The creature was pinned to the ground — but it wasn't dead yet. Kōbe Hikaru could see it clearly: the face skewered through by bone spikes was slowly, steadily knitting itself back together.
Much slower than before. But healing nonetheless.
This thing…
"It's not a demon."
By now, the shrine maiden Tsubaki had pulled herself together. She took in the creature's full form with clear eyes — it wasn't nearly as powerful as the dark shrine maiden she would one day become; that was fifty years away, and even now she was no match for Kikyō.
But she was still among the most gifted shrine maidens of her era. She had simply been overwhelmed by something that broke every rule she knew. Now that she could think again, it was only natural that she began to see.
There was no demon-qi on that thing. No oni-force. None of the dark power that ran through demons.
It looked like a malevolent oni, yes — but it truly, definitively, was not a demon.
No wonder her barrier had done nothing.
No wonder her shikigami had crumpled so easily.
A shrine maiden's shikigami were paper at their core — they could fight demons only because they carried the Sacred Arrow's anti-demon property. A shrine maiden's barrier was built to repel the demonic.
Not every shrine maiden could do what Kikyō did — pour raw spiritual power into a strike and unleash devastation on a scale that had no precedent. Against something that was not demonic, a shrine maiden's combat power dropped sharply. Catastrophically.
Still.
"Doesn't matter whether this thing is a demon or not," he said quietly. "It's a pain to deal with either way."
Its regeneration was simply too strong. Ordinary attacks couldn't kill it.
But if ordinary attacks wouldn't cut it —
"Then I'll use something extraordinary!"
Kōbe Hikaru drew a deep breath, and the demon-qi inside him began to roil.
Six transformations, unleashed simultaneously.
Iron-Skin. Razor-Eye. Bowman's. Spearman's Core. Bone Soul. Bloodthirst — all six, at once!
Six forces coiled and clashed inside him.
Colliding. Fusing.
He felt like a volcano on the verge of eruption. Scalding power surged through every meridian in his body.
Hot.
But that heat — it thrilled him.
The creature struggled. At last, it began to tear free of its bonds. The bone spikes driven through its jaw were starting to crack.
Its regeneration was simply too potent — even the bone spikes were being eroded, millimeter by millimeter, by the creature's relentless healing force.
Tsubaki felt the shift and retreated several steps in a hurry.
In the distance, Kikyō lowered her bow. She had seen it too — Kōbe Hikaru was about to get serious.
"Easy," Kōbe Hikaru said.
The corner of his mouth curved up — not alarmed, but gleeful, his voice brimming with excitement: "I'll send you on your way right now."
He raised his right hand.
Five fingers splayed wide. A bone spike drilled out from the tip of each finger — each one nearly a meter long, slender as a blade. Five narrow bone-swords, fanning from his hand.
Kōbe Hikaru closed his grip around them.
And charged.
The creature had finally wrenched free of its restraints and was rearing back to retaliate —
"Clang!"
All five bone-swords drove forward at once, pinning both shoulders, both legs, and the chest in a single thrust.
Five points. Nailed simultaneously.
"AAAGH——!"
It shrieked.
But this was only the beginning.
Kōbe Hikaru didn't stop.
His left hand had already grown five more bone-swords.
He struck again.
The abdomen. The back. The throat. More bone spikes erupted from his body — from his arms, his shoulders, his back — every one of them reshaping into a blade.
Every blade drove into the creature's flesh.
Like a storm. Like a — dance.
The inspiration had come from Kaguya Kimimaro.
But it was not the same.
Kimimaro's Dance of the Bone was elegant — art, in its own way. Kōbe Hikaru's bone-chain dance was savage. It was slaughter, pure and simple.
There was no beauty in it whatsoever.
Only pure killing intent.
Only a single-minded, unstoppable massacre.
…
Tsubaki had gone from frozen shock to stunned disbelief to something very close to joy.
She stood a dozen meters back, watching that spike-covered silhouette move through the moonlight. Every time he swept a hand, bone spikes thrust outward. Every time he spun, flesh and blood flew.
The creature's screams grew fainter and fainter.
