Fwsh—!
The arrow grazed the trunk of an ancient pine on the ridge of the northern hills, and in the instant of impact, spiritual power split open, blasting the bowl-thick pine clean through at the middle.
The severed trunk crashed down, throwing up a sky full of pine needles and splinters.
Momiji and Botan whipped their heads around at the same moment, faces full of shock.
They couldn't understand why Kikyō had suddenly loosed an arrow at the forested hills behind them—there was nothing there, at least nothing within their range of perception.
But in the next second—
A short, startled cry burst from deep within the trees.
A figure was flung out by the residual wave of spiritual power stirred up by the toppling pine, tumbling and scrambling down the gravel slope of the hill.
White robe, red hakama.
A shrine maiden's garb.
Upon that gorgeous face, the carefully cultivated composure lay shattered across the ground.
Tsubaki knelt on one knee in the gravel, her left hand braced against the ground, her right hand clutching the shoulder that had gone numb from the aftershock of the spiritual power. Her wide sleeves were smeared with pine needles and dirt, and a few strands of raven hair clung to her forehead, dampened with cold sweat.
That still rather delicate face, paired now with her utterly disheveled state, instead took on a hint of the ridiculous.
But in this moment, Tsubaki's heart held nothing but dread.
That arrow just now—if the place she'd been standing hadn't been set with a barrier, even if it hadn't killed her, it would have gravely wounded her on the spot.
She lifted her head, and what she saw was Kikyō, standing in the open clearing a full three hundred feet away.
The longbow still held the posture of a shot just released, the trembling of the string not yet fully stilled.
Those jet-black eyes were looking down at her, coldly, from on high.
No anger, no interrogation—only a calm that sent a chill down Tsubaki's spine.
No, that's wrong—it shouldn't be like this!
Kikyō was powerful; that much Tsubaki conceded. But in her impression, this woman was also lonely, also desperate for recognition… She couldn't possibly be this composed…
Could it be… because of that yōkai!?
"El… Elder sister?"
Momiji's voice was the first to crack.
She stared at that disheveled figure on the gravel slope, then looked again at Kikyō's face, calm without the faintest ripple.
The habitual assumptions already formed in her mind began to show cracks.
Elder sister said Kikyō was a fallen shrine maiden, said she was in league with yōkai.
But elder sister—why was she hiding in the trees?
Why not step forward openly and aboveboard?
Why, when forced out by a single arrow from Kikyō, was the expression on her face not anger, but—guilt?
"Elder sister, are you all right!"
Botan was far more direct, hitching up her loose hakama and making to run up the slope.
But Tsubaki had already risen to her feet, and she swiftly rearranged her expression.
This woman's talent for pretense truly far surpassed the ordinary—in the span of a mere instant, that gorgeous face once again welled up with concern and urgency, as if the disheveled scene from moments ago had never happened.
No matter what, she—she had to keep going!
"Momiji, Botan—"
Tsubaki's voice was pressed low, both urgent and earnest, carrying the tenderness and care unique to an elder sister for her juniors.
Patting the mud from her clothes with one hand, she strode quickly down the gravel slope, drawing near to her two junior sisters.
"You two aren't hurt, are you? I was watching from nearby just now—Kikyō really did—"
She raised her hand and pointed toward those ashes.
"Do you see them? What lingers in those ashes is the breath of human beings!"
Tsubaki even squeezed a glimmer of tears from the corners of her eyes, her voice trembling, like a bystander who had witnessed a tragedy.
"She used spiritual power to burn seven people to ash… I tried to stop her, but she discovered me—"
"She wanted to kill me to silence me!"
These words were delivered with streaming tears and a broken voice.
Had one not seen with one's own eyes the way she'd been hiding and peeping in the thicket moments before, anyone would have been moved.
Momiji's fist clenched tight.
Her gaze wandered back and forth between Tsubaki and Kikyō.
Elder sister's words and the scene before her did line up in part—there was the breath of human beings in the ashes, a fact she could perceive; Kikyō had indeed loosed an arrow; Tsubaki had indeed been wounded.
But the other part—
If elder sister had come to stop her, why not simply reveal herself?
Why hide in the thicket?
A shrine maiden who had come 'to watch,' and a shrine maiden who had come to peep—what difference was there in their posture?
Momiji couldn't say.
But that sense of wrongness, like a fine thorn, had lodged itself in her intuition.
"Is what elder sister says true…?"
Botan too asked softly, her tone carrying an obvious wavering.
