Chapter 16

  Yesterday’s back-to-back Reproduction had netted me an immense number of bugs to play with, so much so that I no longer needed to rely on the daily production from the cities I had ‘conquered’ to finish my signal bridges.

  I had gone to sleep in Michiko’s Innate Domain, and when I had woken up, I felt… conflicted.

  Wrong for what I had done.

  I couldn’t have spared the Shiba clan. Either they’d try again, or they’d run somewhere else and continue committing atrocities, and generally working counter to the Jujutsu Society’s goal of protecting non-sorcerers.

  I sat on my bed, massaging my eyes. The myopia was beginning to set in. I’d need glasses in the coming years.

  And… I’d need to figure out how to tamp down on my more violent tendencies.

  Not the proportionality of my responses, of course, but my willingness to hand out such responses in the first place.

  There was something seriously wrong with me, and I was starting to wonder if I would only get worse over time.

  “Michiko… is it bad to be vengeful?”

  The irony of asking that to a vengeful cursed spirit didn’t go over my head.

  She tilted her head. “I don’t know, Teira-chan.”

  “But I’m not just vengeful,” I said, scratching my head. “I’ve never thought of myself as vengeful. I try to even the scales where I can. Maybe that’s being vengeful. But I don’t… go out of my way to inflict pain for my own satisfaction. That’s really not who I am.”

  “Then don’t do it.”

  …

  She was right.

  I sighed. “But what if pain isn’t the point, but it’s still a part of the process? Like for Reproduction. Living hosts produce far more Juchū. I have enough to make signal bridges all the way to the Ogura clan, the farthest ones away. I could conquer the entirety of the Hokuriku region in a day right now, and not lose steam.”

  “If pain isn’t the point, then why must you worry?”

  Because it was too big of a side-benefit, at least in my mind.

  And I had no way to justify that. Sadism, as a whole, set an awful precedent for leadership. It reminded me too much of… a certain someone who liked knives.

  The Hibana clan needed pressure to become better. That was the point of it all.

  And to gain the most amount of results, I also needed to put my enemies through soul-shattering agony.

  The necessity of cruelty was becoming almost indivisible from my desire for it. That was worrisome.

  “I… have enough Juchū now,” I said. “That I no longer need living hosts, at least human ones. It would be better if I just put them out of their misery before beginning the process. I’ve… already proven to myself what I can do.” And that was to sense the contours of my soul to the point that I could heal it. It was still inefficient, but I could heal it should something ever damage it. “I need rules.”

  Binding vows? Would those be the answer?

  Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this bellyaching was more performative than anything else. Did I want to adhere to standards of decency similar to the ones in my past life? What was the point? Who was I hurting, that I didn’t already want to hurt?

  Maybe I was being too hasty in the self-judgment.

  I stepped out of Michiko’s cottage, walked down the hill to the portal, and reappeared in my room.

  I used Totality to create twenty Daughter Bugs, sinking twenty-million Juchū into them in the process. As I did, I began to form the beginnings of my own code of conduct.

  000

  Don’t let anyone find out about my use of living hosts.

  In one of the rooms of the clan compound, Izumi—who had essentially outed herself as a secret historian by way of guiding the process—was in a room with a bunch of women sitting around a rectangular table while my spider Juchū spewed out cursed silk using the Cursed Technique: Reversal, specifically known as Production. They spewed them out on grooved wooden poles attached to wheels, and the women slowly spun the poles in order to collect the silk.

  I wondered idly if the other aspects of the Juchū technique could be reversed in some way. Something to experiment on for certain.

  In the meanwhile, I would stick to my new code: don’t let anyone find out. Naturally, that would necessitate that I reduce the number of times that I would Reproduce through the use of living hosts, simply in order to prevent myself from being outed as some kind of ‘monster’.

  In the end, I couldn’t deny the utility of using them. Learning how to better protect my soul as well as sense its contours, and coming out with even more Juchū than usual, were all benefits too great to pass up on.

  Maybe in another life, I would have been less willing to subject my enemies through such agony. This life wasn’t it. Whatever mental and emotional hang-ups that I had about hurting people, my first eight years in this world had burned away that sensitivity with a vengeance, leaving nothing behind.

  Nothing but a barebones desire to do good by people. Those who deserved it, at least.

  If the world was liable to judge me for my actions, then I would keep them secret until I became too strong to be judged.

  Earlier, I had been afraid of sliding down a slippery slope of madness and cruelty. I had been paranoid that my newly expanded tolerances for violence somehow meant that I was bound for great evil.

