The moment she entered the dining hall, the old woman's glassy eyes drifted instinctively toward the appetiser plates. Shifting her gaze back to the wooden trolley, she opened its lower compartment and began retrieving an assortment of vibrant ceramic pots and matching dishes. She moved methodically around the low table, placing two heavy lidded pots before each member of the group.
As soon as the lids were set down, another dense plume of savoury vapour swirled up into the air. The cloying floral scent of the inn was instantly replaced by the rich, savoury aroma of thick beef broth and dark miso.
"You must have journeyed from quite a distance," the old woman croaked, slowly unwrapping the damp towels that had been wrapped around the bases of the hot bowls to trap the heat. "It is a very good thing you arrived here before nightfall… otherwise, you would have been in terrible trouble."
"Huh? You don't say..." Watanabe asked, his mouth salivating as the rich scent overwhelmed his senses. He clenched his fists beneath the table, fighting a fierce, desperate urge to simply abandon caution and dig into the food. "Why exactly is that?"
"Ah… don't you know? People have been mysteriously disappearing from this village for quite a while now," she whispered.
As she spoke, she lingered uncomfortably close to Gabimaru's side. Her hunched frame leaned in, her nostrils flaring sharply as she took a deep, audible sniff of his hair and shoulders.
"So, old woman..." Gabimaru spoke up smoothly, completely unfazed by her predatory behaviour. He reached forward and lifted the heavy ceramic lid of his pot. Inside, a crystal-clear broth shimmered, with perfectly woven noodles swirling beneath the surface, while delicate, thinly sliced ribbons of marbled meat hung neatly along one side of the bowl. "Is that the real reason you chose to close up your shop so early tonight?"
"Tchh…It seems I was both right and wrong," Yorimitsu spoke calmly, sliding back from his position and standing up on the tatami.
"Huh?!" Watanabe blinked, his hand instinctively dropping toward his blade.
"Yes. I initially suspected she was just a common thief or a desperate murderer… but I was mistaken." Yorimitsu turned his head slightly, his gaze locking onto the figure looming over his teammate. "So, tell me… how many years have you been consuming human flesh?"
The moment the question left Yorimitsu's lips, the creature's head jerked violently upward.
Her neck elongated unnaturally as her skull dangled directly beside Gabimaru's face. Strand by strand, her grey hair grew rapidly, cascading downward until it trailed across her feet like tangled roots. Her glassy eyes dissolved into a deep, blood-red crimson lined with concentric ripples. Though her spine remained grotesquely hunched, her physical frame expanded, making her tower over the low table.
"Kru... kru... kru..."
Her laughter echoed through the dining hall, sounding like heavy stones grinding against gravel.
"So, you managed to see through my illusion? Well, it makes no difference now," she hissed, her voice overlapping with a dual, demonic resonance. She glanced pointedly toward the low table where the empty appetiser plates sat. "Even if your eyes are sharp, you have already consumed my venom. You are thoroughly poisoned."
"So the old hag really was a Yōkai," Gabimaru muttered, swiftly skidding across the reed mats to create distance between himself and her distended jaws.
"Kru... kru... kru... You all possess the unmistakable stench of seasoned warriors," the creature salivated, her rippling red eyes scanning their frames. "I am certain that your Reiryoku-infused flesh will be extraordinarily delicious. I have never tasted meat of your calibre before!"
With a violent flare, her elongated hair suddenly burst into a brilliant shroud of white flames, instantly replacing the savoury broth aroma with a bizarre, metallic scent that caused the air to shimmer.
"She's a monster, alright, but I've never encountered a variant quite like this," Watanabe stated, his blade clearing its scabbard with a sharp hiss. "Her spiritual signature felt entirely human up until a few moments ago."
"Yeah. I believe that was entirely due to the fragrance of the room," Yorimitsu explained, stepping forward to shield his squad. His hand wrapped firmly around his hilt. "The scent forcefully took our sensory perception the very moment we crossed the threshold. It seems that this is her specific Onmyōdō; she traps travellers in a state of endless bliss, quietly paralyses them with her toxin, and devours them at her leisure."
"I am not fighting this one," Yorimitsu declared, taking a deliberate step backwards and crossing his arms loosely over his chest.
'There is something fundamentally anomalous about this creature,' Yorimitsu analysed, his mind racing behind a calm exterior. 'She wasn't a human on the verge of turning. Even with that scent dulling my sensory perception, Dōjigiri should have easily detected a standard Yōkai signature. That leaves me with only one logical conclusion: that woman possesses two distinct souls bound within a single vessel, which makes me wonder whether she even knew what she was doing when she poisoned us.'
Yorimitsu's eyes sharpened to pinpricks, his hands dropping casually back to his sides.
"Count me out, too," Watanabe muttered, walking backwards to join his leader. Shion had already soundlessly vacated the combat zone, reappearing right beside Yorimitsu like a phantom.
"Tch... I guess that leaves the heavy lifting to me, then," Gabimaru spoke up.
He raised his left hand and sharply pricked the tip of his index finger against his tooth. A few droplets of crimson trickled out at first, but within seconds, the flow surged unnaturally, pouring downward to form a swirling, vibrant pool of blood across the tatami mats.
"Is he seriously not going to bleed out and die from losing that much volume?" Watanabe muttered under his breath, watching the crimson pool churn.
"Kru... kru... kru... You dare mock me?!" the creature shrieked.
The white flames enveloping her elongated hair flared violently, scorching the ceiling beams. Bending her hunched spine forward as if delivering a mock bow, she whipped her head downward. A barrage of hardened, needle-sharp strands of hair shot across the room toward Gabimaru like a volley of iron ballista bolts.
But a mere fraction of a second before the lethal needles could pierce his flesh, the pool of blood on the floor rose entirely on its own accord. Moving like a fluid, sentient shield of crimson slime, the liquid mass surged upward, intercepting the projectile hair and trapping the hardened spikes dead in their tracks.