Chapter 148: Muzan and Onigumo
For the next ten days, a rare and deep peace settled over Kaede Village.
No great yokai descended from the heavens, no war gods arrived under the pale moonlight, and even the messengers from the Hojo Clan no longer came and went with their usual frequency. For the villagers, who had endured one great battle after another, these quiet days felt luxuriously unreal.
Kikyo organized her time with careful order.
Mornings were for honing her spiritual power. Midday was for guiding Momiji and Botan through their magic lessons. Evenings were dedicated to reinforcing the village's protective barrier. And at night—
Well, what happened at night was not for Momiji and Botan to know.
Although, the faint blush that tinged Kikyo's earlobes and the deep, rosy hue of her lips each morning—as if she'd been wearing lipstick that had since been thoroughly kissed away—spoke volumes.
Momiji and Botan were sensible enough never to ask.
At least, not to her face.
"Do you think Lady Kikyo last night…"
"Don't ask."
"But Lord Hikaru's collar had a—"
"Don't. Ask."
In the dead of night, Momiji clamped a hand over Botan's mouth and shoved her head back down into her futon.
On the other side of the paper-thin shoji door, Kikyo, who happened to be passing through the side hall corridor, paused for a fleeting moment.
Then, as if she had heard nothing at all, she continued on her way.
The next day, however, the training load Kikyo assigned in their magic lesson had mysteriously doubled. By the time the sun began to set, Momiji and Botan were hugging their shikigami paper dolls, their expressions utterly lifeless.
"I didn't even say anything…" Botan whispered indignantly, squatting beneath the grand torii gate.
Momiji stared blankly into the distance. "But you were thinking about saying it. Lady Kikyo could sense it."
"Are a shrine maiden's instincts really that powerful?!"
"No. It's because you had a guilty conscience that you got caught."
"…You're the one with the guilty conscience!"
Beyond that minor incident, life was tranquil.
Kaede, completely unaffected by the subtle dramas of the shrine, remained the picture of innocence. She still woke up the earliest and slept the most soundly, and under her diligent care, the fruit trees in the backyard had begun to bear a bounty of autumn fruits.
One afternoon, she came running from the backyard, a small basket of persimmons bouncing in her arms, her twin pigtails bobbing with every step.
She skidded to a halt at the entrance to the main hall.
Inside, Naoe Kanetsugu was tied to a wooden pillar, dozing with her eyes closed. Her dark blue light armor was wrinkled like a discarded rag, and her once-pristine white jinbaori was caked with layers of dust. Her neat high ponytail had come completely undone, with stray strands of hair stuck to her cheeks. She looked less like a proud warrior and more like a radish that had just been yanked from the mud.
Kaede tilted her head, a curious look on her face.
She padded over and held a bright orange persimmon up to Naoe Kanetsugu's lips.
"Here, big sister. Have some fruit."
Naoe Kanetsugu cracked open a single eye, her gaze falling first on the persimmon, then on the little girl's eyes, which were curved into a warm, genuine smile.
She was silent for a moment before she lowered her head slightly and took a bite.
It was sweet. So achingly sweet that she felt the sudden, sharp urge to burst into tears right there against the pillar.
"…Thank you."
"Mm-hmm!" Kaede beamed. "Once Big Brother forgives you, I'll take you to the backyard to pick more! There's still so, so much left!"
With that, Kaede turned and happily ran off.
Naoe Kanetsugu watched the small, twin-tailed figure retreat, her expression unreadable. It took all her willpower to suppress the twitch that threatened to overtake her brow.
Ten days later.
On the imperial road connecting the Kanto region to Kyoto, a lone rider on a swift horse galloped through the crisp autumn wind. Strapped to the messenger's back was a lacquered bamboo tube, branded with the three-scaled crest of the Hojo Clan.
Inside the tube was a formal document addressed to the Jingikan in Kyoto—the central administrative body for the Shinto faith in Japan, responsible for the ranking of shrines, the certification of deities, and the granting of divine titles across the land.
In an era where gods, buddhas, and demons coexisted, the authority of the Jingikan had been weakened by incessant war, but its certification remained the only official channel for provincial shrines to obtain legitimate status.
The content of the document was simple.
In the name of the lords of Musashi and Sagami provinces, the Hojo Clan submitted a request for conferment.
First, it requested that the shrine in Kaede Village be designated as the official Shinto hub for both provinces.
Second, it requested that the shrine's presiding deity, 'Kishin Mitama no Mikoto,' be designated as the true, recognized deity of both provinces.
Kishin Mitama no Mikoto.
This was the divine title drafted by the Hojo Clan's finest scholars and priests. Translated, it signified the divine process of transforming the spirit of a former demon into a true god, worshipped by the people through formal Shinto rituals. It was a standard, if ambitious, procedure within the faith.
The messenger spurred his horse onward. At this pace, he would reach Kyoto in no more than ten days.
