The Shippou family had a feud with the Saegusa family over the old Seventh Lab connections, but Kouichi maintained complete silence, offering no objection to Gen and Maya's recommendation. Gouki, Isami, and Katsuto observed this reaction. Taking Kouichi's attitude as de facto tacit approval, Mai looked around the room, but no one voiced an objection.
"Then, we decide on Lord Shippou as the new member of the Ten Master Clans. Although it is only for one day, let us inform Lord Shippou immediately."
"I shall do it."
"In that case, let us take a break. How about resuming in 30 minutes?"
No one voiced opposition to Mai's proposal.
The contents of the Master Clans Conference are confidential, but every family leaks that content externally. And naturally, the Kagurazaka family—the parent organization of the Kamisaka Group hosting the venue—grasped the content of the conference.
In a detached room of the Kagurazaka estate, a pair of men and women sat cross-legged facing each other. One was Kagurazaka Senhime, the former Head of the Kagurazaka family known as Artemisia of the Black Night. The other was Kagurazaka Yugen, the current Head, known to the USNA as The Untouchable.
Beside Yugen was a terminal, and on the virtual monitor displayed through it, the state of the Master Clans Conference was clearly reflected.
"Maya-chan made a realistic judgment. Moreover, by forgiving Retsu while other Master Clan Heads were present, she relatively increased the value of the Yotsuba family. In contrast, that brat..."
"...Did you know, Mother? That Lord Kudou sold out the Yotsuba."
"Well, yes. I wanted to dispose of him quickly, but the 'Base Body Generation' folks were annoying. Strictly speaking, it was the Kujo folks who sent them out."
The "Base Body" refers to the parent generation of experimental subjects created in each Magic Development Laboratory, including the Ten Master Clans. It was a fact that all of them were from lineages connected to Ancient Magic.
For example, the Yotsuba family was formed when the child born from Shiba Kuuya and Shinonome Maaya used the number four to change from Shiba (司馬) to Yotsuba (四葉). In the case of the Mitsuya family in this world, they took one character from the Yaguruma family, which became the base body generation, to take the surname Mitsuya.
According to Senhime, the Kujo family—the house of Kudou Retsu's grandparents and the base body generation for the Kudou family—was heavily involved.
"To tell the truth, there's a record that Kujo Tanemichi taught Tenjin Magic to Kamiizumi Nobutsuna. At that time, a Kagurazaka person also learned swordsmanship from Nobutsuna, which became the origin of the Ise Shinto Style."
"A Regency Family (Sekkan-ke) appears there...? It's like the Muromachi period had an atavism."
"Tell me about it, honestly."
Moreover, the Kujo family sent a daughter as Nobutsuna's wife. Even though it was in the past, the Kujo family was an existence the Kamiizumi and Kagurazaka families couldn't ignore. Although there was the shogunate's intention to blend the court nobility and the warrior class (Kobu Gattai) at the time, the Kamiizumi family utilized this to steadily improve their techniques. The Kujo family also apparently flourished gradually thanks to financial support from the Kamiizumi family, which had gained a solid position within the shogunate.
Since the theme of the old Ninth Lab was "Development of magicians who implement rationalized and reorganized Ancient Magic as Modern Magic," a person from the Kujo family was likely chosen as someone possessing suitable qualities. Since families inheriting Onmyodo were treated as court nobles (and peerage after the Meiji era), it wouldn't be strange for other court nobles to have mastered Ancient Magic. The Shirakawa family connected to the Shijukuin family and the Yoshida family of this world were also such court nobles.
"Huh? But if the Kujo family possessed Tenjin Magic, why wasn't all of it inherited by the Kudou family?"
"To tell the truth, the Kujo family only possessed Tenjin Magic, including Amaterasu, because they were keeping it in custody due to family inheritance issues."
"Keeping it in custody?"
The Kagurazaka family acted as protectors of the Imperial Court as a clan in the shadows, but there was no way the court nobles didn't know about it. So, the Kagurazaka family sent daughters from branch families to the Takatsukasa and Konoe families—who were Regency Families serving as public faces—to avoid unnecessary involvement.
Since they were receiving daughters with blood close to the Imperial Family, there were no complaints. Looking at the history of the court nobility as a whole, it would be faster to search for families where Kagurazaka blood relatives hadn't married in. Apparently, even Fujiwara no Michinaga, who reached the height of the Fujiwara clan's glory, couldn't lift his head against the Kagurazaka family, who were effectively Imperial family in a broad sense.
Returning to the topic: originally, the public Tenjin Magic was managed by the Tsuchimikado clan—blood relatives of the Abe and Kamo clans. However, the Head at the time left the capital (Kyoto), which was exhausted by the flames of war triggered by the Onin War, abandoning his duties as Head of the Bureau of Onmyo. At that time, the transmission of Tenjin Magic was entrusted to the Kujo family due to reluctance to take it out of the capital (the Tsuchimikado family was of the Konoe current but was distanced from the Kagurazaka family, and they relied on the Kujo family who had ties with the Miyoshi clan, whose power was strong at the time). During the period it was entrusted to the Kujo family, Kamiizumi Nobutsuna visited, and Tenjin Magic was passed on to him.
Foreseeing that the capital would move to Edo, the Kagurazaka Head at the time had the public Tenjin Magic inherited by the Kamiizumi family through the Kujo family without returning it to the Tsuchimikado family, in order to entrust the protection of Ezo (Hokkaido), Tohoku, Kanto, Koshinetsu, and Tokai—everything east of Kyoto—to the Kamiizumi family.
"The Tsuchimikado family must have been furious."
