The main hall of the castle's keep.
Kōbe Hikaru pushed open the heavy wooden doors, and a smell hit him at once — sandalwood incense tangled with the reek of wine.
He stepped inside and let his gaze move across the room.
The hall was even more opulent than he'd imagined.
The tatami mats were woven from premium igusa rush — soft underfoot, each panel worth enough to feed a village family for a year. The wooden shoji screens were painted with landscapes and birds, gilded with gold leaf as a base coat, blazing with an eye-watering gleam when the sunlight came through. The ceiling beams were carved with intricate cloud motifs and lacquered in vermilion, as vivid as if the paint had been applied that morning.
This kind of display wouldn't have raised an eyebrow in the great lords' castles of Kyoto.
But for a minor retainer who controlled a mere six villages —
It was obscene.
Kōbe Hikaru thought of the villagers outside the walls — skin stretched tight over bone, hollow with hunger. He thought of the children he'd seen huddled shivering in corners.
Then he looked back at all this gold and splendor spread before him.
Ha.
"Please, be seated."
Suda Shigenobu sat elevated on the dais, leaning forward slightly, a smile plastered across his face. The warmth of it went no further than his lips — his eyes were busy calculating behind it. "I am Suda Shigenobu, lord of this domain."
"Word has reached me that your distinguished company dispatched the evil demon that had plagued Ishimura for so many years. A deed of the highest virtue, truly."
Kōbe Hikaru said nothing.
His gaze passed over Suda Shigenobu's round, fleshy face and settled on the wall behind him.
Something was hanging there.
Large. Yellow. Curved like a boomerang.
Its surface carried a faint, subtle sheen — the unmistakable texture of demon bone.
Hiraikotsu.
So it really is here.
The thought surfaced in Kōbe Hikaru's mind. He let nothing show. He simply settled himself down on the tatami with easy, unhurried calm.
Kikyō sat at his side, her white robes and red hakama impeccably arranged, her longbow resting across her knees.
Nurarihyon leaned against the pillar by the doorway, pipe stem between his teeth, the picture of someone with absolutely nowhere else to be.
"Might I ask where you have all traveled from?"
Suda Shigenobu kept up his pleasantries, eyes darting with quick appraisal. "By the young lady's attire, she appears to be a shrine maiden? Which shrine, if I may ask?"
"A wandering shrine maiden, from the village of Kaede in Musashi."
Kikyō's voice was level.
The term "wandering shrine maiden" had first come into use at the dawn of the Warring States era — it referred to shrine maidens driven by hardship to travel ceaselessly, with no fixed shrine to call their own. Over time it had come to encompass all rural shrine maidens, all those without a specific deity to serve.
Kikyō was one such maiden.
Such shrine maidens were, more often than not, regarded as low in standing.
But when he heard that self-introduction, something shifted in Suda Shigenobu's expression.
The look of a man who recognized the name.
"Kikyō?"
"Why — the most powerful shrine maiden of the Warring States era herself!"
His tone became markedly more deferential, and he bowed forward from his seat.
"Your reputation precedes you — a great honor, a great honor indeed!"
"To what do I owe the privilege of Lady Kikyō's visit to my humble castle?"
Kōbe Hikaru watched the short, round castle lord, and the corner of his mouth curved slightly.
The privilege of your visit?
We're here to take your head, obviously.
But he didn't say that.
"We're tracking something down."
Kōbe Hikaru spoke.
"Oh? And what might that be?"
Suda Shigenobu's eyes narrowed — the particular look of a merchant sensing a deal.
"Hiraikotsu."
"Hiraikotsu?"
Suda Shigenobu arranged his face into a picture of blank confusion.
He seemed not to know what the thing hanging behind him was called.
"What would that be? I'm afraid I'm rather ignorant of the matter — I've never heard that name."
"Is that so?"
Kōbe Hikaru raised his hand and pointed at the wall behind him.
"Then what, exactly, is that thing hanging on the wall at your back?"
The color drained from Suda Shigenobu's face.
Now he understood. Now he heard it clearly enough.
The atmosphere in the hall turned to iron.
The attendants standing on both sides tightened their grips on their sword hilts. In the corners, several men dressed in onmyōji robes straightened and began forming hand seals.
