The night was deep. Kōbe Hikaru's figure swept across the mountain forest, pressing onward toward his next target.
The red comb tucked against his chest was trembling—more violently than at any time before.
"Hey."
Sakagami Ketsura's voice came out from within the comb: "Those words you said just now… were you serious?"
"Which words?"
"You know… saying that I, too, was one who killed the Thunder Beast."
Kōbe Hikaru did not slow his pace.
"It wasn't mere courtesy."
He said it very plainly: "Without your hair to conduct it away, I couldn't have killed that Thunder Beast."
At a time like this, of course, the thing to do was to seize the chance and win her over.
Kōbe Hikaru was thoroughly familiar with this sort of thing.
He had also more or less gotten a read on this comb-she-yōkai's temperament—cold-blooded she certainly was, and being a tsukumogami, she was in essence quite literally without blood.
But at the same time, she was also very tsundere.
As a yōkai born from a comb that had been left untouched through long ages, she in fact deeply craved attention.
Sure enough.
Silence.
The skull on the comb rolled about, as though digesting these words.
"Hmph."
Sakagami Ketsura's voice turned awkward: "So you're saying… I'm stronger than those useless wretches from Kyoto?"
"At the very least, stronger than that Thunder Beast."
Kōbe Hikaru replied offhandedly: "Because it's dead, and you're still alive."
Silence again.
But this time the silence carried something subtle.
[Sakagami Ketsura: favourability +2]
[Current favourability: 1 (Budding Goodwill / No Longer Hostile)]
[For the first time, it feels that being held by you isn't so bad after all.]
Kōbe Hikaru looked at the prompt on the panel.
It had finally gone into the positive at last.
Though it was only 1 point, at least it was no longer a negative number.
This fellow really did live for praise.
"Don't get smug."
Sakagami Ketsura's voice rose again, carrying a touch of tsundere pique: "I just don't want to let that bunch from Kyoto have an easy time of it, that's all."
"Once I've recovered, you're the first one I'm settling accounts with."
Kōbe Hikaru did not respond.
He merely tucked the comb a little deeper into his robes and continued on his way.
…
In the chaos of the Warring States, in the single province of Suruga there was a Thunder Beast working its curse—a descendant of the servant-beast enslaved by the ancient Thunder God. For three days it lay in wait below the castle, calling down the lightning, slaying people and destroying property beyond all reckoning, so that the folk of that age all lived in dread.
There was a demon-warrior named Kōbe Hikaru, his bones and blood spread like a forest, and beneath his blade the beast perished.
The Imagawa lord enshrined him in a Shrine.
This is the oni who severed the thunder.
Raikiri.
— Strange Tales of Suruga Province
At the same time.
Kaede Village.
Kikyō stood upon the watchtower at the village entrance, her longbow in hand.
The night wind stirred her black hair; her white robe and red hakama were especially distinct under the moonlight.
Her gaze turned toward the west.
There, something was dissipating.
"The fluctuation of spiritual power… it's grown weaker."
She murmured.
To the west lay the direction of the Imagawa clan—also the direction in which Kōbe Hikaru had set out.
That thick, restless yōkai aura of thunder and lightning was, at this moment, fading away bit by bit.
Like a flame being extinguished.
Like—a yōkai dying.
"Has he succeeded?"
Kikyō's brows relaxed slightly.
But the next second, her expression turned grave once more.
Because she had sensed another yōkai aura.
To the north.
That was the direction of the Venomous Flood Dragon.
And there was one to the south.
And one to the east.
Three directions, three currents of yōkai aura, still stirring restlessly.
"So it's to be one at a time…"
She gazed into the darkness far off.
Hikaru should be on the road to his next target by now, shouldn't he?
She hoped that all would go smoothly for him.
Meanwhile, Kikyō looked beyond the village—and saw that outside the Shrine barrier shrouding the village, ghostly shadows wavered and demons stood in dense, teeming ranks.
And more.
A mighty demon-wind raged, spreading for more than several li and beyond!
Kōbe Hikaru had been right.
Each has their own specialty.
