In this moment, the night over Kaede Village hung as thick as ever. It was the dead of night, the small hours, and the long, long night still had far to run.
In this moment, Kikyō stood atop the Shrine, her gaze fixed upon that aged figure advancing toward her with slow steps.
That head of jet-black hair fluttered, bound up behind her, yet the ends still scattered loose in the wind—like a waterfall, and more like plumage melding into the night.
Her countenance was clear and serene.
But the hand that gripped the longbow, the fingers that drew the string, and that restlessly shimmering glow of spiritual power, all bore witness to the disquiet within the shrine maiden's heart.
For the name Kibōmaru.
This being!
As stated before.
Centuries ago, the illustrious oni king of Mount Ōe, lord over every goblin and specter beneath heaven—Shuten-dōji—had led the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons in ravaging Kyoto.
Back then the Onmyōryō had turned out in full force; even the samurai of the Minamoto clan were mobilized. In the end, it was only by relying on the power of Minamoto no Yorimitsu—regarded as the incarnation of Gozu Tennō, who was himself the reincarnation of the deity Indra—that they barely managed to seal away that great oni.
And beneath Shuten-dōji's command, there had been three great yōkai.
Ibaraki-dōji, Hoshikuma-dōji, Torakuma-dōji.
And ranking just below them—Kibōmaru.
Unlike the three dōji, Kibōmaru's origins were not illustrious, and his path of growth had known neither dramatic ups and downs nor sweeping grandeur.
He was merely an oni born of the grudge of an infant abandoned in the mountains.
It was said that in life he had been cast away deep in the mountains by his own parents, and was devoured to death by wild beasts. After death, his grudge absorbed the souls of countless other castaway infants who had met the same fate, until at last it took shape as this aged oni.
He was not the strongest.
But he was the most troublesome.
Because his mutation was not of strength, nor of size.
But of—speed.
"It would seem you already know of this old one's existence."
Kibōmaru's voice was aged, like the grinding of dry timber: "Then this old one shall dispense with the introductions."
He raised his hand.
He merely raised his hand.
But Kikyō's pupils tightened slightly.
For in her perception, that hand had gone from rising to falling in less than the blink of an eye.
Fast.
So fast that not even her spiritual power could catch the trajectory.
"Speed Mutation."
Kikyō said in a low voice.
"Oh?"
Kibōmaru's eyes flickered with surprise: "A mutation of a yōkai's very essence… you actually know of that too?"
"Truly well-informed."
"That's right—my mutation is unlike those fools who chase after strength."
Though it was not like Kōbe Hikaru, summing it up step by step, rising from weak to strong.
Yet among yōkai, there was naturally no shortage of those who knew how to think.
The mutation of a yōkai's essence was not something only Kōbe Hikaru could deduce.
Kibōmaru—or rather, the yōkai who hailed from Kyoto—understood this principle to one degree or another as well.
Though it was not something they had worked out for themselves.
Kibōmaru then advanced slowly, each step very slow.
It was only that the world around him was slower still.
Those motionless yōkai, that congealed air, those leaves that no longer swayed—all of it proved one thing.
He had not made himself faster.
He had made—everything around him slower.
"Yōkai are creatures of myriad change, and this old one, upon reaching a certain domain, worked a mutation upon my own speed."
Kibōmaru spoke as though relating some trivial tale: "Fast and slow were ever two faces of one and the same thing."
"This old one can make himself faster, and can make his enemies slower."
"He can even make time itself—stand still."
This was not an elemental mutation.
This was the manipulation of fundamental physical properties.
It was a further realm built upon the foundation of Qualitative Transformation.
And judging from the yōkai aura emanating from Kibōmaru, this fellow's number of mutations had long since surpassed ten.
The tenth mutation, the eleventh, even more—the twelfth, verging upon a Gasification great yōkai.
This was already beyond the scope of an ordinary high-tier yōkai.
This was a being infinitely close to a great yōkai—by Kōbe Hikaru's grading, one approaching 'Gasification.'
For the first time, Kikyō's expression turned severe, even grave.
Though she was regarded as the strongest shrine maiden of the Sengoku era, in this age great yōkai were scarce in number, and beings approaching the great yōkai were not many either.
This, too, was the first time she had faced a yōkai of such caliber head-on.
"However——"
Kibōmaru's tone abruptly shifted.