  Having thought it over more closely, I couldn’t see how those ideas connected at all. My cruelty wasn’t my goal. It was just a tool that I had come to enjoy using. I was still committed to helping people, however.

  My guilt had been… extrinsic. External. I hadn’t been worried about what I would do—I had been worried about how it all looked.

  Worrying about judgment was… a waste of time. It was the mentality of the weak.

  Of course, I would have to cater to the weak in time. That was fine. I didn’t see that burden as a bother at all. I just had to make sure that I wouldn’t appear in a way that would make it more difficult for me to do good.

  I was irrevocably a wolf, no matter how much I’d want to be something else. The only thing I could do at this point was wear sheep’s clothing.

  Some demonstrations of monstrosity couldn’t be helped, however: I already had a store room filled with the bones of curse experts with interesting techniques, that I wanted to become materials for cursed tools. That was… a rather monstrous thing to do, but by the standards of this world, it was on the lower side.

  A swarm of my Juchū, large Totality dragonflies and hornets, surrounded the Shiba clan compound, while my kamakiri entered, along with… a human-ish bug. The only bug that I had seen fit to bestow with clothes—a black and white kimono, as was our clan’s fashion. It was a humanoid butterfly that I had twisted to look as human as possible. The end-result had been more like a wooden puppet, with seams across its face to allow it to emote in a limited fashion. Most importantly, it could speak.

  I ignored all the clan auxiliaries—laborers and servants. I would address them after I was done with the elders, all of whom were huddled up inside their long room, eyes downcast. A few seats were missing—some of the elders had been yet-active curse experts that wanted to participate in this fight.

  “This is Hibana Teira speaking to you from the Aramata gorge,” my butterfly ambassador explained. Its voice wasn’t… quite human. It was a complex network of chittering working together to produce legible human speech. “I’m here to confirm to you that all the curse experts you sent on this endeavor are dead.”

  The elders let out gasps and groans of agony.

  “They put up a good fight. You should be proud of them.” I furrowed my brow at the platitude. It didn’t… hurt to be nice. Even if I didn’t really feel any of those words. “Here are the conditions of your surrender. Swear a binding vow to never practice sorcery again and I will allow a portion of your clansmen to live near our clan compound. There, the Shiba clan may continue practicing their traditional sorcery without persecution. Along with this, all of your funds and items of value are forfeit. Those of you who remain should simply try to integrate back to society.”

  “The Jujutsu Society will kill us if we try!” an elder shouted.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  That was a rather problematic aspect of them. They were prone to rather wanting to be safe than sorry.

  But I couldn’t take them all. I was already holding on by a thread trying to control the Hibana clan. I could only justify a few refugees, a hundred to two hundred at best. And I only suggested this in the first place because as the old man said, leaving them out to dry would likely kill them.

  I wanted to take responsibility. I did.

  I had considered leaving them alive, but thoroughly vassalized to the Hibana clan. It was less stressful than folding them in as they could take care of their own affairs. Unfortunately, I would never allow them to continue making money the way they did. And if they couldn’t make money, I would be forced to provide for them during the interim that we weren’t aligned with the Jujutsu Society and couldn’t enjoy tax yen exorcising cursed spirits.

  I supposed it all boiled down to what I considered to be more important: money, or lives?

  As I came to terms with that choice, I offered the Shiba clan elders new terms.

  And regulations for how they would run their clan from now on. My stationed Juchū were there to stay.

  000

  Iemon sighed, massaging his forehead. “I suppose I should be happy that you’ve chosen to take such a gentle approach to our once-rival. May I ask why?”

  Iemon was talking to me from behind while I was busy running through some sword forms with a wooden sword, hitting a wooden pole as I did. “I know you won’t believe me saying this, but I’ve only ever wanted to… make the world better. Save lives.”

  Be a hero.

  Well… that wasn’t strictly true.

  I wanted to improve lives. My own life and the lives of others.

  “Vassalizing the Shiba clan is a risk, but they’re thoroughly bugged as it is, so I’ve minimized the risk as much as I can,” I said.

  “Yet, we must now provide for them, using our newfangled money-making method. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a secret historian had that information all along! I wonder why they didn’t reveal it to you sooner.”

  He was being sarcastic. I tamped down on my ire. I really did dislike this man. “Because I didn’t ask them. Because the history I already knew convinced me that I wouldn’t be learning anything of true value. I was surprised that it could.”

  “I thought nothing could really surprise you, Teira-sama.”

  I turned around and pointed my boken at him. “I’m not above breaking the bones of a paraplegic.”

  He nodded. “Yes, Teira-sama.”

  I lowered my sword. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  “I know, Teira-sama.”

