The commander was dead, blood and flesh scattering through the air, and the moment that corpse struck the ground it was swiftly buried beneath a mist of blood and blowing sand.
This staggering sight plunged the once bloodthirsty Echigo army into instant, deathly silence.
The surviving soldiers in the front ranks stared blankly at the oni warrior standing in the open ground, that crimson oni mask looking like a true nightmare demon beneath the night sky.
They did not fear death.
As the elite of the Uesugi clan, there was no shortage of the samurai class among them—men raised and steeped from childhood in the resolve to give their lives 'for righteousness.'
But faced with this monster that could break through a thousand troops alone, cut down their own general with a single stroke, and emerge without so much as a scratch, that terror born of instinct overwhelmed all military discipline.
For they knew all too well just how strong their own general had been.
Hers had been a body that reached the very limits of humankind, a being capable of slaying yōkai in open battle!
And now, she was dead.
Cut from her horse with a single blow.
One stroke—her head taken.
"Retreat... retreat!"
No one knew who cried out first.
Having lost the core of their command, the formation—now fewer than a thousand strong—began to waver.
The cavalry at the rear wheeled their mounts around, and the infantry began to slowly fall back, watching that motionless figure with wary eyes.
Kōbe Hikaru did not pursue.
He simply stood there, letting the mist of blood withdraw slowly back into his body, the bone spikes retracting beneath his skin.
Slaughtering these near-thousand men would cost him an enormous amount of yōkai power and time, and it would be utterly meaningless——
What he wanted was only to instill dread.
Now that their general had been slain, word of it would soon make its way back to Echigo.
That was enough.
As the sound of hooves gradually faded into the distance, the clamorous battlefield returned once more to quiet. The air still carried the reek of blood and the scorched stench of burned-out flames, and the corpses strewn everywhere were vanishing at a visible pace—dragged beneath the earth and buried on the spot by Kōbe Hikaru, using the Wraith Talent granted by the Nekomata claws he carried, which let him command the dead below ground.
The setting sun sank low, and the moon rose in its place.
Kōbe Hikaru turned around.
His gaze fell upon the village entrance, upon the soldier still sprawled on the ground there.
That Hōjō clan ashigaru who had fled all the way from the north to bring word.
At that moment, the soldier was struggling to push himself up off the ground.
Perhaps because he had witnessed Kōbe Hikaru drive back the powerful enemy, though there was still fear in his eyes, it was overwhelmed by the exhilaration of having survived against all odds.
"We won... we won... they've retreated!"
Bracing himself against a stone by the roadside, the pain in his severed arm seemed to have gone numb. "Thank you, my lord... thank you for saving my life, my lord!"
He wanted to kneel and kowtow, but his body had gone too stiff to obey him.
"I have to go... I have to reach Odawara Castle... to tell our lord..."
Muttering to himself, he stretched out his legs, meaning to head south.
But no sooner had he taken a single step than he found Kōbe Hikaru barring his path.
"My lord?"
The soldier froze for a moment, gazing at that oni mask with some dread. "Are... are you going to stop me?"
"I'm not stopping you."
Kōbe Hikaru's voice was flat, calm, and the eyes beneath the oni mask seemed all the more cold. As if... looking upon a dead man. "It's that you can no longer go anywhere."
"Can't go anywhere?"
The soldier lowered his head to look at his own legs. "I'm wounded, yes, but I can still run. I have to carry the message through..."
"You can't carry it anymore."
Kōbe Hikaru cut him off.
"Look down again, and look carefully."
Instinctively, the soldier lowered his head.
By the unusually bright moonlight that night, he saw it—saw that there at his chest, his breastplate had long since shattered.
Beneath it was a gaping hole.
No blood flowed out.
Because the blood had long since drained dry.
That wound had pierced clean through his heart, and through the hole, one could even see the grass on the ground behind him.
The soldier's expression froze.
From bewilderment, to shock, and then to an indescribable panic and despair.
Memory surged forth like floodwaters bursting a dam.
