The day when I was favored by my brothers

Before leaving, Qingming asked Xiaomo if there was anyone else she wanted to see in this world.

"I..." Xiao Mo pursed his lips and thought, and replied honestly: "...Yes."

She wanted to see brother Xia Youjie.

After all, Xia Youjie had been killed in her heart, and now she finally had another chance to see Xia Youjie once before, and she didn't want to give up.

This matter is actually quite easy to handle.

Qingming took Xiao Mo and Sesshomaru, who was almost freezing in the surrounding air, and Kiri Kunihiro, a mountain bastard who woke up slowly, to search for the Xia Youjie that Xiao Mo mentioned.

When leaving, Xiao Mo kept turning back frequently, looking at the Gojo family's mansion without blinking.

In a small town not far from here, an elementary school had just finished its final exams and officially started its vacation.

Along the way, I heard a group of sixth-grade children chatting.

"Which junior high school will you go to after graduation? Mom said, she wants me to transfer to Tatekai University in Kanagawa!"

"Really? Because my father's job has been transferred, my mother said that I would like to join Sheng's junior high school..."

They were happily talking about their future plans. Suddenly, the boy who brought up the topic turned around and asked, "Jay? What about you? Which school will you go to after graduation?"

The person who was asked the question was a young man with short black hair.

The young man had a gentle expression and shook his head: "I'm not sure. I'll probably go directly to a junior high school."

"Huh? Is that like this? Are you not considering other places? But, I heard that our school, the junior high school, has very poor learning conditions."

"Well, that's it. I haven't changed my mind for the time being." Xia Youjie answered in a good-tempered manner with his eyebrows curved.

Several teenagers continued to laugh and chat, but there was a quite young boy squatting on the ground on the side of the road without saying a word. They didn't seem to see him, and no one paid any attention to him.

In other words, no one wants the Lord to get into trouble.

Only Xia Youjie vaguely noticed something and stopped.

"Jie, do you want to take care of him?" the teenagers asked: "He is separated from his parents. A policeman on patrol will soon take him back, right? It doesn't matter if he leaves it alone.

relation……"

"It's okay, you should go home first." Xia Youjie shook his head.

"Ah... okay then."

"Then you can send him to the duty booth at the corner of the street. We'll go back first."

The teenagers said this, but after they had reached a certain distance, they whispered to each other at a volume that Xia Youjie couldn't hear: "...Has he always been such a good person?"

"Well, who knows, the girls in the class usually like his smile and the way he seems to be nice to everyone."

"Maybe he's just pretending."

Xia Youjie didn't seem to hear these sounds, but took one or two steps and slowly approached the young man squatting on the ground.

From a visual angle that ordinary people could not see, the boy was pinned to the ground by the cursed spirit. He was forced to cover his mouth and did not move or make any sound.

The boy saw Xia Youjie out of the corner of his eye and burst into tears, but he couldn't make a sound.

Because he couldn't see the curse spirit, he didn't even understand what was happening to him at this moment.

"Let go." The young man frowned and whispered.

The cursed spirit was not afraid of the young kid in front of him. Instead, he waved his arm twice in a mighty manner and muttered something, threatening him not to meddle in his own business.

Cursed spirits are born from the negative emotions of human beings. In fact, the characteristics of each cursed spirit are different.

Some can eat and hurt others, while others are relatively harmless.

Of course, this "relatively speaking" means that it will not harm humans too much. If you are entangled by a curse, it will at least have an impact on your daily life.

Seeing that the latter still had no intention of letting go of the child, Xia Youjie raised his hand neatly.

The next second, a curse spirit that was several times larger than it seemed to appear out of thin air. It suddenly opened its mouth and stretched out its tongue to wrap around the mischievous curse spirit. It was as light as noodles.

Swallowed it easily.

The little boy finally regained his freedom. He fell to the ground and was stunned for a long time. Then he opened his mouth and cried with a "Wow" sound. ‌‌.

"Big brother... wow... big brother... I'm so scared!"

Xia Youjie didn't mind that the child was noisy. He squatted down and touched the child's head. After he had almost cried enough and calmed down, he asked, "Do you know where your home is?"

The boy sniffed and nodded with tears in his eyes.

"I'll take you back home, okay?"

But the little boy seemed to have remembered something terrible. He crossed his arms and shook his head desperately. His expression was no less frightened than when he encountered the cursed spirit just now.

"...Why don't you want to go home?"

"Because, because my mother is always very fierce, she stipulates what I can and cannot do every day. I skipped the hobby class and didn't come back for a long time. She would scold me and not let me

While eating, I knelt in the entrance hall for a long time."

That’s why.

