A little earlier.
Inside a detached house in Bunkyo Ward, an ordinary second-floor room had been stripped bare and converted into a temporary film studio.
The curtains were drawn.
The furniture had been removed.
White candles circled the floor, their flames wavering over the blood-red ritual pattern carved beneath them.
In the middle of it all, a girl in a school uniform hung bound to a wooden cross, her head lowered, her breathing so faint it was almost drowned out by the soft hum of the equipment.
A man in a white robe adjusted the high-definition camera mounted on a tripod.
He worked carefully.
Too carefully.
He checked the angle, then the focus, then the audio receiver clipped beside the lens.
His movements were smooth and practiced, completely unlike someone participating in his first ritual.
The camera had to capture the center of the circle clearly.
The sound had to be clean.
The lighting had to preserve the atmosphere without obscuring the sacrifice.
To the Meiyuan Church, even murder needed production value.
“The livestream signal is stable,” the robed man reported in a low voice.
“We can begin whenever you’re ready.”
The leader of the ritual gave a satisfied nod.
The Meiyuan Church was one of the ugliest tumors festering beneath Tokyo’s polished surface.
On paper, it was a private religious organization preaching salvation, beauty, wishes, and the healing of wounded souls.
In reality, it colluded with politicians, drained believers of every yen they possessed, and operated as one of Japan’s largest human-trafficking networks.
Tonight’s sacrifice was not some sacred ceremony born from true faith.
It was a paid livestream.
A meticulously arranged performance prepared for “important clients” hiding behind screens.
The leader reached into his robe and drew out an old-looking dagger.
Its blade was narrow, its handle engraved with meaningless symbols meant to look ancient.
He stepped toward the cross, intending to complete the ritual with the offering’s heart.
Then the room changed.
A strange wind swept through the sealed space.
The doors were closed.
The windows were locked.
And yet the heavy velvet curtains stirred on their own, thrashing violently as if something outside the world had dragged its claws across them.
Their shadows stretched over the walls, twisting into shapes that looked almost like fangs and grasping hands.
The flames of more than a hundred candles bent low at once.
Some nearly went out.
Others flared bright, thin, and red.
The room, already foul with blood and incense, sank into something far more sinister.
The leader’s expression stiffened.
“What’s going on?” he snapped.
“Didn’t I tell you to seal the doors and windows?”
“They are sealed!” another cultist cried, his face draining of color as he checked the room.
“Nothing’s open!
Where is this wind coming from?”
No one answered him.
The ritual circle on the floor began to glow.
The girl’s blood, pooled through the grooves carved into the wood, lit with a deep crimson radiance.
A heartbeat later, flames bloomed from the center of the circle.
Not ordinary fire.
The flames were bright red, yet their edges burned black.
They did not spread to the floor.
They did not consume the candles.
They simply rose from nowhere, blazing with a heat that seemed to reach past flesh and scorch the soul itself.
Then, from the heart of that infernal light, a small figure stepped forward.
Long golden hair.
Pale skin.
Bare feet touching the bloodstained floor without hesitation.
A magnificent kimono draped over her petite body, and above her head rose a pair of tall crimson oni horns.
She walked out of the flames one step at a time, calm and unhurried, like a monster strolling out of an old tale and into the modern world.
It was Ibaraki-Douji.
Or rather, Tachibana Hibiki playing the role of Ibaraki-Douji.
“I did not expect,” the horned girl said, glancing around with golden oni eyes full of amusement, “that mortals in this age would still crave the power of oni and gods.”
Her voice was young, but it carried arrogance sharpened by legend.
“I am the oni of Mount Ooe.”
She smiled, revealing sharp fangs.
“Ibaraki-Douji.”
The flames behind her twisted higher.
“Mortals, you called me forth.
Speak.
What purpose drove you to summon me?”
The three cultists stared at her in blank horror.
For several seconds, no one moved.
The leader’s grip tightened around the dagger.
“This…
What is this?”
His voice trembled despite his effort to control it.
“A magician hired by the Church?
