Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

Douman Ashiya was truly an evil person.

He was actually far more evil than in the fictionalized stories about him. He was unmistakably and incurably evil!

But, that would only be from the normal “human” standpoint.

Douman Ashiya was incredibly cruel towards humans, including even his own children. He basically didn’t have a single moral value that normal people would have, which was why he could only be described using adjectives such as “insane” and “evil”. However, he was actually quite gentle and magnanimous towards non-humans—basically, demons and other spiritual creatures.

Normally speaking, if there was a fight between humans and demons, spiritual ability users would be on the humans’ side. However, Douman Ashiya was the opposite. He always acted for the sake of demons. In fact, there were even multiple confirmed examples in history of him slaughtering an entire village for the sake a demon.

Without a doubt, a Yin Yang Master like Douman Ashiya would become enemies with all spiritual ability users who were on the side of good. However, Douman Ashiya just happened to be incredibly strong with countless demon subordinates. No ordinary spiritual ability user would be even close to being an opponent for him.

Seimei Kamijou was the only person who was powerful enough to stop him.

The end result of the final duel between the two strongest Yin Yang Masters of their era was that Seimei Kamijou destroyed Douman’s cultivation level. Seimei then placed a powerful seal on Douman before having him exiled.

As for what happened to this “evilest” Yin Yang Master afterwards, there were countless rumors. Some said that he died pathetically, some said that he became a demon, some said that he regretted his past deeds, and some said that he used evil arts to extend his life… There was no verifiable record of what happened to him in history.

However, it was indeed known that he had left descendants behind.

If only Douman Ashiya had been a normal Yin Yang Master, perhaps the seven major families of today would instead be the eight major families. However, he was not a good Yin Yang Master. His descendants were forced to bear a heavy burden due to having such a notoriously evil ancestor.

Seiji didn’t know very much about Sakura Island’s version of the history between Douman Ashiya and Abe no Seimei (Seimei Kamijou). He had learned all this while previously chatting with Natsuya before. He didn’t have a deep understanding of just what exactly the family name “Ashiya” meant in the spiritual society.

Seiji was curious, but he knew that now was a bad time to provoke Voidfire, so he let this topic go.

Besides, he was a descendant of the Haruta Family. Since the Harutas had previously changed their family name from Kamijou to Haruta in order to attract less attention, this made Seiji and Voidfire the descendants of two mortal enemies. This felt rather subtle to Seiji.

It didn’t seem like Voidfire minded… but maybe he did, and just wasn’t showing it.

Not only that, was it possible that Kamitani wanted Seiji to contact Voidfire in the previous timeline because of this connection? Intentionally having the descendants of two mortal enemies meet each other indeed seemed like something that would fit that bastard Kamitani’s interests.

“Thank you for telling me.” Seiji paused for a moment. “Will it be alright if I continue addressing you as Voidfire-san?”

“As you wish,” Dousei Ashiya—Voidfire—spoke in a light tone.

“Voidfire-san, I’d like to ask, where is Itsuki Kamitani? Did he not come together with you?”

“I don’t want such a thing to follow me around.”

He actually called Kamitani “such a thing…” Seiji’s lips arched upward.

It would seem that Kamitani wasn’t liked by Voidfire. The fact that Kamitani had succeeded in calling Voidfire here to meet a stranger must have been hard on him.

Kamitani: It’s good that you understand. Please be gentler to me~

Seiji: Shut up and get the hell away from me.

That above conversation was imagined by Seiji.

“What do you want from me, Seiji Haruta?” Voidfire asked him.

“I want to convince you not to attack Soul Society, because this attack is destined to fail with catastrophic results,” Seiji spoke in a serious tone.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I saw the future.”

Voidfire fell silent for a moment.

“Is your prophecy one hundred percent accurate?” Voidfire questioned.

“It is,” Seiji unhesitatingly agreed.

This was as much as he could afford to explain.

Making prophecies was an important role for spiritual ability users in ancient times. There were prophecy spells for major national affairs or simple daily life questions. Alternatively, this was also known as fortune telling.

