Night fell over the wilderness.
Aya-Gozen's group made camp on an open meadow.
More than twenty mounted guards kept watch around the perimeter. Campfires burned, and the horses were tied near a low thicket sheltered from the wind.
Aya-Gozen's tent stood at the very center, its curtain half-lowered, revealing the thin blanket laid out inside and the neatly folded travel bags.
She hadn't gone inside.
Instead she sat by the campfire, cradling a bowl of hot soup, the hem of her dark kimono spread across the grass. The firelight played over her face, gilding her features with a warm glow.
The curve of her waist, cinched by the narrow sash of her riding kimono, stood out clearly in the firelight's side glow — softer than her younger sister Kenshin's, her shoulders rounder, the fabric of her hakama stretched into a full curve where she sat on the grass.
A night wind blew across the wilderness, carrying the chill of late autumn.
But her gaze was fixed on the darkness beyond the camp's edge.
In that direction, roughly twenty paces off, stood a figure.
Gray robes, pale hair, sitting on a rock with a sedge hat resting beside his knee.
He simply sat there — no fire, no approach — as if he'd merely happened to pass by and happened to rest here.
But Aya-Gozen remembered him.
The one they'd passed on the road during the day — the strange samurai who talked to rocks and grass.
"You've been following us?"
Aya-Gozen spoke, her voice not loud, yet it carried clearly through the night wind.
The guards in the camp tensed at the sound, hands going to their sword hilts, eyes snapping toward that direction.
Only then did they notice someone was there.
In the darkness, the figure stirred.
He stood up.
He hadn't put on the sedge hat. Moonlight fell on his pale face — handsome features, a cold, sharp profile, pupils blood-red.
It was a very young face.
In the mingled light of campfire and moon, those oni eyes stood out starkly.
"Your senses are sharp."
Kobe Hikaru's voice was flat. "But I've no interest in following you. What I'm tracking just happens to be going the same way."
Aya-Gozen wasn't frightened by those eyes.
She was Uesugi Kenshin's elder sister. Having lived day and night alongside two generations of Bishamonten's incarnation, she'd seen more inhuman things than all the guards present combined.
She was simply a little curious.
"Then what are you doing stopped here?"
"Resting."
"There's plenty of room twenty paces off."
"This rock is the best one around."
Aya-Gozen fell silent for a moment, set down her soup bowl, and swallowed back the rude retort rising in her throat — something like, 'You mean that rock that looks like a charcoal briquette about to crack apart?'
"You don't seem like an ordinary traveler."
"I'm not a traveler. In fact, I'm not human."
The moment Kobe Hikaru said this, before Aya-Gozen could react, his oni eyes swept across the darkness around the camp and stopped.
"Your luck really isn't very good."
Aya-Gozen's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
Kobe Hikaru looked up at the sky.
The moon was full.
It hung at the very center of the heavens, its silvery light casting the wilderness in cold clarity.
Then — the moonlight dimmed.
There were no clouds. Something was gnawing away at the light from the moon's edge.
The tengu was swallowing the moon.
A dark shadow spread from the lower-left of the lunar disc, slow and unrelenting, devouring the silver-white circle.
With every degree the moonlight dimmed, the temperature across the wilderness dropped in kind.
This was, in itself, only a celestial phenomenon. But in a world overrun by demonic fiends, a lunar eclipse was never just a change in the moon itself.
The moment moonlight vanished was the moment the things in darkness grew most active.
A rotten stench began to spread through the air.
Faint, but unmistakably there.
Aya-Gozen caught it.
She rose to her feet, hand going to the short blade at her waist.
"Everyone, on guard!"
The chieftain of the guards barked the order, and the guards drew their swords, forming a ring.
The moon was half devoured now, and the wilderness sank quickly into gray dimness. Then, from every direction in the darkness, sounds began to rise.
Something was approaching.
And not just one — many.
Grayish-white figures surged out from the grass, from behind low hills, from the distant tree line.
Ashen skin, mouths split back to the ears, fangs crossing over one another, eyes a murky yellow.
Demons.
Vengeful Demons made by Kibutsuji Muzan — neither yokai nor demonic fiend, but humans mutated through infection by a special blood, possessing near-limitless regeneration, with sunlight as their sole weakness.
