As soon as the Yamato family head finished speaking, two figures slowly stepped out of the glowing spell circle.
Kuka looked utterly spent.
After several fierce battles earlier, she had then pushed herself to the limit, repeatedly using the Concealnt Teleportation Spell to rush here with Ayami Tenkami in tow. The mont she arrived, the tension left her body all at once, and she collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.
Ayami Tenkami herself looked no better.
She was already injured, and now her face was pale, her breathing uneven. Though the Concealnt Spell was a movent technique, forcing a normal human body through repeated spatial jumps was an enormous strain—especially for soone like Ayami, whose constitution was weaker than average to begin with.
If Kuka hadn't continuously shielded her with spiritual power along the way, her condition would likely have been far worse.
The mont Ayami arrived, she didn't even register the sea of unfamiliar faces around her.
Normally timid and soft-spoken, she showed not a trace of hesitation.
Her eyes instinctively filtered out everything else.
She searched only for her child.
Even though Ren Kuroda had transford—his appearance warped, his aura twisted beyond recognition—no matter how monstrous he looked, a mother would not mistake her own son.
Ayami found him instantly.
And when she saw him standing rigid and unmoving, his face twisted in anguish, her heart clenched painfully in her chest.
She stepped forward, intending to call his na, to do what Kuka had told her—try to wake him.
But then—
Her gaze shifted.
In Ren's raised hand, there was another figure.
And sothing about that silhouette felt painfully familiar.
It took only a second for recognition to strike.
The person Ren was holding—
Was her daughter.
Ruri Tenkami.
Ayami froze.
She looked at Ruri—now dressed like so delinquent street girl, her appearance far from the refined young lady Ayami had raised.
Then she looked at Ren—who, from the angle, appeared ready to hurl his own sister into the ground.
The maternal rage rose instantly.
She marched forward with unstoppable montum.
"Ren! I told you to stay in school properly, but you refused to listen! You insisted on dropping out to join that so-called Special Counterasure Unit!
"And now look at this! Even Ruri has followed you down the wrong path! She's turned into this—this rebellious little punk! How is she supposed to get married like this in the future?!
"And as her older brother, not only did you fail to protect her—you're actually trying to hit her?! Have you completely forgotten I'm still your mother?!"
Tsuchigumo-hi and Yuki-hi both tensed, intending to stop Ayami and explain that Ren's condition was extrely unstable.
But Kuka and Ayami had appeared almost right beside Ren.
By the ti Ayami was already pointing at Ren's nose and scolding him at full volu, it was far too late.
Worse still—
Ren gave no response.
And that silence only inflad Ayami further. In her eyes, her authority as a mother had just been openly challenged.
So she acted.
With shocking decisiveness, Ayami grabbed Ren's raised arm and forced it downward.
"Put your sister down. Right now. Or don't bla for being impolite."
The surrounding crowd collectively lost the ability to process what they were seeing.
This was the Hundred-Night Oni.
The being who had just battled a god.
A monster currently devoid of reason.
And this woman—this ordinary-looking woman—was marching up to him and scolding him like he'd tracked mud into the house.
If she truly angered him, Tokyo would be reduced to rubble.
"What is that woman doing?!" soone hissed. "Does she have any idea what could happen?!"
"The Yamato family's young lady went through all that trouble just to bring a civilian here to make things worse?!"
Fear and frustration rippled through the surviving exorcists.
But what happened next left them even more speechless.
Ayami's scolding—
Did not cause the Hundred-Night Oni to go berserk.
Instead—
The writhing "All the World's Evil" wrapped around him… actually recoiled.
The fragnt of "All the World's Evil" that Ren had brought from the Fate world had long since ford a deep connection with him.
Its independent consciousness existed because of Ren's Reality Marble and influence.
Which ant—
The awareness it developed shared certain similarities with Ren's own.
When faced with sothing it could not understand, it instinctively analyzed it through Ren's thought patterns.
In other words—
Aside from destruction and annihilation, whatever Ren feared…
"All the World's Evil" would also fear.
And what did Ren fear most?
The answer was obvious.
Within its awareness, the individual designated "Ayami Tenkami" was the most terrifying existence Ren knew.
