Chapter 122: Wild Duck Hot Pot (Please vote with monthly tickets)

---

The red-gold dragon soared into the sky, piercing through the thick fog, flying higher and higher into the heavens.

Itomi Yuki didn’t know how high they were; she felt as if she were in the Milky Way.

As they glided slowly, almost at a standstill, she looked down at Kyoto. The mass of fog and the strong wind surprisingly gave her a sense of life.

“Minamoto Kiyomoto’s woman?” Minamoto Kiyomoto’s voice, tinged with laughter, reached her.

Itomi Yuki snapped back to reality, her face flushing red. She then retorted without hesitation, “The god of the new world?”

“That was my dream in middle school,” the dragon reminisced. “After having no rivals in judo in Shikoku, I arranged a life-and-death duel with an enemy on the coast of Shodoshima. After I beat him to a pulp, the sun was setting. I roared at the twilight and silently said to myself, ‘Minamoto Kiyomoto, you are invincible, you are the god of the new world’.”

“…You’re lying, aren’t you?”

“Half-true, half-false,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said with a laugh.

“Which parts are true?” Itomi Yuki asked curiously.

“On the coast of Shodoshima, I beat an opponent to a pulp.”

“That’s half-true, half-false? Only one sentence is true, right? I think even your bones are made of lies.”

The dragon flipped over, and the girl fell.

“Ah!” Itomi Yuki cried out in alarm.

In her panic, she cast a wind-controlling spell, trying to maintain her balance. But her divine power was thin, and the strong winds at high altitude made it impossible to stop.

Itomi Yuki steadied her racing heart, constantly telling herself that she would be fine, she would be fine.

Falling, from the night sky into the thick fog. The wind was fierce, and even breathing became difficult.

In the vast fog, she didn’t know where she had fallen to, but it felt like a long time had passed. The ground could appear at any moment.

If she crashed at her current speed, even the most beautiful girl’s body would turn into a disgusting pile of rotten flesh.

Itomi Yuki’s heart began to race again.

Thump, thump, thump! She even started to hear a ringing in her ears.

“Yo, how did you fall from the sky?” Her body suddenly went limp, caught by something. A cheerful, boyish voice sounded in her ear.

Itomi Yuki’s black eyes widened, and she stared blankly at the masked Minamoto Kiyomoto.

After three or four seconds, she pounded his chest hard.

“Hey, what are you doing!” Minamoto Kiyomoto said with dissatisfaction. “This is the second time I’ve saved you. Is this how you treat your benefactor?”

Itomi Yuki was stunned for a moment, then quickly reached out her slender, fair hand and took off Minamoto Kiyomoto’s fox mask.

Under the mask was a handsome and refined face, looking down at her with a smile.

“You—” Itomi Yuki, angered, pounded Minamoto Kiyomoto’s chest again. “I thought it wasn’t you!”

“This was my dream in high school. To star in a play at the cultural festival and become a sensation. Many girls confessed to me, saying they were moved by my acting and fell hopelessly in love with me. That day after school, as I was riding my bike downhill, I said to myself, ‘Minamoto Kiyomoto, you’re a natural-born actor!'”

“This time, only one sentence is true again, right?!” Itomi Yuki said angrily.

“No, not a single sentence is true,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said with a laugh, leaping between tall buildings. He would occasionally dash into a school of bat-like devil rays, stepping on their broad backs to skim into the distance.

“Inferior,” Itomi Yuki protested, then broke into a smile.

She lay peacefully in Minamoto Kiyomoto’s arms.

Minamoto Kiyomoto’s tracksuit was slightly open, revealing the white T-shirt underneath, as well as his collarbones and prominent Adam’s apple.

For some reason, her face felt hot. She quickly looked away, pretending to examine the fox mask in her hand.

The craftsmanship was exquisite, but for some reason, it lacked the lifelike quality it had when it was on Minamoto Kiyomoto’s face.

“Miss Kamibayashi gave this to me,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said, taking the mask back and putting it on again.

Itomi Yuki’s gaze followed the mask.

Back on his face, the fox pattern on the mask came to life again. It seemed to see through her thoughts, looking at her with a half-smile.

She averted her gaze and stared straight ahead without a word.

After a while, she composed herself and asked calmly, “What happened in Kyoto? Why did it become like this?”

“You can blame your sister for that,” Minamoto Kiyomoto’s voice didn’t change as he briefly explained the Shinto sect’s plan.

Itomi Yuki listened, but at this moment, she had no interest in these things.

“Where are we going now?” she asked.

The hot spring inn where Rabbit and the others were staying was not far from the inn her school had booked.

After flying slowly in the sky for a while and running on the ground for so long, they should have arrived long ago.

“To see your sister,” Minamoto Kiyomoto kicked a mosasaur away and continued forward.

Itomi Yuki nodded, then, thinking of something, said:

“I’ve been out for so long. If I don’t go back, the school will call the police and also tell my mother.”

“Don’t worry. After I saw you with Rabbit and the others, I not only went back to change into my tracksuit, but I also put all your female classmates to sleep.”

“Can practitioners just attack ordinary people whenever they want?”

