When Sui returned to the House of the Wisteria Crest, a gap had somehow been torn open in the wisteria that covered the wooden house.
She smelled that foul, fishy stench again.
Beside the toppled wisteria trees lay dropped saws and axes, and there were traces of blood on the ground.
The clusters of wisteria blossoms that should have bloomed even more beautifully after the storm now looked like the gnawed remains of some giant beast. Rain pattered steadily down. Wet strands of hair hung from Sui's face, and her haori was soaked through.
She stepped into the house and called out softly.
"Lady Kyoka? Mr. Fujiwara?"
The floorboards groaned ominously beneath her little leather boots.
Shredded folding screens still bore claw marks, and the earthenware bowl of miso soup lay shattered in a corner.
Plink.
A droplet fell from the eaves.
Sui suddenly drew her blade. A flash of lightning cut through the falling drop—and at the same instant, blood sprayed from the darkness above.
Her strike had split something hidden in the rafters.
A white snake, roughly two meters long, fell to the floor in two pieces. Even with its body severed, the snake's head still hissed, its eyes gleaming with distinctly human cunning.
"So you are the swordswoman who came to Osaka."
Sui could hear the snake laughing mockingly.
"Don't worry. The two people from the House of the Wisteria Crest are still alive. They've been living among wisteria for so long they reek of it now. I had no appetite for eating them."
Its tongue unrolled an invitation.
Tomorrow Night — Tamatsubaki Theater
Dedication Performance of the Shakara Serpent God
Specially Inviting the Demon Slayer to Attend
"Tamatsubaki Theater. So demons still have the leisure to enjoy kabuki."
Sui's voice was cold.
"Oh my, how rude. Are demons not human once?" the little snake said, flicking its tongue. "For creatures like us, who merely eat human flesh, the real monsters are those devils still wearing human skin. Demon Slayer, I'm very curious to see what you'll do when you meet those devils… no, I will make sure you do."
"The devils of Osaka have devoured far more humans than we ever have."
It grinned hideously.
"When that moment comes, what will you do?"
Sui's blade flashed through the snake's head. This, too, was only a construct of a Blood Demon Art, and once cut by a Nichirin blade, it crumbled into ash.
At that exact moment, she heard footsteps.
They were coming from the distance. Along with them came whistles and sirens.
The police.
The house was already surrounded. At the front stood the chief inspector, face tense, pistol raised toward the entrance of the House of the Wisteria Crest. Searchlights from the police cars crossed over one another, stripping away every blind spot outside the house, illuminating even the blood left on splintered boards. Whoever was inside had no route left to escape the encirclement.
Police Chief Yasukawa Reijin had received a report not long ago. The informant had been Fujiwara himself—a distinguished guest of the prefectural governor. According to him, they had come under attack in their home, and the assailant was the very killer responsible for the dozens of disappearances across Osaka. Having supposedly discovered the culprit's trail, they claimed the murderer had come to silence the Fujiwara household.
According to Fujiwara's description, the culprit was a woman carrying a sword, marked by a peachwood hairpin and a dark blue skirt.
Though Yasukawa had many doubts—how could a single woman possibly have murdered so many people, and was the suspect truly hiding inside this residence they now surrounded?—none of that changed his duty.
His duty was to arrest the suspect.
"All units in position, Chief Yasukawa! Awaiting orders!"
"Good."
Yasukawa nodded and lifted the speaking tube.
"The person inside, listen carefully! There are more than twenty pistols trained on every door and window!"
His roar pierced through the rain.
"Mr. Fujiwara has identified you by secret report as the true culprit behind the serial disappearances!"
"Surrender at once! Surrender at once! If you abandon resistance, we guarantee your safety!"
Inside, Sui crouched beneath the attic's blind angle—the one place the doors and windows could not cover from every direction.
This demon was abnormally cunning. After abducting Mr. Fujiwara and Lady Kyoka, it had immediately forged letters and framed Sui as the culprit. Demons alone would never be enough to stop a swordsman, but human society could.
Sui gripped the red wooden scabbard.
Twenty pistols, all firing from different angles.
Could she react to all of them at once?
