Chapter 218: The Modern Zhuge Liang, Takenaka Hanbei
The night deepened. A solitary campfire crackled against the encroaching dark, casting erratic, dancing shadows across the uneven ground. The evening breeze swept down from the surrounding woods, carrying the rich, damp scent of moss and crushed pine needles.
Amidst the quiet ambiance, Kobe Hikaru paused his movements.
Hearing his voice, Kikyo turned her head slightly. She met his gaze, her normally cold, detached eyes reflecting the dying embers of the campfire, glowing with a rare, faint warmth.
"I only saw it recently," she murmured. Her voice was kept incredibly low, a private whisper meant only for the space between them. "Ever since the Earth Barrier was unfolded and our spiritual power and faith merged that one time, my eyes have changed."
She blinked, her long lashes casting shadows over her pale cheeks. "I can see things I couldn't see before. And I know things I didn't know before."
Hikaru did not press her for the exact mechanics. He already knew Kikyo's innate talent was nothing short of astonishing. He was even more aware that the current Kikyo had likely deviated far from her original trajectory, stepping onto a path that would only elevate her to unmatched heights. Instead of questioning her, he simply shifted his gaze back toward the main tent, focusing on the illusory outline hovering above Imagawa Yoshimoto's head.
His eyes locked onto those six ethereal elephant tusks.
Above the sleeping daimyo floated the massive, vague phantom of a white elephant. It did not breathe air; rather, it seemed to inhale and exhale the collective will of thousands of people. Hikaru couldn't dissect its exact composition, but his instincts as an Oni Samurai told him what it wasn't. It was not Yao Qi. It was not pure spiritual power. It wasn't even the direct power of faith.
"Guardian Spirit," Kikyo spoke the name softly into the night wind.
"A Guardian Spirit is not obtained through cultivation," she explained, her tone gentle yet carrying the weight of ancient knowledge. "Nor is it a blessing bestowed by the gods."
She looked toward the phantom. "It is, perhaps, the ultimate condensation of 'momentum.' When a person reaches a sufficiently high position and carries the hearts and hopes of enough people, the human aura lingering between heaven and earth naturally gravitates toward them, forming a phantom at their side. Or, it is the manifestation of future possibilities—the physical shape of absolute talent. Or perhaps... it is simply the external manifestation of the soul itself."
Kikyo shifted her gaze back to the fire. "Very few people in any given era possess a Guardian Spirit. The conditions are far too harsh. It requires more than just military might, political influence, and raw talent. It requires the 'Heavenly Mandate'."
"Heavenly Mandate," Hikaru repeated, testing the syllables.
"It is not some illusory, predetermined fate," Kikyo clarified. "It is the fate of the masses that your words and actions can actively influence. The closer one stands to the position of the ruler of the world, the clearer and more defined their Guardian Spirit becomes."
It was the absolute overlap of human hearts and sovereign power. Public support weaponized into a spiritual shield.
Listening to her explanation, Hikaru narrowed his Crimson Demon Eyes.
Guardian Spirit.
Those two words acted like a key, unlocking fragments of memories buried deep within his mind—memories that did not belong to this bloody Sengoku era. He thought of a game he had played long before his transmigration. In that digital world, the warlords of the Sengoku Period were accompanied by Guardian Spirits—ethereal entities taking the forms of animals. They granted their wielders superhuman protection, allowing mere mortals to deter terrifying demons and ensuring human society didn't entirely collapse in an era overrun by the supernatural.
And among that roster, Imagawa Yoshimoto's Guardian Spirit had been the Six-Tusked White Elephant. The divine mount of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva.
It was the ultimate incarnation of protective power, symbolizing both wisdom and compassion., in the lore he remembered, it was the final, parting gift of protection from the monk Taigen Sessai to Yoshimoto right before his death.
...The reason Yoshimoto didn't immediately collapse under pressure earlier, Hikaru realized, was most likely because that Guardian Spirit was actively shielding her mind and body.
The game's underlying lore perfectly matched Kikyo's explanation. The execution differed slightly—the game materialized them into controllable, offensive combat tools, whereas in this reality, it acted more like an ambient, passive aura of absolute popularity and protection—but the core essence remained identical.
It was the spirit of humanity.
This revelation struck a sudden, resonant chord within Hikaru's chest. He lowered his head, staring at his pale, demonic palms.
Deep within his body, the four constructed organs of the Asura projection were slowly, methodically operating. Although his internal cycle of fire, water, metal, and wood was still missing its final link, the existing cooperation had already pushed his physical form dangerously close to that of a living, breathing human.
Ten Transformations required all five organs to be complete, perfecting the Five Elements.
Eleven Transformations required the construction of the three souls: the Heaven Soul, the Earth Soul, and the Human Soul.
