Tachibana Hibiki had known Kyoko Tachibana was there for a while.
Those two female officers had never stood a chance of keeping her under watch.
His aunt was not the type of person who obediently remained where others told her to stay, especially when the truth was close enough to touch.
During Ibaraki-Douji’s slaughter of the corrupt officers, Kyoko had been hiding behind a half-ruined patch of lawn not far from the collapsed house, clutching her portable camera and recording everything with a face drained of color.
Hibiki had thought she would stay hidden until the end.
He had not expected her to step out on her own.
Foolish woman.
Inside Ibaraki-Douji’s body, Tachibana Hibiki cursed under his breath.
It was precisely because of that reckless, truth-seeking personality, the kind that placed her own life beneath the weight of a story, that the Tachibana family had been forced to distance itself from her.
If Kyoko was allowed to continue charging into danger wherever she smelled corruption, then even the Tachibana family, with its centuries-old roots in Japan, would eventually be dragged into something disastrous.
“Ibaraki-Douji…”
Kyoko Tachibana forced herself to breathe.
Her left hand pressed tightly against her chest, as if trying to hold her pounding heart in place.
Her right hand kept the camera raised, lens fixed firmly on the legendary evil oni standing amid the corpses.
Her face trembled despite her effort to control it.
Every word seemed to be dragged out from between clenched teeth.
“The leader of the oni of Mount Ooe, according to myth and legend.”
Questioning an evil oni who had just slaughtered more than a dozen people without so much as blinking made Kyoko feel like a sheep willingly stepping into a wolf’s den.
No.
That was too generous.
It was closer to a rabbit walking up to a tiger and asking whether it had already eaten breakfast.
Insane.
Absolutely insane.
And yet she did not lower the camera.
“Eh?”
Ibaraki-Douji seemed to finally give this reckless mortal a proper sliver of attention.
She shifted her gaze away from Kenji Sakata, who was still twitching on the floor beneath the remnants of black-red karmic fire, and turned her head toward the woman at the entrance.
“You are clearly terrified.
So why did you come out?”
Her golden slit pupils narrowed with curiosity.
“Wouldn’t it have been better to keep hiding where you were?
I have no interest in going out of my way to bully the weak.”
Tachibana Hibiki said it deliberately.
Half as a probe.
Half as a warning.
But Kyoko took a deep breath, and for some reason, those words seemed to give her a little strength.
She straightened her back.
Her voice still shook, but the logic behind it was clear.
“I am Kyoko Tachibana.
A reporter.”
The camera remained steady in her hand.
“Seeking the truth is my responsibility.
Warning the public is my duty.”
She paused.
Whether to organize her thoughts or steel her courage, even she might not have known.
“Lord Ibaraki-Douji, I only learned today that legendary oni gods truly exist.
Evil oni that once belonged only to myths are now walking through the modern world.”
Her gaze sharpened.
“Does that mean the eight million gods are also about to reappear among humans?”
The ruined house was silent except for Sakata’s broken gasps.
“What exactly are you trying to do?” Kyoko asked.
“Do you intend to recreate the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons and bring chaos to Kyoto again?”
That was the question she cared about most.
If the oni of Mount Ooe truly returned to the world, then this era had no Minamoto no Yorimitsu and no Four Heavenly Kings to subdue them.
If large numbers of invulnerable evil oni, monsters who regarded human life as grass beneath their feet, surged into modern streets…
Kyoko’s mind flashed, not to herself, but to Hibiki.
To Kyo.
That child still had to take the train to and from school by himself every day.
If creatures like this began appearing across Tokyo, how could any ordinary person be safe?
She had to know.
No matter how terrified she was, she had to find out what this meant.
Listening to Kyoko’s voice gradually steady itself, Hibiki sighed helplessly inside Ibaraki-Douji’s Saint Graph.
This aunt of his was really…
Always thinking of others first.
“A reporter?”
Ibaraki-Douji stroked her smooth chin, looking Kyoko up and down with golden eyes full of curiosity.
“That is a job I have never heard of.”
She tilted her head, then nodded as if she had suddenly understood.
