He needs tempering! Tempering!"
Nura Rihyon didn't respond immediately. He slowly pulled a pipe from his sleeve and lit it. After exhaling a cloud of smoke, he spoke slowly.
"There's no helping it. After all, Rikuo isn't just my grandson; he's my only living blood relative. For a thousand-year-old man like me, it's hard not to dote on him..."
"But—but the Young Lord isn't just your grandson; he's also the future Third Head of the Nura Clan! He can't go on like this. He must return to the side of the demon realm..." Karasu-tengu continued anxiously. Nura Rihyon sighed out a long puff of smoke.
"Hoo... I know that too. But because of his heritage, the parts of Rikuo that are human are far too numerous. Even his way of thinking is human now, creating a great gap between us... In this situation, force won't work. It would only trigger his rebellious side and make him loathe the seat of the Third Head even more..." Nura Rihyon's gaze sharpened, and he continued seriously.
"In any case, the leadership of my Nura Clan cannot be taken by force. Rikuo must realize this innate duty and take up the mantle of his own free will!"
Karasu-tengu was stunned, then asked skeptically, "But... will the Young Lord really realize it?"
Nura Rihyon didn't answer immediately. He took another deep drag of his pipe and said with a hint of uncertainty, "That... who knows?"
...
In the afternoon, in another part of Tokyo, atop Mount Kagami-oboro at the Kagami-oboro Inari Shrine.
After seeing off the visiting yokai Mori-bozu, Miketsu sat atop the torii gate. She held a newly offered bottle of cola while supervising Miko's training below.
"The Nura Clan, huh..." Taking a sip of her cola, Miketsu looked toward the setting sun. She reflected on her conversation with Mori-bozu, various thoughts surfacing in her mind.
'The order of the Tokyo demon realm needs organizing... Though I could finish the unification quickly if I stepped in personally... it would be a huge pain to manage afterward. Managing that many yokai is no easy task. What a drag...'
Miketsu thought to herself. Currently, she preferred enjoying life rather than entangling herself in a mess of complicated affairs... Otherwise, she would have returned to the Inari Honsha to resume her role as Uka-no-Kami long ago.
While her divine body hadn't been completely re-assimilated yet, Miketsu could still enjoy a few years of leisure with a clear conscience. If she went back, she would have to shoulder at least some of the incredibly busy affairs of the main shrine. She would feel bad leaving all the work to Tsuruha if she returned.
Unification is easy, but management is hard—especially when it comes to things like yokai. Miketsu knew this well from experience. Therefore, she was thinking of a way to help the Tokyo demon realm return to a unified, stable state while remaining an outsider herself.
After a moment, Miketsu formed a plan.
She sat up straight on the torii gate, pulled her phone from her pocket, and dialed a number from her contacts.
Before long, the call connected, and Miketsu brought the phone to her ear.
"Hello, hello~ Tsuruha... Arrange things on your end. I need some items from the shrine sent over to me. Use a private plane for air transport; I need them urgently."
...
The sun dipped lower, daylight faded, and night arrived.
As the sunlight vanished from the eastern horizon, darkness once again shrouded the massive urban sprawl. Colorful lights flickered on across skyscrapers, and dense glows of light dotted the city.
Somewhere in Ukiyoe-cho, on a street near a middle school, Nura Rikuo let out a long sigh of relief after saying goodbye to his classmates.
"Whew... it's finally over. An 'occult investigation of the old school building'... only Kiyotsugu could come up with something so dangerous." Rikuo spoke as he walked, looking exceptionally exhausted.
"Hmph, just a bunch of human brats who don't know the heights of the heavens. They're tired of living in the human realm, so they specifically seek out places where yin energy gathers to find death... I really can't understand what's going through their heads."
A tall figure spoke beside Rikuo. It was an exceptionally burly man with dark skin and robust muscles. His two-meter-tall frame was awkwardly squeezed into a super-sized middle school uniform. Even without an expression, his face looked incredibly fierce.
"Don't say that, Ao. Most humans don't know that yokai and malicious spirits actually exist. They only came here out of curiosity; they didn't really expect to encounter anything..."
Rikuo said with a smile to the burly man. On his other side, a light and nimble female voice chimed in.
"That's exactly why it's so annoying! The Young Lord asked us to come along on their investigation just to protect them. We successfully stopped the malicious spirits in that old school building from attacking them, yet they remained completely oblivious. They have no idea they should be grateful to you for saving them, Young Lord."
The speaker was a girl with long black hair, yellow ringed eyes, and a cute round face. She wore a female middle school uniform but had an out-of-place scarf wrapped around her neck. She walked closely beside Rikuo, grumbling in complaint. In her arms, she cradled a guardless tachi.
"Just to be safe, you even had me bring my blade, Young Lord. Honestly... those people are being protected by you without even knowing it..."
"Aha, it's really fine, Tsurara. I don't want my classmates to know about my connection to yokai anyway. Besides, the things in the school building were just ghosts, not malicious spirits. They weren't much of a threat."
Rikuo continued to smile at the girl, seemingly trying to dispel her negative views of his classmates.
Indeed, the two 'middle schoolers' beside Rikuo were actually yokai. The burly man called Ao was Aotabo, and the girl called Tsurara was a Yuki-onna.
