In a deep-purple kimono, Asagami Fujino set out on foot for the Ryōgi house.
The Ryōgi were arguably the most successful of what had once been the Four Great Demon Hunter Families.
Because their demon-slaying ran on a single, unmatched approach—good old-fashioned physical exorcism—they could, even when there were no demons left to kill, simply turn their hand to collecting protection money or such.
Today’s Ryōgi were a colossus that spanned both Tokyo’s legitimate world and its underworld.
Families like the Fujou, which had relied on Pure Eyes and bloodline power, had no real edge against blade and cudgel, and there had been no real news of them in years.
Tucked behind a fairly remote residential district, a winding flagstone path led directly to a vast bamboo grove.
Deep within it stood the Ryōgi residence.
All the surrounding land belonged to the Ryōgi—an almost unthinkable thing, in Tokyo, where every inch of soil was gold.
The wind stirred faintly through the bamboo.
The soft sasa-sasa of the leaves was the kind of sound that calmed the heart.
Wooden geta clacked crisply along the flagstones.
The breeze lifted one panel of her kimono just enough to reveal a glimpse of a slim, fragile-looking ankle.
Asagami Fujino had the look of a girl who was both deeply quiet and deeply delicate—about her there hung a thin air of about-to-snap fragility.
But the moment one met those exquisite, scarlet eyes, that impression broke.
Composed.
Stately.
A presence not to be moved.
Red—the color of the demonic.
In this country, eyes and minds belonging to the demonic had carried that color since ancient times.
For Fujino, born into one of the Four Great Demon Hunter Families, perhaps it was a profound irony.
But—
She did not care.
Deep among the bamboo, a black silhouette came into Fujino’s view, standing in silent attendance.
A man in a sharply tailored black suit—a presence quite at odds with the antique Ryōgi residence.
Around thirty, perhaps.
He carried himself with the crisp competence of a mature man.
Akitaka Suzurigi—the Ryōgi family’s steward, the man who looked after Shiki and managed the underworld side of Ryōgi business in her stead.
“Asagami-san.” Akitaka offered Fujino a respectful bow, a gentle smile on his face.
The girl in front of him was a particularly special presence.
Not only because she was the head of the Asagami family—but because Asagami Fujino and Ryōgi Shiki were the same kind of person.
Asagami Fujino and Ryōgi Shiki were once two people who had loved each other so deeply that one had to kill the other.
But the most important thing of all—
Her little sister was the very person whose tears could send the entire Ryōgi household scrambling.
The one Shiki-sama prized above all.
When the old patriarch had once refused to allow Shiki-sama to teach Sakura-sama the secret arts of the Ryōgi family, Shiki-sama had nearly cut him down on the spot.
“Is Shiki here?” Fujino looked at Akitaka.
She had not made an appointment.
But the moment those crisp footsteps had echoed through the bamboo grove, Akitaka had known—Asagami-san had come.
By contrast, the moment Sakura-sama’s voice rose anywhere in the house—
The whole of the Ryōgi mobilized.
They tucked away every trace of that samurai air and tried to look as gentle as possible.
“Shiki-sama is in the dojo, practicing.” Akitaka answered respectfully.
By long custom, the heir to the Ryōgi crossed live blades with the master each month at the start of the month.
But since the old patriarch’s hands had grown too weak to draw a sword, the practice had become a solo dance, performed by Shiki alone.
“I’ll go fetch Shiki-sama.” Akitaka gestured for Fujino to wait in the receiving room.
“No—I’d rather like to watch.” Fujino offered him a delicate smile, and started along the wooden veranda.
Shiki had once complained that floors that didn’t squeak underfoot were boring.
In the years since, the floor had become exactly what Shiki liked.
But the Shiki of those days—she would never come back.
In a white kosode-style upper robe and a pure black hakama-skirt, the girl stood at the center of the dojo and swung her sword, again and again.
The motions were graceful as a white crane’s.
And lethal in a way that made one’s blood run cold.
Ryōgi swordwork was the art of killing.
To be precise—the art of cutting down the human-shaped.
When the long, solitary dance came to an end, she lightly drove the blade home through the chest of the figure before her.
In the next instant—
The wooden dummy splintered apart, in a way that broke utterly with common sense.
Shiki slowly sheathed the sword.
Her eyes turned then, like a kaleidoscope coming round, the cold colors in them chilling to look at.
A blue so cold it seemed to freeze everything, with fire turning cruelly at its center.
The red flames moved like thin mist, leaping, drifting, captivating.
And at the very heart of the pupil—the dark, the kind of dark even light could not climb back out of.
—Mystic Eyes.
The Mystic Eyes Shiki bore were called the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.
Even in the wider world of magecraft, they were among the highest order of Mystic Eyes.
“Have you been waiting long?
My apologies.” Shiki walked beside Fujino, shoulder to shoulder.
A faint sweat hung at her neck; black, silken strands of hair were plastered here and there across her forehead.
The dashing girl-swordsman had taken on a quiet edge of allure.
Her small frame upright and cool, Shiki led Fujino out into the bamboo.
“It’s nothing,” Fujino said with a faint smile.
Shiki watched her.
The distant scenery was reflected in her ink-dark eyes—a fragile girl standing at the world’s center, still as a brushstroke of paint.
“Did something happen?
That child went out at night, didn’t she?” Shiki asked, lifting the corners of her mouth in a confident, almost cocky line.
“Mm.” Fujino nodded.
“But nothing actually happened.”
“Hah!?
Nothing happened?
You make it sound like you weren’t right behind her.” Shiki reached up, drew down a stalk of bamboo.
“Aren’t you the same?
With that serial killer last time—who was it that heard Sakura was there and grabbed a knife and bolted?” Fujino shot back.
Shiki didn’t answer.
She simply settled herself on a stone bench by the path, one of those rare, small smiles tugging at her lips.
Neither of them was in much of a position to scold the other.
“What, exactly… has been happening in Tokyo lately?” Fujino sat down next to her, her gaze drifting toward the Ryōgi house in the distance.
“A classmate of Sakura’s has been caught up in it.”
At the sound of Sakura’s name, Shiki’s brow rose, then knit.
“Sakura’s classmate?” Her fingertip tapped lightly at the surface of the stone bench.
After a brief hesitation, she went on: “A wave of Dead Apostles has come into Tokyo lately.”
“Dead Apostles!?” Fujino was startled.
A wave of them?
“Mm.” Shiki nodded gravely.
“I’ve cut down seven myself.
Five of them had been Dead Apostles for a long time.”
“And the worst of it—they aren’t loose, scattered, headless flies.”
“They’re an organized, disciplined Dead Apostle group.”
Fujino’s expression had shifted too.
“What you mean is…”
“That an Ancestor-level Dead Apostle has come to Tokyo.” Shiki’s tapping stopped.
The words came slowly, deliberate.
(Shiki-nee-san!)