Not a detective

Page 94

He thus ravaged Ibuki Ren's will. The white-haired boy, at this moment, was like a combination of angel and demon, more like a demon than a demon.

Suddenly, a voice came from above:

——"Asakawa-san!!"

Ok?

Asakawa Riku looked up and, seeing no one above him, realized that the voice was coming from the loudspeaker above.

It was Chizuko-senpai's voice: "In that case, you can't kill Shuten-dōji!"

"This guy... Shuten-dōji?"

Asakawa Riku realized that his senior must have gone to some kind of "broadcasting room" because the sound was echoing throughout the basement, and it was very loud.

"Then they should be able to monitor the situation from there too," he asked. "So what should I do?"

At the same time, he did not stop.

“Ordinary [Divine Poison] could not have made him so powerful… He incorporated the concepts of Mount Ooe and the Dragon Palace, forming the possession form of [Shuten-dōji]. The current Ibuki Ren is not just an ordinary bio-engineered human; he is a great demon, the King of All Demons. To deal with demons, we must use orthodox demon-slaying methods!”

Chizuko calmly and precisely gave instructions, returning to her area of ​​expertise:

"Only by eliminating him as the demon [Shuten-dōji] can we truly kill him!"

"I understand," Asakawa Riku replied calmly, finally coming to a stop.

He understood what his senior meant. Shuten-dōji was a very famous demon, so even he had heard of the legendary demon-slaying story.

He raised his hand and precisely froze parts of the head and torso. He walked closer step by step, and the frost in his hand gradually solidified into shape.

As Chizuko once said, the essence of exorcising demons is a job that values ​​"ritual." This doesn't mean that you have to chant spells or use magic that the demon cannot see. In fact, this is also part of the "ritual." Since ancient times, people have believed that this is how to get rid of demons, so spells have also become effective.

Onmyoji and yokai both belong to the "outer" realm.

So besides the Onmyoji model, there is another method, which is to use the "weaknesses" of the monsters themselves.

Just as a snow woman is afraid of warmth, fire, and burning, the same thing can be dispelled by a single sentence from a yokai. Once this concept becomes a common understanding, it will become a weakness of yokai.

Killing the monster on a cognitive level is the most effective way, just like how they once eliminated the "Blue Lantern." Once the exorcism ritual is completed—

"Dojigiri Yasutsuna".

With one foot planted on the demon's head, Asakawa Riku conjured a white longsword from the frost in his hand.

The blade wasn't particularly exquisite; in fact, it appeared somewhat rough due to the frost-covered texture. He hadn't actually seen the blade; he had only constructed it based on his imagination.

But that's enough.

In this Mount Ooe, in the Dragon Palace, at this time and place, only this sword could have severed Shuten-dōji's head.

Hand up, knife down.

It happened in the blink of an eye. Although Asakawa Riku was an expert in hand-to-hand combat, he was also very skilled at using weapons and used them with great ease.

Like cutting through tofu, the demon's head that was being stepped on offered no resistance and was simply torn open.

"what……"

At the last moment, Ibuki Ren seemed to regain her senses, but only a sigh could be uttered from her blood-red eyes.

Having completely lost the will of the demon, the effects of the divine poison could no longer save his life, and he completely lost consciousness.

All the ice blocks, along with the ruins beneath them, were shattered, and then a loud bang was heard.

It was so quiet just now, but now it felt like the world had been sliced ​​open... Only then did I realize how terrifying Asakawa Riku's slash was.

The demon's head shattered into ice shards and vanished on the spot, leaving not even a speck of dust behind.

"it's over……"

At that moment, Higashion Suetsuki sighed, feeling as if all her strength had been drained away, and she could finally relax for a moment.

She shook her head and laughed. It was originally just an assassination attempt, but who knew it would escalate into such a big deal.

"Yes... everyone has worked hard."

After confirming that all the severed limbs had lost their vitality, Asakawa Riku's body gradually departed from the state of [Snow Child].