She wanted to believe elder sister, but the way elder sister had just tumbled out of the thicket—it really didn't look like a righteous, upright watcher.
Kikyō watched all of this.
Those jet-black eyes swept across Tsubaki's face, feigning grief, then settled on the confusion-filled eyes of Momiji and Botan.
Tsubaki was waiting for her to refute.
Waiting for her to explain in a flustered rush.
Waiting for her to show a flaw.
And then, with the next round of rhetoric, to twist every explanation into a sophist's excuse.
This was Tsubaki's battlefield of expertise—the battlefield of words, the battlefield of scheming.
But Kikyō had never been skilled at such things, and she had never… deigned to stoop to them!
And at that very moment—
"You're not allowed to hurt Sister Kikyō!"
A childish voice came from the direction of the Shrine.
Kokaede had come rushing out again.
Her hair tied in twin pigtails, wearing patched clothes, only a single straw sandal on her feet—the other lost somewhere unknown.
She ran up in front of Kikyō, spread her arms wide, and shielded her sister.
A little girl of seven or eight, standing before two shrine maidens who had received formal education in spiritual arts and techniques.
"You're not allowed to bully my sister!"
"Kaede—"
Kikyō made to pull her back, but more footsteps began to sound.
From all corners of the village, from those squat wooden huts, from the little paths through the fields.
The villagers had come.
Not one or two.
It was the whole village.
The old leaning on canes, the able-bodied shouldering hoes, the women cradling children.
In their eyes there was confusion, there was fear—after all, three unfamiliar shrine maidens stood outside, and there were traces of battle in the clearing.
But they did not hide inside their homes; they walked out.
And stood at Kikyō's side.
"Lady Kikyō has done nothing wrong."
The first to speak was an old farm-woman, her voice not loud but very firm: "She has always been protecting us."
"The things she killed—they truly were not human."
Another elderly woman said:
"We all just heard the commotion, and saw from our windows—those creatures, their mouths split to the roots of their ears, their nails half a foot long. Is that human?"
"That's right. If Lady Kikyō wanted to kill people, would she need to wait until the middle of the night?"
"Our very lives were saved by her!"
The voices rose one after another, noisy, chaotic—but the message was unanimous.
All pointing to Kikyō, all standing on Kikyō's side.
Momiji was stunned.
Botan was stunned too.
Elder sister said Kikyō was a fallen shrine maiden, said she was in league with yōkai, said the villagers had been deceived by her.
But—would deceived villagers rush out in the dead of night to shield a shrine maiden with their own bodies?
Could the trust and gratitude in those eyes be feigned?
Momiji's hand seal froze in midair; Botan's sacred sutra slipped from her grasp.
Kikyō was stunned as well.
She looked at the villagers crowding around her, looked at the expressions on their faces.
It had not been like this before.
The old her had been much beloved, yes, but the villagers had felt more awe than anything—they revered her spiritual power, and feared her station even more.
A shrine maiden was a sacred being, an inviolable guardian.
The villagers respected her, made offerings to her, but they also kept their distance from her.
Never had any villager rushed out to speak on her behalf when she faced doubt.
Never.
Before Kōbe Hikaru came, she had always borne everything alone.
The crushing weight of the Shikon Jewel, the endless demons, the solitary battles—all of it, alone.
But today was not like that.
"…"
Kikyō lowered her head slightly, her raven hair falling to veil half her face.
Kaede still stood before her, her tiny body shielding her from those three shrine maidens. The little girl glanced back at her sister and said softly, "This is what Big Brother taught us."
"…What?"
"Big Brother told the villagers before he left—if anyone comes to give Sister trouble, don't all cower inside your houses."
Kaede's twin pigtails swished back and forth. "He said, Kikyō has protected you all this long; it's time for you to help her in return."
"He also said, Sister needn't carry everything all by herself."
"He is here, and everyone is here too."
Kikyō's fingers trembled ever so slightly.
She lifted her head, and something flowed within those jet-black eyes.
It would not be tears, of course.
Kikyō did not weep in front of others.
She merely smiled—faint, almost imperceptible, but a smile nonetheless.
It was a smile of release.
Momiji watched this scene, and the anger on her face had already receded for the most part, replaced by confusion and wavering.
Botan bit her lip all the harder, not knowing whether to believe elder sister or to believe the scene before her.
Tsubaki, disheveled beyond measure, grew all the more incensed… incensed at this cursed pack of ignorant peasants.
Kikyō then turned her gaze toward her.
