Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kokushibo Tsukiguni was prepared for almost everything. What hadn’t he found - kittens and puppies under the door, a small electric shocker, also under the door, sometimes - bags, had lost by someone, and once - even a Buddhist figurine on his window, considering, that he didn't put it there, and was living on the tenth floor, but he had never seen anything like that. And then he managed to praise himself three hundred times for not giving in to the temptation to walk down the street, stopping for the supermarket, but decided to order the delivery and cut through that dark, dirty backstreet to get home! In a box from the old closet, covered with a scrap of the same box, in a practically unconscious state, was sleeping a boy, dressed in some tattered, old-fashioned, gray kimono and with such long hair that he would not be allowed into any school without a haircut, and also clutching a real katana, made of some metal, that was incomprehensible at first glance.

His work briefcase simply fell out of his hands, and there was no time to collect the documents from the asphalt!

The boy simply raised his huge, blue eyes at him, sparkling on his thin face like two circles, and lowered his head.

Obviously, he didn’t care, who was in front of him - a maniac, a pedophile or just a passerby, he had already resigned himself to what was happening and quietly was waiting for death, not even expecting, that someone could voluntarily help him.

That day, he managed to thank his boss three times, and this man had been incredibly annoying to him just a couple of hours ago, because he had stayed until ten in the evening that day, forcing him to go home at one in the morning, because if he had left work at the usual time, he would definitely not have been able to get through here!

The briefcase was quickly picked up from the asphalt and, without checking the contents, was shoved under his arm, and than he carefully picked up the completely unresisting boy in his arms, who simply hung his limbs and head and was looking at him with half-glassy eyes, and the reason for this became clear at the same moment, since his hand instantly felt some torn edges, from touching which the child immediately shuddered weakly, and the dark spots of blood on his clothes showed everything.

There was simply no time to figure out, how the wounded child had ended up in the backstreet in such a state. He had never even played sports, but this teenager weighed so little, that he could even feel his ribs through his clothes, and the whole way home he had the feeling, that he was carrying not a teenager, but a seven-year-old kid, especially considering, that he was not even shaking or resisting, but simply hanging in his arms, resting his head on his forearm.

It took five minutes to pull the keys out of the briefcase with his teeth, holding the boy in one hand and the briefcase in the other, and to put it back under his arm as it was and open the door. The ride in the lift, which had seemed fast in the morning, but was now so slow, took another two minutes, plus a minute to open the door. In another two minutes he was already in the apartment, having pulled a clear blanket out of the closet, unfolded it on the couch and laid the still practically motionless boy on it, clutching his katana!

It was a real nightmare. Fuck, as modern youth would say. There was a child, lying on his couch, dressed in 19th century clothes, with a katana, clearly unable to tell anything, and with an open, jagged wound. It was a miracle that he hadn't bled to death back then, in the street! The nearest 24-hour hospital was ten kilometers from his house, and he certainly wouldn't have been able to carry him there, and while he would be calling an ambulance and explaining, what was happening, he could bleed to death, and besides, he didn't have any documents for the boy, he had found him fifteen minutes ago, and the first person, who would be driven to the police station, if he had called the medics, would have been he himself, and while he would be there and proving, that he was not a criminal, someone would have to pay the medical bills, and he seriously doubted, that even if this boy had relatives, they would pay for his treatment! If this child hadn’t received the medical care in the next hour, he would have died from blood loss, fortunately, he knew this from first aid courses, which he had never skipped! But at the same time, these courses hadn’t teach anything except "to tie a tourniquet on a wound and call an ambulance!" But there was nothing to tie, you couldn't tie a tourniquet on a side, and the wound was five centimeters deep!

Somebody says, that sometimes good luck can fall upon you three times in a row.

Luckily - the first time! - in the same entrance with him, on the third floor of the house, lived a surgeon, a very nice, albeit slightly hyperactive guy. Luckily - the second time! - that night he was at home, having taken a day off for the cinema night and decided to spend this evening with a bag of chips in front of the TV, and therefore immediately came to the rescue, as soon as his doorbell rang. Luckily - the third time! - he was always keeping surgical instruments at home, just in case, no matter how many times he was told, that they were not needed outside the hospital and intensive care unit, and were unlikely to be useful. Today they were very useful!

And so Kokushibo was now standing in front of the ironing board, just in case, attached to it
and with the help of the chair as an additional support, and which was already covered with a third blanket, regularly passing all the instruments to Douma, who was still standing in his pajamas, wearing rubber medical gloves and holding a scalpel and a needle in his hands, either scissors, or a cloth, soaked in alcohol, or cotton swabs, while the doctor himself, without anesthesia, was stitching up the wound with surgical threads, and the boy was now slightly trembling and clinging to a plush shark, he didn't even scream, while they moved the scissors, a scalpel and a needle over the open wound!

- I am almost one hundred percent sure, that he was stabbed with exactly this katana! - Douma muttered, quickly glancing towards the blade that remained on the couch - The shape of the wound matches, I've seen so many knife wounds, that I can tell by the depth, what kind of knife was used to stab someone - a vegetable or a meat knife, but this... This is almost certainly a cold weapon with a longer blade, if it were a knight's sword, that the psychopath stole from the museum, he would already be dead, if it were a dagger, the edges would be different, and the shape of the blade almost perfectly matches the katana, especially since there is something to compare it with, he has one with himself! Another thing is that, if he stabbed himself with this katana, it would have only bloody stains on it, but it is clean, which means that he was wounded with another katana... And this is already a cold weapon, and, apparently, illegally put into circulation!

The boy winced and bit his lip for the first time, since he had seen him, clutching the toy tighter, and Douma carefully released the edges of the wound, cut the thread and ran the wet cloth over the edges again. He knew, who had stabbed him... He knew, but he couldn’t say.

- Well, I stitched up the venous vessel, it was just one of the big ones, it's good, that it wasn't an artery, otherwise he would have died right there in the backstreet or right where he had been stabbed, and the small ones don't need stitching now, the bleeding has already stopped, the threads will dissolve on their own. Give me the clamps, we'll stitch up the wound now!

Kokushibo silently handed his friend the several staples, which in other circumstances he would not have called clamps, but would rather have put aside with paper clips, and Douma, having installed them, again began to work, now with alcohol and a needle, while the boy was quietly shuddering, still biting his lips and clutching the shark in his hands. All, that was left, was to bend down to him and carefully stroke his hair, catching in response a look, full of gratitude and some indescribable pain.

- Don't worry, everything will be fine... We will help you, the one, who did this, won’t get you anymore.

- His hair was on the asphalt, in all sorts of things, and you touch my tools! Quickly wash your hands! - Douma's voice, noticing this, was heard over his ear, and there was nothing left to do, but to quickly run to the sink and wash the hands with soap for the second time during this operation at home!

This time it took Douma about half as much time to stitch everything up, he removed the staples from the wound, leaving only a long, white seam, and the boy, sobbing for the first time today, tried to roll over onto his back, but immediately flinched from the pain and groaned for the first time. The doctor immediately ran his hand over his bare side, the ribs of which stuck out like sticks, his old kimono, which Douma didn’t even carefully take off, but simply cut with the household scissors and threw on the floor, had long been lying under his feet like a dirty rag. The smile on his face almost instantly changed to a worried doubt, and he immediately began to carefully move his hands over his stomach, chest, sides, trying not to press very hard…

- Apparently, he has at least three hematomas in the stomach area, but that's just what I felt without a detailed examination, his ribs were broken several times, and one of them healed crookedly, and he has very little time left before anorexia... I wonder, who had brought him to this state, and why haven't social services come to them yet?!

- They will. - Kokushibo promised firmly, the desire to legally pin everyone who was involved in the fact, that a child had almost died in the street increased with every minute.

The boy closed his eyes and for the first time that night, thin streams of tears flowed from his eyes.

- Hey, you should not to cry now... - Douma whispered, leaning towards him - You're dehydrated, if you lose the fluid now, you'll die. Don't cry, no one will let you die here. Kokushibo, we need the water, quickly!

While Douma was washing the blood off the wound, and then took off his gloves and put away his instruments, Tsugikuni himself managed to go to the kitchen and pour a full glass from the teapot, and then took it back to the living room, he and Douma sat the child down on the sofa right along with the shark, and while he was looking for a warm blanket in the closet, the doctor gave him the water. He drank the first glass literally in one gulp, Douma ordered two teaspoons of sugar to be thrown into the second, and as soon, as it melted, he drank the second glass too. The third one the surgeon didn’t allow, and the boy, wrapped in a blanket, was sitting on the sofa, looking at them with round, glassy eyes.

He simply couldn’t ask questions.

- Do you have any porridge, preferably oatmeal? Cook it with milk, he needs to be fed now... Judging by his condition, he last ate about sixteen hours ago!

There was the porridge, and luckily it had been bought only yesterday and had not yet been brewed, and all that was left, was to boil half a bottle of milk, and while it was quietly heating up on the stove, Kokushibo returned to the living room, where Douma was desperately trying to push the kid into talking, but he only looked at him with glassy eyes, silently moving his lips.

How had he even gotten into this backstreet?!

- Thank you... - he suddenly whispered in a surprisingly thin, trembling voice, hugging the shark tighter, and Kokushibo realized, that he would most likely give him this toy on his own. Douma smiled once again, this time not with blood on his hands.

- You're just some kind of fighter... About a day with a wound, beaten before that, and you managed to hold out until the moment, when you were helped! You coped and in the end survived!

- I... I'm not a fighter, I don't want to anymore! - the kid suddenly whispered, tears in his eyes again - I don't want to be a swordsman…

A swordsman?!

The katana on the couch suddenly took on a whole new meaning!

- There are officially no swordsmen in Japan, they were abolished at the beginning of the last century! Did someone who had the same katana hurt you? - Kokushibo whispered, desperately hoping that it wasn't his parents, but just some crazy idiot from the maniacs…

- No... The Demon Slayer Corp... Raises and trains swordsmen, who must kill demons! - he practically shouted, and would have shouted if his voice hadn't been so weak, the full horror was gradually appearing on Douma's face - But demons don't exist..! I know it... I am Tokito Muichiro, the Mist Hashira…

Now he had already curled up into a ball, while tears were still streaming down his cheeks, what was the Hashira, if it's just a child... And what had this had to do with some imaginary demons, which, apparently, were being chased by very real swordsmen…

- So, there is a whole group of such swordsmen with katanas, who are engaged in the extermination of non-existent demons... - Kokushibo whispered, not noticing that he was speaking out loud - But why did they…

- Because I ran away! - the child sobbed, hugging the toy tighter - I ran away... I don't want to die!

Douma was clearly struggling between expressing everything, he thought, in an uncensored language, and not to frighten the child, who was already driven to despair.

Swordsmen with katanas, demons... The extermination of these demons and the attempt to kill this unfortunate child, who, apparently, was simply trying to escape from them! What was happening, was a bit reminiscent of a madhouse, and he would have said exactly that, if this child had not been sitting right in front of him, with a wound and hugging a plush toy... What kind of cultists are these?!

The hissing of milk boiling over from the stove decided the question of what to do next.

Douma stayed with the child in the living room, hugging him by the shoulders and starting to calm him down, and Kokushibo went to save, what was left of his lunch or dinner and brew the oatmeal, to which he added a little fruit just in case. Five minutes later, Muichiro was sitting on the couch, still wrapped in a blanket, and very carefully, with his eyes still betraying his disbelief in his own salvation, was eating the oatmeal, scooping it up with small spoons, and Kokushibo was standing with Douma in the hallway, the cut kimono, which had almost ended up in the trash, quickly migrated from the floor to the noodle delivery box along with the katana as an evidence. There was no need to say anything now, they understood each other very well over fifteen years of living in the same house. It was unknown, what kind of cult this was, and how this child had gotten into it, and most importantly - what these cultists would do, if they found out that they hadn't finished him off, and whether they would come to finish, what they had started!

But it was definitely necessary to sort this out, at least in order to bring the life back to those blue eyes.

