I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

Splash...

From the direction of the entrance hall, came the sound of a door being pushed open.

We're back!

It was Okita's voice.

Hearing this voice, Zhou Zhu, who was feeling extremely uncomfortable due to the suffocating atmosphere, quickly said to A Bi as if grasping at a lifeline:

"Ah, Yuu and Souji are back... Hmm?"

Before he could finish speaking, Zhou Zhu paused for a moment.

Abi was also stunned.

They both realized—the footsteps…were a bit too many…

The sound of footsteps moved from the entrance hall to the door of the living room.

Whoosh—the main door to the hall was pulled open.

Shusuke and Abi stared in astonishment as Kondo and Okita pushed open the door to the main room... followed by Aoto, Saito, and Kyubei...

……

……

In an unassuming house in Edo—

"Toudou, so that means only Miyabe was captured by that Tachibana Aoto?" Jinno, sitting upright behind a table and carefully examining a piece of paper covered with dense, tadpole-sized characters, asked a young man with only one right arm behind him.

"Hmm." The one-armed youth... the young samurai whom Kanno called "Toudou," nodded slightly. "Everyone except Miyabe escaped successfully."

“…You’re really useless.” Jinno gripped the brush tightly in his hand, the wooden handle creaking under the weight. “You can’t even set a fire properly…”

"Fine, Miyabe is just an insignificant pawn anyway, and he doesn't know any important information about our Extermination Group. Let him be arrested if he's caught."

"Was Tachibana Aoto's house successfully burned down?"

"Tachibana Aoto's house is now perfectly reduced to a charred ruin." Toudou grinned. "It's just a pity—we couldn't burn Tachibana Aoto to death."

“It’s alright,” Jinno said. “From the very beginning, I never expected to burn Tachibana Aoto to death.”

"Just burn his house down as a warning."

"Mr. Jinno, what should we do next?" Toudou asked. "Should we continue to take revenge on Tachibana Aoto? It feels like just burning down his house isn't enough."

“That’s enough.” Jinno placed the papers in his hand on the low table in front of him. “The reason I decided to burn down Tachibana Seito’s house was just to give him a warning.”

"Warning Tachibana Seiden: We will not forget the humiliation and defeat that caused us, and we will avenge it."

"Now that the warning has been successfully issued, I plan to do nothing for the time being and let Tachibana Aoto enjoy his freedom for a while longer."

"Next, I plan to focus my efforts on reforming our anti-barbarian group."

Kamino's brows furrowed slightly at this moment.

"Suehiro and his group's crushing defeat has made me realize that we were too focused on expanding our numbers, which has resulted in our team being a mixed bag. Although the number of people has increased, our combat strength has not."

"If Suehiro had led a group of people with a strong fighting spirit that night, how could they have been defeated by an enemy whose numbers were only a fraction of theirs?"

"If our anti-barbarian group continues to be so weak... our 'great cause of expelling barbarians' is nothing but a pipe dream."

“Hmm.” Toudou nodded. “I agree. I also think our Extermination Group should do a thorough weeding out of the bad and keeping the good.”

Seeing that Toudou had agreed to his proposal, Kanno smiled slightly:

"I plan to spend one or two months thoroughly reforming our anti-barbarian group to enhance our combat capabilities."

"After our reforms have achieved significant results..."

Jinno's smile slowly faded, and a cold light flashed in his eyes.

“Let’s settle accounts with Tachibana Seiden again and plan our ‘great cause of expelling the barbarians’ properly.”

Todo looked expectant.

"Reform, huh... Hahaha, it really gets my blood pumping!"

"Mr. Kamino, please feel free to call me wherever you need me!"

He pounded his chest powerfully with his one arm.

Kanno nodded: "You are an important member of our anti-foreign group, and the tasks we will assign you will certainly be numerous."

"Hey, I'm relieved to hear you say that." Toudou laughed happily as he leaned back against the wall behind him.

At that moment, Todo caught a glimpse of the paper on the table in front of Kanna that Kanna had been looking at.

"Speaking of which—Mr. Kamino, what were you looking at just now?"

Jinno glanced at the piece of paper on the table.

"...I was just looking at Tachibana Aoto's information."

"Information on Tachibana Aoto?"

Jinno nodded: "Although we hate to admit it, we really underestimated Tachibana Aoto before."

"We thought he was just an ordinary 'three-times' Tongxin. But we never expected that this guy, whom we thought was ordinary, would cause us so much trouble."

"In order to better deal with this traitor later, I commissioned a trustworthy and efficient intelligence dealer three days ago to obtain detailed information about Tachibana Aoto."

