The castle was in chaos.
Suda Shigenobu's severed head hung from the flagpole above the castle gate, blood still dripping down the pole, staining the wood a deep, dark red.
The castle's samurai were rudderless.
Their lord was dead — dead without warning, dead cleanly and without ceremony. Not even given the chance to raise a hand in his own defense before some self-proclaimed Ghost Warrior had taken his head in a single stroke.
What made it worse was that the man had simply walked away.
No one had dared give chase.
The shrine maiden in white robes and red hakama had stood at his side, and her mere presence had made every onmyōji in the hall struggle to draw breath. Chasing opponents of that caliber was suicide, plain and simple.
And so —
The opportunists came crawling out of the woodwork.
"Move! While no one's watching — get to the storeroom!"
A handful of ashigaru in battered armor hunched low as they scrambled toward the storehouse behind the keep. They were Suda Shigenobu's personal retainers — the sort who spent their days collecting his taxes and roughing up villagers on his behalf, men well-practiced in the art of making other people's lives miserable.
Their lord was barely cold, and not one of them was thinking about revenge. Their first thought was to grab what they could and run.
The storehouse door was kicked open.
Inside, crates of copper coin were stacked floor to ceiling beside bulging sacks of rice, along with every manner of object that had been squeezed out of the local people over the years.
"Jackpot! We've hit the jackpot!"
The leader's eyes glazed over with greed. He lunged forward and threw his arms around a crate of coins.
Then something closed around his throat.
Not a hand.
Hair.
Black hair — slender, sinuous, moving like a living snake. It coiled up from behind him and drew tighter and tighter until his face had gone purple-red and his eyes were bulging from their sockets.
"What — "
The other ashigaru hadn't even registered what was happening.
More dark shapes flashed through the air.
Fwip. Fwip. Fwip.
Three men's throats opened. The black strands had passed through like blades. Blood fountained out, spattering across the mounds of coin.
"So noisy."
A languid voice drifted in from the storehouse doorway.
"Chittering and squeaking like a nest of rats."
The surviving ashigaru went rigid. They didn't even dare turn their heads.
From the voice alone they could tell it was a woman.
A very young woman.
And indeed, standing in the doorway behind them was exactly that.
She had a fine figure — lithe and curved in all the right places, dressed in a dark crimson shinobi outfit with a plunging collar and a hem that barely grazed her thighs, leaving a generous expanse of pale skin on display. Her waist was slender, her hips full and round, the fabric tracing a silhouette in the moonlight that might have set pulses racing — if anyone had dared look.
Her face was pretty and delicately featured, with a hint of something almost girlish about it; calling her a young girl wouldn't have been far off. Her hair was a short, jet-black crop.
But what made the skin crawl was what surrounded her: dense, writhing masses of pitch-black hair. It billowed around her like a dark flame, stirring without any wind to move it, every individual strand alive and coiling like a venomous serpent.
"A— a monster!"
Finally. One ashigaru screamed and threw himself sideways, bolting for the door.
He didn't make it two steps.
A strand of hair shot from behind him and punched clean through his back, straight through his heart. It twisted inside him for a moment, then withdrew.
It came out wet with blood — and something else, something viscous and unnameable.
"Disgusting."
The woman's nose wrinkled. She flicked the bloodied strand away with a look of open distaste.
"This quality of blood — bitter and rank."
Her gaze swept across the corpses on the storehouse floor, then across the mountains of plundered wealth, and finally came to rest on an empty hook set into the wall.
Something had hung there.
It was gone now.
"The Demon Slayer clan's Hiraikotsu… and the scent of the Shikon Jewel, the legendary one…"
The woman murmured to herself, her eyes narrowing.
Those eyes were gold. The pupils were vertical slits — like a cat's, or a serpent's.
"So I'm a step behind?"
This woman had come for the Shikon Jewel. That much was beyond question.
Just as Kōbe Hikaru had anticipated: the night Kikyō's arrows had blazed across the sky, more than a few demons had been drawn to the light.
She turned and walked back toward the door.
Her wild, upswept hair drifted through the air behind her like a moving shadow.
"Kōbe Hikaru… and the most powerful shrine maiden who guards the village, Kikyō…"
She murmured the two names to herself — information gleaned from the screams of the ashigaru just moments ago.
"Interesting."
"They can't have gone far, can they?"
She ran the tip of her tongue across her lips.
"Before that 'Lord' shows up — let's go find them."
The demoness walked out through the castle gate.
Behind her, the storehouse lay in ruin, and several bodies that had been thoroughly drained of blood were sprawled among the wreckage.
Kōbe Hikaru.
That name would begin to spread through this region starting today.
As the one who killed the castle lord.
As the demon who dared raise a hand against those in human power.
And as —
The prey of a certain demoness.
…
Outside the castle walls.
On the mountain road heading north.
Kōbe Hikaru sneezed.
"Coming down with something?" Nurarihyon glanced back at him from up ahead, a note of genuine puzzlement in his expression. "Can a Ghost Warrior even catch a cold?"
"No idea."
Kōbe Hikaru rubbed his nose, unbothered. "Probably someone talking about me behind my back."
"Whatever they're saying, it can't be anything good."
Nurarihyon shrugged.
"You left your name at the scene. Get ready for trouble to come knocking."
"Bring it on."
Kōbe Hikaru reached back and patted the Hiraikotsu strapped across his back.
The thing was a genuine burden to carry.
Demon bone through and through — even just having it on his back, he could feel the hostile, aggressive demon-qi coiled inside it.
Still, the affection system had already registered a response.
[Hiraikotsu]
[Quality: Demon Weapon]
[Current Affection: 0 (Stranger)]
[It was sleeping. You woke it up. It's annoyed, and it thinks the ghost-qi smell coming off you is overwhelming.]
A short temper, apparently.
Kōbe Hikaru wasn't worried. The affection unlock was already done. The road ahead was long — plenty of time to work on it.
Kikyō walked at the front of the group and hadn't said a word.
But her steps were light.
Like someone who had finally set down the last weight they'd been carrying.
"By the way."
Kōbe Hikaru spoke up.
"How do you maintain Hiraikotsu?"
Kikyō turned her head and looked at him.
"Why do you ask?"
"It has to go back to the Demon Slayer clan eventually. Should at least return it in decent condition."
Kōbe Hikaru stated this as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"…Wipe it down with clean water. That's enough." Kikyō said. "It was forged from demon bone — it doesn't need oiling, and it actually reacts badly to human grease."
"What about demon grease?"
"…That probably won't work either."
There was a slight hesitation in Kikyō's tone.
Kōbe Hikaru nodded.
Clean water. Simple enough.
He glanced back at the enormous boomerang slung across his shoulders, already turning over in his mind how he might go about raising its affection.
Talk to it?
Hard to say whether the thing understood speech.
Keep it company?
That was workable — they had several days of road ahead of them, after all.
Feed it?
Feed it what, exactly?
Water?
"What are you thinking about?"
Kikyō's voice cut through his train of thought.
"How to keep this big thing happy."
Kōbe Hikaru answered honestly.
Kikyō looked at the Hiraikotsu on his back, then looked at his expression.
"…You always pay this much attention to your weapons?"
"Force of habit."
Kōbe Hikaru said it lightly.
"A weapon is a warrior's second life. Treat it well, and when it matters most, it'll return the favor."
Kikyō fell quiet.
She found herself thinking of the Cursed Blade Muramasa — still hanging at Kōbe Hikaru's hip where it always was.
That cursed blade, in his hands, had always performed far beyond what its quality alone should have allowed.
Perhaps…
That was why.
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