Xia Youjie guessed that the cursed spirit just now might have been born from the boy's mother's desire to control him.

...However, he seems to have no way to deal with this.

Some are powerless.

After all, as long as there are humans in this world, curse spirits will be born from human emotions all the time.

"Then I'll take you to the police station and you can talk to those uncles about this, okay?"

Xia Youjie asked again.

During their conversation, a small episode suddenly occurred.

A fluffy puppy suddenly ran in front of him, clawing at him with its two little paws.

Xia Youjie had never seen such an active and enthusiastic dog, especially when he looked at its spotless coat. It didn’t look like a stray dog, but more like a domestic one. He smiled helplessly and took the excited puppy to his side.

The dog ‌ was picked up by one ‌.

"By the way, come with me to send the dog to the police station and help it find a home?"

The little boy sniffed, nodded vigorously, and carefully held the corner of Xia Youjie's clothes.

Xiao Mo: "...?"

This development is different from what she imagined. Why should she be sent to the police station to find a home? Under normal circumstances, when you see such a cute dog that you can't refuse, shouldn't you?

Want to play with her for a while?

Xiao Mo rested his head on Xia Youjie's shoulder and watched the depressed little boy smile again under Xia Youjie's comfort. He couldn't help feeling a little sour in his heart.

Because, when he was at the Conjuring College, brother Xia Youjie used this way to communicate with himself and take care of himself.

"Brother, when you came here just now, I suddenly moved. You must have helped me, right?"

"Brother, you are so awesome."

Xia Youjie smiled at this and said nothing.

["Xiao Mo, it's almost time to leave."]

Qingming's voice rang in my ears.

The sound of cicadas on the tree came one after another, and Xiao Mo suddenly ran out of Xia Youjie's arms, quickened his pace, and ran to the people at the other end of the street in a few seconds.

Xia Youjie was about to call out to stop the dog when he saw a silver-haired man hugging the dog with a smile from a distance.

And his clothes were very exaggerated, as if he had just traveled through time a thousand years ago.

Wearing such complicated hunting clothing on a hot day makes me feel very hot just looking at it.

Is he the dog's owner?

After meeting Abe Seimei's eyes, Xia Youjie felt relieved.

"Tell him to meet you." Abe Seimei lowered his head and said to Xiao Mo in his arms.

Xiao Mo said "woof" very cooperatively.

Her eyes were fixed on the boy under the tree - Brother Xia Youjie seemed to have always been so gentle since he was a child, no matter who he treated. He was considerate of the weak and said that protecting human beings is the responsibility of a magician...

It was like - there was no way in this world that anything could happen to take away his tenderness.

"See you soon." Xia Youjie opened his smiling eyes and waved in her direction.

The young man's gentle smile was as beautiful as a picture, and it was in sharp contrast to Gojo Satoru, who was looking at everyone and didn't like him.

The chirping of cicadas has become quieter, and the extremely hot summer days before have become less hot.

On the other side, the Gojo family.

The tribesmen found that the mansion here had turned into ruins, and their noble young master was like a mud monkey, sitting on the ground with a gray face.

"This, this, this, Master, what exactly happened here??"

A respected elder asked tremblingly.

"I don't know." Gojo Satoru put on an indifferent face that had nothing to do with it. He didn't mean to explain the current situation at all: "I forgot."

He suddenly remembered something: "In that case, let's just rebuild it."

People: "..."

Forget it, this is their young master after all, what should I do? Just do what he just said.

It’s a hot summer in the magic high school in the ordinary world.

"What's wrong? I feel like you haven't been very energetic lately, Jay."

Gojo Satoru hooked Xia Youjie's shoulders. Seeing his haggard look of lack of rest, he frowned and asked, "What...have you eaten cold noodles? Kuxia?"

"no."

Although the bruises at the moment were no longer covered, Xia Youjie still put on a gentle expression and replied like this.

"Does that mean you miss Xiao Mo?"

Seeing that Xia Youjie didn't answer, Gojo Satoru thought he was acquiescing, and then patted his shoulder: "Well, it's nothing. She might adjust her mentality and come back to see us tomorrow.

, when the time comes, as a demon princess, it’s amazing to think about it..."

"...Enlightenment." Xia Youjie suddenly said: "...I want to be quiet for a while."

Gojo Satoru's voice stopped suddenly, and it seemed that his straight man's comforting methods didn't work.

"Well, it's really hot today." Gojo Satoru changed the topic about Xiao Mo and pulled down his collar to dissipate the heat: "By the way, I remember there was such a similar weather when I was young... I

After taking a nap, the entire mansion he lived in was crushed into a vacant lot."

