—After school, the building steamed with the smell of anger and exhaustion.
A whole day in detention. The wall clock kept pretending to run slow; the supervising teacher intimidated them with nothing but the creak of his chair. When the door finally opened, Sekou Kagetsu stretched and forced air deep into his lungs.
(That dragged... I'm hungry... I'm sleepy... and when I get home it's probably training.)
He trudged toward home—though really it was the clan's base, a renovated old temple. Before he even passed through the gate, a barrage of sounds hit him: blows pounding earth, metal singing, the air itself being split.
Through the cloister and out into the open garden, four figures were carving the sky.
White hair swaying, a fox-woman—Aki—etched fine cuts into the air with the path of her blade.
A high black-and-silver ponytail, a bone bow drawn to the cheek—Ikue, their skeletal tactician.
Crimson twin-tails flaring, Yukika spun a giant pair of scissors one-handed.
And with long purple hair and black gauntlets—Shibukanu, the woman who could shift the garden's center of gravity merely by standing still.
"I'm ho—me... so what carnival did I walk into?"
He waved, half joking. The bare minimum of eyes slid his way.
Shibukanu tipped her chin a fraction. "Polishing technique. The number of Hell-born appearances is rising. We won't let our hands grow dull."
"Uh-huh. Then let me—"
"Stand on the sideline. You'll serve as referee."
Shibukanu's voice was dry yet soft. It was an order, but it had the warmth of a blanket's edge.
"...Referee? Me?"
"Call points, keep count, declare fouls. You can manage."
"...Sure, I'll do it my way."
Before Sekou could even shrug, the air in the garden grew a shade heavier.
"Begin."
At Shibukanu's single word, the world sprinted.
Aki vanished—then reappeared. Her path was a line of slashes; line layered on line until they wove into a net. The blade dulled; her presence cleared; space cut faster than the eye could track.
"Hey, wai—"
Ikue cut herself off, loosing three arrows in a burst. They changed angle midair, stabbing for Aki's pocket of space.
"Aki, lately you're fighting like a barbarian."
"I cut because it's necessary."
Even in that salt-dry exchange, strikes stacked to ten, twenty, thirty. A circle inscribed at Ikue's feet glowed faintly, cursing tails trailing each arrow. Aki took them on her shoulder without missing a beat, then scored a diagonal line across the ground as she landed. The earth heaved; the arrows' trajectories skewed. Ikue clicked her tongue.
On the far side, Yukika was laughing. "Heeey, Shib, look over heeere?"
She pinged the ground with one blade, split the air with the other, and with trickster footwork kept manufacturing blind spots. Shibukanu merely set her right forearm upright before her chest.
Clang—
Each time the scissors touched the gauntlet, the backwash flipped the leaves on the garden trees. Shibukanu didn't take a single step; even her elbow and shoulder hardly stirred. As if pushing back with her breathing alone, she knocked the blades away; they lost angle and fell to the dirt.
"C'mon, move your hands already!"
Yukika's voice slid out like a tongue along the underside of a mask—and in the next instant, she changed shape.
Her mouth split. Shadows writhed under her skin. Her true Kuchisake-onna form opened.
Cold. Mockery. The extremes of beauty and ugliness.
And still Shibukanu's eyes stayed calm as a windless sea.
"...Too soft."
A light turn of the wrist, like brushing aside a bending branch—a backfist.
The wind arrived late. Yukika's body shot straight backward, scraping a white line through the gravel, and stopped in front of the gatepost.
"Owwww...! But I love this kind of thing!"
Aki and Ikue's crossing reached its peak.
"There."
Aki shifted her blade by a hair. A seam of light stitched up Ikue's flank.
"—gh."
Ikue tried to slough it off with her bone body, but the entry was too clean. Light and cut passed through bone; the shock detonated a moment late. She skidded across the ground and collided head-on with Yukika just as the latter stood up.
"Hey—Ikue!" "You're the one who stopped."
The two of them tumbled right up to Sekou.
At the "referee's stand" (beside a stone lantern), Sekou lifted his hand. "Uh... was that a point? No, a waza-ari? Who even made these rules—how am I supposed to count this?"
