The night stretched deep and dark.
Shinji raced across the sky, lightning thundering beneath his feet, a long contrail of violet light carving through the clouds. In his right hand, he gripped Raikiri.
The luster upon the blade had faded completely. The demi-divine artifact's stored reserves of faith had been utterly exhausted by that single slash upon the riverbank.
Though Raikiri still held its razor edge, the blessing of faith no longer imbued it. So he was returning it. Back to the shrine within the Imagawa clan's capital.
To continue receiving worship. To continue accumulating the power of faith. To complete its true metamorphosis. A demi-divine artifact was still far from a true divine artifact. But the direction was correct. Time would resolve all that remained. As a yōkai, Shinji had no shortage of time.
The land beneath him hurtled backward through the night. With the Lightning-muscle Body unleashed to its fullest, the distance from the Suruga border to the Imagawa capital was a matter of mere moments.
And through it all, his consciousness sank once more into the depths of his force-field. The tethers of osore now connected nearly a hundred demons. Even as he raced onward, his commands were simultaneously relayed.
The three exiled clans of Tōno were each assigned their new domains.
The great kappa and its dozen-some water-attributed demons were dispatched to Shimizu Port in Suruga and the surrounding river basins. The region was crisscrossed with waterways, ideal for the kappa clan to take root.
The tanuki had already laid the groundwork there. The handover would not require his direct oversight.
The kamaitachi and its wind-attributed kin were sent to the mountainous region of western Sagami. That stretch of cedar-dense hills was the perfect habitat for wind-blade yōkai.
It was also the very area he had just purged of the squatter demons along his way. Now it lay empty, ready to be filled.
The Yuki-onna, she was assigned to northern Musashi. Near the passage through which Uesugi forces had swept south. For one, northern Musashi's terrain was high and cold, suited to the Yuki-onna clan's survival.
For another, that was precisely the region where the Hōjō defensive line was weakest after losing forty percent of its garrison. The state of the second-generation Uesugi Kenshin was currently unknown. Though Shinji held a portion of her soul under his control, it was always wise to keep a watchful guard.
The Yuki-onna's Eighth Transformation strength was sufficient to handle Echigo's advance forces. Even if Uesugi's shinki warrior maidens united against her, backed by military momentum, she could hold them off.
As for the forty-some lesser demons, they were scattered and redistributed to fill the gaps everywhere.
Nearly a hundred demons. Across three provinces. Each taking their place. The ghost stories spread wider. Osore grew.
The territory of the Hyakki Yakō, on this single night, had expanded several times over in true, substantive terms. Before this, though Shinji had laid claim to the osore of three provinces, twenty-three little demons had clearly been insufficient to fully occupy it. Now, things were different.
His commands dispatched, Shinji withdrew his consciousness. His crimson demon eyes refocused on the path ahead. The landscape beneath him shifted. He was cutting through the heartland of Suruga.
Even in the dead of night, the human presence here blazed with vitality, far denser than when he had first passed through months ago. The sensation was immediate and stark. Not simply a rise in population, the actual number of people had not changed.
This was something else. The gathering of human spirit, organized, driven by a unified will.
Since ancient times, the reach of kings had never truly extended into the countryside. This held just as true in this island realm. Especially in a world where the land had stretched wider yet the population had barely grown, it was nearly impossible for any daimyō to exert true control over their entire domain.
They could only delegate governance to various lesser lords and nobles. The vassal of my vassal is not my vassal. This was precisely why Imagawa Yoshimoto had sought Shinji's allegiance, yet only built shrines within Suruga itself.
It was not that she did not want to offer more, it was that the Imagawa clan, though ruling three provinces in name, held real authority mostly within Suruga alone. Even within Suruga, there were shadowed corners where the Imagawa's reach fell short.
But now, that situation was changing. The most obvious sign: the roads leading from every direction toward the Imagawa capital, toward Imagawa-kan, were wider than before.
As he streaked across the sky, his Keen-Eye Change caught the signs of construction along both sides of the main roads, the roadbeds widened, drainage ditches dug deeper. Every few kms, a newly built waystation or watchtower stood. And there were new shrines. New osore. The port had also expanded.
Shimizu Harbor now had at least several new berths compared to months ago, the piers stretching out into the sea. Even at night, the glimmer of lanterns was visible. Massive transport ships lay anchored in the bay, their masts clustered like a forest.
These were the fruits of Imagawa Yoshimoto's gamble, the expedition where she had emptied Suruga's coffers and assembled a fleet of five thousand to strike at far-off Echigo. Expansion. She had used that campaign as a springboard.
Though the cross-sea expedition of five thousand, even with the aid of demonic forces, had nearly bled Suruga's defenses dry, the strategic outcome of landing behind Echigo's rear had sent the Imagawa clan's standing in the Kantō soaring into the heavens. Echigo's land was not particularly fertile or wealthy, but its relative remoteness, backed by its own sea, offered better prospects for development than many other regions.