In truth, however, someone in Kyoto already knew of this petition on the very day the messenger had set out.
It wasn't due to a leak or a spy. It was simply because… something had been watching all along.
The Kyoto Underground.
It was another world entirely, existing in the deep shadows beneath the bustling Imperial City.
Corridors stretched deep into the earth, their stone walls coated in moss that had, in an environment that never saw the sun, grown into thick, dark green velvet carpets. Eerie, verdant demonic fire flickered at the ends of passages, casting a ghostly light on massive pillars carved with gruesome scenes from the scrolls of hell.
At the deepest point lay a palace.
Or perhaps, 'lair' was the more fitting term.
The vast space was saturated with Yao Qi, so dense that the very air had taken on a translucent, grayish-purple tint. In the center of this grand chamber, silk curtains hung low, obscuring layered cushions made of fine silk and exotic animal hides.
A woman—or rather, a fox demon—leaned back against the cushions.
Her long, jet-black hair fanned out behind her, adorned with several golden hairpins, each one a priceless ancient artifact. Her face was an enchanting, seductive mask, with upturned eyes and vivid red lips; every feature was sculpted with a curve capable of bewitching the soul. She was draped in a twelve-layered junihitoe kimono, the many folds of fabric glinting coldly in the spectral light of the demonic fire.
Her abdomen was slightly, but noticeably, swollen.
She was none other than Hagoromo Gitsune, the Great Yokai who reigned over the dark side of Kyoto. Compared to a few months ago, her belly had grown visibly larger.
"Tsuchigumo has returned."
Behind the curtains, a short, hunched shadow knelt on the ground. It was one of Hagoromo Gitsune's subordinates, a small Karasu Tengu tasked with delivering messages.
"He has also lost an arm."
The word 'also' made Hagoromo Gitsune's fingers pause their gentle caress of her abdomen. Her nails, painted with a bright red lacquer, lightly traced the curve of her protruding belly. Her movements were calm, but her gaze turned as cold as a winter tomb.
Silence stretched for several long seconds.
Finally, Hagoromo Gitsune leaned back fully into the cushions, a flicker of irritation surfacing on her seductive face.
Kidomaru returned with a broken arm. Now Tsuchigumo had returned with a broken arm as well.
It seemed everyone she sent out came back missing a piece.
"That priestess… and that little oni…" she murmured to herself, her voice a soft, charming purr laced with a deadly chill.
A part of her was tempted to go there herself. She didn't particularly care about the Shikon Jewel, but the ambient resentment in the Kanto region had diminished significantly of late. This slowed the growth of the child in her womb, a fact that displeased her greatly.
Her own strength was more than sufficient to handle the matter. In her estimation, even with her power focused on her unborn child, that priestess and the Oni Samurai combined several times over wouldn't be enough to pose a true challenge.
She was the Nine-Tailed Fox.
One of the highest-ranking Great Yokai in all of Japan. This had been true even during the Heian period, a time when demons and monsters roamed the land in droves. Even if her targets could repel Kidomaru and defeat the recently awakened Tsuchigumo, they would never be a match for her.
But she could not move.
The 'child' in her womb was at its most critical stage of gestation; any violent fluctuations in her power could adversely affect its development.
, there was that 'thing' suppressed in the Kanto region.
The more powerful a yokai was, the greater the suppression they would feel… A spectral demon of Kidomaru's level had to first weave a web of resentment just to pass through the area. Even Tsuchigumo had only dared to unleash his full strength there because he was already in a weakened state.
"Then let us set it aside for now," Hagoromo Gitsune said, closing her eyes. Her long, dark eyelashes cast dancing shadows in the demonic fire. "We will deal with it later."
The Karasu Tengu kneeling behind the curtain trembled and bowed its head even lower to the ground.
At the western edge of the Kanto region, among the mountain ridges forming the border between Musashi and Kai provinces, a woman stood at a fork in the road.
She wore a long, black kimono, and her face was so exquisite it seemed inhuman. Her skin was a luminous, glowing white, but her lips were so pale they were almost colorless. In the darkness, a pair of crimson, vertical pupils constricted slightly.
This was, indeed, Kibutsuji Muzan.
As the Progenitor of Demons, Muzan possessed the ability to change forms and even gender at will. Currently, she maintained a female form and had, without a doubt, traveled from Kyoto.
She had not come at anyone's bidding.
She had come simply to see for herself.
To see the results of the Great Yokai she had so carefully 'lured' to the East. To gaze in the direction that had cost her several subordinates in succession.
The result was quite unexpected.
Tsuchigumo had actually lost.
Muzan's slitted pupils swept toward the east. Even from a hundred miles away, she could still sense the aura emanating from that place—a spiritual power as clear and pure as a deep winter spring, so potent that it provoked an instinctive repulsion within her.
That was the priestess. The priestess named Kikyo.
