"Over here! Lord Head! This way!"
The silence of the tranquil garden was shattered by hurried footsteps and the frantic shouts of a servant.
A group of Zenin clan elders, led by Naobito Zenin and including Ougi and Jinichi, swarmed out from the garden entrance. It seemed someone had sensed the thunderous impact echoing from the main garden and had rushed to fetch the Head of the Clan.
As they reached the scene, their eyes fell upon a single spot in unison.
There lay the legitimate heir of the Zenin clan, face-down and reduced to a bloody pulp. And standing over him, nonchalantly grinding his foot into the heir's head, was a fourteen-year-old brat from a branch family.
"...Naoya!"
Naobito, aghast at the gruesome sight, let out a sharp, booming roar of a command.
Hearing that thunderous voice, I gave an indifferent shrug of my shoulders and lazily lifted my foot from the back of Naoya's head, finally letting him go.
The moment the pressure vanished, Naoya, who had been smashed into the dirt, squirmed and managed to lift his head.
"Ugh, uuuuh..."
His earlier arrogance was nowhere to be found. With his nose collapsed and his eyes swollen purple with bruises, Naoya spotted Naobito through eyes clouded with terror and pain. He began to crawl pathetically toward his father on all fours.
"Pa—Papa... hic, Papa...!"
To think that a candidate for the next Clan Head, a grown man, would be making such infantile whimpers while crawling toward his father's entourage like a mangled dog. The sight was so wretched that even the elders following behind could only gape in sheer shock.
Naobito's bloodshot eyes flickered between his son crawling on the floor and me, as I stood there casually dusting off my clothes. A complex swirl of emotions flashed through the veteran Clan Head's eyes.
"...First."
Naobito spoke heavily.
"Verification of the facts and punishment will come later. Kuroda Hachiro, return to your room immediately."
I gave a slight nod without a word, stuffed my blood-stained hands into my pockets, and slowly trudged back toward the guest room I'd been assigned.
As I turned my back and walked away, Naobito announced loudly enough for all the elders behind him to hear clearly.
"From this moment on, Hachiro is under house arrest for three days! No one is to enter his room!"
[ Zenin Clan Grand Assembly Hall ]
"How could such a thing be allowed to happen?!"
THUD—!
Ougi Zenin slammed his fist against the tatami floor in a towering rage. His face was flushed a deep red, as if his very blood was about to burst through his skin.
"A branch family brat with no pedigree had the audacity to assault a direct heir of the main line as if he were a common street dog! This is a capital offense that shakes the very discipline and roots of the Zenin clan! We should drag that arrogant brat out right now and take his head!"
Ougi had considered Hachiro an eyesore ever since the talk of 'first-rank succession rights' came up yesterday. He was now foaming at the mouth, using the bloodline hierarchy as an excuse to eliminate the threat.
However, despite the murderous atmosphere, the lawyer Furudate, sitting in the corner, wiped cold sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and spoke cautiously.
"B-but, Lord Ougi. We haven't heard the proper testimonies from both sides yet. According to the servants in the garden, there are reports that young master Naoya was the one who instigated the conflict... It is difficult to punish one side unilaterally without establishing the cause."
"Silence, lawyer! The fact that a branch member struck a direct heir is the only problem here!"
It was at the moment Ougi was screaming at the lawyer.
Jinichi, the muscle of the clan who had been silently watching with crossed arms, snorted and cut in.
"Hmph. Lord Ougi, don't get so worked up."
A thin, predatory smile spread across Jinichi's scarred face.
"What kind of clan do you think the Zenin are? In the Zenin, whoever is stronger and more dominant is automatically the one in the right."
Jinichi remembered vividly the ominous Dharma Wheel Hachiro had displayed in the assembly hall the day before.
"Touching a direct heir is indeed impudent, but I heard that kid just smashed Projection Sorcery with sheer brute force. Discarding such an outlier level of power over petty bloodline squabbles would be a massive loss for the clan. House arrest for three days and a relatively light punishment to sweep it under the rug seems more appropriate to me."
