The night wind had changed.
Kikyō stood atop the watchtower of Kaede Village, her longbow hanging at her side.
Her eyes were closed.
For a shrine maiden possessed of powerful spiritual power, eyes were at times superfluous—the wind would carry back tidings from afar, and the earth would transmit its tremors up through the soles of her feet.
Among humans, sorcerer-shrine maidens were, by their very nature, more adept at perception than at physical might.
And so, in this moment, Kikyō truly did sense it.
Even before this night, she had come to know, as if through firsthand experience, the purity of the region to the west of Kaede Village, where Suruga Province lay.
The yōkai aura that had once coiled there—violent, restless, like thunder on the verge of bursting—had been utterly extinguished.
In its place was rebirth.
It was Kōbe Hikaru's yōkai aura, untainted by malice—turbid, yet bearing no grudge.
He had won.
Not only had he won—there was now a thunder-like resonance lingering within his aura.
She could feel that the very nature of that power had changed.
That once-violent thunder and lightning now twined docilely about the cold, gloomy aura that belonged to the oni warrior, like a wild beast tamed into a hunter's hound.
He had made the Thunder Beast's power his own.
Though she did not know by what means, that thunderous yōkai aura had indeed been brought along at Kōbe Hikaru's side by his own yōkai aura.
And this was only the beginning.
Next came the south.
That was where the main house of the Hōjō clan was located.
There, the yōkai aura belonging to the insect held sway.
That yōkai aura hung thick in the air, oppressive enough to tighten one's chest even from dozens of li away.
But at this moment, that rank stench was dissipating.
In its place came a bursting roar.
Was that—divine retribution?
No.
It was Kōbe Hikaru.
Carrying the power of thunder he had just obtained, he had raced a hundred li and brought thunderous punishment down upon the head of that insect yōkai.
Insects fear fire, and dread thunder even more.
Beneath that single strike, all the cold, damp gloom and corrosion were evaporated entirely by thunder of the utmost hardness and utmost yang.
It was as if heaven and earth had been scoured clean.
Made clear and limpid.
"The second one."
Kikyō counted.
Then came the west—a yōkai aura brimming with venom.
And last, the east.
Its yōkai aura was eerie and uncanny, carrying the rotting scent of the dead.
But to Kōbe Hikaru, this scent was perhaps the most familiar of all.
He was an oni warrior, a dead man who toyed with bone and blood.
Kikyō could almost picture the scene—Kōbe Hikaru standing before that yōkai, gazing at those swaying corpse-puppets, and beneath that crimson oni mask, perhaps wearing a stiff yet thoroughly mocking smile.
Then, in the very next instant, the blood-mist would erupt, turning the tables and seizing the upper hand.
The yōkai aura of the east vanished as well.
The demonic miasma of all four directions was, in the span of a single night, swept entirely away.
This was that man's way of doing things.
No defending.
Only attacking.
Snuffing out every threat at its very source.
Though she had not gone in person, in this moment, to this degree, Kikyō too seemed truly able to sense Kōbe Hikaru's battles.
Able to sense that boyish-looking yōkai, that oni warrior, displaying his full prowess.
He really was, after all…
"Quite something, isn't he?"
The voice that abruptly rang out echoed beside Kikyō's ear, clear and pleasant, prompting the shrine maiden to slowly open her lovely eyes; with lashes faintly trembling, she lowered her gaze toward her own chest—toward the Shikon Jewel that gave off a faint glow.
It was Naohi speaking.
Though she did not possess a system like Kōbe Hikaru's, as the guardian chosen by the Shikon Jewel, Kikyō could indeed sense the will of Naohi within the Shikon Jewel.
She gave a gentle nod.
And she quite agreed with Naohi's words, too.
Regarding that oni warrior.
That utterly inconceivable yōkai who fought side by side with her.
But in truth, ever since Kōbe Hikaru's successful subjugation of the Thunder Beast, the victories that followed had already become inevitable.
He held the Thunder Beast's horn, and could, by relying on favourability, wield the power of thunder contained within it.
