Chapter 225: Chapter 105: Sakurada Gate Incident! Demons and Monsters Revealed!

"Hey! What on earth happened over by the Sakurada Gate?" a citizen asked.

"I don’t know!" a servant forming the line of defense shouted impatiently, "I don’t know what’s going on either! Just disperse! Disperse! There’s nothing to see!"

Aoto, seeing this, instantly furrowed his brows.

There’s a defense line... drawn so far away? There’s still quite a distance from here to the Sakurada Gate...

A bad premonition began to emerge incessantly from the depths of Aoto’s heart...

"I’m a Dōshin of the North Station Town Patrol! Make way!" Aoto urged the citizens blocking his path, verifying his identity with the servants forming the line, before entering the cordon with Saito Ichiro.

After running a bit further toward the Sakurada Gate, Aoto’s expression began to uncontrollably turn grave.

He slowly smelled... the stench of blood wafting in the air.

The closer he got to the Sakurada Gate, the stronger the nauseating stench of blood became...

Finally—Aoto arrived outside the Sakurada Gate.

The scene outside Sakurada Gate at this moment made Aoto momentarily lose himself in extreme shock.

The snow, stained dark red and black with blood, scattered dismembered limbs, dead bodies with eyes wide open in death, broken blades...

Many familiar faces, with ghastly expressions, shuttled back and forth in this blood-soaked battlefield.

"Lord Arima! Mr. Inagawa! Mr. Ushiyama!" Aoto quickly ran toward the three seniors standing not far from him.

"Mr. Tachibana, you’ve come..." Arima, wearing the grand formal attire he hadn’t had time to change out of, wore a dreadfully grim expression as if about to drip black water.

Aoto asked urgently, "What exactly happened?"

"...The Ii family’s procession was attacked on their way to Edo Castle." Arima continued taking deep breaths to keep calm, "Ii Dairou... has been killed..."

"What...?!" Aoto’s eyes widened sharply.

He quickly raised his head, scanning his surroundings.

Soon, he spotted a headless corpse beside a palanquin adorned with the "tachibana crest" of the Ii family not far from him.

Even though the corpse was missing its head, Aoto recognized it immediately—It was Ii Naosuke, who had been joking with him just the day before...

The sense of disorientation that had just faded away resurfaced once more.

Looking at Ii Naosuke’s body, Aoto felt dizzy, a sense of unreality...

Just the day before, Ii Naosuke had been laughing and chatting with him.

At his waist now hung the Treasure Sword that Ii Naosuke had personally given him...

Dead?

That Ii Dairou... just died like that?

(Ii Dairou was like a Demon-Breaking Arrow, suppressing countless malevolent spirits.)

For some reason, the casual words Yamanaka had said to him yesterday surfaced in Aoto’s mind.

Aoto, unable to stop the look of shock in his eyes, gazed with a somewhat wooden expression at his colleagues shuttling back and forth outside the Sakurada Gate, at the bodies strewn across the ground, at the sky still covered with thick clouds, and at the snow that seemed never to stop falling...

Aoto couldn’t help but murmur in a volume only he could hear:

"The demons and monsters are about to escape..."

...

...

Edo Castle, Da Ao—

"What did you say?!"

Tenshōin, usually soft-spoken, unusually shouted sharply.

The female official kneeling before her, trembling all over, repeated what she had just said.

After repeatedly confirming with the female official, Tenshōin’s body, as if losing the support of her bones, staggered backward several steps and almost fell to the ground.

...

...

Tokugawa Iemochi learned the news of "Ii Naosuke’s assassination" almost simultaneously with Tenshōin.

"Ii... is dead...?" Tokugawa Iemochi’s face turned pale, paling in comparison to the snow flying outside the hall.

...

...

Edo, in a certain dilapidated house on the outskirts—

"Everyone! You all should know by now, right?!"

The leader of the Anti-foreigner Group: Shinno, said spiritedly to the dozen or so equally spirited cadres of the Anti-foreigner Group kneeling before him.

"More than a dozen vassals from the Mito Domain successfully delivered Celestial Punishment to that traitor Ii Naosuke!"

"This is the consequence of bowing and scraping to barbarians and forcibly opening the country!"

Shinno pulled the sword from his waist and raised it in front of him.

"We wield swords in our hands too!"

"Our swords are no duller than those of the vassals of the Mito Domain!"

"What the vassals of the Mito Domain can achieve, we from the Anti-foreigner Group can achieve too!"

"Our blades can also protect this country like those of the Mito Domain vassals!"

As soon as Shinno’s words dropped, the members of the Anti-foreigner Group, whose morale reached unprecedented heights due to the Sakurada Gate Incident, let out a loud cheer—

"Ohhhh——!"

...

...

The Mito Domain, somewhere—

"Ii Naosuke is dead..."

Rakshasa, baring his back covered with a "Rakshasa Ghost" tattoo, stood with his hands behind his back, gazing out the window at the scenery beyond.

"Yes." A young man kneeling behind Rakshasa said loudly, "It’s confirmed. The vassals of the Mito Domain seized Ii Naosuke’s head outside the Sakurada Gate."

"...Well done, vassals of the Mito Domain." Rakshasa grinned, "So Ii Naosuke is dead... Ha... Hahaha... Hah Hahahahaha—!"

Rakshasa laughed maniacally, continually rubbing his two hands together.

"Alright... this detestable guy is finally dead..."

"The world is about to become interesting!"

"Hahaha... I’d really like to see Lord Orochi’s reaction when he hears about this..."

"The era of the Law Punishment Faction has arrived!" 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Rakshasa’s eyes glowed with a fierce red light.

...

...

Edo, Thousand Affairs House—

Kiryu silently threw a piece of paper, which he had been perusing, into the fire stove beside him.

The paper Kiryu had been looking at for a long time only had a simple sentence written on it—Ii Naosuke was killed.

Watching the paper gradually turn to ashes in the stove, Kiryu let out a heavy sigh.

"The real era of chaos is coming..."

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Today is a rare ten-thousand-word Chapter!

I’m quite satisfied with this Chapter, whether it’s the rhythm, content, or conception.

For the sake of this Chapter, I consulted a great deal of historical information. Seeing how earnest I am, please give me some monthly votes! (crying like a leopard.jpg)