Underground.
Deep beneath the main castle of the Imagawa clan, there existed a vast hollow.
This hollow was not naturally formed; it had been forcibly gouged out by some kind of power — the walls of the cavern were covered all over with scorched black marks, the imprints left behind by the searing of lightning.
The air was thick with the smell of burning — acrid, pungent.
In the center of that hollow, a great beast lay coiled.
A Thunder Beast.
Its form was like a white giant wolf magnified tenfold, and yet it was not a wolf.
Its four limbs were thick and powerful, its claws as if forged from steel, every claw-tip flickering with purple electric light. Its fur was white, like thunder, and beneath that white, faint purple veins seemed to flow.
As if they were blood vessels.
As if they were the traces of the heavens' lightning, congealed underground.
This too was, in the ancient legends, the divine beast that the Thunder God commanded — though it was not the legendary divine beast itself, but only a descendant of that ancient Thunder Beast, the continuation of its bloodline, an existence of the Thunder Beast clan. Yet possessing the blood of the ancient divine beast was enough to set it effortlessly among the ranks of the higher yōkai.
And at this moment, this one Thunder Beast lay sprawled upon the ground, its eyes closed.
It was resting.
It was also waiting.
The task that great one had given it was simple.
Lurk beneath this human stronghold, and at intervals release lightning, to manufacture panic and death.
No large-scale slaughter was needed — it only had to, at this crucial juncture when the two domains were at war, within one of those domains, continuously and steadily produce a fear that kept the humans from sleeping in peace.
This kind of fear would set people's hearts adrift, and in turn would coalesce into grudge-rancor.
And grudge-rancor would breed yōkai.
The yōkai would then create still more fear.
It was a cycle.
A perfect cycle carried out from within.
The Thunder Beast was quite satisfied with this task.
It did not need to show itself, did not need to fight — it only had to hide underground and now and then loose a few bolts of lightning.
Safe, effortless, and the task got done all the same.
As an old yōkai that had lived for several hundred years, it had long since learned how to preserve itself.
Back in those days it had once, because it was too brazen, tried to harass a man of rank and power among the humans and plunder a blood-feast — yet it had not only failed, but had been hunted down and besieged by those accursed onmyōji, very nearly purified outright, annihilated, very nearly losing its life.
After that it learned to behave.
Dodge when it could dodge, hide when it could hide.
Strength was not meant for showing off — it was meant for staying alive.
It had long since scouted out the sorcerers of this castle.
A pack of good-for-nothings.
The strongest among them could, at most, sense its existence, yet was utterly unable to find its precise location.
Let alone wound it.
So it could stay here with an easy mind, slowly releasing its lightning, slowly accumulating grudge-rancor.
Once the grudge-rancor was enough, that great one would naturally come to reap it.
And when that time came, it would receive its reward.
Perhaps it might even take a step further, and break through its current bottleneck.
The Thunder Beast mused on these things, the corners of its mouth curling slightly.
That was a smile.
Though on that beast's face, it looked more like a baring of fangs.
But just then —
Its body suddenly went rigid.
An unfamiliar presence came surging in from all directions.
That presence was very faint, so faint as to be almost imperceptible, yet it perceived it all the same.
Because that presence was too peculiar.
It was yōkai aura.
It was also blood.
And — bone.
"What?"
The Thunder Beast's eyes snapped open.
It saw them.
From the cracks in the cavern walls, from the fissures in the ground, something was boring its way out.
White.
Sharp.
Like the roots of a plant.
And also like — bone spikes.
One, two, ten, a hundred.
Those bone spikes grew at a speed visible to the naked eye, closing in on it from every direction.
"What is this thing —"
The Thunder Beast rose to its feet, lightning surging all around it.
It swung a foreclaw and cleaved out a bolt of purple lightning.
That bolt struck the nearest few bone spikes, blasting them to fragments.
But more bone spikes came surging up.
They filled in the gaps left by the fragments, as if they could never be killed off.
"Damn it —"
The Thunder Beast's expression changed.
It realized something was wrong.
These bone spikes were no natural thing — someone was controlling them.
Someone was forcing it out.
"Who!"
It roared.
The sound echoed through the underground hollow, shaking loose rubble that came tumbling down from the cavern walls.
There was no answer.
Only more bone spikes.
And — a mist of blood.
A faint red mist seeped out from the gaps between the bone spikes, suffusing the air.
That blood-mist held no aggression, yet the Thunder Beast felt a wave of unease.
As if it were being stared at by something.
As if it were being — locked onto, by something.
That something was not strong, yet it was tenacious, and very troublesome!
"I can't stay here any longer!"
The Thunder Beast made its decision.
Its body turned into a bolt of purple lightning and shot straight toward the ground above its head.
BOOM —!
The ground burst apart.
At the very center of the Imagawa clan's main castle, a massive crater suddenly appeared — and the surroundings, too, as though a command had long since been issued and full preparations made, had been cleared into a single wide-open expanse.
Thunder from level ground.
This too was, in the truest sense, thunder striking out of clear ground.
Dust and smoke billowed up!
The Thunder Beast burst out from that crater, its colossal frame appearing especially ferocious under the moonlight.
It had finally left that underground lair it had occupied for three days, finally exposed itself upon the surface.
And then —
It froze.
What met its eyes was a world woven of red and white.
Red blood-mist shrouded the entire castle, spreading from inside the walls to beyond them, like a thin veil of gauze.
White bone spikes bored up from the ground, from the rooftops, from the castle walls — dense and countless, like a forest.
No, not a forest.
A cage.
A vast cage, woven from blood and bone.
And it was right in the center of that cage.
"This —"
The Thunder Beast's pupils contracted.
It jerked its head up.
At the highest point of the castle, atop the castle keep, a figure stood.
A gray robe, pale long hair.
In its hands it held two blades.
That figure was looking down at it with lowered eyes, its crimson eyes piercingly conspicuous in the night.
"I've finally forced you out."
That figure spoke.
The voice was not loud, yet it carried clearly into the Thunder Beast's ears.
The Thunder Beast's eyes went wide.
It recognized that figure.
It was —
"Kōbe Hikaru!?"
The Thunder Beast bellowed out the name.
It blurted it out.
Yes, it knew this name.
As one of the vanguard dispatched by the Kyoto faction, of course it knew the intelligence on the other vanguards.
It also knew of that troublesome existence that had lately appeared in the Kantō region.
A demon warrior who had killed Suda Shigenobu.
A yōkai who traveled together with the shrine maiden of Kaede Village.
A fellow who, a few days ago, had slain four of the Band of Seven.
But it had never imagined that this fellow would come to its door of his own accord.
And so, here and now,
the figure above smiled.
That smile, set against the blood-mist and the bone-forest, looked especially eerie.
"That's right."
he said.
"Remember this name."
"This is the name of the 'man' who kills you."
Demon, Kōbe Hikaru.
Also a demon-god, Hikaru of the gate.
RUMBLE!
The thunder rose again, and fell again.
But this time, their target was no longer the aimless manufacture of grudge-rancor — instead, they came surging violently down, hurtling toward that figure standing high above!
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