The afterlife blew up Gensokyo

The man spread his hands, his words full of innocence.

"See, if I wanted to harm you, I wouldn't have made no preparations until now. Isn't that enough to show my sincerity?"

"what do you want?"

Yukari Yakumo's voice was cold.

"No, no, no, it should be said what you want. You've been hiding in the Saigyouji family for so long under the protection of Saigyouji Yuyuko, and you haven't left even after we came back. Isn't your goal obvious?"

The man suddenly laughed.

"You want to destroy the Saigyouji family and kill everyone here to uphold your dignity as a sage of demons, right? Don't rush to deny it. I have conducted a special investigation into you. In the past, in order to establish your authority, you did not hesitate to wipe out an entire group of demons who refused to submit to you."

"So what if I am? Are you going to stop me?"

Yukari Yakumo wore a cold smile.

"I don't believe you have the ability to stop me."

"No, no, no, I don't have the time or inclination to do such a thing. What good would it do me to stop you?"

The man waved his hand.

"What I want is cooperation. There are some things I must get my hands on, but Yoji will never give them to me, and I can't beat him, so I have no choice but to seek help from outside forces."

"……cooperate?"

Seemingly completely taken aback to hear such a word from the man in front of her, Yukari Yakumo was visibly stunned.

"That's right, it's about cooperation. As long as you agree to cooperate, I'll tell you everything you want to know."

A strange smile appeared on the man's face.

"Aren't you curious about what we've been doing all these years?"

"Before we discuss cooperation, you should state your name first."

Yakumo Yukari glanced coldly at the white-haired man in front of her and sat down at the stone table.

"Also, I don't think you would betray me."

"Betrayal? How could I possibly betray? Everything I'm doing now is for justice."

With a soft chuckle, the man sat down at the table.

"As for my name, I am Morichika Rinnosuke."

"Just tell me, what do you want from the Saigyouji family?"

Yukari Yakumo looked unconvinced.

"The key, all things, everything... or rather, the origin."

He opened his hands at the table and then slowly clenched them, speaking each word carefully.

"That is the authority of everything, the elixir of life, which is both infinite and unique."

"It seems you're a delusional madman."

Yukari Yakumo had a completely expressionless face.

"This is the most deeply hidden secret in the world, one that ordinary people could never know in their entire lives. My willingness to share it already shows my sincerity."

Morichika Rinnosuke wasn't annoyed; instead, he smiled indifferently.

"What do you think the three of us have been doing all these years? Mass killing? No, we have actually been collecting the origin, distributing the origin of the world to all living beings, that is the most precious thing in the world."

“Precious? If that thing was as powerful as you say, he wouldn’t have died.”

Yakumo Yukari's words were full of sarcasm.

"Because he wanted to leave the things he had painstakingly collected to his daughter, he was willing to die; otherwise, he would never be dead now."

Morichika Rinnosuke wore a cold smile.

"The power he possesses is the power to manipulate death, but using this power comes at a great cost. If one's will is not strong enough, then that power of death will run rampant and turn everything in the world into the underworld... It is the pure, absolute power of death."

"But he's dead now, so that power should have disappeared too."

As if recalling that battle, Yukari Yakumo frowned slightly.

As someone who had faced that power directly and was the only one to survive it, she understood that terrifying power of death better than anyone else.

"Disappear? No, that power will not disappear, it will only be inherited."

Morichika Rinnosuke spoke coldly.

"His daughter is the inheritor of this power, but I don't think she's qualified to bear it. How can a pampered young lady who has never experienced the trials of blood and water bear it? You should know better than me what the consequences would be if that power went out of control."

"So, this is what you call justice?"

After quickly processing what the other person had said in her mind, Yukari Yakumo had a playful look on her face.

"You just want to steal that power, and incidentally you also want to seize the origins that don't belong to you in the first place? What a high-sounding righteousness."

"So-called justice is always relative. I don't care what you say, but I will never entrust the fate of the world to a little girl."

Turning his head, Morichika Rinnosuke looked in the direction of the funeral.

