The next morning...
Edo mornings start early.
"Tofu~♪ Tofu~♪"
The tofu seller was already out walking his rounds, hawking his wares.
"Yaaawn~"
A young apprentice threw open the shop's front door, gave a huge yawn and stretch, and set to sweeping the street outside.
It was an ordinary Edo morning like any other, the street still thin with people, when...
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp...
Despite the early hour, the entire Fire and Robbery Patrol (Katō) was marching through the streets of Edo.
Most of them had only just fought through a major manhunt the night before, snatched the briefest rest, and marched straight back out again.
As a result they looked thoroughly battered, but every last one of them had fire burning in his eyes.
Every man in the column wore a face twisted with rage, a fighting spirit blazing in him fierce enough to tear someone apart on the spot.
"Eek!"
The tofu seller bolted for the side of the road in a panic.
The sheer ferocity of it told anyone watching that something was seriously wrong.
And that wasn't all.
At an intersection, the Fire and Robbery Patrol crossed paths with another group.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp...
This was another band of samurai, neatly dressed but plainly kitted out for battle, clearly intending to fight all the same.
The apprentice sweeping outside spoke, his voice trembling.
"That's... that's Tōyama Kinshirō of the Northern Magistrate's Office!"
The man leading the group that had joined them at the crossroads was none other than Tōyama Kinshirō of the Northern Magistrate's Office, known to the common folk as Tōyama Kin-san.
Then yet another band of samurai joined them.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp...
Another similar group of samurai appeared.
At the sight of them, the tofu seller cried out.
"That's the Southern Magistrate, Ōoka Echizen no Kami!"
The samurai of both magistrate's offices had now assembled.
With the Fire and Robbery Patrol thrown in besides, it amounted to every last lawman guarding Edo gathered in one place.
Hasegawa Heizō of the Fire and Robbery Patrol. Tōyama Kinshirō, the Northern Magistrate. Ōoka Echizen, the Southern Magistrate.
Together they were known as the Three Judges of Edo, the guardian gods who brought villains to justice.
For all three of them to gather in one place could only mean that something extraordinary was afoot.
It was Kinshirō who spoke first.
"Heizō-dono. Is this true?"
Kinshirō asked, his face showing a trace of bewilderment.
As if voicing the same thought, Ōoka Echizen followed with a question of his own.
"This had better not end with a force this size and nothing to show for it."
He had a point.
The magistrate's offices ran a punishing operation, and no one there was in the business of moving mountains only to catch a mouse.
But Heizō calmly gestured behind him at the battered state of his own men.
"You can see for yourselves. It is true the creature may not be there at all. But if it is... my Fire and Robbery Patrol alone will not be enough."
Hearing this, the two magistrates' faces twisted.
"You mean to say a demon of that magnitude exists?"
"I find that difficult to credit on such short notice..."
Both men's expressions clouded over, understandably enough, but each was renowned as a brilliant magistrate in his own right.
"And yet, look at the state of them..."
"We have no choice but to believe it."
Looking at the sorry state of the Fire and Robbery Patrol, the two of them nodded in agreement.
The Fire and Robbery Patrol was, to put it in modern terms, something like a special-forces SWAT unit, an elite force built chiefly to crush the biggest and ugliest crimes: terrorism, organized gangs, and worse.
If a crack police force like that had been left this battered, there was nothing left to do but believe it.
"This man will guide us."
So saying, Onihei pushed Yasutaka forward.
"An acquaintance of his turns out to be the ringleader. It seems he was keeping company with the man without realizing what he was, and there are a good many things he himself has since come to recall."
"I see, I see..."
"So that's how it was..."
The two magistrates seemed to have a rough sense of what had happened.
Yasutaka spoke quietly.
"I will guide you. This way."
"Very well."
"Understood."
And so, with the Three Judges of Edo, the city's foremost guardians of law, all assembled at last, they set off together for the great manhunt.