Some kind of special effect?” He swallowed hard, then forced out a laugh that sounded brittle even to himself.
“Not bad.
It looks convincing.”
He chose to believe it was fake.
A hidden segment arranged by the Church.
A surprise prepared for the clients.
Anything was easier to accept than the truth standing in front of him.
Summoning what little courage he had left, the leader stepped closer and reached toward Ibaraki-Douji’s shoulder, intending to prove that the girl before him was human.
Ibaraki-Douji moved first.
“Insolent.”
Her golden eyes narrowed.
“Who gave you permission to touch my body, mortal?”
The words had barely left her mouth when an ink-black oni claw pierced through his chest.
The leader froze.
His mouth opened, but no words came out.
In the next instant, Ibaraki-Douji tore out his still-beating heart and shoved the limp body away as if discarding a broken doll.
The corpse collapsed onto the bloodstained floor with a dull thud.
The oni girl looked at the heart in her hand with faint disgust.
Then she crushed it.
“Impossible…”
One of the remaining cultists fell backward, his legs giving out beneath him.
“Impossible…
impossible…”
He shook his head again and again, eyes wide, face twisted with terror.
“How could there really be an evil oni…?
How could gods and monsters really exist in this world?”
Ibaraki-Douji tilted her head.
Then she smiled.
It was innocent enough to look almost cute.
That made it worse.
“Hehe.
You offered a sacrifice and begged for an oni to descend.
Now that I have answered, this is your reaction?”
She stepped forward lightly.
“What is this, mortals?
Were you playing tricks on me?”
Her expression darkened by a fraction.
“To deceive me…
to look down on the oni of Mount Ooe…”
The capricious cruelty of an oni bloomed across her face.
She raised one slender arm and waved it casually.
The cultist’s head burst apart.
Red scattered across the wall behind him, staining the room far more terribly than the ritual circle ever could.
“No…”
The last cultist finally understood.
This was not a trick.
Not theater.
Not a hired performer.
The thing standing in front of him was not human at all.
“You’re not human…
You’re not human…”
He crawled backward on all fours, cold sweat soaking through his white robe.
His hand searched behind him, feeling for the door.
Slowly.
Quietly.
He tried to escape.
Ibaraki-Douji turned her head.
A bit of blood had splashed across her cheek, but her smile remained pure and bright, like a child delighted by a game only she understood.
“What’s this?”
Her fangs flashed.
“You summoned an oni, and now you intend to leave without offering proper hospitality?”
The cultist froze.
“Didn’t you say you had a wish to convey to me?”
Ibaraki-Douji’s voice softened.
“If you can please the oni of Mount Ooe, perhaps…
I may grant it.”
Those words stopped him from bolting.
Hope.
Thin, pathetic, but real.
The deaths of his companions were still fresh before his eyes.
Disrespecting this self-proclaimed Ibaraki-Douji meant death.
Ignoring her meant death.
Running meant death.
If he wanted to survive, there was only one path.
Please the oni.
Please her.
His mind spun desperately.
Then he threw himself to the floor and prostrated until his forehead struck the wood.
“Great Ibaraki-Douji-sama!” he shouted, trembling so hard his voice cracked.
“We…
we are faithful believers of the Meiyuan Church!
This ritual was held to welcome your descent!
To witness your divine form with our own eyes is our greatest honor!”
He pressed himself lower.
“The Meiyuan Church is willing to offer you everything!
More sacrifices!
More girls!
We will worship you as the one and only God of Beautiful Wishes!
Give the word, and we will provide as many offerings as you desire!”
As for the Church’s wish, he claimed only the Grand Master had the authority to decide.
“The Meiyuan Church…”
Ibaraki-Douji repeated the name softly.
Inside her, Tachibana Hibiki carved those words into memory.
The cruel innocence returned to the oni girl’s face.
She walked toward the kneeling cultist with light, unhurried steps.
“More sacrifices…
in the future?”
She smiled.
“How naive, mortal.”
The cultist trembled.
“Oni are greedy creatures.
