Hero? I'm just here to borrow power!

After all, as long as his physical capabilities allow, he could even learn and master the essence of "projection spells" in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen within just ten seconds of fighting Zenin Naobi, who was known for his speed.

Before his transmigration, what truly limited Bai Ye's abilities was his ordinary-level physical attributes. Sometimes, even if he learned and understood the other party's abilities, his physical constitution wouldn't allow him to imitate their movements. But now, with the "super body" brought about by "Heaven and Curse" residing in him, his reaction speed has long surpassed human limits, thus enabling him to perfectly unleash his terrifying learning ability.

Bai Ye slowly put down the game controller in his hand and looked at his two top-notch teammates in the distance, who were exchanging glances over a 200,000 yen bet.

At this moment, the Yaksha was smugly twirling his fingers at the crow, making a gesture as if he were counting money.

The crow, on the other hand, had its eyebrows crooked and its eyes squinted, its face filled with heartache for its soon-to-disappear banknotes.

The arrival of these two means that Genjiro and the others will be arriving soon.

Bai Ye glanced at the Uesugi family head beside him, who still seemed somewhat unconvinced and was frantically pressing the start button, and said calmly, "Play after the meeting, otherwise the patriarch will confiscate your game console if he sees you like this."

Bai Ye's voice was very soft, not like she was talking to a beautiful girl in the prime of her life, but more like she was coaxing a somewhat willful child.

Bai Ye is indifferent to most people, but he will show some rare patience when facing teenagers.

Just like how he treated Itadori Yuujin and the others back in the Jujutsu World.

Erii Uesugi's delicate face remained expressionless, but a hint of childlike disappointment flickered in her pure rose-colored eyes.

She knew the character of her "retainer" before her. If he made a promise to her, he would do anything, no matter what. But if he refused, there would be no way to get it from her, whether she begged, pleaded, or ordered him to do so.

Erii Uesugi nodded slightly and silently put away the game controller in her hand. The crow and the demon beside her had seen everything.

In their hearts, Byakuya was never a retainer of the Uesugi family; compared to Erii, he was more like the head of the family.

Then, taking advantage of the time before the other family heads arrived, Uesugi Erii quickly put the brand-new PS3 game console into a cute-looking cloth bag she had brought with her. She didn't touch the huge projection screen, which was still hanging there.

However, she stubbornly shoved one of the two PS3 game controllers back into Bai Ye's hand, as if silently reminding him of his promise to "play after the meeting".

Before anyone knew it, a tall figure had silently slipped in through the side door of the shrine.

He quietly walked up behind Uesugi Erii and Byakuya.

"Please take care of Erii."

It was Genjiro. Byakuya had actually discovered that he had sneaked in long ago, but he hadn't said anything, seemingly watching the exciting "battle" between Byakuya and Erii with great interest.

In his eyes, Bai Ye was probably a loyal "retainer" dutifully carrying out the orders from the "master".

It's really tough on this little devil in front of me to patiently play games with my somewhat willful younger sister.

Byakuya always felt that the members of the Snake Clan had a deep-seated misunderstanding of him, as if he were otherworldly, or even just a monster with a human appearance. But in reality, Byakuya also found it extremely boring to arrive early and wait for those guys to have a meeting.

The reason he came so early was simply because he didn't want to meet those commissioners from Kassel College. It was much more interesting for Uesugi Erii to play games with him for a while than to sit here studying the scrolls of gods and demons on the shrine walls.

However, Bai Ye didn't say anything, but simply nodded slightly to Yuan Zhisheng.

"Young Master, those four idiots haven't done anything strange again, have they?" After greeting Byakuya and Erii, Genji walked straight to the crow and the yaksha, in the position representing the head of the Genji family.

The crow behind him lowered its voice and asked quietly.

Byakuya has excellent hearing. The amplification of his five senses brought about by his "super-physical body" allows him to clearly distinguish the quality and material of even a needle that has fallen to the ground of the shrine.

Four?

Bai Ye's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly.

Unlike the original plot, shouldn't the envoys coming to Japan be Caesar Gattuso, Chu Zihang, and Lu Mingfei? But judging from what Crow said, it seems there's one more person now.

