Chapter 886: , Quiet

PS: I finally figured it out—His Majesty turned out to be allergic from eating too much wild game and seafood with alcohol, and then he got bitten by poisonous insects, breaking out in rashes all over his body. Terrible, terrible, terrible. I need these few days to rest and recover from treatment.

Osaka, headquarters of the Unification Church.

The god of division and unity, Kishibe Masomi, sat behind his desk, with that day's newspaper spread out in front of him.

The front page of the newspaper was dominated by the Aomori Ranch incident, occupying most of the space, with the headline in bold black type: "One Hundred and Forty Bodies," accompanied by an aerial photo of the ranch, where blue plastic sheets on the snow looked like patches.

He didn't look at the photo; he read the small tofu-dry-sized article tucked in the corner of page four, titled: "Police Agency, Unification Church Seven-Opening Tai Investigation Eight."

He stared at it for a long time, then folded the newspaper and set it aside.

When Hattori Motomoto, chief of the Osaka Police Headquarters, heard that the Police Agency was sending investigators to Osaka, he was furious.

Upon hearing "Police Agency directly guiding the Aomori Prefectural Police" and "Unification Church-related investigation launched," the anger of Kansai people exploded.

Kantou people, you've stretched your hands too far!

Osaka is not Aomori—it's Osaka!

The Osaka Prefectural Police have their own independence, their own investigative methods, their own jurisdiction!

How the Police Agency operates in Aomori is none of our business, but trying to drag the Unification Church investigation into Osaka? Not a chance!

Are you trying to start a war?

Then we'll meet you head-on.

Fine—tomorrow you bring 100,000 police, I'll bring 100,000 police, and we'll clash at Sekigahara to see who wins and returns to court, who gets annihilated, and whether righteousness truly lies with the Eastern Army or the Western Army.

Hattori Motomoto picked up the phone, dialed Mori Takayoshi, chief of the Criminal Division at the Police Agency, and spoke loudly—so loudly that people in the adjacent office could hear: "Aomori's affairs belong to Aomori; Osaka's affairs belong to Osaka. If the Police Agency wants to investigate the Unification Church, fine—but follow proper procedure. The Osaka Prefectural Police will cooperate, but we won't be your lackeys or errand boys."

Mori Takayoshi on the other end replied politely but seriously: "This isn't the Police Agency's opinion—it's a decision from higher up. The superior said the Unification Church issue involves the nation and cannot be handled by just one region or prefecture. Osaka Prefectural Police cooperation is mandatory, not optional."

"Moreover, Kyushu, Western Japan, and Shikoku regions have already agreed to cooperate with our investigation—please, Kansai region, do the same. Thank you." "What?" Hattori Motomoto's face darkened.

Did the chiefs of Kyushu, Shikoku, and Western Japan really say that?

Damn it—we've got a traitor among us!

Hattori Motomoto's face turned ashen; after reviewing the news several times, he could only decide: "Prepare the documents."

He told his chief secretary: "Pull out everything we can publicly disclose about Unification Church activities in Osaka. Even what can't be made public—pull it out too."

The secretary hesitated: "But those are Public Security matters..."

"Public Security is Osaka Prefectural Police's Public Security, which is Japan's Public Security!" Hattori interrupted: "If the Police Agency wants it, we'll give it. After we hand it over, they investigate their side, we investigate ours—each to their own, no being led by the nose."

He paused, voice dropping: "This time the storm is too big for one person to bear—even the Prosecutor's Office is getting involved..."

"Yes." The subordinate dared not delay.

Muscles twitched on Hattori Motomoto's face as he felt, with the death of Onoda Kōken and the appointment of Watanabe Eiji as superior, the iron curtain from Kantou slowly descending.

Darkness is closing in.

Only I roar for light.

Kishibe Masomi thought quietly—he was over eighty, yet looked only forty or fifty, with thick, jet-black hair, no age spots, barely any wrinkles, wearing a dark gray kimono with a loosely tied sash, sleeves hanging down to cover his hands resting on his knees.

Those hands were well-kept—nails trimmed neatly, fingertips free of old calluses, not resembling those of an eighty-year-old.

He opened his storage room, where neatly arranged were over eighty German Doppelmayr kitchen knives of various types.

Back then, Japan was poor, and German-made goods were seen as guarantees of quality and craftsmanship, symbols of fame and status known far and wide.

Thus, Kishibe Masomi fell in love with German Doppelmayr knives then, and afterward, he favored them in many things.

Doppelmayr knives have long blades and handles curved to perfectly fit the palm—like they were custom-made.

He liked Doppelmayr knives—the feeling of them in his hand sometimes made him feel like he was still a person.