“Under normal circumstances, no. But now is a time of war. Practitioners can decide whether to act based on the specific situation. What’s more, the Lord of Kyoto dotes on me, and the Ogosho wants me to be his son-in-law. Who can say I’m wrong?”

“Isn’t that unfair?” Itomi Yuki asked.

“This world has never been fair. But luckily, I’m here.”

“You—”

Before Itomi Yuki could finish, she heard Minamoto Kiyomoto say, “We’re here.”

The two of them stopped in front of a sukiyaki restaurant. The name of the shop was ‘Pontocho Wild Duck Sukiyaki’.

Minamoto Kiyomoto put Itomi Yuki down, opened the closed door, and walked in first.

At the thought of seeing her sister soon, Itomi Yuki couldn’t help but take a deep breath before stepping forward.

The two disappeared from the street. The gale once again took over the shop’s entrance, howling at the door like a siege of zombies.

The shop was not large, with only four tables and a tatami mat area with two tables.

“You’re so slow. We were getting hungry waiting for you,” a beautiful woman with short, stylish hair said, looking at the two with a smile amidst the warm, fragrant steam of food.

“Just in time, I’m hungry too,” Minamoto Kiyomoto took off his shoes, got onto the tatami mat, picked up his chopsticks, and started eating.

“Yuki,” Itomi Sayaka called out, “what are you standing there for? Come over here. The wild duck is delicious.”

Itomi Yuki walked over and sat down between her sister and Minamoto Kiyomoto, opposite an unfamiliar woman.

“Do you think this wild duck could be the same ducks we saw in the Kamo River during the day? So cruel,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said sympathetically as he devoured the duck meat.

No one paid him any attention.

Itomi Sayaka picked up a piece of duck meat and a slice of cabbage from the bubbling pot with her chopsticks, dripping with broth, and placed them in Itomi Yuki’s bowl.

“Thank you,” Itomi Yuki picked up her chopsticks and put the cabbage leaf, soaked in broth, into her mouth.

Sayaka’s other hand, not holding chopsticks, rested on her chin as she watched her eat happily.

“Have you lost weight?” she suddenly reached out and pinched Itomi Yuki’s smooth cheek.

“What are you doing,” Itomi Yuki frowned, turning her head to avoid her sister’s hand.

“Can’t your big sister even touch you? Don’t be so distant,” Sayaka leaned forward and reached out again.

“No!” Itomi Yuki was resolute.

Before long, the sisters were wrestling on the tatami mat.

Minamoto Kiyomoto, with a drink in his left hand and chopsticks in his right, ate and drank while watching the beautiful women fight.

“This is interesting,” he said with a smile to Hanyu Chika.

Hanyu Chika ate her tofu as if it were hot, not even glancing at him.

On the other side, Itomi Sayaka finally let go of Itomi Yuki’s body with satisfaction, sat back comfortably, and leisurely drank her sake.

“Honestly,” Itomi Yuki sat up, fixing her hair and clothes, her pretty face filled with reluctance and anger.

Seeing Minamoto Kiyomoto’s engrossed expression, Itomi Sayaka asked him with a smile:

“Kiyomoto, if Yuki and I really fought, who would you help?”

“When women fight,” Minamoto Kiyomoto gnawed on a duck bone, “I always help the prettier one. If they’re equally pretty, I help the younger one.”

“Then who is prettier, Yuki or me?” Sayaka continued to ask.

Minamoto Kiyomoto spat out the bone in his mouth and looked back and forth between the two sisters.

There was only one lamp in the shop, the one above their heads. Under the bright yellow light, the two of them looked exceptionally beautiful.

“About the same, I guess,” he said.

“So you’d help Yuki?”

“I’d help her,” Minamoto Kiyomoto nodded and continued to suck on the duck bone.

Sayaka sighed theatrically and said with self-pity, “Men really do like the new and discard the old. Once they’re tired of the older sister, they go for the younger one.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Itomi Yuki glared at her sister with dissatisfaction, straightened her clothes, and picked up her chopsticks again.

Minamoto Kiyomoto threw away the duck bone, wiped his hands with a towel, stood up, and got off the tatami mat.

“Not eating anymore?” Itomi Sayaka asked.

“It’s delicious, so I’m not eating now. I’ll take a portion back to eat with Miss Kamibayashi,” Minamoto Kiyomoto walked towards the kitchen.

“You really like her, huh.”

“That’s what it’s like to like someone.”

Minamoto Kiyomoto asked the owner for a pot filled with wild duck, tofu, shiitake mushrooms, cabbage, konjac, and so on. All he had to do when he got back was put it on the fire to cook.

When he came out, the two Itomi sisters were still arguing.

“You’re too foolish,” the older sister chided.

“The foolish one is you, sister,” the younger sister retorted without politeness. “How could things go wrong so easily? You joined the Shinto sect on your own accord, and now you’re a wanted criminal, making the family worry.”

After arguing, they started asking about each other’s recent lives, how their father and mother were doing.

Hearing that her father was begging for help every day and her mother’s hair had turned white, Itomi Sayaka fell silent for a long time, drinking one cup of sake after another.