“No. They’ve been on a plane for over ten hours, they should be asleep in their hotel by now,” Genji replied calmly to the crow.

Then, a series of neat and heavy footsteps sounded in front of the shrine.

Six men and women entered the main hall of the shrine.

Unlike Byakuya and Genjiro's casual attire, they were all dressed in extremely formal traditional kimonos representing the highest level of their families. The men wore black motsuke haori, while the women wore elegant black tomesode, with white socks and heavy wooden clogs on their feet.

Since Genjiro was going to Kanagawa Prefecture to receive people from Kassel College, he naturally didn't wear these ancient costumes. Byakuya simply didn't like wearing kimonos, so she didn't wear one either. As for Erii, she probably wore her usual shrine maiden outfit because she arrived at the shrine early.

After these six people entered the main hall, the large group of people surged into the shrine like a tide. These men, all dressed in black suits, stood shoulder to shoulder, crowded yet orderly and silent.

At this moment, the roads in front of and behind the shrine were completely blocked by nearly a hundred black cars. Armed men stood silently in the shadows like ghosts, and no one dared to approach the vermilion building that looked even more solemn and majestic in the rain.

The main hall was covered with soft tatami mats, and hundreds of men and women sat in their assigned places in a standard kneeling posture.

Bai Ye was the only exception; he was the only one sitting cross-legged, but everyone seemed to deliberately ignore his posture, and no one raised any objections to it.

"Master, all attendees have arrived. There are 34 people in total: the heads and subordinates of the Strategic Department, the elders of the Left Upper Division, the head of the Liaison Department, the 134 members of the Five Small Family Members, the 19 heads and group leaders of the Kanto Branch of the Kassel College Japan Branch, the 17 heads and group leaders of the Kansai Branch, the 14 people from the Ganryu Research Institute, and the 7 people from the Maruyama Construction Office... a total of 441 people, who are waiting here!"

A secretary in a black suit stepped forward quickly and presented a thick roster to an elderly man with silver hair.

This old man was the one who spoke with Genjiro in the blacksmith's workshop in the mountains just before Genjiro received the commissioner from Kassel College.

"Mr. Masamune, please take a look!" the secretary in black said respectfully.

"Hmm." Tachibana Masamune symbolically picked up the list and glanced at it, but didn't actually look at any of the contents. He just gave it a perfunctory scan and then cleared his throat.

The hall fell into absolute silence in an instant.

The sound of rain outside the window became even clearer, reaching my ears in a soft, gentle patter.

All eyes were on Mr. Tachibana Masamune, who straightened his kimono embroidered with his family crest and slowly stood up.

"I have served as the head of this family for ten years now. During these ten years, I have been fortunate to meet you all, fortunate to be recognized by you, and fortunate to share this heavy history with you. I have lived these years without regret. Over the years, thanks to your care, I have barely managed to keep this family afloat. There are many things I have not done perfectly, and I have caused you all trouble," Tachibana Masamune said, his voice loud and authoritative.

"It was Mr. Masamune who took care of us," the head of the Fuma family immediately echoed.

"It is thanks to Mr. Masamune that we have been taken care of!" Everyone in the hall shouted in unison, their voices uniform and their momentum overwhelming.

Bai Ye turned his head and looked around. It seemed that only he and Uesugi Erii beside him were not speaking.

At this moment, he was sitting quietly beside Erii, after all, in name he was still Erii's retainer.

It was time for his least favorite part of the meeting.

Looking at Tachibana Masamune, who was giving a passionate speech in the main hall of the shrine, Byakuya felt that whether in the previous world or this world, the essence of these so-called "superiors" holding meetings was pretty much the same.

They all use glamorous words, full of righteousness and sacrifice, to decide the life and death of others.

However, compared to the Secret Party's annual meeting of the school board, when the Snake Clan holds a meeting to decide your life or death, you have the opportunity to listen in on the proceedings. You might even be able to join the highly respected patriarch in shouting passionately, "I am willing to die for my family!"

Of course, all you can do is shout, "I'm willing to die for my family."

Those who are unwilling to die have no chance to speak here.

Bai Ye had no interest in the patriarch's inflammatory battle mobilization. However, the battle plan he was about to announce was crucial to him.

At this moment, Bai Ye remained calm and patiently sat quietly on the tatami mat, listening intently.

