The bloodmist drifted low across the ground. Sakagami Ketsura stared at the red particles suspended in the air, and for the first time, the color drained from her face.
"You think a little fog like this can do anything to me?"
She forced composure into her voice. "My hair absorbs demon-qi. Your blood is no different—"
The words died in her throat.
Kōbe Hikaru smiled.
That smile on his pale face — stranger than anything that had come before — was somehow worse.
"Who said I was going to attack you with the blood?"
He raised his fingers.
His arms were still bound, his body still pinned — but this much movement, at least, he could manage.
"Ghost-Fire Wisp."
He murmured the name softly.
It was a basic demon art. A skill he had learned naturally after becoming a Ghost Warrior. Unremarkable — just the foxfire that a Ghost Warrior kindled from his own demon-qi.
But now —
Every mote of bloodmist hanging in the air ignited at once.
Pale blue ghost-fire bloomed from the crimson haze, point by point, like countless fireflies dancing through a night sky.
Beautiful. And utterly lethal.
"This is —!"
Sakagami Ketsura's pupils snapped shut to pinpoints.
She finally understood. The bloodmist was never a weapon.
It was a medium. It was fuel.
"No —"
She tried to pull back the hair strands spread across the entire area.
Too late.
The pale blue ghost-fire spread along the bloodmist, expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye.
And the bloodmist was everywhere.
It clung to the hair strands coiled around Kōbe Hikaru's body. It saturated the hair-web she had spent half a day laying down.
It covered every last inch of ground beneath her feet.
Whatever they were made of, hair was still hair — and hair was flammable.
A sizzling sound rose up, quiet and relentless. The sound of burning hair. It wasn't loud. But it turned Sakagami Ketsura's face instantly, utterly white.
"No —!"
She scrambled desperately to retract the ignited strands.
But ghost-fire was nothing like ordinary flame. It burned on Kōbe Hikaru's demon-qi, on the bloodmist itself, on everything unnatural that the mist had touched.
The burning strands thrashed violently, like countless dying black serpents, filling the air with the acrid stench of scorched hair.
The coils binding Kōbe Hikaru went slack.
Not because she willed it — because they were burning. Because they were turning to ash. They simply couldn't hold their shape anymore.
"Free at last."
Kōbe Hikaru rolled his wrist. His sword handle was back in his grip.
But in that same instant — a single heartbeat —
His red eyes swept toward Sakagami Ketsura, surrounded and engulfed by the roaring flames, and a thought surfaced in his mind.
Sakagami Ketsura.
A yōkai whose true form was a comb. An object.
And a comb was a non-living thing... which meant — could an existence like this also fall within his system's classification range?
Could it mean he might be able to attempt... an approach with her?
Yōkai born from objects were no rarer than yōkai born from incorporeal beings — and this was, in fact, the first time since his transmigration that he had ever encountered this kind.
The thought came, and he acted on it.
Kōbe Hikaru never hesitated.
The next second, he charged straight at Sakagami Ketsura.
Not [Phantom Step]— just the most direct, straightforward rush he had.
And he let go of his sword.
He needed to try.
He needed — contact.
"You —!"
Sakagami Ketsura tried to fall back, but her legs buckled beneath her.
Those hair strands spread across the entire area were extensions of her power — conduits of her demon-qi. When they had been burned away in such vast quantities, her demon-qi had hemorrhaged with them.
Kōbe Hikaru's hand closed around her wrist. His other hand came down on her shoulder.
Their bodies crashed together.
She toppled backward.
He came down on top of her.
Thud —
Her back hit the ground. Dust billowed up around them.
Sakagami Ketsura lay flat on the earth, Kōbe Hikaru pinning her down. Their faces were inches apart.
Breath tangled between them.
She could smell the cold, iron reek of blood on him, laced with the bone-deep chill that clung to every Ghost Warrior.
He could smell the scorched undertone that clung to her now.
Hm. Smells like chicken. Crispy.
