"Yuto Amakawa has never felt so Stirlitz before." I mean, after a pretentious presentation to the "self-defense forces of a particular branch of the Social Committee," we proudly and mysteriously left... by bus. A great finishing touch, I would say. No, actually, it was possible to take a taxi, but why? All interested parties know where I live. They know, but they don't bother — thanks to the sensor system, I can track it. More precisely, I could, because I have no idea if the sensors would register through the overwhelming field of hastily made concealing amulets for committee members. If the amulets had been properly worked out, they definitely wouldn't have been able to, but this way... There are practically no gaps between the feet of the amulet's owner, the soles of his boots and the road surface — the actual sensor material — which means that if you look from below, there is no protection in the area of the feet. I should check it out, I'll push it to Shizuka... No, on Yu. Damn, after the not very successful tests of Shimomuro's collection of magical ingredients, I didn't give the girl any tasks at all. More precisely, the task was to prepare a place for research and finish it. At least, I made and charged small amulets for her. Even Yu, along with the same snake, helped me figure out the "Mystical House", but here, rather, it was from the series "while I was explaining, I understood myself." And, since our "Magic Director" is idle for now, it will be necessary to load the future headman with something else. As they say, he called himself Gruzd...

While I was thinking and writing down my plans, the bus was slowly crawling from one stop to another. During the day, in the city, except for the center, buses run almost empty, and therefore no one stared at our unnecessarily attention-grabbing trio, except maybe the driver. But that one has convenient cameras in the cabin, and therefore I couldn't detect the process of looking at it. Dofu and I sat opposite each other, and from time to time the spirit of writing asked me various questions about the landscape slowly passing by in a quiet, calm voice. If it weren't for the snow-white robes, pale white skin, and waterfall of snow-white hair, even the most biased gaze wouldn't have seen anything special about the quiet and polite girl...

Ginko, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of the envelope: I don't know how much effort it took for her to behave calmly and confidently in front of the social committee magicians, but now she was having a blast! The only thing that stood between complete happiness and a wolf was a ban on licking my beloved in public and in public places. Ginko compensated for such a heavy loss with double hugs, that is, taking into account the fact that she herself looks about twenty years old, and I am eleven years old, I was naturally squeezed! Moreover, although yokai measured her strength, but human girls of the same complexion were far from her. By the end of the trip, I felt like I had received a three-hour wrestling lesson from the Nanai boys. True, I won't say about the crowd of Nanai girls, but the constant pressing of me into the elastic girlish breasts also did not remain ignored by me and my body, although from the outside everything probably looked very innocent, like the scene "the elder sister walks her beloved younger brother after a year of separation."

As a result, I returned home slightly disheveled and rumpled, a little confused and in a completely non-working mood. It's good that after the memorable story with the Polytechnic and the inspection of the Committee, the teachers overlook my absenteeism for no particular reason: the director brought the appropriate instruction to them. And it's good, because sometimes I just sew myself up, solving my numerous managerial, educational and scientific tasks, for example, I go to the same Polytechnic for public lectures for the benefit of my native school. Hiroe and Yu, in addition to jumping around the "epic action movie", also did a good job on the school press, as a result, Physics and Aircraft Modeling clubs are now reading all sorts of fiction like Sheckley's "Watchbird" and are trying to make inexpensive "air patrol" even cheaper and more versatile than used quadrocopters. I even "persuaded" a couple of students from the Department of Precision Engineering to participate in the development of the "urban aerial drone", ensuring the final strength of the "theory (university) — development (school of two clubs) — experimental area with pilots (Mutual Assistance Unit)" bond. For such help with the graduation topic, the guys sketched out a website for us (or rather, they found someone to strain from the Faculty of Computer Science) to "account for good deeds," to which Yu is now screwing a hand-designed design. And now, in addition to the regular squad members, all their friends, relatives and acquaintances are competing in the set of points for mutual assistance.

"What a wonderful house the Master has! Only a small one." Ginko had managed to run around my city property in just a few minutes and was now twirling around in her chair, waiting for her portion of tea and sweets. After looking at the she-wolf "in her natural environment," I began to guess why she was so impenetrably calm. If you find yourself trapped with such a restless creature, or quickly reach zen... Or you'll just go crazy! Fortunately, the four "principals" did not linger at school today and saved me from the overly close attention of the electrician pretending to be a yokai. Yu and Hiroe saw the "old" Amakawa vassals for the first time today... and I suddenly felt that my habitually empty house was slowly but surely turning into a courtyard, albeit "only for my own people."