The gains from this venture were not shallow. Uesugi Kenshin had been forced to withdraw and race back to defend her home, news of which had spread throughout the entire Tōkaidō.
The daimyō of every province now regarded the Imagawa's strength with renewed gravity, and many sought to forge alliances.
And then, of course, there was the "Demon God" standing behind her. The knowledge that the Imagawa clan had at its back a Demon God capable of matching the God of War, Uesugi Kenshin, in strategic acumen, this perception had, in a mere month's time, raced across the Kantō and the Tōkaidō alike. Hōjō Ujiyasu gnashed her teeth. Imagawa Yoshimoto seized the momentum.
Though the provinces of Tōtōmi and Mikawa had long nominally belonged to the Imagawa, within them were numerous powerful clans that had, in truth, operated entirely beyond Imagawa control, their dispersal rivaling the Hōjō's tenuous grasp over Musashi.
Yet now, one after another, they were declaring their allegiance. There were still many independent local magnates and great landholders, but the internal governance of Suruga itself was consolidating at a furious pace. Tax revenue swelled. Recruitment pools expanded. Trade routes opened. A great daimyō house in rapid ascent.
This was where that surging human presence came from. The faith of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of souls converged, forming an intangible force that, even without being transformed into true divine faith, was sufficient to suppress most inhuman powers.
For Shinji as he was now, however, such a human-force field was little more than a breeze against his face. His Ninth Transformation yōki pierced through it with ease. But something else woven into that force-field made him pause, just for a moment. Faith. Not merely the worship offered by Imagawa Yoshimoto herself.
The people of the Imagawa domain, even as they made offerings to the Twenty-Three Demons, also worshipped the Demon God Who Cleaves Thunder, the one who had left behind the legend of the sundered thunder. It was not a formally recognized shōshin, but it was a household guardian deity, established by Imagawa Yoshimoto under her own authority.
Osore and faith intertwined, seeping from every shrine in Suruga, from every crude painting, from every ghost story passed from mouth to mouth. Though its density perhaps fell short of an official divine certification, spontaneous grassroots faith was still faith.
Quantitative change, in the end, would bring about qualitative change. Perhaps, one day, Shinji could reach out and touch the realm of the divine through this very path.
The violet lightning sliced across Suruga's night sky. At last, the Imagawa clan's capital emerged within his sight. At the highest point of the tenshukaku, there was light.
Shinji reined in the thunder and descended from the sky. His feet touched down upon the wooden balcony of the tenshukaku's top floor. The arcs of lightning scattered briefly beneath his soles before fading away. Before him stood a half-open paper door.
Beyond it lay that small room, the one transformed into a shrine. He stepped inside. The floor was paved with purified sand. Talismans covered the walls. At the center stood the sword stand, empty. He knew all too well that it was from here that Raikiri had been summoned.
Shinji laid the blade horizontally back upon its stand. The moment steel touched wood, a faint hum vibrated through the air, as though it had come home. And yet, as though it was reluctant to part.
The System panel flickered.
[Raikiri (Sōza Samonji): Affection +2]
[Current Affection: 28 (Trust)]
[It is deeply content. It loves being taken out to battle, but it also loves returning here to be worshipped. Both feelings make it happy. Still—it prefers being by your side. It asks you to wait until its metamorphosis is complete.]
Shinji patted the sheath and straightened up. Then his gaze shifted to the side. In the corner of the shrine, someone was seated. He had known, from the moment he stepped inside, that she had been there all along. Sitting quietly. Waiting. She had not spoken a word.
White monastic robes. A gray kesa draped over them. A female monk, and yet… not quite. The collar of her robes was folded tight and sealed, wrapping her form in solemn modesty, revealing only what lay above her neck.
Her silver-white hair was piled high, a few stray strands falling loose against her collarbones. The fabric of her modified white monastic robe pulled taut across her chest.
The long robe draped downward, but where her legs were folded in meditation, the cloth pressed tight, accentuating the fullness of her thighs, the curve of her hips compressed into an exaggerated arc by her seated posture. Like a buddha. Like a demon.
But what truly could not be ignored were her eyes. Deep beyond all sounding.
They were like a long-dried well, its stone walls carved full of words, each word a story that would take an ordinary person a lifetime to read.
The prayer beads were wound through her folded fingers. Her thumb rested upon one of them, motionless. She looked at Shinji. And Shinji looked back at her. Beneath the demon mask, those crimson demon eyes met a pair of eyes far too ancient for such a youthful face.
"Raikiri looks very happy… to have returned to its master's hand."
She spoke first. Her voice was neither high nor low, like the tolling of a temple bell at dawn. Calm. Clear. "The Demon God graces us with his presence. This humble monk must apologize for not welcoming you from afar."
Shinji did not deny his identity. He only asked,
"Who are you?"
"Taigen Sessai."
"My Dharma name is Sōfu."
She spoke her name, and spoke her Dharma name as well.