It was the outpost in the north, that great banner emblazoned with the 'Bi' character.
The cavalry that had come surging like a tide.
The scene of a spear running him through the chest, of him falling into a pool of blood.
And of him watching his comrades fall one by one, watching the outpost set ablaze.
He had wanted to run, to bring word.
That fierce, obsessive will had held him upright and driven him to sprint the whole way, forgetting even the pain—forgetting... the fact that he was already dead.
But he... clearly... was already dead.
"I... I'm dead?"
Trembling, he lifted his one intact hand and touched the gaping hole.
Ice cold.
No heartbeat.
"So... I'm already dead."
He slumped down onto the ground, the light in his eyes fading swiftly—it was the obsession sustaining his existence dispersing away.
"My lord..."
He raised his head, looking at Kōbe Hikaru.
"I know you're a yōkai... but you protected the village behind me, didn't you...? If not for you, this village would already have fallen into enemy hands, into the hands of Echigo..."
"Can you help me? Carry the message... to our lord..."
Kōbe Hikaru looked at him.
This ordinary ashigaru, even in death, even having become a wraith, still remembered his duty.
In this age of chaos, human lives were as worthless as blades of grass.
But even blades of grass had a blade of grass's kind of resolve.
Yet to this, Kōbe Hikaru gave no reply.
He only looked at him.
Watched as the man came to know the truth that he was already dead, his flesh gradually stiffening, returning to the posture it should have held.
In the end there remained only a broken corpse, lying quietly by the roadside.
Kōbe Hikaru gazed silently at this scene.
As an oni warrior, he was no stranger to death.
Throughout it all he remained utterly calm... to the man's request, he neither agreed nor refused.
Nor did he turn at once and leave.
Because there were still others.
From the surrounding thickets, from behind the trees, came a faint rustling stir.
Yōkai aura.
Chaotic, faint, even tinged with a cringing timidity—a very faint yōkai aura.
Kōbe Hikaru turned his head.
Under the light of the moon, one grotesque, misshapen figure after another poked out its head.
There was a one-eyed little monk holding up a tattered umbrella, a little girl with fox ears, a kappa that looked like a lump of rotting mud, and a great rat with a broken leg.
They looked wretched, their bodies bearing burns and blade wounds, their eyes full of terror.
Kōbe Hikaru could tell at a glance—could feel it—that these were the villagers of the yōkai village that Echigo army from before had burned down.
They were the survivors of that torched settlement of yōkai.
They had no great power, no intent to harm anyone; they merely huddled together for warmth in the cracks of this age of chaos.
But because they were not human, because of that banner raised to slay yōkai and vanquish demons, they had lost their homes and been hunted here as evil spirits.
And the army of Echigo had pursued them all the way to this place.
Yes.
They had come here in pursuit of these creatures.
And it was for this reason that that princess-general, Kakizaki Kageie, had assumed Kōbe Hikaru to be the yōkai lord of these parts.
Those yōkai had come seeking his protection.
"My... my lord..."
A tanuki spirit slightly braver than the rest stepped forward, still clutching a lotus leaf that looked as though it were used to shield itself from the sun.
It looked at Kōbe Hikaru, both its legs trembling.
They had watched every moment of that battle just now.
This man, like a demon-god, was a being even more terrifying than those human armies.
But at this moment, apart from him, they had nowhere left to go.
"We... we mean no harm..."
The tanuki spirit stammered, "We only... want to go on living."
Kōbe Hikaru looked at these old, weak, sick, and crippled creatures.
Yōkai and demons.
Good and evil.
In this era, the boundaries were so blurred, and yet so cruel.
For humans to slay yōkai was the natural order of heaven and earth.
For yōkai to slay humans was likewise the dictate of their nature.
But there were always some beings caught in between, with nowhere to belong.
Just like these little yōkai.
And just like... he himself, once upon a time.
Kōbe Hikaru's gaze swept over them—without disgust, without pity, only very calm.
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