A person who kills, who dissects, who takes bones from corpses to make ritual objects.

Yet equally, a person who uses knives to make sushi, sashimi, Osaka-style fried dishes, to fry pork cutlets for everyone, to prepare Osaka sukiyaki and Osaka-style char siu. People in the inner world often lack empathy for the real world, many eventually descending into utter madness and mental collapse, or abandoning all real-world identities to become beings of the inner world—everyone needs one or two spiritual anchors.

He hasn't personally done those things in a long time, but his followers still do.

Same knife, same technique, same ritual.

Same heaven, same face, same us—right before your eyes.

Same knife~same blood~I cannot live in a world without Doppelmayr~

He doesn't need to teach them—they just need to watch him and learn.

Human imitation desire is strong, especially when imitating a new god.

Magic learns from mystics; shark people use Doppelmayr!

Who would've thought Uesugi Sōsetsu could use Doppelmayr to trace back to himself?

Interesting~Oh Moses Roy~

Kishibe Masomi stood up and walked to the window. Outside was Osaka's night scene—neon lights casting fractured reflections on the glass, distant Umeda Sky Building glowing like a golden castle floating in the air.

He gazed at that nightscape, thinking of many things.

Kishibe Masomi neither dislikes nor likes Uesugi Sōsetsu.

Both are seekers of the High Plain of Heaven—no one is nobler or baser; each has their own path, and though the roads to Heaven are strange and varied, they all converge in the end.

I just find him troublesome.

Uesugi Sōsetsu is the kind of person who complicates things.

Simple matters, he insists on digging to the root; settled issues, he wants to dig up and re-examine; things everyone thinks can be closed, he refuses to let go.

I've seen many like him—few survive.

But Uesugi Sōsetsu didn't just survive—he thrives, bursting with energy, growing stronger the more he lives!

What does this mean? It means he has backing.

Behind Uesugi Sōsetsu stands an entire system supporting him—the Metropolitan Police, the Police Agency, the Prosecutor's Office, possibly even Cabinet influence. Kishibe Masomi doesn't fear Uesugi Sōsetsu, but he fears Apaches, M1A1 tanks, F-16s.

Kishibe Masomi doesn't fear Uesugi Sōsetsu, but fears the east wind, fears SADD, fears Fat Man and Little Boy.

Moreover, he feels Uesugi Sōsetsu is somewhat abnormal—he doesn't seem to go mad from inner world erosion, nor weaken from overusing inner world energy.

Strange, the amount of Otherworld Energy a person can self-produce in a lifetime is limited. You've had your fun now—what will you do when you're old?

An has essentially died once already, in that archaeological site, and now he fears trouble.

This year, he has one truly important thing to do.

He has been preparing for that subject for over a decade, and now he has obtained the New God bone ashes of Uesugi Kenshin.

The tomb of the New God from ancient times, the legendary entrance to the Yellow Springs, is located in Izumo.

Uesugi Kenshin's bone ashes are one of the keys to opening Takamagahara.

He spent over a decade verifying, exploring, and raising funds, and this year he finally obtained the excavation permit.

If that tomb truly exists, if he can find the remnants of the Old Gods, or a sleeping Old God, or Old God descendants within it, and if he can transfer the power of those remains to himself through ritual, then he will no longer be the "God of Separation and Unity"—he will become the mouthpiece of the Old Gods' will, he will open the path to Takamagahara, and even tear apart the Logic Tide.

Let all things return to unity!

This matter is ten thousand times more important than that ranch in Aomori.

He cannot let a ranch incident ruin over a decade of his painstaking work.

An turned around and walked back to his desk to sit down.

He picked up the internal line on the desk, dialed a number: "Cut off all contacts from Aomori. From the ranch's ledgers, erase our names. If they cannot be erased, change them to 'person does not exist.' Have those believers who introduced people go abroad—to the Philippines, to Brazil, to any country without an extradition treaty. The Church denies any connection with the ranch. If the police ask, say it was the individual action of a believer, unrelated to the Church. All responsibility lies with the individual, not the organization."

"Yes!" the phone immediately replied.

He grunted, then hung up.

The New God of Kansai leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes.

Outside the window, the neon signs still flickered, their bizarre colors seeping through the curtain gaps, casting shifting patterns on the ceiling. He picked up a Zwilling knife and played with it.

When he was young, he liked to use these knives; later, as he aged, he no longer needed to do the work himself, so he used them less.

Tonight, let's try again.

Let's just use the Bosnian shrimp, the Hachinohe sea cucumber, and the Vladivostok-grown thyme~

A hint of a smile appeared at the corner of An's mouth as he thought, It's been years—I wonder if my cooking skills are still there.

Meanwhile, Uesugi Muneyuki was handling the aftermath.