- You also don't think that this is some kind of gang of marginalized people? - Douma asked in a whisper, so that the child, who was already in a state of shock, would not hear him - You can't just get a katana, and he even has one!

- It's almost certainly someone more dangerous than simple fanatics... - Kokushibo grumbled, he had already heard about different sects, but this was the first time he saw a person, who had escaped from one, and even more so - brought him home!

Considering that no one has noticed the people with katanas in the center of Tokyo, they at least know how to hide well, but this meant, that they may just decide to hide again, when they would realize, that they have lost this child, and then no one will find them at all, if they were able to get katanas for themselves, then they will definitely be able to escape from under the noses of the police! And then look for the wind in the field, and it was unknown, how many more such children will die on the streets of Tokyo, because even he had just saved him only because by pure chance he decided to cut through that alley!

His own moral standards didn’t allow him to leave this sect alone and pretend, that he had not seen anything and had simply found a homeless boy in the street, disposing of his clothes and katana.

He should have at least tried to cover up at least part of this sect and bring the information about them to the appropriate authorities!

Douma didn’t need to discuss this with him, given his medical principles and character, his consent was clear from one nod of the head.

Fortunately, he had someone to call in this case, classmates, who were oppressed and beaten by the most of the class for excellent grades and a fragile physique with poor health, often became very successful people, he knew this from his own experience. And at that time he was that very only child, who had let the main victim of his own peers out of the closet or locker room, when he had been locked there, had returned his notebooks, that had been stolen from him, had played board games with him, hadn’t hesitated to call the best friend of the class outcast, and still maintained friendly relations with him!

Muzan Kibutsuji was not one of those ministers, who, having received a call at three in the morning, hung up without listening to what the interlocutor wanted to say. After a short story, Kokushibo listened to about three minutes of choice obscenities addressed to the cultists, the one who had stabbed the boy with a katana, everyone who had passed by before, and himself, and then he promised to deal with it from five in the morning, as soon, as his first subordinates were going to work, and ordered not to call any services or an ambulance for now and to keep the boy in the apartment, not letting any neighbors into the house, except for Douma.

Muzan, knowing full well about the importance of conspiracy and the crowd syndrome from his own skin, understood the principle of the sects, and now he was right - kappas usually lived in quiet pools, and one thrown stone would be enough, and their own weapons of self-defense were Douma's two scalpels and a frying pan. Kokushibo quietly thanked him and hung up, waited for Douma to run to his apartment for his clothes, phone and some medicine, and then, just in case, locked the door with all three locks that were installed in it.

Muichiro managed to finish his porridge and quietly fall asleep on the couch during this time, and, all that was left, was to leave him under the surgeon's supervision and to try to occupy himself with something useful. Douma himself was asking for time off from his work at this time, deliberately imitating a cold in a hoarse voice and asking for sick leave.

Chapter Text

The next morning the full activity began, and absolutely no one noticed it from the outside, including the curious old lady from the second floor, fortunately, his friend had learned to hide his tracks and hide himself since the second grade. Muzan kept his promise and began to develop this case in such a way that absolutely no news got into the media. Muichiro, who had fallen asleep on his couch, while Douma was on duty next to him with a cup of coffee without milk just in case, woke up at seven in the morning, drank another glass of milk, and then the two of them have been washing him from all the street dirt, in parallel with Douma's lamentations that he should not dare to tear the stitches on the wound. Then his patience snapped, Kokushibo took the scissors and cut off the boy's long hair to his shoulders, since it was simply impossible to untangle it, after which the poor fellow straightened his neck with relief, and then they treated all his bruises and scratches, covering the especially large ones with the plasters.

Muichiro settled down on the same sofa with the same shark, and the surgeon ordered not to disturb him for now, and in the meantime Muzan Kibutsuji was busy with his return to society and searching for his tormentors, first of all involving his direct subordinates in this.

The boy was not in the official register of children under 18 in Tokyo. He was not on the register of all of Japan at all! Such a child did not exist, he had no parents, he was not registered anywhere, was not attached to any hospital, didn't go to school, and he had no documents! All his personal belongings consisted of his underwear, his katana, and that tattered rag, that was still lying in the noodle box, and it still had to be taken to the police station.

Thanks to the connections, a historian-expert on weapons was found, he truly adored all the katanas and other samurai things and held them in his hands all day long in his museum, and he had already promised to conduct a full examination of the blade, if it was brought to him in his hands and even to say, exactly when and by whom it was made, since Muzan forbade him from coming to the apartment, saying that he was the last thing, they needed there!

Kokushibo got a non-limited vacation from his work, moreover, he got the vacations in such a way, that his boss himself called him half an hour later and thanked him for making a significant contribution to the improvement of life in Tokyo, which meant, that Muzan had taken good care of his cover. Douma didn't have to get a day-off - he took a sick leave at his own expense and now he could sit in his apartment all day and not even get a reprimand for it.

Almost immediately, Muzan connected one of his subordinates named Rui, who actually controlled the work of social services, and he quietly managed to make all the documents for guardianship for the bearer in half a day, so that now no police officers could legally take the child from the apartment, even if they showed up with a warrant, and for Douma the doctors from the rapid response team quietly brought the equipment with which he was able to examine the child right at home, and it turned out that he was right about the broken ribs - and what's more, the child was treated, as if they were planning to turn him into a ninja! Muichiro was just shaking, and one thing was clear - he was simply afraid of going to the hospital, and only his own words, that all this was done precisely so that he wouldn't be taken there, kept him from another round of quiet tears.

It seemed, that the boy had managed to become attached to the two of them during that night and now he practically never left his side while he was sitting next to him, his other hand was clutching the plush shark, that had already officially become his property. Asking him to tell him anything now would be simply cruel to him, the boy was silent, and no one tried to get anything out of him, yes, he would have to be interrogated sooner or later, but now he needed a couple of days to at least get used to the fact, that they wouldn’t torture him now and wouldn’t try to hand him over anywhere, and therefore now they were dealing with the matter without his participation - it was enough, that he was sitting in front of them now, trembling, small and alive, and hadn’t died from blood loss in that alley!

At the same time, the case was handed over to law enforcement agencies under a confidentiality stamp, to a mutual friend of theirs, who could be relied upon, and who, with his principles of "either finish off the bastard or die!" will almost certainly not stop, until he see all these fanatics behind the bars in a correctional facility. Akaza was stubborn to the point of impossibility and at the same time did his job perfectly, and therefore now there was simply no other police captain to turn to. His subordinate, Daki, who was responsible in his unit for catching people with a crazy mind, had already managed to start digging in this direction, and Muzan Kibutsuji himself was now sitting in his kitchen, sipping coffee from a mug, in a simple jacket with a tie and his invariable hat.

- This disgrace had been under my nose for who knows how long. The child is fourteen years old, and he doesn’t know how to use a computer! - he grumbled, clearly restraining himself from using foul language and vocabulary, which he had learned from the bullies. Kokushibo knew exactly, what he meant, in the morning they tried to entertain the boy by showing him a couple of movies on the computer, and then an amazing, shocking and terrifying thing came to light - Muichiro simply didn't know, how to work with a computer, and how it worked at all, he had only heard about them from other people!

He did not know how the TV remote worked, had never watched TV, had practically never seen any anime, didn’t know, how to wear the clothes, that were bought for him with the help of Rui, and spent twenty minutes, looking at the sailor suit with interest to make sure, that it was not a woman's, he had not even eaten normal food! Douma forbade feeding him anything, collected all the chocolate in his apartment and took it to his own, so that he wouldn’t dare to give them to Muichiro, giving the boy only a jar of yogurt, but he ate it with incomprehensible pleasure, after which he admitted, that he had never tried anything like this. It turned out, that he hadn't even eaten meat, which explained his terrible thinness!

-I'll kill them, when I find them… - Muzan muttered, and Kokushibo already knew that he wasn't joking - he has never joked in that tone! He especially didn't joke, when it came to children - five years ago his friend became a father of a little daughter, whom he simply doted on and was ready to practically carry in his arms all around the clock, when he was at home, and the cultists clearly hadn't take that point into account.

Fourteen years old! Had they really raise him from birth or had they stolen him, when he was a little older? But then why hadn't anyone look for him?

-This nest, wherever it is, needs to be liquidated immediately, and in such a way, that they don't realize, that we're liquidating them. They almost certainly have firearms or something worse! This child can't be touched for now, but one of you will have to go to Akaza. He still had to question the only witnesses...

Kokushibou exchanged glances with Douma and nodded almost immediately. Akaza didn't particularly like Douma for his artistic embellishments, where they weren't necessary, and it was absolutely impossible to waste time now, especially since someone had to stay with Muichiro, and it would be better, if it was a doctor!

The government number was let through at all traffic lights and in all traffic jams almost instantly, and they reached the police station in thirty minutes.

***

Inside the building there was a full of activity, parallel to the completion of other cases and digging in the archives and in the soda machine, which stood right at the entrance, and in order to get past threw the security post, it was necessary to present your passport, fortunately, the habit of carrying it with you was with him since adolescence, and only then a girl of about twenty, with the inscription "trainee" on her badge, led them further into the hall, into a closed part of the building, where the officers were no longer dealing with applications submitted for signature to the district police officer. Akaza was at his workplace, as usual, with dyed pink hair and in a fighting mood, typical for him at work, letting them in and, as usual, not closing the door to his office.

-Bastards! - he said firstly, clearly not referring to him and Muzan, so he didn't even have to raise an eyebrow. - I just don't understand where exactly they've dug in!

Kokushibou nodded silently and sat down on the chair offered to him, the question was the most important one, since in the twenty-first century Japan was second only to South Korea in the number of facial recognition cameras and the introduction of technology into everyday life. His own day began, when he got up in the morning and turned on the TV to watch the news, and at the same time he received a message from a weather balloon, with a weather forecast, on his phone. In the morning, when he simply walked from his house to the subway, he was passing by at least a hundred cameras on his way, they were at every intersection, and these were only the ones, he has noticed! Every month he renewed his metro pass from the card, and the machine sent the payment data to the bank, and if anyone paid from the card, any cash register, even the one-armed bandit at 7 Eleven, would report, that something was paid for from his account, and it was impossible to even buy something by stealing someone else's card or, even more so, withdraw money from it. The metro had a facial recognition scanner, that saw everyone, everything and everywhere, and twice in front of it somebody stopped traffic violators, who had overdue a fine. He preferred not to even remember the office security system, it was enough to remember just the point "automatic call to the police, when using a blocked pass", it would take about twenty minutes, and that was only to transfer everything. Then he went home on the metro again and could absolutely not to worry about being robbed in an alley - one flicker in front of a camera or going to the nearest store, and the thief would be caught by the cameras. He didn't even calmly close the windows before leaving for work - even if a spiderman were found, that climbed up to the tenth floor, he would be picked up during the descent from the fifth floor by the police or, if he was unlucky and couldn't get down, by the save emergency. Things could be forgotten in a restaurant or in a store - they would be returned through the adminor through the lost and found office. You could calmly take your place in line online and come at the time, assigned to you - no one would chase you away, and at the same time no one would fight for their place if some urgent situation occurred. You could calmly buy any food in the store without worrying, that it was expired - the last time he got poisoned, was only due to his own stupidity, because he hadn’t throw away the product after the expiration date! You could calmly cross the road on a green light, without looking around and even burying your nose in your smartphone - no one would rush like crazy, considering the fines even for jaywalking! You could calmly walk the streets at least twenty-four hours a day, parents calmly sent the first-graders to school alone, knowing that they would get there, having memorized the way, in the store nobody tried to cheat you out of a couple of yen, and at work everyone smiled politely, even if the two of you could not stand each other, it was impossible to disturb the peace of your colleagues. And in Tokyo, in the capital of Japan, it was still possible, that they had seen with their own eyes forty minutes ago.

A fourteen-year-old boy, wounded by a katana, almost died in an backstreet, in Taisho-era clothing and with the same katana, and yet he has claimed, that there was a whole sect of the swordsmen with katanas.

