[The low, urgent tolling of a bell, like the frenzied roar of some slumbering beast suddenly jolted awake, brutally tore through the Zenin Clan's deathly silence.]
[This was the Zenin Clan's highest-level alarm. In all these decades, no such piercing, heart-stopping sound had ever rung through this vast, ancient, rotting estate.]
[Amid the deafening tolling, Ogi Zenin violently slid open the shoji door of his courtyard.]
[His perpetually cold, rigid face, like an iron mask, was now shrouded in a haze of extreme displeasure.]
[He reached back and drew the samurai sword hanging on its rack, gripped it tightly, and strode out of his austere Japanese courtyard.]
[The moment he stepped through the courtyard gate, Ogi Zenin saw that the corridors and courtyards outside had already descended into chaos.]
[His gaze sharpened. His large hand shot out like an iron clamp and seized the collar of a flustered member of the Kukuru Unit who was hurrying past, trying to relay orders.]
["What happened? As a member of the Zenin Clan, why are you scurrying around like a headless chicken in such a disgraceful panic?"]
[Ogi Zenin's brows were tightly knitted. His eyes, as lifeless as dry wells, bored into the man as he demanded an answer in a steady, low voice that carried suffocating pressure.]
[The Kukuru Unit member he had forcibly stopped initially looked startled and impatient, but once he recognized that cold, merciless face, its deep nasolabial folds like knife cuts, his entire body jolted with fright.]
[Without even stopping to straighten his disheveled collar, he reflexively snapped his legs together and gave Ogi Zenin an extremely respectful, precise ninety-degree bow, answering in a trembling voice.]
["R-reporting, Lord Ogi! It's Master Naoya! Someone seriously injured Master Naoya in the main residence, and the culprit is currently fleeing the