A moment. Another moment passed.
Imagawa Yoshimoto clutched her chest, leaning back against her seat at the head of the hall. "You—!" She pointed at the gray figure emerging from the shadows of the pillar, her finger trembling.
"Can you, for once, act like a normal person?! Is announcing yourself when you enter really so difficult?! This is the tenshukaku of a provincial ruler, did you climb in through the roof?!"
Imagawa Yoshimoto's voice was pitched considerably higher than usual. Her delicate face was a portrait of lingering shock and indignation, but more than anything, sheer flustered fury.
The emotions one would expect of a girl of sixteen or seventeen were laid utterly bare in that moment.
Shinji leaned against the pillar, his posture entirely casual. "I'm a demon," he said. "Demons walk the night without announcing themselves. Perfectly normal. Besides, I came the same way last time."
"..." Imagawa Yoshimoto's mouth opened, then shut. She was so incensed she nearly bent her folding fan out of shape. But she found herself completely unable to retort. The bastard was telling the truth.
He was a demon. And he had come the same way last time, to Imagawa-kan, when he slew the thunder-beast. And he'd saved her life then, too. I will not get angry. Inhale. Exhale. Her fan slapped down onto her lap.
It took approximately the time needed for half a cup of tea to cool for Imagawa Yoshimoto to barely regain her composure. She smoothed the stray strands of hair back behind her ears, straightened her collar, and restored the dignified bearing befitting a provincial ruler. Though the rims of her ears were still red. From sheer exasperation.
"You heard everything just now?" She didn't bother with pleasantries.
"Mn."
"And what do you think?"
Shinji walked over from the pillar and sat down cross-legged across from her. The lamplight in the great hall fell across his pale face in shifting patterns of light and shadow. Without the demon mask, the violet veins within his crimson eyes were faintly visible.
That sight made Imagawa Yoshimoto's gaze briefly lose focus, before she snapped back to herself and silently cursed under her breath. Shinji paid it no mind. He simply spoke.
"Tsuchimikado Kokoro." He repeated the name, laying out what he had overheard. "An apprentice onmyōji of the Onmyōryō. Daughter of the house head. On the surface, delivering a decree. Her real objective, the Shikon no Tama. You handled that well."
Imagawa Yoshimoto gave a soft hmph. Her folding fan spread open once more, concealing half her face. "Naturally." The eyes behind the fan carried a trace of satisfaction. She had been praised. Though she was loath to admit it, it did make her a little happy.
"However, the Onmyōryō won't let this rest," Shinji continued, his tone flat as he brushed lightly past the compliment. "Sending an apprentice here was a probe in itself. Their true move is likely still to come."
"I'm aware of that." Yoshimoto closed her fan, tapping the handle lightly against her knee.
"The Onmyōryō's waters run deep. The Tsuchimikado house has spent centuries consolidating power. What they hold in their hands far exceeds what they show openly. Those talismans. Those shikigami. Those barrier arts. That's the legacy they've built their entire existence upon. If they truly mobilized, they wouldn't be any less dangerous than an elite army of several thousand."
"But they won't tear all pretenses apart with me." Her voice carried firm confidence as she said this. "At least, not now. Suruga is too far from Kyōto. And there's still Tōtōmi and Mikawa, though plenty within those provinces chafe at our rule, nominally they still belong to the Imagawa. Besides… Kyōto has more than enough troubles of its own."
"The shogun, the emperor, the court nobles, they all check and balance one another. They have little capacity to reach out here. At most, they can scheme from the shadows. But if it's from the shadows, there's only so much force they can bring to bear. It won't be difficult to handle."
Shinji nodded, saying little. His mind had turned to another matter. "That petition from the Hōjō, the request to recognize me as a shōshin. Where does it stand now?"
"It must have reached Kyōto long ago. But the review process, that's a cumbersome affair." Imagawa Yoshimoto glanced at him. "You do know what that woman Hōjō Ujiyasu is scheming, don't you?"
"I know." Shinji's answer was direct.
A shōshin certification. On the surface, it was an elevation, granting him status and legitimacy. In truth, it was binding. Hōjō Ujiyasu had submitted the petition under her own name as provincial ruler.
That meant the legal foundation of his so-called divine status would be rooted in the Hōjō clan. Once the certification was approved, his standing within the Shintō system would be tied directly to the Hōjō. If the Hōjō prospered, he prospered. If the Hōjō declined, his position as a shōshin could very well be revoked by Kyōto on the same pretext.
It was an invisible chain. With a single formal petition, Hōjō Ujiyasu had bound herself and a powerful yōkai to the same vessel. She had gained a god. And she had gambled that Shinji would not refuse. Because he needed that legitimacy, too.
"That woman is cunning to the extreme." Imagawa Yoshimoto pursed her lips, a trace of disdain in her voice.
