Boom!
With a thunderous crash, the corpse of the Leopard Cat Lord,Oyakata,was hurled out of the spatial rift, slamming heavily into the clearing and sending dust billowing into the air.
Shunran stood quietly beside Kagetsu, watching her Lord's body hit the ground so unceremoniously, her expression completely indifferent.
Clearly, in her mind, as long as the corpse had been delivered to the graveyard, nothing else mattered,not its condition, nor how it landed.
Seeing her reaction, Kagetsu found it harder and harder to understand the logic of demons.
If they didn't respect their Lord, then why had Fuyuarashi and her sisters gone to such lengths to revive him after all these years? And after failing, why risk coming to a place like this just to bury him?
But if they did respect him…
Then Shunran's attitude,treating the body as if it were little more than something to be discarded,made no sense at all.
He couldn't help but think of Sesshomaru and Inuyasha.
If it was respect, then why had the two of them once fought fiercely atop their father's remains, without the slightest concern for damaging the corpse?
And yet, if it was disrespect…
Sesshomaru had once struck Inuyasha in anger for damaging their father's tomb during a battle over the Shikon Jewel.
Demons truly were… difficult to understand.
"Big Sister! I'm over here!"
Fuyuarashi's figure emerged from the spatial rift. Shunran immediately waved her arms and called out.
"Shunran? How did you get here so quickly?" Fuyuarashi followed the voice and flew over. But as she approached, her gaze fell on Kagetsu, and surprise flickered across her eyes.
"You… Kagetsu. The human who formed a contract with Natsuarashi."
She remembered him well,their previous clash, and those overwhelming black flames, were not easily forgotten.
"We meet again, Fuyuarashi," Kagetsu said with a faint smile.
"Mm." She gave a small nod, though her brows remained slightly furrowed. "Why are you here? And why are you with Shunran?"
Then, as if realizing something, her expression sharpened. She turned toward Shunran with a glare.
"Don't tell me you secretly signed a contract with him as well?"
"That's right!" Shunran replied without the slightest hesitation, not intimidated in the least. She grabbed Kagetsu's arm, looking rather proud.
"It's all thanks to him this time! I was being chased by demons earlier. Luckily, I used the summoning technique Natsuarashi taught me to call him,otherwise I might've had to run away in embarrassment!"
She puffed up slightly.
"And we found the burial ground super fast, too!"
"You…" Fuyuarashi stared at her for a moment before letting out a quiet sigh, clearly resigned.
Turning back to Kagetsu, she inclined her head slightly.
"Thank you. You've done me a great favor."
"No need," Kagetsu replied, waving it off casually. Then his expression shifted, his gaze turning toward the corpse below.
"…Though your Lord's body doesn't seem quite right."
He narrowed his eyes.
"Something's about to come out of it. Is this what Shunran mentioned,a demon born from a corpse?"
From the moment Oyakata's body had entered this space, he had sensed something stirring within it.
Residual power was gathering,drawing in the surrounding natural energy and concentrating within the chest. The aura was growing stronger by the second.
Something was about to emerge.
"Mm." Fuyuarashi didn't seem surprised at all.
"It's likely the Shikon Jewel's demonic energy remained inside the body during the previous resurrection attempt. That accelerated the process."
She paused briefly before adding in a flat tone,
"If Shunran had taken any longer to open the portal, I would have forced one open myself and thrown the corpse in."
She really does treat this place like a dumping ground…
Kagetsu glanced at her expression, thinking silently to himself.
No wonder she had tossed the body through without hesitation,she had clearly been eager to get rid of it.
Screech,!
A sharp tearing sound suddenly rang out.
All three of them looked down.
A large tear split open across Oyakata's chest,
And from within, a pale skeletal claw burst outward, thick with demonic energy.
Then, another.
The two claws gripped the edges of the wound and forced it wider,
Until something began to crawl out.
A skeletal demon, smaller in size, with a single horn on its skull and jagged bone spikes protruding across its body, slowly emerged from within the corpse.
It didn't rise,
It grew.
Kagetsu saw it clearly.
The original skeleton of Oyakata remained intact.
This new creature was like a sprout, growing directly out of the corpse,still clad in tattered armor similar to the original body.
Only now did he fully understand Shunran's explanation.
"Born from a corpse" wasn't metaphorical.
It was literal.
He had originally thought the corpse itself would revive,but instead, it produced something new, leaving the original body behind.
The corpse remained.
The gravekeeper was something else entirely.
A separate existence.
The sight was… unsettling, yet strangely fascinating.
Soon, the skeletal Oyakata fully tore itself free and dropped onto the ground.
"ROAR,!"
The moment it landed, it snapped its head upward.
Crimson flames ignited within its hollow eye sockets as it locked onto the three figures above.
In the next instant, it blurred into motion,racing up the rock face with astonishing speed.
Kagetsu's eyes narrowed slightly.
This was far faster than the other skeleton demons they had encountered.
Its aura was also significantly stronger.
Likely because it had just been born,its power at its peak. Perhaps it was also influenced by the lingering energy of the Shikon Jewel.
"Hmph."
Fuyuarashi let out a cold snort, clearly impatient.
She raised both hands,
A freezing gale erupted forward.
Crack! Crack! Crack,!
Ice spread instantly, the sound of freezing echoing sharply through the air.
The skeletal Oyakata was frozen solid against the rock, its charge halted mid-motion.
The frost continued to spread, covering the clearing below,
Even Oyakata's original corpse was encased in ice.
In seconds, the entire area was transformed into a frozen landscape.
Seeing this, Kagetsu understood.
Fuyuarashi's temper was still simmering,Naraku's deception had clearly left its mark.
"Let's go. The portal won't stay open for long."
Without another glance, Fuyuarashi turned and flew toward the spatial rift.
"Can you fly?" Shunran asked, turning to Kagetsu.
"No."
He shook his head. While the shinobi world had countless techniques, true flight was exceedingly rare.
"Then I'll take,"
"No need," he interrupted, waving a hand. "I can return by releasing the summoning technique. Go on."
"Alright, see you next time!"
Shunran didn't insist. She waved once before following Fuyuarashi into the portal, disappearing from sight.
Just as Kagetsu was about to release the technique,
Crack!
A sharp sound echoed.
He glanced down.
The frozen skeletal Oyakata had broken free.
The red glow in its eyes flared brighter as it lunged toward him once more.
Kagetsu couldn't be bothered.
Calmly, he took out a kunai etched with the Flying Thunder God formula and drove it into the rock.
The instant the skeletal demon leapt,
His body dissolved into white smoke.
The attack passed straight through the fading mist.
The skeletal Oyakata tumbled forward, lost its footing, and rolled off the rock,crashing heavily onto the frozen ground below with a dull thud.