The mountain path was rough going.
Especially when you were carrying a bone larger than a grown person on your back.
Hiraikotsu was no lightweight. It pressed down on his shoulders with a dense, grinding weight, and the bone-deep chill radiating from a material forged out of fused demon remains seeped down along his spine — like carrying a thousand-year block of glacial ice.
Kōbe Hikaru, for his part, didn't particularly mind.
For a Ghost Warrior's constitution, this level of weight was roughly equivalent to a light resistance workout.
The real challenge was having to build affection at the same time.
[Hiraikotsu: Affection +1]
[Current Affection: 5 (Marginally Tolerable)]
[It thinks the way you wiped the dust off it earlier was acceptable — but that was the bare minimum. It still has no interest in talking to you.]
This thing really did have a temper.
Kōbe Hikaru reached up and gave the wide bone blade a pat. Smooth. Hard.
"We're almost at your home. Show some goodwill."
Hiraikotsu did not respond.
Up ahead, Kikyō had stopped.
They had reached a stretch of hills where sheer cliffs rose on either side, leaving only a narrow goat-trail threading between them.
Wind funneled out of the ravine, carrying a distinct smell with it.
Sulfur, for keeping insects away — the kind used year-round by people who lived rough in the wilderness. Medicinal herbs. And underneath it all, a faint tinge of blood.
It was a smell that only came from a place that dealt in the corpses of demons.
A demon-slayer's village.
They had arrived.
"Wait."
Kikyō raised her hand, white sleeve lifting on the wind.
Kōbe Hikaru stopped.
"What is it?"
"A barrier."
Kikyō studied the empty mountain pass ahead of them. "Someone has set a barrier outside the village. It's not the demon-slayers' work."
In this world, in this country, in this era — the divisions between human vocations were sharply defined. Demon-slayers were a different breed entirely from sorcerers and shrine maidens.
Demon-slayers excelled at physical exorcism. Whether Hiraikotsu or a kusarigama, their approach was always the same: drive out evil through force.
Spiritual barriers were the domain of sorcerers and shrine maidens.
Kōbe Hikaru activated Spirit Sight — the ability granted through his mental link with the Shikon Jewel's Naohi.
Sure enough, a thin membrane of light hung across his field of vision, sealing the mountain pass completely.
The spiritual energy flowing through it was exceptionally pure. Not quite at Kikyō's level, but by human standards, it was unquestionably high-tier.
"Looks like we have a guest inside already," Kōbe Hikaru said, hoisting Hiraikotsu higher on his back. "The uninvited kind."
Kikyō said nothing. She stepped forward.
The moment she drew near, the barrier dissolved — like snow meeting open flame, silently collapsing inward to make way.
A weaker spiritual force, faced with a stronger one, simply crumbled.
The two of them passed through the mountain pass.
The view opened up before them.
A village built into the mountainside came into view.
Wooden palisades stood ten feet high, the tops sharpened to points and lacquered black, hung with demon skulls as decoration.
Less a village, and more a military fortress.
And right now, the gates were shut tight. Several men in leather armor stood on the watchtowers, spears leveled at the ground below.
"Halt!"
One of the watchtower sentries shouted: "Who goes there!"
Kōbe Hikaru looked up.
The men on the towers were visibly tense — the knuckles gripping those spears had gone white.
One glance was enough to read their state.
Jumpy as spooked birds.
With the Village Elder gone — out traveling with the Shikon Jewel and Hiraikotsu — the village was leaderless, and it showed. The whole place was on edge.
"Kaede Village. Kikyō."
The shrine maiden's voice was quiet, but it carried with piercing clarity.
The sentries on the watchtower froze for a moment.
Then came an uproar.
"Lady Kikyō?"
"It really is Lady Kikyō!"
"That silhouette — it's her, no doubt!"
The tension dissolved in an instant. The heavy wooden gates creaked open, and a dozen or more demon-slayers spilled out.