Only his words could explain, what had happened to him, and if he hadn't found him himself, he would have looked at Muzan with the same skeptical look as one of the policemen, who was leading a thirty-five-year-old man down the corridor by the arms!

- The pickpocket. - nodded Akaza, looking at him - They've been waiting for him here for a week, we'll welcome him with open arms! At the same time, we'll see if he's involved in anything else! I hope it's not the mafia, I really don't want to get involved with them right now!

Mudzan nodded silently, and Kokushibo could only mentally agree with him. No matter, how good the law enforcement system was, they didn't need a big showdown with the mafia with multiple skirmishes right now. And the mafiosi were pretty good compared to many bandits - the mafia often had a concept of honor and their own code, that they didn't violate, and the policy of not bothering them was the best for them, considering, that they themselves didn't touch anyone without the reason. But the cultists... That's more serious.

- That's not the mafia. The mafiosi wouldn't talk nonsense about killing demons. They're not obsessed with the Oni, and they don't kill their former members with katanas. And they certainly wouldn't torture a fourteen-year-old child. There's something else going on here. The question is why we didn't know about this until now, and how their system works at all.

The last sentence, given to the tone, in which it was spoken, could easily be translated into the language of orders. "Why is there an organized crime group forging katanas and cutting people with them right under your nose, and what have you done to stop it?!" Akaza silently placed his hand on the table and lowered his head onto his fist, so that the wedding ring on his ring finger, almost unnoticeable against the background of all his numerous tattoos, flashed for a second. Kokushibo had known Akaza's story for five years, partly from him and partly from Muzan, who had introduced them to each other. Unlike him and his friends, Akaza was the one, who had actually suffered from criminals and from the inaction of others - when he was only eighteen, his bride and almost wife and her father had been poisoned by a bastard from the neighboring entrance - jealousy had droven him to a double murder, and although Akaza knew perfectly well about all the threats from him, there had been no other suspects at all, and due to the lack of evidence the police simply had let him go. After that he had entered the police academy, graduating with only one goal - to send as many of these scumbags behind bars, as possible, and all twenty years of his work he has been succeeding in this perfectly, having risen to the head of the central department and earned the reputation of someone, who doesn’t close a case without an arrest, but in his personal life until now there was practically emptiness - Akaza never got married and never started dating anyone - he was never able to forget Koyuki, and although the only memory of her was the wedding ring, which he still refused to take off, he continued to claim, that he simply doesn’t need another woman, no one could replace his dead love, and their loyal friend remained at forty-odd years old without a family, living by work.

But they could be almost sure, that if the case came to Akaza, he would dig it up! After all, he practically didn’t stop, sometimes forgetting about food and sleep, until he brought the criminal to the courtroom!

- Considering the number of cameras on the streets and the fact that it is difficult to lose a child with such an appearance in a crowd, I think, that we can track his movements, if we have access to the entire city network, and then we will know, where he had escaped from or at least where he had come out onto the street from in about a day, but for this I need your permission plus a detailed story from Kokushibo. - he noted directly without any stupid introductions, and Tsukiguni nodded silently. If necessary, he can fill out at least a hundred forms...

- Show me what needs to be signed there, and everything will be...

- I will never do this again, never, it's sheer misery and nonsense!!! - a voice, that was almost too loud, sounded almost right next to his ear, and, turning around, he saw a girl in uniform, with ash-blond hair and with her hands on her hips - It's simply outrageous, what's going on in our healthcare system database!!! I can't even find the city of birth of this boy in the name recognition system! I have to sort all this, including all the birth records of all male children in Tokyo BY HANDS!!! And that's just Tokyo!!! I won't go to Kyoto or Osaka, I'm warning you right now! And at the same time, I still have to answer the calls from five sources, deal with charity, and catch a psycho, who draws himself hugging a pony on the walls of the subway and claims, that he will kill anyone, who says, that he is not married to Rainbow Dash!!! What is going on in the health care system, and who is responsible for this chaos, I wonder?!!

- I will have a conversation with the Minister of Health. - Muzan briefly noted in such a tone that it immediately became clear that the Minister of Health would at least receive a pay cut, and only then the girl looked down and, seeing a white hat, realized who was in front of her... Akaza once again slapped himself on the forehead.

- Daki, calm down already! And we will also figure out his origin, the main thing now is to find these maniacs, then we can find out from the maniacs, where he came from! Put a normal bot on your computer, and it will sort everything for you...

- O, yes, these bots are as dumb as a cork, it once mistaked Haruki and Haruka and sent me to get a boy from the FEMALE GROUP of the kindergarten! I was then very surprised, when instead of a dysfunctional family and a downtrodden son of alcoholics, I found a cute little girl in a pink dress! You can't put anything into these bots, everything has to be sorted manually!!!

Muzan silently cracked his knuckles. From his own experience, Kokushibo knew, that a serious conversation will await the Minister of Information Technology as well.

And the girl finally realized, what was happening practically under her nose...

- Oh, sorry, Muzan-sama, I didn't notice you at first!

His friend could sometimes go unnoticed, since he usually didn't attract any attention, but simply quietly went about his business and eventually drew attention to himself, only when it was really necessary. He had the habit of sitting quietly since elementary school, when it was simply dangerous to show off for him, not counting answering questions in class.

-Nothing matters - he answered shortly, clearly mentally calculating, how much money had been stolen from developing artificial intelligence for police servers, while Akaza meanwhile took out several sheets of paper from another folder on his desk, which lay in a neat half-meter stack, each of which was at least half empty.

-I dug up a little bit in half a day about all the cases related to attacks with bladed weapons, not counting knives, and the statistics are not particularly encouraging - in our precinct alone, in a year, sixteen cases were not solved because there were no leads, not counting one - all the people were beheaded. Considering that such a blow is usually inflicted with a katana, I connected them with each other, but there were no clues at all, not even fingerprints, someone was killed right at home!

Now there was a clue... And if the boy was right about the swordsmen, then most likely, it were them. It is only unclear why he was stabbed in the side, and the victims were beheaded, usually maniacs don’t change their style...

Kokushibo silently looked at the sheets of paper with the description, with the photographs of severed heads, Akaza's words slowly flew past his ears. Bartender... A teacher at school... A simple office worker... A cook in a restaurant and a waiter from the same restaurant... A train driver in the subway... What could these people have in common?

What a terrible sect can engage in serial murders, elevating them to a cult of swordsmen, and kill those, who for some reason decided to leave this cult?

Yesterday, at exactly this time, he was working quietly in his office, and this was happening practically under his nose, in Tokyo.

- Now if we add the story of this boy and finally track him down through the cameras, we'll get to one of these cultists, and then it's just a matter of catching him... Kokushibo, I'll record everything right away, before another uproar starts!

He has already knew, what an uproar was, and Daki just rolled her eyes, judging by the swearing from the next room, the pickpocket didn't want to give a full confession.

A call from Douma, who seemed to have deliberately decided to tell him something incredibly important at the very moment, when Akaza got him paper and a pen, and Muzan was signing the permission to access the entire network of city cameras, made him put off a detailed report in writing for later. Kokushibo took out his smartphone, quickly answered the call and brought the phone to his ear, and suddenly an ice ball seemed to squeeze in his chest.

What if these cultists found them? What if they really decided to break into the apartment?

Or even worse, what if Muichiro's wound opened up? What if he is bleeding out right now?

This child with huge, round, blue eyes, small, fragile and beaten, looking like made from glass, could be dying now, although he promised to protect him...

- Calm down, this is not an emergency! - was the first thing, his friend practically shouted into the phone in his usual, cheerful tone - The kitchen is not on fire, the window is not broken! The guy is safe, he's sitting on the couch, I'm introducing him to Harry Potter, and he's surprised by magic wands! That's not it, I just remembered one thing, that concerns these sectarians, it didn't immediately occur to me!

Muzan looked up from the documents with interest and nodded, and Daki grabbed the back of someone else's chair.

Kokushibou took the phone away from his ear and turned on the speakerphone.

- I have just remembered a friend of mine, who can help to figure out this cult, that's his specialty. He works in a mental hospital! The head doctor! I met him, when he was doing an internship at our hospital, in the psychiatric department, and then he got promoted, now he runs an entire mental hospital as a head doctor, a child prodigy! We correspond with each other from time to time, we have each other's numbers saved, and when he first started working, he once complained to me, that he had found a file on a psycho, who carried a real katana and threatened people with it, and then disappeared God knows where, before he was even taken to the hospital, he also complained, that the file was archived! If I know him, then in five years he has already dug up absolutely the entire archive, or rather, dug it up in three months, and he has at least a few more descriptions of the similar cases! Sectarians, cultists - that's all in the psychiatrists' area, maybe you'll drop by to see him?! How didn't I remember this before?!

Akaza rolled his eyes.

- Because you're a slacker!

- Hey, I can hear everything, actually!

- Both of you stop and get down to your business. - Muzan interrupted both of them abruptly, putting the signed documents aside. - You're like little children... We'll draw up all the statements and deal with this issue, now we've got another case. Douma, thanks for your help, please call this psychiatrist and send to one of us the address, we'll go to his place as soon, as we're done here, there's no point in dragging this out until tomorrow!

Chapter Text

Enmu Naitamiyo had been working in his profession for eight years already. Five of them - as the head doctor of a psychiatric clinic, and three before that - he had worked his way up to this position, and he even got there too quickly in the opinion of conservatives, who had been casting sidelong glances in his direction the first year, and in the second somehow had tried to discredit him in the eyes of the top management, for which they were fired quite quickly in the absence of any evidence against him, but in the presence of a bunch of dirt on them regarding their negligence at work, fortunately, he immediately dug up the archives and all the inappropriate treatment of patients. Yes, he quickly rose too high for someone who was only twenty-five, but at the same time, according to his colleagues from above, who were more experienced than the average bogeyman, he had a simply amazing approach to patients. Enmu almost always worked according to his own method, in which the first place was the attitude towards the client as an equal person, who simply got into a difficult situation, and not as a scum of society, a dangerous psychopath or a vegetable, and always tried first of all to make the process of communication with the psychiatrist comfortable, thanks to which he received the same good attitude towards himself, and often could even talk with anyone he met on everyday topics!

Although he had been told in the first two months, that this was not done, already in the third it had beckme clear, that it was done, since the first discharge from the clinic happened, and after that, if they found fault with him with his approach of "hopes and dreams", then only if it was necessary to once again note, that an upstart should not interfere in the work of the elders.

The theory, the name of which was brazenly plagiarized from Undertale, was working, the position of head doctor was received in the third year after graduating from university, Enmu, ignoring the words, that he looked like, he was not even twenty-five and that he should cut his bob, dyed his hair chestnut-pink, calmly was doing his favorite job and regularly beat off from not entirely humane relatives someone for treatment, or beat off from not entirely generous financiers the money for a new tomograph.

Life was going on as usual, and all communication outside of work was limited to correspondence via the Internet and short conversations with the acquaintances from the same building, until one of his yet former colleagues called him and directly said, that a minister was coming to his clinic, and that it was all because of a katana.

These disturbing cases of attempts to catch the psychos with the cold weapon were laying on the shelf as eight folders and also were laying on the reputation of the institution, and the opportunity to get an explanation was even more relevant, than a meeting with Muzan Kibutsuji himself.

Douma, who had once been his mentor in surgery, supervising him during his internship at the clinic during his studies at the university, was, of course, a joker, but in those six months, that he had been living on psychiatry and surgery, they had managed to become friends, and he would not play a joke on him for nothing, today was not April Fool's Day, he even remembered, how he was complaining to him about these eight folders five years ago, then it was a serious matter!

