The surrounding streets were narrow and crowded, with wooden buildings packed tightly together on either side.
Laundry hung out to dry, dangling lanterns, and shop signs almost blotted out the sky.
Upstairs, young courtesans in heavy makeup and revealing clothes leaned against carved wooden railings.
They waved handkerchiefs or fans, calling down in sultry, seductive voices, "You there, handsome young man~ Come up and sit with us!"
"My lord~ We have fine wine and food here~ And something even 'finer'~"
"Don't go~ Looking won't cost you anything~"
Their sweet, lilting voices rose one after another...
To bring in business, they used practically every line they knew, trying to hold on to every man who passed.
Yet their enthusiasm seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the figure below.
Kirishima Bupai turned a deaf ear to it all, walking steadily through the crowd without looking aside.
His excessively handsome yet ice-cold face was exposed beneath the Entertainment District's bizarre, shifting lights.
His short, silver-white hair stirred in the breeze, and his dark gray eyes were like a frozen lake, without a ripple of emotion.
His austere appearance, so at odds with the Entertainment District's gaudy sleaziness, should have drawn every eye.
But his white hair made the noisy crowd around him subconsciously avoid him, parting for him of their own accord like water flowing around a reef.
He continued forward silently, and as he walked, a hazy fragment of memory surfaced, concerning the history of that peculiar area known as the Entertainment District.
The history of the Entertainment District... went back to sixteenth-century Japan. Wasn't it set up by that monkey Hideyoshi?
"I think it was to relocate those... establishments that received travelers..."
Kirishima Bupai murmured inwardly. And later... it turned into this.
Entertainment? Socializing?
*Heh. In the end, it was