Hanazono Yurine sensed a wave of malice radiating from the demon.
"Toya-kun, I have a bad feeling. It seems Jashin-chan is plotting something."
"We should stop her," she added, her voice dropping.
Kawashima Toya reached out, stopping Yurine with a light gesture and a knowing smile.
"There's no need. Even if she is planning something, it won't matter. We'll just suppress her together when the time comes."
Toya turned his gaze toward Jashin-chan, who was cautiously creeping toward the underground shrine.
"Consider this her penance for trying to scheme against us," he teased. "She can handle the traps."
"There are traps in a shrine?" Yurine asked, looking taken aback.
To a shrine maiden, such a place was sacred—a sanctuary to be kept pristine. The idea of Abe no Seimei rigging a shrine with lethal mechanisms felt like a desecration.
"Yurine-san, do you think of this as a house of worship or a tomb?" Toya asked with a chuckle.
Since this was Seimei's final resting place, it was only natural for the legendary Onmyoji to install safeguards to protect his peace.
Almost as soon as the words left Toya's mouth, Jashin-chan triggered the first mechanism.
A massive boulder plummeted from the ceiling, hurtling toward her. If it made direct contact, she would be crushed instantly.
"May she rest in peace," Toya said, his face full of mirth.
"Not a chance!" Jashin-chan screamed, seemingly fueled by Toya's mockery.
In a burst of frantic potential, she scrambled forward.
I can feel it... Abe no Seimei's remains are just ahead! My revenge is within reach! I refuse to fall here!
Toya watched as the demon fought like a desperate protagonist, narrowly avoiding being turned into a meat pie. However, she had forgotten about her long, serpentine tail.
The heavy stone crashed down, pinning Jashin-chan's tail to the floor. A blood-curdling scream echoed through the chamber.
"That looks like it hurts," Toya noted with a sigh. "I would have dodged that easily."
Technically, she had succeeded in moving her upper body, but her tail hadn't made the cut.
"Jashin-chan, are you okay?" Nyaruko let out a stifled giggle, offering blatantly insincere sympathy. "Need some medical attention? I have some bandages."
Jashin-chan waved her off. "I'm fine! It's just a scratch. I'll regenerate in no time."
Internally, she was weeping.
Did I want the bandages? Of course I did! But my tail is currently a pancake—what good is a bandage going to do?
"I have some medicine," Toya added, deciding to pile on. "This is high-grade ointment. It stops bleeding instantly."
Knowing Jashin-chan's personality, Toya felt no guilt in messing with her. It was a small tax for the murderous intent she had shown toward them earlier.
"I said I'm fine! It'll heal!" Jashin-chan insisted, her eyes watery. "I am a high-ranking demon, after all!"
Toya tucked the medicine back into his pocket. His smile grew.
"Just one more step then. Just one more and you're there."
Exactly as he predicted, Jashin-chan gritted her teeth against the pain and moved forward.
Another trap was triggered. A hail of arrows hissed from the walls on both sides, their tips glinting with a lethal sheen that a millennium of dampness hadn't managed to dull.
Puchi! Puchi!
Toya shook his head, sighing again. "Well, that's probably the end for her. Looks like we'll have to handle the rest of the traps ourselves."
"I... I can still go!" Jashin-chan croaked.
Bristling with arrows like a frantic porcupine, she struggled to her tail. The sheer obsession with revenge drove her to crawl toward the highest point of the shrine.
Flame jets, bolts of lightning, clouds of poison gas...
Mechanism after mechanism triggered in rapid succession. Jashin-chan lost count of how many times she had been struck. Yet, driven by stubborn malice, she crawled back up every single time.
Half an hour later, she finally reached the top floor.
Just then, Toya's gentle voice reached her.
"Jashin-chan, have some water. You need to keep your strength up for these last few steps."
"Thank you..." she rasped, her voice filled with genuine gratitude.
She took the cup Toya offered and gulped it down. The water immediately began leaking out of the various arrow holes in her body, making her look like a biological showerhead.
"Wait... Toya-kun?" Jashin-chan finally processed the situation. "Why are you up here already?"
She had endured hell to scale this shrine, yet Toya was standing there waiting for her, offering a drink as if he'd been there for ages.
Toya's face was a mask of amusement. "I just jumped, obviously."
He had long since surpassed the limits of a normal human. A distance like this was something he could clear with a casual hop. If he had really wanted to show off, he could have used Rune Magic to fly, but he had chosen the "simple" jump so as not to discourage her too much.
Pfft!
Jashin-chan coughed up blood, her eyes wide as she glared at Toya. Then, her body finally gave out. She collapsed onto the floor, her breath leaving her.
Between the relentless trap damage and the psychological trauma of Toya effortlessly outdoing her, she had simply lost the will to live. Even in "death," her eyes remained wide, fixed on Toya with a look of pure resentment.
I wasn't finished... the revenge...
"Rest easy now." Toya reached down, attempting to close her eyelids with a dramatic sweep of his hand.
Her eyes didn't close. If anything, they seemed to pop open even wider.
Movies are such a lie.
She won't even close her eyes in peace, huh?
Toya gave the "corpse" a light kick, sliding it across the floor to make sure it wasn't in the way when Yurine and Nyaruko arrived. He wasn't worried; she'd be back at full health in thirty minutes anyway.
A moment later, Yurine and Nyaruko reached the top.
.....
Abe no Seimei's Inner Shrine
Toya looked at Yurine. "Alright, Yurine-san. What's the next move?"
As an' outsider to Onmyodo, he couldn't see anything special about the tomb. Aside from the architecture, the place felt ordinary. No ghosts, no shikigami—just a silent, dusty building. If Yurine hadn't insisted her divination pointed here, he would have assumed they were in the wrong place.
"It's quite simple," Yurine explained.
"Abe no Seimei was a master Onmyoji of the Heian period. He had countless associates and traveled all over Japan, collecting hidden techniques and forbidden scrolls. This shrine houses his entire collection. Even someone with zero foundation could learn a great deal here."
"Onmyodo?" Toya's brow furrowed. "Is that really useful to me?"
The system shop had mountains of Onmyodo knowledge available for dirt cheap. However, mastering it required a massive investment of both points and time, so he had ignored it.
"I can give them to Sora and Utaha," Toya realized, his eyes brightening.
The disappointment vanished instantly.
"That's actually not bad at all." Toya opened the sliding doors to the side chambers, revealing walls lined with massive bookshelves.
Every rack was packed with ancient texts. Most were Seimei's original works, while others were rare records from the Heian era.