According to the final, lingering memories sent back by the demons she had created before they were obliterated, that priestess possessed a technique that was utterly disgusting to her kind. She could use her spiritual power to refract the light of dawn from below the horizon before the sun had even risen, effectively bringing sunlight to the ground at will.
Spiritual Lens. Using the sun itself as a weapon.
For a demon, this was the ultimate, targeted counter.
Muzan had lived for hundreds of years and feared very few things.
Sunlight, however, was one of them.
And a priestess who could summon sunlight at will was a threat that had to be treated with the utmost caution, even if Muzan could sense it and avoid it in advance.
, that Oni Samurai was also growing stronger.
Her senses, when compared to the final images captured in her fallen demons' memories, told her that the concentration of Yao Qi around him had surged by several magnitudes in just the past half-month.
It was too fast. Abnormally so.
The growth of a demon was usually measured in centuries.
Could it be that the legendary Shikon Jewel truly possessed such miraculous power? Or was it something else entirely?
Muzan was uncertain.
But she knew one thing for sure: the pawns she currently had on hand were no longer sufficient. The ordinary demons she created by casually distributing her blood were like ants before that priestess. Even the stronger ones, whom she had carefully selected and endowed with a higher concentration of her blood, had been systematically wiped out. As Hikaru and Kikyo traveled together, conducting their sweeps, the number of demons Muzan had seeded throughout Musashi Province had plummeted.
'I need stronger demons.'
The thought had occurred to her more than once lately. Not just ordinary demons, but powerful individuals capable of standing on their own, comparable to the high-level demons of old.
But such specimens were hard to come by, even for her.
It required the human subject to already possess a certain level of strength and uniqueness before being turned, so they could withstand a high concentration of her blood without collapsing. It also required obsession. Only a sufficiently powerful obsession could connect with her demonic blood and produce a transformation that transcended the norm.
Both qualities were indispensable.
And in five hundred years, she had only found a handful of such subjects.
It seemed that until she had cultivated sufficiently powerful demons, she could no longer approach the vicinity of that village in Musashi.
Having made this internal decision, Muzan withdrew her gaze and turned, preparing to return the way she came. She certainly wouldn't risk approaching that place personally.
But just as she turned, from the shadows around a bend in the mountain path behind her, the sound of footsteps approached.
Limping, uneven footsteps.
The left foot landed with a heavy thud, while the right foot dragged, scraping against the gravel.
There was also the scent of blood. A thick, sickly sweet miasma of it.
A figure emerged from the shadows.
It was a woman, who looked to be in her early twenties. She wore masculine hunting attire—a coarse cloth tunic and leggings—with a chipped mountain knife tucked into her waist. Her clothes were riddled with holes and soaked with blood. A jagged, crudely stitched sword wound ran diagonally from her left shoulder to her right flank, with black thread ends poking out from the edges of the gash, matted with dried blood. The area below her left knee was wrapped in cloth, soaked through with so many layers of blood that it had turned a dark, crusted brown.
Her injuries looked severe.
Yet she continued to limp onward, breathing heavily and staggering, as if she still refused to give up.
The only strange thing was her face. It was so fair that it seemed entirely out of place on someone in such attire; it looked more like the face of a noble lady.
Then, the woman saw Muzan.
She froze for a moment, then leaned heavily against a tree, stopping about ten paces away.
The two stared at each other in the oppressive darkness of the desolate mountain path.
Then the woman smiled, revealing blood-stained front teeth.
"Didn't expect to see anyone else out here. Guess I won't be too lonely when I die."
Muzan didn't move. She simply looked at this woman who had appeared out of nowhere and asked, "Who are you?"
"A nameless bandit. My village was burned down by those self-righteous bastards from the Uesugi Clan." The woman's voice was raspy. "The Uesugi soldiers burned our village, my comrades are all dead, and I've been running into the mountains with this mangled leg for three days. But it looks like I can't run anymore."
The Uesugi Clan's army, marching south in the name of 'righteousness,' had indeed wiped out many bandit encampments along the way. This woman was clearly one of the survivors.
But she clearly remembered being on the verge of death, only to suddenly come back to life. In her daze, she seemed to recall seeing a jewel… and a very handsome man. Then, she had been led here by some unknown force. However, those dream-like visions were things she couldn't remember clearly, let alone explain.
The woman panted, saying only that much.
Finally, as if she had suddenly remembered something important, she added, "If I have to give a name… you can call me Onigumo."
After a moment, she drew the blade from her waist.
"Don't blame me, young lady. If you must blame someone, blame yourself for appearing alone in this wilderness—letting me enjoy the pleasure of one last kill before I die!"
Such a posture. Such an action.
It caused Kibutsuji Muzan to let out a soft, thoughtful "oh." A slow, predatory smile spread across her face. She had become… quite intrigued.
The material she wanted… it seemed it had just arrived.
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