Kyoko Tachibana stood at the edge of the ruins, clutching her portable camera so tightly that her fingertips had gone white.
For a moment, she could not move.
The words Ibaraki-Douji had spoken seemed to hammer directly against her skull.
The age that belonged solely to humans ends here.
It is about to close.
Under normal circumstances, if anyone had said something like that to her, Kyoko would have treated them as either a severe case of delusion or a fanatic from some new cult trying to sell salvation with a pamphlet and a bank account.
She might have glanced at them with disgust, turned away, and never wasted another second.
But those words had not come from an ordinary person.
They had come from Ibaraki-Douji.
An Oni God from myth.
A monster who had slaughtered more than a dozen armed officers in less than a minute with her bare hands.
A being who now sat lazily upon a cloud of black-red karmic fire, suspended above a ruined crime scene in broad daylight as if the laws of the modern world had never applied to her in the first place.
Reality itself gave weight to her words.
Kyoko swallowed hard.
“Alien God…
leyline revival…”
She repeated the terms silently, trying to force them into some shape her mind could accept.
Her instincts as a veteran reporter screamed that this was not meaningless rambling.
This was not some drug-fueled cult speech, not theatrical nonsense, not a criminal trying to confuse witnesses.
This might be the first sentence of a new era in human history.
And she, Kyoko Tachibana, was the first person to hear it directly from the mouth of something that should not exist.
A shudder ran from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head.
It was not only fear.
It was the sensation of standing at the edge of a historical fault line and feeling the ground begin to split.
If what this monster said was true, then what did the civilization humanity had built over thousands of years amount to?
Law.
Science.
Government.
Economics.
Police.
Military power.
All the structures people trusted without thinking.
What did any of it mean before gods, yokai, and monsters that had once been dismissed as stories for children?
Kyoko took a deep breath.
Her voice still trembled, but she forced it to hold.
“Lady Ibaraki-Douji.”
She took one step forward, keeping the camera lens fixed firmly on the oni girl.
“What exactly do you mean by Alien God?
Are you talking about beings from outside Earth?
Have they already arrived?”
Her questions came faster.
“And this return of Mystery, does that mean more supernatural creatures will start appearing in our cities from now on?”
Her professional instincts had taken hold.
Even standing before a bloodthirsty oni, even with corpses scattered only a few steps away, she still wanted to dig deeper.
Ibaraki-Douji glanced sideways at her.
A flicker of impatience passed through those golden slit pupils.
“Tch.
You talk far too much, mortal.”
She waved her black oni claw.
A gust of wind swept past, scattering dust and blowing Kyoko’s purple hair into disarray.
“Did I not already say enough?
I am merely an oni acting on instinct.
I cannot be bothered with such profound and troublesome matters.”
Ibaraki-Douji lifted her chin slightly, as if tasting the air.
“All I know is that the air has become better.
It no longer carries that dry, lifeless stench.”
Her lips curled.
“As for what those gods want to do, what does that have to do with me?”
Her answer was careless.
Capricious.
Nothing like the words of some mastermind delivering a grand conspiracy.
Inside Ibaraki-Douji’s Saint Graph, Tachibana Hibiki felt helpless watching his aunt press forward even in this situation.
The lie about the Alien God and the revival of Mystery had been prepared to set the tone for what would come next.
Governments, corporations, secret organizations, powerful families, criminal networks, religious groups, and ordinary citizens all needed to feel the same thing.
Crisis.
Awe.
Fear.
Only then would humanity’s will gather faster.
Only then would the world begin to believe.
But Aunt Kyoko was far too sharp.
If he gave her room to keep asking, she might actually start tearing at the seams of the performance.
“Enough questions.”
Ibaraki-Douji leaned forward, revealing a ferocious smile.
“If you keep annoying me, I might forget myself and eat you.”
Her sharp fangs caught the sunlight with a cold gleam.
Kyoko’s heart skipped.
The warning was childish in tone, almost playful, but the danger behind it was real.
She understood clearly: before a monster like this, laws, ethics, negotiation, and public opinion meant nothing.
If Ibaraki-Douji decided to kill her, it would be no more difficult than crushing an insect.
Then, from the end of the street, came the screech of brakes.
Tires scraped against asphalt.
Boots thundered over the pavement.
“Move!
Block every exit!”
“Squad One, left flank!
Squad Two, cover the approach!”
“Survivor spotted!
It’s Reporter Tachibana!
Get her out of there!”
The main force of the Metropolitan Police Department had finally arrived.
This time, it was not a group of corrupt officers trying to stage a cover-up under Kenji Sakata’s command.
A fully armed special unit had been deployed.
The officers at the front wore heavy bulletproof vests and carried riot shields.
Behind them, tactical officers took positions with submachine guns and automatic rifles, their muzzles trained on the ruined house.
Such a sight was almost unthinkable in peaceful Bunkyo Ward.
Several armed officers rushed forward.
Without waiting for Kyoko’s consent, they grabbed her arms and dragged her back.
“Ms.
Tachibana!
It’s too dangerous here.
Please evacuate immediately!”
The young officer shouting at her could not hide the fear in his voice.
He had seen the scene inside the ruins.
He had seen Ibaraki-Douji floating above the bloodstained floor.
Kyoko was pulled behind the police defense line.
She looked at the dark gun barrels aimed toward the ruins, then back at the oni girl sitting in midair.
Her expression tightened.
She knew very well that those firearms were probably no different from toys before that monster.
“The annoying flies have multiplied.”
Ibaraki-Douji gave a disdainful snort.
She did not even spare the armed unit more than a glance.
Instead, her gaze lowered toward the thing on the floor that was still making broken, wretched sounds.
Kenji Sakata.
The former Police Inspector no longer looked human.
Black-red karmic fire still burned across his body.
His skin cracked and rotted in patches, only to heal again under the push of some eerie force.
A thick layer of green-black keratin began spreading over his flesh like armor made from disease.
His bones ground against one another with a sound that made the teeth ache.
His body was expanding.
Twisting.
Changing.
“Oh?”
Ibaraki-Douji raised an eyebrow.
“You actually survived my karmic fire?”
Her tone carried the pleased surprise of someone who had discovered a new toy.
The cloud of karmic fire beneath her drifted lower, carrying her to a spot several meters from Sakata.
“How unexpected.
It seems your greed and malice run deeper than I imagined.”
She smiled down at him.
“Otherwise, you would have burned to ash long ago.”
In full view of everyone, Kenji Sakata released one final shrill scream.
Then he lurched upright.
His once obese body had been reshaped into something swollen with brutal muscle.
His height had surged past two meters.
The uniform still clinging to him tore apart under the pressure of his changing frame.
At the center of his forehead, skin split open.
A curved horn forced its way out, slick with dark red blood.
His eyes had turned completely crimson.
No pupils.
No reason.
Only madness and violence remained.
Kenji Sakata was no longer human.
He had become a low-ranking oni.