────Spiritual power exploded.
Even before she sensed the shockwave, she already identified this place to be hostile.
Her clothes and accessories remained neat, and there were no indications that their her body had been checked.
However, as expected, anything that could become a weapon like her foster and her talismans have been taken away.
Still, they didn’t cast any jutsu other than the sleep induction jutsu. There were no barriers erected on the room either.
That’s why Tomoe did not use a jutsu to investigate, and instead, she ‘spread her senses’ just as her master taught her.
Through the method that ‘read and understood the presence of all creation’, Tomoe understood the situation of her surroundings.
The explosion occurred right as she was in the process of that.
“Tch! ────On!”
That’s why she could form a hand seal as soon as that explosion occurred and
Immediately, she used the Ootsu-style to conjure shiki-onis since this method did not require a medium, but it wasn’t possible for the whole thing to make it in time, so she omitted the unnecessary parts and completed them before the sliding door could be blown away.
Everything happened within an instant.
“Block it!”
While using the invisible winds to protect herself from the fragments of the sliding door, her shikionis reached out for the three figures that came flying next.
The armor of the shikionis were fashioned after a warrior’s armor, but they suddenly transformed to become flexible, allowing them to cushion the three girls that were blown away with their defensive spells.
“Oww… Huh!? An oni!?”
One of them, who still complained at the pain of the impact, looked up and found herself shuddering at the sight of the black oni mask looking at her.
The face seemed to be somewhat smiling, but onis were, after all, onis.
There was no way she wouldn’t be surprised when one appeared so close.
“…It doesn’t have any legs, though. Perhaps it would be better referred to as a ghost oni?”
“Did we by any chance fall into hell?”
When one of the three cried out, the other two noticed what had cushioned them, and they feebly smiled while observing the shikionis closely.
An oni mask about half the size of a human with an arm on either side. That was the sort of shikinoni that saved them, and there were two of them.
They were just like a ghost the way they floated in the air, but regardless, they carried the three girls to protect them.
“You’re surprisingly calm, I see… I’ve yet to figure out what’s going on, though.”
It was a scene Tomoe herself was responsible for, but she still found it surreal.
The three girls were also surprisingly calm, but that changed as soon as they noticed her.
“T-Tomoe-sama!?”
“Tomo-sama, umm, this is!”
“P-P-Please forgive us, Tomoe-sama!”
“Stop adding a sama when you call me, it’s weird!”
They’ve always been calling her that internally, but to Tomoe, they were her friends who’ve been referring to her casually all this time. It was just too weird for them to start being so humble before her.
So it couldn’t be helped if their respect only resulted in a twisted expression and some goosebumps, but…
『Ku ku… You heard her. How about agreeing for once, princess?』
For some reason, Tomoe imagined a certain man laughing when he saw her being treated like a princess.
‘But it was surely just her imagination,’ she insisted to herself as she turned around.
With the room now well-ventilated, a man appeared, and Tomoe spoke.
“───What a terrible way of knocking in another person’s residence. Do they not even teach basic etiquette at your house?”
With a cold gaze and voice, she spoke to him so calmly she surprised even herself.
Tomoe didn’t actually know what he and the three girls were talking about earlier, but her sarcasm was both appropriate and poignant, almost as if she had been listening to their exchange.
Perhaps the person himself was aware that he’d gone too far by allowing his emotions to take control of him and damage the residence, or perhaps his self-esteem was hurt by the fact that the there girls still refused to answer to him despite everything he’d done, but regardless, that noble face of his distorted, and he glared at Tomoe as though to blame her.
When such hostility was openly directed toward her, Tomoe felt like she could finally understand that person.
“Fu, fu fu.”
“W-What’s so funny!? Are you mocking me despite your lowly status!?”
“Oh, I don’t particularly care about you. It’s just that situations like this keep occurring that I’m starting to understand how that nasty mouth of his was trained so well… Though I guess in his case, it might actually just be innate.”
“You’re not making any sense…”
She even found herself imitating him in the way she provoked and disdained her enemy.
For what reason did he do such things? There was indeed his innate mischievousness, but Tomoe knew that it was probably for the same reason she was being like this now.
“Sayaka, Miki, Sachiko… I’ll have you give me a detailed account later.”
Without turning to the reason, Tomoe told the three girls with a heavy voice to brace themselves.
Tomoe knew that protecting and getting mad were two different things.
And though she wasn’t even looking at them, the three girls they nodded countless times nonetheless.
In fact, they were trembling so much that they failed to notice the wards and
“I’ll ask just in case, do you have no intention of stopping?”
The shikionis even put them down and surrounded them to protect them.
To avoid rousing suspicion, Tomoe kept her eyes on the man and stepped forward as she asked that question.
“You know, I don’t know why I was brought here either, but this is probably the Tsuchimikado residence. If you act up here, you can say goodbye to your position. Are you saying you don’t even understand that much?”
With the room now open, Tomoe could see the structure of the mansion and the garden.
She’d visited this place many times in her childhood, so she recognized where she was.
This was none other than the residence of the de facto head of the exorcist clans.
Committing any sort of violence here wouldn’t bring this man any gain.
“Hah! How dare a pig with filthy blood talk so haughtily. Pray, do tell, what could be more outrageous than to leave an impurity such as yourself in the manor of the proud head of our exorcist clans? As the heir to the honorable Tsumori family, and as one who bears the burden of the next generation of our renowned clan, I shall purge the impurities, including the servant girls that brought you here!”
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