"You —"
Sakagami Ketsura tried to struggle.
But Kōbe Hikaru's hands had both her wrists pinned, pressing her flat against the ground. Her whole body was swallowed beneath him.
That thin, dark-red fabric was crumpled and bunched against her skin. The two soft swells at her chest heaved with her rapid, ragged breaths, straining at the neckline. Her waist was crushed under his weight, bare skin pressed flush against his abdomen. Her thighs tried instinctively to close — but his knee was wedged between them, leaving her with nothing to do but clamp weakly around his leg.
"Let go!"
Panic had crept into her voice.
This was wrong.
She was the predator.
She was the one who pressed prey beneath her and drained them dry.
Why — why had it flipped?
"Let go of me —!"
Her hair surged wildly, trying to coil around Kōbe Hikaru again.
But what remained was still burning. It couldn't gather. It couldn't hold shape.
Kōbe Hikaru looked down at her. At this distance, those crimson eyes were especially arresting.
"What was that you said just now?"
His voice was perfectly calm.
"You were going to tie me up and wait for that shrine maiden to come back?"
"You were going to drain every last drop of my life force in front of her?"
He tilted his head slightly. The movement stirred a breath of cold air that drifted across her throat.
"Now what?"
"Hm?"
Sakagami Ketsura went rigid.
She could feel his hands locked around her wrists, pressing down with crushing force.
She could feel his knee wedged between her legs, immovable.
She could feel his weight bearing down on her, squeezing the air from her lungs.
And more than all of that — she could feel it.
The dangerous intent radiating off him.
Not killing intent.
It was...
Hunger. Coveting.
"You — what are you trying to —"
Her voice had gone slightly unsteady.
Kōbe Hikaru didn't answer.
He simply looked at her.
And then —
[Sakagami Ketsura]
[Quality: Object-type (Comb)]
[Affection: -30 (Hostility — Maximum)]
It actually works?!
Kōbe Hikaru's eyes lit up.
And in that exact moment —
"Kōbe Hikaru."
A voice came from nearby.
Clear and flat, and yet carrying something that sent a chill crawling up the spine.
Kōbe Hikaru froze. He seemed to realize, all at once, just how questionable his current position looked.
The Ghost Warrior turned his head.
Kikyō stood not far away.
White robes, red hakama, longbow in hand. Black hair loose over her shoulders, catching the faint shimmer of sunlight.
Her expression was perfectly calm — calm in the way that was a little frightening. Those dark eyes moved from Kōbe Hikaru to the yōkai pinned beneath him.
Silence.
A silence like death.
The scene was, admittedly, not easy to explain.
He was on top of a scantily-clad female yōkai, one hand pressed against her, the whole posture carrying implications that the imagination could run very far with.
Fortunately —
He was a Ghost Warrior.
The advantages of a dead man's face made themselves fully apparent in this moment.
Kōbe Hikaru's expression remained entirely unruffled. Not a flicker of guilt on that pale face; those red eyes, still as standing water.
He climbed off Sakagami Ketsura with the unhurried ease of a man doing something perfectly routine. Got to his feet.
"This is a yōkai. One that came to attack me."
"I can see that."
Kikyō gave a single nod.
Still calm. Still expressionless.
But something, Kōbe Hikaru felt, was off.
Fortunately, he was calm enough himself.
On the ground, Sakagami Ketsura seized the moment and tried to bolt — but the instant she pushed herself up, a streak of white light struck the earth directly before her.
A sacred arrow.
It buried itself three inches from her feet, its shaft still humming.
"Don't move."
Kikyō's voice was calm. "Move again, and the next arrow won't be a warning."
Sakagami Ketsura went completely still.
She looked at the arrow. Then she looked at the white-robed shrine maiden standing a short distance away.
It was over.
This shrine maiden's spiritual power...
Was overwhelming.
So overwhelming that Sakagami Ketsura had no desire whatsoever to face her head-on.
So overwhelming that even the thought of fleeing had vanished entirely from her mind.
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