All that now was left, was to quickly thank him for his concern and for the warning, quickly sweep the pile of paper clips, pens, sheets of paper and other junk, that made up to be the part of his work mess off the table, carefully put everything else in piles and places, water the flower, check, that the coffee machine was working, fortunately, Douma had warned him about the minister's coffee addiction and his poisoning himself with a dangerous alkaloid, quickly inform the heads of departments, that the very important guests were coming, so that there would be not a speck of dust anywhere, check once again, that the most unpredictable of the patients were locked in, personally run through their wards, put on his now familiar robe and return back to the office, pretending that he had not brought anything here to perfection, and that everything was just like that! He even has anaged to get there half an hour before the guest's arrival, apparently something had delayed him after all, and when the guard at the gate let the black car with the government number through without hesitation, all that was left was to check once again that he hadn't accidentally knocked over anything, and go meet him.

Especially since he had something to talk about on this topic!

Muzan Kibutsuji was almost exactly the same as on TV or in the photo on the Internet, the only difference was the color of his skin - he was even paler, than on the screen, and with him was a man with long hair and dark eyes, in a formal suit and clearly more in the mood for a serious conversation, than his boss!

Although he wasn't his boss, friendly relations were revealed even at the stage of their first acquaintance!

- Hello, Kibutsuji Muzan.

- Tsukiguni Kokushibo.

- Naitamiyo Enmu! - He answered briefly, shaking the outstretched hand, and then waving his hand towards the corridor - Please, let's go, I suggest we talk in the office!

Fortunately, the hospital itself didn't have to be rebuilt, and it was possible to simply calmly lead the guests along the light corridors, occasionally turning the corners and skirting the flower pots, and make sure, that none of them wandered in the wrong direction along the way, not every ward could be calmly entered without causing a hysteria in the unfortunate person!

Kokushibo Tsukiguni approached one of these doors, and all, that was left, was to quickly raise his hand and wave it towards the sign "Do not enter!"

- What is this...

- Attacks of panic fear, he was driven to the point of tic, now the symptoms have already been eliminated, but it is better for this guy not to see you with your hairtail. He still sometimes shies away from unfamiliar doctors, and your hair is like a typical yokai's! It’ s Shinto fanatics’ fault!

The only answer was a raised eyebrow, and then Muzan briefly waved his hand forward, clearly not referring to the neurological department ward...

- No, what is this...

- Don't touch me, just don't touch me...

And how did he even dare to come out here?! For this alone, he should be praised, when he visits the ward!

The old man, practically crawling on his knees, simply pressed himself into a corner and desperately covered his face with his hands... Stop staring at him!

- So, let's go around him... - he quickly commanded, now the minister was not in charge, and at the same time he managed to wink at the man, who was scared to death... And then all that was left, was to grab the both of them by the sleeves and drag them away, first around the corner, and then up the stairs, to the second floor!

- Nonsense! - Kokushibo grumbled, finding himself out of earshot. Nothing nonsense!

- This is Hantengu... He's been with us for two years, and in all this time this is the first progress we've made at all - he started leaving the ward, before he didn't want to talk to anyone at all! - Enmu began to explain, before this BF couple started grumbling again - And don't you dare touch him, he's completely harmless, the most, he can do, is to grab the hem of someone’s clothes and ask for a glass of water! Social services pulled him out of a elderly house, that was shut down due to unsanitary conditions, he had nowhere to live, and they were treating him like cattle, he is more afraid of you, than you are of him, he has no relatives, it’s easier to count the abuse he had not endured, than to list, what he had been through, and now we are getting him back on his feet! He needs to do something, he is bored just sitting in the ward, so he walks around the hospital, he doesn’t bother anyone anyway, and all the staff loves him, he can sometimes tell such stories, if you do not push him, it is just amazing, that he met you at all, I warned, you that you would come, I thought, that he would lock himself in as usual!

- Yeah, an amazing favoritism. - Kibutsuji muttered without the slightest hint of delight, but Enmu was not going to allow him to spoil his good mood, he didn’t feel much less the joy of what had happened, and so with the same smile on his face he was dragging the guests to his office until they ran into Suiro, who occasionally was playing his lute in the rest room with the permission of the doctors!

- And they are walking around here calmly with your permission? - His Highness, the Minister, asked again, and all, that was left, was to roll his eyes and remember, where he had put all the material evidence in the form of a data summary. Positive results and reports on the work of the clinic always work on officials!

- Yes, and they also communicate freely with each other, depending on the state of their mental health, they can choose their own leisure time, work or studying, depending of the will, arrange meetings, based on their interests, and communicate with doctors on an equal footing, not counting therapy - they will not get away from it! And we also have a library here, a recreation room, and the basement has been converted into a movie theater, anyway there was just junk, that was needed to be disposed of!

Kibutsuji just kept silent and rolled his eyes, and he didn't wait for a reaction from Tsukiguni, and all he could do, was open the door to his office, let them in and follow them. Muzan moved an extra chair away from his desk, handed it to Kokushibo, stood next to him and quickly glanced at his cabinets. Yea, he could really work with him!

-Let's skip the stupid introductions, we need the cases, related to attacks by unbalanced people with the katanas. - Kibutsuji noted bluntly, and all he could do was slap his forehead. How can you study a cow without knowing the structure of a frog?!

-Sorry, but we can't do without introductions, since I don't understand, what the hell is going on here! - he objected, simultaneously searching the table for the necessary folders, which he had previously managed to get out of the archive and put aside in the general pile of cases - All, that Douma told me, is that someone was stabbed with a katana, that you need to find out, who else was stabbed, and that there is a motorcade, that is coming to me! Crazy people with katanas - that's my profile, so go ahead, tell me everything you know, otherwise I won't be able to help with anything except eight old folders, that a dinosaur had designed!

And this couple is much harder to anger, than he thought!

- This time, a boy was stabbed with a katana, and he survived, I picked him up in an alley, I just found him by chance, and he said that the cultists, he lived with, tried to kill him. - Kokushibo suddenly began to explain, so the reason for his presence became clear almost instantly!

Cultists..?!

He suddenly lost the desire to joke and swear.

- The only thing, we know about them, is that they seem to be imitating medieval swordsmen, and that they've killed people before. Akaza, my friend from the police, has already managed to find unsolved cases, that are most likely related to them, and Muichiro had a katana with him... This katana is the half of his height, he was already considered as an adult swordsman, and he is fourteen, he is still a child!

Okay, okay, it's not a disaster, it's not a disaster, it's not a disaster, it's not a disaster...

Where is this stupid one?!!

- And they also manage to appear and disappear in such a way, that no one knows where they are hiding, and where they come from, and we don't know how selectively they kill. At least, I don't understand, how a teacher and a cook in a restaurant, who live on the different sides of the city, can be connected.

Okay, that's a disaster!

- Okay, I found it! - he noted triumphantly, pulling eight folders out of the common pile and laying them out in front of Muzan and Kokushibo - I have eight unclosed and even unstarted cases in my archive, because people were noticed, but not taken to the clinic. Formally, they were listed with us, the previous head doctor received deductions for them, but in fact, no one was treated. It was convenient! These are the first seven, and the oldest of them is twenty years old, but the most interesting is this. - he noted, the mystery of these four sheets of paper had long been bothering him - Because there is a photo here.

A slightly faded photo of a young guy with very light, sticking up hair and in some kind of strange jacket was attached with a paper clip to his empty portfolio, in which only one line was filled in - location unknown. Muzan took the photo in his hands with interest and began to examine it, and Kokushibo slowly went through the pages one by one.

- It says here, that he was supposed to enroll, but he didn't...

- Ye, it was a year before my appointment, he really didn't want to be photographed, this photo was literally taken by force. That’s the story of this, when he was caught, he had already committed a murder. - answered Enmu, taking into account the story of his guests, the scale of this mess was becoming more and more clear to him - On the street, early in the morning, practically still at night, in the twilight, he beheaded a man from behind with a sword. According to eyewitnesses, he shouted, that he had killed a demon, and that he would no longer exterminate people, although the murdered man had not been noticed for anything criminal - except that he had a scandal with a girl, when he left her, and she went to hang herself... It would have been better for her to go to a psychotherapist, but he didn’t drive her to suicide, and she and that guy were not connected at all, and moreover, none of her relatives recognized him from this photo later. But he still chopped off his head, wanted to run away - but the witnesses twisted his arms, passers-by reacted surprisingly quickly, and then he calmed down. They called a team of doctors, there was a psychiatrist with them, they arrived, and they even put him in a car, but didn’t take him here! It happened in the suburbs, and in the city, in the first traffic jam, he jumped out at a traffic light, so they could not catch him, dove into the crowd, and that's all, try to remember his name! And all these six years no one has seen him, here he seems to be almost a child, but I am not sure of the exact age, now he is already an adult, and it is unknown, where he is still walking, if I knew, I would like to place him in an appropriate institution, but the problem is that no one is even looking for him!

Because looking for one maniac, when there are a bunch of others, who are already sitting in mental hospitals, and on whom there is nothing at all, is too much trouble, and takes a lot of time, and someone still needs to do a bunch of other things! The last sentence could have been left unsaid.

- Yeah... It looks like I'll be talking to more than just the Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance. - Muzan drawled, putting the photo on the table. - So do you know what kind of sect this is?

- Not yet, but my first hypothesis is a very narrow circle of people, who are closely connected to each other and clearly related to Shintoism, they usually call everybody around them the yokais, but there is a little “but”. - the head doctor answered, sitting down in his chair. - Religious fanatics usually don’t use violence against anyone, because murder, according to Buddhism, is one of the worst crimes, that can be committed, I know this because my own patients have explained it to me more than once, and they don't even eat meat products so as not to become accomplices. I'm serious, the man, whose ward Kokushibo tried to break in, hadn’t put any meat in his mouth for four years. In the end - hello, the hospital department of intensive care, how glad I am, that we’ve met, I've been striving for you all this time! That's where we took him from after he was stabilized, because he was afraid of doctors, but he wouldn't have attacked anyone with a knife, because he told me this all himself, and I believe him, their code forbids killing even animals. And these guys, who clearly took something from Shintoism, are walking around the city with katanas and cut off heads, which means that they most likely have their own cult, in which God knows what is mixed with God knows what, and this in turn means, that they are extremely dangerous, much more dangerous, than the simple maniacs. Another assumption is that this is just a mafia, which has its own code of honor, and a demon is just a code word, katanas are a style of murder, but then, on the other hand, why not to take a more convenient weapon, for example, a banal pistol gun? I bet more on the first version, especially since a boy was involved in murdering... Kokushibo, how old is he?

- Fourteen! - Tsukiguni drawled, clearly almost shuddering - But by his appearance you wouldn't give him even twelve, he weighs like a seven-year-old child, and he also doesn't know, how to use modern technology, what modern food tastes like, he's afraid of doctors...

Yeah, super…

- This only confirms the first version... Listen, this katana club is already getting on my nerves, and I would also take part in it, no matter, what you do with them, especially since the boy needs a psychotherapist! I won't send anyone to you to earn their extra money, I'll do it myself, I have three patients now, not counting Hantengu, and he doesn't need the therapy so much as the time to relax, and I have the time, especially this directly concerns me, because I have eight hospital cards of these cultists!

- Good. - Kibutsuji agreed unexpectedly quickly, so there was no need to use the argument "anyway, if you catch one of the cultists, you'll need a psychiatrist" - Right now all we have on them is the scraps, that Akaza got, the story of this child and this eight half-empty folders, and the boy really needs a psychologist. But it's unlikely, that he'll talk to you, he was even scared of the doctors, who brought to Douma the equipment...

- If I be with him, he'll talk! I'll try to calm him down... - Kokushibo suddenly practically blurted out, almost jumping up from his chair. No family, no children... And it seems, that this chid likely doesn't even have parents.

Well, the problem with the fear of strangers can be gradually solved, and the first step is not to be that scary doctor for him!

- If you manage to find out something about this cult, then that would be ideal, but the problem is that it will clearly only traumatize him even more. A child almost bled to death in the street, dying in some dirty alley! - Muzan muttered under his breath, so it immediately became clear, who here did really has children... And also what he plans to do with those, who allowed this all to happen with their sloppiness at work!

