Chapter 116: A Spousal Resemblance?
Kobe Hikaru hadn't simply rushed back by chance; from the moment he left, he had been monitoring every movement in Kaede Village.
It wasn't intuition, nor was it some form of precognition.
It was blood.
His blood.
Long before departing, Hikaru had used his Blood Transformation ability to leave infinitesimal traces of blood mist in every corner of the village. It seeped into the cracks in the soil, clung to the wooden planks of the eaves, and even mixed into the complex patterns of the stone slab where he often sat beneath the shrine's corridor.
The concentration of that mist was so low that even Kikyo's sacred barrier would not perceive it as a foreign presence.
But they were his eyes.
Anywhere else, at such a great distance, Hikaru would have found it difficult to maintain the Blood Transformation.
But Kaede Village was different.
Here, he had cultivated favorability with everything.
Though the objects themselves were inanimate and without consciousness, their burgeoning 'spirituality' would actively help him sustain the existence of his blood mist.
In other words, as long as he willed it, he could sense any abnormality within the village from hundreds of miles away, all through those scattered fragments of his essence. While he couldn't see with perfect clarity, he could perceive the vague shape of events.
So, the moment the barrier was triggered, the instant those twisted figures—malevolent spirits that were not true demons—flooded into the village…
Hikaru knew.
He abandoned the Imagawa clan retainers with whom he was still finalizing affairs in Suruga Province. He left behind the lesser demons that were being settled. He activated Thunder Muscle to its absolute limit and sprinted north without a second's hesitation.
He became a wraith of lightning and blood, the mist parting before him like a wave.
A distance of hundreds of miles was compressed into less than an hour.
And when he arrived, the scene that greeted him made him raise an eyebrow under his Oni mask.
The seven piles of ash had long since dissipated in the wind. Kikyo stood in the clearing, longbow in hand, her expression a mask of perfect calm. In front of her, little Kaede stood with her arms spread wide in a protective stance, and behind them, the villagers had gathered of their own accord. Ten paces away, two young girls in priestess robes were frozen in place, their faces a canvas of bewilderment.
Further away on a rocky slope, a figure in white robes and red hakama was kneeling on one knee. She was covered in mud, her hair disheveled, and her beautiful face was a ruin of distress and fear.
What concerned Hikaru most, however, was that the woman's spiritual power had been sealed.
Sealed by Kikyo.
From thirty yards away, silently and imperceptibly.
Hikaru watched this scene unfold, the corners of his mouth curving into a slight smile beneath the Crimson Oni Mask.
He had always known Kikyo was strong. The devastating power of her Sacred Arrow, the exquisite craftsmanship of her barrier techniques, the sheer depth of her spiritual power—he had seen it all before. Even if her mortal constitution was something of a burden, she was still undoubtedly the strongest priestess alive.
But what he saw today was not just power.
It was her heart.
From beginning to end, the girl hadn't offered a single word of explanation. No rebuttal, no self-vindication, no argument. Faced with the accusations of two brainwashed young priestesses and the insidious framing of a silver-tongued conspirator…
She simply stood there.
She fired one arrow to force the rat from the shadows.
She sealed her opponent's spiritual power, and in doing so, shattered her state of mind.
Clean. Efficient.
As always.
This kind of clarity, this refusal to fall into the trap of self-justification, this composed state of mind that didn't even bother to offer a response—it was definitely not something that could be obtained through cultivation alone.
It was self-affirmation, and a deep confidence in her own existence.
She didn't need others to believe she was innocent.
Because she knew she was innocent.
That was enough.
'Simply incredible,' he thought.
If this weren't a battlefield, he would have genuinely wanted to walk over right now, and in front of everyone, pick her up and spin her around three times.
Of course, he wouldn't actually do that.
Because Kikyo would definitely 'hit' him.
"Big Brother!"
Kaede's voice shattered his reverie.
The little girl with the twin pigtails beamed at him. "You're back! Sister scared that bad woman stiff!"
"I saw." Hikaru patted her head gently, his gaze then shifting toward Tsubaki on the rocky slope.
She truly lived up to her reputation as the 'conspirator' from the original story. Drawing demon blood, summoning evil spirits, calculating the timing to let her fellow disciples witness the "evidence"—if this entire scheme had been used on anyone other than Kikyo, she might have actually succeeded and destabilized their state of mind.
A priestess's composure was crucial; once she fell into self-doubt, even her control over her spiritual power would weaken.