"...Is the spell power out of control?" Xia Youjie asked subconsciously.

"Well, the tribesmen do think so, but I don't think so." Gojo Satoru shrugged and replied: "After all, my spell power has never been out of control since it was born. I am the strongest.

Ah, this has been classified by me as one of the unsolved mysteries that happened in Gojo Satoru, and there are two, three, and four that will follow. Do you want to hear about it?"

Xia Youjie: "Yeah."

"...Jie, your reaction is so cold. Could it be that you finally entered puberty because you have a girl you like?"

"No."

Everything seemed extremely calm and calm, without any disturbance, and every day was no different from the past.

This was a fairly simple mission, so the superiors only entrusted Xia Youjie to go there alone.

The mission location is in a quite remote village.

When the villagers knew that he was the conjurer who was helping to deal with the evil spirits, they initially showed great enthusiasm and enthusiastically received Xia Youjie.

However... when he was taken to a dark room by the village chief, he was stunned.

In a narrow iron cage, two very young girls were imprisoned.

Their hands and feet were tied, their clothes were in tatters, and their bodies were covered with scars. They hugged each other tremblingly, looking at him with eyes full of fear.

Xia Youjie still deeply remembers what Tsurumaru Kunaga described to him about what the Ogata family did to Xiao Mo when she was sealed.

Through this iron cage, he seemed to see the shadow of the girl in his memory.

She huddled up in the corner so cautiously, covered in scars and bleeding from the wounds, and her eyes as she looked at him were full of fear and fear.

He had clearly adhered to the principles and bottom line in his heart for such a long time, and he had taken the initiative to assume the corresponding responsibilities as a conjurer from the moment he sensed the power. He had obviously wanted to protect a conjurer from the beginning to the end.

What a weakling, that's all...

However, the weak people who were supposed to be protected were cruelly abusing the two children with magician qualifications.

Xia Youjie thought back on everything that happened in the past year.

As soon as the front foot promised to give to the other party, the back foot witnessed Riko Tenuchi being buried in front of him.

Shi'er held Xiao Mo in his hand, stepped on his cheek and taunted: "You guys who think you are geniuses are not even like me, a monkey without any magic power."

‌For example, when Haihara Yu had an accident during that mission, Nanami's first reaction was that it would be nice if Gojo Satoru was there.

In fact, I don't know when, Gojo Satoru's mantra has gradually changed from "We are the strongest" to "I am the strongest."

This is indeed the case.

Even though he swallowed the nauseating curse core day after day and felt all the negative emotions, he was still clearly aware of the gap in strength between himself and his partner.

Even if they seek foreign aid to bring the dead back to life...but what happened happened, just like a broken vase being put back together again, the cracks are still there.

In fact, he has always believed that everything he adheres to is meaningless and wrong?

No, what exactly is true and what is wrong?

He doesn't quite understand anymore.

The village chief was still chattering: "So, everyone feels that these two brats are causing the trouble and that there are evil spirits in the village, and they are considering whether to deal with them-"

"My lord, did you hear what I said?"

[True strength is not limited to strength, the heart must become stronger. 】

"Sir, what do you think? It's better to get rid of them, right?"

[Brother Xia Youjie, you make yourself so tired, so tired. Xiao Mo often hears you sighing in your heart. 】

The girl's voice seemed to ring in her ears. In fact, at that time, she seemed to have completely seen through the thoughts and worries buried deep in her heart.

If that child could stay with him all the time, would there be any difference in what he really wants to do at this moment?

"My lord? My lord?"

"It's so noisy, monkey."

In an instant, the gentle expression faded away like a tide, replaced by an inexplicable chill that made one's heart tremble.

"Close your eyes."

This sentence was said to the two girls trapped in the cage. They looked at each other and actually closed their eyes tightly in obedience.

Puff, puff.

It was like the sound of something being ground into meat paste.

"Ah ah ah ah ah--"

"Monster! It's a monster!!"

"Please, please be merciful, please spare me!"

The screams and whines that humans make before they die.

After a long time, the world finally became silent.

The iron bars of the cage were easily removed, and the two girls, who were hugging each other tightly with their eyes closed, finally opened their eyes.

They looked around tremblingly and saw the young man with a gentle smile standing in front of them, his black school uniform stained darker with blood.

The demon-like villagers who used to whip them and bang their heads against the wall again and again have all disappeared.

The two little girls looked at each other, and suddenly, as if they had made some decision, they ran to Xia Youjie's side, one to the left and the other to the right, and carefully held the hem of his clothes.

——Even this action is very similar to what that child once looked like.

"What are your names?" Xia Youjie asked.

"I...I am Nanako."

"...Mimiko."