“Oh, I remember.
Is it like those old night watchmen who walked the streets beating clappers, warning everyone to beware of fire and thieves?”
She smiled brightly.
“Or perhaps a spy gathering intelligence for a daimyo?”
The innocent ignorance was perfect.
An ancient oni god who had stepped out of myth would not understand modern society.
She would naturally compare unfamiliar occupations to the closest things she knew.
Kyoko’s mouth twitched.
Being compared to a night watchman or a spy was not exactly flattering, especially when journalism was a profession she took pride in.
But now was not the time to argue over occupational dignity.
“…You could understand it that way,” she said with difficulty.
“Ara, in that case, I shall let you off.”
Ibaraki-Douji waved her hand with exaggerated generosity.
“Even an evil oni would not lay hands on a night watchman.
After all, if I ate all of you, who would be left to sing of us oni gods for the next thousand years?”
It sounded like some ancient, unwritten rule among yokai gods.
When monsters attacked a village, they would always spare the bard.
Naturally, Tachibana Hibiki followed that logic without hesitation and found himself the perfect excuse not to harm his own aunt.
Hearing that she had been “spared,” the string pulled taut in Kyoko’s heart loosened by the slightest amount.
Only then did she realize that the back of her suit had been completely soaked through with cold sweat.
“Then…
I suppose I should thank you for your magnanimity, Lord Ibaraki-Douji.”
She glanced at the carnage nearby with lingering fear.
The broken bodies scattered across the ruined room.
Kenji Sakata, who could no longer even scream properly, writhing on the floor like a maggot burned down to the soul.
Kyoko forced herself to look away.
Then she gathered her courage again and pressed on.
“Can you answer my previous question now?”
Her grip on the camera tightened.
“This concerns the survival of Tokyo…
no, perhaps the entire world.”
“That sort of thing?”
Ibaraki-Douji blinked.
Then she smiled, as if amused by the seriousness of this mortal night watchman.
“It is not exactly a secret.
Telling you humans would not hurt.”
She snapped her fingers.
Black-red karmic fire gathered from empty air beneath her, roiling like a cloud of burning oil.
Ibaraki-Douji settled lightly atop it, suspended above the bloodstained floor.
She rested her round chin on one hand and lazily crossed one fair calf over the other.
The posture was casual.
Almost childish.
Yet the arrogance in it belonged to a being standing above humans.
Only after finding a comfortable position did she speak.
And the words that left her mouth were enough to shatter Kyoko Tachibana’s understanding of the world.
“A great transformation has already begun.”
Kyoko’s breath caught.
“A god born from the Alien God has descended upon this world.”
Ibaraki-Douji’s golden eyes gleamed.
“Its existence has stirred the leylines of this planet, leylines that had long since dried up.
Now, they are beginning to awaken again.”
Kyoko’s mind buzzed.
“Alien God…
leyline revival…?”
The terms sounded like something from a fantasy novel.
But spoken by the genuine evil oni before her, they carried a weight that made disbelief feel childish.
Ibaraki-Douji ignored her shock and continued at her own pace.
“The revival of the leylines means the return of Mystery.”
Her voice drifted through the ruined house.
“We oni gods, demons, and forgotten things, those driven into the corners of legends after being abandoned by the world, are finally permitted to step out from the shadows of the phantasmal realm once more.”
She extended her left hand.
Small.
Fair.
Almost cute.
She spread her five fingers toward Kyoko Tachibana.
Toward Tokyo.
Toward the entire world.
“So, you ask what I want to do?”
Ibaraki-Douji scoffed.
Her golden eyes were filled with mockery and ancient arrogance.
“I do not want to do anything.”
The karmic fire beneath her stirred.
“I am merely following the tide of the era and coming out for some fresh air.”
Her smile widened.
“If there is one thing that must be declared, then it is this.”
The sunlight pouring through the broken ceiling seemed to dim around her.
“The age that belonged solely to humans ends here.”
Ibaraki-Douji looked down at Kyoko, at the camera in her hands, and at the world beyond the ruined walls.
“It is about to close.”