[12] Tohsaka Tokiomi
"Kurokawa Kazuya..." Tohsaka Tokiomi looked at the name of this young mangaka from JUMP and smiled slightly.
"Since when did you start paying attention to this kind of thing, dear?" Tohsaka Aoi poured a cup of tea for Tohsaka Tokiomi.
"Thank you," Tohsaka Tokiomi smiled and replied, "It's nothing, but on my way back from the Clock Tower today, I heard the name 'Kurokawa Kazuya,' so I decided to take a look. After all, he's one of those ordinary people who dare to venture into the mystical world."
"Ah, are you talking about the one from over a year ago?"
"That's right," Tohsaka Tokiomi nodded. "However, he doesn't seem to know that our Tohsaka family is a lineage of magus. So, he approached as a future mangaka to gather material... Honestly, if it were the Head of the Matou family, he would probably be dead by now."
He had a strong impression of that incident.
In all these years, rather than being a magus or anyone else involved in the mystical world, that person was a completely ordinary individual who dared to enter this realm...
He could only give him a bold evaluation. No, even simply calling him bold was an understatement; it could be described as "reckless."
Moreover, that person seemed to know about the Holy Grail War.
When he saw the Command Seals on his hand back then, his expression had visibly changed. Although he tried to hide it, Tohsaka Tokiomi had noticed.
"If it weren't for confirming that he lacked magical potential, taking him as an apprentice wouldn't have been a bad choice. But it's fine as it is now. He has achieved considerable success in the outside world, and he can be considered one of the connections of the Tohsaka family in the human world."
Tohsaka Aoi nodded in agreement.
She also remembered that person.
At the time, Tohsaka Tokiomi had felt it was a shame. The guy had a good personality but lacked potential.
So, Tohsaka Tokiomi had used magecraft to suggest to him that the Tohsaka family was just an ordinary family with no mystical presence. As a precaution, he had steered him away, one of the only two magus families in Fuyuki City, from the Matou family.
However, he had also tried to hypnotize him to find out where he had learned all this. Kurokawa Kazuya had claimed he read about it in books...
From that, Tohsaka Tokiomi had concluded that an ordinary person had somehow obtained information about their Three Great Families from books. He didn't pay it much mind and didn't bother to inquire further about the source; there were too many such books.
So, in the end, Kurokawa Kazuya had concluded that the Tohsaka family had no trace of mysticism.
"JoJo's Bizarre Adventure... Well, it's not bad to read when you're bored," Tohsaka Tokiomi said after making this judgment and didn't think much about it.
He was well aware of what constituted the foundation of the Tohsaka family.
That was "magecraft." Perhaps in the human world, it should be called magic. However, in their world, not just anyone can be called a magic user who is also known as a magician; only those who possessed the qualifications as "Five True Magics" users were entitled.
All others were simply practitioners of magecraft.
Compared to Kurokawa Kazuya's actions, what worried him more was something else.
That was his two daughters, Tohsaka Rin and Tohsaka Sakura... Both had exceptional potential, and Aoi was undoubtedly a qualified mother. In fact, it was more than just qualified; she had given birth to two children with extraordinary potential.
But... this was both a blessing and a curse.
They had two children who could inherit his position, but there was only one family crest of the Tohsaka family that represented the head. Now, he had three options... One was to have one of his daughters inherit the family crest, and the second was to hand it over to the Mage's Association. This was the option he least wanted to choose.
The second option was to hope that the Matou family, their neighbors, didn't have a suitable heir, and then have one of his daughters inherit the Matou family's family crest. However, this depended on chance, as nobody knew if there was a qualified heir in the Matou family in this generation. Although there should already be a conclusion, he hadn't inquired.
This would make the head of the Matou family anxious, allowing him to negotiate more favorable terms.
The third option... was the best possible outcome.
That was if a declining magus family offered their family crest for sale...
This could be described as an extremely rare occurrence that only happened once in a century, and even if it did happen, it was a question of whether he had the funds to buy it.
However, if it succeeded... it was undoubtedly the best choice.
...
"Hey, Kurokawa-sensei, you're here!"
"Iwamoto-san..." Kazuya turned around and said, "How's it going? Are there any mangaka who haven't arrived?"
"Hmm? Why are you asking that?" Iwamoto asked with a puzzled expression.
"Oh, I heard that if there are mangaka who haven't come, the responsible editor will face some penalties, and I'm quite interested in that."
"Uh... Where did you hear that from?"
"Who knows..." Kazuya replied casually.
Iwamoto's mouth twitched as he said, "Well... everyone who should have come is here."
"Is that so..." Kazuya nodded. "It's a shame; we missed a performance. I thought there might still be someone missing..."
Iwamoto's face turned sour. How did he not notice this guy's terrible personality earlier? It seemed like he had time but didn't show up just to avoid embarrassing himself!
"Alright, then. How about you introduce us to the other mangaka?"
"Sure, let me take you over. Let's start with Tetsuo Hara-sensei. This year, Yoshiyuki Okamura-sensei couldn't make it."
"What? Didn't someone not show up?"
"Well... but they're a team, so one of them is enough."
"I see, that's a shame." Kazuya nodded. He recalled Tetsuo Hara... He was currently serializing the manga "Hokuto no Ken," which had been consistently ranked first in recent years. The protagonist was a man with seven stars on his chest.
He hadn't read the manga in his previous life, watched only two episodes of the anime, which must have been around 2015 or 2016 when he watched it. He didn't continue because the animation style seemed too dated.
On the contrary, after coming to this world, he had read some of the manga serialized on JUMP to get a sense of the manga of this era.
"Tetsuo Hara-sensei is about your age, well... actually, he's a year older than you. I think you should have a lot in common. Ah, found him, over there." Iwamoto Yu led them towards a man and said, "Tetsuo Hara-sensei, this is the editor, Iwamoto Yu."
"Oh, hello there. Who's this?"
"I'm the mangaka who draws 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure,' Kurokawa Kazuya. Nice to meet you, Tetsuo Hara-senpai."
"Oh, oh, you're the one who draws 'Jojo'!" Tetsuo Hara looked pleasantly surprised as he looked up at the taller Kurokawa Kazuya. "I didn't expect that... you look about the same age as me... I really like your manga."
He then struck a pose reminiscent of DIO from Jojo and asked, "Do you remember how many breads have you eaten in yout life?"
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