Meanwhile, Erii Uesugi, who was standing next to him, quietly began to move.

She took out a black carbon pen from somewhere, lowered her head, and carefully wrote something on her own PS3 controller. After a while, she hid her hand under the wide hem of her shrine maiden dress and quietly beckoned to Bai Ye, signaling him to take out the controller she had just given him.

Bai Ye frowned, wondering what this strange girl was up to.

However, since she had given him the controller, it was understandable that she wanted it back. So he took the controller out of his pocket and quietly handed it to Erii.

Erii's frantic scribbling on the back of the pen handle was perfectly drowned out by Tachibana Masamune's impassioned speech. After she finished writing, she quietly hid the pen back inside the lining of her shrine maiden outfit, and then handed the handle back to Byakuya.

Erii's subtle actions had already been noticed by the family heads sitting in the front row. However, due to her special status, everyone in the family tacitly pretended not to see anything.

Bai Ye then took the controller.

He saw a line of delicate yet somewhat childlike writing on the back of the handle.

Because the back of the handle is not very flat, the words are written a bit crookedly.

However, Erii Uesugi's handwriting was very beautiful, so Byakuya could easily recognize what she had written.

"Weapon of White Night"

Most of the characters above are Chinese characters, so even Chinese people who don't understand Japanese can understand them.

Bai Ye raised his eyes and looked at the other handle in Erii's hand. On the back of that handle, there was also a line of small words: "Eri's Weapon".

Byakuya had heard Genji say that Uesugi Erii was a possessive girl who liked to label all her belongings with her own name.

She had her name written on the controller... Was she planning to give it to herself as a gift? Or did it represent some kind of special agreement?

Byakuya looked at Erii, her rose-colored eyes seeming to say, "After accepting this 'weapon,' you are now my opponent, and an opponent cannot run away in the face of battle."

Bai Ye looked at the handle in his hand, which had been given special meaning, and chuckled to himself.

#11,000 words, although only three chapters, is equivalent to 5 updates. Two of the chapters are only 3,700-3,800 words each. This will save you some coins when you subscribe, so consider it compensation for yesterday's missed update. This doesn't count as the bounty; the bounty is still 1/4. Thank you for your support!#

Black Moon Tide: Chapter 105 The Fierce Ghosts

At this point, Tachibana Masamune's war mobilization seemed to have reached a completely new stage.

He slowly stretched out his hand and gently pressed his palm down.

The venue, which had been ignited by his words, instantly returned to a deathly silence, like the deep sea.

He gestured for everyone to listen attentively, and then began to speak in a distant and solemn voice, as if recounting an ancient myth.

"Today, I'd like to tell you a story... The protagonist of this story is named Akira Sakurai."

Upon hearing this name, Bai Ye's previously vacant eyes narrowed slightly.

Without making a sound, he tucked the game controller that Erii had just given him, still warm from the girl's palm, into his pocket.

Not far away, Genji's expression also underwent a subtle change.

His already upright kneeling posture became even more stiff, like a long sword drawn from its sheath, ready to drink blood.

“He was born into the Sakurai family and was a perfectly healthy child in every respect. But at a very young age, his bloodline was found to be extremely unstable.”

Standing under the dim light of the shrine, Tachibana Masamune spoke slowly, his voice echoing in the empty hall, each word like a heavy bell tolling, "In other words, he is a 'demon'."

The hall was deathly silent, with only the sound of the continuous rain outside the window becoming increasingly clear.

Everyone sitting on the tatami mats in the main hall was aware of how heavy the topic Tachibana Masamune was about to discuss would be.

Only Uesugi Erii was still secretly fiddling with the handle that read "Erii no Weapon".

“After that test report came out, he was no longer our compatriot, but became a target we had to monitor closely. He was sent to that school deep in the mountains of Kobe—or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a ‘prison.’ From then on, he never came out of those mountains again until he turned twenty-three.”

"He was such a lonely child. Every year, only one specific person would visit him, but it wasn't his parents, but our family's enforcer. He never had a girlfriend, never ate a birthday cake of his own, never went to a bustling amusement park, and never went on a graduation trip with his friends. Everyone here should understand how much he wanted these things that are perfectly normal for ordinary people. But, because he was a 'ghost,' he got nothing."