He turned his head, looking toward the four directions—east, south, west, and north—the positions where the four vanguard yōkai had been before.
Now, the yōkai aura of those four directions had utterly dispersed.
"You lot have given this old one a bit of a surprise after all."
"The Thunder Beast, Gakimaru, the Dokukō, the Nekomata…"
"All four of those creatures were yōkai chieftains who had lived for over a century."
"And in a single night, every one of them was cut down? What's more, you're still here—you never lifted a hand."
He looked toward Kikyō.
"Was this the handiwork of that companion of yours?"
Kibōmaru was somewhat surprised.
And yet, somehow, not so surprised?
Inexplicably, something stirred all at once within Kikyō's heart.
She, too, abruptly spoke up, saying:
"You did it on purpose."
The shrine maiden's voice was calm, and as cold as the evening wind.
"Oh?"
The corner of Kibōmaru's mouth curled, his lips tilting up, his neatly combed whiskers tracing the motion.
His steps halted accordingly, and he asked with no small measure of interest: "You've seen through it?"
And Kikyō had indeed seen through it.
"Those four yōkai were discarded pawns from the very start."
Kikyō's white robe stirred, the red hem of her hakama folding back, and she said sternly: "You sent them not to besiege us."
"But rather—to have us kill them."
Silence.
Kibōmaru did not deny it; he merely smiled.
That smile, upon his aged face, looked exceedingly eerie.
"You're clever."
He said: "Cleverer than I imagined."
"A pity, though——"
He raised his hand, pointing all around.
"What does knowing change?"
In the air, something was gathering.
Not yōkai aura——
But—grudge-aura.
Thick, surging, grudge-aura as solid as substance itself.
"This old one knows you've seen through my purpose in summoning those yōkai here—it was to gather yōkai aura… But you seem to have forgotten: when a person dies, there is grudge-aura, and when a yōkai dies, there is grudge-aura just the same."
Kibōmaru's voice seemed to issue from the Nine Underworlds:
"You slew the Thunder Beast, and its grudge-aura suffuses the western sky."
"You slew Gakimaru, and its grudge-aura shrouds the southern earth."
"The Dokukō, the Nekomata—the same holds for them."
"Four yōkai chieftains, each over two or three hundred years old—their grudges after death come from all four directions, enough to blanket this entire Musashi Province."
Kibōmaru had been laying his plans from the very beginning.
Those four vanguards were not meant to kill anyone.
They were—offerings.
Offerings used to manufacture grudge-aura.
"Dread."
Kikyō then spat out that single word.
A yōkai's dread is obtained by spreading fear—an inverse existence akin to faith, yet different from it.
It is the nourishment of yōkai, a hormone that lets a yōkai strengthen itself in a short span of time.
Though once the hormone fades, it is beaten back to its original form.
But if the dread can be sustained without end, then that so-called hormone becomes equivalent to a permanent state.
And the grudge-aura of a dead yōkai is itself a congealment of fear—though it is dread without direction, dread that cannot be wielded by any single individual alone, it serves quite fittingly as a vessel to bear the power of some being that ought never to exist in this world.
"That's right."
Black mist began to churn about Kibōmaru's whole body: "Upon this land brimming with the grudges of four barely-passable yōkai…"
"Only then can this old one bring forth his strongest power."
That was not merely yōkai aura.
That was—a domain.
With grudge-aura as its medium and fear as its foundation, blanketing the entire region: Kibōmaru's domain.
"I am an oni who has died once, who entered the netherworld and returned. I have no substantial flesh; what walks between heaven and earth is but my remnant soul. Though this lets my speed reach the level of an ordinary great yōkai, I also need dread to bear my existence in order to bring forth power enough."
Yes—this, too, was Kibōmaru's true aim.
From start to finish, he had been making preparations for his own strike!
"Now."
He lifted that pitch-black longsword.
The sheath fell away, revealing the blade within, glimmering with a faint blue light.
"Hand over the Shikon Jewel."
Kikyō said nothing.
She merely drew her bow and nocked an arrow.
Spiritual power gathered at the arrowhead, becoming a dazzling white light.
"Then let's see——"
Her voice was very calm: "whether you can wrest it from my hands."
Kibōmaru smiled.
"You will regret this."
"Shrine maiden."
The next second.
He vanished.
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