A body of flesh and blood would suffer badly if struck by bullets. Worse still, she had been invited to the kabuki performance tomorrow night. She needed to preserve her condition.
Sui adjusted her breathing. Dark violet sparks crackled across the surface of her haori.
"Thunder Breathing, Second Form: Rice Spirit."
"You have three minutes to throw down your sword and surrender! The forensics unit is already on its way—your fingerprints inside the governor's vehicle and—"
The chief inspector's shout was swallowed by thunder.
Not natural thunder, but the explosive burst of Sui's crimson haori tearing through the air. Lightning blew apart the wooden house and disrupted the police line's vision.
"Fire! Fire! She's trying to escape!"
At the same instant, muzzle flashes erupted all around the encirclement.
Sui's toes brushed across the wreckage of the house. Under full concentration, every officer's pull of the trigger slowed in her sight to a crawl. Her haori swayed, her long skirt flared, and beneath the downpour her body moved like a dance—supple, fluid, evading the bullets' trajectories, while the blinding searchlights gathering on her became her stage.
For a brief instant, even the officers who had fired froze in shock.
It was too beautiful.
So beautiful they could not believe such a woman could truly be the killer.
Crack.
Sui slashed through the air.
Her strike shattered the searchlights with perfect precision, plunging the scene into darkness.
Before the officers could adjust to the sudden blackness, Sui used the chance to spring up off a wisteria tree.
"She's in the trees!" someone shouted, firing at the swaying branches.
"Move! Don't let the suspect get away!"
Chief Yasakawa's furious shouting and the scream of police whistles wove together into a net—but even that could not catch the streak of crimson vanishing into the rainy night.
The next morning, the daily papers hit the streets.
Across the city, people clutching copies of the Osaka Daily News stared in shock at the bold black headline.
POLICE MIDNIGHT ENCIRCLEMENT FAILS! BLOODBATH DISCOVERED AT FUJIWARA RESIDENCE!
By Staff Reporter Kobayashi Fumio, Osaka Kita Ward
At approximately eleven o'clock last night, a violent police operation took place near Nishiten on the outskirts of Kita Ward. According to Special Investigation Chief Yasakawa Reijin of the Metropolitan Police, more than thirty officers were dispatched to surround the residence of the well-known philanthropist Mr. Fujiwara Gentetsu, targeting a young woman named Sui, suspected in the serial disappearance case.
With torrential rain falling at the time of the incident, intense gunfire reportedly broke out from within the hot spring estate hidden among the wisteria groves. Fifty-six spent Type 14 pistol casings and the remains of police searchlights severed by a bladed weapon were recovered at the scene. Even more shocking, a century-old wisteria tree in the courtyard had been violently destroyed, though the exact cause remains under investigation.
"The suspect possesses abnormal physical abilities. This failed arrest is absolutely not due to negligence on the part of the police,"
Chief Yasakawa declared at a press conference, displaying timber and tree trunks pierced as if by lightning. The crowd erupted in astonishment.
"Wow! This wanted lady is amazing!" cried a bespectacled schoolgirl, holding up the newspaper while a group of classmates crowded around her. "She cut through a searchlight barehanded! She's like some female sword hero from a period drama!"
Elsewhere, in an office at the factory district, a businessman snapped his newspaper and scowled.
"Yasakawa, you idiot! How could you say something like that publicly? Now everyone's terrified. Until that madwoman is caught, the workers won't dare come in—and now they're demanding wage increases too!"
"How could it be her?" muttered another man, frowning deeply as his wife and child stood behind him. His wife gasped when she saw the article.
"Isn't this the woman who saved us that night? This… this has to be some mistake!"
Beneath the shadow of an eave, Sui lowered the brim of her hat.
The still-damp ink of the Osaka Daily News lay spread across her knees.
While the rest of the city reeled at the sensational news from last night, Sui's attention fixed only on one tiny line tucked away in the corner of the page.
Special Performance at Tamatsubaki Theater
Rare Attraction! Extraordinary New Production: "The Shakara Serpent God"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 175)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 126)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter134)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 87
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 79
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 64
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 73
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 45
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 49
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 45
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 45
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 31
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 27
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 26
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