As an Oni Samurai, he inherently possessed the Earth Soul. The Heaven Soul would naturally be granted the moment he reached maximum favorability with the Shikon Jewel.
But the Human Soul had remained an elusive mystery. He had been searching for a breakthrough, grasping at straws, with his only real lead being the vague concept of 'Sword Intent'.
Yet now, staring at the white elephant phantom hovering over Yoshimoto, a cold, pragmatic clarity washed over him.
A Guardian Spirit. A product of the intersection of destiny and the human heart.
It was a power strictly belonging to humanity. A unique phenomenon that demons, born of malice and miasma, could never hope to possess. Demons operated on twisted principles, primal fear, and the chaotic mutations of Yao Qi. They did not have human hearts, and thus, they could never manifest Guardian Spirits.
But Hikaru was the exception to the rule.
He was a transmigrator. The core of his soul was entirely human. He retained human morality, human memories, and human emotions. He was even currently loving a human woman in a distinctly human way.
If a Guardian Spirit was born from the intersection of destiny and the human heart... what if he could force the world to recognize him? What if he could acquire one, or even multiple, Guardian Spirits?
That would forge the Human Soul.
It was the most critical, missing link in his path to the Eleven Transformations.
...Judging from the mechanics of Nioh, Hikaru mused, his mind racing, the power of Guardian Spirits could indeed be transferred and used by others. The protagonist of that game constantly borrowed the spirits of defeated or allied warlords.
A dangerous, calculating light flickered within his Crimson Demon Eyes, swirling like blood in water.
A moment later, the light extinguished. His expression returned to its usual deadpan calm.
Not yet.
The theory was sound, but the timing was entirely wrong. The Human Soul was not something he could just snatch out of the air through sheer willpower. He couldn't just walk up to a daimyo and demand their spirit. He had to wait. He needed the perfect moment, the perfect opportunity—just like his Sword Intent. Once he reached the precipice, the breakthrough would happen naturally.
It required a catalyst. Or perhaps, a violent external force.
Hikaru retracted his gaze from the main tent and looked back at the miko. "Kikyo, have you ever heard of a person named Hidechiyo?"
Hidechiyo. The protagonist of Nioh. A silent, lethal anomaly who slaughtered their way through hordes of terrifying demons. If this world operated on the logic of that game, then theoretically, that demon-slaying existence should be wandering this very era.
Kikyo leaned her weight slightly against his shoulder. Her midnight-black hair cascaded down, obscuring half of her cold, refined profile. She blinked, a hint of surprise breaking her serene expression.
After a brief moment of thought, she shook her head.
Hikaru didn't press the issue. His brow furrowed a fraction of an inch. No Hidechiyo? Or have they simply not made their debut yet?
He sank into a heavy, analytical silence.
Kikyo did not interrupt his thoughts. She simply sat beside him, her slender fingers resting quietly in the shadows by her knees. The bonfire continued to crackle, fighting a losing battle against the night wind that poured through the valley's gaps, sending dry, withered leaves spiraling into the dark.
In the distance, the Ashigaru of the Imagawa camp huddled in small groups around their own dying fires. Some passed around cheap sake, others carefully oiled their blades, while a few traded hushed, nervous gossip about the day's slaughter.
Time crawled forward into the dead of night.
Yoshimoto had long since retired to the main tent with her attendants. Behind a nearby supply wagon, Matsudaira Motoyasu was curled into a tight ball, fast asleep with her knees hugged to her chest. Her round glasses sat crookedly on the bridge of her nose, and a thin line of drool steadily soaked into her sleeve.
The camp gradually surrendered to exhaustion. The roaring bonfires reduced to languid, glowing embers, with only sporadic tongues of flame licking at the charred wood. Yawning, heavy-footed Ashigaru patrolled the spaces between the tents.
Eventually, Kikyo stood up to rest in the tent positioned directly behind Hikaru. But before stepping inside, she raised her hand.
Spiritual energy rippled outward. She layered a three-tier Barrier directly over the tent's entrance. It was as thin as a cicada's wing and completely invisible to the naked eye, yet absolute in its function. Any entity wielding extraordinary power would trigger it instantly. Only Hikaru was keyed into its frequency, allowed to enter and exit without resistance.
It was a familiar routine. It was the unspoken division of labor they had established the moment they left Kaede Village: he guarded the physical perimeter, and she secured their internal sanctuary.
Kikyo was, at her core, a very traditional woman.
Hikaru liked that about her.
He remained seated by the dying fire, his back resting against a large, mossy stone. His Crimson Demon Eyes were half-closed. He wasn't asleep. His undead physiology meant sleep was a luxury, not a biological necessity.
He was simply waiting.
He was waiting for a specific aura he had detected nearly half an hour ago—a subtle, creeping presence slowly inching its way from the northeast edge of the camp.