But she had run into Kikyo.
She had run into a powerful priestess who wouldn't even deign to give her an explanation.
And so she lost. Utterly and completely.
At least—on the level of rhetoric and schemes.
The countermeasures Hikaru had prepared in advance also seemed to have no stage on which to perform.
[Nekomata Claws: Favorability 72]
[All Talents Unlocked]
[First Talent: Undead Affinity—All low-level undead without self-awareness will show goodwill toward you.]
[Second Talent: Soul Summoning—Within a short time after an undead dissipates, its remaining consciousness fragments can be temporarily condensed, allowing it to briefly 'return'.]
This talent had unlocked after its favorability surged past fifty on the battlefield of Jentaigahara. The souls of the dead and the pervasive death energy of that place had allowed this originally unconscious artifact to awaken further. If needed, he could have used it at any time to summon the souls of the dead villagers as 'witnesses'. It was the failsafe he had prepared in case Kikyo's state of mind was affected.
But looking at the situation now, it wasn't needed.
However, as Hikaru looked into Tsubaki's eyes, he saw something else.
In those eyes, which had become somewhat vacant after her spiritual power was sealed, there was no look of admission or defeat.
There was only rage and, hidden deeper within that rage, a terrifying madness.
"She still has a trump card," Hikaru said in a low voice.
Kikyo glanced at him, not a flicker of doubt in her eyes.
Even though Tsubaki was already kneeling on the rocky slope, her spiritual power sealed, her body a mess, her scheme exposed, her rhetoric ineffective, and her two junior sisters wavering. Even the 'fallen priestess' drama she had painstakingly arranged had been smashed to pieces by Kikyo with a single arrow and a single sentence.
She had lost. In everyone's eyes, she had completely and utterly lost.
But Tsubaki's mouth—at an angle no one else noticed—twitched into a smirk.
She lowered her head.
Her long black hair fell like a curtain, covering most of her face. From the outside, she looked like a loser who had finally accepted her fate.
Then, she laughed.
It wasn't the carefully polished, elegant smile from before. It was a twisted, unhinged laugh, the sound of someone who had reached the end of their rope and decided to simply tear everything apart.
Clearly, Tsubaki did indeed have something left. She had… a trump card.
Thunder rose again, and lightning exploded. The very instant she began to laugh, the Muramasa at Hikaru's waist was already unsheathed, surging with blood mist and crackling electricity.
Tsubaki was instantly submerged by the blinding light, her laughter cut short as her eyes widened in shock—
The crowd startled, and the two young priestesses from Tahoto flinched back in fright.
Only Kikyo…
The priestess glanced at Hikaru, who had suddenly drawn his blade beside her. She saw the pale-haired Oni Samurai looking stern, yet his face was written with a smug satisfaction, as if to say, 'See? This is what they call a spousal resemblance.'Kikyo naturally knew that Hikaru was'imitating' her.
She silently lowered her bow and arrow. Both of them were very clear on one thing: they didn't have the habit of letting an enemy power up while they just stood and watched.
Unfortunately…
"Hehehe."
"In that case—"
Tsubaki's laughter rang out once more. Her figure reappeared further away, on a small hill dozens of paces distant. She was in a wretched state, her robes tattered from the lightning and blade light. Her face was pale, yet she was still there, still alive.
'She prepared an escape route in advance?' Hikaru clicked his tongue. He had to admit, she truly lived up to being a boss from the original work; when fully prepared, she was not so easy to deal with.
He then saw the Tahoto priestess pull her hand from her sleeve, clutching a paper talisman in her palm. The patterns on that talisman were not from any orthodox school of miko arts. Seeing this charm, Momiji and Botan both turned deathly pale.
That was the Unsealing Charm.
The key to the Tahoto seal.
In this world, Tahoto was an ancient spiritual tower that suppressed great evil, maintained by the lifelong spiritual power of Tsubaki's master and every generation of guardian priestess before her. Beneath that tower, a demon—an evil spirit sealed hundreds of years ago—was imprisoned.
As their master's last disciples, Momiji and Botan had inherited the duty of guarding Tahoto.
And Tsubaki was their senior sister.
The paper talisman in her hand was precisely the Unsealing Command their master had created in his lifetime, just in case. It had been stolen by Tsubaki without their knowledge.
This was the true backup plan Tsubaki had prepared to deal with Kikyo. If she failed to shake Kikyo's state of mind, then this move would be her final, devastating blow.
