“Hoo…”
After the final scream in the private room faded into silence, Ibaraki-Douji gave her scarlet oni claw a light shake.
Blood scattered from its fingertips and splashed across the ruined carpet.
Only then did she turn around and look at Mizuki Mirei, who was still standing near the door.
“Well, my Oni Miko?”
A grin appeared on Ibaraki-Douji’s innocent face, fresh blood staining the corner of her lips.
“Was this little sideshow to your satisfaction?”
Mizuki was silent for a moment.
Then she slowly nodded.
“Mm.”
She did not say she was satisfied.
She did not say she was not.
Only that single sound escaped her lips.
Her feelings were far too complicated to put into words.
Seeing those pieces of scum, who had been loudly discussing how they would ruin her and her father just moments ago, now reduced to cold remains on the floor, Mizuki truly felt a vicious sense of relief.
Vengeance had a taste.
It was bitter, metallic, and frighteningly sweet.
But at the same time, witnessing such a bloody massacre with her own eyes made her stomach churn.
Reason told her these people deserved death.
Emotionally, however, she was still an ordinary high school girl who had never seen anything like this before.
No matter how firm her resolve had become, her body could not completely reject its own horror.
“Tch.
What a boring reaction.”
Ibaraki-Douji seemed rather dissatisfied by Mizuki’s lack of enthusiasm and puffed her cheeks in displeasure.
“Forget it.
The appetizer is finished anyway.”
Her golden pupils narrowed.
“It is time for the main course.”
Mizuki looked at her.
“Main course?”
“Next, we make a declaration to this world.”
Ibaraki-Douji stepped lightly across the river of blood spreading over the carpet and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling window of the private room.
Outside the glass was Kabukicho’s glittering night.
Neon signs.
Crowds.
Sirens still distant.
Countless ordinary people laughing, drinking, bargaining, flirting, and wandering beneath the false daylight of the city.
“That we, the oni of Mount Ooe…”
Ibaraki-Douji placed one hand against the glass.
“…have returned from hell.”
She did not look back.
“My Oni Miko, how does it feel to walk with an oni?”
Her voice carried a strange, eerie amusement.
Mizuki fell silent.
Standing beside Ibaraki-Douji, she felt something she had never experienced before.
Relief.
As though the chains around her wrists had finally snapped.
Morality.
Law.
Common sense.
Ethics.
The rules built by ordinary people, the rules she had obeyed her entire life, seemed as thin as paper before an oni.
If one possessed enough power, one could act according to one’s own likes and dislikes.
One could punish those who deserved punishment.
One could destroy those who reached for what should not be touched.
As long as one was strong enough, no one would dare insult them again.
No one would dare trample on them again.
No one would dare take their home and laugh while doing it.
“Walking with an oni…”
Mizuki’s voice was soft, almost a murmur.
“It feels as if I’ve become an oni too.”
She stepped through the blood and came to Ibaraki-Douji’s side.
Yes.
At this point, there was no reason to retreat.
No reason to regret.
She was the Oni Miko.
Shihou Shrine would become the foothold of the oni of Mount Ooe in this world.
From now on, even if Ibaraki-Douji had to stand against the entire world, Mizuki Mirei would have no choice but to stand beside her.
“Hm.
I did not misjudge you after all.”
Ibaraki-Douji gave Mizuki an appreciative glance, then laughed happily.
“Then let us truly rampage tonight.”
Her smile became bright and wicked.
“The first battle of Mount Ooe’s second march on Kyoto shall begin here.”
Mizuki’s breath caught.
“Kyoto?”
“Symbolism, my shrine maiden.”
Ibaraki-Douji’s grin widened.
“This entire building is filled with Meiyuan Church lackeys.”
As if answering her words, dense footsteps rang out beyond the private room.
Although Saito Shigeru and his men had been slaughtered quickly, it had not been so quick that they failed to scream for help.
Or rather, Ibaraki-Douji had allowed them to scream.
She had wanted the noise to spread.
“Bastards!
Who is it?!
Who dares wreck the Meiyuan Church’s place?!”
“Boss Saito!
Are you all right?
The brothers brought weapons!”
“Kick the door down!
