A booming laugh erupted from the depths of the crater, sending resonant tremors through the petrified ground for miles around.
The Tsuchigumo stood there.
Its massive, twelve-meter, ash-white body was unmistakably missing an arm. At the severed left shoulder, dark gray demon blood still dripped, each drop sizzling into the stone below and eating away small pits on impact.
But it was still laughing.
Laughing with pure, unrestrained delight.
Behind the gaps of its bone-white mask, those dark green eyes had curved into two gleaming arcs, and the sheer force of its grin had carved even more fine cracks across that skeletal face.
"Now THAT was satisfying!"
Its voice made the very air tremble.
"Goddamn satisfying!"
All five arms, one completely severed, then fully restored, spread wide, as though embracing the battlefield its own demonic aura had ravaged beyond recognition.
"Four hundred years—four hundred damn years since I've had a fight like this! Last time was against that bastard lord of the chimimōryō!"
"Sure, I'm nowhere near what I was back then, but the fact that you pulled this off? You're plenty impressive!"
It lowered its head, and that dark green light fell upon the two figures standing side by side at the crater's edge.
The six-meter-tall Bone Thunder Shura was battered as well, right arm shattered, left leg fractured, violet arcs of electricity flickering erratically. But beneath that demonic mask, those crimson pupils in dark were still fixed on it.
And the miko beside it? No need to elaborate. White spiritual power was already condensed at the arrow's tip, the bowstring drawn taut and ready to fly at any moment.
The Tsuchigumo studied them both.
Then, abruptly, it pulled all five arms back in.
The intact upper right arm came to rest upon its knee, the lower two dropped back to the ground, and the left middle one, the one that had been struck by soul-harvesting power, slowly, lazily folded across its chest.
A curled-up posture.
The same posture it had held before crashing down from the sky.
It sat. Knees bent, legs crossed.
Shinji froze.
Kikyō stiffened too.
But the drawn bowstring did not loosen, she couldn't be sure this wasn't some kind of feint.
"Fight's over."
The Tsuchigumo said it casually.
So casually it might as well have just finished a meal and lost all interest in moving.
"…?"
Shinji's voice came from beneath the demon mask, still tinged with unmistakable wariness.
Though in some sense he knew this great yōkai, knew its nature was battle-hungry and brutally straightforward, disdaining deception, this world was far too complex and chaotic. He couldn't blindly trust everything he thought he understood.
"Fight's over, I said."
The Tsuchigumo used a finger of its upper right arm to scratch at the edge of its bone mask, a gesture oddly reminiscent of some street-corner rogue.
"I came out to stretch my limbs, that's all. After a few hundred years asleep, my bones were rusting."
"Everything else? Just a bonus!"
It looked at Shinji. The dark green light behind the mask's gaps flickered.
"Brat, what was your name again?"
"… Nakai Shinji."
"Nakai Shinji."
It repeated the name, its tone now carrying a note of exhilaration. "Interesting name. Interesting power."
"But still not enough!"
Its voice suddenly sank, the green light behind the mask growing dense and heavy. "You're still not strong enough."
"At the level you're at right now, if I got serious, I could crush you with two hands."
"Even with that miko of yours backing you up, I could crush you with three!"
It was speaking the truth. Shinji knew it well.
That perfectly coordinated slash-and-arrow strike that had severed its arm? It had worked because of his and Kikyō's synergy, because of his last-moment breakthrough, because he had exploited a split-second opening created by the soul-harvesting power, all under the cover of an information gap.
And fundamentally, because Kikyō had been there.
Not because he could genuinely defeat a phenomenon-class great yōkai of thirteen transformations or higher in direct combat.
On his own? He was still nowhere near that level.
"The miko at your side, though, she qualifies."
The Tsuchigumo shifted its gaze toward Kikyō.
"The density and purity of her spiritual power, among all the miko I've ever seen, she ranks in the top three. That woman from the Heian era, Midoriko, the madwoman… she was about the same as you. No, Midoriko was a bit fiercer. Your spiritual power may be purer, but your arrows lack that edge of ruthlessness. That woman, when she fought, she truly threw her life away."
"But whether it's you or Midoriko, neither of you are the kind I'm itching to fight… Battling your sort is no fun at all, too much damn trouble. One slip and I get sealed away for a few decades with no chance to brawl."
Midoriko again.
The strongest miko of centuries past, the one who had perished alongside countless mighty demons and given birth to the Shikon Jewel.
Kikyō's bow did not lower, but a faint ripple passed through her eyes.
"You, though, your talent's not bad. That form just now wasn't bad at all. Bare-knuckle, blow-for-blow, it felt damn good. It's just a shame you haven't yet grown to your peak."
The Tsuchigumo turned its attention back to Shinji. "So I've decided to wait."
"Wait until you become a true great yōkai."
"Once you've reached that level, I want to fight you again. A real, satisfying fight."
"Not this half-baked skirmish, a real one. The kind that flattens mountains and punches holes through the sky. This era is far too dull. The ones who could've given me a proper fight have either gone into hiding, or run off to who knows where, or… they're dead."
"Ōtakemaru, Ōtengu, Shuten-dōji, Itsu made. Hell, even Tōga, that bastard… One after another, in the blink of an eye, they've all been gone for centuries!"
"Now that I've finally found an interesting little brat like you, I'm going to treasure this properly!"
Its voice held utterly undisguised anticipation.
Like an old hunter waiting for a young cub to grow into a tiger.
