Choyo

Chapter 138: Choyo

In Kyoto, New Fushimi District, on Joyful Animal Street, the spectacular performance ended on stage, and the audience gathered below dispersed, chatting amongst themselves.

On a shaded path somewhere in the amusement park, Miketsu and Hayakawa Rin were walking side by side, each holding a stick of cotton candy. Miketsu took a lick of hers, turned to look at Rin, and asked, "How was it, Rin? That performance just now."

"It... was okay, I guess. The actors did a great job, and the details were handled quite meticulously. Especially the Minotaur Demon King's suit; it was amazing. The craftsmanship was top-notch. If you looked closely, you could even see white mist exhaling from the nostrils, just like it was real! And the special effects were great too; the Pure Love Holy Sword of the Warrior of Pure Love actually glowed at the end! The prop team really put their hearts into it. With such good stage effects, the prop team definitely carried the show!" Rin nodded as she shared her critique. Since her parents were in the performance industry, she seemed to have some insight into such matters.

'Well, that's because they were the real deal up there,' Miketsu thought to herself, but Rin continued before she could say anything.

"However..."

"It wasn't that it was bad, but I feel... well, how should I put it? I feel like the Minotaur Demon King actually had a point," Rin said thoughtfully. Hearing this, Miketsu couldn't help but be taken aback.

"Huh? A point?"

"Yeah, think about it. The Minotaur Demon King said to the Warrior of Pure Love, 'You like the princess, and I like the princess, so shouldn't we be on the same side?' There's actually nothing wrong with that logic," Rin said with a nod. Miketsu stood frozen in place for a moment. Then, Rin continued, imitating the Minotaur Demon King's tone. "'Come, Warrior of Pure Love, stand on the same front as me! Let us overthrow the kingdom's corrupt rule together! Abolish the incompetent King, banish that arrogant Prince, and let the princess we both love take the throne!'"

"...Are you projecting yourself onto the princess?"

"Not at all! Don't you think the Minotaur Demon King doesn't actually love the princess, but the Warrior of Pure Love instead?! Capturing the princess was just a cover—he actually wants to be with the warrior!" Rin said, her eyes gleaming. At these words, Miketsu's lip twitched slightly. It turned out Rin had some fujoshi potential in her. "Ah... haha. You certainly have a unique perspective, Rin."

"Right? That's why I felt it was a pity the Minotaur Demon King died in the end. If they could have just... hmm?" Rin sighed as she walked forward. At that moment, a poster pasted on a utility pole ahead immediately caught her attention, and she ran over excitedly.

"This is... a sequel teaser for the Warrior of Pure Love! There's another one! 'The Warrior of Pure Love Strikes Back! Fighting alongside the resurrected former nemesis, the Minotaur Demon King, to face an unexpected enemy from the sky! The Sky Dog!' Ahhh, the warrior and the demon king fighting side by side! I want to see it so much! Inaba, let's come back to see this next time!" Rin said with great excitement. Miketsu, on the other hand, could only palm her forehead and sigh.

"What on earth is this plot..."

While Miketsu and Rin were touring the Inari Festival, a massive-scale secret operation was unfolding across the entire range of Kyoto. Various clandestine confrontations were taking place in every corner of the city. The plan, drafted based on the premise of the future, had no loopholes. The numerous crises spread throughout Kyoto were being thoroughly eliminated before they could even occur, ensuring that the tourists attending the Inari Festival and the citizens of Kyoto wouldn't sense even a hint of abnormality.

High up in the sky, atop the envelope of a giant airship, a black bird yokai lay with its eyes wide open on the soft gas bag. Its wings and claws had been severed by sharp blades, and blood soaked into the fabric. "Ah... how... how did you find me up here... Goddess..." The bird yokai squirmed its mutilated body, staring at the woman before it with wide eyes and muttering.

"Instead of asking how I found you, you should ask why you let me find you!" In front of the bird yokai, a beautiful woman holding a folding fan and dressed in fashionable clothing walked slowly toward it with a cold expression. She then raised her foot, clad in a high-heeled shoe, and stomped down hard. The stiletto heel pierced the bird yokai's skull, sinking deep into its brain. "Aaaah! Stop! It hurts! Please, I beg you, spare me!"

Kagura, her heel still through the bird's head, didn't look like she had any intention of letting the creature go. "Hey! Do you have any idea what day it is today? It's the Inari Festival! The Inari Festival! For those of us working at the Inari headquarters, this is our rare seven-day holiday of the year! My original schedule for the next seven days was packed! I was supposed to go shopping in Europe! But then you guys showed up and ruined everything! Out of all the days you could choose, you had to pick these! You've forced a whole lot of people to work overtime!"

