“Aaaaaahhh!”
The screams came several seconds late.
For a brief moment after the first man burst apart, the private room had fallen into a silence so complete that even the music beyond the walls seemed distant.
Then terror returned all at once.
The two women who had been sitting beside Saito Shigeru rolled their eyes back and fainted on the spot, collapsing limply against the sofa.
The remaining thugs finally processed the scene before them.
Blood on the walls.
Fragments of flesh across the carpet.
A golden-haired little girl standing calmly in the middle of it all, one pale hand still lifted as if she had merely brushed dust from her fingers.
“Mo…
monster!”
“What the hell did you do?!”
“Shoot!
Shoot her!”
Survival instinct crushed the fear that had frozen them.
These men, who had spent their lives harming others without blinking, drew hidden handguns, knives, and machetes from beneath their jackets.
Their faces twisted with panic and rage as they unleashed everything they had toward the petite figure standing in the pool of blood.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Gunfire thundered through the cramped private room.
The noise was deafening.
Muzzle flashes lit the room in violent bursts.
Bullets tore through the smoky air, forming a deadly web of fire that swallowed Ibaraki-Douji and Mizuki Mirei standing behind her.
Then every heart in the room sank.
The bullets never reached them.
Half a meter in front of Ibaraki-Douji, they struck something invisible.
One after another, the rounds lost force, stopped in midair for the briefest instant, then fell uselessly to the carpet with crisp metallic clinks.
Ibaraki-Douji did not even bother to move.
She simply watched them struggle with a look of pitying amusement, as if a group of children had pointed water pistols at her and declared war.
“You thought an attack of that level could harm me?”
She tilted her head.
A naive, innocent smile appeared on her face.
“Weak.”
Her golden eyes narrowed.
“Far too weak.”
She took one step forward.
“Since your performance is over…”
Her figure vanished.
“…it is my turn.”
The next instant, she appeared before a thug who had been rushing forward with a machete.
Splurt.
The enormous scarlet oni claw, grotesque and far too large for her small body, pierced through his chest with casual ease.
“Guh…”
The thug looked down in disbelief.
A bloody hole had opened straight through his torso.
He made a meaningless sound, his eyes trembling as if his mind could not accept what had happened to his body.
Ibaraki-Douji frowned in disgust.
With a flick of her arm, she threw the corpse aside like garbage.
Then she moved again.
Each flicker of her small body brought another scream.
Another torn body.
Another burst of blood across the luxurious room.
“Hahaha!
Come, come!”
Her golden pupils narrowed with delight.
“Dance with me!”
Ibaraki-Douji’s slaughter became a dance.
A beautiful, hideous, impossible dance.
The thugs of the Meiyuan Church were no more than dead leaves caught in a storm.
Their blades struck her body and failed to leave even a white mark.
Their bullets could not get close.
Their curses became screams.
Their courage lasted only until they realized that courage did not matter.
This was not a battle.
It was a feast.
A one-sided feast of blood and violence, offered to the oni of Mount Ooe.
Mizuki Mirei stood at the doorway without expression.
Blood splashed across her cheek.
She did not wipe it away.
The thick scent of iron filled her nose, yet she felt no nausea.
No dizziness.
No trembling revulsion.
Only a calm so deep it frightened even herself.
She watched the men die and thought quietly.
If I had not met Lady Ibaraki today…
If I had not obtained this power…
Then one day soon, would Father and I have been the ones slaughtered and toyed with like this?
The answer was obvious.
Yes.
So she had no regrets.
“No…
no, don’t come closer!”
In the blink of an eye, the only person in the private room still conscious and alive was Saito Shigeru.
He stared at the oni girl walking toward him step by step.
She looked like a child.
She looked like an Asura from hell.
His legs gave out, and he collapsed to the floor.
A foul smell spread beneath him.
He had wet himself from fear.
“Please…
don’t kill me!
I have money!
A lot of money!
I can give it all to you!”
He crawled backward, face covered in tears and snot.
“That’s right!
You’re an oni, aren’t you?
You must like sacrifices!
The Meiyuan Church has plenty!
Men, women, virgins, whatever you want!
We can prepare them all!”
His voice cracked.
“At least…
at least let me become an oni too!
I don’t want to die like this!”
He knelt on the floor, then lowered himself into a full dogeza, bowing again and again until his forehead struck the blood-soaked carpet.
The man who had been boasting moments earlier about controlling gods and oni was gone.
What remained was a stray dog with its spine broken.
“My shrine maiden.”
Ibaraki-Douji raised an eyebrow with interest when she heard Saito beg to become an oni.
“How shall we dispose of this fellow?”
She turned toward Mizuki, whose eyes were cold and still.
After witnessing the darkest face of the Meiyuan Church, the high school girl who had stepped into this building had already changed.
Perhaps it was too much to call it maturity.
But she had certainly shed something tonight.
“Scum like this is not worth pitying.”
Mizuki wiped the blood from her cheek with the back of her hand.
Her beautiful eyes were filled with killing intent.
She would not show mercy to her enemies.
Especially not to these cultists who wore religion like a mask while acting no differently from yakuza.
She did not know how many ordinary people they had ruined, threatened, sold, or driven into despair.
As a shrine maiden raised in orthodox Shinto rites, she hated people like them more than anything.
“Shrine maiden…”
Saito’s eyes widened.
“Ibaraki-Douji’s shrine maiden?”
He finally understood.
Why Ibaraki-Douji had appeared here.
Why Mizuki Mirei had come alone.
The power the Meiyuan Church had desperately wanted to seize had already fallen into the hands of the fragile shrine maiden from Shihou Shrine.
He had no time to wonder what kind of impossible fortune had landed on the Mizuki family.
He threw away every last shred of pride and crawled toward Mizuki.
“Ms.
Mizuki!
I was blind!
I didn’t know your greatness!”
He bowed again and again.
“As long as you let me go, I’ll do anything!
I’ll apologize!
I’ll compensate you!
I repent for disrespecting Shihou Shrine and the Mizuki family!”
Compared to pleading with an Oni God who killed without blinking, Mizuki Mirei looked easier to move.
She was young.
Naive.
A high school girl.
Surely, there had to be some softness left in her.
But Mizuki ignored his pleas.
She walked forward slowly and looked down at the broken man sprawled at her feet.
“Kneeling?”
Her voice was quiet.
“Apologizing?”
A faint sneer touched her lips.
“Repenting?”
Her gaze sharpened.
“Until now, Mr.
Saito, you must have heard many people beg like this, haven’t you?”
Saito’s body trembled.
“I only have one question.”
Mizuki looked at him with pitch-black, emotionless eyes.
“Did you ever show mercy to any of the pitiful people who groveled before you?”
Saito opened his mouth.
Once.
Twice.
No words came out.
He glanced toward Ibaraki-Douji and saw the playful smile on her face.
A lie would only make him look even more ridiculous.
The silence answered for him.
“It seems your actions have already given me the answer.”
Ibaraki-Douji narrowed her eyes, her expression bright with the lingering joy of slaughter.
She slowly raised her scarlet oni claw.
Blood dripped from its tips.
“Do it, Lady Ibaraki.”
Mizuki turned away.
Her voice was cold.
“No!”
Saito’s scream tore through the room.
The oni claw fell.
And his plea came to an abrupt end.