Chapter 359: Lucky man.
"Your mother is so fat that when God said; Let there be light, she had to get out of the way." Gintoki repeated what Victor had told him to say with a serious face.
"...." A silence fell over the area.
For several seconds Gyuki thought he was hearing things since reality was too stupid for him to think of anything coherent.
"Pfft."
"..." Eve looked at Roberta, who had the face of someone who wanted to laugh but was holding back.
She shook her head a few times at the older woman's attitude, which appeared childish at times, and looked at Gyuki, who had several veins popping all over his face.
'This is stupid!!' Gintoki was internally freaking out when he saw Gyuki's face.
'How can someone with the title of Count go around playing with these jokes that seemed like they were made by someone in elementary school?'
Looking at this situation that appeared as though a fight would start at any moment, Eve remembered the conversation she had with her Master just a few hours ago before this all started.
"Isn't Master unwise to send a human on such an important mission?" Eve couldn't understand how her Master could so quickly trust someone he'd kidnapped.
"Oh?" Victor turned to Eve and flashed a small, amused smile.
"Are you worried about him?"
Eve narrowed her eyes, "...I'm worried that Master's plan will go awry because of him."
"I'm kidding, hahaha." Victor laughed with an amused smile as he pet Eve's head.
"..." Eve closed her eyes for a few seconds, enjoying Victor's caress.
[Hehehehe~] Alter Eve was making degenerate sounds.
It's only at that moment that she and Alter Eve could agree on something.
"Gintoki. That man…" Victor flashed an amused smile as if something exciting was going to happen.
"..." Eve looked at her Master curiously, looking into his violet eyes that were full of harmless amusement, as she became even more curious.
"The power of that man is more special than you think, you will see an interesting show."
Eve stopped thinking about Victor's words when the man named Gintoki said goodbye lightly to Gyuki.
"Thank you so much for listening to my words. Now... I shall be returning." Gintoki turned around and used his best tactic.
"Nigerundayo!" His job was done, so he had no reason to stay here!
Gyuki appeared in front of Gintoki, and soon several Yōkai began to appear around. This was clearly a trap!
The man was surrounded!
"You think you're going to run away after insulting my mother, you piece of shit!"
"But it wasn't me! I just passed on Alucard's message!" He justified himself!
"Does not matter! He is your Master, and you will pay for your Master's actions!"
"He is not my Master!" When Gintoki was going to explain that he was being paid for it, he listened.
"Kill him!"
"Well, shit."
Several Yōkai of different forms jumped on Gintoki in an attempt to kill him.
The first Yōkai to arrive was a small Yōkai. He had a face like an umbrella. This strange Yōkai started spinning, and sharp needles flew towards Gintoki.
... But all the needles missed Gintoki's body by several inches.
"What?" The umbrella was confused by what he saw.
"AHHHHHHH, what are you doing!?"
"Eh?" The umbrella looked around and saw that its needles had hit its companions.
"What the fuck…?" He, a creature that specialized in this type of attack, just missed his attack on a stationary target! And to make matters worse, he'd hit his teammates!?
He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"..." Gyuki narrowed his eyes when he saw this situation. Looking at the human's confused face and his subordinate's confused face, he was trying to figure out what he was witnessing right now.
"Tsk, that's why we shouldn't leave important things to an inferior Yōkai." A red Yōkai that had a big head spoke, and soon he opened his mouth.
"Die!" Fire came out of his mouth and roared towards Gintoki.
"Whoaaa!" Gintoki screamed in fright, and soon he stumbled across the broken asphalt, miraculously recreating a scene from a popular movie that involved a blue and red pill.
Due to his unstable footing, his center of gravity lowered, causing him to fall backwards, leaning at a 90-degree angle while staying on his feet!
BOOOOOOOM!
"...." An awkward silence fell around them.
Eve and Roberta, who were watching this from afar, couldn't help but gasp in shock.
"What the..." Roberta just couldn't believe what she was seeing. Clearly, the man down there didn't have enhanced physical capabilities. His reaction time, physique, and everything about him were normal, but he managed to dodge as if he were in a movie!
[...Is that what Master meant?] Alter Eve spoke.
