Chapter XXIII: A Strange Old Man I
Onin
Sengoku Empire
The Great Plateau
Month of the Pangolin 9, 172 ,328 DE
"I saw the okama that attacked Hoshi on the streets. Is there someplace I can find these Tokugawa brats outside their clan?"
A mix of surprise and elation flood into Principal Hanazawa's aura. As his eyes widening slightly, his mouth twitches, but it only takes him a second to regain control over his emotions. "The younger generations of the clans in Onin have a tradition of throwing pre-exam victory parties the day before the start of the entrance examinations. The Tokugawa clan should hold one tomorrow. I will find out what restaurant that are using and Kuroki will let you know the details."
I stand up. "That's fine. I'll leave now. I need to meditate."
As I turn and head for the door, Hoshi gives me a confused look. He knows me well enough to know that I almost never meditate. The practice is borderline pointless. Stories about great master Cultivators meditating for decades or centuries and having a Dao epiphany are mostly bullshit. Even if they were not, I am not a Cultivator, but Principal Hanazawa will not question or interfere with a student of his academy meditating. It would undercut his carefully crafted facade.
Without so much as a word, Vorn rises to his feet and leaves with me. Behind him, Hoshi and Matsuda Sakura exchange looks, but both remain seated.
After we close the doors behind us, Vorn points to his temple and mouths something. I am not very good at lip reading, but sometimes, the meaning is clear as day. Leaving my Telepathy thread attached to the Principal, I form another and connect it to Vorn.
As soon as Vorn senses the Telepathy thread, his angry thoughts flood into my mind. *That old man is lying. There is no way the Tokugawa clan would ever be unaware of his real identity. I can't believe he is stupid enough to think otherwise. I'm not sure what else is true and what is false, but that old man is trying to manipulate you into confrontation with the Tokugawa clan.*
With a cold expression, I turn my head just enough to meet Vorn's angry stare. *I know the old bastard is playing games. He made sure the Tokugawa clan knew about Hoshi. Hoshi is good. He has a lot of potential as an Engineer, but there is a real prodigy in the Tokugawa clan, Hoshi is no threat. I'm going to kill all those bastard Tokugawas if I encounter them in the sparring matches. Don't get upset.. That old bastard Principal will get his comeuppance before I'm done.*
As we start down the stairs, Vorn glances at the door to the Principal's suite. *Why do you want to find the Tokugawas before the entrance exams?*
I let a malicious expression show on my face. *I'm sure a few of them won't be able to resist attacking me. There is no guarantee we'll meet in the sparring competition. It has brackets and there is no guarantee they'll be in my bracket or that they'll make it to the quarter finals or better. Even if they do, I won't get the chance to fight all of them.*
Vorn chuckles. *You're vicious.*
*I'm a predator. They're prey with delusions of being adequate predators.*
Onin
Sengoku Empire
The Great Plateau
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Month of the Pangolin 9, 172 ,328 DE
As with the Principals suite on the top floor, this one is a mixture of old Sengoku style and a more modern style, which is similar to what can be found in the Dunkle Sonne Empire. Along with a tatami mat covered common area that contains chairs, a pair of couches, and a large table, the suite has four bedrooms. The door to Hoshi's room has yet to be opened. The shoji screens separating the bedrooms do little to block sound, and through my awareness, I perceive the still sleeping Hoshi, who is snoring away on the bed, a Dunkle Sonne style bed as opposed to a futon.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Hearing the sound of a fist rapping on the door, I put the tome that I have been reading into my Core Realm. It is not that anyone would be able to read the tome, and not many would be able to recognize the language in which it is written. Even so, I prefer not to have anyone see it. The humans on the Great Plateau fear and hate the War Masters and their legacies. The followers of the Dragon Gods have poisoned the beliefs held by the cultures of the humans.
Opening the door, I return Kuroki's angry glare with a cold stare. At this close distance, I do not need to use a Telepathy thread to pick up his surface thoughts. They are so intense that they almost feel like they are screaming at me through my awareness. This punk orphan is too full of himself. Hanazawa-sama shows him too much favor. Beast is a suitable name for him. He feels more like an animal than human. I want to beat him to death, right now. Him and that prince bastard disrespect4ed Hanazawa-sama. I need to teach them a lesson. After Hanazawa-sama is done with them, I'll make sure they suffer.
