After losing their patience, one of Kisuke's opponents suddenly yelled while lunging at him, "Stop running away you coward!"
Kisuke replied while chuckling, "Good point~!", and dashed forward to meet him.
The guy who had just said that was surprised, but also delighted. It was clear that he was no match in terms of fighting ability, but he was very confident that he could overpower him. And even though he couldn't outright defeat him, having a clash with him would mean that he'd stop moving for a few moments, giving others a chance to land a decisive blow.
In fact, from the corner of his eyes, he could already see three other people coming up to Kisuke from his blind spot.
Kisuke, while running towards him, suddenly threw his cane upwards, his only weapon which he hadn't pulled out after all this time, because he hadn't fought back. The one in front of him thought that it was only to distract those who were coming from behind and ignored it, brandishing his sword towards his hateful enemy, 'This is the end!'
But the moment his sword was about to land on Kisuke's fist that he chose to intercept with, the man noticed a shine on Kisuke's finger, 'A ring?'
And that same ring hit the blade of his sword, deflecting it to the side, "What!?"
In his shock, the man wasn't able to notice Kisuke's other fist in time, which was already about to hit his chin. The sudden attack on his chin rattled his head, but the next thing he knew was that Kisuke was already holding his sword and his right shoulder somehow became lighter.
When he glanced at it to see what was going on, all the pain came rushing in as his sights landed on his own severed arm on the floor, and he screamed in pain, "AHHHHH!!!"
That scream instantly broke everyone's concentration for a moment. Using that chance, Kisuke suddenly threw the enemy's sword in his hand behind him without looking, impaling and pinning the foot of one of the assailants who were rushing towards him, "AHHH!!!"
The second scream also gathered attention, but one of the three rushing at Kisuke noticed the bucket hat in the corner of his eyes and immediately focused his sights on that. However, it was already too late as Kisuke's palm was already on his elbow, and bent it backward, instantly breaking his joint, "GAHH!!!"
Catching the weapon he dropped, Kisuke immediately proceeded to sever his arm, making him scream in more pain as Kisuke dodged the spraying blood.
The last one among the people rushing towards him finally ignored the screams and went to thrust his spear into Kisuke's back. But without even looking back, Kisuke easily deflected the spear and turned around, severing another arm.
With that, four people were screaming in pain and three of them were staring at one of their missing arms on the ground. Kisuke then slowly walked towards the pinned opponent who was trying his best to free himself and said, "Let me help you with that~!"
Without any hesitation, Kisuke severed the pinned leg before turning towards Hyakinthos directions with a smile, while having a chorus of screams behind him, "That's four out and six to go~!"
At that moment, the thrown cane came back down and Kisuke caught it with his free hand, "Shall we continue?"
"T-the tables have turned!!!", shouted Ibri followed by a loud cheer from the surrounding spectators, "Within just a single moment, Kisuke Urahara, the Captain of the Hestia Familia, brutally disabled four of the top fighters of the Apollo Familia all by himself!!!"
Ibri then turned to Shakti and asked, "What do you think, Shakti-sama?"
"There's nothing much else to say.", replied Shakti, "His skills are way beyond all of them. And at this point, it's already the Hestia Familia's win as long as no unforeseen accidents happen. Look. His opponents have already lost their will to fight after witnessing those ruthless and brutal actions."
"Indeed. It's as you say. Right now, all of them except for Hyakinthos are slowly inching towards the exit, and I don't think that the Captain of the Apollo Familia can do anything about it as they are all just hired combatants. I wonder what faces the Gods who helped Apollo are making right now?", commented Ibri. He imagined that they were all making devastated faces and were all about to attack Apollo for dragging them into the problem he'd created.
And he was correct with his assumptions, as Loki was currently laughing at their pale faces, who thought that they'd somehow profit and amuse themselves in this War Game.
Back to the scene, the first one to outright run away was the Mage who wasn't able to do much since earlier, aside from disturbing Kisuke with his attack magic, "T-this can't be happening!"
Seeing that, the other four went towards the exit, leaving Hyakinthos and the disabled Adventurers behind, "I didn't sign up for this!"
"I never thought that something like this was going to happen! F*cking hell!"
"I have to go back... Our Familia is done..."
"W-wait! We're really going to lose if you all run away!", screamed Hyakinthos and tried to stop them, but as Ibri had expected, no one even tried to stop or look behind.
Seeing them disappearing beyond the dark corridor, Hyakinthos couldn't help but mutter, "W-why is this happening?"
"It's because you messed with the wrong shop.", said Kisuke, who had already crept up behind him.
"Hiih!!!", Hyakinthos jumped away from him while letting out a weird sound. At that point, he also decided to run away for now and think of a way to reverse the situation.