Its regeneration could no longer keep pace with the damage being done to it.
Too many wounds. Too many bone spikes.
Its body had been run through with white spikes until it resembled a porcupine.
No — worse than a porcupine.
Because the spikes were still growing inside it, bending, branching, weaving together — like countless pale vines spreading through its interior.
Churning its organs into ruin.
"Uhh… uhh…"
It couldn't even scream anymore. The only sounds it could manage were ragged, bellows-like rasps.
Under these conditions, even its fearsome regeneration had nowhere left to work.
Too powerful. Too overwhelming.
Tsubaki found herself thinking — if she could have a shikigami like this, Kikyō would be utterly beyond comparison. When it came to shikigami, the Duōbǎotǎ shrine tradition was the true specialist; Kikyō merely relied on her prodigious inborn spiritual power.
If she had a puppet like this, she was confident she could drive back any demon, no matter how powerful.
She would never have fallen into such desperate straits just now.
And so, just then —
Kōbe Hikaru stopped.
He stood before the creature, his body sheathed in that interwoven armor of white bone and red plate. The bone-veins etched across his demon mask gleamed cold in the moonlight.
"Still not dead?"
He asked.
The creature didn't answer.
It had lost the ability to speak, but its eyes were still moving. Those crimson eyes were filled with terror and furious, helpless resentment.
It seemed to genuinely not understand.
It was supposed to be unkillable. It was supposed to have infinite regeneration.
How — how had it been beaten this badly?
Kōbe Hikaru looked into those eyes. The corner of his mouth curved faintly.
"You're wondering why you can't win, aren't you?"
He crouched down, meeting the creature at eye level. "Simple."
"Because you're too weak."
He said it calmly.
And it was the truth. The creature before him wasn't actually that strong — it was only because it wasn't a demon that it could ignore the purifying force of Sacred Arrows, and only because of that had it been able to catch shrine maiden Tsubaki completely off-guard and deal her a grievous blow.
That was why it had taken Kōbe Hikaru a bit of effort to suppress its undying nature.
But in terms of sheer power, it was equivalent, at most, to a five-fold transformed demon.
The creature's eyes blazed with fury.
But this time, it truly couldn't move.
The bone spikes had pinned it utterly to the ground. The spikes running through its interior had sealed away every last trace of its mobility.
Compared to before, this was a far more complete impalement — run through, inside and out. Two layers.
Kōbe Hikaru rose to his feet.
"That said —"
He studied the wounds where the bone spikes pierced through.
The wounds were bleeding, yes — but not healing. Wherever the bone spikes had skewered it, its regeneration seemed to be suppressed.
"Interesting."
He murmured.
Did the Bone Soul Mutation's spikes carry some innate counter to this thing's regeneration? Or was it simply that the spikes remaining inside the body were physically blocking the wounds from closing?
He decided to run an experiment.
He reached out and pulled one of the bone spikes from the creature's shoulder.
The wound immediately began to heal.
Slowly — but it was healing.
"As I thought."
Kōbe Hikaru pressed the spike back in. The healing stopped.
"So as long as the spikes stay inside you, you can't recover."
He looked at the creature. "Then let them keep you company."
The creature: "…"
With that, Kōbe Hikaru crouched down once more.
This time, his gaze turned serious.
"Now. Answer me one question."
The creature's eyes shifted. It seemed to want to speak — but no sound came out.
Kōbe Hikaru reached out and pulled the bone spike from its throat.
"Khh — khh, khhhk—"
The creature coughed violently. The wound at its throat began to heal, slowly.
"Kill… kill you…"
It could speak at last — voice raw and hoarse, saturated with hatred.
"I'm going to kill all of you ——"
"Are you sure you want to waste your one chance to speak?"
Kōbe Hikaru cut it off.
In his hand, another bone spike had already taken shape — ready to be driven back into the creature's throat at any moment.
The creature's roar died in its throat.
It stared at the spike. Fear crept into its eyes at last.
"Good."
Kōbe Hikaru nodded, satisfied. "Now answer my question."
"What exactly are you?
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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