-Vol 6: Dusk of An Era-

-Family Gathering(2)-

The night went quite normally, with everyone gathering for a nice dinner after escaping what would have been a disaster similar to Yonezawa. The atmosphere was pretty mellow with women taking their time while discussing their stuff, and the two males, Kenshin and Joy, knocked themselves out with the drinks. Before they had dinner, Joy had gone to bring his mom while Kenshin went to Chiba’s home to bring her mom too.

Unfortunately, Chiba herself couldn’t join in as she was yet to wake up. As for her mother, she accompanied her daughter and didn’t join in the fun. But that didn’t hamper the celebratory atmosphere, as she was extremely proud that her daughter had fought to protect so many people and didn’t hid that fact either. Seeing her caring side reminded Kenshin of his own mother when she was alive. Especially due to that reason, he drank with Joy until they both passed out in the living room.

“Sigh, these boys. They are already so grown up, but look at them? Behaving like this.” Complained Yuki as she brought two blankets to cover them both. She was now in a pair of pajama shorts and a long shirt, coming all the way to her mid-thighs. Her hair was tied in a neat ponytail, looking quite beautiful on her.

“Haha, let them be… they have just fought a long and arduous battle.” Spoken by a woman with greying hair and a lot of wrinkles on her face. She shared a little facial trait with Joy, especially the way their eyebrows were shaped. She was none other than Joy’s mother, Mariale. She was doing dishes with Yui, the landlord. Despite her age, she still looked strong.

“Yeah… now that their battle was over, my battle would begin from tomorrow.” Yuki could picture how hectic of a day she was going to have tomorrow. The events were yet to made public, and when it does, her work will begin. Suddenly as she was about to go and help the two ladies, her phone, which was placed on the table close to the sofa, rang loud.

At first, she thought of ignoring it, and that’s what she did too. But it rang again persistently, giving her no way out. Looking at the caller-id, she frowned at the name displayed, it was Lily. After the events happened with Kenshin, it could be said that her relationship with Lily kind of stopped advancing towards friendship than just two colleagues. It's not that she wanted that to happen, but it was Lily herself who drew the line.

“Hello!” she nonetheless accepted her call. Suddenly her confused face morphed into a look of horror before transforming to that of a frown as her brows twitched and her forehead creasing. She discreetly looked towards sleeping, Kenshin, “alright, Lily, put this thing into a maximum priority for now and leave it for tomorrow morning. Yes, alright. Have a good night, and go back to sleep. Yes, aright.”

After that, she went towards Kenshin before trying to wake him up by shaking his shoulders, “Kenshin, wake up. Wake up!! Quick!!”

“What happened, Yuki? Did something happened again?” asked Yui as she came towards Yuki, who was trying to wake up Kenshin. There was a frown on her face, probably thinking of something happening with Kenshin again.

“It’s of the same priority but not that what you are thinking, anyway, it’s a little complicated matter.” After answering her, Yuki slapped Kenshin’s cheeks twice before the later even showed any reaction.

“W, what? Yuki! What the hell?” being awoken abruptly, Kenshin was a little groggy at first, but his physique clicked in, wiping away any sense of drowsiness he might have felt. In reply, she gave him a stare before saying, “follow me” and walked towards the front door.

Confusedly, Kenshin looked towards Mrs. Yui before asking her silently about the matter, but she only shook her head negatively. Letting out a sigh at his ruined sleep, he stood up and went outside, following behind her.

On the outside,

“Kenshin, tell me the truth. Did you do something to Kawakuchi family on your way back to here?” Yuki didn’t beat around the bush and directly went to the point, which in turn made Kenshin stumble a little at the abruptness of it. Becoming serious, he first nodded then explained,

“Yeah, I have indeed done something with them. In fact, I have killed all top members of the family, even exposed their deeds.” He didn’t hide anything from her, explaining everything from his arrival from that island to him, killing the lady, the wife of Kaio. He explained everything, of course, avoiding the gory details, not that there were some in the first place as he killed everyone with a single precise attack.

Yuki heard everything in silence before finally letting out a sigh. Then she got closer to Kenshin and knocked him on the forehead, “idiot!! Is there a need to kill every supporting pillar of that family? Now we don’t have anyone to blame on those actions they have done all these years. Not only that, you don’t know this, but the information that was leaked to the internet will be absolute dynamite to the remaining six founding families of Ibaraki. I am pretty sure some eyebrows will be raised on this matter.”

“Eh? Isn’t that’s a good thing?” asked Kenshin getting confused at this. But Yuki shook her head negatively, “the current political situation was a lot messier than you think it is. Leaving aside the Elder’s Council and DCB, nearly all-important positions in administrations are held by those who were not hunters and didn’t have the aptitude to become one.

Their petty jealousy towards hunters led them to suppress them who are not a part of DCB or a huge guild, typically those private hunters. Adding to that, the growing taxes, bias towards non-hunters, and other activities had gradually increased a kind of civil unrest among the people. Right now, the upper echelons of the society are divided into two parts, those who support hunters and those who do not. Political parties are taking advantage of this unrest to poll in as many votes as they can.

What you did today is going to add fuel to that fire, and I am pretty sure they will explode soon enough. Your actions today will give those anti-hunters gang a reason to suppress the pro-hunters gang, and if the situation goes out of hand, something bad will happen. At this rate the government might just collapse overnight… after all you know how hunters behaved when they were angered enough.”

“Well shit!” Kenshin didn’t expect such a violent chain reaction from his actions. He thought the worst that could happen would be him getting caught and this event going viral over the internet… but he hadn’t expected such a violent outcome. Although he didn’t regret his actions, not even a single percent.

Seeing his creased brows and ugly face, Yuki sighed and continued, “Thankfully, you have done it on the same day these creatures attacked worldwide. Hunters shone brightly in this event, especially by killing these creatures and protecting the civilians, this brilliance would definitely overshadow that thing, and besides, not only the hunters' group, even the anti-hunter’s group would try to hide this matter. This family’s business partners are mostly those bureaucratic officers in top positions. And they are not hunters, rather normal people.”