"Do you have the information the Principal said he would get about the Tokugawa clan's party?" The coldness of my words matches the coldness of my expression. I have never liked Kuroki. At the Academy of Magic Technology, he was among the instructors that tried to demean me in favor of the student from the noble clans. Because the Principal himself wanted to use as a source to learn from Old Man Jones, it appears that the Principal must have been keeping Kuroki in line.
Anger, resentment, and intense hatred flood into Kuroki's aura. He holds out a folder sheet of parchment. "Everything is written on this. Take it."
I grab the folded parchment, and Kuroki takes two steps backward, putting himself on the opposite side of the hall. As he keeps his eyes on my, while starting down the hall, he does not seem to consciously understand that he sees me as a danger. The man has been a Beast hunter in the past, and it appears his instincts from that time still linger. After Kuroki disappears up the stairs, I close the door to the suite.
Opening the parchment, I frown at the information written upon it. The time for the party is being held at mid-watch of the Second Day Watch, which is the old time system of the Sengoku Empire. That time system divides the day into tow Day Watches and two Night Watches, but it has fallen into disuse centuries ago The current system uses the same twenty hour day as the scientific system. The new day officially beginning at the middle of the night. Though, due to the shift in the duration of day and night over the course of the year, the exact zero hour's to the middle of the night shifts slowly over the course of the year, Every new year, the exact point of midnight needs to be readjusted and the new midnight broadcast to all the cities east of the Kami Kaze Mountains through the Mind Net, or Dream World as the Cultivators call it.
Vorn disappeared on his own not long after dawn, and with the sun nearing noon, he has yet to return. With where the Tokugawa's party is being held, that is for the best. Once black-haired gaijin, who stands well above the average height will stand out enough. A second gaijin with bloody red hair, who towers over even the tallest native of the Sengoku Empire, will stand out too much. After making certain Hoshi is not awake, I leave the suite.
I have an idea I want to test regarding my awareness. Even if it was not on a conscious level, Kuroki felt my presence through my awareness. He could not keep himself from watching me, but there are Beasts out in the Demonic Wildlands that are unnaturally hard to detect. Even when you are looking right at them, knowing they are close, it is still possible to miss them. It is possible to look right past them. The reason might have something to do with their auras, but more likely it is something that they do with their awareness. Beasts tend to have simplistic Minds and Souls, but that does not mean that their Minds and Souls are weak. It also does not mean that cannot use Psi or Ki, even if their use is at an instinctual level. Beasts use their Minds and Souls to intimidate and restrict the actions of prey and make it harder for predators to detect them. After seeing Kuroki's unconscious reaction to my awareness, which he clearly could not perceive on a conscious level, I have an idea, but I do not know if I can make it work.
The Mind exists in the Eidos, and the Eidos is a Realm that consist primarily of ideas and concepts. When you perceive a living being in the Eidos, you perceive the idea of that being more than anything else. If I can fill my awareness with idea of my not being where I am, I might be able to move among humans with most of them being unaware of my presence.
As I enter the front lobby for the building with my suite, I stay in the shadows next to the stairway. The lobby is almost empty, but there are a half-dozen students that I do not recognize gathered in one corner. Looking at their ages, they are probably from one of Shizukana Gake's Cultivation academies. Focusing on an idea of emptiness, or nothingness, I try projecting it through my awareness, but the result is not what I expected. A couple of the students look around nervously. I move into the center of the lobby, the nervous students They do not seem to see me, but they are clearly aware of my presence. At least, the other students do not appear to notice me. As I try to reinforce the idea of nothingness, the gazes of the students, who noticed my presence, sharpen, and the others appear to become nervous.
It is not easy to observe my own awareness, but I get the feeling that along with the idea of nothingness, I am pushing too much Trinity into my awareness. While watching the students, I experiment with trying to infuse the idea into my awareness without using Trinity as the medium to facilitate the process. After I try reducing the force of the Trinity in my awareness, the first two students to notice my presence notice me. Their eyes narrow and fill with hostility, but as I meet their glares with a cold stare of my own, they look away. We are too far apart for me to read their thoughts or emotions without using Telepathy or Empathy, but the odor of their fear slowly permeates the air. It only take a few minutes for the students hurry to the stairs and leave the lobby.
While trying to maintain an idea of nothingness without using Trinity to force it into my awareness, I leave the lobby. The handful of people I pass on the inn's grounds do not look at me, but I cannot be sure whether they do not see me or are simply ignoring me. The party is located in the Sky Tower in Quad Five, which is on the opposite side of the arena parkland and next to the Grand Arena itself. It will mean traversing a number of crowded streets to reach it, but I leave the inn on foot.