It was already past midnight. The streets of Kyoto were deathly quiet. Compared to Tokyo’s bustling nightlife, this ancient capital was far more at peace as a whole.

On this empty street, a father and daughter were walking side by side, one on the left, one on the right, striding quickly.

The father wore a black-and-white shrine-style uniform. A nearly man-height wooden bow of old design was strapped to his back, and a quiver hung at his waist. But inside it were only four or five scattered arrows.

Walking beside him, his daughter also wore a red-and-white shrine uniform. A similar traditional wooden bow rested on her back, but it was much smaller, just over a meter long. She also carried a quiver, filled with a dozen arrows. Matching the bow’s size, her arrows were much smaller than her father’s.

This father and daughter were Ito Shinran and Ito Tomono.

The reason they were still out on the streets this late at night was that they were hurrying to the Koga residence.

Unfortunately, neither of them could drive. They didn’t have licenses, so they couldn’t head straight to their destination. And to avoid dragging a taxi driver into the incident, they’d gotten off on a main road about ten minutes’ walk from the target location.

They were here under Souren Manranyama’s orders, to sabotage Bai Yaxin’s assassination plan.

Ever since Souren Manranyama broke with Uminari Manranyama and left the Manranyama family, the “special personnel” attached to the family had also gone through shifts in structure and allegiance.

The Ito father and daughter changing sides was one part of that.

Souren Manranyama’s camp was still weak, so by the time she received intel on Bai Yaxin’s latest move, she was already a step behind. Even so, Souren intended to do everything that was still within her power.

That was why the Ito father and daughter were here now.

Their mission target was to protect the surviving Koga Mizuo from Bai Yaxin’s forces.

When they arrived in the residential district where the Koga family lived, it looked exactly as it did on any other day. There was no heaviness in the air for Koga Shie’s death, and no shiver of dread for the murder that was about to happen.

“(Are we going straight in, or…?)”

Ito Tomono lowered her voice and asked her father for his opinion.

It was her first official mission. Her movements were stiff, and she was clearly nervous.

“Yeah. Go in on alert, and check the situation first.”

Ito Shinran said that, but after a few steps, he suddenly reached out and stopped her.

Because he had spotted someone in the distance.

Ito Tomono didn’t ask anything. She simply followed her father’s gaze and saw a young woman in her early twenties.

She didn’t know who the woman was, but judging from Ito Shinran’s reaction, she was almost certainly one of Bai Yaxin’s people.

“(Father, how do we move?)”

Ito Tomono asked in a hushed voice.

“(That woman’s name is Uhaku. She’s a scout under Bai Yaxin, no real combat ability. You stay here and give long-range support, in case she’s got teammates doing a second layer of tailing as backup.)”

Ito Shinran answered just as quietly. After he finished, he unstrapped the longbow and quiver from his back and handed them to Ito Tomono.

“(But at this distance, I’m not confident I won’t hit you by mistake…)”

Ito Tomono had no confidence she could attack without risking her father.

“(What are you saying? Even if I get shot to death by my own daughter, I’ll die without regrets.)”

Leaving those words behind, Ito Shinran slipped forward in complete silence, tailing Uhaku from behind, not too close, not too far.