“After I die, please bury me together with my wife.”
“Where?”
“The place is blah blah…”
After remembering this crucial location, Hayashi Makoto sighed.
“Besides that, do you have any other last words?”
At this moment, Tsugikuni Yoriichi could no longer speak smoothly.
He gasped heavily.
Finally, he struggled to spit out a broken sentence.
“Those… who reach… the path…”
“You mean, ‘Those who master their path arrive at the same place’?”
“…”
“Go well.”
Fifteen minutes had already passed.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi sat on the ground with his head lowered.
There was no longer any sign of life in him.
He looked like a high monk who had entered nirvana.
A gust of wind passed through the broken bamboo forest, stirring faint rustling sounds.
Makoto waited for a very long time.
Even until the very end, he did not approach Tsugikuni Yoriichi’s corpse.
From far away, he threw an incendiary device over.
He burned Yoriichi’s corpse and the entire bamboo forest into ashes.
…
Inside a magnificent European-style hall, a large group of elegant and proper vampires were raising glasses, chatting and laughing.
“As the old saying goes, one drop of essence equals ten drops of blood.”
The vampire ancestor raised his glass toward Makoto and laughed.
“Look at this cup. So thick it’s almost like arsenic strong enough to wipe out thirteen souls. Smell this wonderful aroma. It’s a divine‑grade treasure, so I’ll let you drink it, brat!”
Makoto covered his nose.
Even if he were beaten to death, he did not want to smell even the slightest trace of that Photinia-blossom scent.
With a face full of horror, he shook his head.
He swore he would never drink that cup of white, viscous stuff.
“Sigh. A wild boar truly can’t appreciate fine grain.”
The vampire ancestor waved his hand.
“If you can’t drink the white stuff, go sit at the children’s table!”
Makoto felt as if he had received a pardon.
He quickly sat at the children’s table.
There were quite a few familiar faces at this table.
Evangeline, First Embrace Under the Moon, Remilia, Krul…
But the moment he sat down, he saw these short vampire girls giving him lewd smiles.
…
“Oh!!”
“No!!”
In the first rays of morning light, Makoto woke up inside a simple temporary wooden hut.
Thinking of the scene in his dream, he could not help rubbing his forehead.
“What a ridiculous nightmare!”
“It’s all Kibutsuji Makoto’s fault. His memories of drinking blood are affecting my sleep quality!”
“Get up. Time to continue the stakeout today!”
After hastily eating breakfast, Makoto continued his day-after-day waiting.
He was waiting for the so-called Blue Spider Lily to appear.
Because of that, he could not stay in the main world and enjoy himself all the time.
Whenever he left a world, that world’s time would stop.
In other words, if he wanted a world’s time to flow normally, he had to honestly stay in that world.
This transmigration trait had both advantages and disadvantages.
He wore the same type of hunting robe as Kibutsuji Makoto and dressed like an onmyoji.
Then he walked out of the wooden hut and headed toward a nearby mountain.
On the way, when he encountered farmers nearby, he would nod in greeting.
“Good morning, Shomonji-sama. You’re up very early.”
He would receive greetings like this along the road.
Since the Kamakura period, the profession of onmyoji, which had once served only the upper class, had gradually flowed into the common people.
By the Sengoku era, it had merged with Buddhism, Shinto, and other traditions.
They often performed divination, prayers, and auspicious date selection for ordinary people.
To distinguish them from the once-noble onmyoji, common people called this kind of folk practitioner a “Shomonji.”
The people living nearby only knew that this young Shomonji-sama had appeared more than ten days ago.
He claimed to be Tsugikuni Yoriichi’s friend and had specially brought Yoriichi’s ashes back for burial.
“Yoriichi and I were friends who went through life and death together!”
Makoto had said this with absolute confidence.
In the mountains.
There was an old grave.
On it stood a wooden plank engraved with the words, “Grave of Wife Uta and Child.”
Beside it, a new grave had been built.
A brand-new stone tablet stood on the grave.
Makoto had carved the words with his finger.
“Grave of My Friend Tsugikuni Yoriichi, Erected by Kibutsuji Makoto.”
The main theme was loyalty deep enough to take blades for a friend and friendship as close as old companions at first meeting.
Makoto sat in front of the two graves, feeling the cold and lonely mountain wind.
He waited in boredom.
He was waiting for the sun to reach its highest and fiercest point of the day.
“I’ve been squatting here for more than ten days and still haven’t found anything.”
Makoto sighed.
“Blue Spider Lily, oh Blue Spider Lily, hurry up and come out. Stop being so naughty. Stop playing hide-and-seek with me!”
Looking at the entire Demon Slayer plot, there were only two detailed sources for the so-called Blue Spider Lily.
One was the mountain behind the Kamado family’s home four hundred years later.
The other…
Was around the grave of Tsugikuni Yoriichi’s wife. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
But these two places were actually the same location.
That was why Makoto had deliberately guided Tsugikuni Yoriichi into stating his last wish.
If he wanted to find the Blue Spider Lily, he had to know where Yoriichi’s wife was buried.
“If I still can’t find it here, I’ll have to send people out to ask around.”
“A flower that only blooms when the sun is at its strongest, and is also a very conspicuous blue-green color…”
“As long as I know these two characteristics, and as long as I have enough manpower, I refuse to believe I can’t find it.”
He had power.
He had money.
Makoto would not lack manpower.
“Sigh… Since things have come to this, I might as well read some Buddhist scripture first.”
What he was reading was the Huayan school classic, The Chapter of Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva’s Perfect Penetration Through Mindfulness of the Buddha.
Amid the sound of pages turning, time slowly passed bit by bit.
The mist in the distance suddenly scattered.
A young man wearing a purple python-pattern kimono and black riding hakama hurried over at great speed.
Yet his feet made no sound at all.
He looked very much like Tsugikuni Yoriichi.
The same facial outline.
The same deep-red high ponytail.
But his eyes lacked Yoriichi’s peace.
He quietly came before Makoto.
Seeing that the other party was reading, he did not dare speak and disturb him.
Instead, he knelt quietly on one knee and lowered his head, not daring to expose the unwillingness and ambition filling his eyes.
“I remember long ago, in kalpas as countless as the sands of the Ganges, a Buddha appeared in the world named Infinite Light.”
“Twelve Tathagatas appeared in succession through one kalpa, and the final Buddha was named Light Surpassing Sun and Moon…”
“In my original cause-ground, I entered the patience of non-arising through the mind of Buddha-recitation.”
“Now in this world, I gather those who practice mindfulness of the Buddha…”
“Gathering all six roots and continuing pure mindfulness, one obtains samadhi. This is foremost.”
“Tsugikuni Michikatsu.”
After chewing over those scripture words that sounded profound even if he did not fully understand them, Makoto suddenly called out the young swordsman’s name.
Then he smiled and asked, “Do you know Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva, one of the Three Saints of the West?”
“This subordinate does not understand Buddhist scriptures. I truly do not know.”
“When this bodhisattva walks, all worlds in the ten directions tremble. Therefore, he is called Mahasthamaprapta, the Arrival of Great Power.”
“He subdues all beings through awe-inspiring might.”
“To put it simply, whenever this bodhisattva takes a single step, the entire three-thousand great-thousand world undergoes six kinds of motion.”
“Six kinds of motion?”
“Moving, surging, rising, shaking, roaring, awakening.”
Makoto smiled faintly.
“It is also called…”
“The Six Motions of Heaven and Earth.”
…
…
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