Meanwhile...
"Ahh... that's better."
Kashimo patted his belly contentedly and leaned back in his chair.
He had traveled for a full day and night without sleeping, let alone eating. All he had eaten when he came in was some grilled chicken and rice crackers, and he had been absolutely starving. Now, with eight bowls of lamb offal noodles in his belly, he finally felt alive again.
The waiter stood beside him, staring at the towering stack of empty bowls on the table, and quietly swallowed.
"Um... sir, now that you've finished, the bill..." He rubbed his hands together, an awkward smile plastered across his face.
Kashimo glanced at him and pursed his lips.
"Ah... hold on."
He felt around inside his robe, then rummaged through his sleeves. Finally, he untied a small burlap pouch from his waist and casually tossed it into the waiter's hands. Then he stood, waved, and walked out without looking back.
The waiter opened the pouch in a daze, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"G-gold! Take care, sir!"
Kashimo had barely stepped over the noodle shop's threshold when he caught snippets of a nearby conversation.
"Hey, did you hear? At the Three Great Families' banquet..."
He turned his head. Two men, one bald and one skinny, were squatting in a corner, whispering together. Kashimo gave them a quick once-over-sorcerers. Not strong, but they probably knew something.
He walked over and, without a word, placed a hand on the bald man's shoulder.
"Huh? Who the fuck-"
Before the man could finish, Kashimo channeled cursed energy into his legs and vanished from the spot with him.
A gust swept past, stirring a few fallen leaves.
The skinny man remained there, mouth hanging open, staring blankly at the spot where someone had been squatting a moment earlier.
"What the fuck? Where'd he go?"
Deep inside an alley, Kashimo shoved the man against a wall, still gripping his collar.
"Talk. How much do you know about the banquet?"
The bald man's legs went weak. He hung against the wall, his face pale. This was no joke. One look told him the man in front of him was bad news. Those eyes alone sent chills down his spine.
"The Three... Three Great Families invited the Imperial Court and a bunch of sorcerer schools to a banquet... That's all. I really don't know anything else!"
Kashimo ignored him and muttered to himself.
"Then the Zenin Clan shouldn't have many people left... At most, the Hei and the Kuguri Unit will be guarding the place. Doesn't matter if there's anyone else. The Three Great Families aren't much these days anyway."
The bald man listened in bewilderment. "...What?"
Kashimo came back to himself and glanced at him, as though he had only just remembered he was still holding someone.
"Ah, I'm done with you. Get lost."
He released his grip, and the bald man landed on his backside. By the time he recovered, the space in front of him was empty, without even a shadow left behind.
The Zenin Clan.
"Thanks for your hard work, U."
The speaker stood beneath the covered walkway, his hair reaching his waist and firelight illuminating half his face. He was Zenin Taichi, the head of the Hei.
"No problem." Zenin U, his hair cropped short, raised his torch and shone it around. "Lord Taichi, times are turbulent. Before the clan head left, he specifically told us to keep a close watch on the Forbidden Vault, to stop any rogue sorcerers from sneaking in and stealing things."
"Mm." Taichi nodded. "The Kuguri Unit is guarding the outside. Those people won't be able to fight their way in. Don't worry."
"The clan head actually wanted to move everything at first," U suddenly said. "But there were too many cursed tools and scrolls to take along, so he had us-"
Footsteps interrupted him before he could finish.
A figure appeared at the entrance, dressed in the Kuguri Unit's uniform.
"What is it? Did you find something?" U asked first.
The man said nothing.
"What's wrong with you? Speak..."
Taichi abruptly stopped halfway through his sentence.
The man pitched forward stiffly and fell face-first onto the ground. In the flickering firelight, the person standing behind him was revealed: white clothes, blue-green hair, an exceedingly handsome face, and purple markings at the corners of his eyes.
"What's wrong? Surprised?"
Electricity crackled and burst around Kashimo.
U and Taichi moved instantly.
As their cursed techniques activated, Kashimo felt his legs suddenly grow heavy.