And so the Gakimaru, the Dokukō, and the Nekomata that came after would face not merely Kōbe Hikaru, but the thunder that belonged to the Thunder Beast as well.
He could even draw power from the bodies of other yōkai.
So long as their corpses remained after death.
Of course, of all this Kikyō was unaware.
Yet that did nothing to dampen her mood.
In the midst of it, the corner of Kikyō's mouth even seemed to curve into the faintest of arcs.
But the next second, that slight curve froze.
She turned her head, looking toward the village's outskirts, beyond the barrier she had unfurled.
There, a dense, teeming throng of low-tier yōkai had gathered.
Wolf-yōkai, lesser demons, a jumbled host of goblins and sprites—though they could not break through the barrier, they had been ceaselessly howling and clawing, kicking up an irritating din.
Kikyō had intended to keep waiting until they had gathered in sufficient numbers, then dispose of them all at once—a method that, while it did not conserve spiritual power, would conserve her relatively scarce physical stamina—
But now.
It had gone quiet.
A deathly silence.
Those howls, that clawing, those footsteps—all of it vanished in that single instant.
But it was only the sound that had vanished.
Kikyō's pupils contracted slightly.
She saw it.
Beyond the barrier.
Over a hundred yōkai still held their attacking poses.
One wolf-yōkai had its maw gaping wide, its fangs a mere inch from the barrier, its drool suspended in midair yet no longer dripping.
A demon had raised its bone club, muscles taut, yet it was frozen above its head, utterly motionless.
It was not that they had been killed.
Nor was it merely that their bodies had been pinned in place.
Rather—
It was as though the time and space of this entire region had been forcibly pressed to a halt by some terrifying power.
The wind had stopped.
The leaves no longer stirred.
Even the dust hung suspended in the air.
This was absolutely not something those small-fry yōkai could accomplish.
Nor even something the four so-called vanguards she had sensed could do.
This sense of oppression…
Kikyō tightened her grip on her longbow.
A mist was rising.
Black mist surged up from the ground, silently engulfing those motionless yōkai.
Amid the roiling mist, a footstep sounded.
Very slow.
And very heavy.
An aged figure slowly emerged from the depths of the black mist.
It was an old man.
He wore an antiquated gray kimono, with a haori embroidered in somber patterns draped over it.
His hair was ashen-gray, combed back without a single strand out of place.
In his hand he leaned upon a long sword, its sheath pitch-black, like charred wood.
He looked for all the world like some aged grandee of great power, stepping forth from a deep palace within high-walled grounds.
But in this world, in this era, even among the powerful—most of those who wielded great authority and held lofty positions were, in themselves, no more than mortals.
This man, however, was different.
For before him, all things seemed to congeal.
And because, wherever he passed, those motionless yōkai crumbled one after another into powder.
"I have long heard of your great name."
The old man halted before the barrier and raised his head.
Across that deeply wrinkled face spread a smile that was kindly yet utterly hair-raising.
"The shrine maiden of Musashi Province, hailed by the people of these times as the strongest existence among all shrine maidens."
"Kikyō."
Kikyō said nothing.
She had already recognized this person.
Or rather, this oni.
The being whose name had been mentioned before Kōbe Hikaru's departure.
The great oni who, centuries ago at Mount Ōe, had followed Shuten-dōji in ravaging Kyoto, and who had once given even Minamoto no Yorimitsu—then guarding Heian-kyō—no small amount of trouble.
He was also the mastermind behind this whole affair.
Kibōmaru.
He had come.
Not at the very end.
But at the very moment when Kōbe Hikaru had just swept clean all four directions, when Kaede Village's defenses were at their most empty.
He had come in person.
Kikyō raised the bow and arrow in her hands.
She saw the other halt his steps just beyond the barrier, and heard him speak, saying slowly: "That thing in your hands, the Shikon Jewel…"
His gaze fell upon Kikyō, his voice aged, as though squeezed out from the depths of his throat.
"This old man will be taking it."
Weathered, and yet cold and sinister.
Enough to make one shudder without a chill.
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