"How is your body?" Tokiomi looked at Kariya, breaking the silence first.
"I won't die just yet," Kariya replied coldly, though his tone lacked its previous hatred. "At least I can hold on until I see Sakura get married."
Strangely enough, because Kaien Shiba had not disappeared with the vanishing of the Holy Grail, his spiritual power, through a wondrous connection between them, was slowly alleviating the injuries and illnesses within Kariya's body.
Coupled with the healing potions sent by Tokiomi Tohsaka and Asuka using the power of Nugata to purge the residual poison, his body was actually slowly recovering.
However... the half of his face disfigured by the worms had become a permanent mark.
He officially became the head of the Matou Family. The first thing he did was burn down that underground Worm Space filled with sin, declaring the abolition of the Matou Family's Worm Magecraft from then on.
To him, the destruction of the Matou Family's Magecraft did not matter. He decided to spend the rest of his life as a good father, albeit nominally an uncle, to protect Sakura as she grew up and to make up for the trauma of her childhood.
"That is good," Tokiomi nodded. "Regarding Sakura... I am sorry."
He had only recently learned that the Matou Family's inheritance... was actually so cruel...
Kariya turned his head, looking at the man he had once hated to the bone.
He never expected that someone as arrogant as Tokiomi Tohsaka would actually know how to apologize.
"...Rather than apologizing, you should just treat them better from now on."
Kariya turned his head away, no longer looking at him. "If I ever find out that you sacrificed your daughter for some bullshit Magecraft again, I will kill you even if it costs me my life."
"I won't," Tokiomi said, his eyes gentle as he watched Rin running wildly in the distance with Sakura. "Making that kind of mistake once is enough."
Not far away, the laughter of the three girls echoed in the sunlight.
Sakura held Rin's hand, her face beaming with a radiant smile she had never shown before.
Sumire acted like a big sister, protecting them by their side, occasionally turning back to wave at Asuka and Kaien.
Asuka leaned against the railing, watching this scene, and couldn't help but smile.
He knew that during the previous battle, Sumire had awakened her Demon Slayer Mark.
He had also worried whether this would affect Sumire's lifespan...
However, he later learned that in the Taisho era where he once lived, medicine was not yet advanced, and the cause of the Demon Slayer Mark was still unclear.
It turned out to be an extremely special infectious disease, which had already been conquered with the help of modern medicine.
As long as she didn't try to awaken the Demon Slayer Mark for no reason, it would not affect her health.
"I'm coming, I'm coming! Man, the line over there was really long."
Amidst the noise, Haruri walked over from the vendor carrying popcorn and a few hot dogs.
Her face still bore a bit of the pallor of someone recovering from a serious illness, but her mental state was already much better.
Ever since Asuka removed the Amplification Worm from her body, she had completely lost her Magical Energy and Mystic Eyes, but thankfully it wasn't too late, and she was slowly regaining her health.
"Thank you. You've been running around keeping busy, you should rest for a while," Kariya said with some concern as he took the popcorn.
"It's fine! I'm a tough girl who can carry bags of cement! This little illness will be gone in no time!" she laughed heartily.
"Speaking of which, other than Mr. Tokiomi, none of you look like you can communicate with normal people. How could I not step up?"
Asuka chewed his popcorn in silence, lamenting that this was indeed the truth...
"So this is another world," Kaien mumbled indistinctly while biting into a hot dog. "Although this world isn't as rich in spiritual energy as the Soul Society, this feeling isn't too bad."
"Yeah," Asuka nodded. "Not bad at all."
"By the way, do you have any leads on how to get back?" Kaien asked.
"...Not yet."
Actually, it wasn't that he didn't have any, but the black-haired young man had said it wasn't time yet.
He had mentioned the Counter Force of the world again, saying that dealing with it would take some time and telling Asuka to wait patiently.
"So what exactly is the Counter Force of the world? Why is it always coming after you to cause trouble?" he had once asked the other party.
[Because I... Anyway, they just don't like the look of me. They probably think I want to destroy this world, so they keep trying to suppress my awakened state.]
"I get it, I get it."
"By the way, Mr. Asuka, are you really not going to visit old man Ubuyashiki?"
One afternoon, Haruri Kamado suddenly asked while cleaning the house.
In the days since the Holy Grail War, through Asuka's descriptions, they had slowly and shockingly learned of the thrilling legend of demon hunting from decades ago.
Although they knew the Kamado Family's ancestral martial arts had some substance to them, they had always assumed that Asuka, as a ghost, only knew about Breathing Styles because he knew the Kamado ancestors.
They never imagined that he was actually one of the participants, and that the past was such a life-and-death struggle.
"I never expected my husband's family to be such incredible heroes. He hid it from me so well." After hearing the whole story, Haruri shot a complaining glare at her husband's portrait.
Sumire found it even more unbelievable. Her best friend, Akiyama Agatsuma, who slept soundly in the classroom every day—his ancestors actually knew her ancestors long ago!
"Forget it. It's better not to bring up such terrible memories in front of an old man," Asuka politely declined the idea.
Of his comrades from back then, only Kiriya remained today.
Let that story remain sealed away in the dust.
"What are you going to do after you go back? Still going to deliver packages?"
Kaien Shiba asked Asuka lazily while reading the Weekly Shonen Jump in his hands. "By the way, have you read this 'YuYu Hakusho'? It's so cool. I'm not very good at Kido, otherwise I'd want to try imitating this Spirit Gun!"
This world contained things that did not exist in the original World of the Living.
Among them was this manga.
At this time, even Kaien Shiba had never anticipated it.
In a few years, a manga artist named Tite Kubo would publish the world he was familiar with in this very magazine...
"I'll go to the Soul Society first," Asuka said, wiping Nugata. "You're a Captain, you should be able to bring me along, right?"
"Of course, no problem! But I really didn't expect that you and Shinobu came from the same world."
Kaien had completely accepted the fact that Asuka was a visitor from another world, he just hadn't expected there to be more than one like him.
"Also... I really didn't expect Aizen to be that kind of bad guy..."
He put down the manga, his expression solemn. "Don't worry. After we go back, I will definitely find Old Man Yamamoto and tell him exactly what happened to you..."
"No, don't mention anything about me," Asuka suddenly spoke up.
"Just report Aizen's evil deeds. There's no need to mention me."
Kaien Shiba looked at his serious expression, pondered for a long time, and nodded. "...Understood. Being able to cross worlds is indeed a bit outrageous. It's inevitable that you'd be targeted."
"Don't worry, we've been through life and death together now."
"Even if they throw me into the Maggot's Nest, I won't say a single word!"