Sunlight filtered down through the gaps in the treetops, scattering into sharp, dappled fragments across the ground.
The mountain path before the Shrine had gone utterly still. The only sounds were the soft sizzle of burning hair — and Sakagami Ketsura's ragged, terrified breathing.
The Sacred Arrow had struck the earth three inches from her feet. Its fletching still trembled. The white spiritual light blazing from it was brighter than sunlight, scorching a small crater into the dirt.
Kōbe Hikaru released his hold completely.
He stood, brushed the dust from the hem of his clothes — slow, unhurried, as though the person who had just pinned a female yōkai to the ground had been someone else entirely.
Sakagami Ketsura still didn't dare move.
Her golden slit-pupils were fixed on the shrine maiden not far away, her body still trembling faintly.
Kikyō lowered her bow hand. White robes and red hakama stood unmoving in the faint breeze, still as a mountain.
She didn't look at the yōkai on the ground. She looked only at Kōbe Hikaru.
Her expression appeared calm.
But...
"Can you stand?"
She asked.
Her voice was flat, emptied of any emotion.
Kōbe Hikaru rolled his wrist. "Not hurt. The hair was just... difficult to get untangled."
"Difficult to get untangled."
Kikyō repeated the phrase.
Her gaze swept across Kōbe Hikaru's chest, where a few snapped black hairs still clung to the fabric.
"Indeed," she said. "Quite thoroughly tangled."
Kōbe Hikaru paused mid-motion.
He could tell.
This shrine maiden was displeased.
No expression on her face, not a ripple in those dark eyes — and yet the air around her had thickened into a palpable, low-pressure front.
Fortunately.
The current Kōbe Hikaru had had a moment to think, and he was perfectly unrattled.
His emotional intelligence was not low. He could read what Kikyō was thinking. When something needed addressing, he knew how to address it.
"It was a tactic," he explained. "She can manipulate her hair to absorb demon-qi — the only way to cut off her options was close-quarters combat. What just happened was in order to —"
"To subdue the enemy," Kikyō cut in, her tone preternaturally calm.
"I know."
"Then you —"
"I was only thinking."
She turned away, and her gaze drifted to the distant mountain ridges.
"You should change your clothes."
"Dirty."
One word.
Crisp and clean — and yet it landed like she was chewing on ice.
Kōbe Hikaru said nothing more.
At this point, explaining would only look like an excuse. And an excuse would only look like an admission.
He turned and looked down at Sakagami Ketsura on the ground.
The hair-manipulating yōkai was still slumped in the dirt. That dark-red bodysuit had been pulled even further into disarray by the earlier struggle — the neckline gaping wide, revealing an expanse of pale skin. Paired with that startled, fragile face, she cut a rather pitiable figure.
But neither of the two present — one living, one a ghost — had any interest in being moved by it.
"Stop pretending," Kōbe Hikaru said, picking up Muramasa from the ground. He leveled the blade at the tip of her nose. "Show your true form."
Sakagami Ketsura bit her lip, eyes darting.
"I don't know what you're talking about... I'm a yōkai, this is just what I look like..."
"Still playing dumb?"
Kōbe Hikaru smiled.
"When I had you pinned just now, I felt it."
Sakagami Ketsura's face went scarlet. She clapped a hand to her chest. "You — you pervert —"
Kōbe Hikaru: "..."
She was still acting.
The atmospheric pressure on Kikyō's end dropped another notch.
Kōbe Hikaru felt a chill crawl up his spine and hastily added: "I felt the source of your demon-qi."
"A comb. That's what you are, isn't it?"
The color drained instantly from Sakagami Ketsura's face.
That was her fatal weakness.
She was a yōkai born from a comb — and that comb was her life. Destroy it, and she would be annihilated, body and soul.
"How... how do you know..."
"Blood."
Kōbe Hikaru gestured at the faint red haze still lingering in the air.
"My bloodmist already seeped into it. That comb is soaked in my scent now."
"All I need to do —"
He made a slow, deliberate fist.