"The extremely evil demon of Saigyou, conceived from his corpse, is about to be born. On the day the Saigyou Demon Flower blooms, everyone in the Saigyouji family, and even all living beings in the surrounding area, will become its sacrifice. I started preparing long ago. The cherry blossom trees that cover the entire Gensokyo, including the corpses buried under them, are the huge magic circle I set up. The followers of the Saigyouji family that I was responsible for gathering are the sacrifices I had already selected... With 100,000 people as sacrifices, I will solve this problem once and for all."

"...I really think you're crazy."

After a long silence, Yukari Yakumo uttered a few words.

"Crazy? No, this isn't crazy, it's a necessary trade-off."

Morichika Rinnosuke's face was full of coldness.

"On the day the Westward-bound Demon Flower blooms, all the humans living in this village of humans, all the demons on the Youkai Mountain, all the creatures in Gensokyo... they will all die, and they will all be the sacrifices I offer."

"It's a crazy and interesting proposal, I've accepted the collaboration."

Yakumo Yukari opened the folding fan that Saigyouji Yuyuko had given her and nodded.

"I don't care about human deaths. It would be best if the monsters on Monster Mountain died. Now, tell me, what do you want me to do?"

"I need the source."

Morichika Rinnosuke took a deep breath.

"He entrusted that thing to Youki for safekeeping, and I can't beat Youki. But after today's funeral, Youki will definitely hand that thing over to Saigyouji Yuyuko. I will never and could never lay a hand on his daughter, but you can."

"Are you sure Yuyuko would give me something so precious?"

Yukari Yakumo's eyes flickered slightly.

"Although we can be considered friends now, don't forget that I am a yokai. No matter how kind she is, no human would trust a yokai so much, right? You say you won't harm Yuyuko, but you're secretly plotting against her. Your words are clearly contradictory."

"It's just about letting her let go of things she shouldn't have to carry in the first place. Youki will protect her. Once we realize things are hopeless, Youki will take her away from here as soon as possible."

After glancing at the sage-like demon before him, Morichika Rinnosuke spoke softly.

"The Saigyouji family will definitely be destroyed, that's for sure. You should be able to tolerate two or three escaping, right?"

"Well, of course."

Closing her folding fan, Yakumo Yukari narrowed her eyes slightly.

"But you trust me that much? If that thing is really that valuable, why would I give it to you after I got it?"

"Unless you want to get involved with that power of death, then you can take it. You almost died last time, didn't you?"

Rinnosuke Morichika responded with a smile.

"Believe me, you don't want something that has been tainted by the power of death."

"is it?"

Yakumo Yukari tapped the table with her folding fan, looking completely nonchalant.

"So……"

"Pleasant to work with."

P.S.: Good morning!

Chapter Thirty-Two: Yukari Yakumo and Yuyuko

Some things are actually hard to explain clearly.

Initially, Yakumo Yukari's plan to approach Saigyouji Yuyuko was simply to take revenge.

—In the world of yokai, the strong are respected, and the name of a sage yokai who has been humiliated can only be washed away with the blood of his enemies.

The contact with Saigyouji Yuyuko went smoothly. Saigyou had undoubtedly protected his daughter very well since she was a child. Due to the inexplicable curse she carried, Saigyouji Yuyuko couldn't even make any friends. She couldn't even keep a pet or grow plants. Through her deliberate efforts, she quickly became a close friend of Saigyouji Yuyuko, sharing everything. As for the curse that prevented her from making friends, it was nothing to her, having actually come into contact with pure death power.

Yakumo Yukari has always been very good at this kind of thing. Moreover, compared to oni like Ibuki Suika and Hoshiguma Yuugi, Saigyouji Yuyuko, who has been aloof since childhood and has no friends, is undoubtedly easier to deal with.

Yukari Yakumo concealed her true identity, creating a persona for herself as a youkai who was severely injured by a Saigyouji family monk, accidentally escaped here, and possessed special abilities and a curiosity about humans, just like the forthright and honest persona she created for herself when she befriended the oni clan.

She had tried to get to know humans before, on someone's advice, but the humans she encountered this time were very different from those she had encountered before.

The other person would share happy things with her, bring her food every day, and carefully protect her from being discovered by the other members of the Saigyouji family. Although the other person's world was very small, she shared her entire world with her.

—Yukari Yakumo found this human quite interesting.

Especially when the other party spent a long time crafting a folding fan and gave it to her as a gift to commemorate six months of knowing each other.

