Cardfight!! Vanguard: Bujin

-Part 2

A cold night.

A large estate.

A room with a silent only broken by the occasional snore of the man sleeping inside, his limbs spread out as if he had collapsed on the floor.

The floorboards outside his room creaked, his tired eyes opened.

The man sat up, running one hand through his grey hair, searching for the nearest bottle of alcohol with the other.

He found one next to him, picked it up and brought it to his lips. Empty.

Tossing the bottle away, he finally looked at the shoji doors that lead to the inner court of the house in front of him.

On the other side of those paper sliding doors, a small silhouette.

Then another, a tall one.

Then one more, a curved one.

Then more and more, until ten silhouettes surrounded his doors.

The man sighed, and got up.

He walked over to the slidings doors and opened them.

The silhouettes, despite their different body types, all shared the same white cloak and owl mask.

The first one spoke.

"Lord Hyoudo Nobunaga. The leader requests your-"

Immediately, they were forced to the side by a blow of the man's forearm against their neck. They landed on their comrades' arms, but their mask fell to the ground.

The man looked the one behind the mask, a boy probably in his first year in university.

"Spare me the glorified babble of a kid enthralled by some promise of greatness. You two, move it."

Hyoudo Nobunaga, head of the Hyoudo clan, father to Nozomi and Naomitsu, commanded the two masked figures in front of him to begone from his path and they complied.

He put on the geta stationed outside his room and walked until the edge of the engawa, where he took a seat in it. He looked out at the tree planted on his court and sighed.

"Show yourself, Shingen."

Akimitsu chuckled and obliged, stepping out from behind the only tree in the court. He had the same white cloak as the people standing outside Nobunaga's door, but his hood was down, and he lacked an owl mask.

"Found out already? You could have played along for a little while, Nobunaga-san." Akimitsu mused.

"Always a rat... What is it? Did you come to receive your last paycheck? Naomitsu left the clan. It won't be long until the elders toss me out for someone still capable of making them another heir. About damn time..."

"A paycheck? Hm, no. I'm not here for something. I'm here for someone."

Nobunaga laughed out loud as he picked a semi-full bottle of liquour laid on the court's grass.

"So my offspring's a failure and you try to aim higher? I've been waiting to see you this desperate for a while."

"Nobunaga-san, such words are a bit hurtful, don't you think? Here I thought we could have a conversation like adults."

"Adults, huh..."

The old man chuckled and popped open the bottle in his hands, gulping down the remaining alcohol inside in three hearty swings. He brushed his lips against his sleeve to clean them and threw the now empty bottle aside.

"We're all just different levels of miserable."

"I concur. But it's feelings like misery and the like that lead one to produce such magnificent works of art, no? Your galleries never cease to spur storms of emotions within my heart."