Masamune Tachibana's voice, like the deep tolling of a bell in an ancient temple, struck the hearts of everyone with each note.

“Until one day, someone gave him a drug. That person told him that the drug could purify his bloodline, give him unparalleled power, and the freedom he had always dreamed of. Tell me, how could a child who had been abandoned by the world for twenty-three years possibly refuse such a deadly temptation?”

"He injected those medicines into his body, one vial after another, awakening the dormant dragon blood within him. He did gain power, and he did gain freedom. But it was only for fifteen days. After fifteen days, he was completely eliminated by our Execution Bureau. The elimination was personally carried out by Mr. Kamishiro Byakuya, the sharpest blade in our family."

At this point, Tachibana Masamune let out a long sigh, his expression like that of a kind elder deeply concerned about the fate of his family.

"In those short fifteen days, he raped and killed many innocent women. He vented his desires, which had been suppressed for twenty-three years, like a person who had been starving for far too long, trying to make up for all the food he had never eaten in his life."

Changing the subject, Tachibana Masamune's gaze, like two searchlights, pierced through the dimly lit hall and landed precisely on Byakuya.

"Mr. Kamishiro Byakuya, as the man who personally annihilated that 'demon,' how do you view him? Do you feel disgust? Do you feel hatred? Do you feel contempt? Or do you simply feel pity, patheticness, and shame?"

He suddenly threw this incredibly weighty question at Bai Ye during the meeting. And as the man who personally beheaded Sakurai Akira, Bai Ye was indeed the most suitable person to answer this question, without exception.

The gazes of the surrounding family heads, like a tide, slowly turned to the young man who sat cross-legged the whole time and seemed somewhat out of place.

They also wanted to know how this man, so highly respected and monstrous in the Executive Bureau, viewed the "ghosts" he had personally slain.

Bai Ye slowly spoke amidst the hundreds of gazes surrounding him.

His voice wasn't loud, but it was very clear, enough for everyone in the hall to hear it clearly.

"I don't have any particular opinion about him."

"I simply believe that everyone who makes a mistake must pay the price. Sakurai Akira escaped from that prison and killed innocent women along the way; this is the price we paid for failing to properly supervise him. And the fact that I beheaded Sakurai Akira is the price he had to pay for choosing to unleash his desires and become a 'demon.' More than him, I care about whether the family has done a good job in compensating the families of the victims who were victimized by Sakurai Akira. Everyone has to pay for their mistakes; he has already paid his due, and now it's our turn."

After Bai Ye finished speaking, a long silence fell over the hall. Then, Tachibana Masamune took the lead and slowly clapped his hands.

"I never expected Mr. Kamishiro Byakuya to be such a gentle person."

As Tachibana Masamune led the way, thunderous applause resounded throughout the entire shrine.

Bai Ye was somewhat puzzled. He just felt that the Japanese had a strange way of thinking. What was there to applaud about what he had said?

Moreover, he discovered that among all the people clapping, the one clapping the most enthusiastically was actually the young master, Genjiro, who had been sitting upright the whole time.

"Mr. Kamishiro Byakuya is right! Everyone has to pay the price for their mistakes!"

After the applause subsided, the old fox Tachibana Masamune seized the opportunity to take over Byakuya's words and cleverly replaced the concepts within them.

"So, what is the biggest mistake that we, the Snake Clan, have made? Who has been endlessly competing with us in the underworld? Who has instigated those gangs that once depended on us to betray us? And who has been constantly encroaching on our territory over the years, tempting those children with unstable bloodlines to fall into 'demon', making the long swords passed down through generations in the hands of our law enforcers stained with the blood of our compatriots that should not have flowed?"

"The Demon Clan!" The head of the Fuma Clan called out the name in a hoarse voice like that of a night owl.

"Yes, it's the Demon Clan! Only the Demon Clan, who, like us, have inherited the noble blood of the dragon, can truly challenge us! It is because of the Demon Clan's existence that we dare not loosen our grip on the sword hilt for even a moment! In Japan, behind every gang that dares to defy us, there is the Demon Clan secretly supporting us! In Japan, we only have one true enemy, and that is the Demon Clan!"