Cut them to pieces!”
The shouting grew closer.
Then the office door was kicked open.
The cultists stormed in, only for their momentum to die the moment they saw what waited inside.
It was not a fight between gangs.
It was hell.
Blood had pooled into rivers across the carpet.
Severed limbs and mangled remains sank into the red.
The walls, ceiling, sofa, and expensive decorations were painted in scattered flesh and gore, like some child’s careless graffiti drawn with human bodies.
“Ugh…”
Even these men, who thought themselves hardened by violence and sin, could not endure the sight.
Several bent over and vomited on the spot.
Others noticed the two figures standing inside the room.
A high school girl.
And a small girl in a golden kimono.
“…Who are you?”
“The oni who will send you all to hell.”
Ibaraki-Douji turned back.
With a radiant smile, she raised her crimson, ferocious oni claw.
“My Oni Miko, let me show you the true form of an oni.”
Her voice rang out, wild and unrestrained.
“Guahaha…
Severed by a treacherous plot, the right arm that has returned to this body becomes a monstrosity!”
Black-red fire gathered around her right wrist.
The karmic hellfire thickened, roaring like resentment given shape.
The air distorted.
The luxurious private room groaned beneath the pressure of the Spirit Origin being released.
“Run wild, Sougenbi!”
The flames surged.
“[Rashomon Dai Engi]!”
The moment the True Name was released, the karmic hellfire condensed to its limit.
Then a gigantic phantom oni claw erupted from Ibaraki-Douji’s right arm.
The Meiyuan Church’s men screamed and scattered, scrambling desperately away from the doorway, away from the private room, away from the monster standing before them.
It was useless.
The massive demonic claw tore forward.
Everything in its path was crushed.
Walls.
Floors.
Doors.
Furniture.
Human bodies.
The claw advanced with overwhelming force, and wherever it passed, black-red flames exploded outward.
Concrete shattered.
Steel twisted.
Glass burst.
The seventh floor of the building screamed as if something ancient and hungry had bitten into it from the inside.
No one escaped the palm of the oni.
“This is…”
Mizuki stared, eyes wide with shock.
The entire seventh floor, a den that had hidden the Meiyuan Church’s filth and countless crimes, was being destroyed from the inside out by that enormous flaming oni claw.
And it took only a dozen seconds.
Karmic hellfire roared from doors and windows.
Dark-red flames burst through the seventh floor like the breath of hell.
The windows exploded outward one after another, showering the street below with glittering fragments.
The glass of nearby buildings cracked and shattered from the force of the explosions.
On the bar streets below, men and women drinking, laughing, and staggering through the night all looked up in horror.
They saw fire.
But it was not ordinary fire.
It was too dark.
Too red.
Too alive.
It stretched from the building like the greedy maw of an oni, swallowing the entire floor from within.
“What the hell is happening?!
Is that building on fire?”
“Why isn’t it spreading to the buildings beside it?
And what’s with that color?
That’s not normal fire!”
“Is this a terrorist attack?”
“Look!
Look at the sky!
What is that?!”
Under the terrified gazes of countless people, Ibaraki-Douji floated out from the burning building.
She held Mizuki Mirei’s hand as they emerged from the hellfire.
The two hovered in midair before the eyes of Kabukicho.
Behind them, the seventh floor was slowly being devoured by karmic flames.
Below, sirens began to scream from every direction.
Police cars and fire trucks rushed into the district, blocking streets and sealing off escape routes.
Officers shouted into radios.
Firefighters stared upward in disbelief.
Civilians screamed, filmed, fled, or stood frozen where they were.
“Attention!
Attention!
Target has appeared!
Repeat, target has appeared!”
“Target confirmed in midair!”
“Do not fire!
All units, do not fire without orders from headquarters!”
On the ground, a police superintendent who seemed to be the on-site commander shouted hoarsely into his radio.
The Metropolitan Police Department had already pulled surveillance footage from the surrounding streets and from inside the building.
They knew who had attacked this place.
Ibaraki-Douji.
The same Oni God who had caused the Bunkyo Ward incident.
They had already paid a bloody price once.
Conventional firearms were useless against that monster.
A reckless attack would only create more corpses.