"A shōshin is not the same as a household guardian deity, a being sustained solely by the concept of 'protection.' A shōshin must balance multiple facets. Once the Shintō certification is granted, your foundation in Musashi and Sagami will indeed be solidified. Wielding both osore and faith, it sounds exquisite. But your every action could then be constrained by the framework of 'shrine.' The expectations of worshippers. The regulations of Shintō. The scrutiny from Kyōto. All of it will bear down upon you. Not to mention, if anything befalls the Hōjō, you, as the 'Hōjō-guaranteed shōshin,' would be the very first target of reprisal."
She spoke unhurriedly, every point lucid and clear. This was the political instinct of a student taught by the Black-Robed Chancellor, Taigen Sessai.
Shinji listened. He did not deny any of it. "You're right," he admitted. Every word she had said was true.
The Hōjō clan's move was indeed vast in scale. Hōjō Ujiyasu had indeed given a great deal. But as the daimyō of a province, her actions were, as she had said herself, more about reciprocal benefit than simple gratitude.
But Shinji also spoke with unwavering confidence. "But I won't be leashed."
"Faith is nourishment. Not shackles. Same as osore. Use it, but being consumed by it is foolish. I'll accept the legitimacy the Hōjō grants. But I won't build my foundation upon another's guarantee."
He looked at Imagawa Yoshimoto. His foundation, it had always been himself. This demon warrior body he had possessed since before transmigration.
This yōkai form, endlessly transforming and growing stronger. Not those ephemeral things that would shatter the moment their external support was stripped away.
"This so-called shōshin certification, at best, it's the flowers embroidered upon the brocade. If the flowers wither… the brocade remains."
Imagawa Yoshimoto stared at him for several seconds. Then she said, "…That's for the best." Her fan turned half a circle, the spread paper hiding the curve of her mouth. But what it couldn't hide, was the inexplicable, unaccountable happiness rising unbidden in her eyes.
Perhaps it was because he hadn't been entirely pulled over to the Hōjō's side. Perhaps it was because, when he spoke, he hadn't touted the Hōjō's benefits, but instead had frankly laid out the risks before her first. Or perhaps it was simply because, he was sitting here, speaking these words with her.
She couldn't quite say. And she had no intention of trying. Dwelling on reasons was the most pointless of exercises. That was how Imagawa Yoshimoto had always been.
The young daimyō folded her fan shut, set it aside, and then drew something from her sleeve. A map. Not a military map, something more like a crude, hand-drawn chart. Several locations were marked on it in ink, each with a date and a brief note written beside it. She pushed the map across the floor between them.
"This is for you."
Shinji looked down. He saw the contents marked on that map. Three locations, scattered across the border region between western Suruga and eastern Tōtōmi.
Beside each one, the same keywords had been written: Swordsmith. Volcano. Small, elderly yōkai.
Shinji's hand stilled. "…This is?"
"The person you've been searching for lately." Imagawa Yoshimoto spoke, her tone carrying just a trace, only a trace, of poorly concealed pride.
"Tōtōsai. Possible sightings of the personal swordsmith of Tōga, the daiyōkai who was once lord of the western lands and held dominion over the Kansai region for centuries."
She continued, "You've been mobilizing those demons under your command within my territory, making a grand commotion as they search far and wide. Did you think I would be oblivious?"
Shinji wasn't surprised in the slightest. He had indeed ordered the tanuki to spread its intelligence network across Suruga to trace Tōtōsai's whereabouts.
Though the little yōkai had moved discreetly, their activity had hardly been silent. The kappa had questioned every waterway. The tanuki had snuck through every marketplace. The one-eyed monk had even crept into temples to interrogate long-lived tsukumogami.
To ordinary eyes, such actions might have gone unnoticed. But to the eyes of a daimyō who controlled an intelligence network spanning multiple provinces, it was no different from someone rummaging through her own backyard.
What surprised Shinji was that this young daimyō hadn't merely taken notice. She had personally stepped in to help.
"These three locations, they're leads gathered by my shinobi over the past half-month," Imagawa Yoshimoto went on.
"Not found by your little yōkai. Their intelligence network is still far too crude. All that random questioning of theirs ended up alerting my people instead. So I had them investigate on your behalf."
Her tone was utterly casual, as though she were mentioning some small, incidental favor.
Shinji understood: deploying the shinobi network of Suruga Province to search for a reclusive yōkai swordsmith hiding within a volcano, that was no small, incidental favor. It required manpower. Time. Wide-scale exploration of mountain and forest terrain.
Before he had even spoken a word of request, Imagawa Yoshimoto had already done this for him.
Shinji looked at her. He didn't ask much in return. He simply savored, once more, the weight of Taigen Sessai's request. Then,
"Thanks."
He reached out and tucked the map into his robes.
Imagawa Yoshimoto's fan gave a little flick. "You're welcome." A smile graced her lips, and she seemed rather pleased with herself.