Saito tightened his grip on his worn sword, furrowing his brows as he scanned left and right at the samurai surrounding him and Aoto.
Aoto's brows also knitted together at this mont.
He raised his sword and helped the three won in his arms to their feet. "...Who are you people?"
The Pale Plump Warrior had been quite aggressive initially, but upon spotting the Magistrate's Office inrō at Aoto's right waist and the red-tasseled jutte, his expression imdiately faltered. "Huh? Are you a dōshin from the Edo Magistrate's Office's Three Squads?"
"Mr. Komuro!"
At this mont, Kinoshita Mai stepped forward first.
She spread her arms wide, positioning herself protectively in front of Aoto.
"You've misunderstood! These two gentlen aren't bad people!"
The European-Arican girl quickly followed Kinoshita Mai's lead: "Yes! You've misunderstood! These two gentlen just saved us! They're not bad people!"
The girl clearly had the face of a typical European-Arican girl, yet she could speak such fluent, standard Japanese...
Her accent was so perfect that if you didn't look at her face, it would be hard to imagine this Japanese was spoken by a foreigner.
The Pale Plump Warrior called "Komuro" looked at Kinoshita Mai with surprise, then at the Western girl, before finally turning his scrutinizing gaze back to Aoto...
"...My apologies, it seems I misunderstood and mistook you for thieves intending harm to Miss Angoulê and the others. I'm sorry." Komuro offered a solemn apology to Aoto while waving his hand to his surrounding subordinates.
At Komuro's gestured signal, the samurai surrounding Aoto and Saito either sheathed their swords or removed their hands from their sword hilts.
The tense atmosphere that had filled the air imdiately dissipated.
Though Komuro and his n had dispelled their hostility, Saito still held his sword ready, tightly guarding Aoto's front.
"...Tachibana, is your leg alright?" Saito glanced from the corner of his eye at the leg of Aoto, whom he was protecting behind him.
"It's fine, just a minor injury. When I was learning cooking before, I cut deeper wounds on my hands than this." Aoto lowered his gaze to look at his right leg that had been slashed earlier.
The wound wasn't particularly deep, but it wasn't shallow either—blood had already flowed from the wound down his leg to the top of his right foot and onto the ground.
The leg matter could be dealt with later.
The most urgent matter now was to engage with these people speaking Osaka dialect and figure out exactly what was going on.
Aoto transferred the sword from his right hand to his left, using his right hand to press against the wound on his leg. "I am Tachibana Aoto, constable of the Edo Kita Bansho Teimachi squad. May I ask who you are?"
"I am Komuro Chuichiro, under the command of the Osaka Castle Magistrate." Komuro lifted the right hem of his haori to reveal an Osaka governnt inrō hanging at his right waist.
Soone from the Osaka Castle Magistrate's office?
Aoto's brows slightly furrowed.
He opened his mouth, about to engage in further discussion with Komuro, when—
"Young master, Miss Angoulê, Miss LeRoy—we've finally found you."
An aged voice drifted faintly from the distance behind Komuro.
An elderly man who appeared to be in his 80s or 90s, wearing glasses, walked toward Aoto and the others at an unhurried pace.
"Proprietor Kiryu...?" Aoto unconsciously murmured the old man's na.
The old man was indeed Kiryu Kazuma, the owner of Senjiya, the job placent agency that had introduced Aoto to Shieikan.
"Well now..." Kiryu noticed Aoto and Saito within the encircled group. "I believe... you're Tachibana-kun who visited my humble establishnt just the other day? What brings you here?"
"Mr. Kiryu!" Upon seeing Kiryu, Kinoshita Mai imdiately showed excitent on her face.
However, after showing excitent, as if rembering sothing, her excited expression stiffened and she shrunk her neck slightly.
"...Young master." Kiryu's eyes behind his glasses looked at Kinoshita Mai with a aningful gaze. "You'll have to... give
a proper explanation later—about how you ran off with Miss Angoulê and Miss LeRoy."
......
At an inconspicuous hillside not far from Fujisawa-shuku—
"Haa..."
Suehiro, whose status and strength within the Anti-Foreigner Squad were second only to Jinno's and who had been entrusted by Jinno with full responsibility for this assassination operation against Anthony and Elodie, stood under a not-yet-withered large tree on the hillside.
Standing with feet apart, mouth slightly open, he exhaled a turbid breath.
He held a niken yari with its shaft painted dark green in both hands, his narrow eyes half-open, with both the spear tip and his gaze angled diagonally forward.
"Ken" was an ancient Japanese unit of length, approximately equal to 1.818 ters. A so-called "niken yari" was a spear two ken long, a quite common long weapon in ancient Japan.
Suehiro had height characteristic of this era—exactly 1.5 ters tall, no more no less.
Suehiro, standing only 1.5 ters tall, holding a spear nearly 3.7 ters long... created an indescribable strangeness and incongruity.
Like seeing a child wearing adult's clothing.
Yet—Suehiro could hold this large spear that didn't match his height at all without any apparent effort.
He gripped the large spear tightly and steadily, as if becoming one with the weapon.
Man and spear maintained this motionless stance.
After a long while, a gentle breeze brushed by.
Wind passed, leaves fell.
This gentle breeze shook several leaves from the not-yet-withered tree above Suehiro's head.
A falling leaf, carried by the wind, drifted swayingly onto the tip of Suehiro's spear...
Suehiro's half-open eyes suddenly widened completely!
"Ha!"
He shouted loudly, straightened his back to muster strength, and forcefully flicked the niken yari in his hands upward. The leaf on the spear tip was cleanly split in two by the sharp spear blade.
The leaf, evenly divided into two halves, fell toward two different directions.
Suehiro's offensive didn't stop there.
Issuing another loud shout, he rotated the spear shaft, the spear tip tracing a beautiful arc as it further cut the already divided leaf into four pieces...
Suehiro's spear technique demonstrated what ant "precision" and "stability."
The spear tip passed through this increasingly finely cut leaf ti after ti.
Finally—when all the leaf fragnts had fallen to the ground, this single leaf had been cut into a full eight pieces...
Looking at the leaf fragnts on the ground, Suehiro planted his spear beside him and let out a long sigh full of regret:
"Ah... cutting it into more than ten pieces before the leaf hits the ground is truly difficult..."
"Mr. Suehiro! Your Hōzōin-ryū spear technique has beco much more refined than before!"
"Ohh... Yamada." Suehiro smiled toward a young man approaching him with large strides. "Well... I have indeed made so progress."
"Before, I could only manage to cut it into six pieces before the leaf hit the ground at most, but now I can achieve eight pieces."
Yamada smiled at Suehiro: "Mr. Suehiro, you're truly remarkable. At this rate of progress, it's not impossible for you to beco a spear technique master soday."
"What use is becoming a spear technique master? This is no longer an era where one can rise to prominence through military achievents."
Suehiro looked bitterly at the spear planted beside him that was more than twice his height.
"Ah... I only regret not being born 300 years ago during that Warring States period of chaos."
"If it were 300 years ago during that Warring States period, it wouldn't have been impossible for
and my 'Wind Cutter' here to earn fa and beco master of a castle or territory through our efforts, just like the 'Seven Spears of Shizugatake' under Toyotomi Hideyoshi!"
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