As the white mist dissipated, he slowly returned to his original form, his white hair was dyed black again, and his injuries were completely healed.

He glanced at Yukie's condition; she was probably just unconscious, her breathing and heartbeat were still steady, so there was nothing to worry about.

As for this frozen ruin and dilapidated underground space... I'm too lazy to think about it now, let the professionals handle it.

"Great job, Asakawa-san...!"

Just then, Chizuko's voice came from above again. She must have seen everything in the monitoring room, and was now broadcasting the sound loudly over the loudspeaker.

Asakawa Riku felt a little embarrassed. There must be many other people hiding in this facility who probably heard the announcement. She really wanted to tell her to stop shouting.

But Chizuko showed no sign of stopping.

Her voice echoed throughout the facility:

"Next, we need to deal with the remaining people here, those who participated in the superpower human experiments. There might be other exits we don't know about; we can't let them escape. I'm going to use this broadcast to let everyone hear this... Asakawa-san, please look at the note in Yukie's pocket and do as it says."

Asakawa Riku didn't even need to look to know what she was going to do.

But he still took out a note from his down jacket, which only had a few words written on it: "Cover your ears."

...It's the same old method used to deal with armed soldiers.

Asakawa Riku smiled. Although cutting off all of their fingers was cruel, he felt it was just right. They were all accomplices in human experimentation anyway. Before the police took over and made them pay the price, he wanted to personally make them pay a price to vent his anger. It was also to avenge Yukie. He could understand Chizuko's thoughts as her older sister.

Marking them will also prevent them from escaping.

So he waved the note to Shinonome Suetsuki, who was standing next to him. The detective didn't think much of it; she understood quickly and immediately covered her ears.

Asakawa Riku covered the ears of the unconscious Yukie, though he didn't know if being asleep counted as "hearing," so it was better to be cautious.

After all, "Akiku's" ability is dangerous area-of-effect damage. If a broadcast system were added, it would become a terrifying finger-harvesting machine.

As for himself, he shattered his eardrums, shutting off his hearing, and then nodded at the camera above his head.

—That's fine.

This conveyed the meaning.

All around me was silence... as if I had fallen into a complete vacuum. All I could see was Shinonome Suezuki's funny face across from me. Seriously, she could still make faces at a time like this.

She was babbling on and on, knowing perfectly well that no one could hear her, her expression contorted in a grimace.

He's incredibly thick-skinned, but even Asakawa Riku was amused by him and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Amidst the playful atmosphere between the two, as if celebrating this hard-won victory, Chizuko in the broadcasting room stood on tiptoe and aimed at the microphone.

With her small lips taking a deep breath, she slowly uttered her final banquet address, her voice echoing throughout the entire Dragon Palace:

"【The first ghost story: Hanako in the toilet.】"

Oni no Winter: Oni no Winter After 1

Asakawa Riku took a chocolate from the box and ate it.

After returning from Kyoto, he would eat one every few days and found it quite addictive; the taste was indeed quite good.

However, Yukie complained that he was eating too slowly and asked worriedly if the gift she bought wasn't delicious enough.

Actually, Asakawa Riku just liked to savor them slowly, but in order not to worry her, he decided to finish the remaining few today.

The top layer of chocolate has been eaten, and now we've flipped it over to the other side.

Just as turning the Sake Palace upside down reveals the Dragon Palace, turning the potion containing the "Divine Poison" upside down reveals another syringe.

People always keep secrets.

This chocolate tastes almost identical to regular chocolate, but the texture is quite different. How to describe it? It seems to have a thin, crisp, refreshing texture.

He glanced at the product description and it seemed to contain a food ingredient called Barley Crisps. But what exactly was that?

If Chizuko-senpai were here, perhaps the answer could be found.

dong dong dong.

There was a knock on the door, and Asakawa Riku replied, "I'm inside," and the other person opened the door.

It really is Chizuko-senpai.