- Don't worry, I can try to talk that way, that he tells me everything, and at the same time he will only feel better, it's called the method of therapeutic conversation. - Enmu answered, collecting the folders on the table - Considering all the circumstances, in which he came to you and your already started vigorous activity, the sooner I do it, the better, but the problem is in that, if he is afraid of doctors, then he is clearly not ready for a visit from a psychotherapist! It's better to play it out, as if I'm not a doctor, but just an acquaintance, a friend, or also participating in the investigation, and I'll just play the role of a neighbor, a social worker, or a police officer in front of him, the last one is even desirable, since it will explain, why I'm asking him such questions. It's better not to frighten him any further today, I can postpone tomorrow's business to different days of the week, and if your friend from the police lends me their uniform, tomorrow I can have my first meeting with him.

Chapter Text

For the first time in five years so much attention was drawn to the two-room apartment on the tenth floor of a very ordinary building, and for the first time Kokushibo was having more than three people in his hall at the same time. There were five in front of him at once, although Daki didn’t have to be here at all, and because of the size of the corridor and the fact, that it was absolutely forbidden to scare Muichiro or attract his attention, the two of the policemen had to be in the kitchen all the time, actually they were needed just him and the other three - Douma was the only one, whom Muichiro trusted, besides him, and no one would dare to throw Muzan out the door!

Enmu stood in front of them with a notebook, a pen, and in police uniform, even with a hastily attached patch with his name, but he looked a little funny in it, mostly because Akaza, having specified the approximate size, brought a standard jacket with a cap, which turned out to be a couple of sizes too big, and hung on the psychiatrist, so he had to tighten it with a belt and button it up all the way, and deliberately pulled the cap down on his head, so that it almost slipped down to the back of his head, and his pale skin from constantly sitting in the clinic didn’t add the impression of a law enforcement officer, but, maybe, he wouldn't scare Muichiro so much...

Muzan forbade to any of his agents, including those ones, who were sent by Rui, doctors or police officers, to approach the house at all, to not to attract attention to him, and therefore, according to the official legend, Kokushibo simply received guests from time to time, fortunately Douma didn't have to leave the building to come to him, and now he was practically living in his apartment, going to his flat only to sleep at night, and Muzan, leaving the car in the nearest parking lot, came to him on foot together with Enmu under the guise of ordinary guests. Akaza and Daki, who brought the clothes, had a harder time, and according to the police captain, he took the girl with him only because she said, that she could help with the disguise and pretend to be his wife, so that at least the neighbors wouldn't find any fault with the strangely increased number of visits today!

Enmu put on his uniform in the bathroom, so that the boy himself wouldn't see him under any circumstances, and then, assessing them with a rather skeptical look, brazenly kicked the both real policemen out, to the kitchen, and noted. that while he is working, he can't not be bothered or even be disturbed by the noise, and was now finishing the preparations, signing the pen and getting into character. At times, everything in Kokushibo's chest still tightened, as soon as he imagined, that he would have to leave this trembling child alone with a psychotherapist, those frightened, blue eyes seemed to appear in front of his own eyes... But he still needed a psychologist, and Enmu will help, not a single complaint had been filed against him yet!

Maybe, on the contrary, he would be able to calm him down better, than him and Douma and help him recover faster and return to normal life, if he had ever lived normally!

- I'm ready, so everyone to the kitchen, the fewer people there are, the better. - the psychiatrist brought him out of his thoughts, looking around at their motley company. - Except for one, who will introduce me to the boy, Kokushibo, either you or Douma!

He didn't even understand, when they all switched to the informal speech, at least him and Muzan, Douma and Akaza were always informal, and Daki clearly knew the etiquette of communication approximately... Douma is a doctor, and if Muichiro knows something about psychotherapy, he can recognize a psychiatrist, who is brought in by a doctor, only because their fields of work overlap. It would be better, if Douma pretends, that he had never seen Enmu, and he himself introduces him.

Kokushibo exchanged glances with his friend and quickly nodded, after which Muzan glanced sideways at the doorway, hinting that it was better not to make any noise at all now, and headed straight to the kitchen, dragging the surgeon along with him, who nodded him with a familiar smile, but with hidden fear in his eyes, Enmu adjusted his cap on his head, and together they headed to his room, which he had practically given up to the boy since the previous evening, especially because he couldn't leave him to live on the couch, and he himself could settle in there quite well with a blanket, especially since him and Douma had gone to bed after midnight yesterday...

Kokushibou knocked on the door just in case and, not hearing a warning cry, pressed the handle, opened it and quietly entered.

Muichiro was sitting on his bed, with his bare feet hanging down, in a new T-shirt and shorts, which were among the ten kilograms of clothes, that Rui had brought him from all the nearby stores the previous morning, and was reading one of the books, he had given him, about some fantastic creatures, hugging the same plush shark with one arm, with which he had fallen asleep in an embrace both nights in his house... Two huge blue eyes were immediately raised to them, he was still mostly silent and afraid to talk to anyone except him and Douma!

- Muichiro, hello...

Why hasn't that psychiatrist said hello yet?

- You know, that we told the police your story, namely that you were stabbed with a katana, and now they are conducting an investigation to deal with these swordsmen. We… I told you yesterday… - Kokushibo whispered, watching the lights of hope light up in those eyes. - Now hey would like to question you too. This is a policeman, he just came to talk to you and ask a few questions, if you don't want to tell him everything, don't, just answer. And one more thing... He asked me to not to be with you. It's only for the investigation!

The boy nodded briefly, putting the book aside and climbing onto the bed with his feet, and Enmu carefully came out from behind his shoulder and sat down next to him, n a same pose, but a meter away. Until now, he hadn't started any conversation, so it was almost unclear to him, how exactly he was going to get him to talk, maybe he just didn't understand anything about psychotherapy, or maybe Enmu was deliberately waiting for him to leave here!

-Hello, I'm Naitomiya Enmu. - the psychiatrist suddenly greeted, putting aside his notebook and holding out his hand.

-Tokito Muichiro. - the boy suddenly answered, already looking him straight in the eyes, this was the second time he introduced himself to someone!

The psychiatrist quickly glanced at the door, turning away from the child for just a second, but that was enough for Kokushibo to understand, that it was time for him to go. He quickly nodded, quietly walked out of the room and just as quietly headed to the kitchen, where Daki was already folding his napkins into origami, Akaza was quietly tapping his fingers on the table, Douma was acting, like he was sitting on pins and needles, and Muzan had already managed to privatize his jar of coffee and was now drinking it without milk from one of the cups.

- Well, how is it? - the surgeon asked first, so he immediately understood - he barely restrained himself from jumping up from his chair, and Kokushibo quietly nodded, sitting down on the empty seat on the edge. Daki was chasing her napkin around the table, and Akaza rolled his eyes.

- Crazy one, what are you waiting for in two minutes?!

- You can expect anything from Emnu, even a confession to murder, he pulled it off in my hospital one time!

- Quiet you two, now all we can do is wait, we can't interfere with the psychiatrist's work, the last thing we need is to scare the boy even more... - Muzan grumbled, stirring sugar in his cup with a spoon - And this is only one child, and if this is a cult, then who knows, how many children there are, who are being killed in the same way, we only found him, and the rest... I'll crash them, when I find them!

Kokushibo had no doubt, that he will crash, Muzan Kibutsuji had been amazingly persistent since their childhood, and now all, that was standing between him and the active actions to find these cultists and select an appropriate punishment for each of them was Enmu's consultation with Muichiro, otherwise his friend would now be in the office, dealing with them, and not sitting in his kitchen, waiting for the results.

Time was dragging on terribly slowly, nothing could be heard, not even screams or crying, but on the other hand - it was good, that they were not heard! - judging by Akaza's watch, about three hours had already passed, Douma's phone, in which he was sitting out of boredom, had long since died, Daki had managed to assemble and disassemble a zoo from all of his napkins, and Muzan had already started on his third cup of coffee, when they finally hear a quiet knock on the door, and soft, almost inaudible steps were heard along the corridor. Enmu entered the kitchen with a completely filled notebook, obviously a little scared and extremely irritated about something, but with two lights in his eyes.

Kokushibou didn't even notice, how he jumped up from his seat and realized this only when he saw, that all four of them were standing.

- In short, this is fucked! - the psychiatrist suddenly spoke out directly, throwing the notebook on the table - The way modern youths speak, fucked, shit and a complete nightmare!!! I can't say anything else about this!

- How about Muichiro?! - he practically blurted out, it couldn't help but concern him...

- Now he's calmed down, I put him to bed, of course, he didn't tell me most of what he went through, but I learned the main things, and that's quite enough! - Enmu grumbled, taking off his cap - Douma, please give him some hot milk and sugar, nothing special will happen here without you, I'll be swearing for the next five minutes anyway!

The surgeon nodded silently and managed to get a bottle of milk from the table through Akaza and Daki, and a cup from the cupboard, while Enmu was leafing through his notes before the beginning. Douma quickly headed to the bedroom, he was clearly more afraid of missing something, than spilling something, Akaza froze, and only Daki slowly tore his napkins into small pieces, the psychiatrist came to the center of the room and, looking only at Muzan, began to explain without any preamble.

- In short, this is not just a sect! This is a cult, a real one, and judging by everything, I've known, this cult is at least a hundred years old!

Mudzan squeezed the handle of the cup so hard, that it almost cracked.

- Anyone, who interrupts, butting in when I am not asking questions, will be send into the corridor, and I won't not continue talking, until the order is restored. - the psycoterapevt warned right away, his position in a mental hospital suddenly made itself known in this way - I allow you to walk, but I don't allow to make noise! ​​In short, is there everyone, who know, what a samurai is, a code of honor, the way of a warrior, and so on? Silence is a sign of consent, these swordsmen are just that - samurai, who had dug in in the center of Tokyo in early twenty-first century! How they ended up here, I don't know, and the child too, but I know, how they hide - officially, none of them, except maybe a few, existing!

Kokushibou froze in the center of the room, that old katana had long been in the police station along with the kimono, which meant, that he really fought with that katana... Or they had forced him, trained him, for some reason teaching him to be a samurai, when the class had been already gone, and then they decided to just kill him, when he tried to escape...

- Accordingly, this entire cult lives purely according to medieval laws, and although they have long been outdated, they don't care, and our child is actually not a child at all! It was a revelation to him, that at fourteen, many people don't even think about choosing a profession, and that childhood actually lasts not until ten, but until eighteen, because at ten a child can be made the head of a clan or sent to a monastery, and at thirteen, married off, moreover, in this cult, this is the age of marriage - this guy actually knows a married couple, in which the husband is fifteen!

Returning Douma slapped his hand on his forehead.

- It would be fine, if they just lived like peasants of the Taisho era, this doesn't particularly scare anyone, live in the forest and do not bother the others, if so, but this is just the tip of the iceberg - they have a thriving cult of murders!

Kokushibo Tsugikuni froze, and Muzan twitched in front of him.

- Yes, murders, because according to their code, the purpose of their life is to fight demons and constantly kill them until they kill you themselves! This is the nonsense, but given to the history, I have roughly figured out, where this nonsense comes from, and now the most interesting part begins! After the time, when the samurai clans were officially dissolved, of course there were those, who were unhappy with this, and who wanted to preserve their way of life and force their descendants to live the same way, and they began actively protesting. These ones turned out to be smarter, they hadn't protest - they had proclaimed, that the Emperor is blind, that he betrayed them, and established for themselves a new status of a secret organization, that has the right to administer justice without taking into account the opinion of an ordinary court! You remember, that earlier the samurai had their own code of honor, and what punishment was imposed for theft, for murder, for violating their code of honor ... This clan didn't accept official measures to combat crime and began to conduct their own - they simply secretly killed all the criminals, they considered guilty, the same awaited those, who did something with their bushido! They clearly decided, that they have the right to lynch and administer justice as they see fit, and that's where the roots of demons come from - demons are people!

Daki whistled quietly, and Akaza clenched his fists.