"Are you thinking of settling them here too?" Mizuchi asked me softly as she helped prepare the third and last bedroom on the second floor for the guests. Not yet. I don't know what zashiki-varishi can do after sitting alone for a couple of weeks, but he can still get here from Noihara in just a couple of hours. And Ginko has nothing much to do here at all: the city is not the most convenient place for a wolf.

"It makes sense, you know... It's hard for you to be with us, Yuto, isn't it?" The snake suddenly asked.

"With us, is it with yokai? Or are you talking about the "directorate"?" About everyone! I recently remembered how our acquaintance began... It's only been six months, you know. But it seems to me that I've known you for many years, and our camp in the mountains seems like something far away and forgotten... You have brought us all a new life, to all those who followed you. Even Rinko, even Yu. Unbeknownst to everyone, you have become very important and needed, Amakawa Yuto. Don't let anyone push you off the path, and we will support you in everything, Amakawa-dono.

And Mizuchi bowed in a vassal-to-suzerain bow... and straightening up, she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me to her, burying her face in my chest.

"Don't let... us... to lose you... Yuto..." with great difficulty, I could make out individual words.

We stood like that for two minutes, while Shizuka hugged me, and I stroked her head, not even trying to say anything... Fuck, there are no such words... and then we were interrupted by an unusually serious Ginko who silently flew up the stairs: pointed ears stuck out of her hairstyle, enlarged fangs flashed in her mouth.

"Amakawa-dono, there's a faint splash of magic in the city. This is Hinoyonma, she's pretty strong. Fifteen kilometers east-northeast."

"Do you know how to determine the direction of the aura? Just feeling it passively?!" Mizuchi was surprised.

A nod. Ha, but Grandpa's lip is not stupid! Another unique item, no worse than an envelope.

"It's a little early for a Blood Drinker to show up here. None of the spirits know yet that the Tsuchimikados are gone for a long time..." The Goddess of Rivers spoke absently, following me into my room. So, the radio on the patrol channel. Shinji's group is back on schedule. Great!

"Center-A calls the C group. Welcome!"

"In touch."

"There's a weak signal for two hours from my base, about fifteen kilometers away. There is no signal network coverage. How do you understand?"

"Got it!"

"The target is presumably Hinoyonma, be careful. Don't take off your disguise. Be ready to fight."

"Roger that, I'm moving out."

"End of communication." I let go of tangent and looked at the Goddess of Rivers. So let's see if we've got anything worthwhile. Come on, it turns out we have a live radar, let's try to back them up... and aim at the target. Ginko?"

"I am with you wherever you go, my Master." the wolf grinned predatorily.

Interlude 26. Night Takamiya. Part 1

[Yuki Shibato]

For quite a long time, Shibato Yuki considered himself to be the most ordinary person — well, there were no yokai in his small town, no sorcerers with magicians, even the most annoying amulet had not been dropped in a series of centuries. The desire to study failed — as soon as the young man came to attend university in Kyoto, he immediately ran into the inspector, right at the exit from the platform.

That is, they literally collided head-on, or else it was unknown how long the weakest magician would have gone unidentified. But what happened happened. The inspector, as an "apology for his awkwardness," offered lunch, during which, between chatting about the weather and teaching about life in a big city, he ran a simple psychological quiz on a young potential magician. After making sure that the candidate was very suitable for the profile, he took the coordinates, and literally a year later Yuki-kun was already studying not to become an economist, but even a psychologist and had a part-time job.