Kōbe Hikaru's Spirit Sight talent let him feel the ripples of spiritual power coming off those figures.
Weak.
Compared to Kikyō, it was almost pitiable.
"What is it you want?"
The smile was still on Suda Shigenobu's face, but it had gone rigid.
"That object was offered to me ten days ago by an old man passing through. I merely accepted it as a curiosity — I have no knowledge of where it came from."
"If you wish to have it, I can certainly…"
"Offered to you?"
Kōbe Hikaru cut him off.
"A Demon Slayer. One arm severed, grievously wounded, passing through your domain — and your soldiers stopped him."
"He entrusted everything he had left in this world to that weapon. And you're telling me he 'offered' it to you?"
Kōbe Hikaru's voice was quiet. It still made Suda Shigenobu's face lock completely still.
"You… how do you know any of that?"
Kōbe Hikaru didn't answer. He simply rose to his feet.
He knew, of course, because he had just 'asked' the castle gate for those details on the way in.
His blade was still in its scabbard.
But the killing intent had already begun to spread.
"Before he died, he asked me to deliver the Shikon Jewel to someone worthy of protecting it."
"He also asked me to pass a message to his successors — that he was sorry."
"Do you know why he was sorry?"
Kōbe Hikaru walked toward the dais, one step at a time. "Because he failed to bring back Hiraikotsu — the demon-slaying weapon passed down through his line for generations."
"Because a creature like you stole his family's heirloom from him."
"Because when he died, he had nothing left to leave to those who came after him."
Suda Shigenobu had gone the color of bleached paper.
He finally understood. The young man standing before him had not come to claim a reward.
He had come to claim a life.
"Guards!"
He shrieked, scrambling backward. "Seize that madman!"
The attendants on both sides drew their blades and charged.
The onmyōji began their incantations, spiritual power gathering and thickening in the air.
But —
Kōbe Hikaru's hand settled on the hilt of his sword.
[Cursed Blade Muramasa (Max Affection) is excited. It says the lord must be very well-marbled.]
"You're not wrong," Kōbe Hikaru murmured in reply.
He drew.
A flash of steel.
The two attendants leading the charge hadn't even registered what happened before they were already crumpling into pools of their own blood.
"Kill him! Kill him now!"
Suda Shigenobu's voice had broken into a shriek.
The onmyōji's spells finally took shape — bolts of spiritual light in every color surging toward Kōbe Hikaru. Binding arts, sealing arts, and several that looked like offensive spirit projectiles.
Kōbe Hikaru didn't dodge. He didn't need to.
Because someone moved faster than any of those onmyōji.
Twang.
A bowstring sang.
A streak of white light shot out from behind him, detonating in midair and scattering into countless fine threads of light.
Those threads spread like a spider's web, enveloping the entire hall in an instant.
Every spell the onmyōji had unleashed — the moment it touched those threads —
Collapsed.
Spiritual power suppressed.
Crushed.
Annihilated utterly.
Kōbe Hikaru glanced back.
Kikyō stood exactly where she had been, bow still held in the follow-through of her release. Her white robes rippled in the luminous wake of her power, her black hair lifted by the invisible surge of air.
Brilliant white light blazed from every inch of her.
The light was so intense that even Kōbe Hikaru had to squint against it.
So this is the strongest shrine maiden of the Warring States era at full power.
The corner of his mouth pulled up.
As expected.
With her here, there was nothing to fear.
He turned back to face Suda Shigenobu.
The short, round castle lord had collapsed onto the dais, his face white as a death shroud.
"No… please…"
His voice was trembling.
"I'll give you Hiraikotsu back… and money… a great deal of money…"
Kōbe Hikaru did not stop walking.
"You know," he said.
"I came here only meaning to take back Hiraikotsu. Maybe frighten you a little along the way."
This was a lie.
Kōbe Hikaru had come here to kill him. But that didn't stop him from saying it.
"But when I entered the city just now, I saw some things."
"Mountains of rice piled up along the streets. Fine wine and rich food filling the shops. And outside the walls, in those villages — children gnawing on tree bark."
"So I changed my mind."
Kōbe Hikaru raised his blade.
The tip hovered at Suda Shigenobu's throat.
"Today."
"I am here to kill you."
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