But as time passed, more and more evidence proved that prophecies were largely ineffective. Relying too much on prophecies would often have the opposite effect from intended. That was why prophecy magic gradually died out.

Fate was unpredictable. The future was impossible to know. Prophecy magic was unreliable. These were what modern day spiritual ability users believed.

Ordinary people were far more interested in fortunes, prophecies, horoscopes, and so on. In comparison, spiritual ability users believed in such things far less. Although there were some that still worked in these professions, those spiritual ability users themselves often didn’t really believe what they told ordinary people. The more honest ones would tell their customers the probability rate of their prophecies. As for those who claimed to have one hundred percent accurate prophecies, they were either idiots or scammers.

Yet, Seiji was now claiming to have a one hundred percent accurate prophecy.

Something flashed in Voidfire’s eyes as he fell silent.

Seiji quietly waited for Voidfire’s next response.

If Voidfire walked away or absolutely insisted on knowing more about how he could know such a prophecy, Seiji would have to load and do this conversation over again.

Telling Voidfire his future self’s password was something Seiji would only do as a last resort. That was because Seiji didn’t know if this password had any secret meanings.

Seiji much preferred to go through Kamitani in order to contact Voidfire rather than call Voidfire even though he had Voidfire’s phone number already. In the end, this was because he couldn’t easily trust a high-ranking member of the Messengers.

“The attack can’t be stopped.” Voidfire finally spoke up again in his raspy voice after a long period of silence.

“Why not?”

“Because Soul Society is about to make a great mistake. This mistake must be stopped.”

“You must be referring to their plan to sacrifice several thousand people in order to lock the Realm of Cherry Blossoms’ location. I also believe that they’re making a mistake. But if you insist on attacking them, that will only cause an even greater sacrifice in the end,” Seiji spoke in a serious tone.

“There’s no such thing as a prophecy magic in the world that can accurately predict the future,” Voidfire stated. “Even if your prophecy is correct, the future will already change from the moment that I heard your prophecy.”

“If at all possible, I’d also like to be that optimistic. But if things were really so simple, I wouldn’t go to all the trouble of going through Kamitani to have this face to face meeting with you.” Seiji sighed.

He warned Yui and informed Voidfire, putting them on guard against a potentially terrible future. Would this be able to avoid that destructive ending for the city?

Optimistically, it would.

However, Seiji still felt uneasy since he had personally witnessed such catastrophe in the city.

“The future that I saw was incredibly cruel. So many lives perished together with the falling cherry blossoms… Will this scene be avoided just because you’ll act slightly more cautiously in your attack?

“I want to believe it, but I can’t bring myself to believe it.

“Voidfire-san, I sincerely request you to reconsider your attack!”

“…If I cancel the attack, will that definitely prevent the future that you saw?” Voidfire looked directly at Seiji. “What if it has the exact opposite effect from intended!”

‘You were the one who told me to contact you and stop you!’ Seiji really wanted to say this out loud.

But when he thought things over more carefully, the future Voidfire had said “change my actions,” rather than “stop my actions.”

There seemed to be a difference in this.

Seiji furrowed his eyebrows as he considered things.

He had reflexively felt like the destructive ending wouldn’t arrive if Voidfire stopped the attack and Soul Society carried out their plan successfully…

But upon closer consideration, there was still no guarantee that this would avoid the catastrophe.

“You’re not certain, am I right?” Voidfire spoke after seeing Seiji’s silence. “The destructive future that you saw is related to me. But, you don’t know how exactly it’s related to me, is that right?”

‘Yeah… but that’s because the future you never told me any details!’ Seiji retorted in his mind.

Should he load right now and go talk to the Voidfire in the future again?

Through the power of save and load, Seiji was completely capable of talking to the same person in two different timelines quite easily.

However, it seemed like the future Voidfire didn’t want to say the specifics of what he did. It would be problematic to make him tell Seiji. Not only that, there would be very little time to talk as spiritual creatures would soon encircle them.