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At that time, some time after the two Misty Hidden Talents and Toshizo infiltrated the curtain of one of the travellers who seemed to be planning the assassination of Hidekang Nobushiki, in that curtain, the performance of the female kabuki was finally about to begin. And one middle-aged man stood in the front row of the stage, showing the audience a full grin, and proclaiming its opening aloud.
"Hey, guys! Well done. You've gathered! Enjoy the dance!
Talent stared narrowly at the man.
A tense voice that seems to have a high degree of control over its gaze that pays attention to the details around the man. And for a forged body, shining eyes with the flames of Ranlan and Ambition...
Everyone could see at first glance that this man was not a man in line as a sneak, even if it was not the eyes of talent.
Still, Giorzo stared carefully at him because he was stuck in one discomfort.
What is that discomfort...
- He's not a wind demon... then who is he...
That was it.
If asked why Giorzo felt that way, that would be because, if I put it in short, it was attributed to "what Iga and Wind Demon have in common". That is because together they acted "alone," and few of them were good at their ability to lead the population.
In the Kazakaze demon, he was aware that he was tempted to worship the building beam "Kotaro the Kazakaze demon" as "God" if you ask him, and act with absolute loyalty to his instructions and remarks.
Then, if the man who is now behaving lovingly to the audience in front of him asks if he is the one who succeeded Kotaro the Wind Demon, he can assure you that "that's never all there is". Because Talent knows very well about their symbol, "Kotaro the Wind Demon," which is now a deceased, but the Ninjas of Wind Demons do not stop intoxicating.
Because…
Although only temporarily, Misty Hidden Talent Zo was also one of the sneakers fascinated by the wind demon Kotaro...
That was before he was still going to work under Yukimura Maida, that is, when he was still young and worked in training as a sneak. While he was running around the wild mountains, he had accidentally strayed into a place that would be the territory of the wind demons.
Surrounded by more than ten wind demon ninjas, he was captured without the art of becoming. Someone I met inside an abandoned house where I was taken… that was Kotaro the Wind Demon.
As a result, Giorzo was freed on the spot lightly as a "harmless man," but the figure of Kotaro, the wind demon I saw at that time, is still firmly engraved in the back of Giorzo's brain exactly like a baking mark.
The figure is a manifestation of 'fear'.
No, it's more of a symbol of 'mercy'...
The poles burned behind the lid of the talent collection, as if it were a Yin Sun solar diagram.
And it had such a strong suction that "I don't want to leave Kotaro, the wind demon," even the idea that I shouldn't step out.
In fact, at this time, Giorzo has no recollection of when he returned to his home town.
It should be, too, that he had been hypnotized to erase all his memories about the inside of the wind demon, and after the talented master solved the technique, there was nothing left in his head.
Still, he will never forget "Kotaro the Wind Demon".
He continued to have a strong impression not so long ago.
Compared to that figure and the man in front of you right now, it's just the moon and the sooty. At that time, the mean-spirited grin that resembles but does not resemble the demonic charm that the talented boy saw, attracting the heart, can only be described as a "trinket". To the man, Talent even remembered a certain dismay.
- I don't know what I expected...
Talent remembered bewilderment at the slight agitation that sprouted in his mind, which was a great departure from the original purpose of "exploring the seat of the traveller" who came here, but rather, with danger, something that could never be extraneous.
What is the source of that upset...
- Can you see the wind demon Kotaro with this eye again...
was an aspiration.
But he was distracted by it. He finally realized then that he had overlooked the key thing completely. That was that the man's gaze continued to be directed to a point of talent.
- Shit! What I did...
and talent was captured in self-blame, but the man does not distract his gaze from talent, as he shows that it is also something that will not stand later. It was taken from the thread of gaze with adhesion, as if the butterfly had been caught in a spider's nest.
If this happens, if you divert your gaze from yourself, you must be even more suspicious. He intuited that way, desperately pushing and killing the upset, while keeping his gaze off the man.
But...
The desperate resistance of such a talent was to collapse easily at the next moment…
It emanated from the left hand of the stage with a man, from the other side of the right hand, one white boy lowered his hips inconspicuously in the corner of the stage with a whistle.
To the appearance of a boy with that hubris...
The talented eye became swept away.
- Oh, that's... no way...
An obviously astonishing colour floating talent. Look at him like that, a man on the left hand side of the stage with a nitwit and a raised corner of mouth.
Yes...
This man, who is not letting go of his gaze at Jizo now... is Hideaka Takasaka Hideaka, who has the secret destiny of assassinating Hideaka Noboru.
And it's that white boy whose talent keeps turning his gaze...
- Wind Demon Kotaro...
The talented 'hour' has completely stopped at that appearance.
The erased memories that are not supposed to resuscitate strike the head of the talent collection as though it were a big wave. Too abruptly and intensely, the momentum made Giorzo completely drunk.
- Such an idiot...
It is not impossible for the talented man to make a lot of noise.
The fifth generation demon Kotaro, or the man the talented boy had already seen, had his life ended a few years earlier by the Edo Shogun. But is it possible that a person wearing an atmosphere that can also be described as a living copy of it sits in such a way as to hide in the stage?
