Malice Hearts Yin Book 1 Part 1

Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

The elegance of the Golden Magpie was certainly nothing to sneer at. It really made our own room at the Jade Pearl appear impoverished by comparison, but that was no excuse for Fujiwara to be running off to stay at this establishment. Did he not even consider the trouble it caused not to have the entire team together?

Kenpachiro was always pulling stunts like this. Our job required us to travel to many places. Yes, while I'd agree that it was interesting to go to places that I've not been to before, the mission came first. Even a child knows that there is a time for work, and a time for play, but for him, play always came before work.

No matter how serious the case, he always acted as though he was on vacation. The food, the market, places of interest, the art, music, etc. The mission always came second to his interests and hobbies.

If he was pilfering mission funds to pay for his frivolity, then I'd be able to go to Master Yamamoto about it. Kenpachiro used his own money to fund these lavish expenses for himself, however. He also performed his role in the mission when needed, so I could not make a strong enough case against him to have him removed from my team.

Last time I complained it caused the rumor to spread across the Blue Dragon that I was jealous of his wealth.

Not that my own Master wasn't wealthy, but compared to the immense fortune of the Fujiwara clan, he was but a pauper. Maybe if Master Yamamoto had made better decisions in his youth, things would be different, but that wasn't something I ought to dwell on.

The Fujiwara's were a renown family that for generations had married into the imperial line and this generation was no different. Kenpachiro's eldest sister was the current empress of Japan and his father, Fujiwara Jinpachiro, was the Master of the Red Phoenix palace. Complex reasons, however, had Fujiwara train and stay at the Blue Dragon rather than serve under his own father.

The Fujiwara family were all gifted with strong supernatural powers because of a tradition and contract formed with foxes. The contract was that had a son (never the heir) would marry a fox every seven generations.

This continued renewal of fox blood within the Fujiwara bloodline gifted the family wealth, good looks, and charisma. This allowed them to remain standing at the very top of society, both within and outside of the Onmyodo. Kenpachiro, the current heir, had only ever known his family's prosperity. This had caused him to grow into nothing more than a spoiled child in the body of a grown man.

At twenty-eight years old, he was neither married nor engaged, played more than he worked, and shrugged off any responsibility given to him. Yet a natural charm and a powerful lineage made him well known to everyone in power and well liked by them, despite his many failings. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I were to call him my very antithesis.

It took little time to locate his whereabouts inside the Golden Magpie. The obnoxious sound of him reciting poems to the tune of a lute reverberated through the halls. It made it obvious what he was up to in there, and the real reason he wanted his own room away from us.

"Kyubei-san, you deal with it." I grumbled and Hibiki, with a weary expression, opened it with a sigh. There was a shrill little squeal and the rustle of bed sheets. As expected—Fujiwara's most beloved pastime was neither art, music nor poetry but pleasure, and he flaunted his lasciviousness shamelessly.

Hibiki's face twisted up in immediate disgust as if he had found something intensely appalling, even though everyone who knew Kenpachiro knew of his obsession with the fairer sex. He'd bed anything from the highest rank courtesans to even Yomiko.

"Ken, shame on you! A little girl like that!? And don't even try to claim that you thought she was Cold Child!"

"What!?" I felt my face turn hot. "Are you a man or beast!?"