The snow in Aomori began falling in the early hours.

The deep, sky-covering snow unique to the northern lands.

By noon, the snow accumulation in Hirosaki City had nearly reached twenty centimeters, leaving only white and deeper white between heaven and earth.

Uesugi Muneyuki had nearly finished his affairs here; Mai Xuejie and Asuka had arranged to meet him at a nearby Taishō Roman Ōchashitsu. The Taishō Roman Ōchashitsu is near Hirosaki Park, a two-story wooden building, its outer walls painted dark brown, window frames in moss green, with a handwritten wooden plaque hanging at the door, its characters half-buried in snow.

When Uesugi Muneyuki pushed open that heavy wooden door, the hinge emitted an ancient creak, as if transmitted from the Taishō era.

Where are they?

Uesugi Muneyuki looked around, saw no trace of Mai Xuejie or Asuka, and could only sit down alone.

The interior was much warmer than outside.

The lighting was warm yellow, not bright, just enough to make out nearby faces; several Western-style chandeliers hung from the ceiling, their shades made of milky white glass with fine cracks along the edges.

Dark green wallpaper covered the walls, printed with a subtle floral pattern, its color somewhat faded—but faded, it gained a richer flavor. The tables and chairs were in Taishō style: dark brown wooden frames, moss green velvet cushions, the backrests curved to fit the human spine. Each table held a small lamp, its shade an old-fashioned cloth type with fringed edges, casting a warm yellow halo on the table surface.

Taishō Democracy, cleanse!

Bureaucratic democracy is destined to be realized!

For Super Earth!

Uesugi sat by the window, facing Hirosaki Park; the moat's surface was already covered in snow, revealing only a faintly sunken, whiter curve than the banks.

The phonograph in the corner played a tune, somewhat familiar; Uesugi Muneyuki vaguely recalled the song's title might be "Sorrowful Shore" — "If I could grope my way to reach~ the sorrowful shore~"

"Warmth and tomorrow~ I shall no longer need~"

Uesugi Muneyuki even began humming along.

Strange, where are they?

He waited a while, his phone screen lit up once—Shirakawa Mai had sent him a text.

A blank text?

Uesugi Muneyuki flipped through it strangely, soon realizing it wasn't blank, but a message with many line breaks, so he kept scrolling down.

Scrolling and scrolling.

The water boiled, and the brass-colored, old-style kettle behind the counter, its body engraved with cherry blossom patterns, spat steam from its spout, emitting a sharp, whistle-like sound. The phonograph still turned, the melody of that era slowly drifting through the scent of coffee, steam, and old wood. "Chichi chichi chichi chichi~ chichi chichi chichi chichi~"

Scrolling and scrolling.

Uesugi Muneyuki scrolled the message to the very bottom and found a few short words.

"Goodbye."

Hmm???

Uesugi Muneyuki suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu.

This scene, this event—I feel like I've seen it somewhere before!!!

At that moment, a person reached from behind the chairback and embraced his shoulders! The arm wasn't long, just reaching from his armpit, the force neither too strong nor too weak! "Goodbye! All Sōsetsu Crystal Warriors!"

Another person immediately reached from behind, brandishing a Zwilling dagger!

Black hilt, silver blade, the edge sheathed, she gripped the hilt, pointed the sheath forward, as if holding a real weapon, pressing the sheath against Uesugi Muneyuki's left lower back with force—that spot was exactly the kidney.

"Sei ne!!!"

Mai's voice wasn't loud, but in this café where only the phonograph and kettle made sound, every word was crystal clear, as if etched in glass.

"Ugh!!!" Uesugi Muneyuki was genuinely startled this time, his body suddenly arched tight, bent upward, his face instantly paling. "Hahahaha~ Total prank success!" Mai Xuejie cackled, cheering.

"Sōsetsu is panicked, panicked, panicked, scared, scared, scared!" Saito Asuka giggled behind him, laughing so hard her whole body trembled, her chin bobbing up and down in the hollow of Uesugi Muneyuki's shoulder.

"You guys!!!" Uesugi Muneyuki's body tensed at the moment of "Go die!" and the sheath pressing against his waist, then began to relax: ""You scared me to death! What's the Saionji world and Katsuragi words?"

"Hahahahaha ah hahahahahahahahaha!!!" Mai Xuejie and Asuka laughed, clinging to each other.

"Are you angry?" Asuka's eyes were bright and her smile was sweet.

"No." Uesugi Muneyuki pouted.

"Are you angry?" Mai Xuejie poked Uesugi Muneyuki's waist with her fingers.

"No." Uesugi Muneyuki had a dark face.

"Hahaha~" came the joyful laughter from inside the tea room.