The aura wasn't overwhelmingly powerful. But it was incredibly precise, carrying a very specific, refined frequency. It was 'spiritual power'. It shared the same fundamental source as Kikyo's miko energy, but its application was entirely different. It was structured, calculated, and highly sophisticated.
Hikaru's eyelids parted a fraction.
Deep within his crimson pupils, complex purple patterns began to slowly rotate. Activating the Truth-Seeing talent amplified by his Black Pearl Agate, the invisible world bled into his vision.
He saw a thread.
It was extending from the distant darkness, reaching out through the night air, attempting to gently touch him.
The thread was absurdly thin. It was so delicate that an ordinary demon wouldn't even feel it brush against their skin. Even high-level youkai or seasoned demon leaders would likely fail to perceive this level of microscopic, hidden lock-on.
But Hikaru was not an ordinary demon.
His eyes tracked the thread's trajectory. It originated from the west-northwest of the Imagawa camp. That specific orientation formed a perfect pincer position with Kiyosu Castle, where the opposing Oda forces were currently entrenched.
Which meant this thread didn't belong to the Oda Clan. It belonged to a third party that had quietly slipped onto the chessboard.
At the very tip of the thread, Hikaru sensed a faint, probing lock-on.
Shikigami Divination. A staple of Onmyodo.
It used spiritual power as the thread and complex magic as the needle, weaving an invisible net of perception over vast distances. As long as the target remained oblivious, the caster could remotely 'read' their Yao Qi concentration, their physical vitals, and even map out the general parameters of their combat strength.
Hikaru had heard Kikyo lecture on this specific branch of magic before. But compared to her dry descriptions, the spell hovering before him was a masterclass in subtlety. It was far more delicate and covert than Kikyo's own method of spiritual perception.
However, that extreme delicacy came with a fatal flaw: it was incredibly fragile.
Kikyo's perception relied on overwhelming, pure spiritual projection that didn't require complex spell matrices. This 'Shikigami Divination', however, forced the caster to stretch their spiritual power into a literal, physical 'thread'.
And a thread, once discovered, could simply be snapped.
It was a technique favored by ordinary Onmyoji who lacked raw, overwhelming spiritual talent, forcing them to rely on extreme technical precision to compensate for their innate deficiencies.
Hikaru didn't move. He didn't even raise a finger to sever it.
Because he didn't have to.
A split second later, the tent flap behind him rustled.
Kikyo stepped out into the cool night air. Her pristine white kosode and crimson hakama fluttered gently in the breeze. Her midnight hair framed a face as cold and untouchable as the moon itself.
She had been alerted by the Barrier. While her three layers of defense hadn't directly intercepted the hidden thread, the spell's mere proximity had caused microscopic ripples across the barrier's surface. A normal mage would have missed it.
Kikyo did not.
She walked silently to Hikaru's side. Without uttering a single word, she raised her right hand and casually brushed her fingers through the empty air.
Just a single, effortless motion.
It was incredibly light, completely natural—like a woman brushing a stray, withered leaf off her elegant sleeve.
A surge of spiritual power overflowed from her fingertips. It was so dense, so terrifyingly pure, that it was almost transparent.
The moment the Onmyodo thread made contact with her energy, it snapped.
There was no explosion. No dramatic flash of light. It simply dissolved, like a fragile spiderweb blown apart by a sudden gale.
Miles away, the caster would instantly suffer the backlash of that severed connection. It would be a faint sting, but more than enough to deliver a terrifying message: You have been seen. And you have been cut down by something vastly superior.
"Someone is watching you," Kikyo stated, her voice as flat and unbothered as ever.
She sat down gracefully beside him, resting her longbow against her knee. Her slender fingers naturally found his, covering the back of his pale hand.
"Not just looking," Hikaru corrected quietly. "They were 'reading' me."
"You know who it is." Kikyo didn't ask; she stated it as a fact. She looked at his profile, easily reading the subtle shifts in his demeanor.
The corner of Hikaru's mouth twitched upward in a dry, humorless smirk. "I have a rough idea."
He cast a glance toward the west-northwest. According to the latest reconnaissance provided by the Tanuki Spirit, that direction belonged to Saito Dosan, the ruler of Mino Province. The old warlord had marched two thousand men down during the day and established a temporary camp on a gentle slope north of Okehazama, effectively pincering the Imagawa forces alongside the Oda.
The Saito Clan. The Mino Viper.
Given the existence of Guardian Spirits, Hikaru found it impossible not to be highly interested in—and extremely wary of—that particular faction.
However, he also knew for a fact that Saito Dosan did not practice Onmyodo. The old man had been an oil merchant and a monk in his youth. His entire repertoire consisted of political backstabbing, psychological warfare, and ruthless ambition. He didn't have the spiritual refinement for this.
But Dosan had someone in his camp who did.
Hikaru closed his eyes. Fragments of his past life's historical trivia surfaced, locking onto a specific name.