“I’ve let you all down,” she said, her spirits low.

“At this point, there’s no use in blaming anyone. If we have to blame someone, it’s that we care too much about each other as a family.”

As soon as Itomi Yuki finished speaking, Minamoto Kiyomoto and Itomi Sayaka looked at each other and burst out laughing at the same time.

“Is something funny?” Itomi Yuki frowned, looking at the two of them.

“Hahaha!” Itomi Sayaka put her arm around her sister and offered her own sake cup. “Here, Yuki, have a sip.”

“Mmm—” Itomi Yuki pressed her lips together tightly, leaned back, and made a sound of refusal.

“They really are sisters,” Minamoto Kiyomoto clapped his hands and laughed.

After finishing the wild duck sukiyaki and chatting for a long time, the four of them left together.

“Take good care of our parents. If anything happens, remember to find Kiyomoto. Don’t be embarrassed, and don’t be polite with him. The most important thing is not to let yourself be wronged,” Itomi Sayaka instructed at the shop’s entrance.

“I go to school every day. The one who’s in trouble is you, sister,” Itomi Yuki instructed back. “If anything happens, remember to find him too.”

Itomi Sayaka smiled, nodded, and said, “Of course. We sisters will rely on him for the rest of our lives.”

Itomi Yuki looked at Minamoto Kiyomoto, who was standing not far away. He was holding the pot and explaining a spell to Hanyu Chika with a smile.

Hanyu Chika had been refusing with a cold face at first, but now she was occasionally asking questions about her own doubts.

Itomi Sayaka stared at her sister for a while, then leaned in and whispered:

“You can use him, and you can let him take some advantage of you, but don’t fall in love with him.”

Itomi Yuki said irritably, “Neither is—”

Before she could finish, the world suddenly lit up. A golden sun hung in the sky above Kyoto.

Amidst the dying wail of the Storm Yokai, the thick fog and gale melted away like snow.

The four of them looked up and gazed into the distance.

Golden lightning streaked across the sky. An ocean of countless golden particles swayed around a human figure. Black hair flew, and a shrine maiden’s attire rustled.

Countless practitioners surrounded her, using their various colored divine powers to protect some gentle or numerous deep-sea creatures.

She was like a goddess from the heavens, looking down on the mortal world.

Everyone was stunned by the scene before them, trembling at the goddess’s divinity and beauty.

Such a noble goddess glanced in the direction of the four of them.

Minamoto Kiyomoto showed off the wild duck sukiyaki in his hand.

“How wonderful,” Itomi Yuki heard her sister murmur, “to be able to stand in the sun.”

Itomi Yuki looked at Kamibayashi Miko in the golden ocean and felt that her sister was wrong—Kamibayashi Miko herself was the sun.

Itomi Yuki returned to the inn. In the large common room, her classmates were lying around, sleeping.

Outside the window, the wind had stopped and the fog had cleared. It was a normal dark night.

She took her clothes and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

The hot water wet her black hair, clinging to her smooth skin. She recalled this incredible night.

◇

After taking Itomi Yuki back, Minamoto Kiyomoto also returned to the hotel.

“Miss Kamibayashi, supper is here,” he opened the door to Kamibayashi Miko’s room.

Kamibayashi Miko was just coming out of the bathroom, wrapped only in a bath towel, her shoulders bare, her full breasts prominent, her legs slender and snow-white.

“I’m going to wipe my nosebleed,” Minamoto Kiyomoto turned around, wiping his nose as he walked out.

He waited outside for two minutes, then knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Kamibayashi Miko said.

“Pardon the intrusion.”

Kamibayashi Miko had already changed into a yukata with a maple leaf print.

She glanced at the pot in Minamoto Kiyomoto’s hand and said, “I’m not eating. I just took a shower and don’t want to smell like food again.”

“You can always take a shower, but wild duck hot pot by the Kamo River at night is not a common occurrence,” Minamoto Kiyomoto placed the pot on the table by the window and started heating it with his divine power.

“I’m not eating.”

“Come on, I’ll report to you about tonight’s events,” he began to set out bowls and chopsticks, and also took out the sake from the liquor cabinet.

Kamibayashi Miko thought for a moment. Her extraordinary desire for control—over Minamoto Kiyomoto—made her walk over and sit down.

The two of them began to eat leisurely.

“This duck meat is very tender.”

“Mhm.”

“You’re also very tender… Ow, ow, ow! My foot, Miss Kamibayashi, my foot, you’re stepping on me!”

Minamoto Kiyomoto reported on his situation, and Kamibayashi Miko also informed him about the subjugation of the Storm Yokai.

“After this subjugation is over, will I get a reward too?” Minamoto Kiyomoto asked.

“Did you do anything?” Kamibayashi Miko, who was taking a small bite of konjac, lifted her gaze and glanced at him.

“Oh?” Minamoto Kiyomoto laughed. “Does that mean that next time I do something, I’ll get a reward?”

“No,” Kamibayashi Miko said, drinking the Dassai sake that came with the hotel room.

“Why not!”

By dawn, a pile of bones was left on the table.