-You know the stories about youkai, horror stories, mythology, everything related to Shintoism, Kuchisake-onna is from there too? - Enmu asked, flipping through the pages. - So, these fanatics believe, that they all really exist. But at the same time, they don't adhere to the opinion, that youkai exist at all, they call them all Oni - demons, and thanks to mythology, Oni are the creatures from Emi No Kun, that feed on human flesh. The poor child has never eaten any meat in his life at all because of this, if you eat flesh - it means Oni, if Oni - you must be killed! At the same time, they also brought out from their Middle Ages a whole bunch of commandments, that cannot be broken, and from Shintoism - that if you break them, you can become a Yokai, and if Yokai are Oni, and at the same time a bunch of people break their commandments, then it turns out that a bunch of people turned into demons, and they are running around Japan! Two and two equals four! And they know how to kill, they were taught from childhood! And now imagine that in Tokyo there is a group of sectarians, who don't even worship Shinto gods, but build their entire lives on distorted, fanatical laws, that work on the principle of a broken telephone, and which directly state, that in order to be reborn as a human after death and live happily, you need to kill Oni and die in battle, preferably young, and that the people around can turn into monsters, that devour human flesh, and who must be killed! And I'm only talking about the, people who were guilty of eating a hamburger for dinner, I'm not even talking about those, who have disabilities or unusual appearances, Douma is generally an example of what a demon should look like, if you have a strange appearance, then you are actually Oni, but what if someone has a prosthetic leg, or needs urgent surgery?!! Die, but under no circumstances let yourself be cut, otherwise you will turn into Oni, and then wait hundreds of years for forgiveness from INVENTED SHINTO GODS LIKE RYUJIN!!!

Kokushibo froze, involuntarily scrolling through his mind the memory, in which Muichiro, grabbing his hand, desperately shook his head, being afraid to go to the hospital, his fear of doctors suddenly found a very clear explanation, the cultists can put such things into your head, it's no wonder, that he's scared of them...

- I don't understand, why you can't get a treatment, if you're sick, and at the same time you can get the help! - Douma grumbled, rolling his eyes, and immediately got hit on the head by Akaza!

- Shut up! You can't, because your human destiny is to die, and if you go to the hospital, you accept this help from the demons and become a demon yourself, okay?! They are idiots, in their opinion you really need to die and still be happy, that you're going to die...

- And that's not the only trash, that's going on there... - Enmu grumbled, rolling his eyes - Everything that could be brought to the point of absurdity, was brought to the point of absurdity! You can't eat meat - or we'll kill you for becoming Oni! You can't spare an Oni - or you'll become the reason, that he supposedly kills more people, and for that you'll be thrown out of the cult onto the street at best, and most likely, you'll be killed because of the same bushido! You can't quit a fight - you'll violate the code of honor, and you'll be killed! You can't retreat - you'll be killed! If you lose, you can't ask for mercy - they'll kill you again, thank you, Samurai Code of Honor!!! And most importantly, they themselves practically don't resist, and what's more, some of them commit seppuku themselves! You can be executed for literally any shame on your head and even for an unfulfilled promise, moreover, if your relative did something and didn't commit seppuku, then you must commit it, because you will be charged with a crime, that you didn't commit at all!!! If you don't kill yourself, your comrades will kill you, and they will do it with great joy and respect for you, believing that they are helping you! They also have all the attributes of the cult - an emblem, katanas, symbols, ranks of killers and a bunch of mantras that are hammered into their heads practically from childhood! So what we have is a cult of Shinto fanatics, who kill people, they consider demons, are completely uncontrollable, obey no one and live by their medieval laws!

Muzan quietly moved the mug away from the edge of the table, obviously to not to smash it with his fist in a fit of rage.

- And this happened right in front of me... No, under everyone's nose for the last hundred and twenty years!

- Yeah, and this cult of murders is constantly moving into practice - absolutely all members of this organization, who are swordsmen, have killed people! - the psychiatrist said, crossing his arms over his chest, Kokushibo felt himself involuntarily shudder, it was simply impossible, it was a child... - I don't know if this boy killed anybody, but given the rules, according to which they become top-ranking hunters, he killed at least one person. It works like this - they find a person, track him down, send one of their own after him, and then he kills him at night and comes back, and you have to kill him with a katana, by cutting off his head, thank you, samurai, you can't just shoot him! At night, most likely because of secrecy - at first, to explain why they need to hide, administering distorted justice, and then they got used to it and wove it into the cult! They believe, that demons come out under the cover of night, and although, according to the boy, at least sixty percent of them understand, that people are still there in the morning, they all remain silent, this is the phenomenon of the only smart one in the crowd, plus a herd instinct! Everyone understands, but each of them is sure, that he is the only one, and he remains silent! Many of them want to run away and to stop this madness, because they don't want to kill, but they are afraid to run away, because they are sure, that everyone will immediately rush to catch up with them, and here they are right! You know that joke about a herd of pigs heading to a meat-packing fabri, because their leader was driven there, and they keep asking each other - where are we actually being taken?! They are the same pigs, human society is structured in such a way, that seventy percent of people are inclined to only repeat, what they are told or what someone does, and of the remaining thirty percents twenty simply support the boss! These are also natural mechanisms so that monkeys don't fight, the monkey got off the branch, but the instinct remains, and when everyone runs, I run too, simply because it's better not to go against the crowd, so almost no one leaves the organization in all this time, according to him, many of them really believe in this nonsense, and those, who don't believe, just keep quiet and endure. What happens to those, who really leave, you've all already seen - a boy was almost killed by his former friends!

Ducky quietly put her hand to her mouth.

- He tried to give up his place in the organization, give them his katana and leave, but he was accused of siding with the Oni, and the leader, according to him, Ubuyashiki, ordered the Wind Hashira to kill him. And this psychopath, without thinking twice, attacked him! The child ran away, this one - after him, they jumped out of their shelter in some old house, it was five a.m. the morning, there was no one on the street, so he stabbed him with a katana on the run, hit him in the side, the boy miraculously ran away, the sun rose, and the demons, in their opinion, burn in the sun, so the killer decided, that he had completed the task and returned back, and our child ran away. He was literally saved by the sunrise, if not for the sun, he would be caught and definitely killed, it was a fourteen-year-old child against an adult man! After that, he, not knowing where to go and how to navigate in the modern world, just started walking, wherever his eyes looked, and when he had no more strength left, he collapsed in that alley and climbed into the box, just so he wouldn't be lying on the asphalt. If it weren't for Kokushibo-san, he would have died, and no one would have even known about the trash, that is going on there!

- I still don't understand, how this is even possible... - Akaza whispered, while Tsugikuni was quietly coming to his senses, they were trying to kill him, his own teachers were really trying to kill this child! - I understand, the samurai, ideology... But how can people just go and kill on their own, of their own free will, even if they don't understand, what's going on, and then die for it themselves?! It's impossible, practically unnatural, mass, it doesn't happen!

- Do you know about the Jonestown phenomenon? - Enmu suddenly asked again, for the first time today Muzan simply shook his head.

- Jonestown was a colony of cultists in the jungles of South America. - Enmu began to explain in a couple of tones lower, putting away his notebook - It was founded by Jim Jones, who created something like a village, where people was working in their own agriculture, isolated from the rest of the civilized world, and he told to them about his teachings of general equality and mutual assistance for the common good. Sounds good, right? The general morality of our exterminators also sounds very good - saving people and carrying out justice! There was a lot of interest in Jonestown, some journalists finally managed to take out several people from there, and after that they opened the fire on them at the airport, and Jones decided to destroy his entire cult at once, since they were not allowed to live in peace. He simply gathered all his followers together and announced to them, that they need to commit a mass suicide, since their way of life was giving no one peace, and they were no longer be able to save themselves, poison was diluted in a grape drink, and people came up one after another and took it, because they were asked to! First they gave it to their children, then their parents killed themselves, Jones and his company also poisoned themselves. The exact number of corpses is still unknown, only a smaller part of this sect decided to go into the forest instead, and only one woman dared to say, that this was a madness! People just came up and killed themselves one after another, because Jones told them to! This is the Jonestown phenomenon - blindly following orders due to complete falling under someone else's influence, when the person himself fades into the background, not even into the background! This happened for several reasons, firstly, the same crowd syndrome, secondly, the desire of people to be consistent, they were already so brainwashed, that they simply couldn't refuse, because they had done so much together, and so much was done for them, they had to respond to the concession in the form of life in their mini-utopia, and thirdly, Jones simply became such an important person for them, that they simply couldn't refuse to him. An idol, a cult leader - this is all only approximately, the faith of these people in him was so high, that if he had ordered them to drown themselves, they would have drowned themselves - in the end, this was approximately what they did! The head of the cult of the Slayers is the same for them as Jones - or rather, was, because now he is dead long ago, passing everything on to his successor, and this dynasty of heirs carries his ideas, which have already turned into mantras for all the cultists, and in which they now believe themselves - the current Jones of this cult is zombified in the same way, as his subordinates, the root of evil here is the first Jones, who is at best a skeleton, now the only way I see is to catch absolutely all the cultists and treat each one separately. Judging by Muichiro's words, it won't be that hard, most of them simply don't realize, that it's possible to live differently, it's like slowly introducing a person from the forest into society, who has never seen anything, but the thicket, and explaining to them that there are no demons, won't be hard, but there are also some people with serious psychological and even mental problems... Daki, it's not the same thing, I've hear everything! Usually they replenish their ranks with the help of children, left without parents, and this children are taken away, raised from the age of five to seven, maximum - from ten to twelve, when a child can still be instilled with many interesting things, but at the same time he is already able to live without the direct contact with his parents, this, of course, has a negative effect on their psyche, but with proper processing of their traumas, most often associated with the death of loved ones, and working with a psychotherapist, they will be able to normally integrate into modern society. The problem is that, there are those in this cult, who clearly need to see a psychiatrist - nervous tics, heightened sense of touch and smell, sudden attacks of aggression or, on the contrary, hysterics and tears - these are all signs of mental disorders, according to him, the four hashira have exactly them. One has too keen hearing, plus he considers himself a ninja, another is constantly on edge and can suddenly twitch, plus is clearly emotionally unstable, the third sometimes shows incredible cruelty out of the blue, the fourth, on the contrary, cries out of the blue. These four definitely go to my clinic, but the problem is in that I have no idea about all the cultists, a hundred is not enough for them - there are more than one hundred hunters in the organization, and they are the ones, who kill demons, another five hundred people cover them, go on reconnaissance, heal, using medieval methods, raise children or just learn to be hunters. Every year they lose about ten people, but at the same time about the same number join the ranks of hunters, and therefore losses are not particularly important for them. This doesn't count those, who failed their mission, as well as those, who are essentially recruited from the street as scouts, students and cleaners - they are simply NOT COUNTED AT ALL, if one of them dies, they are forgotten, and the mortality rate of fifteen out of twenty children is normal for them! They are not interested in the dead, they are interested in those, who survived, because in their opinion, the dead ones will be reborn with honor very soon, since they died for greater good, in their opinion, and the place for violators of the code and demons is in Yomi No Kun!

Akaza whistled quietly.

- They hide incredibly well, they mostly occupy the houses of those people, who for some reason came to them after adult age, and they have apartments, since there are many old samurai clans among the members, they are happy to give them their dojo and estates, and the most of the bases are generally outside the city, and hidden so that you can't find them with fire during the day, someone lives in a dugout, someone - in the village! The money for all this is often taken by the cleaners from demons, who are often killed right in their homes - demons can be robbed, these are thr treasures, that they honestly took from them, and if it is not a hunter, who does it, then he will not violate the code of honor!

- I can imagine, how many robbery cases someone has missed... - grumbled Douma, almost immediately catching Akaza's sideways glance.

- It's not about robberies, but about how many people they kill, if their losses each year are only ten people, then that means, that the rest are doing their job, and that's if you only count the mission for each, and I'm sure, that they go out to kill more than once a year!

Kokushibou silently clasped his hands together.