The palpitations of talent were fast as if they were all clear, and all thoughts had stopped.
If he had neglected to train as a sneak, he might have fainted on the spot. Not so long ago, the unique atmosphere the boy emitted had overwhelmed the others.
- Run, run! Run!
Talented instincts scream so desperately at his cheek of reason, which is still in the midst of confusion.
And with a hazy consciousness, the talent floated his hips to get up fluttered.
But then...
- Gah!!
Suddenly the right hand of the talent was gripped forcefully.
That sharp pain rapidly brought back the consciousness of talent. I created the cause of that pain...
"... we're still in the middle of a dance..."
It was Tenzo.
Those eyes can't even read how far they perceive talent's mood. But you seem to understand that something serious will be happening to him.
But still, his failure to leave this place with him was a decision based on the intuition of Tenzo that he "should not leave this place unnaturally".
"Oh, oh... you did... sorry"
The slightly recovered lack of reason of the talent moved his mouth and trembled his throat, followed by calming his floating hips.
And by closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he regains the work of the five senses to what they are.
"Whoa!! The sharp, pointy, high sounds of the instruments that freshly flaunt the dancers are mixed in a trembling cheer inside the curtain. In it, the sound of a whistle so thin that it's delicate and likely to break is probably played from that boy. But the more I try to distract consciousness from that sound, the more on the contrary the sound relentlessly shivers the tympanic membrane behind my ear independently of my own refusal, something I may call inevitable in a certain sense, that it would simply be due to a person's sad and arguably sexual nature, regardless of his immaturity as a sneak. Still, even if it just became so calmly conceivable, Talent didn't stop thanking Tenzo.
Turn the cold sky hot and humid, the dance goes on -
At this time, he had finally opened his eyes and sidelined the dance, but he was not caught in the charm of its luscious dancers, etc., but he was turning his head to what he should do next and what his people should do from now on.
It came back to the earlier idea of whether to choose between "bury this seat before Hidekang Nojo arrives in Nagahama" or "dive into Hidekang Nojo's offering and focus on protecting his life", so to speak, "attack" or "protect".
But for Talent, the answer was no longer one.
Because right in front of him, that boy keeps whistling with a clear face...
- If that boy is Wind Demon Kotaro... a decent "attack" won't win.
Yes… he knows.
The Wind Demon clan, who brought the demonic power held by Wind Demon Kotaro closer together, united more than Koga Shinobu, to enhance individual power more than Iga Shinobu...
Dedicated Defense...
There is no other way than to make this choice. Yes, he was convinced.
And by the time he so decided on his mind, the kabuki dance had come to an end.
Some guests are throwing a twist at the stage with nasty eyes, losing the dancers' temptation. Trying to sew a gap where such cheer and enthusiasm are boiling in the curtain, the two talented men and the ten secretly go out of it. At that time, it was so unexpected that no one could call me, and I succeeded in walking straight into the city.
………
……
That evening...
The audience also peeled off, and in the curtain of total tranquillity, Hiranuchi Takasaka called out to the boy who was sitting in his guest seat and stargazing at the most stars shining in the dark.
"Hey, Kotaro"
He's a boy called Kotaro, but he keeps looking at the sky as if he didn't react and has a cool smile on his mouth.
Hiranuchi Takasaka smiled bitterly as he put his head to that appearance.
"Well... you're not used to the name Kotaro yet.
Well, good. By the way, why did you show up on stage today?
I didn't want to show the Lord to others... "
Apparently it was an unexpected thing for Hiranuchi Takasaka that this boy showed up on stage with a whistle at the dance of the day. He asked the question. In contrast, the boy replied blushing, looking at the sky.
"The funny one... because I was there..."
"An interesting one? Oh, you mean that guy...
I didn't know what was funny.
Because his face was blue when he was looking at the Lord.
It would no longer feel like a loss of will before we fought. Now, didn't he leave without being able to do anything? "
Regardless, at this time, the boy and Hiranuchi Takasaka are talking about Misty Hidden Talents.
Hiranuchi Takasaka had an intuition that he was "the one who came in our way," but was underestimating about his strength. That means I only think of him as "seeing Kotaro, scared away". The boy on the other side is still looking at the sky with a smile on his face, and he has no idea what the hell he's thinking from the side.
Hiranuchi Takasaka continued to hate silence.
"And if you're up to something...
No, let's not talk about that here. I don't know where or who's listening.
Come on, time to go home. My body also gets cold as it is.
And maybe I'll have to pick up a guest tonight. "
"Guests…"
"Oops. But the Lord does not have to come out.
It's not enough to bother the Lord's hand on purpose.
Soon the 'rat' I let go will fit in when it moves.
Come on, stand up!
Boy rising from a shabby seat.
The sky is completely covered in darkness and the number of stars glowing there is at some point innumerable.
The dry air in the winter is cold, with a stabbing pain in the cheek, Takasaka Hiranuchi accidentally bends his mouth to the letter to. But the boy was walking in an increasingly good mood, not just saying that it was this icy air that was going to get him what he wanted. But he was too far away from the average person to see Takasaka Hiranuchi, and he hurried to the cabin he had set up to sleep in, feeling loving even his appearance.