The hour of the Rat.
The moonlight was smothered beneath thick layers of cloud, and Kaede Village sank into pure darkness.
The glow of spiritual power within the barrier was the only light source at this moment, faintly draping over the slumbering village.
Kikyō was not asleep.
She sat on the veranda of the Shrine, her long bow laid across her knees. Her white top billowed faintly in the night wind, clinging to the rise and fall of her shoulders, back, and chest. Red hakama trousers wrapped around her drawn-together legs, and in her cross-legged posture the curve of her hips was traced out full and round by the fabric, pressing a shallow dent into the wooden floorboards.
Her jet-black hair spilled down behind her, its tips fanning out across the floor.
Her pitch-black eyes narrowed slightly, fixed upon the north.
—Something was drawing near.
The barrier's warning layer had already been triggered.
And it had been triggered many times over.
From the north, the east, the west—closing in from three directions at once.
Yōkai aura?
No. It was not yōkai aura.
Kikyō's brow furrowed.
She could clearly distinguish yōkai aura from other presences. A yōkai's presence was murky and heavy, carrying the underlying tone of the earth's foul vapors.
But these things that were approaching—
Within their presence lingered the trace of humans.
A faint human life-force, twisted and smothered over by something.
Demons.
Kikyō's pupils lifted.
She recalled the existence she had encountered outside the demon-slaying village last time.
The so-called undying demons that, by Kōbe Hikaru's account, were born when the blood of the progenitor of demons—Kibutsuji Muzan—infected a human being.
Neither yōkai nor devil, belonging to none of the classification systems she was familiar with.
Their only weakness was sunlight.
Last time, she had not been able to finish off that demon in an instant.
Because she had not understood it.
Because it had been her first encounter.
But now it was different.
After that battle, Kikyō had spent a great deal of time recalling the properties of that demon—a regenerative ability that was all but limitless, able to reform even after being shattered by spiritual power, while an ordinary Sacred Arrow could only impose a brief suppression.
The conclusion was simple.
It was not that the spiritual power was insufficient.
It was that the method of application was wrong.
The spiritual power of the Sacred Arrow was meant for purification—its greatest lethality lay in purifying yōkai aura, in purifying foul vapors.
But demons were not yōkai, and what drove them was not yōkai aura either.
They were humans—strange, twisted humans.
So what was needed was not greater destruction.
But rather—containment.
To seal off the twisted source with spiritual power at the very same moment it was destroyed.
Kikyō rose to her feet.
The long bow gripped in her hand, three arrows clasped between her fingers.
She descended the steps of the Shrine, her white tabi treading upon the cold stone slabs.
At the edge of the barrier, the first demon clawed its way out.
From the look of it, this demon had once been an ordinary man—middle-aged, dressed in tattered farmer's clothes.
But now its features had twisted beyond any human form, its mouth split open to the ears, revealing a dense row of jagged fangs, its eyeballs shot through with blood, its nails grown long as claws.
The marks of a demon.
Without a doubt, it too was a creation of Kibutsuji Muzan.
Last time there had been only one.
This time—
The second clambered over the low wall from the east.
The third came bursting out of the forest to the west.
A fourth, a fifth.
Seven in all.
Kikyō did not hesitate.
The bowstring drawn to full.
Three arrows loosed together.
White spiritual power gathered at the arrow tips—not the explosive Sacred Arrows of before, but spiritual-power arrows carrying a different technique, not meant for demon-cleaving.
The spiritual power at the tips spun in a spiral, its inner layer purification, its outer layer sealing.
Seal first, then destroy.
The three arrows struck the skulls of three demons at once.
White light burst apart.
Unlike last time, the spiritual power did not dissipate immediately after the burst.
That white radiance formed a thin 'membrane' across the surface of the demons' bodies, wrapping the shattered tissue within.
The demons' regeneration kicked in.
The shredded flesh writhed, seeking to reassemble.
But the sealing membrane of spiritual power held them fast.
Each fragment of flesh was sealed off alone within a cocoon of spiritual power, unable to reconnect with the other pieces.
And then—destruction.
The inner layer of spiritual power began to take effect, no longer used for purification, but directly for detonation.
Isolated by the seal, the demons' regenerative ability could not counter the spiritual power trapped in the same enclosed space.
That shredded flesh turned to ash in the white light.
Three demons—from the arrows' impact to their utter annihilation—all in the span of a single instant.
Kikyō's hands did not stop.
The fourth arrow, the fifth arrow.
Her movements flowed to near-perfection, without the slightest hesitation.
Bowstring singing, arrow flying, striking true, sealing, purifying.
All in one seamless motion.
Seven vile demons, all wiped out in less than three breaths.
