Chapter 67: Reappearance
The sun was already sinking in the west.
Its last light spilled across the street in long strips of dim gold, catching on the dry, yellow leaves scattered along the roadside. Autumn had stripped the city bare. Even the few pedestrians still out seemed thinner somehow, their silhouettes swallowed by the quiet. The whole evening carried a desolate stillness, more pronounced than in previous years, as though the season itself had become reluctant to speak.
Gin Tsumugi, however, was in no mood to appreciate the scenery.
Inside the White Fox Office—
"Director, what exactly were you thinking?"
Iwanaga Kotoko stood behind the desk with both hands planted on it, her face full of anger and worry in equal measure.
"Tampering with a taboo of Onmyodo. Using the forbidden Taizan Fukun Rite without authorization. Causing chaos at the Tsuchimikado family estate. Do you have any idea what any of that sounds like when I say it out loud?"
Gin sat there and accepted the lecture in silence.
He had already been chewed out by Amami Daizen at the Bureau. Then he had come back to the White Fox Office, only to walk straight into round two.
And Kotoko's round two was relentless.
She had started at two in the afternoon.
It was nearly sunset now.
In all that time, she had only stopped a few times to take a sip of water and save her throat. Other than that, the lecture had continued without pause, like a ritual designed specifically to wear down the guilty.
Gin, still feeling a trace of actual shame over the whole matter, could not help admiring his assistant's lung capacity.
Off to the side, Kasugano Sora watched the scene with faint apprehension written across her pale face.
Since coming to the White Fox Office, this was the first time she had ever seen Kotoko this furious. If she had been in the Director's position, she thought she would probably have started crying long ago.
Meanwhile, Gin was sitting there like a man enduring a storm with supernatural discipline.
Bang.
Kotoko slapped the desk hard enough to make Sora jump.
"Director, are you even listening to me?" she demanded. "Do you know how worried I was when I found out what happened? Do you know how much work we put into building up the White Fox Office's reputation and case record? The Bureau wiped all of that out in one go!"
Gin knew if he kept quiet any longer, this could continue until midnight.
So he finally raised a hand and tried, very carefully, to defend himself.
"Kotoko... about the case record and reputation..." He gave a small cough. "Given the current state of the White Fox Office, I'd say those things are... somewhat optional. We should try to look on the bright side."
Kotoko stared at him.
The air in the office grew noticeably more dangerous.
Gin pressed on anyway.
"Look, because of this incident, the White Fox Office's reputation has actually risen quite a bit. And without what happened at the Tsuchimikado estate, I probably wouldn't have formed my Onmyodo Framework this quickly."
He spread his hands.
"And in the end, nothing went wrong."
That only made Kotoko's expression worse.
"Those are excuses," she said flatly. "Bad ones."
Her voice did not rise, but that somehow made it more oppressive.
"I would rather the White Fox Office build its name step by step through actual cases than gain attention through something like this. And don't twist the point, Director. Going to the Tsuchimikado family to borrow the Senji Ryakketsu was one thing. Running off with that bad girl Dairenji Suzuka to perform the Taizan Fukun Rite was something else entirely."
The words bad girl carried real weight.
In Kotoko's mind, Dairenji Suzuka had already been promoted to a very specific category of problem: unwelcome person, dangerous influence, and individual to be kept far away from the Director at all costs.
If Suzuka had not led him astray, how could Gin possibly have done something so reckless?
And now that Kotoko thought back on it, all the information the Director had collected about the Taizan Fukun Rite beforehand must have come from Suzuka too.
That settled it.
Dairenji Suzuka was the main culprit.
Gin almost laughed, but he wisely kept his face straight.
"Alright, Kotoko. Calm down." He softened his tone and offered her a smile that was half coaxing, half surrender. "I promise that if something like this happens again, I'll tell you in advance."
Kotoko narrowed her eyes.
"In advance?" she repeated. "Only in advance?"
Gin smiled without answering.
That silence alone was enough.
Kotoko looked at him for a few seconds, then let out a long, tired sigh.
She understood.
Getting him to promise advance notice was already a concession. Asking for more was like trying to nail fog to a wall.
At last, she pinched the bridge of her nose and said in a voice full of resignation, "Director... don't let there be a next time."
Gin, sensing the storm had finally passed, immediately shifted back into business mode before she could circle around for a second round.
"Did the White Fox Office receive any supernatural case requests while I was away?"
The change in topic was blatant.
Kotoko shot him a look, but she let it go.
Before she could answer, Sora moved quickly to the filing cabinet, took out several request forms, and placed them neatly on the desk in front of Gin.
"Director," she said quietly, "these are the requests that remained after Sister Kotoko screened and processed the others."
Gin picked them up.
Sora continued, "Three of the cases appear to be connected. Based on the clues gathered so far, all of them seem to have been committed by the same type of man-eating yokai. The similarities are too strong to ignore, so they can probably be treated as a single incident."
"A yokai?" Gin asked casually as he flipped through the reports. "A strong one?"
Kotoko shook her head. "Not necessarily strong. It's just very good at hiding."
Her expression darkened slightly.
"Every time investigators reach a crime scene, all that's left is a mess of torn limbs and ruined bodies. The heads are always missing. So are the internal organs. The wounds on what remains look like they were made by some kind of wild beast."
Gin's gaze paused on one of the attached photos.
The scene was ugly. Brutal. The kind of slaughter that stained the eye even through paper.
"And even your yokai haven't turned up anything more?"
Kotoko nodded. "Nothing useful. It keeps slipping away."
Gin skimmed the rest of the information.
There was very little of practical value. Most of it amounted to scene descriptions, photographs, and repeated confirmation that whatever had done this knew how to erase its trail almost perfectly.
He set those forms aside.
"And the other requests?"
Kotoko and Sora exchanged a brief look.
Then Kotoko said, "There are two left. Strictly speaking, those can be merged into one case too."
She paused.
"And this one has a direct connection to the White Fox Office."
Gin looked up.
That wording was enough to make him take it seriously.
At the side, Sora had gone still. Her pale face carried a complicated expression now—something between tension, pain, and a memory she did not want dragged back into the light.
Gin's fingers stopped on the edge of the file.
Then a thought struck him.
His expression changed at once.
"It's connected to that grotesque tree spirit from before," he said, voice turning grave. "The one that produced blood-red fruit."
Kotoko's face tightened.
"Yes."
A quiet chill settled over the room.
Gin's eyes narrowed.
"It's appeared again," he said.
Then, after a brief pause, his tone dropped even lower.
"No... not appeared. Someone has deployed it again."
.....
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