Hikikomori, just people living as freelancers and hardly leaving the house, people, running away from debts, from work, just moving, that didn’t end too well, ending up on the street and eventually in a capsule or even a simple hotel due to the lack of money - the huge population in Tokyo alone made it almost impossible to find one individual, and regular disappearances of people have already become commonplace, recently Akaza and Daki even have shut down a company, that specialized in helping people disappear and appear in a new place under a new name, in Japan this has already become some kind of a terrible routine for the low-income population, and if someone disappears, then first of all everything will be written off to one of these reasons, if there is no statement at the police station, then no one will look into it, most likely, the police won't even know about it, without a body a person is considered missing, no body - no case, everything will be carefully cleaned up by cleaners after the swordsman does his job, and hiding the body... There are so many construction sites alone, where it can be filled with concrete, so it will only be found, when the wall is dismantled, and that's not even counting other methods, including the simply "bury it in a temple garden, that no one will dig up out of respect!"

- This is really fucked up, it turns out, that we won't even be able to find out the exact number of victims, because the most of the murders aren't even recorded... - Akaza whispered, Daki had already managed to tear the napkin into small pieces and was now mechanically crumpling them up, Enmu was quickly flipping through the notebook, obviously checking, if he has told everything, of course he knew about the doctor-patient confidentiality, but the child saw all of this, and perhaps even took part in it...

- Muichiro saw all of this? - Kokushibo asked again, and the psychiatrist immediately rolled his eyes, he couldn't help, but now he just wanted to hear the answer, to make sure, that he was right in his terrible suspicions, in the opinion of these cultists, a fourteen-year-old child was already old enough to kill...

- Judging by the emotions, with which he told me this and by all the details, he was present at this personally, and in the role of a fighter, not a cleaner, but I don't know if he personally killed anyone, because we have a presumption of innocence, he didn't tell about it, and he doesn't act like a killer even with one victim, but he definitely managed to see enough and partly because of this he decided to run away, he hasn't told much about himself yet, but in this case, so much the better - this was enough for him, the next consultation should definitely be held at least in a week, when he recovers from this one!

- And does the boy know, how to find these cultists? And what's even more important, how quickly will they run away as soon as they realize, that we are catching them? - Muzan asked bluntly, taking the cup of coffee in his hands again, and Daki once again tore another napkin with a terrible crack. Muichiro went through this and managed to escape almost by accident, and how many more such children also ended up in his place, but simply didn't have the time to leave this cult, were killed, turned into killing machines, or simply died, either during training or during an attempt to kill?!

And considering, how cults usually behave, these cultists will not just run away, but will also desperately resist and will try to at least cut off the heads of the policemen, who will be catching them, yes, the police has the advantage of firearms, but they have so far quite successfully escaped from them without these firearms...

- And where do they get everything, they need for their cult, yes, let's say, that they steal the money for food, but how do they get their swords... - Akaza grumbled, and Enmu froze, having already made two bookmarks in his notebook.

- Okay, that's it, if the questions from the audience are over, I'll answer the most pressing ones, firstly, they're based in different places all over Tokyo, and most often there are no official cultists there, it's just someone, who invited guests to their hut for a while, and hostels don't check documents, there are very few people, there who are over thirty, so you can forget about retirement, and secondly, they also have country bases, and most of these pit-stops are completely unknown to anyone, so question number one - no, the boy doesn't know anything, the only thing he knows, is where one shack office, called the hospital, is, they were keeping him there for some time, where one of the training grounds is, and where their best hunters, like officers - the Hashira, sometimes gather, that's where he escaped from, but they don't often show up there, and considering, that he has escaped during a meeting, most likely now there are only a couple of cleaners and at best one hunter, because this is an abandoned building! Now question number three, where their swords are forged, he doesn't know either, it's a secret, and that's why, they don't reveal it to anyone, all the weapons are brought to them already ready, and where they forge them, the devil knows, it's only clear, that it's outside the city! Question number two, stupid, so I won't explain it for long - naturally they'll run away, and they have already ran away once, the entire organization practically fell apart once, but they put it back together, and this whole circus is headed by a family called Ubuyashiki, Akaza, this is the new job for you, but I personally haven't heard anything about these Ubuyashiki, and that's why we'll have to catch them all at once, along with this family! If at least a couple of the Hashira leave, and he knows them all by name, then everything will start all over again in ten years!

Muzan slowly drummed his fingers on the table.

- Well, that means we'll have to deal with them for a long time... We'll have to cover at least most of them at once, and for that we need to gather them in one place, we'll try to cover at least most of their points, so that they start concentrating in one place... - Akaza muttered, his friend's head was clearly already spinning with some kind of multi-stage plan to catch all these cultists, he already knew that smile and that look very well! - The camera sistem will help... And we also need to close off all the places, where they usually stay, Daki, you have a new job - check at least ninety percent of the hostels in Tokyo and ensure, that they are closed to anyone, who comes without a passport, an official police notice!

- You're kidding me!!! - the blonde girl grumbled, and his napkin holder flew to the floor, and then the girl rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest - I already have to look for information about Muichiro, I have three more criminal cases, and the database was clearly updated by a dinosaur!!!

- You knew, what you were getting into when you went to work in our precinct, and not in a suburban department in a residential area. - the police captain answered, Akaza had clearly long been accustomed to his subordinates making mischief in front of his nose, and it clearly didn't irritate him, on the contrary, he was already smiling, his friend always knew, how to operate with information and apply it to the place, and most likely, he was already preparing an action plan for the next week. But Muichiro...

- Enmu, is he sleeping now? Can I go to him? - he asked directly, while Muzan was writing something on a piece of paper, judging by his friend's face, he was now calculating the approximate details of the plan to catch the cultists, as well as how to do everything quickly and at the same time not scare the civilian population, if necessary, Muzan could bring an armed police squad, a helicopter, and a team of doctors to the scene of the operation, and even completely block off the area of ​​​​the city, in which the operation would take place, but at the same time their battlefield was Tokyo - a huge city, where tens of thousands of people lived, peaceful, not wishing death on anyone and just calmly going to work and school every day... And they definitely shouldn't have been drawn into the conflict, they were already suffering because of the maniacs, who killed them because of their fictitious code, and anyone could get hit, they shouldn't even raise the panic, not to mention the fact, that someone could be taken as a hostage, judging by Enmu's words, some of the people in this organization were quite adequate, which meant, were able to hide behind even the civilian population, so that they don’t get caught...

- No, he’s not sleeping, if he hasn’t fallen asleep yet after the milk, that Douma brought to him. - the psychiatrist answered, taking off his cap while the surgeon thoughtfully tapped his pen on the table - When I left the room, I simply put him to bed, but considering, how much he slept the last two day, he won't fall asleep quickly now, it's better to just let him lie quietly... Calm down, Douma! This means - no Harry Potter with the Voldemort, no irritating, sharp factors that can scare him, no manga from fourteen and up, no anime, no Pokemon with the flashes, nothing at all, that can accidentally scare him, one time, and he will have to be calmed down again, and also - no more doctors in this house, especially in white coats, for him this is already a trigger, I don't know exactly why, but at one time the doctors clearly did at least something bad to him! Douma is quite enough now, the wound on his side is already healing, he can't go to the hospital, we have a surgeon right under our nose, seven floors below, and no more police officers and interrogations, if he tells anything else, then let him do it himself, if he decides to do it himself, he is feeling bad now even without your additional information! Kokushibo, treatment methods - remove irritants, remove harsh and bright shows, remove TV with any noisy, stupid shows too, it is best to show him something documentary, treat the wound according to the doctor's recommendations, spend more time with him and talk to him a lot, hug a lot, tactile contact is desirable! Turn his attention to the advantages of life in a normal society, buy different DIY kits and give him a couple of normal books without any scary and cruel scenes, but not the love stories with drama and stress, take him outside, holding his hand, first for half an hour, then for an hour, then gradually increase the time, and he will get used to it. There is no need to treat him from anything, he has no diseases, he has the psychological trauma after several years of living in a sect, and now the main thing is to just let him feel like a normal, beloved child of the twenty-first century. Then he will come to his senses.

Kokushibo Tsukiguni nodded silently to him, while Enmu was tearing out sheets of paper with recommendations from his notebook, on which were written the short advice, words, or even whole sentences and paragraphs, in a slightly crooked doctor's handwriting. Daki was collecting scraps of napkins from the floor and the table, and Muzan put his scrap of paper with notes in his pocket, while Akaza was quickly writing something on his phone. Douma was still stubbornly breaking his pen, the first time Kokushibo saw his friend so thoughtful, it seemed that he was only in a bad mood a few times, but even then he simply swore and said everything he thought, and this time he was just thoughtfully looking at his own wall, knocking the blunt end of the pen on the table...

- Everything is fine. I just have a feeling that we are in a TV series from the nineties! Fake-samurai, a sect, a group of people of different professions in one kitchen, the minister enters the game… - he drawled, immediately catching Muzan Kibutsuji's eye. - In a good sense in this case, only some kind of Doctor Evil is missing! And we weren't going to get involved in any sects at all... And here's a medieval clan practically right under our noses! Go to him, he's probably waiting for you. You saw, how attached he became to you!

Kokushibou, still seeing the face with two huge, blue circle eyes full of despair and hidden fear before his eyes, nodded quietly and walked out of the kitchen with almost no sound, and then just as quietly headed towards the bedroom, Daki's curses and the quiet negotiations of Muzan and Akaza now practically flying past his ears. Tsugikuni opened the door, and Muichiro, who had been half-lying on the bed and wrapped in a blanket, immediately jumped up, staring at him with the same huge, round eyes... Only this time, those eyes were full of hope!

- Kokushibo!

He had basically just experienced the horror for the second time, and he had only just begun to recede from him...

- I'm sorry... I shouldn't have made you go through this! - he whispered, carefully sitting down on the edge of the bed, and the child almost immediately crawled over to him, sitting next to him and hugging his knees.

- It's okay... It's even better for me! And I think it helped you, too, right?

At fourteen he understood more than many at eighteen... And now huge, round, childish eyes were looking at him, this eyes could have simply gone out in that alley, and they were now sparkling in front of him again with two lights!

He would never let anyone scare, bully, or drive this child to despair, too much had hurt him. Never!

- Yes, it helped... They won't touch you again. We'll take care of you, and I won't ever leave you...

He himself didn't know how to finish this sentence, and so he simply carefully hugged the boy by the shoulders with one arm, and Muichiro immediately let go of his own knees and grabbed him by the house shirt with both hands, pressing himself against him and dangling his legs over the edge of the bed.

- Thank you... - he whispered, and for the first time in three hours Kokushibo felt himself slowly beginning to feel alive.

The huge blue eyes, sparkling with hope and gratitude, looked at him.

Chapter Text

Akaza was sitting at his table, in his familiar, but slightly annoying office with its too gray furnishings, looking through files on the computer and occasionally getting distracted by messages on the phone, He needed to once again tick off the hostel, he had checked, and give Daki the permission to send the patrolmen to the next point. He was less and less pleased with the events, that were happening, even if their successes gradually moved them forward, they in combat revealed additional problems to them.

A bunch of maniacs, killing people with katanas, turned out to be a whole cult of sectarians, who named people the demons and carried out lynchings on them.

They have almost killed the child, whom Kokushibo Tsukiguni had saved, and most likely they will try to finish, what they started.

The cult was a hundred years old, and this all was happening right under their noses!

And most importantly, the cultists clearly had a whole network throughout the city, the katana, according to the examination, was new, it was a maximum of two months old, and it was the network, that he was looking for now.

What was more annoying, was not even the fourth point, but the third one, the thoughts about how many people he could have saved, if he hadn't been blind as a mole, made him clenching his fists, he wanted to hit something, so he had to drive himself away and do his job. Koyuki wouldn't has thanked him, if she had found out, that instead of correcting his own mistake, he was going crazy and smashing his desk.

The wedding ring occasionally gleamed in the light of the lamps.

The only good thing was, that Kokushibo's child was getting more and more used to normal life.