Takenaka Hanbei.
The chief strategist of the Saito Clan. A genius girl hailed by later generations as the 'Modern Zhuge Liang'. In the original history, she would become one of the two legendary strategists under Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Currently, she was notoriously young, plagued by chronic illness, and possessed an intellect that bordered on the supernatural. In this twisted timeline, she would eventually become the most brilliant mind under Oda Nobuna.
But right now, she was sitting in a tent in Mino Province, serving the Viper. And clearly, she possessed a terrifying mastery over Onmyodo.
While the title 'Modern Zhuge Liang' carried a lot of historical exaggeration, Zhuge Liang himself was famous for his mastery over the mystic arts and the winds. It made perfect sense that his Sengoku counterpart would dabble in the supernatural.
At the exact moment silence settled back over Hikaru's campfire.
Six ri north of Okehazama.
Deep within Saito Dosan's heavily fortified temporary camp, inside a small, unassuming tent.
A young girl suddenly violently lurched forward, her small hands gripping her knees for dear life.
A wet, muffled cough tore from her throat.
Fresh, dark blood spilled from the corner of her pale lips, splattering onto the woven straw mat beneath her. The crimson droplets looked glaringly harsh under the dim, flickering light of a single oil lamp.
"Lady Strategist?!"
The tent flap was thrown open. A panicked maidservant rushed inside, dropping to one knee beside the trembling girl.
The girl's frame was heartbreakingly slender, almost bird-like in its fragility. She wore a plain white kimono draped with a pale blue haori. The sleeves were comically oversized, pooling around her wrists and completely swallowing her hands.
Her features were exquisitely delicate, perfectly proportioned but marred by a sickly, translucent pallor. Light gray hair fell loosely over her trembling shoulders, the long ends dragging against the floor, now stained with her own blood.
A pair of large, misty purple eyes fluttered, half-closed, looking as though they might roll back into her head at any second.
This was Takenaka Hanbei.
Fourteen years old. The supreme strategist of the Saito Clan.
And the only person in all of Mino Province capable of weaving Onmyodo to such a terrifying degree.
Her magic wasn't inherited from the prestigious Kyoto Onmyo Bureau. She had no ties to the legendary Tsuchimikado bloodline. It was purely innate. A terrifying, natural-born talent for manipulating the spiritual weave of the world. Just as some were born with the Sight, Hanbei was born with the hands of a mystic weaver.
But that talent came with a fatal price: her physical vessel was fundamentally broken.
Her body was so weak, so chronically frail, that the mere backlash of a snapped Shikigami Divination thread was enough to rupture blood vessels and send her coughing up her own life force.
"Mmm... I'm fine..."
Hanbei weakly raised her oversized sleeve, dabbing the blood from her chin. Her voice was incredibly soft, carrying a sticky, exhausted rasp. "It's just... the spell was interrupted."
"Lady Strategist, your body—"
"It's fine," she repeated, cutting the servant off with a weak shake of her head.
She planted her hidden hands against the mat, forcing her trembling body into an upright, kneeling posture. Her misty purple eyes caught the flickering lamplight.
"...Tell Lord Dosan," she whispered, her voice dropping to a grave, serious register. "In the enemy's camp... there is not only that youkai."
She took a shallow, rattling breath.
"There is also a miko."
Hanbei's brow furrowed, her lips turning a shade paler as the adrenaline faded. "Her spiritual purity is... terrifying. It is extremely high. My shikisen thread was severed the absolute moment it approached their perimeter. She didn't even formally cast a counter-spell. She just... casually brushed it away."
She closed her eyes, the phantom sting of Kikyo's overwhelming power still echoing in her mind.
"If Lord Dosan still intends to cooperate with Oda to resist the Imagawa..." Hanbei paused, swallowing the metallic taste of blood. "Then it is best... to think of another method."
The 'method' Dosan had confidently relied upon to deal with the Oni Samurai had been, without a doubt, Takenaka Hanbei's magic.
And Hanbei had just been effortlessly defeated.
The maidservant swallowed hard, bowing deeply before scrambling out of the tent to deliver the dire report.
The heavy fabric of the tent flap fell shut, plunging the space back into suffocating silence.
Hanbei sat alone on the blood-stained straw mat. She slowly lifted her head, her misty purple eyes staring blankly at the dark ceiling of the tent.
"That youkai's Yao Qi..." she murmured to the empty room, her voice laced with genuine awe. "...is so impossibly dense."
She hugged her knees to her chest, shivering slightly in the cold.
"And that miko..."
Her eyes narrowed, a faint, tired smile touching her bloodstained lips.
"Such beautiful spiritual power."
After whispering her final assessment, her chest hitched. She coughed one last time, buried her pale face into her oversized, bloodied sleeves, and instantly succumbed to a deep, exhausted sleep.
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