But as he stepped into the corridor, he suddenly heard screams beyond it and stopped in his tracks. A few seconds later, the five girls who were supposedly fighting their other combatants outside emerged from the darkness. "Oh? His limbs are still intact?", Aika greeted him with some terrifying words.
It was then that Hyakinthos knew that this war game was already a lost cause, "I-I s-!? AHHHH!!!" But just as he was about to surrender, he suddenly lost his balance and fell straight down while screaming in pain. It was only a second later that he realized that both of his legs were no longer attached to him.
Still, Hyakinthos hadn't forgotten what he was about to do and tried speaking up again. But strangely enough, he couldn't seem to let out his voice, and fear overtook his sense of self when he saw Kisuke looking down on him.
Turning him over with a kick and stepping on his chest while placing his cane beside Hyakinthos' head, Kisuke secretly cast a spell on him.
A few seconds later, his mouth started frothing and his eyes rolled back, losing consciousness. From then on, every time when the Apollo Familia captain closed his eyes, he would see nightmares of him dying in extreme pain in countless ways.
Augmenting both magic and soul techniques, Kisuke was able to show him illusions that were directly branded on his soul and wouldn't disappear as long as his soul didn't sever its connection with his physical body, in other words, dying.
Kisuke may have left him alive today, but he doubted that he'd be able to survive for a few more months before killing himself in despair and hopelessness, 'Not just messing with my shop, but also insulting my girls and Hestia-sama.'
"Hyakinthos Clio was taken out! The Hestia Familia has won!!!", shouted the announcer for everyone in Orario to hear.
Editors:
28th00: That was absolutely brutal. Then again, life and death have a very different meaning for the incarnations of buddhism/reincarnation cycle that are Soul Reapers. His was already over from his actions after all. I wonder if Claire was watching? Oh god, what if Ophis takes this example of “excessive force” and uses it as the baseline for dealing with annoying adventurers!? THE LIMBS!
Alexander: Nah, it’s fine. Kisuke wouldn’t let the kids watch the scene of butchering them. He at least has that much common sense, as it was shown back at Siegfried's death. After all, being someone who came to like spoiling innocent little kids is one of his selling points.
Kisuke had started walking away when he felt the monitoring on them disappear. "I'll leave these guys to you.", he said before disappearing with Flash Step.
From her storage, Sona started taking out potions and distributed them to others, "Let's stop their bleeding. This should give them enough time for the medical team to tend to their wounds once they arrive."
For these people who were enduring immense pain, the girls looked like spirits that appeared in their time of distress. The fact that their Familias would be disbanded after this had already left their mind.
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.
.
A certain distance away from the castle ruins, Kisuke appeared in front of Medusa and looked beside her to see a tied-up man. The familiar man was already unconscious when Kisuke arrived and Medusa said, "It's as you expected. He tried to escape."
"People like this guy who only think about profit are easy to read. They may look smart, but they are very easy to control.", replied Kisuke before grabbing the Captain of the Soma Familia who had joined Apollo's side without Soma's knowledge.
"I'll take it from here, so return for now." Kisuke was about to leave when he recalled something and took out a bag from his storage, "By the way, I took some time to gather some cookbooks and ingredients from all over the world when I was on the other side. Everything is in here so you can ask Sona... No... Not Sona. You can ask either Irina or Claire to translate it for you."
Medusa's purple eyes shone at the sight of the bag. After grabbing it, she held it dearly within her bosom. After experiencing her new life for a few months now, there were a few enjoyable things that she'd found, and one of those was cooking.
At first, she became Kisuke's maid solely because she wanted to return at least some of the favor she'd received. Medusa never really thought that she'd enjoy seeing people smile at her cooking and it was only recently that she discovered why. It was because it reminded her of the happy times she had with her older sisters, "I'll be sure to serve grandly for this victory~!"
Kisuke chuckled and patted her small head, "I'll be looking forward to that."
He then disappeared along with Zanis.
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.
.
After the announcement of the Hestia Familia's victory, Hestia slowly approached Apollo and his cohorts with a menacing smile, "Apollo and the rest of you~ You know what to do, right?"
Their faces paled even more as Hestia closed in on them, "H-Hestia... Forgive us! We promise that we'll never do something like this again!"
Similar words of defeat and asking for forgiveness came from the other Gods, hoping that Hestia would take pity on them and reduce their punishment.
But Hestia's smile remained and said, "Eh? But I have a way to make sure something like this won't ever happen again, even without you promising anything~?"
At that moment, all of them became hopeless as Hestia continued her words with a rageful expression, "All of you shall have your assets confiscated and expelled from Orario, never setting foot in this place again!"
