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The wisest option would be C.
However, Seiji already had his own opinion of this critical question.
“I think that you should join Soul Society,” Seiji stated as directly and clearly as possible.
“Why’s that?” Natsuya looked directly at him.
“Because I don’t think that you should be restrained by your family,” Seiji told her honestly. “I once said before that you are a Yin Yang Master of the Yoruhana Family. There’s nothing wrong with being loyal to the Yoruhana Family. However, loyalty doesn’t mean that you should be restrained. You are an outstanding individual with talent that you deserve to be proud of. You should have more room to develop yourself.”
The car fell silent for a moment.
“…Thank you.” Natsuya finally spoke up after a while, breaking the silence.
“No need for thanks.” Seiji smiled. “That’s simply my personal opinion. You’re still the one making the decision for yourself. And no matter what you choose, I’ll be behind you all the way. If you decide to join Soul Society, feel free to drop my name as much as you want. It’s even fine to tell your family that I strongly requested you to join Soul Society. Your family doesn’t have a high opinion of me regardless, so I don’t mind taking the blame for this. Just think of it as my way of paying them back for forcing me to join the Bloodwine Ritual tournament in order to be with you.”
“Tee-hee…” Natsuya giggled at this.
A warm feeling arose in her chest. She felt that having such a boyfriend was truly wonderful.
Mai, who was currently driving, smiled faintly upon hearing her master’s laugh. A gentle look appeared in Hitaka’s eyes. As for Rana… the cat girl was already sleeping quietly.
Seiji returned back to his apartment, only to see that Mika and the others were there, waiting.
Right after he finished explaining the situation to them, Seiji received a phone call from Hisashi and a text message from Yukari. After that, Hoshi, Kaho… everyone had noticed the mystical phenomenon of the glowing cherry blossoms, all asking him about the situation. He explained one by one.
“Something’s wrong with my Domain!”
Kazuko’s tone of voice was the most serious when she called Seiji.
“The demons within are about to come out. It’s difficult for me to control them… Please eliminate them as quickly as possible!”
“They’re about to come out… You mean they’ll appear in reality?” Seiji frowned.
“That’s right! I don’t know what exactly affected me, but I think it’s connected with the cherry blossoms’ glowing… Wah… It suddenly became harder to control… I might not be able to last much longer…”
“Hang in there! Where are you right now?”
After finding out Kazuko’s current location, Seiji explained the situation to Shika and the others.
Shika wanted to go along with him, but he asked her to stay behind.
“The cherry blossoms’ glowing phenomenon is still ongoing. I don’t know what could happen, so I’d feel more reassured if you were at home with the others.”
He had his adopted younger sister watch home and asked Kaede to drive. Seiji put on his combat equipment at top speed and got on her car.
Kaede drove her van through the pouring rain and swiftly arrived at Kazuko’s location to pick up the brown-haired girl.
Currently, Kazuko had a pained expression, and her body was heating up. Her face was as hot to the touch as if she had a fever.
Seiji had Kaede drive towards Natsuya’s residence. He called Natsuya while on the way there to explain the situation.
When he arrived at Natsuya’s residence, he immediately took Kazuko to the spellcasting room.
Natsuya wanted to fight the demons in the Domain together with him. However, Seiji adamantly insisted on checking the situation by himself first.
“Kazuko-san, please open your Domain!”
The brown-haired girl weakly lifted both her hands, letting off a blinding blood-red glow. Several black cracks instantly appeared throughout the ground of the entire room! They opened up into an irregular strange shape with five irregular red ovals inside.
Seiji was instantly whirled into this.
And then, he saw snow… no, cherry blossoms!
The pure white petals were falling down as if it was snowing.
Apart from these white snowfall-like cherry blossoms, there was also a gigantic cherry blossom tree! Even at a rough estimate, it was more than thirty meters tall. Countless white flowers upon it created a scenery of pure white.
Although white itself was considered a pure color, here it appeared rather ominous.
Seiji witnessed countless white cherry blossom petals whirling around, swiftly forming numerous hazy red humanoid figures.
These spiritual humanoid figures all had two black circles on their faces where eyes should have been. They possessed various weapons such as black longswords, bows, spears, kodachis, or even clubs…
These armed humanoid figures started encircling Seiji. He silently unsheathed his sword with a calm expression.
The spiritual monsters suddenly attacked!
Whoosh… golden-red flames roared over them!
Seiji’s flames instantly burned a majority of the humanoid figures. However, a minority managed to survive the flames, and attacked him.
*Shing shing shing…* Seiji’s sword flashed as he sliced through all the surviving monsters!
This scene of Seiji taking on so many monsters all by himself might have appeared dangerous, but these spiritual creatures weren’t strong at all. Seiji wasn’t under much pressure.
The spiritual creatures continuously spawned as time passed. However, no individually strong ones appeared. Basically, not a single boss monster had arrived.
“Kazuko-san, how are you feeling now?” Seiji asked the floating figure above him.
“A little better… but still not that great, it’s as if I have a cold.” Kazuko’s voice sounded listless.
“I’ve killed so many, but still haven’t seen a single boss monster. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know… It seems that there aren’t any strong demons here. It’s just that there’s incredibly many.” Kazuko paused for a moment. “At the current rate, it might be morning before you can eliminate them all.”
He was going to have to fight like this until morning!? Seiji’s eyes twitched.
Although going into musou mode was quite fun, doing it for too long would become a boring grind.
As he watched even more spiritual creatures arriving, he suddenly got the idea to have his knight order members come train here and level up.
After some serious consideration, Seiji then had Kazuko tell Kaede to contact all his knight order members…
Yukari decided to participate in battle after she heard the situation.
Some time later, a van arrived to pick her up.
Yukari walked out of her home and got in the van. Mika was sitting in the van.
“Good evening, Asamiya-san.” Mika greeted her.
“Good evening, Uehara-san… and Juumonji-sensei,” Yukari responded in turn.
Kaede smiled, and continued driving.
The purple-haired girl was somewhat nervous as she thought about how this was going to be a real battle.
Ever since she awakened to her powers, she had killed a few demons, but none of those were real battles. That was because they had all been tiny demons that she took care of instantly. At first, she had been proud of herself, but now, she felt like it was no different than swatting a fly.
This, however, would be a real battle—fighting a large number of monsters in an alternate dimension!
Although she heard already that the monsters weren’t strong, Yukari still wasn’t able to relax.
“Uehara-san, have you participated in such a battle before?” Yukari couldn’t help but ask because she saw the twintailed girl being so calm.
“Yeah. Before Seiji participated in that ritual tournament, I, Amami-san, and Juumonji-san’s younger brother all entered Ooike-san’s Domain before. Seiji and Kagura-chan led us,” Mika answered.
“What was the situation like back then?”
“At that time… there was something unexpected, so we got separated from Amami-san, Kagura-chan, and Ooike-san…”
Mika summarized the experience from that time. Yukari widened her eyes as she listened.
This was a true adventure! Just like an adventure in a labyrinth dungeon, but real. There was actual danger.
In the end, everyone returned safe and uninjured. This was thanks to everyone’s hard work and luck.
The end result was good, but one couldn’t ignore the dangers involved. If one was unlucky, perhaps…
The purple-haired girl felt a chill run down her spine just imagining it.
“You… aren’t you afraid? Doing this again after such an experience…” She couldn’t help but ask another question.
“Afraid… a little, I suppose. But, I believe in Seiji,” Mika responded adamantly.