The rear mountain.
Behind the demon-slaying village, the rear mountain opened onto a wide clearing — one of the training grounds used by generations of demon-slayers.
Moonlight poured down like water, washing over that open expanse.
Tsubaki sat cross-legged on a mossy boulder. Pale white barrier-sigils traced patterns across her entire body, and three paper shikigami stood in motionless silence around her, arranged in a triangle.
Her eyes were closed.
She looked to be in meditation.
But this was the very moment when her mind should have gone still — and yet the mind of this shrine maiden, whose name was spoken in the same breath as Kikyō's throughout the wider world, churned with a storm of thoughts she could not quiet.
These three days and three nights, she had spent her time in memory. In reflection.
She thought of her past.
And then, unbidden, she thought of her childhood.
"Tsubaki. I hear the progress of that Kikyō — the one who hails from the countryside — has been truly remarkable."
Even now, those words still echoed in her memory.
So did the face that had spoken them.
He had been the high priest of the Tahōtō Pagoda — the sacred tower bound by fate to the Shikon Jewel — and the great exorcist recognized by the Onmyō Bureau of Kyoto in his day.
He had been her master. Yet the old man's heart had never truly belonged to his disciple, Tsubaki.
It belonged to that other girl — a girl he had crossed paths with only once, a chance encounter at a crossroads — the one he could never stop thinking about.
"You both began training at seven. By ten, Kikyō could perform exorcisms on her own. And you?"
"Still practicing foundational barrier techniques."
The look on the old man's face in that moment — that undisguised regret that he had never taken Kikyō as his student — was burned into Tsubaki's memory deeper than anything else.
Of course she had refused to accept it.
Why? Why did that woman, called a genius from the day she was born, have to surpass her in everything?
Tsubaki was called a genius too.
She had worked hard. Desperately hard.
Every day she practiced until deep into the night — her fingertips blistered raw, her spirit-power drained to the point of fainting — and still she never once gave up.
Yet in her master's eyes, there had only ever been one name.
Kikyō.
Kikyō.
Kikyō.
"If you could reach even half of Kikyō's level, I would die content."
His dying words. They had lodged in Tsubaki's chest like a thorn, and there they remained, all these years later, never pulled free.
But Tsubaki had always assumed that she and the shrine maiden named Kikyō would never truly cross paths. Kikyō was a girl from the countryside, while Tsubaki's lineage placed her in an entirely different world.
Until.
The year she turned fourteen.
By a twist of chance.
She had been in the borderlands of Musashi when she came upon a band of demons laying siege to a village. Alone, she found herself outmatched.
And then that white-and-red figure appeared, her younger sister at her side.
Kikyō.
The two of them fought side by side.
It was the first time Tsubaki had ever witnessed Kikyō's power with her own eyes.
One arrow.
A single arrow.
The demons she had poured every ounce of her strength into merely driving back — Kikyō reduced them to ash with one shot.
Not a trace left.
In that moment, Tsubaki finally understood.
Her master had not been wrong. Perhaps she truly could not match Kikyō.
But —
She refused to accept it.
They were both shrine maidens. Both geniuses. So why did Kikyō get to stand at the summit while Tsubaki could only look up at her from below?
From that day on, Tsubaki wandered the country — training, slaying demons, building her experience and reputation.
She would grow stronger.
She would surpass Kikyō.
She would prove her master wrong.
She was not inferior to Kikyō.
She was not.
...
Tsubaki opened her eyes. The moonlight was as clear and cold as ever.
The three shikigami still stood unmoved.
But her heart had long ceased to be still — or perhaps it had never been still at all.
"The Shikon Jewel…"
She murmured the words.
That treasure capable of swelling any power beyond its limits — the object coveted by every demon and monster under heaven — Tsubaki had heard of it long ago, from her own master's lips.
She had even seen it before.
The year she was fifteen and first met Kikyō — the time they had fought those demons besieging the village together — the Elder of the demon-slaying village had been there too. That old man who had since fallen in battle against the demons.
They had all known one another.
The Elder had mentioned even then that he was growing old, and that he was searching for the next person who could guard the Shikon Jewel.
Tsubaki had considered herself the natural choice.
The Tahōtō Pagoda, after all, was bound by fate to the Shikon Jewel. Even after Kikyō appeared, she had continued to believe that.
And yet now.
The Shikon Jewel
had ended up in Kikyō's hands.
That old man had given the jewel to Kikyō, and not to her.
