I don't know where all my Followers are now that the Fujiwara know about me. I hope they are still in their villages. Ah, it's nice to relax sometimes.

However, during my moments of peace, I smell something familiar outside the doorway. It felt like someone strong was about to open the door.

"Master, it's me." Jumping up from the bed, I couldn't believe who I saw.

It's my old servant with the horns, Himari. I'm shocked they didn't kill her.

She came closer slowly and said, "I was waiting for you, Master. It's been quite some time since those assassins came. I tried to fight back, but they were too strong. Ever since then, I've been dying to see you."

I quickly ask, "What happened? Where is Livia and Shinji?"

She stepped forward silently until she was right in front of me. For some reason, Himari's mannerism was different than usual.

"My husband is dead. My poor Livia, that you have been controlling for so long, has been imprisoned. To be honest, I have always been following your orders despite being self-aware only because you haven't put my family in danger. But now, I see now that problems should be eliminated early on." Himari grabs my right arm and digs her nails into my skin.

It was so shocking to see her attack me that I almost panicked. However, I quickly used my left hand to grab a knife and slice Himari's arm off of mine.

"Grrh. After so long, I've finally done it. Reversal technique: Annihilation." Himari says as I feel my cursed energy disappearing. I look down and see my arm slowly disintegrating.

How can she possibly do this under my control? How did she even learn a reversal technique? Has she been aware for longer than I think?

Himari backs away and grabs her arm. It slowly heals as she explains, "My technique is called Resurrection. It completely generates a new body for a cursed spirit using cursed energy from the environment. After using Resurrection so many times, I noticed discrepancies in my brain. That's how I learned I needed to get away from your control somehow without alerting you."

I keep trying to stop the decay spreading on my arm. My elbow was already gone, and it kept moving up to my shoulder. It was like watching my arm vanishing into red dust.

"But nothing worked. My husband and daughter were completely under your control, following all of your orders. I could only pretend to be the same while making sure they were safe. That's why I studied my technique to its fullest potential. I needed a way to exorcise a curse like yourself..."

She just continues, "That's when I discovered reversal techniques after endless resurrections. Annihilation, which pumps positive energy into humans to heal them. Of course, for a curse, positive energy is deadly. It won't stop until it covers your entire body. Even chopping your arm won't stop it unless you never regenerate it. Consider this a gift from our family."

I try to heal myself using cursed energy, but it just dissipates. I stop focusing on Himari talking and use every method to stop this infection of positive energy. It's completely destroying my body!

Himari grabs a few supplies before leaving the room in a hurry. I heard her whisper something about finding a way to bring back Shinji somehow. Then she talks about finding Livia from a Fujiwara spy. Then she stares back at me again, slightly nervous, and runs outside.

She probably realized I was gonna fucking kill her! Luckily for her, I am preoccupied.

My arm slowly disintegrates while my cursed energy becomes weaker. I was starting to contemplate whether to use a Contract or chop off the infected areas.

But then I had an idea.

I reached into my pocket using my good arm and pulled out the Void Fabric. It makes me feel numb like before, but this time I rub it over the infected areas on my right arm. It stops spreading, so I use the opportunity to regenerate the missing parts which were destroyed using cursed energy.

As the negative energy fights the positive energy, my arm felt like it was on a freaking fire! Slowly, the Void Fabric was becoming too difficult to hold, so I wrapped it around my right arm until it was very tight. I look down and see the positive energy stop spreading as the Void Fabric absorbs the technique's effects.

If I had to guess, it would take some time for it to fully go away. Maybe an hour? I check my body and realize I've lost around 10% of my cursed energy. But I'm still a First Grade, which means I can kill that bitch!

How dare she fucking pretend to be loyal?! Wanna find a way to meet Shinji again?! I'll bring you straight to him!

I dash out the door and see Himari in the distance sprinting away. I was about to summon the Divine Dogs but realized my techniques were nullified. Quickly, I do the next best thing and use my Yama's Court, which is still connected to her.

It's insulting to think she was using my Yama's Court to blend in and protect her family. She managed to fool me, but I still have a connection to her, one way or another. Still, I can't let a Follower become so close to me in the future. Especially if they even have a chance of betraying me. This is completely unacceptable.

- 5 Faith

"Stop moving right now! You bitch!" I give an order to Himari. She stops for a moment and falls to the ground clutching her head.

I use the moment to run faster. She then turns around and sees me coming for her. Unsurprisingly, she got up quickly and ran away faster.

- 5 Faith

"Freeze!" After another order, she collapses. Pushing her legs off the ground, she looked dizzy from my command. This time, she recovered faster and ran away again.

I measured the distance and thought there was still half a kilometer between us. Although it's expensive, I decide it's best to bombard her with commands.