Hearing the names of those legendary great yōkai, one after another, Shinji said nothing.
Kikyō said nothing either.
Neither of them mentioned the Shikon Jewel.
Neither of them thought to remind this great yōkai of it,
Because there was simply no need.
Though it had lost an arm, the Tsuchigumo still had five left. If the fight dragged on, the Shura Transformation couldn't hold much longer. Kikyō's spiritual power could still sustain her, self-preservation was absolutely within her ability, but to actually force the creature to retreat, they would still have to pay a heavy price.
Severing one of its arms at such a cost had been possible only because of an opportunity.
And opportunities like that don't come every time.
The silence stretched for a few breaths.
Then the Tsuchigumo spoke again.
Its tone had shifted.
No longer the wild, unrestrained laughter from before. Now there was something rarely seen, a trace of gravity.
"That's right, brat. And you, miko."
"There's something I should warn you about."
With the index finger of one lower right arm, it poked at its own severed stump.
"There's a thing that's come looking for me. Multiple times."
"It's no demon. No human. No god or buddha either. I can't rightly say what the hell it is but its blood is foul. It can turn ordinary humans into monsters that won't die and can't be killed."
"I've smashed it to pulp seventeen times. Left behind a mess of flesh and blood each time. And seventeen times, it crawled back."
"Something like that… shouldn't exist."
"And that thing, no matter how well it hides it, I can feel it. Toward the two of you, it carries a deep, thick malice."
"You'd best be careful."
"It's tangled up with the Lady of the Feather Robe in Kyōto."
Shinji and Kikyō both stiffened, just slightly.
Kibutsuji Muzan.
The name surfaced in both their minds.
Back in the yōkai-extermination village, they had encountered an undying demon. In Kaede's village, they had eradicated a vicious demon drawn there by demon blood.
Tsubaki had even ingested demon blood, the blood of the Demon's Offspring, and undergone partial demonification, only to disintegrate into ash the moment sunlight touched her.
The source of all those incidents. The Progenitor of Demons.
Without a doubt, it was the very same existence the Tsuchigumo had just described, the one it had smashed to death seventeen times, only for it to keep crawling back.
From the sound of it, Muzan had apparently sought out the Tsuchigumo under the name of the Lady of the Feather Robe, attempting to persuade it to act, and in the process, had been killed seventeen times over.
And this great yōkai, as ill-tempered and bloodthirsty as it was, had remembered that creeping wrongness. The kind of thing that simply refused to stay dead.
The Tsuchigumo added one last remark.
"As for the Lady of the Feather Robe telling me to come fetch some damn thing called the Shikon Jewel—"
It paused.
Behind the gaps of its bone mask, that dark green light narrowed, and all that filled it now was utter, careless disdain.
"Tch. Like hell I care. I fight whoever I damn well please, whenever I damn well please. Don't talk to me about the Hagoromo Gitsune. Even that thing curled up in her belly has no right to order me around!"
"Now then, I've had my fill of fighting. Time to go. This place isn't fit for me to stick around in!"
With that, it rose.
All five arms folded in. Its reverse-jointed knees bent low, pressing downward.
That twelve-meter body crouched, coiling like a bow drawn to its limit.
And then,
It jumped.
Just a jump.
But the shockwave alone blasted the petrified ground for dozens of yards in all directions into rubble. The concussive force tore outward in a ring, nearly knocking the half-kneeling Shura form flat on its back all over again.
Its figure shot skyward and punched straight into the gray-white, turbid clouds.
When the dust and smoke cleared, all that remained in the heavens was a gaping hole punched clean through the cloud layer. Sunlight spilled through it, falling in pale shafts upon the devastation-scarred earth below.
The Tsuchigumo had come crashing down from the sky.
And it left piercing straight back into it.
Arrogant in arrival.
Arrogant in departure.
It came as it pleased. It left as it pleased.
No discussion with anyone.
No need to discuss anything with anyone.
The Shura Transformation's exoskeleton finally gave out.
The bone frame began to crumble from the shoulders down, white bone spikes splintering and falling away in shards, violet lightning bleeding out through the fractures. Within a dozen breaths, that six-meter-tall Bone Thunder colossus had disintegrated completely.
Shinji stepped out from within.
His gray robes were more than half torn away. White, unkempt hair clung in disheveled strands to his face and neck.
A crack ran down the crimson demon mask, splitting it from forehead to jaw.
He stood amidst the rubble and looked down at his own hands.
There were patches of grayish-white on the backs of them, traces of petrification erosion, like frost. But they were slowly receding, pushed bit by bit out of his body by the transformed yōki within him.
"It's gone," he said.
Kikyō lowered her bow and put away her arrow.
She watched the hole in the heavens as it slowly closed, and in her dark eyes, the last sliver of fallen sunlight lingered.
"Kibutsuji Muzan," she murmured, repeating the information the Tsuchigumo had just let slip.
"Hagoromo Gitsune in Kyōto."
Shinji nodded.
Two threads, both pointing in the same direction.
But that was a matter for another day.
Right now,
He was exhausted.
Wearied in mind from dealing with Uesugi Kenshin. Drained in body from facing the Tsuchigumo.
Stacked on top of each other, even a sudden surge in power couldn't offset the enormous drain on both spirit and yōki (demonic energy).
He needed rest.
Needed time to digest every change this transformation had brought.
Kikyō stepped to his side. She reached out and took hold of his hand.
Her fingertips were cool.
Just as they always were.