"Mmm… mmmmmm! Such fierce, scorching emotion! At this distance, I feel like I'm about to be incinerated! Unsated devourer, corpse-born from cursed tales—this black malice spreads endlessly! Hehehehe!"
"Who?! Who's there?!"
The sudden voice—thick with malice—sounded right beside her ear, and the glasses-wearing woman shuddered violently. A bone-deep chill poured down from her scalp to her heels.
With a snap, her grotesque arms—each lined with ravenous mouths—lashed out like whips, instinctively sweeping the area.
But nothing happened.
Because no one was there. Only blood-soaked pavement, severed limbs, splattered organs—like a field of hellish flowers in bloom.
A hallucination? No… That eerie, soul-chilling malice couldn't have been an illusion.
"Who's there?! Who's playing games with me?!"
Twisted yōki spilled from the cracks in her skin, and her bulging eyes nearly burst from their sockets. Her voice screeched like fingernails dragging across glass.
"Nura Rikuo… is it you?! Hiding, are you?! Watching so many people die because of you, and you don't even have the guts to show yourself?!"
The Nurarihyon—according to legend, a yōkai who could slip unnoticed into any household and even be mistaken for the master of the home. It was said that seeing him inside was never questioned; his presence simply felt right.
And as Nurarihyon's grandson, Nura Rikuo had inherited that ability to erase his presence. Even when standing directly in front of someone, he could be utterly imperceptible… A well-known fact to those familiar with the Nura Clan, like Maruchio and his ilk.
Which is why the glasses woman assumed the voice had come from Rikuo—that he was lurking nearby, cloaked by Nurarihyon's power.
Until the voice came again.
"Hmm? Mmmmmm… This won't do. Not at all. Ignoring this humble monk? Mistaking this humble monk for someone else? Are you kidding me?!"
There was frustration in the tone now.
"It's always like this! Always! I was the one stirring things up! I was the one doing wicked deeds! So why does everyone in Chaldea think it's that purple-haired AI BB again?! Can't someone show this humble monk a little respect?!"
Only then did the glasses woman realize where the voice was coming from.
From her own arm.
More precisely… from the severed arm she'd just finished chewing.
"You…?!"
What is happening?
Didn't I eat this person? How is he still speaking? Why isn't he dead?
While she stood frozen in disbelief, the dismembered arm abruptly changed.
And then—an image that shattered the boundaries of sanity:
From the gap between the middle and ring fingers, the flesh split wide open into a grotesque mouth brimming with fangs and eight squirming tongues.
Worse yet—the fingernails of the thumb, index, and ring fingers cracked off, revealing writhing eyeballs underneath. Each one locked its gaze on her.
In this world, all yōkai are governed by fear—畏 (iwe in Japanese or wei in pinyin).
To grow stronger, yōkai must gather fear. To evolve, they must inspire fear. Human terror. Enemy dread. Ally reverence. All of it fuels their strength.
The main method of yōkai combat is thus not brute force, but terrifying your opponent—using fear to weaken and overwhelm.
After all… what kind of power could a yōkai have if they couldn't scare anyone?
The tongues writhed like decaying maggots, and the split mouth rasped out a guttural chuckle.
"Just now… you were afraid of this humble monk, weren't you?"
"!!!"
It was as if she had gazed directly into something that should not be seen.
Suddenly, her stomach twisted violently.
This wasn't metaphor—it felt like something real was thrashing around inside her gut. Churning. Expanding. Her belly swelled grotesquely, something crawling up her throat.
Nausea hit hard.
"Hhk—BLAAARGH—!"
An arm—green-nailed, muscular—burst out of her mouth, forcing her jaws wide open.
Before she could react, the hand grabbed her skull and dug in, the thumb's clawed nail gouging straight through her eye.
"Gkk—! GHHHHHHH—!"
The pressure built. Her head began to warp under the grip. Her remaining eye bulged outward, on the verge of bursting.
Unable to shut her mouth, a mixture of blood and saliva dribbled down her chin, trailing in a red thread down her chest.
She wanted to fight back. To resist. But her body refused to respond. All she could do was drown in the flood of pain—cells screaming out one after another in hopeless agony.
She wanted to scream. To beg. But all that came out were meaningless sobs.
Crushed. Ripped. Tortured.
Helpless. Motionless. Waiting for death in endless pain.
Until finally… she broke.
Let me die.
Let me die let me die let me die let me die let me die let me—!
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts—why am I still alive?! WHY?! Just let it END!
She didn't understand. Why was death still being withheld, even after such desperate, pitiful pleading?
In her perception, the agony lasted centuries.
And then—BANG.
Like a firework bursting into the sky. Like an overinflated balloon finally popping.
Her head exploded in the hand's grip, red and white spraying out in a wet splatter that soaked the ground.
A second hand burst forth from her torso, and together the two claws tore the body open—revealing the figure of Ashiya Douman, robes pristine despite the carnage.
"Mmmmm! Lucky! Lucky! How fortunate! For a frail little onmyōji like this humble monk to slay a yōkai—what could be more fortuitous? Mmmm… HAHAHAHA!"
He cackled madly, face contorting like he meant to peel it off from joy alone.
But just as suddenly, he covered his mouth with a hand, choking off the sound.