Tsubaki — who had walked the world for years, who had slain countless demons, whose name had spread far and wide.
And Kikyō? Who had spent the greater part of her time watching over a single small village, rarely venturing beyond its borders.
And the one who received the Shikon Jewel in the end was not her.
The resentment burned hotter. And the refusal to accept it burned hotter still.
Yes.
Tsubaki didn't truly care who held the Shikon Jewel. What she could not abide was simply this: that she was less than Kikyō.
"Tomorrow's duel…"
A cold smile curled at the corner of Tsubaki's lips.
"I will show everyone who the true greatest shrine maiden really is."
She rose and turned to walk back to her quarters.
But in the very next instant, her footsteps stopped dead.
A smell hit her.
Sharp. Overwhelming.
Blood.
Heavy.
Close.
Tsubaki's expression froze.
She turned her head, staring into the darkness beyond the barrier's edge.
Something was closing in.
"Shikigami."
She breathed the word low.
All three paper shikigami wheeled toward the darkness in unison. Spirit-power surged through their forms as they snapped into combat readiness.
The barrier-sigils began to glow, assembling themselves into a translucent screen of light.
Tsubaki tightened her grip on the talismans in her hand.
She was a shrine maiden. She had some martial skill, but nothing exceptional — close-quarters combat was not her strength.
But her barriers and her shikigami were more than enough to handle most threats that demons could offer.
At least.
That was what she believed.
And then — one second passed.
In the next —
The barrier was torn apart.
Like wet paper.
The three shikigami didn't even have time to react before a black shape ripped them to shreds.
"What —!"
Tsubaki's pupils contracted to pinpoints.
Her barrier could stop the vast majority of demons. It was specifically forged to repel and exorcise malevolent forces.
Each of her shikigami possessed a body no weaker than an ordinary demon's.
Yet that dark shape had done it in a single strike.
One strike.
"Heheheh…"
An unsettling laugh drifted out of the dark.
A figure stepped forward.
Humanoid.
But not human.
Skin white as paper. Deep-sunken eye sockets. Pupils a ghastly crimson red. Its mouth stretched all the way to the ears, baring two rows of jagged, needle-sharp fangs.
The thing carried no demon-qi.
No ghost-fire either.
Only a thick, nauseating reek of blood.
And — killing intent.
Pure. Absolute. Utterly devoid of reason.
"A woman… and a shrine maiden at that?"
The thing spoke. Its voice was a dry rasp, as though the words were being forced up from somewhere deep in its throat.
"Your blood… smells… delicious…"
Tsubaki took a step back.
Her hands were trembling.
Not from fear.
From instinct.
Her instincts as a shrine maiden were screaming at her — this thing before her —
Was dangerous.
Extremely dangerous.
"What are you!"
She snapped the words like a lash, hurling the talismans in her hand into the air at the same moment.
The talismans ignited in mid-flight, blazing into a streak of white light that drove straight for the creature's face.
That was her most powerful offensive talisman.
One strike — enough to kill a common low-ranking demon outright.
But —
The creature simply raised one hand, and flicked it aside.
The white light scattered like a swatted fly.
"So weak…"
The monster's laughter grew more grating.
"But that's all right… weak women… their blood is sweet too…"
It lunged.
With frightening speed.
Tsubaki tried to dodge, and found her body had locked up entirely.
The killing intent was so crushing that she could barely draw breath.
It's over.
The thought flashed through her mind.
And then —
"—!"
A bolt of white light descended from the sky.
Brighter than moonlight. Brighter than anything.
A Sacred Arrow.
The white light struck the creature square in the chest, tearing its entire upper body apart.
Flesh and blood scattered in every direction.
Tsubaki was drenched from head to toe.
But she paid no mind to that — she simply stared, motionless, toward the far end of the rear mountain, toward the inside of the demon-slaying village, where a tall watchtower stood bathed in moonlight at its peak.
A white-and-red figure stood at the top of that tower.
Longbow in hand. Black hair adrift on the wind.
Kikyō.
And at Kikyō's side, another figure was closing in at breathtaking speed.
A grey hem trailing behind. Long white hair. And that face —
A crimson demon's mask.
A blade-flash like a rainbow arcing through the night.
Rising from level ground, wrapped in a killing intent that shook the heavens.
It was Kōbe Hikaru.
He had come.
translator's note: Just dropping by to ask if anyone is still reading this story. If no one is reading it, I'm going to stop it to start another one. Let me know in the comments if you are reading it.
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