The True Faith Society

Although the twin sisters dressed identically and their features were extremely similar, their demeanors made it easy to tell the older sister from the younger.

The quiet, serene girl with her eyes modestly lowered was the older sister, Takasaki Tsuki. The one with upturned eyes and a somewhat fierce gaze at first glance was the younger sister, Takasaki Anzu.

After seeing Uchiha Naruto's masterful knife skills in the shop the day before, Takasaki Tsuki had obtained his agreement and decided to put sashimi back on the menu. She had also bought a few live fish.

The balding middle-aged man named Hasegawa was the first customer through the door. During yesterday's scramble with the fishing enthusiast, he had only managed to snag a few slices of sashimi, nowhere near enough to satisfy him.

"Young chef, give me a sashimi platter."

I'm not the head chef, just a part-timer. Uchiha Naruto kept that to himself, nodded, and deftly began preparing a fresh fish. Takasaki Anzu helped him at his side, getting the shiso leaves, paper-thin radish, and carved garnishes ready for the base.

Soon, a platter of sashimi arrived. Hasegawa picked up his chopsticks and ate two slices, then dipped another two in horseradish sauce. He could not stop praising it.

"Young chef, your knife skills are absolutely faultless. It melts in the mouth, but the sashimi still has that springy texture. It's every bit as good as what I ate at the sashimi master's Cloud Bream House."

Most importantly, it was cheap. He could enjoy sashimi prepared with a master's knife skills for less than a quarter of the price. What a bargain.

At that thought, Hasegawa became more generous.

"It would be a waste to pair sashimi like this with ordinary sake. Little Takasaki, open a bottle of Junmai Ginjo Jikon. Pour me one go to start, and keep the rest behind the counter for me."

Uchiha Naruto cleaned his knives, twirling a kitchen knife in his hand. A boy's fascination with playing with dangerous weapons was etched into his genes. Far from finding this part-time sashimi job dull, Uchiha Naruto found it engaging and handled it with ease.

"What, want to learn?"

Uchiha Naruto smiled at Takasaki Anzu. He had long since noticed her sneaking glances while he prepared sashimi, looking as though she wanted to watch but was too embarrassed.

Takasaki Anzu's cheeks flushed. She lowered her head and stammered in a voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz, "May I?"

Uchiha Naruto had learned from Tanaka Hikaru that the Takasaki sisters were three months younger than him. Helping shoulder their family's burdens at such a young age was no easy feat. He was quite forgiving toward girls younger than himself.

In the information-saturated twenty-first century, many famous chefs made online videos to attract followers, but watching videos could never compare to hands-on instruction in person.

"Of course!"

Uchiha Naruto had no intention of jealously guarding his skills. He did not plan to work at the Takasaki Izakaya for long, so he was hardly afraid of training an apprentice who would put him out of a job. Offering a few pointers was no trouble at all.

Besides, he had copied all these knife skills with his Sharingan. Whatever years of practice those so-called sashimi sages and sushi sages had put in, one glance from him was enough to make their skills Uchiha property.

"Then can I call you my teacher?" Takasaki Anzu looked up in delighted surprise, her cheeks rosy. She blinked her big, round eyes, her lashes trembling slightly, as though afraid Uchiha Naruto would refuse.

When Takasaki Anzu was not puffing up her cheeks and sulking at her sister like before, she was quite cute with that sweet, well-behaved look.

"Suit yourself."

Business at the izakaya was a little better than yesterday, but not by much. After half past nine, there were hardly any customers left, so they could only close up.

They took down the izakaya's entrance curtain to show they were no longer accepting customers. While Uchiha Naruto and the Takasaki sisters were cleaning, a young monk in gray robes walked in.

"Good evening, ladies!"

Takasaki Tsuki was tallying the day's accounts behind the counter when she saw the young monk enter. He had delicate features, fair skin, and a freshly shaved scalp with a bluish shadow of stubble.

"Reverend, we've already closed."

"I haven't come for a meal." The young monk offered a Buddhist greeting and smiled with his lips closed.

Takasaki Tsuki picked up a thousand-yen note from the register, hesitated, then took another and rolled them up in her palm. She walked over to the young monk with small steps, pressed her hands together in greeting, and offered him the money with both hands.

The young monk waved it away, then took out a pamphlet.

"I haven't come to collect alms. I merely sensed that you two ladies have an affinity with our Buddha. Please allow me to introduce the True Faith Society and the Twin-Body Buddha we worship."

Takasaki Anzu turned around and exchanged a look with her sister. Both wore rather odd expressions.

He had actually come to proselytize, and apparently for a new religious movement at that.

Japan was a highly religious country with many faiths. According to a religious survey by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the number of religious adherents in Japan was actually fifty percent higher than its total population.

In other words, many people held multiple religious beliefs at once-a form of pluralistic faith.

That was hardly surprising. The Takasaki Izakaya had an Inari shrine inside the shop where they prayed for prosperity, while upstairs there was also a Buddhist altar honoring their late mother.

Besides traditional Shinto beliefs and the eight major schools of Buddhism, a considerable share belonged to so-called new religious movements.

Thanks to lax religious regulations, a flood of new religious movements had emerged after the war, with the good mixed in among the bad. Quite a few were outright cults. Beyond using religion to swindle people out of money and exploit them sexually, some had even extended their tentacles into politics.

Yet both criminal investigators and public security officers feared accusations of infringing on religious freedom, so they turned a blind eye to these new religions. As long as nothing truly serious happened, they pretended everything was fine. If something serious did happen, all they could do was...

Kneel with their heads to the floor, resign, and apologize!

"The Twin-Body Buddha is the creator of all things in heaven and earth. One Buddha, two bodies: the good body and the evil body struggle against one another, locked in an endless conflict. In our generation, the age of Dharma's decline has already arrived. The evil body intends to destroy the world, while the good body has incarnated as a human-our leader in the True Faith Society. Our leader came into this world to save humanity from the evil body!" The young monk had already launched into an endless explanation of his doctrine.

"Um, I'm sorry, but our family follows Jodo Shinshu." Takasaki Tsuki spoke very softly and gently, but her refusal was unmistakably firm.

"Those clay idols are all heretical demons. Our leader is a Superhuman with genuine divine powers, and the savior of the world! Our True Faith Society has a training hall in Tokyo..."

Before the young monk could finish, Takasaki Anzu stormed out with a single-edged kitchen knife in her hand.

"Get out! Our family will never believe in some new religion. If you don't leave, I'm calling the police!"

Seeing the sharp knife gleaming coldly, the young monk wisely refrained from pestering them any further. He immediately set his pamphlet on a table, turned, and left.

Takasaki Anzu picked up the pamphlet and was about to throw it into the trash when Uchiha Naruto stopped her. He took it and casually flipped through a few pages, then could not help laughing.

What a load of incoherent bullshit. Dualism, doomsday teachings, salvation doctrines-bits of theory from all kinds of religions thrown together into some unrecognizable mishmash. How low would someone's IQ have to be to believe this stuff?

Uchiha Naruto tossed the pamphlet into the trash and thought no more of it. He occasionally encountered middle-aged and elderly women trying to convert him on the street, too.

There was even a new religious movement claiming that Japanese women were Eve and men from the Korean Peninsula were Adam, and that only their union could cleanse original sin and save the world. It advocated marrying every woman off to the peninsula.

Compared with that, this so-called True Faith Society, whose doctrine was clearly stitched together to rake in money, was not all that outrageous.