'Tetsu no Sosuke' looked puzzled. "Haven't I made myself seem important enough?"
"...It isn't that you haven't made yourself seem important enough," Shinobu Kocho said. "If it were him, he wouldn't have acted that way... Hmm, more precisely, there wouldn't have been an opportunity for that to happen. When I saw that you could clearly have stopped him, but didn't, I knew something was wrong with you. I'd had that feeling before, too, but I was worried there might be something I hadn't considered, so I didn't let it show. Not until... you actually tried to attack Inosuke."
"You were far too rash in trying to attack Inosuke."
'Zenitsu Agatsuma' spoke up. "You hadn't prepared thoroughly enough. Otherwise, you would have handled the details better."
"For example?" 'Tetsu no Sosuke' asked earnestly.
"For example, you wouldn't have left such glaring flaws," 'Zenitsu Agatsuma' said. "The flaws you left in Inosuke were so obvious anyone could see them at a glance. It was hard to believe Inosuke was part of a plot."
"I'm not a plot!"
Inosuke was furious.
'Zenitsu Agatsuma' ignored him and simply continued calmly, "If he really were something this world had conjured up to deceive us, why would he have such glaring flaws that we could easily spot them? As it stands... he's riddled with them, as though you were afraid we wouldn't notice and kill him in the end."
'Tetsu no Sosuke' sighed. "I never expected that, besides the Insect Pillar, I'd underestimated you, too."
"You've always been very careful," 'Zenitsu Agatsuma' said. "Although I knew something was wrong with you from the moment I first saw you, you never exposed a real flaw until just now. Your behavior made me think you might have reached the point where you had no choice but to stake