We do not believe in promises for tomorrow.”
Her shadow fell over him.
“If you wish to please the oni of Mount Ooe, then offer your life now.”
The cultist’s survival instinct snapped.
He sprang up and lunged for the door, abandoning dignity, faith, and flattery all at once.
“Haha!”
Ibaraki-Douji raised her black oni claw high, laughter echoing through the room.
“Trying to run?
Too late!”
Tachibana Hibiki made his decision.
He would test the power of this body’s Noble Phantasm.
“Run wild, Sougenbi!”
Black flame ignited around her claw.
“[Rashomon Dai Engi]!”
The moment the True Name was released, hellfire erupted from empty space.
A massive oni hand formed from black flames tore into the room with a roar, descending like divine punishment from an age that modern humanity had forgotten.
Boom!
The giant claw struck.
The fleeing cultist vanished beneath it.
So did the wall behind him.
The force tore through the room, shattered several walls in succession, and ripped apart half the detached house’s structure as if it had been made of paper.
Wood cracked.
Concrete burst.
Dust and sparks rolled outward in a violent wave.
As for the cultist who had taken the Noble Phantasm with his back to it, not even ash remained.
The hellfire had erased him completely.
“Ara, ara.”
Ibaraki-Douji lowered her hand, looking over the devastation with mild dissatisfaction.
“What an unsatisfying slaughter.”
Once the three cultists had been dealt with, she turned toward the camera still fixed on its tripod.
The livestream was still running.
Ibaraki-Douji sauntered over.
First, she pretended to examine the black mechanical box with curiosity.
She leaned close, allowing the lens to capture every impossible detail: the crimson horns rising from her head, the gold vertical pupils, the fangs, the blood on her pale cheek, the inhuman gleam in her eyes.
Then she grinned.
It was a terrible smile.
“It seems some little bugs are peeping at me through this mirror.”
Her voice lowered, playful and cruel.
“You saw everything just now, didn’t you?”
She tilted her head.
“Don’t worry.”
The black flames on her oni claw flared.
“You won’t escape either.”
With that, Ibaraki-Douji reached out and crushed the camera, tripod and all, into a mangled clump of metal and shattered glass.
Only then did she turn toward the girl bound to the cross.
The room had gone quiet again.
Too quiet.
Tachibana Hibiki approached and looked at her once.
His heart sank.
There was no saving her.
Her body had been ruined beyond recovery.
Too much blood had been drained.
Too much had been taken.
For some reason, she still clung to a final thread of consciousness, perhaps kept awake by some drug prepared for the ritual.
A final cruelty before death.
He had to end it quickly.
That was Tachibana Hibiki’s judgment.
And the last line drawn by what remained of his ordinary human conscience.
“I’m sorry,” Ibaraki-Douji said quietly.
“With what I can do now, I can only send you on sooner.”
She raised one slender hand toward the girl’s forehead.
But before her fingers touched skin, the girl’s pale, cracked lips moved.
A faint murmur slipped out, barely louder than a breath.
“God-sama…”
Ibaraki-Douji stopped.
Her hearing caught the plea clearly.
“God-sama?”
She looked into the girl’s gray eyes.
They had already lost their light.
For the first time that night, Ibaraki-Douji’s expression held no amusement.
“I’m sorry,” she said flatly.
“There are no gods in this world.”
A pause.
“And even if there were…
they would be vile things that do not answer mortal prayers.”
Tachibana Hibiki did not know what this girl had suffered.
He did not know what kind of life had led her here, what story had ended in this bloodstained room, or whether anyone out there was still waiting for her to come home.
All he could do was extend Ibaraki-Douji’s slender hand and gently close her eyes.
At least those dim, lifeless eyes could finally rest.
But inside his chest, a nameless fire began to burn.
Meiyuan Church.
Those vile men spoke of salvation with reverent voices while committing acts more monstrous than oni.
In this peaceful age, in this ordinary city, they had created a tragedy that should never have existed.
People like that did not deserve forgiveness.
They deserved to die a thousand times.