Time passed, and three days vanished in the blink of an eye.
The night sky was vast and high, the full moon hanging overhead like a white plate.
The moonlight was deathly pale, casting shadows on the ground as black and thick as spilled ink.
Kobe Hikaru sat on the wooden bed in the guest house without lighting a lamp.
There was no need.
The light outside the window was almost glaring, yet it carried a cold, sinister chill.
But that was not moonlight at all.
It was the nearly tangible “energy” spilling out from the direction of the shrine.
Purple so dark it was almost black, black so deep it seemed to shine.
That was the light of the Shikon Jewel.
It was Magatsuhi’s evil energy—turbid and freezing—and the demonic energy released by the hundreds of high-level yokai hidden within.
According to what Naohi had revealed afterward, from the moment the Shikon Jewel took form, the soul of the strongest shrine maiden, Midoriko, had been locked in a constant struggle against hundreds and thousands of high-level yokai, even great-yokai-level vengeful spirits.
Normally, Midoriko’s soul held the upper hand.
That was why, most of the time, Naohi was the one active, and the Shikon Jewel usually appeared as a clear, translucent “white jewel.”
Only when the Shikon Jewel fell into the hands of a demon with a turbid heart, or during an astronomical moment like the full moon, when yin energy burned at its strongest, would Magatsuhi gain the advantage.
Then the evil energy inside the jewel would pour out without restraint.
And that was exactly what was happening now.
On this night.
Hikaru reached down and pressed a hand against Muramasa at his waist.
The blade buzzed nonstop inside its sheath, like a starving wild dog that had caught the scent of blood.
“Don’t rush.”
Hikaru patted the hilt.
“Tonight, you’ll eat your fill.”
He pushed the door open and stepped outside.
The village before his eyes was frighteningly quiet.
There were no insects chirping, no dogs barking, not even the rustle of wind passing through leaves.
The air felt like solidified glue.
Hikaru raised his head and glanced upward.
Three shaku above him, a thin transparent membrane shimmered faintly, like an upside-down bowl covering the entire village—or more precisely, separating the hill where the shrine stood from the outside world.
Another barrier.
Naturally, Hikaru was no stranger to barriers.
But he could also tell that this barrier was different from the ones Kikyo had used before.
It did not cover the entire village.
It only covered the villagers’ homes, deliberately leaving the shrine at the core “open.”
Rather than defense, its main function was soundproofing.
She had made the village, and the area around the villagers’ homes, extremely quiet.
She had made it so the people inside could not hear what happened outside, nor feel the aura outside.
That young woman wanted the villagers to sleep peacefully.
Then, she herself would stand inside the unprotected shrine.
Facing every danger alone.
“What a stubborn idiot.”
Hikaru muttered.
At the same time, his demonic energy surged out, transforming into dense oni aura.
Then that oni aura condensed into armor.
And he put on the oni mask.
…
On the shrine platform, the wind was fierce.
The wind here was different from the wind below the mountain.
It carried a bloody stench, the smell of highly condensed demonic energy.
Kikyo stood before the shrine hall.
She was not holding the kagura bell, nor was she offering prayers.
In her hand was her longbow, with the quiver hanging behind her waist.
The wind whipped her white kosode and red hakama until they snapped sharply, like a paper kite that might break at any moment.
In front of her, the jewel floated in midair.
Pitch-black.
Ink-dark energy surged out from the jewel.
That was Magatsuhi, the collective resentment of hundreds of powerful demons after death.
They roared and struggled, trying to break through the spiritual net that bound them.
“Hiss—”
“Roar—”
In the darkness, countless pairs of eyes lit up.
From every direction.
The diners drawn here by the demonic energy’s rampage had arrived.
This time, it was not several hundred low-level yokai.
There were not many, only around a hundred.
But their quality was shockingly high.
Directly ahead, a three-jō-tall earth spider stood with eight long legs planted into the ground like steel spears.
The shell on its back gleamed with a cold metallic light.
To the left were two conjoined big-headed oni, dragging rusted iron chains in their hands.
Every step they took carved a deep trench into the ground.
To the right was a giant moth covered entirely in human faces.
As its wings beat, clouds of scale powder fell, smoking even when they touched stone.
All of them were high-level yokai that had completed the Six Changes of Body Transformation, or had even touched the threshold of Substance Transformation.
Kikyo’s expression did not change.
She drew an arrow and set it on the string.
The arrowhead pointed at the earth spider’s compound eyes.
Spiritual power gathered, and white light flashed.
But just then, a faint sound came from behind her.
It was the sound of straw sandals stepping on stone slabs.
Very soft, yet at a moment like this, when everything was stretched taut as a drawn blade, it was more piercing than thunder.
Kikyo did not turn around.
She knew who it was.