For assassination and decapitation, Kōbe Hikaru was suited.
But for guarding and storming strongholds—for the one skilled at wielding spiritual power, deploying techniques, and raising barriers—Kikyō was the true choice to stay behind and hold the village.
The black-haired shrine maiden pressed her expression taut.
Though she was, as ever, all alone.
Yet this once, she did not feel that loneliness of the past.
There was only waiting.
And also—
anticipation.
And so, here and now.
The shrine maiden drew her bow and nocked an arrow.
Waiting for the yōkai outside to gather in sufficient numbers.
And then.
Boom——
A single arrow flew out, and a hundred yōkai shattered along with it once more, turning to ash that scattered across the sky—utterly purified by pure spiritual power.
At this very moment, Kōbe Hikaru was indeed still hurrying along the road.
[Spectral Step]unleashed in continuous succession, his form like a ghost-wraith.
From the Imagawa clan's domain to that of the Hōjō clan, the straight-line distance was roughly one hundred and eighty li.
For an ordinary person, this distance would mean at least several days' journey.
For him, it was only two shichen.
But he did not intend to take the straight path.
[Spiritual Intuition], activated.
That talent obtained from the Shikon Jewel — Naohi let him once again sense the flow of spiritual power.
But this time, what he sensed was no longer simply the veins running between heaven and earth—rather, it was the sympathetic resonance extending outward from the things that had already fallen into his hands, that faint, indistinct repulsion they felt toward spiritual power.
The yōkai aura extending out from that Thunder Beast's horn.
Being yōkai likewise summoned by Kyoto, since they meant to besiege Kaede Village, then among themselves they were bound, more or less, to have some entanglement.
And at this moment——
Kōbe Hikaru had indeed sensed it.
Three faint, barely-there connections.
Like fine threads and veins.
His target, too, was very clearly… to the southeast of the Imagawa clan, to the south of Kaede Village in Musashi Province—also the seat of the Hōjō clan's headquarters, a region called Sagami Province, which adjoined both Suruga Province and Musashi Province.
In the midst of this, Sakagami Ketsura's voice rose once more, turning earnest and grave.
"The yōkai chieftain you're approaching should be that Gakimaru."
"He's right there to the south."
"Your choice is a good one—that fellow is a bit closer to you than the Venomous Flood Dragon to the north and the Nekomata to the east."
"But as I said, that fellow excels at illusion arts. To me he's not as troublesome as the Thunder Beast, but for you he may, on the contrary, be even harder to deal with than the Thunder Beast."
"Because that fellow is even better at hiding than the Thunder Beast."
"It's hard to say exactly—you'll know once you see it."
Hearing this, Kōbe Hikaru did not halt his steps in the slightest.
He merely said:
"As long as it's there, I'll always be able to find it."
"Let's go pay a visit to that great moth."
A hundred-li dash.
Kōbe Hikaru's speed grew faster and faster.
Bone spikes bored out from the soles of his feet, catapulting him forward.
Each time he landed, it was a distance of a hundred zhang.
Blood-mist seeped out from beneath his skin, leaving faint red traces in the air.
That was his mark, and also his eyes.
Anywhere he passed fell within the range of his perception.
"What are you setting up?"
Sakagami Ketsura's voice came from within his robes.
"An escape route."
Kōbe Hikaru did not explain further.
He simply pressed onward.
Target—Gakimaru.
That giant moth-yōkai capable of releasing bewildering scale-powder.
Sakagami Ketsura had indeed said that it was a yōkai supremely skilled at illusion arts—anyone caught by its scale-powder would fall into an eternal nightmare.
But as for a yōkai with a name resembling this one, Kōbe Hikaru actually had more or less an impression of it; it seemed that it, like the Thunder Beast, was a yōkai species of the same name that had also appeared in the original work.
But that no longer mattered.
No matter what it was, tonight he would most certainly cut it down!
Boom!
The crash of thunder exploded, and exploded again.
He accelerated.
His figure melded into the night and vanished among the mountains.
Leaving behind only the spreading blood-mist, drifting slowly apart under the moonlight.
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