Outside Kaede Village, at the southern end of the Uesugi army's line, moonlight illuminated the battlefield sharply.
The scout still knelt before Uesugi Kenshin, covered in mud, his face full of urgency.
Kenshin stood in place, the hem of her white monk's robes lifted and falling with the wind, her silver-white hair glowing coldly in the moonlight.
She did not speak.
The silence stretched for a long time, long enough for the elite personal guards behind her to exchange uneasy glances.
Only then did she lift her head, looking at the figure in the crimson demon mask within the barrier.
For Uesugi Kenshin, the situation now was not just disadvantageous.
It was desperate.
The three thousand to the north had been routed, Naoe Kanetsugu captured, the remnants of the Hōjō army blocking the northern passage, while behind her were Odawara Castle and the Takeda Red Guard.
Five thousand Imagawa troops were trampling on Echigo's soil.
Surrounded front and back, her rear in flames.
She had been trapped.
But Uesugi Kenshin stood there, her face showing none of the signs of a defeated person.
No panic, no anger, not even anxiety.
Only a strange, almost pure confusion.
"I don't understand." She spoke. Her words were clearly not directed at the scout, nor at her personal guards, but at the two figures on the battlefield before her.
The grey-robed, pale-haired demon warrior had already stepped out of the barrier, his crimson mask covering his face, standing on the gentle slope north of Kaede Village.
The white-and-red shrine maiden, at some unknown time, stood behind him and to his right, under the torii gate. Her longbow was in her hand, its tip pointed at the ground, but spiritual power already flowed silently along the string.
They stood side by side.
Blocking the Uesugi army's path north.
Plus those Hōjō troops…
"You possess martial strategy and wisdom no less than my own. Yet why… do you refuse?"
Uesugi Kenshin's voice remained flat, but within that flatness seemed a crack that had never appeared before.
"I offer you power, a title, a shortcut beyond the limits of a demon, become a divine artifact, and you could immediately cross that threshold."
She looked at Shinji.
In her ancient well-like eyes, a faint green light flickered deep within, the color of Bishamonten's power.
"I don't understand."
"You are strong. You are clearly intelligent. You saw through my tactics and turned the tables against me, your way of thinking even transcends anyone in this era."
"But you chose the slowest, hardest, most uncertain path."
Her brow furrowed slightly. That gesture, on her almost inhuman face, stood out sharply.
Like a crack suddenly appearing in a Buddha statue.
"Why?"
This question was not a challenge.
She truly did not understand.
Uesugi Kenshin, incarnation of Bishamonten, she truly did not understand.
In her understanding, power was power, tools were tools. Becoming a divine artifact was not humiliation; it was sublimation.
Just as iron ore is forged into a famous blade, not demeaning, but giving meaning to its existence.
She was offering the best choice. Why refuse?
And to go to such lengths for it.
If it were someone else, Uesugi Kenshin might not have asked. But her current situation confirmed for her that the existence before her, at least in thought, could match, even surpass her.
Capable of equal dialogue.
Capable of equal regard.
Thus, she was confused by his refusal of her "grace."
Shinji looked at her.
His purple-patterned crimson eyes beneath the demon mask narrowed slightly.
He knew full well that Uesugi Kenshin was not pretending.
She truly didn't understand.
Didn't understand the human heart.
Didn't understand why someone, even a ghost who had already died once, would refuse greater power.
Didn't understand why someone would rather walk the hardest path than accept a god's gift.
Didn't understand why he would guard an old shrine, a remote village, a cool-tempered shrine maiden, rather than embrace the broader world that gods and buddhas could offer.
She was an incarnation of gods and buddhas.
Gods and buddhas do not understand the obsessions of the mortal world.
Just as the sun does not understand why someone prefers moonlight.
But Shinji did not need her to understand.
"Because that power isn't mine," he spoke.
His voice was not loud, but under the midday sun, each word was as clear as a nail, as decisive as a blade:
"No matter how strong the power you give, it's yours, a fragment of Bishamonten, a parasite of faith, an IOU under someone else's name."