The two of them were personal guards assigned to Rikuo by the Nura Clan. They usually disguised themselves as humans to accompany Rikuo to school. Tonight, they had joined his paranormal investigation. Rikuo had insisted on attending out of concern for his classmates, knowing how dangerous it would be if ordinary people truly encountered a malicious spirit.
"Ugh... Young Lord, don't always speak up for those humans. You are the prestigious Young Lord of the Nura Clan, the future Lord of the Hundred Demons. Don't always act like a human!" Tsurara grumbled again. She clearly didn't like Rikuo constantly defending his human classmates.
"She's right. You need to pull yourself together and act like a real yokai, Young Lord. Staying like this will only make more people look down on the Main House. The Third Head controls the Nura Clan through prestige; if you are looked down upon, it makes things very difficult for the old man. Lately, the Main House has been weakening, and many wild yokai and malicious spirits are running wild on our turf."
Facing the words of Tsurara and Aotabo, Rikuo's expression darkened. He lowered his head and spoke.
"Even if you say that, I really don't want to inherit the position... I'm a human, not a yokai. The Main House has so many experienced and excellent executives; I think they would be much better suited for the role of Third Head than I am..."
"Don't say that, Young Lord! The position of the Third Head belongs to no one but you! You must realize that the Grand Commander is currently relying on the prestige accumulated by himself and the Second Head to hold the Nura Clan together. Only you can inherit that prestige. If anyone else took over, the Nura Clan would surely fracture on a massive scale!"
Tsurara spoke urgently and loudly. Rikuo simply shook his head.
"Alright, alright, let's not talk about this on the road. Grandpa is still waiting for us at home. Let's not make him worry. Let's hurry!" As he spoke, Rikuo quickened his pace, pulling slightly ahead of Aotabo and Tsurara. Tsurara froze for a moment, then sighed.
"Hoo... honestly, every time we reach this topic, the Young Lord avoids it..."
"Forget it, Tsurara. There will come a time when the Young Lord can no longer run... Let's catch up so we don't lose him."
"Yeah..." Tsurara the Yuki-onna nodded. She and Aotabo then quickly ran forward to keep up with Rikuo.
...
A short while later, the three of them arrived at a steel bridge. Once they crossed it, they would be almost home.
However, halfway across, Rikuo's brow furrowed, and he suddenly came to a halt.
"Eh? What is it, Young Lord?" Tsurara asked in confusion. Rikuo's expression turned serious.
"Something's not right. It's too quiet. There's no one on this bridge..."
Hearing Rikuo's words, Aotabo and Tsurara were stunned and began to observe their surroundings. They realized that on the brightly lit bridge, there wasn't a single living soul besides them—not even a passing car.
The entire bridge was terrifyingly silent.
"You're right... not only are there no people or cars, but there isn't even a single ghost in the demon realm... It is indeed strange." Tsurara spoke with a worried tone, moving a couple of steps closer to Rikuo while clutching her blade.
"Maybe it's just a coincidence... regardless, let's get back quickly, Young Lord. The Grand Commander is waiting for us at home." Aotabo said, and Rikuo nodded.
"Yeah..."
Just then, accompanied by the sizzle of an electric current, all the lights on the steel bridge flickered and suddenly died. Even the streetlights on the roads at both ends of the bridge went out in large sections. The surroundings were plunged into darkness, startling the three on the bridge.
"What happened! Why was there a sudden power outage!"
"I don't know. Regardless, something is definitely wrong here... let's leave quickly, Young Lord!"
In the darkness, Aotabo and Tsurara guarded Rikuo's left and right, speaking solemnly. Rikuo nodded. Just as he was about to start moving with them, his expression suddenly froze, and he snapped his head toward the rear.
"Who's there?! Who's there!"
Facing the darkness on the bridge behind them, Rikuo shouted with a serious and stern tone. Aotabo and Tsurara were startled, then likewise turned toward the darkness Rikuo was watching.
'Is someone there? The Young Lord sensed them, but we didn't?!'
Thinking this, Aotabo and Tsurara immediately stepped forward to block the path in front of Rikuo, focusing all their attention on the darkness. But after a moment, there was no reaction from that side.
'Was it an illusion...?' Rikuo thought to himself.
Just then, a low, cold voice rang out from behind him.
"A flower reflected in a mirror... a moon floating on the water..."
Behind us!
Realizing he had sensed the wrong direction, Rikuo spun around to face the darkness at the other end of the bridge. From that direction, the crisp sound of footsteps slowly approached.
"Deceiving with illusions, moving with shadows... The so-called Slippery Nura is a phantom yokai skilled in deception and perception. Heh... no matter how much, you truly have inherited that blood..."
Accompanied by the low voice and approaching footsteps, a figure slowly emerged from the darkness under Rikuo's intense scrutiny.
The light breeze blowing from the river slightly lifted a pitch-black robe. The moonlight from the sky illuminated white bandages wrapped beneath the robe. Within the shadow of the hood, a single crimson eye glowed with a terrifying light.
Facing the young yokai Young Lord, a voice that had vanished a thousand years ago rang out once more.
"Grandson of Nura Rihyon... Nura Rikuo..."
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