In number... at least thirty-something, more than the humans present.
All of them stared toward the camp.
Staring at the scent of living flesh and blood drifting from the camp.
On a night of lunar eclipse, a vengeful Demon's regeneration and sensory range both intensify — a special window that even the Demon Slayer Corps found troublesome.
And Aya-Gozen's party had walked right into it.
The guards' faces went white.
They didn't recognize Demons — they merely assumed these were some kind of yokai. They were only samurai, not exorcists, and with their numbers insufficient, the swords in their hands were no match for such things.
Aya-Gozen gripped her short blade tighter, brow furrowing. She wasn't afraid to die, but she held an important position — she couldn't die here for no reason, and besides, this had caught her utterly unprepared.
After all, within Uesugi territory, yokai of this scale were rare indeed.
"Move aside."
The voice came from behind her, light and casual.
She turned. The young samurai had already walked into the camp, coming toward her.
Kobe Hikaru's pale face carried a cold cast under the waning moon. Looking at the vengeful Demons that had appeared, he didn't draw Onikiri from his left hip.
Instead, he drew the blade at his right hip — Yomikiri.
The moment the black-purple Sun Blade left its sheath, a faint layer of black-purple shimmered along its edge, its cold light standing out all the more against the shadow of the waning moon.
At the same instant — he breathed.
That breath was extremely deep and long. His chest didn't rise, his lungs didn't expand, yet the air around him surged toward him all at once.
The turbid qi diffused through heaven and earth — those invisible, murky currents settled at the bottom of the night — seemed drawn in by an unseen vortex, converging from every direction toward his mouth and nose.
Inhale, spin, refine, exhale.
A dim, murky mist of light spilled from his mouth, seeping down his throat into his chest, and pouring into the arm gripping the blade.
Demon's Breath.
Dead lungs as the furnace, turbid qi as the fuel, the imagined pulse of Yomi as the rhythm.
A bloom of Demon-light, colored like Yomi, clung to Yomikiri's edge — the sunlight power already inherent in the Sun Blade wove together with the refined turbid qi of the Demon's Breath, forming a membrane of light hushed to the utmost stillness.
The blade struck.
Only one stroke.
A horizontal arc.
Left to right.
No explosion. No roar.
Just an extremely quiet, almost silent arc of Yomi-colored light, drawn from Yomikiri's tip, sweeping across the entire wilderness.
When the arc of light swept past the first Demon's waist, it didn't even have time to react.
Its upper and lower halves separated.
The cut surface was smooth, its edge coated in a dim shade of Yomi — the Demon Bloom's light annihilated all life force at the wound outright, erasing any chance of regeneration.
The sunlight nature carried by the Sun Blade followed close behind, burning inward from the annihilated wound.
A double execution of sun and Demon.
The arc of light pressed onward.
The second. The third. The fifth. The tenth—
A sweeping cut.
A single arc swept across the entire meadow, severing everything above waist height.
Including the grass.
Including all thirty-seven vengeful Demons.
The cuts were clean.
The Demons whose upper halves still hung in the air stared with yellowed eyes, their ear-splitting mouths twisted into expressions of utter confusion—
Then, carbonization began.
Demon Bloom annihilation and sunlight burning acted on every cut surface at once, both properties working together.
Regeneration couldn't possibly keep pace with destruction.
All thirty-seven vengeful Demons crumbled at the same instant.
Turning to ash together.
From draw to sheathe, the blink of an eye.
Click.
The crisp sound of the blade returning to its sheath echoed across the wilderness.
A status panel flickered.
[Sun Blade · Yomikiri: Favourability +7]
[Current Favourability: 41 (Recognition · Initial)]
Slaying Demons.
Yomikiri's core wish had been fulfilled once more. This kind of favourability gain came far more cleanly than any infusion of aura or sweet words ever could.
Then came the sound of wind.
Wind swept across the meadow, carrying the ash drifting in the air off into the distance.
The moon was still being devoured by shadow.
But across the wilderness, not a single living vengeful Demon remained.
Even the ash was scattering.