"What I want must be earned by myself."
"Every transformation, every step.... by myself."
He raised his hand, fingers spreading then clenching.
Demonic aura flowed silently between his fingers. Purple patterns appeared and disappeared in his palm.
"That kind of power is mine. Untouchable, irremovable."
"Even if one day I am shattered, as long as a single bone remains, it is still there."
The path of all power belonging to oneself is the correct path.
Uesugi Kenshin looked at his hand.
For a long time.
In those ancient well-like eyes, the confusion did not dissipate.
It deepened.
"I still don't understand," she said again.
Her tone unchanged. But the repetition itself was a rare, for her, sign of wavering.
"Divine artifact power comes from faith. Faith comes from the human heart. The human heart is ever-renewing. Such power is more eternal than your own body."
"The path you chose, the demon's path of evolution, is full of uncertainty. It may stagnate at any moment. It may break at any moment."
"This is truly… unreasonable."
Something new entered her voice.
…Bewilderment.
An existence that had been filled with faith since its birth, that had never experienced "lack" or "struggle," had for the first time encountered something it could not explain with logic.
"Your choice has no rationality whatsoever," she concluded.
As if drawing a full stop under an unsolvable problem.
Kikyō had listened to this exchange from the side.
She did not speak, but her bow rose.
An arrow nocked.
White spiritual power condensed at its tip, clear and intense.
"Whether you understand or not is irrelevant." Kikyō's voice was cool as always. "You only need to know one thing—"
"He will never become anything of yours."
Uesugi Kenshin's bewilderment was cut off in that instant.
She looked at Kikyō.
At the arrow containing the most powerful spiritual power.
Then behind the arrow, at the demon warrior squinting slightly in the sunlight, his crimson mask covering his face.
Two people.
Blocking her path back to Echigo.
And the Hōjō troops had already re-formed ranks in the distance.
Though only a thousand, blocking the northern passage, they were enough to buy time.
Uesugi Kenshin looked around.
Ahead, the demon warrior and shrine maiden.
Behind, the Hōjō troops.
Five thousand Imagawa trampling Echigo's soil far away.
Her five hundred personal guards were still there, but their morale had been crushed by the continuous bad news, they were lost.
She could break out.
But
"You cannot leave." Shinji's voice came from beneath his crimson mask, unhurried.
"You might break through the Hōjō blockade, but you cannot break the combined defense of Kikyō and me."
"Your five hundred personal guards are strong within their faith-momentum, but that momentum has cracked under the continuous blows. You can feel it yourself."
"I will not let you leave."
Whether or not he could kill Uesugi Kenshin on the spot, Shinji had to inflict a heavy wound.
The shrine maiden's arrow trembled slightly on the bowstring.
Kikyō's eyes were cold as ice. She was uncharacteristically angry.
Angry at the war this woman had started in the name of gods and buddhas.
Angry at her earlier words, threatening the village.
Angry at her constant pressure on Shinji, her lover.
As a shrine maiden, Kikyō rarely felt killing intent toward humans.
But now, she did.
Finally, Uesugi Kenshin fell silent.
A true silence.
Not the silence of considering countermeasures, she had already considered them all, and every path was blocked.
Not the silence of weighing pros and cons. the pros and cons were gone. All the "pros" were on the side of the two before her.
The silence of acknowledging the truth.
She had lost.
Not in force, in individual combat power, she was not weaker than Shinji, and she did not fear the so-called strongest shrine maiden… after all, Kikyō was not a demon.
She had lost on the "board."
From the moment the Imagawa fleet set sail a month ago, she had already lost.
She only realized it now.
Or rather only now could the incarnation of Bishamonten admit that a choice she had looked down upon, an irrational, foolish mortal choice,
Had defeated her.
Uesugi Kenshin lowered her head.
Her silver-white hair covered half her face.
Those ancient well-like eyes glowed faintly through the gaps between strands.
Then
She smiled.
"It seems… I am doomed to die today, am I not?"