When the battle ended, only seven mounds of dissipating ash remained upon the open ground.
That, and the faint, clean fragrance drifting through the air—the scent left behind by spiritual purification.
Kikyō lowered her bow.
Her breathing had not even quickened.
Seven low-tier demons did not so much as count as a warm-up for her as she was now.
But—her brow furrowed all the tighter.
According to what Hikaru had said last time, demons generally moved alone, and would never gather here in a swarm without cause.
What had drawn them here?
Kikyō lifted her head, her pitch-black eyes sweeping across the surrounding darkness.
The barrier's warning layer was not triggered again.
For the moment, it was safe.
But her instincts told her this was not over.
"Sister!"
Kaede came running out of the Shrine, her hair tied in twin tails, dressed in her sleepwear, her face still muddled from being startled awake.
"It's all right now."
Kikyō turned, shielding her little sister behind her. "Go back to sleep."
"But those just now—"
"It's already been dealt with."
Kaede looked at the ashes dissipating on the ground, pressed her lips together, then obediently turned and ran back into the Shrine.
Kikyō stood alone upon the open ground.
The night wind blew past, and her loose hair drifted behind her, framing that exquisite, delicate face.
Her faint, cherry-blossom lips were pressed lightly together.
She knew someone was watching from the shadows.
But she did not go looking.
Because—
"Shrine maiden—Kikyō?"
Two figures came rushing down the mountain path from the south.
Very fast.
The one in front looked about fourteen or fifteen, dressed in a shrine maiden's white robe and red hakama, her jet-black long hair bound into a ponytail behind her head. Her features were clean and pretty, with an air of innocence in her expression—but at this moment her eyes were brimming with fury.
Momiji.
The one following behind was smaller, twelve or thirteen, round-faced, with big eyes, in the same shrine maiden garb, clutching several talisman papers in her hand and running so hard she could barely catch her breath.
Botan.
Tsubaki's two junior sisters.
Disciples of the Tahōtō.
Kikyō's gaze paused, as if she had suddenly understood something.
The Tahōtō's existence had once been intimately bound up with the Shikon Jewel; the former master of the Tahōtō had also had old ties with the chief of the demon-slaying village. As the one designated long ago to be the guardian of the Shikon Jewel, she naturally knew of it.
Momiji and Botan—she in fact knew them too, only that they had still been young at the time, and might not remember her.
They were charged solely with guarding the Tahōtō, and had little understanding of the existence of the Shikon Jewel.
And now.
They had come.
And what they saw was Kikyō standing alone amid seven mounds of ash.
Within those ashes lingered the presence of humans.
Faint, twisted, but unmistakably present—the traces of human life.
Momiji's steps jolted to a halt.
Her face froze.
"You..."
Her voice was full of shock. "What did you do to them?"
Botan stopped as well, her big eyes stretched round, more than a little disbelieving.
"So what senior sister said was true..."
Her voice was even smaller, yet carried a deeper bewilderment. "You really are helping yōkai... killing people...?"
Kikyō looked at these two young shrine maidens.
In that single instant, she truly understood.
Tsubaki.
It was Tsubaki.
Demon blood lured vile demons, the vile demons assaulted the village, and she moved to destroy them—and these two little shrine maidens, ignorant of the truth, happened to arrive at just this moment.
They could not sense yōkai aura, because demons had no yōkai aura.
They could only sense those lingering traces of human life-force.
In their eyes, this was simply a shrine maiden who had killed seven people in the dead of night, and now stood among the ashes of the corpses without the slightest concern.
Tsubaki's words echoed in their minds—
Kikyō's lips moved, but seeing the fury in Momiji's eyes and the terror in Botan's, she confirmed that such a look could not be changed by a few words.
Because they had already confirmed everything they had heard from their senior sister.
Preconceived prejudice, together with so-called evidence witnessed with their own eyes.
Any explanation would be feeble.
Kikyō did not speak. She merely tightened her grip on the long bow in her hand, and within her pitch-black eyes there flickered the very faintest chill.
And farther off, along the mountain path to the south.
In the shadows of the thickets, Tsubaki stood there, her gaze passing over the shoulders of the two junior sisters, watching Kikyō.
She smiled.
A silent, self-satisfied smile.
The first step. Done.
But Tsubaki's triumph lasted only a second.
Because in the next second... Kikyō suddenly bent her bow and nocked an arrow, loosing it straight toward her!
Explanations were useless.
And yet, a shrine maiden had never needed to explain—she needed only to... exorcise the evil, and that was enough.
In Kōbe Hikaru's words, the demon within the heart is a demon all the same.
And so, it must be exorcised.
Tsubaki: "!?"
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