"— is will it, and ghost-fire will ignite on your true body."
"No!"
Sakagami Ketsura cried out.
The act was over. The performance was done.
Her body began to turn translucent, like a candle melting away. Countless strands of black hair retracted, vanishing into a thicket of bushes nearby.
A moment later.
A red comb dropped to the ground. Its shape was ancient and simple, its teeth jagged as fangs.
That was Sakagami Ketsura's true form.
Kōbe Hikaru bent down and picked it up.
The teeth rattled and clacked between his fingers, as if begging for mercy.
[Sakagami's Comb]
[Quality: Demon Artifact]
[Current Affection: -30 (Hostility / Fear / Humiliation)]
[Evaluation: A comb once used to dress the hair of the dead. It gained consciousness after absorbing far too much lingering resentment. It is terrified of you. It also hates you.]
Kōbe Hikaru raised an eyebrow.
Still negative thirty... In a way, that qualified as a blood feud.
But it didn't matter.
He turned the red comb idly in his hands. The texture was smooth and warm — like jade, but with a faint undertone of bone.
"So this is your true form?"
He asked.
The comb said nothing — but the carved red skull on it opened its mouth, and Sakagami Ketsura's voice came out.
Muffled. On the verge of tears.
"Let go of me..."
"Don't squeeze so hard... you'll snap it..."
Kōbe Hikaru: "..."
Somehow that came out incredibly wrong.
"Got what you came for?"
Kikyō walked over.
She stopped three paces away, not coming closer. Her gaze landed on the comb in Kōbe Hikaru's hand, and her brow furrowed slightly. "That's the yōkai?"
"Yes."
Kōbe Hikaru held the comb out toward her. "Want a look?"
Kikyō stepped back half a pace.
"No need," she said.
"Dirty."
That word again.
Kōbe Hikaru gave a helpless sigh.
He tucked the comb into his breast pocket.
"Let's go," he said. "This thing might come in handy. Who knows — maybe I'll use it to comb my hair someday."
Kikyō looked at him.
It was a complicated look.
The look of someone regarding a hopeless deviant.
"That is a comb for the dead," she reminded him.
"I am dead," Kōbe Hikaru said, unbothered.
He adjusted Hiraikotsu on his back, and set off with long strides. "Come on, we need to move. The sooner we return Hiraikotsu, the better."
Kikyō stayed where she was.
She watched his retreating figure.
That grey silhouette — Hiraikotsu strapped across his back, a comb-turned-yōkai tucked in his breast pocket, a bloodthirsty cursed blade at his hip.
No matter how she looked at it, he did not resemble a respectable person.
But...
She glanced down at her own hand.
When she had drawn the bow just now, her fingers had been a little stiff.
Her heart had stirred.
Because that yōkai had pressed so close?
Or because... he hadn't pushed her away?
"..."
Kikyō exhaled softly, and pressed those unruly thoughts back down.
She was a shrine maiden. Her heart had to be still.
"Wait up."
She called out, and followed after him.
Her pace was slightly quicker than usual. She overtook Kōbe Hikaru and walked ahead, her posture straight and composed, black hair swaying at her back.
Kōbe Hikaru thought for a moment.
She's still not over it?
He quickened his step to catch up.
"Kikyō."
"..."
"That arrow of yours was dead on."
"..."
"Truly. If it weren't for that shot keeping her in check, the comb spirit definitely would've bolted."
"..."
"Are you angry?"
Kikyō stopped walking.
She turned her head. That cool, strikingly beautiful face held not a trace of anger.
Only calm.
"No," she said.
"I was only thinking."
"Thinking about what?"
Kikyō's gaze dropped to where the comb was tucked inside his breast pocket.
"When you use that thing to comb your hair in the future," she said.
"Make sure you stay far away from me."
With that, she turned and walked on.
White robes, red hakama — a retreating figure of quiet, swaying grace.
[The Shikon Jewel — Naohi tells you: 'She's jealous.']
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