The Cursed Iris

Sprout 27: The Most Powerful Servant of Takamagahara

Hokusai woke up and he saw he was surrounded by Katsumi and the others. He noticed that his spirit energy was diminished as well, so his body felt weak. "What the hell have you done to me?" he questioned.

Katsumi kicked him, "Shut the hell up. Now tell us who put you up to this?" he replied.

"Why would I tell you monsters anything? You might as well kill me now!"

"That doesn't sound like a bad idea." Shizuko replied.

He turned his attention to her with a chuckle. It was more of a cough than anything. "The fallen daughter of Inari. It is not shocking that you ended up with this group. I guess birds of a feather flock together. This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while."

Shizuko snarled at him bearing her canines. "If it were up to me, I'd kill you right off the bat. I hate beings like you who can't take a loss."

"Enough of that." Katsumi said. "I need you to tell us who the hell are you working for. Also who told you how to get the power of Tsubaki by cannibalizing her?"

He spat at Katsumi. "How dare you order me to rat out my goddess and my lord? It's unacceptable."

Katsumi remained calm, "So you're working for a goddess huh?" he asked snapping his fingers. Once he did snap them the naginata seemed to begin vibrating and Hokusai screamed in pain. "I wonder what goddess it is though?"

"How many goddess are there in the Shinto religion?" Atsuko asked as she looked at Ayame.

"Why are you looking at me?!"

"Well, you are the expert on mythology and stuff."

Ayame groaned, but she knew Atsuko was right. Ayame was a huge fan of mythology, especially Greek, Chinese, and Japanese. She saw some similarities between them, but she knew that there were similarities in all mythologies. She sighed as she thought about it. There were thousands of goddesses, so the one he's working for could be any one of those.

"There's at least a couple million goddesses to include minor goddesses as well in Shinto, so narrowing down to which one it is, is going to be tough. Maybe if we could figure out what they are the goddess of then that'll help."

They all thought about it, and Katsumi being the one who's experienced the deities firsthand. "I've never met a goddess who was evil. I mean there is one that comes to mind, but she's retired to the recesses of Yomi. So I'd doubt it was her. Maybe my sister will know, so I could ask her."

"Who is the one you were thinking of?" Ayame asked.

Katsumi avoided the question, "Hokusai my next question is about your lord. Who is he? When did he come to contact you, and how exactly did you not exhaust your soul by having two types of slayer abilities? Who gave you the runes?"

They all saw his expression, "You fool. Don't you get it? The same one who put me up to the cannibalizing of Tsubaki Hoshinomiya is the same man who gave Yushiro those runes of the ice god slayer. The same man who fooled you into possessing the Dragonaut, and the same man who is connected to that girl there," Hokusai said with a crazy smile.

"Who is he then!?" Katsumi yelled.

"He is everywhere, and he is nowhere at the same time. My master is eternal, you know him Katsumi Nakajima and Ayame Akiyama. You're both connected to him more than anyone in your little group. He's the man who put you both on this destiny and he's the one who helped connect the red string to you both."

The naginata began vibrating again, and Katsumi seemed angrier than he was before. He felt like Hokusai was correct, that he knew who the man was. He didn't like the feeling.