"Surely it is not only I who sees it?"
"Minamoto, please pay some respect to Sasaki-dono."
"Respect?! I am to pay her respect? What of recent times, has she paid me - or any of us - respect?"
My ears nearly rang with the whining of Minamoto, his voice only one step up from a child. Just as my cup nearly ran empty of sake, so is my mind nearly void of any patience for the noble.
"And what exactly is it that you see, Minamoto-dono?" I asked with my eyebrow raised, my fingers spinning the cup on the table. It produced this low grinding sound that Minamoto clearly didn't care for, which only made me do it faster.
"I can see what it seems nobody else can. You're Demon, you are losing control over it, you are not as strong as you say." Minamoto stated while pointing behind me.
Rather than empty space, Minamoto drew attention to the Other One, the Demon who had been with me since my father's death. It maintained an expression of apathy on its face, not like it could show any other, and tilted its head at the accusing noble.
"You have not always been the most socially apt of us, Minamoto, but surely you know better than to accuse me of something as that? My Demon has done nothing but protect me all my life, and you say that, what, it is trying to corrupt me?" I replied with a laugh, slapping the table. The sudden action caused the rest of the shogunate to visibly flinch, only serving to make me laugh more.
"Enough! Minamoto, you have no place to be throwing around these accusations. Besides we have far more pressing matters to discuss." Another noble, Hayashi, spoke up. I always liked him, mostly because he too couldn't stand Minamoto.
The mood of everyone immediately darkened as they knew what matters Hayashi spoke of.
"One of our own, Fuji-sama, recently was slain. His corpse was found strewn across the grass in pieces. As grim as this is, we must put our efforts into finding the killer, and show them they cannot toy with this shogunate." Hayashi's voice grew an edge to it, the way it always did when he spoke of something that angered him. Frankly, it was enjoyable to watch the man become upset.
"The cuts were clean and precise, as they were not done after the killing. This means the killer was skilled enough to separate the body during the process."
"I can only think of one person capable of that at the moment," Minamoto replied, glaring at me as if I couldn't sentence him right now to death.
"Yes, as do I, Minamoto," I said with an equal glare and a small smirk, "a man you all know good and well. The only man I know who could do something so accurately and quickly."
"Who, Sasaki-dono?," Hayashi asked me.
"Who else do you know that could cut that swiftly with a blade? Who else do you know would never back down from a challenge? Let's be honest as well, Fuji wasn't the introverted type, it isn't unheard of for him to test his skill."
"Sasaki-dono, surely you aren't suggesting-"
"Oh but I am, Hayashi.... Miyamoto Musashi, the man who took me in."
Minamoto and two other nobles immediately stood from their seated spots. Hayashi and others tried to calm them down whilst I sat back and watched the chaos. From the sounds of things it seemed some of the other nobles agreed with my "hypothesis". Good....very good.
Meanwhile, my Other One stared across the room at its fellow Demons. Those who have been contracted by some of the nobles, they now served as their bodyguards during meeting times such as this. My Other One simply gazed at them, before speaking a single word in a tone barely enough for human ears to pick up on.
"J̵̽̓ô̶̊ḯ̷̕n̴͗́.̷͂̾.̶͆͌.̷̡̑.̷͑."
