Chapter 90 90: A Different World

— — — — — — About half an hour later... Veyron and Yukari finally stepped out of the tatami room, met by Saigyouji Yuyuko's worried gaze and Midoriko's curious eyes. "Don't worry, Yuyuko~" Yukari said with a cheerful wave. "Veyron and I have made up. We're friends now!" She smiled brightly, then turned to Midoriko. "You must be the 'Shrine Maiden of Soul Purification,' right? I'm Yakumo Yukari. Nice to meet you—I've heard a lot about you." "Yukari Yakumo... the Yokai Sage?" Midoriko's eyes widened in surprise. She hadn't expected the yokai Veyron had spent over a month chasing to be this Yukari. "No need for me to introduce myself further then, I suppose," Yukari said with a small nod, confirming her identity. She then pointed toward the cherry blossom tree in the courtyard. "So, Miss Midoriko—any good ideas on how to deal with that thing?" She put particular emphasis on the word "good." "I'm leaning toward his plan," Midoriko replied, fully aware of why Yukari stressed that word. "The thing about 'rules' is, they only seem unbreakable until they run into something stronger—either a higher-order rule or a power that can just shatter them outright. Fortunately, we happen to have both." The "higher-order rule" she referred to was the black-and-white flame Veyron had ignited. That flame was a physical manifestation of death itself—"Destined death." Compared to the sakura tree, which only guided beings toward death, Veyron's flame held a conceptually superior authority within the ranking of death. As for the kind of power that could break rules by force? That would be Veyron, Yukari, and Midoriko herself. The sakura tree's yokai power didn't even rank at the level of a true great yokai. Veyron had already slain several powerful monsters over the last month alone. Yukari was a millennia-old yokai standing at the absolute peak of that realm. And Midoriko herself had the experience and strength to defeat even mythical monsters. In a head-on confrontation, any of the three had the ability to handle the tree. But the tree itself wasn't the real problem. What complicated things was that, somehow, Saigyouji Yuyuko had become conceptually linked to the tree—intertwined with it on a fundamental level. If she were to die, she could drag the tree down with her. But the reverse was also true: harming the tree might endanger her life as well. "Before we jump in, let's figure out how this thing even came into existence," Yukari said, looking serious for once. "A yokai with this kind of death-based power being born in this era? That's just not normal." It wasn't that death was off-limits to yokai. If this tree had come from a primordial time—an age of chaos before civilization, or the divine era when gods still walked the earth—Yukari wouldn't have questioned it. Back then, it wouldn't be surprising for something like this to wield death as its domain. Just like how sun, moon, and life were split among the gods... or like Yukari's own dominion over boundaries. But those days were long gone. The age when the faith of just a few dozen believers could birth a deity? That was history. And based on Yukari's observations, this was already the twilight of all things supernatural. Yokai, demons, monsters—they had maybe a thousand more years left in the spotlight. After that, even a being as ancient and powerful as Yukari would have no choice but to cede the stage to the real protagonist of this era: humanity. So for a death-inducing sakura tree to suddenly appear now? Yeah. No way that wasn't suspicious. "Alright," Veyron said, "let's each do our thing—analyze it however we want, then compare notes after." "Sounds good." x2 Both Yukari and Midoriko replied in sync. And with that, the yokai and the shrine maiden each began tracing the origins of the cursed sakura. Veyron ignited his spiritual power and then activated his Observation Haki enhanced by the effect of [Comprehension (Red)]—a method he'd created over the past month while pursuing Yukari. With it, he could hear the "voice" of the world—the echoes of nature and spirit responding in harmony to his own soul. It was his evolved version of Observation Haki: "Hearing the Voice of All Things." A moment passed. Veyron: "...Huh?" "What do you mean by 'death from another world'?" That didn't sound good. Wait, was this world pulling the same nonsense as Highschool of the Dead or Kuroinu, where the world's will just... messes with everything? No, that couldn't be it. Even if you looked only at Touhou Project, the origin of the Saigyou Ayakashi—and its connection to Saigyouji Yuyuko—seemed to line up perfectly with what he'd seen since arriving at the Saigyouji household. ...Wait a sec. Which "world" are we even talking about? Veyron tried shifting his perspective and searching again—and then he actually let out a short laugh. So it was a different world... just not the kind of "different world" he had originally assumed. Because of the dimensional chat group, whenever Veyron saw the phrase "different world," his brain automatically jumped to the kind of parallel universes you'd find in Marvel, DC, or the Nasuverse. But in those multiverses—like Marvel's endless realities or Nasuverse's parallel timelines—"world" could still be broken down further within its own rules. Coincidentally, the world he currently lived in seemed to be a fusion of different universes he was familiar with—thanks to references like "Houraisan Kaguya," "Inukimi," and "that different world". It clearly blended elements from at least three different franchises he knew well. So the concept of "different worlds" being intertwined wasn't exactly new here. Take the Touhou Project setting, for example—beyond the human world, there were realms like Heaven and the Underworld. Or the Inuyasha world—where the swords forged from Inu no Taisho's fangs represented Heaven, Earth, and Hell. So the "different world" the spirit of nature referred to just now? It wasn't something like Marvel or DC—it was one of those Mashups that the chat group would still consider part of the same world. Following the guidance of the spiritual echoes, Veyron silently let his Observation Haki seep into the sakura tree and traced its roots deep underground. Despite only standing a modest ten-plus meters above ground—pretty average for a cherry blossom tree—the roots of the Saigyou Ayakashi extended deep, to an almost ridiculous degree. And when his haki reached a threshold buried deep below—a kind of spiritual "barrier" that blocked further sensing—the roots still continued, burrowing even deeper. Veyron narrowed his eyes. He channeled 1.984 million tons of telekinetic force around his body with pinpoint precision, compressing it to the limit—and dove straight down along the path of the roots. "...Okay, yeah, that's definitely not normal." His Observation Haki pierced through the faint spiritual barrier, and after a moment, he came face to face with a familiar pair of violet-gold eyes peering through a dimensional gap. Yukari's eyes twitched the moment she sensed how Veyron had "entered" her space this time. "Ooh~ Yukari, you found this place too? As expected of the Gap Youkai," Veyron chuckled. The two of them leaned in over the gap, observing the place where the tree's roots had truly taken hold. "...The Underworld?" The silence on the other side of the rift was absolute—so still, it instantly brought to mind that legendary place: the realm where the dead linger before reincarnation or enlightenment. "Yep. The Underworld," Yukari confirmed with a nod. "If this sakura tree grew out of the Underworld... then it makes perfect sense why it would guide the living toward death." . . .