Leading them was a stocky middle-aged man — but his eyes were red-rimmed.
He saw Kikyō.
He also saw the grey-robed man behind Kikyō, carrying an enormous bone on his back.
His gaze locked on it.
"Hiraikotsu..."
The man's voice cracked. "That's the Village Elder's Hiraikotsu!"
He rushed forward, reaching out — then stopping himself, not daring to touch it — and finally dropped to his knees with a heavy thud.
"...Then — where is the Village Elder?"
The villagers had crowded in around them.
Kōbe Hikaru set Hiraikotsu down, planting it upright in the ground.
Thud.
The earth shuddered.
"She's not coming back," Kōbe Hikaru said, plainly. "I only brought this, and her ashes."
Kikyō reached into her sleeve and withdrew the plain cloth pouch, offering it with both hands.
The man received it with trembling hands. He pressed the pouch to his forehead and wept like a two-hundred-pound child.
"Enough."
Kōbe Hikaru cut through the grief. "Cry later. What's going on inside?"
He pointed toward the depths of the village. In his Spirit Sight, something was generating a powerful pulse of spiritual energy in that direction.
That was probably the owner of the barrier from earlier.
The man wiped his face, stood up, and his expression darkened.
"A shrine maiden," he said.
"A shrine maiden?"
Kikyō's eyes shifted slightly.
"She arrived this morning," the man said through gritted teeth. "Said she sensed the aura of the Shikon Jewel. Said the Jewel ought to be in her keeping — and that she'd be taking over our village's demon-slaying contracts."
"Is she strong?"
"Strong."
The man nodded, looking pained. "All of us together couldn't touch her. She released one shikigami and put every last one of us on the ground."
Kōbe Hikaru's expression tightened slightly.
Demon-slayers were still ordinary people who had trained themselves up, but years of close-quarters combat with demons had left them with formidable physical conditioning and resilience. In his estimation, they could hold their own against a lesser demon with two or three transformations — nowhere near a high-tier demon, but far from ordinary by any human standard.
Add collective action to the mix... and one shikigami had put them all down.
Whoever this was, they were no lightweight.
"Lead the way," Kikyō said.
The group headed into the village.
The atmosphere inside was suffocating.
Wind-dried demon limbs hung from the eaves along the road, unnerving to look at.
They reached the central square. A crowd had gathered in a ring, but no one dared step closer.
Standing in the middle was a woman.
Also white robes and red hakama.
But where Kikyō carried a cold, ethereal detachment, this woman's bearing was something else entirely.
She had fire.
Her back was to them, idly twirling a paper talisman between her fingers as though she had nothing better to do.
She heard the footsteps.
She turned.
A striking, almost dangerous face. The outer corners of her eyes tilted slightly upward, carrying an arrogance and sharpness that seemed entirely innate.
"Took you long enough."
She looked at Kikyō, crumpled the talisman into a ball, and tossed it aside. "I knew it. That old man definitely handed the Jewel over to you."
"Kikyō."
She said the name without a trace of deference — all provocation.
Kikyō stopped walking.
Her expression remained calm.
"Tsubaki."
She said the single word.
The other woman looked at Kikyō, and a cold smile spread across her face. "You're late."
The shrine maiden called Tsubaki crossed her arms, swept her gaze over Kikyō, and finally let it settle on Kōbe Hikaru.
Her eyes paused on Hiraikotsu for a moment, then fixed on Kōbe Hikaru's face.
It was the look a normal shrine maiden gave a demon.
"Not only late," Tsubaki said with a cold laugh. "You brought a demon with you?"
"Kikyō, you've really fallen."
"The greatest shrine maiden in the land — and she's keeping a pet demon?"
Kōbe Hikaru didn't take offense.
He simply shifted Hiraikotsu to his other hand.
[Shikon Jewel — Naohi informs you: This woman is very loud. It does not like her.]
Kōbe Hikaru smiled.
Funny.
He didn't like her either.
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