So when Ayami declared she would "not be polite"—
The embodint of humanity's malice… panicked.
From Ren's mories, it knew that Ayami's so-called "not being polite" was sothing Ren dreaded with genuine terror.
And so—
At the very mont Ayami raised her hand to enforce discipline—
"All the World's Evil" did sothing utterly absurd.
It chickened out.
It shrank back into Ren's body.
From its perspective, facing Ren's ultimate nightmare was far less appealing than retreating temporarily and waiting for a better opportunity.
After all—
There would be chances later.
Inside his ntal landscape, where Ren had been locked in a brutal tug-of-war with the black sludge, the sudden retreat tipped the balance.
The pressure lessened.
His pitch-black eyes gradually regained clarity.
And the instant Ren regained consciousness—
He saw Ayami standing right in front of him, hand raised high—
Aid directly at his backside.
His expression changed instantly.
"Mom, I was wrong! I'll accept however long you want to lecture ! Just—please spare from that!
"I'm already this old! There are so many people watching! I'm at least sowhat of a public figure now! This is not the place to use the family disciplinary code!"
Ren dropped into a flawless dogeza on reflex.
The speed.
The smoothness.
The practiced perfection.
It was almost heartbreaking.
Perhaps even more heartbreaking was the fact that "All the World's Evil" had retreated because of this very "family disciplinary code."
And yet—
There was no denying it.
Ayami Tenkami's "house rules" were Ren's deepest childhood trauma.
Being spanked—at his age—and with a ntal age not much younger than his mother's—
It was unbearably humiliating.
She was his mother.
One of the most important people in his life.
If he made a mistake, she had every right to discipline him.
He couldn't resist.
If he dodged or protested, it would only hurt her feelings more.
So he endured.
And Ayami, gentle to a fault, could never bring herself to lock them in a dark room—she worried they'd be cold.
She couldn't skip als as punishnt—she worried they'd be hungry.
So her harshest discipline—
Was spanking Ren and Ruri.
More than once, the siblings had protested.
They were grown now. Couldn't they upgrade to sothing more severe—but with dignity?
Every ti, Ayami vetoed the suggestion.
Because in her eyes—
No matter how much they grew—
They were still her children.
"Mom's disciplinary code! This is all Big Brother's fault! It has nothing to do with Ruri!"
At the ntion of key words like "Mom" and "discipline," Ruri—who should have been unconscious—shuddered violently.
Then, like a startled cat, she sprang upright.
And executed an identical dogeza beside Ren.
The synchronization.
The posture.
The sheer fluency.
It was enough to make onlookers murmur:
Truly siblings, through and through…
"…Family Head," one of the surviving exorcists muttered weakly, "didn't you say that woman was an ordinary person? Because I'm not so sure anymore."
Less than thirty percent of those present had survived the earlier chaos.
The ones who remained were elites—talents among talents.
And yet, even they stared at this scene as though witnessing a myth.
An SS-class Yokai King.
An S-minus-class great yokai.
Both kneeling in dogeza before what appeared to be an entirely ordinary woman—
Apologizing with pitiful humility.
Even setting aside the Hundred-Night Oni—
That S-minus girl had displayed strength placing her among Tokyo's top-tier fighters.
And yet here she was—
Terrified into compliance by "house rules."
"Idiot," soone hissed. "Can't you see it now? That woman cannot possibly be ordinary!
"She must be deliberately hiding her aura to mislead us—or her level is simply so high we can't perceive it!"
At first, the exorcists had assud Ayami was a civilian because they sensed no spiritual power from her.
Now?
They were convinced she was the true hidden monster.
What—she's really just a normal human?
Don't joke.
Could a normal human frighten away the black sludge that had tornted the Hundred-Night Oni for so long with just a few sentences?
Could a normal human use sothing called "family discipline" to instantly make an SS-class Yokai King and an S-minus great yokai surrender?
Look at that S-minus girl!
She had been unconscious—yet the re ntion of "discipline" woke her up in sheer terror!
Clearly, this so-called "family disciplinary code" must be so unspeakable torture technique.
And that woman's strength—
It had to be unfathomable.
So terrifying that even an SS-class Yokai King dared not resist.
..
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