Gravity Manipulation. That was the short-haired one's technique. An ordinary person would already have been pinned to the ground, unable to move.
But for the past seventeen years, Kashimo had done nothing but hone this body and grow stronger.
He believed his body's strength had already surpassed that of the man named Toji Zenin.
His cursed energy surged. Forcing his way through the technique's suppression, he moved like lightning and was in front of U almost in the blink of an eye. He drove a punch straight into his abdomen.
U doubled over. Before he could even scream, he caught a flash of steel out of the corner of his eye.
Zenin Taichi had drawn his sword.
His cursed technique was Delay. His slash stacked in three stages: an attack yet to arrive, an attack in progress, and an attack that had arrived would all strike his opponent at the same instant. It was a vicious technique. Once it hit, there was practically no escape.
But Kashimo was absurdly fast.
Before Taichi's sword could descend, the person before him had vanished. A second later, a hand pierced through his chest from behind.
Kashimo withdrew his hand, blood still dripping between his fingers.
Taichi looked down at the gaping hole in his chest. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Kashimo gave him no chance, smashing two more punches into his head and eliminating any possibility of recovery through Reverse Cursed Technique.
Zenin U lay a short distance away, bleeding from every opening in his head. The backlash from his technique hit ferociously. His entire body convulsed, and his eyes rolled back.
"It's... no use..." Spitting bloody froth, he forced out a few broken words. "Without the key... you can't open the Forbidden Vault..."
Kashimo looked down at him.
Then he bent down and picked up the sword Taichi had dropped.
"You're the ones who can't open it," he said.
Steel flashed.
"Idiot."
Outside the Forbidden Vault.
Kashimo stared at the door for a long while, then picked at his ear.
...Fuck.
Spoke too soon.
He really couldn't open it.
After thinking it over, he finally settled on the brute-force approach: blasting it with cursed energy. The barrier would definitely retaliate, but it probably wouldn't hurt much... right? He had never tried it, so he couldn't say for sure.
An enormous blast of cursed energy slammed into the door. The barrier activated instantly, unleashing a thunderous counterattack that rained down on him.
Then... nothing.
Kashimo stood amid the lightning without so much as blinking.
That's it?
He nearly laughed aloud. Using lightning against someone with maxed-out lightning resistance? What a joke.
The bombardment continued for half an incense stick's worth of time before the door finally buckled and burst open with a crash.
"Cough, cough, cough-"
A cloud of ancient dust hit him in the face, sending Kashimo into a coughing fit. He covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve and walked inside, still finding time to mutter, "The Zenin Clan couldn't even send someone to clean this place. Seriously..."
A scattering of cursed tools lay near the entrance. Their quality was unremarkable, so he gave them a glance and continued deeper inside. The farther he went, the better the items became. Grade 1 and Special Grade tools stood neatly arranged on shelves, giving off faint pulses of cursed energy in the dim light.
The Soul-Devouring Blade wasn't there.
He had expected that, so he wasn't disappointed.
A ring in the corner, however, made him stop.
The Thunder Ring.
It could store and release lightning.
Kashimo picked it up, held it to the light, then slipped it onto his right index finger. The band tightened automatically to a perfect fit. He figured he would have to study how to use it properly later.
Farther inside, he found plenty more: Dragon Bone, the Hannya Mask, and a pile of odds and ends he couldn't name. He had no use for them, but that didn't stop him from taking a closer look. Eventually, he unearthed a yellowed scroll: Falling Blossom Emotion.
This one's useful.
He rolled it up and tucked it into his robe, then selected a few scrolls on Barrier Technique and stowed those away as well.
Just as he was about to leave, he spotted a staff standing in a corner out of the corner of his eye.
It was jade-green from end to end, with white caps at both tips. Rather than feeling cold in his hands, it was pleasantly warm and smooth. Kashimo casually spun it a couple of times and found it handled quite well. Anything stored this deep in the Forbidden Vault was probably a Special Grade Cursed Tool too.
Might as well take it.
He slung the staff over his shoulder, turned, and walked out.