"Ah ah ah—no, no. This humble monk is a reformed man now! A good guy! Good guys don't laugh like that! They get punched! Mmmmmm… the world is so beautiful… I must be gentle. Composed. Refined. Fufufu~ A bit of restraint is necessary."
Then… the blood and flesh around his feet began to move.
Muscle fragments squirmed and fused together. Blood was slurped up into them.
From the gore rose more Doumans—each with that same demented smile.
"We were killed, huh…"
"We were eaten, huh…"
"We did the killing, huh…"
"We did the eating, huh…"
"Fufufufu…"
"Ehehehehe…"
"Kukukuku…"
The air filled with laughter—mocking, gleeful, cruel. Mocking the woman who had just died. Mocking themselves. Mocking the world.
"Enough. Stop laughing."
The original Douman had procured a cane from who knows where. He tapped it on the floor like a stern old man, cleared his throat, and said gravely:
"Respect for the dead, please. This… er, what's-her-name? Ah well, doesn't matter. Some nameless yōkai gave her life to teach us an important lesson. A moment of silence, then—half a second should do."
A brief pause.
"All right. Memorial over. Now, share what we've learned from her tragic demise."
"Ooh! This humble monk knows!"
One Douman raised his hand like a schoolkid. With an innocent smile, he declared:
"Don't eat things from strangers."
"Also—don't eat stuff that's been on the ground."
"My turn? Mmmm… raw food is bad for digestion."
"I think we should blame junk food for this one."
The other Doumans turned to him in confusion.
He just smiled and shrugged.
"What? You seriously don't know what kind of scum you are? One dip in the ocean would blacken the whole sea. If that's not garbage, what is?"
"Ah… wise words."
"Crude, but accurate."
"So we're admitting we're trash now? Shall I bag us up and toss us in Tokyo Bay?"
"Ooh, ooh! Can I request a pink garbage bag? Pretty please?"
A dozen faces, all the same, chattered and joked like a group of children.
To any observer, it would have looked utterly deranged.
"Ah… seems the original's calling. Time to get back to work."
"Mmmmmm… Such a pain. Even after maximizing shikigami output while keeping combat effectiveness optimal, we're still spread thin across the city…"
"The Hyaku Monogatari Clan really knows how to stir up a mess."
"Someone like Nura Rikuo—the hot-blooded protagonist type—is easy to lead around by the nose."
"So what? There's no shortage of self-important villain types who think they're masterminds. This humble monk once thought I was manipulating Chaldea too."
As they spoke, the various Doumans disguised themselves—altering their appearances until they looked like ordinary men, women, elders, and youths mingling among the crowd.
"Mmmm… mmmmmm! Still, I never expected this. Fascinating. After this humble monk and Seimei, another human this interesting has appeared… another yōkai this fun…"
One of them tilted his head, lips curling into a devious smile.
"Sanmoto Gorōzaemon… that's the name, isn't it?"
"A man who sought enlightenment in life—who wanted to become Buddha through fear alone. He wanted to be feared by all of humanity. He gathered tales, spread rumors, created yōkai—and in the end, was crushed under the weight of his own desire. Using blood as ink, grudge as brush, and his own corpse as paper, he wrote the Hundredth Tale—Demon King SanmotoGorōzaemon."
"That woman we just killed… wasn't she Sanmoto's Duodenum?"
"Wait, she wasn't even a senior member? I thought she was one of their elites."
"What a letdown. Truly disappointing."
Sanmoto Gorōzaemon—once a mere lumber merchant in the Edo period—somehow obtained an artifact known as the Hyakki no Chagama, the "Tea Kettle of a Hundred Demons."
Tea brewed in that kettle had an addictive effect—on humans and yōkai alike. Sanmoto used it to control yōkai, gathering people to spread his rumors.
As more tales spread, more yōkai were born—and thus, the Hyaku Monogatari Clan was formed.
When the hundredth tale was about to be completed, his plot was exposed. He died.
But unwilling to fade away, he created his final tale using himself as the template: The Hundredth Tale—Demon King Sanmoto Gorōzaemon.
He was eventually defeated. But from his corpse spawned countless yōkai, who lay dormant in the shadows for 300 years… forming today's Hyaku Monogatari Clan.
They have seven core members: Sanmoto's Mouth, Ear, Brain, Nose, Arm, Bone, and Face.
The one who incited an entire city of ten million to hunt Rikuo was Sanmoto'sMouth—Maruchio.
This, to Douman, was the interesting part.
A mere human—turned into this many powerful yōkai after death. It made Douman deeply curious about Sanmoto Gorōzaemon… and that Tea Kettle.
Unfortunately, Sanmoto was long gone. But the kettle? Likely still in the Hyaku Monogatari Clan's possession. It might be worth "borrowing" in the future.
"Ugh. Back to dull, boring work."
"This humble monk just wants to slack off… Like a cat napping on a roof."
"They're using words to turn the masses against Nura Rikuo…"
"So this humble monk shall use words to make the masses see Rikuo as a hero."
"Fufufu! That's what this humble monk excels at—fraud, manipulation, seduction, deception. I did work in the imperial court, after all. Hard to tell the wicked from the politicians, no?"
"If those behind this scheme realize I'm meddling, I hope they panic. I want to see them flailing like frogs in a frying pan. If they give me that as a gift… perhaps I'll accept it while dancing the flamenco… Huhuhuhu~!"