The Kamunabi are a government-backed agency of sorcerers. Civilian sorcerers handle small jobs. The Kamunabi exist because some jobs are national. Their origin is the Sorcery Bureau, then the Counter-Sorcery Army, then a bureau again: military hierarchy abandoned so the state could counter sorcerers from Shokoku without looking like a standing army forever. The current priority is securing Enchanted Blades. For three years they have been locked in a fight with the Hishaku, who have the steel and cannot fully use it while the bearers live. The Kamunabi’s answer was Sanso fortresses. The Hishaku’s answer was killing bearers. A director’s answer was leaking Kunishige so the blades might, in his fantasy, return to the state as tools of order.
They are not a monolith. Azami helped hide the smith and hates the ten. Kudo dies for Hakuri. Ichiki trained Shiba and Azami. Yatsuru sealed Shinuchi with Kasen. Izaru distrusts Chihiro and talks as if Kunishige stole national property. Kasen is the leak. Hiyuki is the pointed end. Tafuku is the referee. The Anti-Cloud Gouger Special Forces were six people built to solve one stolen sword; four of them die in the first book. This page is the org chart the factions index could not hold.
Leadership
Kasen (嘉仙), director. Long beard. Barriers and sealing. Sealed Shinuchi with Ichiki and Yatsuru after the war. Laments that major sorcery clans will not respect a bureau. Believes Enchanted Blades can create order. Conspired with the Hishaku and leaked Kunishige’s location. Full file: Kasen.
Ichiki (壱鬼). Elderly, small, learned arts and physical combat. Trained Shiba and Azami during the war. Helped seal Shinuchi and hide Kunishige. One of the White Robes. File: Ichiki.
Yatsuru (夜弦). Sole woman among the named leaders. Barrier and sealing, same work as Kasen and Ichiki. Instrumental in the Shinuchi seal. When Yukisada splits the HQ barrier, her life’s work is the thing being stolen from inside. File: Yatsuru.
Soshiro Azami (薊 奏士郎). Strongest of the heads. Coin (Koin): family clinic art adapted into combat, which earned his father’s ire. Helped hide Kunishige. Informant to Chihiro. Executioner manners. Kills the Shigyu brothers when they punch into Level 1. Full file: Azami.
Izaru (亥猿). Mutton chops. Rosary-like bead chains to restrict a target. Criticized colleagues for hiding Kunishige, talked as if the smith stole the blades, distrusts Chihiro. The leadership table’s prosecutor. File: Izaru.
Kudo (区堂). Gas-mask apparatus, one eye closed. Warrior’s Path (Shitō): send a body in a direction, through walls and floors. Supporter of Kunishige. Dies protecting Hakuri during the HQ assault. The bureau’s best argument that not everyone in the building was Kasen.
Operations
Hiyuki Kagari and Tafuku Mihara are the celebrity pair: Flame Bone of the Starving versus a duel domain. Assigned to problems the organization cannot file. They start as Chihiro’s enemies at the Rakuzaichi and become the reason the auction actually ends. Files: Hiyuki, Tafuku. Essay: Flame Bone.
Natsuki Misaka, squadron leader, Lightning Menace, Ibuki’s brother, Volume 10 jacket. Kiri Shirakai, squadron leader, two-meter odachi, granddaughter of Iai’s founder. Files: Natsuki, Kiri.
Anti-Cloud Gouger Special Forces: page: here. Ikuto Hagiwara (Jikai, magnetism; loses both legs; later hallucinates Kugara), Hajime Kugara (iron body; dies; the hallucination’s face), Kazane Machi (Demon Monster, Kaichi, the unused secret weapon; loses an arm), Shiyumi Harima (Gansui, stone), Kiyohiko Uzuki (binding), Makoto Kasahara (enlarged hands). Four dead at Sojo’s compound. The two survivors are still in the HQ chapters. Hagiwara’s chapter title in the long book is “Ikuto Hagiwara, Worthless Commander.” The book is cruel about institutions that spend specialists and then name the leftover.
Kokugoku Steam Squad, including Fushimi (Smoke Axe), guard Uruha’s Sanso. They beat Datenseki-powered hired troops, then die to Hiruhiko. Masumi (Ro, Moku, Sumi) serve Samura until he frees them, then protect Iori in Operation: Easy Does It. Ro looks like a child, copies Samura’s sunglasses and candy cigarettes, recovers Kumeyuri after the hotel. Sumi draws transportation mandalas and rides a motorcycle away from Kuguri. Moku feeds Chihiro when the boy starts eating himself.
Sanso fortresses are where surviving wartime bearers were locked after the raid. Kokugoku Hot Spring. Senkutsuji Temple. The next book of Part 1 starts when one is attacked. Subaru Urita is relocated when the pattern becomes obvious. See Subaru and locations.
Chihiro’s deal
After the Rakuzaichi, Chihiro hands Magatsumi to the Kamunabi and keeps Enten by joining them. Hakuri’s Storehouse is the reason the table listens: bearers can be un-armed and re-armed without a siege. The deal assumes a bureau that wants blades sealed. Kasen’s faction wanted them used. Those two bureaus share a building until Yura walks to the cell. Then Akemura takes the building. Part 1’s last political fact is that the state which covered up Malediction has been possessed by Malediction’s author. Part 2 does not stay to run the press conference. It goes to Irishima, where the bureau is still a Sorcery Bureau and the blades are still a proposal.
Read officially on VIZ / MANGA Plus. For the ten who raided the house, see Hishaku. For the leak as a person, see Kasen. For the myth, see the Malediction essay.