Grateful as she was to the villagers, in truth… she had no need for them to prove her innocence. She had her Kōbe Hikaru, and she had long since ceased to be so easily shaken.
"Tsubaki, you want an explanation… A pity—I have no obligation to explain myself to you."
Kikyō spoke.
Her voice was not loud, her tone plain.
Tsubaki's performance froze along with it.
She had thought Kikyō would refute, would defend herself, would urgently lay out evidence to prove her innocence—and no matter what Kikyō said, she could counter it. She had prepared too much rhetoric, too many snares.
But Kikyō did not step into that snare.
She did not so much as brush its edge.
When those jet-black eyes looked at her, there was only one thing within them.
Indifference.
Pure, utterly unconcealed indifference.
Like an adult watching a child rolling and throwing a tantrum on the ground—not angry, not exasperated, simply feeling there was no need to respond.
Tsubaki's expression darkened.
Fine.
If the soft approach wouldn't work—
"Momiji."
Tsubaki swiftly changed her strategy, softening her voice further.
She walked toward Momiji, reaching out to take her hand.
Those upturned eyes brimmed with earnestness, like an elder sister who had been wronged appealing to her younger sister for help.
"You believe your elder sister, don't you? In all these years, when has your elder sister ever lied to you?"
Her fingers were about to touch the back of Momiji's hand.
"The breath in those ashes—you can feel it too, that truly was human. Kikyō didn't even attempt to heal them; she just directly—"
Snap.
An exceedingly faint sound.
Like an exceedingly fine thread being plucked apart.
Tsubaki's outstretched hand halted in midair; her whole person seemed to have been struck with pause.
Upon that gorgeous face, the tender expression congealed—not because she wished it to, but because her body had suddenly stopped obeying her.
It was spiritual power.
Her spiritual power had been sealed.
Not scattered, not suppressed, nor trapped by some barrier.
But wrapped within another layer's cocoon of spiritual power—like a silkworm shut inside the silk it had spun, unable to move.
Her hands could still move, her legs could still walk, her mouth could still speak.
But her spiritual power—not a shred of it could she summon.
Tsubaki's pupils shrank sharply.
She whipped her head around, looking toward Kikyō.
Kikyō had not even raised her bow.
She hadn't even looked at her.
It was only in the instant that Tsubaki walked toward Momiji and reached out her hand—that Kikyō had released the spiritual power belonging to herself.
That spiritual power took no visible form of light, no explosion, no flicker.
It merely crossed three hundred feet.
And with not a hair's breadth of error, sealed and cut it off.
"You—"
Tsubaki's voice changed.
All the tenderness, concern, and earnestness collapsed utterly in this moment.
What remained was only terror.
Pure terror, in the face of an absolute gulf in power.
She too was a shrine maiden.
She understood better than anyone what had just happened.
Kikyō had not touched her, had not looked at her, had not even made any obvious movement.
She had merely, across a distance of three hundred feet—directly sealed the circulation of the spiritual power within her body.
Spiritual power of this caliber.
Control of this degree.
This understanding and command of spiritual power.
They were simply not beings of the same tier.
They never had been.
Her self-satisfied scheming, her meticulously arranged rhetoric, her layer upon layer of disguise—before this pure, crushing power.
It was like a toddler learning to walk, trying to trip a mountain.
Laughable.
Pitiable.
Tsubaki was afraid—and, and panicked!
BOOM!
Almost at the same instant, the sky abruptly split apart.
Purple thunder cleaved down from between the black clouds, falling straight beside the torii at the village entrance.
The ground fractured, dirt flew in all directions.
The lightning lit up the whole of Kaede Village, casting every face into a ghastly white.
The mighty yōkai aura startled both Momiji and Botan, left Tsubaki dazed, and made those villagers all lift their eyes—yet without the slightest fear.
Kikyō paused, and once again let a smile show.
It was a more obvious smile.
In the instant the thunder struck the ground, a figure walked out from the light.
Gray robes, pale long hair.
A crimson oni mask covered his face, and the eyes revealed beneath it glimmered with a bloody scarlet light.
His left hand rested on the hilt of Muramasa, his right hung at his side, arcs of purple electricity crackling and leaping between his fingers.
The scent of dust from a long, hard journey still clung to him, mingled with blood mist and thunder.
Kōbe Hikaru.
He had returned.
"Looks like I got back at just the right time."
At words like these.
Tsubaki's face turned grave, and only then did she realize with a start that at some unknown moment, a thin layer of mist had risen all around them.
A mist like blood.
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