"The Head at the time was angry, saying, 'What disloyalty to abandon the duties of the Head of the Bureau of Onmyo, who should be petitioning to avoid sparks falling on the Emperor, and to hole up in Wakasa (western Fukui Prefecture) just to curry favor with the Miyoshi.' Naturally, the Tsuchimikado family begged for the Tenjin Magic to be returned from the Kamiizumi family, but because of that incident, we totally ignored them."
Eventually, the Kagurazaka family completely gave up on the Tsuchimikado family, who engaged in struggles over the headship of the Onmyodo sect again (from their perspective, they expected Tenjin Magic to return if they showed their ability). Instead, the Kagurazaka family sent a daughter to the Kamiizumi family as legitimate proof of the transmission of Tenjin Magic.
From the Tsuchimikado family's perspective, although they were recognized as the authority on Onmyodo by the Edo Shogunate, the crucial skill inheritance of Tenjin Magic was not permitted no matter how much they obtained the position of managing Onmyodo licenses. They gained the name of Onmyodo, but regarding the substance, it should be assessed as "labor lost."
Originally, the Kagurazaka family served the Imperial Court without openly calling themselves relatives of the Abe/Kamo clans or Onmyoji. Outwardly, they took the form of a branch of the Takatsukasa family, one of the Five Regent Houses (a daughter of the Takatsukasa family had married the Kagurazaka Head at the time as a concubine).
Since they had gained maternal relatives from the Imperial Family and the Five Regent Houses, in terms of family status, their position was completely different even if they inherited the same Onmyodo. It makes sense why the Kagurazaka Head at the time could totally ignore them.
"Even if the magical know-how was lost, I would think at least the techniques remained."
"Court nobles detest getting their hands dirty. They feared Tenjin Magic and stopped transmitting it. In the case of the Kagurazaka family, during the succession process, we even took in daughters of samurai families that had died out."
"Does that include the Taira clan (Heike)?"
"It does. The branch family, the Ise family, is a legitimate lineage of the Ise Taira clan."
This content was shocking. After all, Emperor Antoku and his grandmother Taira no Tokiko, who were historically thought to have died, were rescued by the Kagurazaka Head disguised as a soldier. Taking advantage of the confusion caused by the feud between Minamoto no Yoritomo and Minamoto no Yoshitsune, they were brought back to Kyoto, secretly abdicated while still alive, and hidden in Ise Grand Shrine. He, drawing blood from both the Imperial Family and the Taira clan, married a daughter of the Kagurazaka family, took the name Ise, and became the origin of the main Ise Taira lineage—and by extension, the Ise family, one of the Kagurazaka branch families.
"Thanks to that, there are now two Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds) in existence, but the Kagurazaka family is keeping the real one."
"If historians knew, they wouldn't just foam at the mouth; it would be a bolt from the blue. Or rather, shouldn't you give it to the Imperial Family?"
"This is a kind of so-called 'Relic.' Since the Imperial Family cannot handle it, we possess it in the form of an imperial grant."
Honestly speaking, just listening to it made him think the history of this country was "broken" in every sense. Incidentally, there was a record that Oda Nobunaga, sung as one of the three unifiers of the Sengoku period, was also secretly rescued and came to work as a priest at Izumo Taisha, becoming the roots of the later Takatsuki family.
Furthermore, although Nobunaga suffered from diabetes (called "thirsty water disease" at the time), records remained that Kagurazaka magicians spent several months laying a formation and used Tenyo Shoran to restore Nobunaga to his youth. Taking that opportunity, Nobunaga discarded his name and lived out his life as a person involved in Shinto. Even so, he apparently hated Buddhism due to the past Ikko-ikki uprisings.
Well, if you fought with Buddhist monks repeatedly for over ten years, it's no wonder you'd hate them.
Author's Note:
There might be opinions that forgiving Retsu so easily is questionable, but as a realistic problem, Retsu's personal connections exist extensively for better or worse, so he cannot be easily killed based on personal emotions (Minoru, who kills him in the original story, ends up experiencing this difficulty).
Therefore, Maya steered toward forgiving Retsu, including the concealment of Yugen's abilities. This action also includes the intention of demonstrating the magnanimity of the Yotsuba family to other Master Clans.
The latter half is full of original settings. Initially, I thought about making the roots of the Kudou family "Kudo" or "Kudo".
However, when looking at the family compositions of the Magic Development Laboratories members (including the twenty-eight clans) and the Yotsuba family, I thought that if the Yotsuba family's composition is applied to other laboratories, the experimental subjects of each laboratory are likely of the same bloodline based on their numbers. (Since a person from the Isshiki family, who holds rivalry toward the Ichijou family, became Gouki's wife despite being a collateral relative, I think it wouldn't be strange if there were blood connections).
In the Master Clans Conference of the original story, the phrasing suggests these genetic relationships weigh quite heavily, so there are no materials to deny it.
If so, there is a possibility that the grandfather generation of Yugen and Tatsuya were cousins, and it is highly likely that the cooperation between the previous heads of the house of "Nine" is related to that. The problem of the mother's body was likely solved to some extent since Jumonji Kazuki was a "test tube baby," and perhaps surrogate methods were used (given the situation at the time, humanitarian issues were likely ignored).
Given the characteristic of the Senate often harboring Ancient Magicians (there are statements suggesting Elder Todo Aoba is an Ancient Magician), and considering blood ties, I surmised that the base bodies of each laboratory are undoubtedly highly likely to be Ancient Magicians.
Also, since the name changes of the "Extra" numbers seem quite conscious of changes in Kun'yomi/On'yomi readings and the sound of the spelling (e.g., Ichihana → Ichihara, Togami → Tookami, Nanakura → Nagura), I think similar changes occurred when the Numbers changed surnames.
Considering the above points, I chose the surname Kujo because of the nuance of the name and the likelihood of it being a lineage possessing Ancient Magic.
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