  “I could just leave at any point,” I said. “Leave you to your fates. If you think I’m bad, imagine what the Ogura or the Kagae clan would do to you. But I’m still here. You know why? Because I have ideals. I may not be perfect, but I try.”

  Why was I telling him this?

  Because I wanted him to know just how much I differed from him. We were nothing alike.

  “You’re doing great, Teira-chan,” he said softly.

  I smacked him on his forehead with the tip of the boken, opening up a wound. “That’s Teira-sama to you.” Blood covered one of his eyes. “Iemon, I’ll say this once: don’t ever try to get close to me again. Ever. That’s your last warning.”

  “O-of course.”

  If that idiot thought I’d forget who and what he was just because he had been marginally nicer to me than anyone else, he had another thing coming. If it hadn’t been for my strength, he never would have given me the time of day in the first place.

  If he ever decided to lower himself to noticing me while I didn’t have power, he would have had me betrothed to his children, or some other elder’s children. He’d treat me like any other girl in the clan and seek to subjugate me.

  He was only still around because he was competent at managerial tasks.

  But he was not family. He never would be.

  “We’ll bear the burden of providing for the Shiba clan until they have rehabilitated to the point of being able to enter Jujutsu Society along with us. They will train quietly in the meanwhile, raising their number of sorcerers until they can handle doing jobs. I will offer the same to the Ogura, Kagae and Mori clans. Then the real work begins.”

  I returned to my wooden post and started striking it.

  “By your orders, clan head.”

  Good. Everything became so much smoother when we were working together.

  000

  I had the Ishikawa prefecture in the palm of my hand now. All the major cities at least, and a few minor ones.

  I had even stretched out to neighboring prefectures, capturing Fukui, Toyama and Takayama.

  And my offensives against the Ogura clan and the Kagae clan happened in tandem.

  I sent fifteen kamakiri to each clan and one butterfly ambassador each.

  The ensuing blood bath was brutal, but short, and in the aftermath, I flexed my power by scouring the corpses. No living hosts—too many witnesses.

  Those that saw this immediately broke, begging me for mercy, fertilizing the soil for a good and thorough round of diplomacy. I was an old hand in this. I felt a burst of righteous pride that it had only taken this much to get what I wanted, proving that it was possible to act with composure in spite of cursed energy’s negative effects on my emotions.

  The war-room, really just my private quarters, had Iemon and Izumi sitting to either side of me on the floor table.

  Izumi, the secret historian, had blown her cover to the clan and was guiding the manufacturing process for the cursed silk. According to her, it wasn’t a big deal for her to remain secret now that we were in an era of prosperity—on account of my elevated abilities. Still, one of her colleagues would take the burden of teaching two apprentices in secret, to make up for their presumed ‘loss’ in numbers.

  Anyone that Izumi picked wouldn’t be secret, after all, so she couldn’t pass on her knowledge secretly.

  The historians also knew that since I had eyes and ears everywhere, I would know who their successors were. They had asked me kindly not to expose them.

  I had no reason to, as long as they made public the knowledge that we did need. That was their whole reason for existing in the first place.

  “As you know,” Izumi said, “because the clan’s weavers and seamstresses are so unused to working with this new material, we are unlikely to be able to complete a first batch of products until at least February next year. However, by that point, we should have a large supply cursed silk fabric ready for sale. As this is a unique product, it is difficult to gauge exactly how much we will earn from selling them on the black market. It is light-weight and durable. Even a thin sheet of it a scant few millimeters thick is still strong enough to resist bullet fire and absorb shock to a certain extent.”

  “So it’s better than Kevlar,” I said.

  “Kebu…raru?”

  “Bulletproof vests,” Iemon explained, raising an eyebrow at me. “In that case, the product seems superbly useful. To non-sorcerers, at least. Sorcerers would pay for it, too, but we should be focusing on non-sorcerers as they have far more money.”

  “They can’t directly perceive the material,” Izumi said, “but if it’s lined against existing fabrics, it would still provide them with protection.

  “I don’t like that,” I said. “We need to be able to keep ourselves in the Society’s good graces. Breaking their rules is not a good start to that.” Izumi’s eyes widened. I didn’t mind her finding this out, or spreading the information around. Better that people get used to this rapidly approaching status quo.

  “This doesn’t count as harm,” Iemon said. “The rule protecting non-sorcerers is explicitly to prevent them from coming to harm.”

  “And a wonder-material won’t give them a way to discover this world?”

  “Those who could afford the fully processed wonder-material are likely already in the know,” Iemon said. “The government’s highest officials already know, as does the prime minister. As do the leaders of industry. Anyone with cause to exist at the height of human society are already in the know—in Japan, at least. Because these people are prone to being cursed.”

