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Volume 2 Chapter 3 Part 5

His face had already grown fox-like whiskers, and he even grew a tail. From his half opened
mouth, they could even see rows of sharp teeth.

Seeing all of that unfolding in front of their very eyes, the two of them have hugged each other in fear.

Somehow or other, the two had hugged each other in
fear.

「A Yokai! 」

Nagamasa unsheathed his sword from his waist almost immediately after he realized what they were dealing with here.

「P-P-P-P-Prank? D-d-d-don’t tell me that the tea and dango were actually poisoned? 」

「Yshiharu-san… now that you mention it, my stomach… it kind of… hurts… 」

「Me too! S-Somehow… somehow… I don’t feel so good! And my mouth… I can feel some kind of… weird taste in it… ! 」

「Relax, It’s just a harmless prank. I promise that there was no poison involved in it. 」

The fox-Hanbei laughed and stood up.

「It’s just an illusion conjured through my Onmyoudo. What you guys just drank is actually horse piss. As for the miso that the dango were covered with, it’s just horse shit. 」

「*Cough* *Hack!* *GAG!* What the fuck did you just let us drink?! 」

「I have… I have eaten so much of it… Yoshiharu-san, Inuchiyo feels like she should just commit seppuku and die on the spot right now… 」

「Calm down, Inuchiyo. Now is not the time to commit seppuku, but to vomit out all the dangos! 」

「… Such humiliation, how can I live and go back to see Nobuna-sama like that? 」

「Just keep calm and avoid indirect kisses with Nobuna for the time being. That’s the best advice I can give you. 」

「*RETCH!* *HACK!*…. No, it’s no use. I can’t vomit it out. 」

(Good heavens…It’s a good thing I did not eat those dangos… )

The visibly shaken Nagamasa let out a sigh of relief in his heart.

「Hohohoho! 」

「You dare do such a thing to us and laugh!? Now I’m angry! 」

With an unconcerned face, the fox-Hanbei suddenly sneered and licked his lips with his unbelievably long tongue and said,

「Oh? To think that you’d have the audacity to say something like that after you came here to attempt to coerce me into joining you clans, and to make matters worse, now you’re threatening to kill me? Don’t make me laugh. 」

「*Tsk!* 」

「Sagara Yoshiharu, Azai Nagamasa… If the two of you can finish up these shit dangos and beg me to forgive you, then I might still consider leaving the Saito clan and siding with one of you. What do you guys think about my magnanimous offer? 」

Hearing him, Nagamasa started to stutter and mumble to himself:

「Uhm, w-well… hmm… if I eat these dangos, then both Nobuna and Owari will be as good as mine. But I hate miso, and if it is really made out of manure, then that’s really… but wait. Both Miso and horse dung are similar in the way they ferment. So as to say, even though they are rotten, people can still technically eat both of those things. The difference is only the timing of their rotting. If I think of it from such an angle, then they can really be considered one and the same… I, I… hmm… 」

Nagamasa looked at the bunch of shit dango in front of him and started sweating profusely while he was battling with his own thoughts.

Yoshiharu was also thinking while making a lot of retching noises trying to expel everything he has eaten from his stomach.

「Since I have already eaten so much, I’m not going to give up at this point. B…but since I know it’s made of shit now, if I put it into my mouth, it’s going to be all over! 」

So now, who will be the one who agrees to eat these shit dangos for Nobuna’s sake? The ultimate choice awaits!

「Hmph! How can I lose to a simple monkey from Owari?! Here I go! 」

For the sake of his own ambitions, Nagamasa made up his mind and picked up one of the dangos and opened his mouth. However, since Yoshiharu didn’t want to lose to him of all people, he stopped hesitating and followed suit not long after.

「*Tsk*! If I lose here, then Nobuna will end up marrying this bastard. I’m not having that for as long as I live! 」

He just had to throw away his honor as a samurai and his dignity as a man and eat these dangos, since that was the requirement given to them by this idiotic fox-Hanbei. That’s all there is to it.

(Forced to eat shit by his demon and beg for his forgivness, what kind of a man am I!? But.., but…If I don’t do as he says, then Nobuna will…Nobuna will…! Argh! Screw it, I’m going all in!)

Looking at the hesitating Yoshiharu, Inuchiyo gripped her spear tightly and suddenly thrust it towards the demon Hanbei’s chest.

「Hya! 」

*KA-CHAK!*

With a shrill scream, the fox Hanbei was sent flying backwards due to the speed Inuchiyo stabbed him with, and he fell out of the window outside.

「What have you done?! 」

Throwing away the dango in his hand, Nagamasa rushed to the side of the demon Hanbei.

「He…He’s not breathing! You two, I should have known! So your motive was to assassinate Hanbei after all, right!? 」

「No! 」

「I-I-I-I-Inuchiyo, you stabbed someone to death! W-W-What should we do now?! 」

「Our opponent is not a person, but a demon. And no matter how you think of Nobuna-sama, I do not want to see Yoshiharu eat shit-dangos and lower his head to others, even if it’s for Nobuna-sama’s sake. 」

「But…! 」
「…Yoshiharu-san. 」

「What?! 」

「For a samurai, even if you lower your head to someone, you must always be clear about the situation. Even if you lower your head, you should not do it while feeling inferior to the one you’re bowing to, and you should never give up your dignity no matter what. If you break these two principles, then you won’t be able to call yourself a samurai anymore. And just now, you’ve clearly lost yourself in your worries over Nobuna-sama! 」

Inuchiyo was still red in the face, and yet she unleashed a series of unexpectedly long and deep sentences at Yoshiharu, and then she jumped up to the demon Hanbei and delivered yet another thrust of her spear straight into his chest.

「Though what you said is correct, from what I see, you’re just fuming with anger over him deceiving you into eating those shit-covered dangos, right? 」

「No, you’re imagining things. 」

「And just now, you specifically checked if he is dead or not by stabbing him a second time. Just how deep is your hatred for that creature? 」

「You’re thinking about it too much. 」

「But this is a problem… What are we going to do now? We can’t possibly run back to Nobuna now and tell her we disguised ourselves as ronins and ended up killing Takenaka Hanbei because things happened. If we did that, then Nobuna’s reputation would plummet towards the ground in no time. 」

「Oh…. 」

「ThoughI am thankful that I do not need to eat those shit dangos because of you guys, it’s a pity that I had to see everything unfold. That being said, you can be sure that all the provinces of Japan will learn about what you did here today. 」

Nagamasa declared.

「Not good, Inuchiyo! Hurry, try and resuscitate Hanbei! H-Hanbei? Oi, Hanbei! 」

*Poke!* *Poke!* *Poke!*

Yoshiharu tried poking Hanbei a few times, but he wasn’t moving. Just as you’d expect of a corpse.

「No way…He… he is just…just…just faking sleep! Yeah, that has to be it! I mean, how could a powerful Onmyouji like him died so easily? 」

「…Fox… faking sleep… truly a master plan… hehehehe… 」

「Now is not the time to laugh!「

「Yoshiharu-san, you should run away with Inuchiyo. How about going to Kyoto? We could make a living by doing a back and forth comedy routine shows. 」

「How naive! You are underestimating Kyoto’s comedy routine shows! It’s still 10 years too early for that! 」

「T-Than w-what… what should we do now? 」

Inuchiyo and Yoshiharu hugged each other and sat down in a daze. Nagamasa, who was so full of himself just moments ago also started to panic while saying to himself:

「No, if this goes on, I will be counted as one of the culprits who assassinated Hanbei! 」

But just when the trio regained their senses, the corpse of fox-Hanbei in front of them disappeared like a mirage, as if it was never there to begin with.