Burning Down the Toilet Shrine

Bones pierced the air.

Once the paper men were punctured, they fell to the ground one after another.

The onmyoji went down even faster.

One of them still tried to form a hand seal, but the moment he raised his arm, a length of white bone shattered his wrist.

Another was halfway through an incantation when a bone spike pressed against his throat, forcing him to swallow the rest of his words.

The commotion at the entrance did not last long.

The ground was littered with paper men, magical artifacts, broken wooden plaques, and several onmyoji curled up on the floor, already lifeless.

Takeda Koji glanced toward the street.

The police had arrived quickly.

But not quickly enough.

He looked at Zhafu again. At that moment, he felt that Zhafu had finally stopped pretending.

Zhafu was already heading toward the inner hall.

His back neither quickened nor slowed.

After hesitating for half a second, Takeda Koji followed.

He had only one goal now.

To stay alive.

And, while he was at it, figure out what Zhafu was really trying to do.

A row of memorial tablets stood in the inner hall.

The wooden tablets had been scrubbed clean. There was still ash in the incense burner, and freshly replaced offerings sat beside it.

The moment Zhafu entered, he did not even look at them. He merely swept out a hand.

Every memorial tablet fell to the floor.

The wooden plaques struck the boards, their clattering blending into one chaotic din.

Takeda Koji stopped in his tracks.

He instinctively reached down to pick one up.

Just as his hand extended, Zhafu’s voice came from ahead.

“Dare to pick it up, and I’ll cut off both your hands.”

Takeda Koji’s hand froze in midair.

Zhafu turned to look at him.

“So you’ll never be able to hold a sword again.”

The threat itself was not particularly vicious, but it struck straight at the heart.

Takeda Koji shuddered violently. What a cruel blow. His entire skill lay in his hands. If they were cut off, wouldn’t that mean he could never become a great swordsman?!

At the thought, Takeda Koji could not help drawing his hand back.

Looking at the tablets scattered across the floor, he no longer dared to touch them.

Every tablet in Yasukuni Shrine represented a war criminal.

What right did they have to be worshiped here?

Their ashes were kept here as well.

Most of the Class-A war criminals had been executed by the military tribunal.

Some of their ashes had been bought back by Japan through various channels.

Others had died in prison, after which their bodies were sent back and cremated.

So this place did not merely enshrine memorial tablets. It also housed their ashes.

Still, it was easy to see that the site itself was nothing particularly special. Like the nearby Imperial Palace, it was little more than a symbolic mascot of national good fortune.

The Kiku Sect had clearly not invested much effort here.

Zhafu picked up a porcelain urn, glanced at the name written on it, and set it back down.

“You people certainly take your worship seriously.”

Takeda Koji did not respond.

Zhafu knocked the porcelain urn onto the floor.

Crash.

The urn shattered, scattering ashes across the ground.

Takeda Koji’s eyelid twitched.

He wanted to stop him.

But he did not dare move.

Zhafu pushed over a second urn.

Then a third…

His movements were slow.

He was doing it purely to vent his anger.

Zhafu crouched down and picked up a shard of porcelain from the floor.

There was a name on it.

He glanced at it, then tossed it back into the ashes.

“These people should have been put on trial while they were alive. And after they died, you brought them back and worshiped them. Your whole system is disgusting.”

Takeda Koji could not hold back any longer.

“They did it for their country.”

Zhafu turned to look at him.

Takeda Koji did not retreat.

He did not want to retreat.

There were some things he had kept bottled up for far too long.

“You’re Chinese. Why do you Chinese treat us Japanese like this? Weren’t you the ones who attacked us first? We were only trying to help you!”

Very good. One listen was enough to tell that this young man had been thoroughly “corrected” by revisionist history.

Zhafu stared at him for two seconds.

Then he smiled.

The smile was brief.

“When you say that, don’t you feel how absurd it sounds?”

Takeda Koji frowned.

Zhafu stood up and brushed the ashes from his hands.