She truly loved the fan and always carried it with her. So, as a return gift, she gave the other person a small knife for self-defense. Unlike the ordinary, unremarkable folding fan, the knife she gave was a magical artifact that could fetch a high price among demons.

As her injuries gradually healed, she also conceived many revenge plans in her mind, one of which was to find a way to turn Saigyouji Yuyuko into a youkai.

In this way, not only can this interesting human stay by my side forever, but I might also be able to enjoy a good show of father and daughter killing each other, and then I, as the mastermind behind it all, can watch with a smile... There really can't be a better idea than this.

Of course, this plan was still a bit difficult to implement, so she also devised several other plans in her mind, such as causing the Saigyouji family to fall apart from within.

Scheming against humans is nothing special; she has schemed against gods before, such as Bishamonten, who protected the annoying Myourenji Temple while also protecting that meddlesome monk.

At that time, she didn't even have to personally intervene, yet she drove Myourenji Temple and the monk named Sei Byakuren to the brink of destruction. If that guy hadn't suddenly appeared later, Sei Byakuren would have been killed by the very humans she had once protected, all because of her schemes.

However, the final outcome of Saint Byakuren doesn't matter. All she wants is for Myourenji Temple to be completely destroyed. One Youkai Sage is enough for her; there's no need for other beings to share her power.

...And what happens after that?

What a joke! Although the monsters taken in or reformed by Myouren Temple make up a large proportion of the monster population, they are all the weakest monsters. What can those weak monsters do?

History is written by the victors. Saint Byakuren, who may have once been qualified to become the second Sage of Yokai, was ultimately recorded in history as nothing more than a demon who betrayed humanity by colluding with Yokai in order to gain a longer life.

The Saigyouji family? They're just a family made up of humans.

Given that she had personally participated in the planning and scheming this time, Yukari Yakumo could not find any reason why she might lose.

However, an unexpected event still occurred, but this unexpected event, which she had never expected, took place in a direction that was in her favor.

Before she could even begin her plans, the monk she feared most suddenly died, a piece of news that undoubtedly disrupted all her subsequent arrangements.

Of the three—the Saigyou mage who wielded the power of death to bring her a deadly threat, the Youki who once severed her soul from the gap with a single sword strike, and Morichika Rinnosuke, who displayed the most profound and unassuming skill in wielding the three divine weapons—she only feared the Saigyou mage.

Without Saigyou Hoshi, the Saigyouji family was nothing to her. She was confident that she could gradually bring down the once-powerful Saigyouji family. But before that, she wanted to take away Saigyouji Yuyuko, a human she found very interesting.

Morichika Rinnosuke's sudden visit was unexpected. Compared to the taciturn Soul Youki, she was even more wary of the always enigmatic Morichika Rinnosuke.

However, she did not expect that the other party's plan was far more insane than hers. They deliberately caused that death power to go berserk, and then sacrificed all the living beings in Gensokyo to end the sealing of that power... Regardless of the final outcome, anyone who could come up with such a crazy plan must be a madman.

In all her plans, the most insane one was simply to kill off everyone in the Saigyouji family except for Saigyouji Yuyuko. She wouldn't touch the other humans in the Human Village because doing so would be completely pointless.

However, in Morichika Rinnosuke's plan, it's not just the innocent humans and the youkai on Youkai Mountain, but all living creatures in Gensokyo that will become sacrifices...

However, she was quite willing to cooperate with this madman. The tengu on the Monster Mountain were also a major threat to her, especially the Tenma among the tengu clan. With the Tenma on the Monster Mountain, she could never truly control the Monster Mountain.

Since we can't control it no matter what, destroying it directly is a good idea. As a sage among yokai, I don't need to have a dissenting voice among the yokai.

Things progressed much more smoothly than Yukari Yakumo had imagined.

"This is the last thing your father left you. Can you really just lend it to me like this?"

Looking at the small jade box in her hand, made of some unknown material, Yakumo Yukari was momentarily stunned.

"...It's alright, Yukari, you're the person I trust the most. If I can't even trust you, who else can I trust? Youki, who won't tell me anything?"

After a moment of silence, Saigyouji Yuyuko looked up at the cherry blossom tree in front of her.

"Sometimes I think, maybe I should die sooner."