Kobe Hikaru stood by the campfire, a mist-like dark purple light slowly withdrawing from his skin.
He turned around.
The twenty-odd guards stood frozen where they were — some with swords still raised midair, some with knees gone weak.
Aya-Gozen's grip on her short blade hadn't loosened, but her pupils had widened — those eyes so like Kenshin's were now filled with shock.
As mentioned before, she had seen the extraordinary — had seen Kenshin wield the power of Bishamonten.
That had already been the strongest power she'd ever witnessed in this world.
But when Kenshin fought, it still took time — deploying the Armament of the Eightfold Blossom, releasing the power of faith.
But this young samurai before her — just one stroke.
Just one.
"I told you — your luck isn't good."
Kobe Hikaru brushed the ash off his sleeve, his oni eyes glowing faintly under the waning moon. "But it's fine."
"You ran into me."
"I really wasn't following you. What I was tracking — was them."
He turned his head to look at the distant darkness.
But his tone changed the moment he finished speaking.
Purple patterns and streaks of orange light flared to life at once within his crimson oni eyes, fixed on the deeper darkness northeast of the camp—
There.
Something was there.
Something heavier and more dangerous than all thirty-seven vengeful Demons combined.
It was drawing closer.
Aya-Gozen saw the look on Kobe Hikaru's face — on that cold, sharp face, a fleeting expression appeared, one she found hard to describe.
It couldn't possibly be fear, but to an ordinary person, it was more alarming than fear.
"It's coming."
He straightened, his voice very quiet.
Quieter even than when he'd slaughtered the thirty-seven vengeful Demons. "If you want to live, you'd best leave here right now."
"Is something coming—"
"Don't ask. Go."
He repeated it, then stepped toward the darkness.
His gray robes swayed under the waning moon, his pale hair hanging down his back.
Aya-Gozen watched him walk out of the campfire's glow, disappearing at the edge of sight.
She tightened her grip on the short blade.
Her heart was racing.
Because of those thirty-seven vengeful Demons.
And because of that retreating figure — because of the unknown.
What could possibly be the kind of thing that made a being who'd wiped out a horde of Demons with a single stroke wear such an expression?
But she didn't ask further, only rose quickly and, despite the night, ordered everyone to break camp.
Withdraw.
In an age of chaos, there were too many things that those without sufficient strength couldn't take part in — couldn't even bear to witness.
She wasn't her sister. She wasn't strong.
So she knew her own limits.
Still, in that moment, she glanced once more toward where Kobe Hikaru had vanished.
She fixed that figure in her memory.
And decided that once she was back, she'd ask Kenshin about him.
Meanwhile.
A thousand li away, at the Demon Slayer Corps headquarters.
In the main hall of the Ubuyashiki Mansion, lamplight flickered.
Ubuyashiki Rikiya knelt on a cushion, and before him stood a Kasugai crow, its jet-black feathers bristling, golden eyes bulging wide.
It had just flown back from the direction of Kyoto.
"Report!"
The crow's voice was hoarse and urgent. "The scouts near Kyoto sent word back—"
"Kibutsuji Muzan is gone."
Rikiya's back snapped straight.
"What... do you mean?"
"The residual trace of Muzan's presence we detected earlier — it was fake."
The crow's wings trembled as it mimicked the messenger's tone. "There's only a vengeful Demon there — a decoy given Muzan's aura, mimicking the characteristics of Muzan's yokai aura. But the body itself is just an high-ranking vengeful Demon."
"Muzan's true body isn't in Kyoto."
"It hasn't been there for at least several days."
Silence fell over the hall.
Rikiya's clouded eyes slowly opened, his blind eyes turning slightly — he couldn't see, but he could feel.
The precognitive gift passed down through the Ubuyashiki bloodline suddenly stirred, as though something had seized his chest in a violent grip.
Danger.
Immense danger.
Direction — southeast.
He whipped his head around.
He stared fixedly at the wall to the southeast of the main hall, as though gazing through it, toward a wilderness at least hundreds of li away.
"...Which direction did Lord Hikaru go today?"
The attendant beside him startled. "My lord, Master Rengoku said Lord Hikaru headed toward Musashi Province — southeast."