[I think so...?] At first, Eve didn't understand why Victor would send a single human against an entire faction of dangerous Yōkai.
And he was a normal human!
But... Now, she could understand a little.
"What are you doing!?"
"Eh?" The Yōkai looked at his companions.
"This is not my fault!"
"I wasn't the one who set the damn fire!"
"Ugh, just kill that human!" Gyuki roared.
"YES!" Everyone spoke and quickly attacked Gintoki, who was still in the same position.
When 5 different Youkai came close to Gintoki.
The man lost strength in his legs and fell to the ground.
And a bizarre sight occurred.
The first Yōkai, which had a blade in its arms and had aimed to sever Gintoki's head, missed due to his sudden fall, causing it to sever its companion's sharp tail. This tail, which was aimed to sweep away at Gintoki's torso, began to spin through the air after having lost its tether, managing to sever the heads of all Yōkai, even the first Yōkai that attacked!
"..." Blood fell around and painted Gintoki red.
"Ugh, that was my only suit..." He was really unlucky. He was going to be poorer than before now! After all, blood didn't come off with simple cleaning products, you know?
It was expensive!
"This is beyond bullshit..." Roberta couldn't help but say as she watched this weird situation.
"Indeed." Eve couldn't help but agree with her friend.
"When should we interfere?" Roberta asked when she saw that more Yōkai began to come out of the gate.
"Master ordered us not to interfere too much." Eve, who was the leader on this side of the mission, spoke up.
"…Eh?"
"By his own words." Eve coughed a little as if adjusting the tone of her voice.
"Let Gintoki handle this situation, only interfere if he's about to die… Which I think is impossible! HAHAHAHA~"
"..." Roberta was really surprised by Eve's performance. For a moment, she really looked like Victor.
"You are very good at that."
"...Cohom." Eve pretended to cough, but this was all an act to hide the smile that threatened to plaster itself on her face.
Roberta flashed a small smile and said, "Let's keep watching." She turned around to look at the situation and realized that, at some point when they were talking, Gintoki had already risen to his feet while patting his clothes. He seemed quite carefree.
Despite being a weak man without any power, none of the powerful Yōkai dared attack this ordinary man. They'd witnessed and experienced too many irrational things in a single day to not understand that this man was not normal.
Nobody who worked for Count Alucard was normal!
"Yes." Eve nodded her head as she looked back at the situation.
...
The battle was getting more violent, Yōkai were dying, the streets were painted with blood...
At least to one side.
When a Yōkai on Haruna's side had their necks cut or their limbs severed, they quickly recovered.
"..." Victor looked at Haruna, who was covered in blood all over, several wounds spread across her body, and a few seconds later, her entire body was healed by a dark power.
This scene was repeated over and over again.
"I can not understand." Victor heard Jeanne's voice.
"What is the strategy of this battle? Why did she back off? Why did the leaders stop fighting each other? This is all a mess, this can't be called a battle anymore."
"... that's where the problem lies, my dear, Jeanne."
'Dear?' Jeanne raised her eyebrow slightly when she heard what Victor said.
"This battle has no strategy. This is just a messy field for a show of force." Victor spoke as his eyes glowed violet. He was quite annoyed with this situation.
He just didn't interfere again because of that woman up there in heaven, that was the only reason.
'Boring. Your subordinates are strong, but they are disorganized. They have no discipline! It's like a bunch of delinquents got together in a group and decided to make war.'
'... Very different from the other side, where they were disciplined but lacked flexibility. They are really the opposite of each other.'
Victor had his own standards, and just like Scathach, his standards were very high. Take his Maids for example.
If the beings didn't have the same standard as his Maids, he would be disappointed.
But he knew that not all beings were the same as his Maids. After all, they carry his blood in their bodies.
As relatives of a Progenitor, they are different from the start.
Kaguya, even though she didn't have his blood running through her veins, she drank his blood whenever she had the opportunity, and because of that, she became quite strong compared to before.
And Victor knew all this... He knew that his Maids were abnormal and that they shouldn't be treated as 'standards'.
But even knowing that, he would like all of his future subordinates to have a decent foundation of strength, discipline, and flexibility.
Balance was the key.
'Tsk.' Victor clicked his tongue as he gripped the ice throne's arm.