As she spoke, Kagura, who was in an extremely foul mood due to the overtime, stomped even harder. The heel lodged in the bird's skull began to churn its brains until the yokai finally lost consciousness in extreme agony and died. Looking at the lifeless bird before her, Kagura spoke into her mic.

"This is Kagura. The guy on the airship, uh... threat No. 89, I think. He's dealt with."

Somewhere beneath a busy traffic road in Kyoto, in the sewers.

A giant skeleton was squeezed into a dry, wide underground space. As a subordinate of Hagoromo Gitsune, this giant yokai was supposed to burst through the floor at a set time and cause a massive pile-up. Now, its left foot bone had been swapped with the skull position on its spine, and the skull was serving as its left leg bone.

"Assembly complete," the misplaced skull of the giant skeleton muttered as it looked forward. In its gaze stood a white-haired girl in a white dress, holding a round mirror, who spoke indifferently.

"Good. Next, take the spinal column from the abdominal cavity and assemble it behind the pelvic bone to become a tail. Then, move the skull to the end of the tailbone. Everything is inverted."

Kanna spoke slowly as she watched the rather comical-looking giant skeleton. Then, with a red glow in her eyes, the obviously hypnotized skeleton immediately followed the instructions. After a series of clattering and snapping as it reassembled itself, a grotesque and even more ridiculous skeleton monster with a spine for a tail and a head at the end of it appeared before Kanna. She took one look and spoke expressionlessly.

"Disgusting."

After saying this, Kanna fell silent for a moment before continuing in her flat tone. "Even though it's fun... I still don't want to work overtime. I want to go to Joyful Animal Street to play. I want to ride the bear and horse carousels. I want to watch the plays..."

"(｡•ˇ‸ˇ•｡)"

As she spoke, a new emoticon appeared in Kanna's mirror.

In the secret realm of the demon realm, Choyo-machi.

"Aaaah!!!"

In the normally peaceful Choyo-machi, a tragic roar shook the entire secret realm. Along with the sound, a massive figure was launched from the streets of Choyo-machi, flying across almost the entire distance of the town and crashing into the woods outside. With a thunderous boom, the massive object struck a clearing among the trees, kicking up a cloud of dust.

It was a giant nearly twenty meters tall, with dark skin and a mask. It had a pair of horns and messy crimson hair. Its powerful body sprouted six arms, clearly marking it as a yokai of immense strength. The thick demonic energy emanating from it was far beyond that of any ordinary yokai—it was a high-tier yokai!

Yet this formidable and cruel Great Yokai lay miserably in a crater, nearly unconscious. Serious wounds covered its body, one of its horns was broken, and its fierce mask was deeply cracked. One of its six arms was bent at a grotesque angle, clearly fractured. Such a massive entity had been tossed into this crater like a ragdoll, a testament to the overwhelming force it had encountered.

In a hidden corner of a distant rooftop, three masked yokai in black were watching this scene, trembling with fear. "Tsuchigumo... The Great Yokai Tsuchigumo was beaten into this state? Wasn't it said that he's the ultimate battle-crazed yokai, a pure destruction machine? A high-tier yokai who could even challenge a yokai general? How could he be beaten like this... with almost no power to fight back?" one masked yokai muttered in disbelief.

"Could this be... the legendary power of the Lord of the Choyo Capital demon realm? The Third Head successor of the title 'Owl General', considered the strongest among the current demon realm yokai generals..." Another black-clad yokai swallowed hard. The third yokai beside them simply knelt on the ground in a state of breakdown.

Just as the three summoners who had planned to use Tsuchigumo to destroy Choyo-machi were crying out in shock, Tsuchigumo finally began to wake up at the edge of the town. He swayed his massive body and slowly stood up, looking toward the distance where he had come from. He split his mouth into a grin and shouted in a gruff voice.

"Hahahaha! That's it! This is the strong enemy I sought! This is the battle I desired! Come! Let our mutual slaughter continue!"

With all six arms spread wide, Tsuchigumo roared at the sky. Responding to his roar was a whistling sound from the air, growing louder as it approached.

"Whoosh!!!"

A giant silver hoop tore through the air, the resulting gale making the trees on the ground rustle and sway. Facing the massive steel hoop charging at him, Tsuchigumo laughed loudly and clenched the three fists on his right side together.

"Get! Back!"

