Unlike Maki Zenin, who forcibly cleared a path, Hayami's journey was extremely calm.
Holding her inseparable Alolan Vulpix, she calmly left her home, calmly took a taxi, and calmly got out of the car.
It wasn't until she reached the Jujutsu Union headquarters, a place perpetually shrouded in barriers and officially declared as private property, that she encountered her first obstacle.
"Halt! Stop right there."
"The headquarters is undergoing temporary maintenance and is not open to the public. Please turn back."
The guards, clearly acting on orders from above, stepped forward to stop her.
To this, Hayami simply replied, "I've come to take my child home."
"Your child is...?" one of the guards asked.
"His name is Akira. He was invited here to attend the Pokémon symposium."
"Sp-Special Grade!!!"
Hearing Hayami's response, the guards visibly wavered.
The capture of Akira was a top-secret operation, and these low-level guards naturally had no knowledge of it.
The oldest guard hesitated for a moment before saying, "Ma'am, please wait a moment. I'll go seek instructions from my superiors."
This was undoubtedly the most prudent course of action, but the response they received shocked all the guards. The order from the head of security was: "Detain her and the fox together!"
Though they didn't understand why their superior would give such an order, the higher-ups' authority was absolute, and the guards had no choice but to comply.
"Apologies, ma'am," said the guard who had gone to report, his teeth clenched and his face filled with regret.
Having lived long enough, he had a premonition that they, the small fry, were being used as pawns. But what could they do? The headquarters had strict rules, and disobeying orders would not only bring trouble upon themselves but could also implicate others.
"The one who should apologize is me," Hayami shook her head.
As a third-grade jujutsu sorcerer, she understood the struggles of low-level sorcerers better than the prodigies at Tokyo Jutsu High. How could she make things difficult for them?
"Thank you, Darkrai."
"Mm."
With a low response, a shadowy figure emerged from beneath Hayami's feet.
At first, it was just a dot, but in the blink of an eye, it expanded into a dark sphere, enveloping the surrounding guards.
About three seconds later, the darkness dissipated.
The six guards responsible for the gate were all lying on the ground.
"Thank you, Darkrai," Hayami thanked the shadowy figure. "Oh, and don't give them nightmares, okay? Just let them sleep peacefully."
As soon as she finished speaking, the slightly twisted expressions on the guards' faces quickly smoothed out, and their breathing became slow and even—a sign of high-quality sleep.
"Next, I'll need your help again."
With these words, Hayami continued her stealthy advance.
As the saying goes, "Those who live by the mountains eat from the mountains; those who live by the water eat from the water."
The Kyoto region is mountainous, and the Jujutsu Union had directly claimed a mountain as its territory. Naturally, the security forces weren't limited to just a six-person team.
As soon as the gate showed signs of abnormality, various security mechanisms were triggered.
The guards were just the most ordinary part of the defenses. The truly formidable aspects were the centuries-old accumulated resources—barriers, shikigami, cursed corpses, traps, and even cursed techniques that had been layered over hundreds of years.
Yet, none of this could stop Hayami's advance.
Any living being that appeared in her line of sight was swallowed by the dark sphere, entering upright and exiting horizontally.
As for non-living objects, they were blocked by the eerie air currents and constantly swirling black mist, unable to advance an inch.
The black sphere.
The black wind.
The black mist.
This black trio was like a small dark domain, rejecting all intruders. The only exception was Hayami at its center.
She was like the ruler of the night, carving a pitch-black dividing line through the light, advancing unimpeded as if she were walking through no man's land.
About halfway up the mountain, a second exception appeared.
It was another woman, around the same age as Hayami, dressed in traditional attire. Her face bore the pride of someone who had lived a life of privilege, but also a hint of resentment.
She was the first living being not to be attacked by the black sphere, and she was also unaffected by the black wind and mist. She approached until she was just a step away from Hayami and coldly demanded, "What are you doing here?"
"I've come to take my child home." The same answer as before.
I've only come to take him home, nothing more.
"Your child?" The woman blocking the path raised an eyebrow.
"Who else?" Hayami, who had always been gentle and mild-mannered, rarely displayed sharp aggression. "He shares my surname, Akira. Maybe it wasn't always that way, but it will be from now on. I'm actually very grateful to you for giving me such a wonderful child."
"You—" The woman was so furious that her eyes nearly spat fire.
The reason she didn't was that, just before she could explode, a pair of pale, inhuman eyes appeared behind Hayami.
She had seen these eyes once before. It was these eyes that had effortlessly destroyed her guard forces, making her experience the terror of staring into the abyss.
According to later intelligence, these eyes belonged to Akira's trump card against Suguru Geto, his absolute main force, and the entity the Union higher-ups were most wary of. They had been collecting intelligence and information on it.
Almost everyone had assumed Akira would bring it to Kyoto, but no one expected him to leave this trump card with Hayami.
Realizing this, the woman nearly ground her teeth to dust, not even bothering to question the intelligence department about their false report that "Darkrai is in Tokyo looking after the children."
How filial of him, to disregard his own safety and leave his trump card with this woman. No wonder she dared to come to Kyoto alone.
In that moment, her anger and jealousy overshadowed her fear, and she reached out to grab Hayami's wrist.
But halfway there, the little fox in Hayami's arms yawned, and the woman suddenly felt a chill sweep over her, from her palms to the soles of her feet, shivering in the middle of summer.
"Be careful. My little Shiro (could be transliterated as Shirou or Hiro) can exhale air at minus fifty degrees Celsius," Hayami said, while gently stroking Alolan Vulpix's fur and kindly reminding her.
Alolan Vulpix loved this kind of petting and let out an equally kind sound: "COOL~"
Feeling thoroughly targeted, the woman was now literally "angry, shaking, and cold." She wanted to ask—can this world get any worse?
But before she could voice her question, Hayami spoke: "I've never wanted to compete with you. It's you who has always viewed me with hostility, even now, unable to let go. I'm not here to rehash old grievances. I just want to ask you one thing—what stance are you taking by standing here? Are you the wife of the Kamo clan head? A supporter of the Jujutsu Union? Or a mother to a child?"
"I..."
The woman wanted to answer as the former, but deep down, a voice told her that doing so would truly make things irreparable.
After waiting for a while without an answer, Hayami sighed: "You... take care."
With that, she no longer wasted time and continued her ascent, heading toward the higher reaches.
As she passed the clan head's wife, a loud explosion suddenly rang out from the mountain peak.