  I could see how the prime minister would be a curse-sponge to the minority of the population that didn’t vote for him—or outright despised him. The same could be said for the leaders of industry, especially in the wake of Japan’s economic recession.

  “So we have clients, then,” I said.

  “Prospective clients. There’s demand. Now we must figure out the network.”

  So we didn’t have customers ready and waiting.

  I had an even greater urge now, to expand eastwards, to Tokyo. Not just for what it would mean for my army of cursed insects, but because I would be able to bug the biggest corporations in the world. Just the information alone would give us enough to start making real money in the financial sector.

  Of course, we needed money before we could invest.

  “We just need the skill to process the silk properly,” Izumi said.

  “And the money to tide us over until then,” Iemon said.

  “The Kagae and the Ogura are currently wrapping up our tribute,” I said. Iemon sat up in shock, and Izumi gasped. “Ah yes, minutes ago, they waved the white flag.”

  “White flag?” Izumi asked.

  For a historian, she was remarkably unworldly.

  “They surrendered,” Iemon explained. “Good… that’s… good. Now only the Mori clan are left. That shouldn’t be too hard.”

  I swallowed my trepidation.

  I had yet to run into a figure nearly as strong as Mori Tachi. I was beginning to believe his words that he was an anomaly—which made his humility in the face of the ‘special grade’ sorcerer Gojo Satoru even more frightening. Mountains beyond mountains, peaks beyond peaks.

  And I was at the foot, staring up.

  I didn’t want to poke the Mori clan. Not quite yet.

  I still needed more information.

  000

  Mori Ken threw his shot glass at the tempered wall-to-wall window of his clan masnion’s conference room. The whiskey splashed harmlessly, and the shot glass shattered, but the window remained entirely unharmed. He clicked his tongue and tried to temper his frustration, but it was for naught.

  “Shiba. Ogura. Now the Kagae. The Hibana clan conquered them all!” Mori Ken roared.

  He turned to his well-dressed family members. Ever since his younger brother had died under mysterious circumstances, Ken had seen fit to prune the number of his inner circle to only the bare essentials.

  His wife, his remaining brother, and his nephew, whom he had raised like a son.

  His real sons weren’t present because they didn’t deserve to be. Unlike most traditionalists, he didn’t labor under the false notion that a great father should always beget a great son, or go through extreme effort to make it so. Ken only saw talent—and the lack thereof.

  If only Tachi was still here. He would know what to do.

  Ever since he had sustained his head injury, Tachi had changed too. Ken had finally been able to notice him after a lifetime of overlooking his mediocre contributions to the clan. He had taken their barrier knowledge to the next level with his innovations, earning money not just from the Association, but from a variety of other curse user factions.

  If it hadn’t been for that injury, then Ken doubted that he would have felt an ounce of grief at his passing.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” his wife Sanae looked down at the report. “The Hibana clan shouldn’t have either the funds nor the skill to pull off any of this.”

  Aerial barriers, like satellites of cursed energy floating about in the sky, had captured some images of combat outside of the clan’s stealth barriers. From them, they had seen a glimpse of what the Hibana had—insectile shikigami as large as men cutting through a horde of Shiba curse experts.

  Had someone in the Hibana clan awakened a mutation in their Juchū cursed technique? Was that the reason why their number of curse experts had seemingly fallen to such an extent? The Mori had, naturally, received information from the Shiba envoys sent to speak with the Hibana clan, and they had noted that the current head, Iemon, was now crippled.

  If he truly was crippled, then he couldn’t have been behind their fighting prowess. Everyone knew that the only thing that made a Juchū expert powerful was the Reverse Cursed Technique, and none of them had unlocked that mythical power in centuries.

  And if he had the Reverse Cursed Technique, then he wouldn’t be in a wheelchair in the first place.

  No, their secret weapon was well-hidden, most likely.

  He was a puppet for the clan’s true leader. Or perhaps he had that weapon under control somehow

  “We can’t wait for them to attack us,” his brother, Sozen shook his head. “We must act swiftly. We must act now. We need mercenaries.”

  “Ordinarily, we would have hired the other clans for this,” Sanae snorted. “At this point, the only thing that could stop the Hibana would be a powerhouse from the Jujutsu Society.”

  His nephew, Seijiro, was busy punching in a number on his large telephone. “I know just the one. A recent exile from one of the big three clans.”

  “One man?” Ken asked.

  Seijiro met Ken’s eyes and nodded. “He will be enough for this.”

  Then he’ll be expensive.

  Mori Ken didn’t mind that at all. No price was too high for freedom.