Rikiya's expression changed.
He rose unsteadily to his feet.
This young family head, chronically bedridden and slow to move, rose at a speed he'd never shown before, the hem of his plain white kariginu flaring outward.
"Send word—"
His voice had lost its usual calm, carrying an urgency he'd never had before.
"All Hashira, immediately—"
But he stopped mid-sentence, his face turning grim.
Because—
The seven Hashira.
After receiving Kobe Hikaru's message, he had sent every Hashira toward Kyoto.
The plan was to wait until Muzan, lured by news of the blue spider lily, left the protection of Hagoromo-Gitsune to investigate — then the seven Hashira, together with a Sun Blade, would surround and kill him.
It was a chance the Ubuyashiki family had never had in five hundred years.
So he'd staked everything on it without hesitation.
But now, the report had proven false.
Muzan wasn't in Kyoto.
Yet the seven Hashira had already rushed to the outskirts of Kyoto at top speed and were lying in wait.
Even if he tried to recall them now, it seemed there wasn't enough time...
But in that very instant, from the direction of the back garden, a searing light suddenly flared up.
It pierced through the shoji doors of the corridor, through the curtain of wisteria blossoms.
Lighting the entire back garden of the mansion as bright as day.
It was sunlight.
Yet there was no sun.
Only light blazing off a single person, as dazzling as the sun itself.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi.
The red-haired youth stood on the corridor of the back garden, his deep red eyes reflecting the very same direction Rikiya had sensed — southeast.
His breathing had changed.
It was as if his chest had swallowed a sun whole. Heat seeped from every pore, forming a visible haze of golden warmth over his skin.
Breath of the Sun.
Unleashed at full strength.
His Transparent World told him — in that direction, something extremely dangerous was closing in on his benefactor.
He took a step.
His figure vanished at the end of the corridor.
Rengoku Jinjuro, who wasn't a Hashira, burst out from the side door of the main hall just in time to see only a lingering wisp of golden heat haze on the corridor, and the wooden floorboards scorched by the heat.
"Master Tsugikuni—!"
And so, at this moment.
Ubuyashiki Rikiya stood frozen.
Standing at the center of the main hall, half his face marred by purple decay, pale under the lamplight, almost bloodless.
He couldn't see a thing.
But the instant Tsugikuni Yoriichi departed, his bloodline-born, near-prophetic instinct told him—
there was still hope.
Elsewhere.
At this moment, in the southern reaches of Kozuke Province, the wilderness lay under the pallid dregs of eclipse-light, white as paper. Wild grass grew rank and thick, and shreds of it drifted through the air.
Kobe Hikaru stood at the edge of the meadow, roughly a hundred paces from Aya-Gozen's camp.
He faced northeast.
Blood mist spread silently beneath his feet, serving as a sensory net.
The Transformation of the Spirit-Chasing Archer automatically marked everything within his sight.
The Sharp-Eye Mutation let his vision pierce the night.
He saw it.
At the edge of the distant tree line, a figure was stepping out of the darkness.
Its pace was slow.
Each step landed on the ground with an almost inaudible sound, yet the moment that faint, faint footfall reached Kobe Hikaru's sensory net — the entire sheet of blood mist trembled.
Not because the footsteps were heavy, of course, but because the being itself pressed down on every living thing around it.
Moonlight fell on the figure.
An elegant kimono, a dark outer robe.
A beautiful face, skin unnaturally white.
Red slit pupils glinted faintly in the moonlight.
It was a woman's body.
Yet not entirely a woman.
Because those eyes weren't even the eyes a human should have — a pair of serpentine slit pupils, glowing with a cold phosphorescence beneath the waning moon's pale remnant light.
Kobe Hikaru recognized it.
No prompt needed. No detection needed.
Kibutsuji Muzan.
Progenitor of the Demons.
The absolute ruler of Demons, born five hundred years ago.
Five brains, seven hearts, limitless regeneration — immortal and indestructible save for sunlight.
Able to freely change appearance, gender, age—
"So we finally meet."
Kibutsuji Muzan spoke, voice smooth and gentle as flowing water.
Unnaturally clear and crisp.
"Kobe Hikaru."
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