We won't count how much water has flowed since then, but the life of the "magician" flowed in its very ordinary course: he studied, fell in love, got married, after graduating from university and an internship five years ago, he was transferred to Takamiya and prepared for another fifteen years to jostle among the lower ranks until he was thrust into the analytical department due to his seniority or something else — Jinguji's corporate ethics was very consistent with those who consistently and accurately performed their work. Actually, there was only one condition — to survive. And Shibato was fine with that! The weakest spirits who might be interested in his weak background were firmly deterred by the Tsuchimikado police, and those who were stronger simply did not notice him. But the inspector noticed the yokai interventionists quite well: there were half a dozen relatively weak creatures and one strong one on his personal account. The scanning spell and the low background of his own made him short of a pretty good sensor... just not when there's a suppressive amulet hanging around his neck, a bunch of which, according to rumors, the head of their department got it from somewhere unknown. Or even Mr. Kouji himself. Anyway, the amulets were ordered not to be removed. The move with the amulet by the leadership of the Regional Office was fully justified: combined with the folding of the aura, the amulet provided an ideal concealment of the power carrier from those who could covet this power. After all, even relatively strong magicians who are shot down by the order of the Controller in the office self-defense squad cannot be on guard for twenty-four hours... But, as always, there were pitfalls. The amulets have not been tested. Actually, the very issue of disguises received from Amakawa, so early relative to the predicted mass influx of yokai, was a field experiment: to see what and how, to identify unknown weaknesses... Who knew that one well-informed and troublesome person would arrive in the city just five days after the departure of the police combat team?

[Ageha]

"I need a number." The girl said shortly, laying out a credit card on the counter. "For about three weeks."

"We are glad to help you, madam!" Bending over in a bow, the receptionist deftly tidied up the credit card and swiped at the reader in the cash register in one motion. "Do you have any special requests?"

"I have a sea view." Hinoyonma casually said, admired the expression of the "template break" and deigned to clarify: "This is a joke. A large bed and a second or third floor will suit me."

"Siste-e-er, isn't that too brazen? Just like that, you can settle almost in the center of the city...

"Sasa, stop whining right now! You should also ask if a girl needs to wear makeup when going out for an evening walk!"

Sasa wisely kept silent: he had already asked Ageha a similar question once, after which he had to run around the city in his pants all day! Br-r! The one-eyed Blacksmith shook his head, pushing away the terrible memory, and decided to go from the other end:

"Ageha, how are you going to find men who have magic?"

"Hmm?" the girl was surprised and listened to herself: cyclops could be accused of whining and chattering, but what he never did was not just talking. Here it is again: the millionth Takamiya in the yokai supersensibility seemed almost extinct! And where are the power carriers? No, well, of course — the auras are rolled up, disguised, but previously hunters began to hide only after they started trying to eat them. We got used to it and relaxed. In addition, the cabinet "magicians"-committee members usually just disgustingly wielded their own small forces and the disguise either fell off during sleep, or faded with sudden outbursts-prominences, plus active amulets, artifacts... protecting the building itself, finally. And where?

Ageha chuckled again, opened her laptop and quickly Googled the address of the regional office of the Social Committee. She looked at the map. I figured out which side the house I was looking for should be on... and I went to the roof of the hotel building. It didn't take long for her to look for the right building from the roof — despite the approaching darkness, she could see very well, and a photo of the Committee's office was posted on their website. Aren't they assholes? On the other hand, why keep secret information that anyone, even the weakest of intelligent spirits, can extract in a couple of hours of questioning the townspeople? However. Silence and darkness were on the magical spectrum, but the building looked quite functional: the windows were glowing, and the movement of people and cars could be guessed. Chuckling for the third time, the blood lover called a taxi, and half an hour later she and one-eye were watching the building almost point-blank: what is a kilometer and a half distance for the spirit of the air, even if you are sitting in a half-empty diner on the embankment. Closing her eyes and at the limit of her supersensibility, the girl waited... and she waited. One, two... The seven sources of power, in a compact group, seemed for a moment like a single flame in the autumn void, and Ageha instantly dispersed her tentacle from the air, playing the role of a receiving antenna. Yeah! The path of two cars traveling in a group, with some difficulty and little risk — after all, Hinoyonma was a professional in her favorite business, unlike many others — she tracked. At the same time, I saw the composition of the "magnificent" seven (some men, they say!), along the way making sure that one of the sources of lights is somewhat stronger than the others. If it's a well-coordinated group, even she may have problems. For example, the mascara will smudge from sudden jumps. In short, she didn't want to come into conflict with a potential blood source. Let them split up first... ...After an hour of leisurely movement across the rooftops (fortunately, it was finally dark) through half of the city, the newly-minted "Takamievsky bloodsucking monster" made sure that the magicians from the accepted ones in Jinguji did not plan to separate — another small hotel, even smaller than hers. Wishing the reinsurers in her hearts to discover that the hotel staff was saving on toilet paper at a bad time, Ageha went back to her favorite observation post, the cafe... to make sure that there are no more magicians in the building at all. And there's no one around. What the hell?! It's really starting to annoy!

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