He was still afraid of strangers from the street and shuddered from loud sounds, but he no longer shranked from every rustle and every person, he began to talk to him more and took a lively interest in all, what was happening around him. The child, who had never seen anything older, than the sixties of the last century, watched with interest, how the smart washing machine regulates the supply of powder and water, and how the robotized vacuum cleaner moves across the floor. For the first time he himself put on the electric kettle and helped to cook dinner on the electric stove, which Douma had already managed to comment on several times and thereby drove him crazy, because this moron, with whom he somehow became friends through Kokushibo, had nothing else to do on his sick leave. 

The boy was reading encyclopedias with pleasure and learned to control the TV, looked at brochures, booklets and even the packages of normal food, clearly trying it for the first time. Muichiro happily ate everything that was given to him, or rather, what Douma prescribed him, the surgeon ordered to feed him meat once a day, and he robbed Kokushibo for boxes of minced meat and whole pieces, he really hadn't eaten meat since about birth - Enmu, a psychiatrist from the local hospital, turned out to be surprisingly right, saying, that it was best to feed him with it chopped up, so that the pieces won't look like the whole ones, and soon the boy was already calmly gobbling up the meatballs and vantones for lunch and dinner! And what was not surprising, he liked the taste, because the poor child was almost suffering from anorexia and was just beginning to recover from the wound, which Douma was regularly treating and bandaging. And Kokushibo obviously took the psychiatrist’s words about the boy not being bothered by children’s things too literally and bought some puzzles, books, research and science kits and about a dozen plush toys online, which now took up half of his bed, and which Muichiro was simply delighted with, still regularly hugging his now personal shark!

The child, who was picked up in the alley, had already evicted his friend to the couch, received, without knowing it, a certificate of guardianship and the right to live in this flat from Rui and, it seemed, was just in a couple of steps away from leaving Rui's office with his friend with an adoption certificate!

But he had no time for that dreaming, he still had to put the pickpocket to the prison for three years, check all the flights from Tokyo to the Philippines to finally get the serial burglar from one of them, to finally give Daky an arrest warrant for the Rainbow Dash lover, sign a permit for the collectors to break into one bar for their money and find a cult sect of demon killers in Tokyo!

No, no, no... Yes! No, these are just some Genshin cosplayers, who decided to walk around the city with plastic swords! And what's this?!

One of the cameras on the street, right in front of a small Chinese restaurant, that served nothing better, than cheap seafood, and on the door of which was displayed s kanji simbol instead of a sign, suddenly showed him a theatrical performance, in color, in daylight - a man in a black jacket with a hieroglyph on the back quickly jumped inside.

His professional intuition almost never deceived him.

Well, there was one time, but then he had personally apologized and even had paid that girl a compensationf or arresting an innocent person from his own wallet!

This man almost certainly had a reason to wear a hieroglyph on his back, considering, that it was either anime fans, or Yankees, or the same cultists, and all that was left, was to translate it, since he didn’t know the exact meaning of this kanji! Akaza quickly grabbed a notebook and began to draw, he needed to recite from memory… It was a slightly crooked sign and, having put the last stick, hr took out his phone, photographed the drawing and entered it into the search engine.

He was met by a couple of pathetic pictures in Google.

The advertisement of the tattoo parlor didn't interest him at all, and all that was left, was to quickly click on the remaining picture, and immediately a hieroglyph of the Kanji alphabet from China popped up in front of him, without translation, but only relatively similar to the one, he had managed to draw. And again a failure, he couldn’t send a squad after him and arrest him just because he walks around with some inscription on his jacket!

Wait a minute, Kanji...

Akaza quickly switched the net tabs, opened Google in a new window, entered a few words into the search engine and opened the first link - a detailed dictionary of all Chinese hieroglyphs by sticks, with a breakdown of the spelling, quickly broke the kanji on the paper into syllables and began to flip through the pages, looking for the necessary parts.

Mid...

Tsu...

No..

Mizunoto. A word, that does not exist, but which someone invented, wrote on a jacket, and then went out into the city like that! The inscription, already in katakana, quickly flew into the search engine, in response a character of girlish anime popped up and then a bunch of pictures from Naruto and Pokemon, which were literally everywhere, and wich gave him clearly nothing to do with the man in the jacket, who was not even dressed in a cosplay costume, even geeks wouldn't go out on the street with a simple inscription instead of a bunch of paraphernalia, especially since that anime guy was called Mizuki!

But it looked like a rank designation for a member of some group, and he had already knew, which one.

Gotcha!

All, that was left, was to quickly record the camera number, time, location and person, so that he could then be declared wanted, quickly call the young officer from the hall and seat him in his place, not taking his eyes off this camera, so that he would not miss the moment, when this guy decides to escape, and then quickly go out into the corridor, throw on one of his colleagues, who was quietly gobbling up an extra donut, a skeptical view and send him to work and dial Muzan Kibutsuji's number on the phone.

The prime minister answered in a couple of minutes, first reminding him, that he shouldn't make unnecessary calls, and then heard a story about what had happened in the last five minutes, and who he had just discovered, after which there was silence in the phone for a couple of seconds, and three orders followed - to inform Kokushibo, to begin taking measures and to call Enmu for inspection if one of the cultists will be caught. Akaza quickly hung up the phone and crossed his arms over his chest, figuring out his plan of action for the next few hours.

There is at least one hunter in this restaurant, but the staff may not be involved, and in general, he could have come there to kill, and this fact alone made it necessary to immediately send a patrol there and remove him from there, but on the other hand, if they caught this psycho now, they would stir up a chain reaction of revenge against themselves. If Enmu is right, and they really believe, that people are turning into demons, then the first thing, the head of this cult will do, will be to declare those, who crossed their way, as demons, and than they will go for revenge, and catching one of the hunters is definitely in the list of crossing their way. And after that, they will all have huge problems, okay, this psychiatrist can almost live in his own clinic, and he didn’t have to worry about his own skin, Daki’s brother, it seems, worked as a debt collector, they were a reason of fear of many people, even to the point of reporting to the police, and Muzan, if he wants, can fill his entire house with elite security with armor, but Kokushibo and this moron... He couldn’t send a special protection group to them, under what cover will it hide in the two-rooms flat?!

Kokushibou had picked up Muichiro, who was sentenced to death, in an alley, saved him and this was an interference in the affairs of the sect, and now he was their number one demon.

He dragged in it the demon number two into this - Douma, who was also, firstly, a surgeon in the emergency, resuscitation department, secondly, a heterochromic, and thirdly, a natural blond, which made him simply an ideal target, and no matter how much he annoyed him, he certainly didn't wish him death by katana.

He himself became the demon number three from the moment he took this case and began digging in the archives, and now he practically caught one of them red-handed on the street.

Enmu was the demon number four, since he had also got involved in this case, this time on his own initiative, and now was planning to lull the vigilance of these cultists, send them for treatment, rid them of their nightmares with demons and give them a normal life.

Rui had earned the proud title of the demon number five for two reasons - first, he colored his hair, and second, he was the one, who had started digging up not only the Muichiro case, but also a bunch of missing child cases over the past fifteen years - there were no more due to the database update.

And Daki was now the demon number six, because all this time she was the one helping him due to the pile of social work, that had fallen on her! Great, just great, here you have the main six of Sir Kibutsuji's demonic retinue, no one else, it seems, had been added yet! And that meant, that the first thing, that they will do, is to go after them, and likely they haven't done it yet because they simply didn't know, that the child survived, they will most likely understand this, if they somehow show, that they know something, that they are simply not supposed to know, something, that only a former member of the organization could have told them, and the only one, who had escaped from them and purely theoretically could have survived in recent time, was Muichiro. Immediately after that they will start looking for him and sooner or later they will get to Tsukiguni with this slacker, after which they can simply wait for them in the alley, and Kokushibo wasn't even a professional self-defense specialist, not speaking about Douma!

Nevertheless, this maniac still had to be removed from there, and quickly, before he himself disappears in an unknown direction, and at the same time to figure out, what kind of restaurant this was. Akaza quickly reached the office of the three investigators, one of whom practically lived at work and literally slept at night in his chair, going home only for a few hours, the calculation was justified, and Takeo was sitting in his place, quickly rereading the criminal case about the disappearance of another girl. Sorry, but now you will have more important things to do, your partner will do your job, you are looking for people together anyway!

- Okay, boss! - he answered after his explanation, putting the documents aside - The sixteenth girl already, we need to find this maniac, there is not a single body, but he leaves the hair decorations, we can even collect them... I'll take one of the guys!

Akaza was about to nod briefly, but didn't have time - he heard a desperate scream from the corridor, which could only be made by one person in the entire precinct, so all that was left, was to wince from this screech.

- What do you mean "violation of sanitary standards and rats in their basement?!!"

So, Daki, who has been sorting out all the cases about hostels since morning in order to drive out all suspicious cases without documents, came across something completely out of the ordinary, judging by her screams, it was not a patrol for a serial killer, that should have been sent there, but a sanitary inspection.

Okay, she should stop yelling and distracting other police officers, even if she herself goes to deal with this rat hole, in order to close it, she will still need a conclusion from the sanitary inspectorate, and someone else can do this, and that's not even counting the other hostels, there are probably a huge number of them in the list, and for her, as a person directly involved in the hunt for the cult, there is some more important work!

- Wait a minute. - he noted, Takeo began to collect the papers from the table, putting them in a pile in order. Akaza went out into the corridor, and then headed towards the second office, Daki cursed desperately, filling out a new page of the protocol.

- Well, yu only look, this is already some kind of disgrace, and not just a flophouse! Akaza! Did you see this?! This is not a hostel, but a some kind of den with violations of fire safety rules!!!

- Leave it, Riku will deal with it, you go to catch the Demon Slayers. - he noted, crossing his arms over his chest, his subordinate clearly choked on another scream - One of them was found near a Chinese restaurant, take someone from our inseparable trio and go to the place, we need to pick him up from there.

Yes, we need to pick him up, but in no case, so that the other members of this sect understand, that they are being hunted, otherwise they will at best lie low, and at worst - they themselves will try to counterattack! They have probably already realized, how they screwed up by not checking, what had happened to Muichiro after his escape, and that the boy could have survived, and as soon, as they start hunting them, based on their knowledge of the structure of their organization, they will immediately understand, who exactly told the police this information, and then Kokushibo and Douma, who still have two scalpels and a frying pan as a wearpone, will be the first to come under attack! While there is an opportunity, it is necessary to hide as much as possible, for whom exactly they are hunting and why, but nevertheless, this slayer still needed to be removed from there, at first because he could have come there to kill someone!

- Arrest him for any reason, for anything except suspicion in murder, at least take him in a sobering-up center or as a suspected in a petty hooliganism, the main thing is not to raise a scandal, he shouldn't start to panic! I'll send you a photo of this hero of humanity to your phone, leave this bug-infested place and get busy with the hunter of demon-shifters!

- Okay, captain! - Daki responded, putting the protocol in the desk drawer and taking the revolver. If only she really wouldn't need the revolver. Because if the demon hunter realizes, that he was arrested specifically for murder, and they plan to disperse their entire Devil's Office, he can simply take out a katana and attack the patrol as demons, and then they will have to use weapons to neutralize him. Daki, of course, is experienced in such missions, she has covered criminal gangs several times, but he is armed with a medieval katana, which in the mind of a psychopath can be understood only by a psychiatrist, and for Enmu it is too dangerous to engage in fights with them, and God knows, when he will attack!

Judging by the noise from the corridor, Takeo has already managed to get ready and even call one of his partners, which meant Daki only had to quickly put on her jacket and take the car keys.

- If he manages to leave, at least question the witnesses and try to figure out, why exactly he went there. If he didn't, take him to the police station. We need to catch at least one of them, and if it necessary, hand him over to Enmu, he'll definitely crack him! If we're lucky, then with the help of one adult maniac we'll be able to find out at least a few places, where they are gathering, and then it will be much easier to shut down the whole organization!