BANG—!!!
Baiye didn't turn.
The instant he sensed movement behind him, he drove an elbow back. Force detonated, reducing the armored, metal-sheened monster to powder.
Then his wrist snapped several times in succession.
Steel pellets flicked out, punching into the walls to either side and killing the spider-like giants clinging there.
As for the tide of insects swarming from all directions—
They collapsed in sheets the moment they entered the one- to two-meter zone around him, crushed by his protective aura.
"That level of skill…" Zouken tapped his cane against the ground, signaling the insects to slow their assault. "I retract what I said earlier.
"If you are willing to ally with me—given what I know of that thing, and my preparations over these years—without implanting Crest Worms, I can guarantee that within one year I can give you the aptitude to practice magecraft."
"No," Baiye refused flatly. "If you mean the thing your three families created a century ago… it's already in my plans."
"So that's it… I see." Zouken nodded.
Then his body dissolved into countless beasts—razor-mouthed, spike-legged, wing-backed creatures whose blade-like wings vibrated at high frequency.
A black cloud descended on Baiye.
They were carnivorous familiars known as Wing Blade Worms—vicious by nature, further bred and optimized over generations. In a swarm, they could strip cattle and sheep to bone in moments.
As the cloud lunged, the other insects joined, attacking without restraint.
And in the corner, one tiny worm—no bigger than a fingernail—bearing Zouken's true consciousness, used the chaos as cover and darted into the underground tunnels.
Zouken was an experienced magus.
From the first exchange—when Baiye's single step killed the probing insects—Zouken understood that in his current state, he could not handle this enemy.
So the first wave (the carefully bred giant war-insects), and even the later "negotiation" followed by a full-scale swarm…
All of it had only one purpose:
To make Baiye believe Zouken had already gone all-out.
In truth, it wasn't far off.
A workshop built atop a node of Fuyuki's leylines, refined over a century since Zouken first settled here.
Tens of thousands of insect familiars for attack, defense, surveillance, and more.
Plus the books Baiye could loot afterward, and the Matou family's mundane assets.
That was basically Zouken's entire foundation as a magus.
Abandoning all of it, he had one real goal:
To make his enemy believe "Matou Zouken" had died in battle—so that he could vanish from the surface into the shadows and wait for a chance to—
Boom!
The ground shattered. The tunnel collapsed.
The sudden strike severed Zouken's thoughts. He twisted back in disbelief.
"Impossible. This is a variant obtained only after raising millions of samples. Even the Clock Tower's detection barriers—"
His words choked off.
Zouken had been confident that this worm—his current vessel—would pass even a stroll through the Clock Tower as nothing more than an ordinary insect.
Against normal magi, it would be invisible.
But the enemy who had cornered him was not a magus at all—
He was a martial master who had honed his art to the pinnacle.
The next second—
A sweep of fist-wind erased Zouken's consciousness completely.
…
"So he just… died?" Baiye murmured.
In the Unity of Heaven and Man state, he could clearly sense it: once that odd worm—running instead of attacking—was destroyed, Zouken's five hundred years of obsession ended right there.
Baiye frowned, looking at the endless stream of insects pouring from holes in walls, floor, and ceiling. At this pace, it would take ten to twenty minutes to clear them all.
He drew a breath, then opened his mouth—
"ROAR!!!!"
A lion's roar of pure shockwave exploded outward.
Within several hundred meters, humans and animals like cats and dogs only felt a buzzing, ringing disorientation—
But every insect in that range, whether Zouken's familiars or natural bugs, dropped dead.
After confirming the results through his heightened perception, Baiye nodded in satisfaction and looked down at the little girl beside him.
"Your new 'grandfather' is dead. What do you want to do now?"
"…?" The girl looked up at him, dazed.
"Don't understand?" Baiye raised a brow. "A big part of why your father sent you here was so you'd inherit the Matou magecraft, right? Bad news—Matou's only magus is lying over there."
He gestured at the worm containing Zouken—its mind erased by his killing intent.
"So. What now? Stay in this 'new home,' or go back to the old one?"
"…I can't go back," she whispered, tears filling her eyes instantly.
"…Right." Baiye nodded.
Even ignoring the fact that her surname had already changed from Tohsaka to Matou by adoption—
Considering that her father had sent her away because her aptitude had exceeded what the Tohsaka could safely keep as a "non-heir"…
Even if Tokiomi considered taking her back now that Zouken was gone—
To keep her from being discovered by the Association, slapped with a "Sealing Designation," and pickled in formalin…
He would eventually send her away again.
"Then stay with the Matou name for now," Baiye said. "Zouken's magecraft is effectively severed, but the name remains. There should be books in the Matou library—Zouken's original lineage, the Makiri line. If you claim to be the Matou successor, no one can challenge it. With the Tohsaka backing you, even if the Association notices your aptitude, they probably won't move openly."
"And what about you, big brother?" the girl asked.
"For about the next year, I'll be around here too," Baiye said, pulling off his glove and showing the mark on the back of his hand. "This appeared after I killed a serial murderer a few years ago. Look familiar?"
"…Yes." She hesitated, then nodded. "Dad—that man—and the disciple he took in two years ago both have something like it."
"Bingo." Baiye re-gloved his hand. "So before this thing officially becomes relevant, I need to prepare too. Conveniently, the Matou library has what I want—that's why I came knocking today."
He paused, crouched, and extended a hand.
"Almost forgot—we never properly introduced ourselves. My name is Baiye."
The girl placed her hand into his.
"My name is Matou Sakura."
-------
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