Hestia then started walking away with a harrumph from their wailing voices. But just as she was about to exit the room, she stopped walking when she heard one of them speaking with a creepy laugh, "Hehehe... Hestia. You can't be thinking that you can really kick us out of Orario, right?"
Hestia turned towards them with a frown and asked, "What do you mean? Are you planning to break the agreement that you yourselves set?"
"You may take our assets, but you can't kick all of us out. If it's just Apollo, then you're very welcome, but if you are going to include us, you'll first have to talk to the Guild."
Hestia's frown deepened and she looked towards the Guild Chief, Royman, who just came to mediate between the two sides. He seemed to be hesitating about something and she could tell that he was agreeing with the Deity, "And why would that be?"
"It's a city-wide problem.", replied Hephaestus, "I already knew that they were going to leverage this, so it's really going to be hard to kick out everyone else aside from Apollo."
With the obvious question mark on her face, Loki decided to explain it further, "Their Familias combined are big enough to cause some major problems in the city's economy. It's not just about the Adventurers that may choose to follow them when they leave, but also the connections they have outside Orario."
"Aside from Magic Stones and drop items, Orario still imports most of its commodities from the outside and it's actually Familias of their sizes who are the ones taking care of that. If they left, a recession may happen if they were to use those connections to pressure Orario."
'So it's about money, huh?', thought Hestia and finally understood the situation. Even then, she didn't want to let them go, not after they'd all joined up to bully a small Familia like hers. If it wasn't for Kisuke and the others, the ending would have been very different with no one even remembering her Familia after the event.
But just as Hestia didn't know what to do, Kisuke's guild advisor suddenly arrived and approached Royman, "Royman-sama, please take a look at this."
"Not now, Sophie! I'm in a tough spot right now!", replied Royman with impatience.
Without minding his attitude, Sophie continued, "This should solve our problem."
"Hmm?" Royman became curious and took the paper from Sophie's hand and gave it a quick read.
A few seconds later, his eyes widened and after a few minutes more passed, Royman silently folded the paper and regained his serious expression before asking Sophie, "Is this true?"
"Yes. I've received it from the man himself earlier. It seems that he already expected this situation." Even Sophie couldn't believe the contents of the note that Kisuke had given her. When she first read it, it didn't make any sense and she was confused about why he wanted to present it to the Gods.
However, the moment the Humvee was revealed, she instantly understood that it was preparation for something. Understanding the current situation now, everything clicked in her head and she admired Kisuke's grasp in their situation.
Clearing his throat, Royman announced, "Since Hestia-sama has already decided, the Guild will be enforcing her terms. Apollo-sama and his allies shall have all their assets confiscated and the Deities to be expelled from Orario."
"W-what!!? Royman! What are you saying! You can't decide this! Go get Ouranos' words first! And I assure you, a decision like this is a mistake!"
"That's right! Not only will this be revoked later, but you'll also lose your position!"
"And what's that note you received!? Why did you change your stance after reading it!?"
Royman answered the Deities last question, "It's a Guild affair and can't be disclosed to anyone right now."
"What was that!? Why can't you tell us the reason why you suddenly agreed with Hestia!?"
With her ears ringing from all the barking of the loser Deities, Loki finally had enough and interrupted, "Will you shut it? The decision has already been made and you guys should start packing your things."
"This has nothing to do with you, Loki!"
Sighing, Loki continued while facing Royman, "Let me guess. That message came from Kisuke Urahara, didn't it? And its content should be somewhere around the line of him willing to negotiate the production method of that strange carriage and its distribution."
Royman flinched but he answered, "As I said, it's a Guild affair that can't be revealed to the public. Please excuse us. Sophie, let's go."
Royman immediately left with Sophie but the reaction he gave more or less confirmed Loki's words. And if that was true, getting the production method of an item that could revolutionize how the people of this world traveled, would also become the sharpest sword that Orario could use to destroy any economical pressure that others could put on it.
Who would want to pressure Orario at the risk of not getting such a wondrous item?
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AN:
m(。≧Д≦。)m
Please forgive this author!
I forgot to release the batch before this (once again) so it has taken this long.
Editors:
28th00: The power of a Monopoly! Zanis tried to bolt, truly scum. Medusa gets super happy at both headpats and cookbooks, best Meido! I still worry about Ophis and Claire getting scary ideas... Loki guessing what Kisuke did is in no way surprising, since they’re both of similar characters and Loki has had at minimum around a century of experience in politics like this. I had something else to add onto that thought, but I forgot.
Alexander: Maybe you forgot because you were still scared by the prospect of the complete destruction of their familia’s by Sona’s cooking. Knowing her, she would most likely want to try improving her cooking skill, if she’d help Medusa translate the books. And as defined by the rules of Otaku culture, bad cooking most likely evolves to hellish cooking.