The house was very narrow.
Compared to the spacious Shrine Hall in Kaede Village, this vacant thatched hut was quite cramped.
A low table with a missing corner, a ceramic lamp with little oil, and the rest was just a slightly moldy tatami mat.
But the old man said this was the best empty room in the whole village.
Hikaru believed those words.
After all, most of the houses he had seen along the way didn't even have a complete roof or a single intact wall.
Sizzle.
The wick sparked, the flame leaped up an inch, and then sank back down listlessly.
Light and shadow swayed on the earthen walls.
Kikyo sat on one side of the tatami, unfastening her bracers.
The girl's white ties loosened, revealing a section of bandage wrapped underneath. That was a wound from pulling her bow too hard the previous night, leaving marks on her knuckles and wrists.
Hikaru leaned against the pillar by the door, holding his blade, his gaze wandering.
The room was too small—so small that even with two or three steps between them, the body heat and scent of another person drifted into his nose.
Kikyo smelled very good.
At least, to a demon with keen senses like Hikaru, she did.
He looked down at his blade.
But out of the corner of his eye, he could see the movement over there.
With the bracers removed, the priestess moved her shoulders slightly, and that slightly loose white Kosode slipped down a bit along her shoulder line.
The collar was loose.
The dim yellow lamplight happened to hit the shadow in the hollow of her collarbone.
Her skin was dazzlingly white.
Further down were the curves restrained by fabric, gently pushing against the lapel with her breath, and further down still was the tightened Red Hakama, the belt tracing a slender, supple line.
Because of her kneeling posture, the crimson fabric over her thighs was taut, outlining a rounded and full silhouette. Several folds creased at the back of her knees, extending into the shadows deep within the hem, tracing a deep triangular curve.
Hikaru's Adam's apple bobbed.
"That old man didn't tell the truth."
He spoke, breaking the quiet that inexplicably unsettled the 'oni' in his heart.
Kikyo's hand paused, and she placed her bracers on her knees.
"Mhm."
She responded without looking up, merely lowering her eyes to tidy her sleeves.
"The thing in the shrine isn't a god."
"I know."
Hikaru shifted his posture so that Muramasa wouldn't dig into his waist.
"That thing has a large appetite. It wants offerings and human lives. It wants a divine status to be worshipped, yet it can't change its demonic nature of eating people."
Greedy and conflicted.
This was a common ailment for most demons who wanted to take shortcuts.
Kikyo looked up.
The lamplight flickered and shimmered in her dark, cool eyes.
"He actually knows."
She said.
Hikaru was taken aback, then quickly realized.
She was talking about the old man who led the way.
The headman of this village.
"He knows it's a demon?"
"He knows."
Kikyo's voice was very faint. "But he doesn't dare acknowledge it. If he does, the village's last hope will be gone. Even if they are making offerings to an evil spirit, as long as the village can still barely survive, they will bow their heads."
This was the chaotic era; human life was as cheap as grass.
In order to live, acting as a dog for a ghost was nothing unusual.
Even if it meant offering up people as sacrifices, as long as the remaining people could survive, that was enough.
Hikaru didn't speak.
He remembered the way the old man knelt on the ground, begging Kikyo to go 'communicate'.
Humble, terrified, and with a bit of wishful thinking.
Thinking about it now, how could that old man have wanted Kikyo to communicate? He wanted this powerful priestess to scare that demon a little, to make it restrain itself.
The wisdom of those at the bottom—they needed to rack their brains just to survive.
"So, what do we do tonight?"
Hikaru asked.
He pointed to the only tatami mat.
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