Today she was wearing a navy blue dress and a white cardigan. The dress was supposed to be sleeveless, so she wore the cardigan to cover the laces on her arms.

Wearing Mary Jane shoes that revealed her fair and slender calves, Asakawa Riku sometimes really wondered if it was winter. He felt that the Japanese girl's leg armor was even more impressive than his.

Seemingly noticing Asakawa Riku's gaze, she placed her handbag on the table and said with a smile:

"Since you invited me during winter break, I naturally assume it's a date. But you, Asakawa, didn't even bother to dress up properly. That's really unacceptable."

“It can’t really be called a date,” Asakawa Riku said calmly, pushing the chocolates on the table slightly towards him.

Moreover, he thought he was dressed very formally, so maybe he really doesn't have any sense of style.

Chizuko waved her hand and didn't eat.

In the school's mystery club, in their familiar activity room, they saw Chizuko-senpai not wearing her uniform, which was quite a novel experience.

The two sat in their usual seats. When Asakawa Riku called to ask the other person out, he only said "I want to meet," and didn't say anything else.

Therefore, Chizuko raised the topic in a very ordinary way:

"Asakawa-kun, how were your final exam results?"

"It's alright, although there's a gap between the score and the expected score, the last few days of tutoring managed to salvage it, so it's not too bad."

Asakawa Riku looked helpless; it was all because of the incident that happened this winter.

I thought it was just a short trip of two days and one night, a simple escort mission, but I never expected it to involve so many things.

This caused him to miss his review period, and if he hadn't worked through the night in the last few days, his status as a good student would have been ruined.

Since starting high school, he has found that he can no longer rely entirely on the knowledge from his previous life, and he has to learn many forgotten things little by little.

Instead of offering comfort, Chizuko grinned mischievously, revealing her teeth.

"I'm still among the top students in my grade!"

Now, Asakawa Riku finally made up his mind.

He became serious: "Senior, I'm here today to discuss serious matters."

"Oh..." Chizuko pulled her head back.

Asakawa Riku took the notebook out of his pocket and placed it on the table:

"I'm sure you already know what I'm about to say, so I won't beat around the bush... Of course, it's about what happened in the Dragon Palace, what you did."

"Yes." Chizuko nodded, her expression calm.

At this moment, Asakawa Riku recalled that more than half a year ago, when he had just entered the school, after that incident, the two of them were sitting in the mystery club, talking face to face.

It was cherry blossom season then, and I remember the girl crying in the cherry blossom-colored light. Whether those tears were genuine or just acting, I can no longer tell.

This time, he will have to tear through the "spider's" web again, and he has no other choice.

He took a deep breath and said, "There, you [killed 77 people]."

...

After he completely defeated Ibuki Ren, who was known as "Shuten-dōji", he thought everything was fine and walked out of the underground Shuten-dōji building.

They saw fully armed soldiers guarding outside the museum, as well as some men and women wearing long black overcoats.

Those people weren't from the Dongyun family; it was obvious at a glance. The soldiers' equipment was also completely different, and you could smell that they were government employees.

Since it wasn't reinforcements from the Dragon Palace, the only ones capable of breaking through the snow and climbing the mountain were those from the official organization.

The middle-aged man at the head of the group was wearing sunglasses. He pulled out a strange piece of identification that was neither from the Metropolitan Police Department, the Self-Defense Forces, the FBI, nor the CIA.

The organization's name is the "Non-World Inspection Department".

It is said to be an "organization that oversees supernatural phenomena, monsters and the dark world, superpowered individuals and various criminal situations," with branches all over the world.

As soon as Asakawa Riku and his group came up from underground, they were surrounded by gun barrels. The smell of gunpowder and gunpowder was unpleasant, and he could see that all of these people's bullets were loaded.

Asakawa Riku himself had just experienced a battle and was still filled with resentment. Just as the two sides were about to clash, Chizuko-senpai took the initiative to step forward.

“I am the daughter of Kazamatsuri Akihisa, a descendant of the Onmyoji.”