Gunfire shattered the ruined house.
The cramped space filled with deafening cracks, muzzle flashes, and the sharp stink of gunpowder.
Bullets tore through dust and sunlight, weaving a net of death toward the small figure floating beneath the broken ceiling.
For a brief instant, Ibaraki-Douji seemed startled.
“Eek.”
She gave a tiny gasp, raised her pitch-black oni claw, and curled herself up behind it like a frightened animal.
The bullets struck.
But the expected spray of blood never came.
Instead, a string of crisp metallic sounds rang through the air.
Clink.
Clank.
Clink.
A faint golden glow shimmered across Ibaraki-Douji’s pale skin.
Then fine, scale-like patterns emerged from beneath the surface, spreading over her body in a heartbeat.
They were delicate enough to look almost ornamental, but the moment the bullets hit them, sparks burst outward as if lead had struck tempered steel.
Several rounds punched neat holes through her elegant kimono.
Not one reached her flesh.
Most of the bullets flattened against the golden scales, twisted out of shape, and bounced away uselessly before clattering across the floor.
[Shapeshift A]
One of Ibaraki-Douji’s inherent skills as an oni.
A power that allowed her to alter her form at will.
When directed toward defense, it strengthened her body to a level beyond ordinary human imagination.
Inside that small body, Tachibana Hibiki quietly processed the sensation.
So this is the defensive power of Shapeshift.
He had expected pain.
At the very least, he had expected impact.
But what he actually felt was closer to being pelted with pebbles by a child.
A little itchy.
Honestly, the shoulder pain from staying up too late writing manuscripts had been worse.
Below, the officers who had opened fire stared in disbelief.
Their expressions shifted from aggression to confusion, then from confusion into naked terror.
“How…
how is this possible?”
“Bullets don’t work?”
“Monster…
She really is a monster!”
“Police Inspector Sakata…
what do we do now?”
One officer’s voice had already begun to crack.
Smoke still rose from his pistol, but his arm shook so violently that the muzzle rattled in the air.
This was an oni.
A real oni from legend.
A monster said to laugh at blades and spears, to tear warriors apart beneath the moon, to haunt old Kyoto with fear.
And they had tried to kill her with handguns.
“Damn it!
Use your brains!”
Police Inspector Sakata was just as frightened as the rest of them, but he clung desperately to his authority.
His fear turned into anger, and that anger came out as a frantic roar.
“If bullets don’t work, go get salt!
Roasted beans!
Peach wood swords!
Hurry up and find them!”
His voice grew more incoherent by the second.
“Silver bullets too!
And crucifixes!
Don’t forget the crucifixes!”
He shouted every exorcism method he had ever seen in folktales, horror movies, and late-night television specials.
At the same time, his feet quietly shuffled backward.
Even while giving orders, he was already thinking about running.
“I wondered what it was.”
Ibaraki-Douji slowly lowered the oni claw covering her face.
Her golden eyes looked down at the officers with undisguised contempt.
“So they are merely slingshots.”
The room went still beneath her voice.
“What era is this?
You mortals truly believed toys like these could defeat an evil oni?”
She shook her head, genuinely disappointed.
“The humans of this world have not progressed at all.”
The air around her changed.
The playful fright vanished.
Her smile returned.
“Well then.
Game time is over.”
Her golden slit pupils narrowed.
“Now it is my turn to strike back.”
The moment her words fell, Ibaraki-Douji vanished from midair.
The next second, a magnificent golden figure appeared behind one of the officers like a phantom.
The man did not even have time to turn around.
A chill brushed his back.
“The first one.”
A young, cold voice whispered beside his ear.
The officer stiffened.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze.
A black, twisted oni claw protruded from his chest, its surface marked with eerie patterns.
In its grip was something wet, red, and still faintly beating.
His heart.
“Ah—!”
A shrill scream tore through the ruins.
The surrounding officers went mad with fear.
None of them spared a glance for their comrade, whose chest had been pierced through and whose eyes were still wide with lingering consciousness.
They simply turned their guns by instinct and opened fire again.
Bullets sparked uselessly against Ibaraki-Douji’s scales.
“Haha.”
The oni girl laughed.
Then louder.
“Hahahahaha!
Yes, this is more like it!”
She tossed the corpse aside.
The cooling heart slipped from her claw, rolled across the dusty floor, and came to rest among broken plaster and shattered wood.
Ibaraki-Douji spread her arms as if welcoming the storm of bullets.
Her golden eyes burned with savage delight.
“Come, come, come!
Let me enjoy this long-awaited slaughter!”
She moved.
The petite figure became a golden blur.
She darted through the crowd of officers faster than the human eye could follow.
Every flash of motion brought the crack of breaking bone, the wet sound of flesh tearing, or the desperate cry of someone realizing far too late that he was already dead.
One casual swing of her black oni claw snapped a grown man’s neck, leaving his body to collapse like a puppet with its strings cut.
A light kick from her bare white foot sent another officer flying across the room.
He smashed into a distant wall with a sound like a sack of wet clay, leaving behind a dark smear as he slid down.
The strong bodies humans were so proud of were no sturdier than paper lanterns before an evil oni from the Age of Gods.
She did not use hellfire.
She did not need to.
Without calling upon the flames that could burn all things to ash, without invoking her Noble Phantasm, she relied only on raw physical power that surpassed human reason and turned the corrupt officers one by one into broken dolls.
The slaughter was not a battle.
It was a game.
“Monster!
Monster!
Monster!”
“Requesting backup!
Headquarters, this is the crime scene!
We are under attack!
Repeat, we are under attack!”
Police Inspector Sakata threw away his empty pistol.
All color had drained from his bloated face.
Like a stray dog with a broken spine, he crawled over rubble, blood, and corpses, clawing desperately toward the street outside.
He grabbed his radio and screamed into it with all his strength.
The gunshots and screams should have alerted the officers stationed around the block.
Unfortunately, to make his own work easier earlier, Sakata had deliberately sent the honest officers, the ones without ties to the Meiyuan Church, farther away from the actual scene.
It would take at least two or three minutes for backup to rush in.
And how long did Ibaraki-Douji need to kill a dozen corrupt police officers?
Less than one minute.
“You could not even last a minute?”
Just as Sakata was about to crawl out of the ruins and reach the sunlight beyond the house, a golden figure appeared silently in front of him.
His path was blocked.
Ibaraki-Douji stood there with a relaxed smile, as if she had only just finished a light warm-up.
It was almost impossible to connect that innocent-looking, exquisite face with the creature that had slaughtered more than a dozen armed men in under sixty seconds.
Sakata’s limbs gave out.
He collapsed onto the ground.
A warm stain spread across the front of his trousers.
He looked up, trembling, and met a pair of golden vertical pupils.
There was not a single trace of mercy in them.