"So this was why you suddenly ran off and came back after adopting two little girls?" Touko glared angrily at Aoko, then at the two timid red-haired girls standing beside her.
"Kohaku and Hisui are very talented children." Aoko stroked the girls' soft hair. "I'd be very sad if I couldn't bring them into the Aozaki family."
"Do you even have time to teach them?" Touko hit the crucial point with precision. "Getting into Tokyo University, researching your magecraft, and dealing with all sorts of miscellaneous business... The head of the family certainly has plenty of free time~"
Aoko paid no mind to Touko's sarcastic jab. Instead, she smiled and had the Wujing sisters sit on the sofa first.
"Isn't that what you're here for, my dear little sister Touko?" Aoko teased. "Surely a Grand Magus of the Clock Tower can teach two apprentices?"
"Hah?" Touko pouted unhappily. "Why should I teach these two little brats? That wasn't part of our contract!"
Hisui and Kohaku nervously clung to each other. This little girl with the sour expression, who looked about the same age as them, seemed to be Lady Aoko's younger sister. Would she bully them from now on?
"Of course you have to teach them." Aoko smiled as she delivered those merciless words. "Otherwise, I won't cook for you anymore."
"Grr..." Little Touko had absolutely no way to contend with Demon King Aoko now. Whether she still possessed her magecraft or not, it was simply too difficult for an underage child to survive in society...
"I'll help as well," Alice Kuonji said calmly after taking a sip of tea. "But only if the two of them are willing to study diligently and obey my orders."
Compared to Touko, who looked like a grumpy little brat, Hisui and Kohaku liked this black-haired girl much more. Dressed in gorgeous black clothes, she was as beautiful as the finest doll, and Kohaku especially felt this way.
"Tch, fine." Touko, forced to bow beneath another's roof, ultimately yielded. But she still made a condition. "I can teach them, but I'll be testing them first."
"No problem." Aoko answered, "Understanding a student's condition is also an important part of a teacher's job~"
"What did you say?" Shiki Tohno said in surprise over the phone. "You said those sisters were adopted? By whom?"
"By the head of the Aozaki family, Aoko Aozaki, Mr. Tohno." The Wujing family head answered impassively, though the sisters' mother, seated nearby, could hear a trace of mockery in his voice.
"Didn't we have an agreement? Patriarch Wujing, have you considered the consequences of doing this?" A hint of menace entered Shiki Tohno's voice. His previous gentleness seemed to have been nothing more than a disguise.
"Haha, you jest, Lord Shiki," the Wujing family head said in a conciliatory tone. "Our Wujing family is now nothing more than an insignificant little nobody. Whether it is the mighty Tohno family or 'that Aozaki family,' neither is someone we can afford to provoke. How about this? I can give you the Aozaki family head's contact information, and you can speak with her yourself. What do you think?"
Hearing this, Shiki Tohno fell silent. He was now caught between two difficult choices.
The Wujing family had clearly bowed to the Aozaki family and offered tribute. If he continued pressuring them, they would likely contact the Aozaki family, and then perhaps someone would come knocking on his door.
But if he personally called the Aozaki family head, then the Aozaki family would certainly come knocking on his door.
The Aozaki family was different from families like the Wujing and Tohno, who struggled to survive on the fringes of the hidden world. They were a colossal force capable of stirring up the winds and clouds even in the deepest Abyss of the hidden world. Even with only the family head remaining, they were not something carrion-eaters like them could compare to.
But Shiki Tohno could not hold on much longer. As the head of the Tohno family, whose body carried a dense bloodline of "demon," he was becoming increasingly unable to suppress his impulses of reversal.
He had gone to great lengths to learn that the Wujing family's last pair of twins possessed exceptionally powerful sympathetic talents. Through the exchange of bodily fluids, they could reinforce his human personality against his impulses of reversal. Yet someone had intercepted them at the very last step...
Shiki Tohno clenched his teeth. Blood seeped from his tightly balled fist. Was the Tohno family going to be destroyed in his generation?
His eldest son, Shiki Tohno, suffered from impulses of reversal even more severe than his own. His daughter, Akiha Tohno, seemed fine for now, but her bloodline was far denser than either his or his eldest son's. In the future, she would inevitably become an even more terrifying beast because of those impulses of reversal.
What was he supposed to do? It was impossible to go to the Aozaki family and seize the twins. Even if he gathered a large number of Tohno branch families that shared similar bloodlines, they could never be a match for those people called "magicians"... Besides, the Aozaki family was not merely a family of magicians.
An anxious Shiki Tohno rose to his feet and paced repeatedly through his office, considering a way out for himself and the Tohno family.
The Wujing family... seemed to have one woman left. The twins' mother?
Though she had caused the Wujing family's decline in her youth by violating a family taboo, it was very possible that she still possessed some bloodline abilities similar to those of the sisters.
Perhaps...
At that thought, Shiki Tohno immediately picked up the phone again and began contacting the Tohno branch families.
"It's me." Shiki Tohno's voice was cold and merciless. "How is your condition, Kouma?"
"...Is that so?" Shiki Tohno fell silent for a moment after hearing the head of the Kazama family's reply. "Remember to bring everyone in the family. We're making a trip to the Wujing family tonight."
"...What do you mean, it isn't necessary?" Shiki Tohno said unhappily. "Things have reached an unsustainable point. I can't hold on much longer. We must succeed tonight. There cannot be any accidents!"
"All right, go make preparations. Don't disappoint me." After issuing a series of orders, Shiki Tohno hung up again, then collapsed into his office chair with vacant eyes.
"Quick! Call the Aozaki family head!" The Wujing family head immediately ordered the Wujing sisters' mother. "That old bastard Shiki Tohno is definitely up to no good. Since he couldn't get Kohaku and Hisui, he'll certainly set his sights on the people remaining in our family!"
The sisters' mother was startled upon hearing this and immediately recalled the records of that family that had interbred with "demons"...
She shuddered, immediately picked up the phone, and prepared to dial the number Aoko Aozaki had left behind.
"Wait!" As though he had remembered something, the Wujing family head suddenly said, "Contact the Nanaya family first. Tell them... tell them I have a job that requires Mr. Kiri Nanaya's services."
"Take half the money we received from the Aozaki family head today and pay it to Kiri Nanaya!" The Wujing family head looked as though he had made a momentous decision that pained him dearly, his face filled with anguish.
Before you continue