Crack, Crack.
The ice throne's armrest broke under his grip, and that's when he heard Ophis's voice:
"Father..." She took his hand.
"...?" Victor looked at Ophis.
"Mother is getting hurt..."
"...." Victor looked at Ophis, confused.
"...But she isn't your mother."
Ophis looked at Haruna, "I know... But... She is my Mother."
"..." Victor understood what Ophis meant.
It's the same thing that happened when he first met the little girl.
Because of her 'feeling', she called him Father.
It was only in the future that he came to find out that this feeling was because they had the same kind of blood running through their veins.
And the little girl understood that he was her father.
The same thing was happening now. When Ophis looked at Haruna, she felt a sense of familiarity.
She knew that Haruna was not her mother, but... She felt that she was like her mother.
Even though she was a mature girl for her age and didn't care what was going on in the streets, she was still only 5 years old.
She would still miss her father and her mother.
And it was those feelings that made her call Victor her father for the first time.
She's just a normal 5 year old girl and abnormal at the same time.
"...Ophis..." Nero wanted to say a few words to Ophis, but she was silent since she felt it was not the right time.
"... What do you want to do?" Victor asked as he stroked her head.
"Help, Mom." Her response was instantaneous.
"..." Victor displayed a gentle little smile when he heard what Ophis said. He really couldn't help the woman directly, it would go against her pride, and Victor knew they were very alike in that aspect.
He would hate like hell if some outsider interfered in the fight he'd planned for so long.
"In a fight like this, what defines victory is not the leader's defeat."
"..." Everyone looked at Shuten.
"It's strength, and it demonstrates that you can be a great leader."
"The Hyakki Yagyō fight is like a bloody recruitment ceremony. Haruna must prove that she is worthy of being a capable leader, and her subordinates must secure her 'victory'."
"She must show she has what it takes to be a 'commander."
"After she defeats the man's subordinates with her own subordinates, she must directly fight the leader of the other Hyakki Yagyō and defeat him in battle."
"By doing so, she will prove two things."
"Who is capable of being a commander for the adversary, and who is strong." Victor continued for Shuten.
"Correct."
"That way, there will be no objections when she becomes the new commander, and the likelihood of someone betraying her in the future will go down to practically zero."
"Only when these conditions are met will the victor 'absorb' the enemy's Hyakki Yagyō into its forces."
"...And I must say she's doing a great job... That woman is a monster."
"Hahahaha, I wanted to fight her."
"Ibaraki..."
"I know." Ibaraki spoke.
"..." Victor was silent when he heard what the two men said. He looked at Genji and saw that the leader of the other group was just giving orders around along with his son. He was controlling his army as his arms and hands.
And that's when he realized that these conditions applied even to the opponent, even the initial fight itself may have been a demonstration of Haruna and Genji themselves...
'She is fighting to recruit her enemy into her ranks. This is a 'cultural' fight, this is a recruitment fight, not a fight to completely annihilate her enemy...'
For the first time in his life, Victor felt lost, as if he were a child who had lost his mother.
He didn't see any way to help Haruna, considering that the very act of helping would be something she would hate.
While Victor was thinking, he suddenly heard Haruna's voice:
"This is enough." The moment she said that her eyes went back to their usual black.
And as if it was anticipated by everyone.
All of Haruna's subordinates retreated close to the portal.
"Retreat-nya!"
"OHHH!" They quickly listened to Kuroka's order.
The woman appeared in the midst of her enemies.
She assumed an Iai-Jutsu pose, her Yōuki exploded like a fire rising to the heavens, she gripped the handle of her Katana tightly, and her power just went up and up.
"Ugh... Just how much Yōuki does she have!?" Shuten, even from afar, could feel the sensation of his skin being pierced by thousands of tiny thorns, imagining how it must feel for anyone who was close to her.
Looking at this position of Haruna, Genji had flashbacks of a man with long black hair and who had nine tails decimating a mountain with a sword technique.
The memory of his old friend.
'Don't tell me... She's even mastered this technique!?' His face darkened, and he ordered.
"Retreat now!" He tried to warn his subordinates, but it was too late.
"Mugetsu."
...
Mugetsu: Spoken poetically, it's something like a moonless sky.