"Of course!" Shunran nodded, her expression filled with righteous certainty.
"Then why go through all the trouble of coming here to find a burial ground?" Kagetsu asked, clearly puzzled. "If you're just going to let the body turn into a demon anyway, couldn't you dump it anywhere?"
He genuinely couldn't follow the logic of these cat yōkai. If they were willing to let their Lord's corpse become a demon, why treat the burial with such seriousness?
"That won't do!" Shunran immediately shook her head.
Noticing his confusion, she turned and winked at him, a sly smile curling at her lips.
"You're thinking,if we're putting so much effort into finding a proper graveyard, why would we still allow the corpse to spawn new demons, right?"
"Exactly."
Kagetsu nodded without hesitation.
"Because those demons were born from the corpse…" Shunran grinned, clearly pleased with herself, "are natural gravekeepers."
Kagetsu froze for a moment,then understanding dawned.
This place wasn't part of the living world, but a boundary between the underworld and the mortal realm. There were no dedicated guardians here.
So instead,
They simply let the corpse create its own.
It was crude… but undeniably efficient.
"But if the corpse turns into a demon," he continued, still frowning slightly, "how does it guard its own grave?"
"The corpse is the corpse. The gravekeeper is the gravekeeper,they're not the same thing!" Shunran waved her hand dismissively. Seeing he still didn't quite follow, she added, "You'll understand once you see it."
"…Alright."
Kagetsu let the matter drop for now.
Then, as another thought crossed his mind, his expression turned a little strange.
"Wait,so the skeleton demons we just destroyed… those were someone else's gravekeepers?"
"Pretty much," Shunran replied casually, not even slowing her pace. "Most of the skeleton demons here were born from the corpses of powerful yōkai buried in this place. Calling them gravekeepers isn't wrong."
She continued walking, stepping lightly over scattered bones.
"But don't worry about it. Clans constantly send bodies in here. These gravekeepers can't be wiped out,when old ones are destroyed, new ones will form~"
"…Fair enough."
Kagetsu gave her a small thumbs-up.
In a way, it was very much in line with how demons operated.
With their long lifespans, the fact that they even bothered to bury their dead at all was already commendable. Expecting them to treat the process with human sentimentality would be asking too much.
"By the way," he added, curiosity surfacing again, "Sesshomaru's father,the Great Dog General,his grave is here too, right?"
"Inu no Taishō?" Shunran paused, tilting her head in thought before nodding. "Yeah, his body is here. But it's very far from where we are."
She gestured vaguely into the mist.
"I entered from the Leopard Cat territory near the Western Lands. Those dogs' domain is nowhere near ours, so naturally, we're far from his burial site."
Kagetsu hadn't expected the entry point to determine where one ended up in this world.
"I heard Inuyasha once entered his father's grave," he continued. "But there weren't any gravekeepers like the ones you described. Why is that?"
"Inuyasha? Sesshomaru's little brother?" Shunran frowned slightly as she thought.
"No gravekeepers…? That's strange. For a Great Yōkai like him, the residual demonic power should have been enough to give rise to new ones…"
After a moment, she gave up and waved it off.
"Who knows? Maybe he was unlucky. Or maybe he sealed all his power into something before he died~"
Kagetsu's eyes flickered.
He thought he might already know the answer.
The Great Dog General's power had likely been sealed into a weapon,
Tessaiga.
The sword Inuyasha inherited from within his father's remains.
If that was true, then it made sense: without residual demonic energy, no gravekeeper could be born.
Of course, it was only speculation. After so many years, the truth was long buried.
"Alright,we're here!"
Shunran suddenly perked up, her eyes lighting with excitement.
Before he could respond, she dashed toward a towering boulder nearby and scaled it in a few nimble leaps.
Kagetsu followed, channeling chakra into his feet as he ran up the rock face, landing beside her with ease.
"Well?" Shunran pointed down at an open area below. "Not bad, right?"
Her tone was unusually serious.
"Our clan spent a long time selecting this spot."
Kagetsu looked down.
The clearing was covered in gravel and scattered bones,no different from anywhere else they had passed.
He couldn't see anything particularly special about it.
After a moment, he could only assume there was some kind of feng shui principle or clan tradition involved.
"…Yes," he said solemnly. "It's a good location. Quite fitting."
"Hahaha!"
Shunran suddenly burst into laughter, her bright voice echoing through the mist.
"You couldn't tell anything special about it at all, could you?"
She wiped at her eyes, still giggling.
"Honestly, neither could I! An old woman in the clan picked this place. She's usually half-asleep anyway,she probably just pointed randomly~"
"…I see."
Kagetsu stared at her, utterly speechless.
So the solemn act from earlier had been completely fake.
This entire "carefully selected burial ground" was less reliable than tossing a coin onto a map and letting fate decide.
"At least that could be called destiny," he muttered under his breath.
"Alright, time to open the entrance and call Big Sister."
Shunran finally composed herself. Her expression turned serious as she reached up and removed the cherry blossom hair ornament from her head.
Only then did Kagetsu notice the black pearl embedded at its center.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
It looked… very familiar.
Before he could ask, Shunran infused it with demonic power and tossed it gently into the air.
The pearl didn't fall.
Instead, it hovered,and then began to rise.
The space around it rippled.
A moment later, a small spatial rift opened in midair.
"Big Sister! I've reached the burial site!" Shunran called out loudly. "Bring the Lord over!"
Kagetsu stood to the side, watching with interest.
Scenes like this,sending the remains of a Great Yōkai into a graveyard,weren't something one witnessed every day.
Moments later,
The spatial rift expanded rapidly.
Then, slowly,
A massive, grotesque leopard cat corpse began to emerge from within.