Just as Leon and Asuna Yuuki formally met Miyamoto Musashi at the manor and began special training at her urging, Yukino Yukinoshita was also delivered to the Yukinoshita residence by the driver familiar.
It was a luxurious mansion, though not quite matching Leon's manor in scale.
After stepping out of the extended limousine, Yukino Yukinoshita was welcomed into the mansion by the house staff and proceeded to the living room.
Only two people were there: one was Haruno Yukinoshita, who bore a seven-tenths resemblance to Yukino but had a more mature figure and appearance; the other was a beautiful woman, even more mature and voluptuous than Haruno, wearing a kimono and exuding an extraordinary aura.
"Mother..."
Yukino Yukinoshita thought she was mentally prepared, but when she saw her mother, the habitual timidity she had never shown in front of others involuntarily surfaced.
"You've come?"
Mrs. Yukinoshita looked at her youngest daughter, a flicker of complexity and doubt passing through her eyes, before she regained her composure.
"Since you're here, sit down."
At Mrs. Yukinoshita's instruction, Yukino Yukinoshita pursed her lips, and after a moment, walked over and sat down opposite Haruno Yukinoshita.
Haruno Yukinoshita remained silent, merely scrutinizing her sister, who she knew intimately, as if trying to discern something from her, her eyes subtly shifting.
The three women, who were clearly mother and daughters, sat together. Despite being inextricably linked by blood, none of them seemed to have anything to say, allowing an indescribable silence to first spread throughout the room.
Yukino Yukinoshita, uncharacteristically, seemed unable to maintain her composure and spoke with feigned nonchalance.
"Where is Father? Why don't I see him?"
Hearing this, Mrs. Yukinoshita raised her gaze, also breaking the silence.
"Your father is not in Chiba recently, so we didn't tell him about your situation."
This was practically an explicit statement to Yukino Yukinoshita that she had no allies here.
Because Yukino Yukinoshita's father was a very gentle person, forming a sharp contrast with her strong-willed mother, Yukino Yukinoshita had always had a good relationship with him.
With her father absent, Yukino Yukinoshita was essentially in a state of isolation and helplessness.
However, this did not come as a surprise to Yukino Yukinoshita.
After all, she knew clearly that her father was a man who yielded to his wife, and as he himself had been adopted into the Yukinoshita family, Mrs. Yukinoshita was the true helmsman of the Yukinoshita family.
Mrs. Yukinoshita had a strong personality and was absolute in her decisions. Even Haruno Yukinoshita held her in awe, let alone Yukino Yukinoshita.
In the past, Yukino Yukinoshita was always unable to defy her strong-willed mother's commands. Conversely, her mother was the Achilles' heel of the stubborn Yukino Yukinoshita, which is why Yukino Yukinoshita decided to move out of the family home and live alone.
Yet, even so, in Mrs. Yukinoshita's eyes, she seemed to have always been seen as someone insufficiently mature.
"Haruno has told me everything." Mrs. Yukinoshita looked at Yukino Yukinoshita with eyes full of skepticism. "To be honest, I'm quite unwilling to believe such a foolish thing."
"My own daughter becoming a demon. If Haruno hadn't come back and told me so confidently, I wouldn't have wasted my time on this today."
"But since things have come to this, allow me to confirm it."
Mrs. Yukinoshita looked directly at Yukino Yukinoshita and stated.
"Is what Haruno said true? Have you really become the servant of a third-year senior at your school?"
Evidently, regardless of the matter of the demon or the servant, both were utterly fantastical concepts to Mrs. Yukinoshita.
If she weren't sure that her eldest daughter wouldn't joke about such an absurd matter, Mrs. Yukinoshita truly would have felt that today's conversation was completely pointless.
Even so, Mrs. Yukinoshita initially refused to believe such a thing until Haruno Yukinoshita brought up a certain event...
"Do you remember the strange thing we encountered on the first day of school?"
Haruno Yukinoshita had only said those words, which instantly sparked Mrs. Yukinoshita's memory.
She certainly remembered that day. She had almost hit someone on the way to dropping her younger daughter off at school, but before she could even react, she encountered something unbelievable.
That day, she shivered violently in the car from a sudden ultra-low temperature, and her eldest daughter was just as cold. The car's tires were frozen, and the street they were on saw unexplained freezing phenomena everywhere. Everyone present, without exception, was affected, catching severe colds or even suffering frostbite.
Only one person was completely unscathed, able to run and jump, not even feeling the slightest chill, let alone being frozen.
That person was her youngest daughter, Yukino Yukinoshita.
"At the time, we said we happened to encounter an extreme weather phenomenon, but does such a coincidence truly exist in this world?" Haruno Yukinoshita had also added, "Even if such a coincidence exists, why were we all frozen while only Yukino was completely unaffected?"
This, in itself, was a perplexing point that left them bewildered.
