Kaede Village.
Night had fallen.
The moonlight was obscured by thick dark clouds, shrouding the entire village in a heavy, oppressive gloom.
The barrier was still there.
The barrier Kikyō had set before leaving was still intact, surrounding the village with a faint white glow.
But that glow was dimming, little by little.
"How many are there?" At the village entrance, a middle-aged man gripped his hoe, his voice trembling.
He was a farmer. Usually, all he did was tend the fields. He'd never fought a demon.
But tonight, he had to step forward.
Because there were too many demons.
Outside the barrier, countless figures writhed in the darkness.
There were wolves on all fours, yokai with fanged faces, serpentine creatures with long tails, and more.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds.
All of them prowled outside the barrier, watching the villagers with their inhuman eyes.
"What about the shikigami Lady Kikyō left?" someone asked.
"Over there." Another person pointed to the center of the village.
Three paper shikigami stood there, spiritual power swirling around them, maintaining the barrier.
Kikyō had left them before departing.
She said they would last half a month.
But it had only been a week, and cracks were already appearing in the barrier.
"Too many…" the man gripping the hoe murmured. "Too many yokai…"
"The barrier… won't hold…"
No sooner had he spoken than—
Crack
A crack spread from the edge of the barrier.
The sound was like breaking glass, especially sharp in the silent night.
"Charge—!" The yokai howled and surged toward the fissure.
The first wolf demon rushed through.
Then the second. The third.
The barrier crumbled like a breached dam, unable to hold back the black tide.
"Arm yourselves!" A man's voice rose above the chaos.
It was the village hunter, a young man in his prime.
"Protect the children and the elderly! All of you who can fight, come with me!"
"Lady Kikyō isn't here, but we won't just wait to die!"
Though they had always lived under Kikyō's protection, as survivors of this chaotic age, they were not lacking in the spirit to fight to the death!
The battle began.
If it could be called that.
Farmers with hoes, sickles, wooden sticks, facing monsters with fangs and claws.
The first young man rushed forward. A wolf demon's claw sent him flying, three gashes across his chest. He fell to the ground, convulsing.
The second raised his hoe. Before he could bring it down, another demon bit his neck.
Blood sprayed.
Screams rose one after another.
The shikigami fought.
The three paper figures attacked, their spiritual power turning into white light, driving back the demons that approached.
But there were only three shikigami.
And there were hundreds of demons.
One paper figure was surrounded by five or six demons. It broke free, was surrounded again. After taking down twenty or thirty demons, it finally couldn't hold on. Its paper body was torn to shreds.
Spiritual power scattered, floating away like points of light in the night sky.
Another paper figure fell.
The last one was barely holding on.
Kikyō was, after all, a shrine maiden from the countryside, a wandering shrine maiden without a patron deity. She was not skilled in shikigami arts. The ones she left behind operated purely on her powerful spiritual energy. Without her personal presence to supply them, they couldn't last long.
Still, ordinarily, these shikigami would have been more than enough to handle minor demons.
When Kikyō occasionally needed to leave, a single shikigami could guard the village for at least half a month.
This situation was beyond anything they'd faced before yet still, it wasn't enough.
"Uncle!" A child's voice rang out.
It was Kaede.
She stood in a corner of the village, watching a man with a hoe get tackled by a demon.
He fell.
Another person took his place.
A woman, with a kitchen knife.
She fell too.
Kaede watched, her eyes red.
She wanted to rush out, but the elderly woman behind her held her back tightly.
"Don't go!" The old woman's voice trembled. "Your sister told you to live…"
"But…" Kaede's voice choked. "Everyone is getting hurt…"
She watched the fallen.
Kaede Village wasn't big. There weren't many people. She knew all of them. The uncles who greeted her. The aunties who made flower wreaths for her.
Kaede was Kikyō's sister, but most of the time, Kikyō couldn't bring her along. In a way, Kaede had been raised by the whole village.
And now, the people who had watched her grow up were falling.
One by one.
Blood covered the ground. Demons kept pouring in.
The last shikigami was torn apart.
There was no one left in the village who could fight.
Only the elderly and children remained.
They huddled in the center of the village, surrounded by demons.
"It's over…" someone said in despair. "Lady Kikyō isn't here… we're finished…"
The demons closed in, their inhuman eyes gleaming with greed in the darkness.
Just then,
Kaede suddenly broke free from the old woman's grasp.
She ran to the front of the crowd.
Facing the snarling monsters.
"Stay back!" Her voice trembled, but it was loud. "My sister will come back!"
"She said she would protect us!"
The demons didn't stop.
Maybe they didn't understand human speech. Maybe they did, but didn't care.
A wolf demon lunged at Kaede.
"Watch out—!" someone screamed.
Kaede closed her eyes.
But she didn't stop shouting.
"Sister—Sister Kikyō!"
"And..."
"Shinji!"
She didn't know why she called that name.
It just felt right.
That pale, red-eyed demon warrior.
The one who protected her sister.
And her sister.
They would come.
They had to.
A sound rang in Kaede's mind.
Then
A whistling sound descended from the sky.
White light tore through the night.
One arrow.
Just one.
But that light, coming from afar, poured down like a river of stars.
The demons lunging at the villagers, the moment the white light touched them, all turned to ash.
At the same time, the ground began to shake.
White bone spurs erupted from the earth.
One, two, ten, a hundred like a forest suddenly sprouting from the earth.
Bone spurs pierced the bodies of the demons still outside the village, pinning them in place. Some pierced through chests, some through skulls, some through limbs.
Screams echoed through the night sky.
Then stopped.
Kaede opened her eyes.
She saw.
At the village entrance, a figure in white and red stood under the moonlight.
Longbow in hand, black hair flowing.
It was her sister.
It was Kikyō.
And beside that figure stood another.
Grey robes, white hair, crimson eyes.
Covered in white bone spurs, like an Asura emerging from hell.
She couldn't make out his features clearly, but Kaede knew it was that handsome demon warrior. It was Shinji.
They had come back.
At the most critical moment. When everyone had lost hope.
They came back.
"Sister!" Kaede's tears burst forth.
She ran.
Toward the two figures standing side by side.
Shinji watched the little girl running toward them, his expression calm beneath his demon mask.
He raised his hand. Another bone spur emerged from his palm, pinning the last fleeing demon to the ground.
He looked around at the blood-soaked village. Some people were dead, but most were badly wounded unconscious on the ground, or crying out in pain.
They hadn't come too late.
The ones who had come too late were the villages they'd passed on the road, the ones that had been completely slaughtered.
Not a soul left.