- 5 Faith

"Halt, bitch!"

- 5 Faith

"Stop!"

- 5 Faith

"Don't move!" After this command, I finally reached her. She was sweating on the dirty ground from pain or just the heat outside. As I see her, I shake my head in disappointment. Maybe it wasn't mature to chase her down in such a desperate way. I'm not some loser who can't kill her another time.

Unlike me, she seems to have hit her potential at Second Grade despite being a hybrid between curse and devils.

I remember back when I was scared of her. How pathetic was that? Me being threatened by my own Follower. I should have kept her on a tighter leash instead of letting her 'experiment' on her technique.

She turned her head and looked terrified when she saw me. The blindfold wrapped around my arm made her realize that I wouldn't be dying soon.

Himari put her hands up in surrender and said, "Don't kill me. I know you can, but it wouldn't be worth it. Not only do I have information, but I can still put up a struggle if you try to end my life."

While it is true that my cursed energy is not going to work with me, it doesn't mean she is impossible to kill.

"If you tell me something which I consider valuable, I'll let you go." I respond to her. There is no one around us anyway, so I can wait. Even if this is an attempt to stall, I won't let her leave alive if she takes too long answering me.

Himari sighed in relief, "Do you remember that Hakana Yoshiro? Well, he is still alive. After Livia killed him, I used Annihilation to revive him. At that time, I told him to become stronger to kill Gabimari, the man who murdered his father."

What? I don't like leaving loose ends... Won't this be like a typical villain shounen story where he gets revenge for his ruined childhood against me? I need to find him soon... The Ten Shadows are too powerful to let an enemy have.

This really was useful information to help prepare against an unknown variable. I really had to thank Himari, but then I realized she created this problem.

I rip off the Void Fabric on my arm and feel my strength return to my body. My shadows stop distorting as I chant, "Ten Shadows... Divine Dogs!"

Out from under my body, two wolves pounce on Himari and rip her body to shreds. She screams about me lying and being a monster.

As she slowly bleeds out, her final words are, "One day... That Yoshiro brat will get you... Fate and karma will always deliver."

"Himari, do you think fate and karma will deliver? If so, they are doing a bad job of keeping you alive. Hehe."

One surprised look later, and her neck gets chomped on by my black hound. After that, she died, and my dogs feasted on her body. It was a good source of cursed energy, which helped refill almost everything I lost from Annihilation. Then I swiftly tied the Void Fabric around my arm, which made the Divine Dogs disappear.

I started feeling weakened again, so I used this moment to reflect.

Yoshiro is just a brat who won't be a serious problem. He will look for me once he thinks he can beat me, so I just need to kill him when he arrives. Humans only live for around sixty years in this era, so the wait won't be too long for me.

"A setback, but it's not a big deal." I say to myself. It became dark while chasing Himari around this place. I should head back to Livia's house and make a game plan.

...

I sit down on the bed and use this moment to test out the Ten Shadows. As of now, I have two dogs, an owl, and seven toads.

The sign appears in my mind. I clasp their hands together to imitate the shape of wings.

"Nue." I say to my shadow, which ejects a massive figure into the room.

Nue is a bird-like creature with orange feathers and a white mask-like face. I inspect it closely and find out it's the same as the anime. It has large wings, two sets of talons, and human-like teeth. This owl can even summon lighting attacks by flapping its wings.

After my inspection, I cancel Nue's summon as it falls back into my shadow. Then I use my hands and fingers to form almost a bridge in the shape of a giant mouth.

This time I chant while thinking of seven different creatures inside my shadows, "Toads."

After some croaking, the toads appear in front of me. They were so big that the entire room was filled with the toads. I look at the closest one and inspect it.

Toad is a human-sized toad with marks around its eyes and a symbol on its stomach. This thing doesn't have any real power except brute strength and numbers.

I start to feel a drain on my curse energy and send them back into my shadows. The two distinctive features of Ten Shadows are the fact that I gain the ability to go inside shadows and store items in shadows.

The only restriction is that anything I store will be placed on me. If I cannot bear the weight of a car, my body would explode when I try to store it in my shadow.

Another main feature of the Ten Shadows is its inheritance ability. As long as one of my shikigami gets exorcised, they will be dead permanently. However, their powers are passed down to my shikigami which are still alive.

This means they will get progressively stronger as more die and become replaced. The only downside is my cursed energy expenditure increases alongside the power-ups. But this did mean my potential was limitless, like Gojo Satoru. Was that a bad joke?

Tomorrow will be the day I can leave this damn region. I've got nothing but nightmares and betrayal after staying here for six years of my life. It's okay, though, since my new chapter in life begins with the Nakatomi Clan.