"Tsubaki! You're insane—!" Momiji cried out, her shock turning to terror. "If you release the thing sealed under Tahoto, no one will be able to stop it—"
Tsubaki ignored her.
As she crushed the talisman, her other hand formed a seal. It wasn't an attack—with her spiritual power contained, she couldn't project it outward—but she could still activate a pre-prepared technique.
Especially since that technique was not meant for demons.
But for humans.
It was the so-called… Black Magic.
"Senior Sister, you actually learned the Black Magic that Master forbade—?!" Botan was no longer just horrified; she was beyond terrified.
To this, Tsubaki simply curled her lips into a smile, her long hair fluttering in the night breeze. What she used was the forbidden Black Miko Art of Tahoto, which connected her own soul with the evil spirit imprisoned beneath the tower—an unstoppable convergence with a demon.
For an ordinary person, approaching that imprisoned demon was an extremely terrifying curse.
But for Tsubaki, it was not.
For her, at this moment, such a method was more like an instantaneous teleportation.
And no one could stop it.
Tsubaki's specialty had never been exorcism, but Black Magic directed at people. She had originally intended to shake Kikyo's mind and cast a Black Miko Art on her while her spiritual power was in disarray.
Unfortunately for her, she had not succeeded.
"Tsubaki—!"
Momiji rushed forward, the talismans in her hand transforming into countless paper dolls that flew out in a swarm. But the moment the white light of the teleportation exploded, the dozens of paper dolls only passed through the residual spatial ripples.
Tsubaki had vanished.
Only her final words remained, drifting on the cold air with a mocking laugh.
"Kikyo. Kobe Hikaru. Come and chase me."
"I'll see you… at Tahoto."
Momiji stood frozen where she was, her face deathly pale.
Botan's talismans were scattered all over the ground. Her large eyes were wide with shock, and her lips trembled, unable to make a sound.
They finally realized.
They finally understood what their senior sister truly intended to do.
They were now completely certain that they had been deceived.
"Tahoto…" Botan's voice trembled. "Senior Sister, she's going to unseal—"
"That demon," Momiji finished, her voice sounding as if it were squeezed out from between her teeth. She spun around and looked at Kikyo and Hikaru, the eyes that had been full of hostility just a moment ago now holding only one emotion: desperation.
"What's sealed under that tower is no ordinary demon," Momiji said, her voice hurried and sharp. "Master said that it was a terrifying monster, an evil spirit sealed hundreds of years ago—it had devoured the population of an entire town before it was subdued. Master used a lifetime of spiritual power to maintain the seal, and his final instruction before passing was—never let it out."
She swallowed hard, her throat tight with fear.
"If Senior Sister… if Tsubaki breaks the seal—that demon will absorb all life around it, and it will quickly recover its former strength…"
Hikaru shifted his gaze from Momiji and looked toward the west.
Tahoto was to the west. About a hundred li from Kaede Village.
One could only say that Tsubaki truly was the Tahoto priestess proficient in Black Magic from the original story; her sudden teleportation was something they could not have prevented. But even with that level of Black Miko Art, it was still impossible to arrive in a single step.
They still had time to give chase.
"Kikyo," he spoke.
Kikyo had already slung her longbow onto her back and retightened her white hair ribbon. "Kaede, look after the village."
Little Kaede, after a moment of stunned silence, nodded vigorously. "Big Brother, Sister Kikyo, please be careful."
Kikyo glanced at her younger sister but said nothing more. She then turned to Momiji and Botan.
"Rest assured."
Only two words.
Momiji opened her mouth, wanting to say something—perhaps an apology, perhaps an explanation, or perhaps she just wanted to ask a question.
But Kikyo did not give her the chance.
"Let's go." Hikaru's hand was already pressed against the hilt of Muramasa.
[Thunder Muscle] activated.
Purple electric arcs exploded beneath his feet, cracking the very ground. In the next instant, his figure transformed into a bolt of violet lightning, charging into the night.
Kikyo followed closely behind. White spiritual power surged around her, and the moment her feet left the ground, two birds transformed from shikigami flew out from her sleeves, carrying her body as she swept westward. Her speed was not slow, but it wasn't nearly as explosive as his; she could only follow from a distance.
Momiji bit her lip, grabbed Botan's hand, and followed after them.
Four figures disappeared into the night.
Kaede Village returned to silence.
Only the moonlight shone upon the few piles of ashes that were finally, completely, dissipating on the ground.
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