It was due to this doubt that Mrs. Yukinoshita, after careful consideration, decided to tentatively believe Haruno Yukinoshita and called Yukino Yukinoshita back for a confrontation.
However, Yukino Yukinoshita did not answer Mrs. Yukinoshita's question immediately. Instead, she was silent for a moment before turning to Haruno Yukinoshita.
"Have you been in contact with people from the Church?"
Yukino Yukinoshita's counter-question, instead of an answer, caused Mrs. Yukinoshita to frown and surprised Haruno Yukinoshita somewhat.
"Is that important?"
Haruno Yukinoshita also answered with a counter-question, showing no intention of relinquishing the initiative.
"Did you seek them out? Or did they seek you out?"
Yukino Yukinoshita was strangely persistent about the answer to this question, leading Mrs. Yukinoshita to interrupt her.
"Don't change the subject when we are discussing serious matters." Mrs. Yukinoshita said very sternly. "When did you learn to answer a question with a question? We are the ones questioning you now!"
Under Mrs. Yukinoshita's severe reprimand, Yukino Yukinoshita's hand, gripping her skirt, tightened involuntarily, and she was close to yielding.
Years of habit made it difficult for her to fight back against her strong-willed mother, to the extent that her hands were subtly trembling.
If no one else were present, Yukino Yukinoshita might have given up and obediently answered her mother and sister's questions.
Unfortunately, they were not the only three people in the room.
"How much longer are you going to hide?" Yukino Yukinoshita suddenly turned her head, looking toward the living room balcony, and said with a cold face, "Do I have to spell it out before you're willing to come out?"
Yukino Yukinoshita's words stunned both Mrs. Yukinoshita and Haruno Yukinoshita.
"What are you saying..."
Just as Mrs. Yukinoshita was about to say something, a figure squeezed in from outside the balcony.
"As expected of a subordinate of the Eligos family. Even without the Eligos family's bloodline, she's still very proficient in the magical techniques used for detection."
Accompanied by a soft chuckle, the nun who had briefly clashed with Leon not long ago walked in.
Who else could it be but Sharon Holygrail?
"Who are you?"
Mrs. Yukinoshita immediately stood up, looking at Sharon, who had appeared suddenly, with utter shock.
"You were hiding in my house?"
Haruno Yukinoshita also stood up, looking rather angry.
"It's you, indeed." Yukino Yukinoshita was the third to rise. Her eyes on Sharon were icy, as if she, too, had been provoked. "You deliberately approached my family, which is how they learned all of this, isn't it?"
Hearing this, Sharon let out a cheerful laugh.
"I merely wanted to tell your mother and sister that their family member has become a filthy demon, and that they should be very careful."
At these words, Yukino Yukinoshita laughed, enraged.
"No wonder that guy said you were difficult and that you'd use any means necessary. You truly don't resemble a nun at all." Yukino Yukinoshita stated bluntly. "He was right, wasn't he? Since you can't deal with him, you decided to target his subordinate. That's truly pathetic."
The smile on Sharon's face instantly vanished, just as it did when Leon mocked her last time.
Yukino Yukinoshita stared at the nun, her face entirely devoid of a smile, so cold that the air in the living room grew heavy.
"You two..."
Just as Mrs. Yukinoshita and Haruno Yukinoshita were about to speak, Yukino Yukinoshita and Sharon, who were glaring at each other, moved simultaneously.
"Whoosh!"
Sharon suddenly disappeared from her spot, abruptly appearing in front of Yukino Yukinoshita. She raised her leg and delivered a side kick aimed at Yukino Yukinoshita's head.
The kick was sudden and fast, igniting a whistling sound in the air, showing its force.
Unfortunately, Yukino Yukinoshita was already prepared and instantly released her magic without a word.
"Bang!"
Sharon's powerful side kick landed heavily on the abruptly rising wall of ice, shattering it.
Yukino Yukinoshita immediately jumped back, avoiding Sharon's kick, which had been slowed by the ice wall, and then mercilessly conjured a freezing wind, shooting rapidly condensed shards of ice toward the opponent.
"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"...
Sharon reacted immediately, moving both her hands and feet, delivering punches, palm strikes, and kicks with extreme speed. Using her incredible skill, she shattered the incoming ice shards one by one, sending fragments of ice scattering throughout the living room.
Watching this scene, Mrs. Yukinoshita and Haruno Yukinoshita were completely stunned.
"This... this..."
The surreal sight shocked their brains, causing the two sharp, capable women to fall into a state of shock they would never have experienced before.
Especially when they saw Yukino Yukinoshita, with a freezing wind swirling around her entire body, continuously condensing and projecting flying projectiles—ice shards, ice cones, ice blades, and ice pillars—in a furious onslaught, their astonishment intensified.
At this moment, the image of their younger daughter, who was somewhat timid yet filled with stubbornness, completely collapsed in their minds.