"What? Jinichi, have you lost your mind!"
Ougi, who preached the absolute sanctity of the bloodline, and Jinichi, who prioritized overwhelming force.
The two ideological pillars that supported the Zenin clan were now clashing sharply in the middle of the assembly hall.
"Striking a direct heir is a capital crime! Behead him!"
"Might makes the Zenin! Throwing away an outlier of war just for bloodline ego is the height of stupidity!"
As the two elders shouted until their veins popped, their voices tearing through the silence of the tatami room, a third voice interjected.
"...The Punishment Room."
A low, gravelly, yet unmistakably heavy voice seeped through the chaotic din.
It was the old elder with age spots on his face, the one who had been the first to reel in shock upon seeing Hachiro's Wheel yesterday, recognizing it as 'Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga.'
With that single, low, and sinister murmur, the air in the meeting room froze instantly. Both Ougi and Jinichi fell silent and turned toward him. The shouting died down out of respect for the elder who held the deepest knowledge of the Zenin's history.
"What did you just say, Honorable Elder?"
As Ougi asked tentatively, the old elder narrowed his clouded eyes and spoke slowly.
"To leave that insolent brat in a comfortable room for three days... is far too light a price for harming a direct heir. It would crumble the clan's discipline. Ougi, you are correct in that regard."
"Y-yes, exactly!"
"But as Jinichi says, killing a talent who can wield a fragment of Mahoraga would be a great loss for the family. This is also true."
The elder straightened his bent back slightly and wore a cruel smile.
"So, let us reach a compromise. Instead of the guest room in the main house... we lock him in the 'Punishment Room' for two days."
As soon as that word was uttered, a strange tension rippled through the faces of everyone in the room.
The Punishment Room. A grotesque and wicked basement peculiar to the Zenin clan, where dozens or hundreds of low-grade Cursed Spirits, Grade 2 and below, were endlessly herded and bred.
"They are merely a mess of Grade 2 spirits and below anyway. Given the overwhelming Cursed Energy and physical techniques that boy showed yesterday, there's no way he'll be torn apart and killed in there. Jinichi, this should be more than enough to verify and acknowledge the strength you spoke of."
The old elder then shifted his gaze toward Ougi.
"However... what would happen if he has to fight a never-ending swarm of spirits in pitch-black darkness for two days and nights without a single moment of rest? Even among our Zenin clan, very few Grade 2 sorcerers or higher can endure that horrendous mental pressure and fatigue and walk out intact."
There was a chilling killing intent embedded in the elder's words.
He might survive, but he would be broken physically and mentally—a calculated move to force him to submit before the Zenin bloodline.
"...I see. I can only marvel at the wisdom of the Honorable Elder."
"Hmph. If he can prove his strength on his own, I have no reason to object."
Ougi, with his burning malice, and Jinichi, with his desire to test the limits of Hachiro's power, both nodded in agreement. Their conflicting motives had found a perfect union on the cruel stage of the Punishment Room.
"..."
Naobito, who was sitting slouched in the high seat, clicked his tongue quietly.
His face was wrinkled in displeasure. His rational judgment told him that with Hachiro's skill, the spirits in the Punishment Room would be swept away with a laugh, but there was absolutely no benefit to the clan in once again irritating that monstrous brat.
'Tsk. Old fools stuck in their ways. Even after seeing exactly how that brat crushed Naoya with their own eyes, they still insist on sticking their hands into a tiger's mouth.'
However, Naobito did not explicitly voice his opposition.
The atmosphere in the assembly hall was already completely swayed by the compromise of the Punishment Room. Trying to suppress the pride of the elders with only the authority of the Clan Head would cause too much of a backlash.
"...Very well."
Naobito's heavy voice delivered the final verdict of the clan meeting.
"Drag Zenin Hachiro out of the guest room. He is to be remanded to the Punishment Room for two days."
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