"You decide," said Ikue.
"This is ridiculous!"
Before he knew it, only two stood at the garden's center:
Aki in front. Shibukanu beyond.
Aki held her blade low and made one tiny adjustment to her stance.
Shibukanu pushed up the bridge of her sunglasses, correcting the angle of her shadow.
The heat went still.
"Come."
At that one word, Aki's ki burst.
Invisible slashes layered—ten, twenty. Arrows of pressure flared in a fan, and in an instant the garden was crosshatched in a grid.
Shibukanu slid her body through the mesh using nothing but a half step, a half turn, a single breath. The tips of her hair were trimmed; her sleeve thinned by a sheet of paper. But not a single wound marked her.
Aki's foot cracked the ground. She launched. Space dropped away beneath her. The final cut fell head-on—
"Finish."
At the same murmur, purple fire ran along Shibukanu's gauntlet.
Not a fist, not a palm—pressure.
There was no bursting sound, yet the world supplied one after. Aki flew backward without a noise, skimming across a few stone paving slabs and coming to a stop. Dust rose a heartbeat late.
Shibukanu didn't even brush her hair back. "—I win," she said, matter-of-fact.
"Ughhh..." "Again...?"
Yukika and Ikue groaned up at the sky together.
"She wins every time!"
"The reality of a skill gap."
Shibukanu gave the smallest shrug. "I'm above you."
And that, her face said, concluded the matter.
Sekou scrawled Winner: Shib on a wooden tag—he had no idea where he'd gotten it—and sighed. "So, how're we logging strength? What level is everybody at?"
Ikue, dusting sand from her clothes, adjusted her glasses and began in a textbook tone.
"There are six tiers. From the top:
One, Shinyō — apex, legendary-class, rare. Shibukanu fits here.
Two, Hayō — upper-class, capable of suppressing a battlefield alone. Aki.
Three, Kiyō — strong-class, able to handle city-scale threats. Myself and Yukika.
Four, Gunyō — average band; as a group with order they're troublesome in urban areas.
Five, Yūyō — lower-class; many individuals specialize in stealth, curses, and ambush.
Six, Jinyō — dust-class; they scatter like dust, but underestimate them and you'll be hurt.
Roughly speaking, that's our framework. We evaluate comprehensively by yōkai pressure, the scale of damage on-site, and difficulty of response. As for you, at present—"
She left a conspicuous pause and smiled with just the corners of her mouth.
"Bottom tier."
"...Huh?"
"Between Jinyō and Yūyō. As low as it gets."
"Ex—cuse me?!"
Sekou recoiled. Yukika poked his cheek from the side. "It's okay, it's okay, our cute little underling."
"Fact is fact," Aki added curtly as she stood.
Last, Shibukanu stepped close and, expressionless, placed a light kiss on Sekou's forehead.
"Don't worry. Everyone starts from a different point."
Ikue followed: "Statistically sound."
Yukika made a big show of it. "There, there, baby brother—"
"Hey, quit it! That's embarrassing!"
Feeling thoroughly turned into a toy, Sekou puffed out his cheeks.
Shibukanu pivoted on her heel. "Dinner in one hour. Don't be late this time." Walking away, she softened her eyes the tiniest bit. "...I love you. See you later."
Just that was enough to make the day's heavy fatigue unspool like a thin mist from his back.
Left alone in the garden, Sekou drew the night wind into his chest.
"...Guess I'm the punch line. —Kinda funny, though."
His mouth smiled on its own. It stung. But he didn't hate it.
The heat on his brow felt like the dull crimson of evening.
◇
That night.
Footage from across Japan began repeating the same set of names.
A woman who shattered a black giant in a single blow. A meteor of naked steel. A cursed bow of bone. A scissor-wielding madwoman laughing as she fought.
Anonymized uploads by the thousands. Shaky rooftop videos. Snatches of police radio.
—The Kibu clan.
—Unknown "guardians."
—A half-yōkai boy.
Everyone gossiped. Everyone pretended they hadn't seen.
The dark drew nearer. The name spread.
But it would be a little while yet before that name took on its true meaning.
—-