Roaring arrogantly, the twenty-meter giant swung his full-strength punch at the incoming hoop. The punch struck the high-speed spinning ring, and in the next second... Tsuchigumo's fists and the entire right half of his body vanished, crushed by the whistling steel hoop. The remaining half of Tsuchigumo stood in place for a few seconds before crashing backward with a boom.

"'Mutual slaughter'... you must be mistaken about something, Tsuchigumo brat."

A light female voice rang out, and a figure slowly descended from the sky.

She appeared to be a girl of about sixteen or seventeen, with short white hair and crimson eyes. Beneath her lace dress and black silk stockings, she wore exquisite bow-knot leather shoes. The girl descending from the sky had an indifferent expression, dressed in a red and black Western Lolita outfit. Cute rabbit ornaments hung from her waist and neck. Despite her youthful face, her figure was unexpectedly curvy.

"This so-called battle has been a one-sided slaughter from the very beginning. You haven't even touched the corner of my clothes, yet you claim we are in a mutual struggle? Hehe... since when did yokai become so arrogant?"

The white-haired yokai girl spoke slowly. Meanwhile, the giant steel hoop that had easily crushed half of Tsuchigumo's body whistled through the air, circling back toward her. As it returned, its speed increased and it shrank in size until it was only palm-sized when the girl caught it in her hand, subsequently wearing it on her wrist like a bracelet. Seeing Tsuchigumo utterly defeated, the black-clad yokai watching from afar completely panicked.

"Ahhh! Tsuchigumo—that guy has been completely taken down!"

"Damn it, how did the power of this girl... she's nothing like the intelligence reports!"

"Never mind that now, let's get out of here! Or it'll be too late!"

As the three yokai were discussing their retreat, a slightly aged, deep voice suddenly rang out from behind them.

"Since you've all come to Choyo-machi, don't be in such a hurry to leave. Allow this old man to show you some proper hospitality on behalf of the young lady."

Hearing the voice, the three yokai froze, then turned around simultaneously. They saw a middle-aged man with a white beard and hair, dressed in a pitch-black tuxedo and wearing a single eye patch. He stood there straight as a ramrod in a butler's attire, his hands behind his back. His one visible eye revealed unmistakable killing intent. Before the three yokai could speak, the black butler vanished into an afterimage, and a scream erupted on the spot.

Back at the outskirts of Choyo-machi, in front of the still-writhing remains of Tsuchigumo, the slightly mature-looking Lolita girl was leisurely sitting on a sheep-patterned chair she had conjured from nowhere. Beside her stood an exquisitely decorated table with a thick, hardcover English book on it.

Like a noblewoman, the girl gently flipped through the book with one hand, while the other held a carrot—a very uncoordinated sight. She sat there gracefully reading her book while gracefully munching on the carrot. At that moment, an afterimage flashed behind her, and the weathered butler yokai appeared, blood staining his white gloves.

"Young Lady. All other subordinates of Hagoromo Gitsune who infiltrated Choyo-machi have been eliminated."

"Mm, thank you for your hard work, Mr. Frog."

As she spoke, the girl closed the book. Then, her two front teeth grew slightly longer, and she rapidly finished the rest of the carrot before they retracted. After demurely wiping her mouth with a silk handkerchief, the girl continued.

"Go notify the shrine. I didn't expect their intelligence network to have improved so much again; Hagoromo Gitsune's plan this time was stolen in such detail. I'm beginning to wonder if Lady Uka has people in the Underworld."

"Yes, I will notify Inari shortly that Choyo-machi is no longer under threat." As he spoke, the butler yokai's eyes drifted toward the bustling city with its towering skyscrapers in the distance.

"However, I didn't expect that after several hundred years, Hagoromo Gitsune would reincarnate and strike again, and with methods even more sinister than last time."

"She has no choice but to be sinister. After all, both Inari and we are getting stronger. That woman lost the capital to confront us directly a long time ago, so she can only resort to crooked schemes. But it seems she has no path left even for those. I can already feel that her plan has completely failed throughout this city." Also looking at the distant city, the white-haired girl muttered with a slight frown. Beside her, the butler spoke in a deep voice.

"Hmph. After this, this incarnation of Hagoromo Gitsune should reach its end. I wonder when she will finally give up."

"...Don't let your guard down, Mr. Frog. Even though Hagoromo Gitsune's plans have fallen through, as long as she is still alive in this incarnation, the final moment hasn't arrived. We must still be wary of whether she—or the existence behind her—is hiding some final trump card." As she spoke seriously, Yamausagi took out another carrot and began to munch on it.

"After all, I promised Sister Menreiki that I would protect everything left behind by Mr. Crane in her place."