That scent, mixed with human reason and a yokai’s dead aura, existed nowhere else in the world.
“Go back.”
She spoke.
Her voice was not loud, and the wind scattered it slightly.
“Back where?”
Hikaru walked to her side, half a step beside her.
He neither blocked her line of fire nor stood too far to shield her at any moment.
His armor rippled, bringing with it surging demonic energy.
Yet it was not filthy.
Instead, for some reason, Kikyo felt a strange sense of weight and steadiness from it.
“The soundproofing in that house down there was too good.
It felt stuffy.”
He pushed the oni mask on his face halfway up, revealing half of his clean, pale face.
His red eyes focused on the demons and monsters ahead, yet he looked at them as if he were staring at a Imperial Feast.
“And besides, not inviting me to something this lively is pretty unfair.”
He spoke casually.
Kikyo’s fingers remained hooked around her bowstring.
“This is my duty.”
“The Shikon Jewel’s impurity must be purified by its guardian shrine maiden.”
“I know.”
Hikaru drew his blade.
Shing—
Muramasa left its sheath, the bright blade gleaming strangely beneath the moonlight.
Its hamon looked like living blood vessels, pulsing madly.
[Demon Blade Muramasa: Mood: “Extremely Frenzied.” It wants to devour everything in front of it.]
Hikaru ignored the system panel’s spam and only angled the blade tip toward the ground.
“You need to purify the jewel and guard against these guys at the same time.
You’ll be too busy.”
“These guys are tough and thick-skinned.
Your arrows are powerful, but they’re not exactly AoE damage… I mean, you can’t target a whole group at once.
And your arrow count isn’t infinite either.”
He turned his head slightly and glanced at Kikyo.
That cool side profile, illuminated by spiritual light, was breathtakingly beautiful—and lonely enough to make one’s heart ache.
“Same as before,” Hikaru said.
“You handle ranged attacks.
I handle close combat.”
“I’ll be responsible for chopping heads.
You’ll be responsible for finishing them off.”
“The ones that slip through are yours.
The face-tanking is mine.”
Simple.
Direct.
He did not even ask too much about why tonight was happening.
He did not ask Kikyo for an explanation.
He also believed that Kikyo needed his help.
Although this shrine maiden was very powerful, after that earlier battle and these three days spent together, Hikaru could actually sense that compared to the original story he knew, the girl before him had not yet reached her strongest stage.
People grew.
When a fictional work became reality, that much was only natural.
At least in his impression, Kikyo at her strongest might not have had much more spiritual power.
After all, that was an innate talent, and she had already reached the limit in that regard.
However, her use of that power would be far stronger than it was now.
He also had no intention of letting this chance to fight slip away.
A battle with Kikyo cooperating beside him was equivalent to having a safety net.
He could raise Muramasa’s affection, and also raise the Shikon Jewel’s affection.
This was a rare opportunity.
Good for others, and even better for himself.
Why not?
And so, Kikyo fell silent.
She wanted to say something, but did not know where to begin.
At that moment, the young shrine maiden’s fingers loosened around the bowstring for an instant, then tightened again.
The presence behind her was steady.
She could feel the existence of the yokai, the oni samurai with the appearance of a young man, standing beside her.
He was like a wall.
A wall she could entrust her back to.
This was something she had never experienced before.
As a shrine maiden, she was always the one standing at the very front, with villagers and the weak behind her.
No one had ever stood beside her.
And no one had ever fought shoulder to shoulder with her.
This was the first time.
“…”
The wind lifted her long hair, and the tips brushed across Hikaru’s arm.
“Very well.”
One word.
Light as drifting air, yet heavy as a thousand jun.
[Shikon Jewel: Naohi Affection +2.]
[Current Affection: 8 (Trust).]
[It has conveyed a message to you: “She is no longer alone.”]
The corner of Hikaru’s mouth stretched into a grin.
That was enough.
“Let’s go!”
The blue bricks beneath his feet exploded.
A gray shadow shot forward like lightning, charging straight at the largest earth spider.
That was the toughest bone on the whole plate.
The earth spider roared, and two front legs came smashing down like battering rams.
Hikaru did not dodge.
The blade edge lifted, and black sword energy drew a semicircle in the air.
Clang!
Sparks flew everywhere.
He blocked it.
At the same time, the sound of something tearing through the air rang out.
Thrum!
A streak of white light brushed past Hikaru’s temple and precisely nailed itself into the earth spider’s open mouthparts.
A demon-purifying arrow.
The earth spider screamed and leaned backward.
Hikaru used the force to spring into the air, the tip of his blade thrusting straight toward its compound eyes.
“Thanks!”
He shouted in midair.
No need to look back.
He knew that figure in white kosode and red hakama was right there.
He was in front of her.
She was behind him.
And that was enough.
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