"Hey...that detailed information about Tachibana Aoto..." Toudou cast a curious glance at the paper. "Mr. Kanno, may I take a look?"

“There’s nothing to see.” Jinno raised his hand and handed the paper with detailed information about Tachibana Aoto to Todo. “There’s no high-value information.”

Todo took the paper from Jinno and began to read it quickly.

"Young name, Jiuro."

"Full name, Minamoto no Aoto Moriharu... Tsk tsk, so he's a descendant of the Minamoto clan, quite noble lineage..."

"The descendants of the Genji are nothing special," Jinno said casually. "There are Genji descendants everywhere."

“That’s true.” Todo nodded. “The full name of Tachibana Aoto is quite elegant.”

"Minamoto no Moriharu... what a full name that is full of the style of the Heian period."

After saying that, Todo continued reading.

After reading the entire piece of paper, Todo discovered that, just as Jinno had said, there was no high-value information; it was all trivial details such as what Aoto's full name was, where he lived, and how much his family fortune was.

Although there are fairly detailed records of Qing Deng's previous life, there is not much noteworthy information in Qing Deng's past life experiences.

"How boring." Toudou casually tossed the paper in his hand. "There's no interesting or usable information at all."

"That's why I said there's no high-value information on this piece of paper."

After saying that, Jinno looked up at the night view outside the window next to him.

“…It’s about time.” Jinno said as he stood up. “Let’s go, Toudou, it’s time to go back to our base.”

"Okay." Toudou nodded, then picked up the knife beside him.

After securing their swords and donning straw hats to conceal their faces, Jinno and Toudou left the secluded hut one after the other, heading further and further down a path outside.

The two figures gradually disappeared into the dark night.

……

……

In a room on the second floor of the Shieikan (Imperial House) in Koishikawa, Kohinata-Yanagi-cho, Edo—

"What?! Let those three people stay at our house temporarily? No way!!"

Faced with the shockwave created by Abi's roar, Kondo and Okita, who were sitting in front of her, couldn't help but shrink back.

Inside the room, Shusuke, Abi, Kondo, and Okita sat facing each other.

“Um… Auntie,” Okita said to Abi first, “Our Shieikan is quite big, it can easily accommodate more guests.”

"This isn't about whether our place can accommodate a few more guests!" Abi slashed at Okita's face. "Souji, I don't need to explain, you should know how bad our Shieikan's income is right now, right?"

"Let's have three more people in our family who just eat and drink for free? No way! Absolutely not!"

"besides--"

At this point, Abi paused, then looked Okita up and down several times with a strange gaze.

"...Souji, don't you feel uncomfortable having three grown men living in the Shieikan?"

“No, not at all.” Okita raised his hand and played with the thin ponytail at the back of his head, smiling without hesitation. “I won’t mind.”

Seeing that Okita refuted her without hesitation, Abi frowned.

“Uh… Madam.” Shusuke took a deep breath, as if to bolster his courage, “I think… it wouldn’t be a problem to let Tachibana and the other two stay at our house temporarily.”

"They don't live with us all the time; they're just staying with us temporarily until they get a stable place to live again."

“Our family’s income situation isn’t great right now, but it’s not so bad that we can’t even afford to feed three more people a day…”

"Shut up!" Abi glared at Zhou Zhu.

“Yes…” Zhou Zhu silently withdrew his gaze and shrank even smaller…

Kondo and Okita watched calmly as Shusuke was instantly "suppressed" by Abi—a sight they were already used to.

"In short—I will not allow those three to live in our house!" Abi forcefully flicked the sleeve of her kimono. "Those three can live wherever they want! They are simply not allowed to live in our house!"

“…Mother!” Kondo, who had been hanging his head and remaining silent, gritted his teeth, raised his head, and met Abhi’s gaze without flinching or fear. “Please hear what your child has to say!”

“Tachibana-kun is not an outsider. He is an apprentice of our Shieikan and a member of our Shieikan.”

“Now, a member of our Shieikan school is in trouble… As the teacher representative of Shieikan school, I really can’t stay out of it!”

"Moreover, even disregarding Tachibana-kun's status as a member of our Shieikan, Tachibana-kun himself is a hero worthy of respect!"

"Mother, you must have heard about the rumors of Tachibana-kun defeating a powerful enemy on a snowy night."

"He led such a small force that he routed the 'anti-foreign' thugs, who outnumbered him several times over."

A hint of excitement slowly rose on Kondo's face.

"Although I was not fortunate enough to witness Tachibana-kun's heroic feat of overcoming the strong with the weak, even just hearing a few words of rumors makes me yearn for it."

“Those ‘expelling the barbarians’ thugs have been committing evil deeds for a long time, and countless innocent people have been harmed by them.”