“Japan hasn’t cut off its internet, has it? You were allies with the Nazis. That much can be looked up. Do you know what ‘alliance’ means? Didn’t your teachers explain it? Or did they explain it and you simply didn’t listen?”

Takeda Koji opened and closed his mouth.

He wanted to argue.

But more than a dozen white bones had already risen around Zhafu.

They had not appeared from thin air.

Every fragment bore the marks of old wounds. Some had jagged breaks, while others were charred.

Zhafu pointed at the bones around him.

“These are the bones of civilians who died at the hands of Japanese soldiers.”

Takeda Koji stared at the bones, his stomach tightening.

He had seen corpses while training with the sword. He had killed people before.

But these bones made him uncomfortable.

Takeda Koji gritted his teeth.

“People die in war.”

Zhafu nodded.

“Yes. People die in war.”

He picked up an oil lamp.

“That’s why being tried after losing the war is perfectly reasonable.”

Takeda Koji had nothing to say.

He could not refute that.

Zhafu turned his head toward the distance. He could sense that stronger opponents were approaching.

And there was more than one of them.

He knocked over the oil lamp.

Flames crawled outward along the wooden tablets and offering paper scattered across the floor.

Takeda Koji’s expression changed.

“Are you insane? Don’t you want to leave Japan alive?”

“That works too.”

Zhafu walked outside. When he reached the doorway, he looked back at him.

“You should leave now, kid. Otherwise, you might die here in a moment.”

Takeda Koji froze.

“Leave?! I’m not leaving!”

“What, you want to watch me die?” Zhafu certainly did not believe Takeda Koji had developed Stockholm syndrome.

Before he could finish, a roar came from outside.

The enemy’s main force had arrived.

Zhafu had already stepped out of the inner hall.

The fire blazed behind him. Smoke rolled upward, and the memorial tablets crackled as they burned.

As expected, this place would probably be reduced to ashes.

Two men stood beneath the torii in the courtyard.

One wore an old-fashioned samurai outfit and had a blade slung over his shoulder, a blade of grass clenched between his teeth.

His clothes had been washed so many times that the fabric had grown coarse, but the sword sheath was impeccably maintained.

The other man wore a suit. His tie was neatly arranged, his leather shoes spotless, and he held a white handkerchief in one hand, using it to wipe his fingertips.

They glanced at the onmyoji on the ground, then at the scraps of paper men, and finally turned their eyes toward Zhafu.

Takeda Koji stood by the doorway without moving forward.

He recognized one of them.

The man in samurai attire was Sakamoto Tenryu of the Sakamoto family, also known as Sakamoto the Sword Saint.

He rarely showed himself, but people in the world of kendo spoke of him with respect.

As for the man in the suit, Takeda Koji had never seen him before.

Yet the way he stood there was even more casual than Sakamoto Tenryu’s.

He looked like a serious badass.

The samurai-clad man spat out the blade of grass.

“Zhafu of Yanhuang Awakening, have you come here to die?”

Zhafu did not respond.

The man in the suit adjusted his tie.

“Why not leave him to me?”

As he spoke, he looked at the samurai-clad man.

“After all, we at Peiluo Jia are paid to handle jobs.”

Zhafu looked at him.

“Peiluo Jia?”

The suited man nodded.

“We handle dirty work. Yanhuang Awakening should have a file on us, right?”

Zhafu thought for a moment, then nodded.

The name Peiluo Jia was indeed a major one: an assassin organization headquartered in Japan that no one had ever been able to locate.

“Yanhuang Awakening’s evaluation is that your fees are high, but your service is excellent.”

The suited man smiled and nodded.

“Unfortunately, we don’t do business in China.”

At that moment, Sakamoto Tenryu spat out the grass in his mouth.

“Enough nonsense. This is not a place you can burn.”

Zhafu glanced back at the inner hall.

The fire was already beyond control.

He gave a serious reply.

“Then you’re too late.”