Mount Hakurei was vanishing. Beginning from the summit, as Saint Hakurei achieved complete enlightenment, the petrified body of the flesh-buddha began to disintegrate layer by layer.
The ash-white mountain rock crumbled into fine, dense powder, rising with the wind and merging into the night sky.
Saint Hakurei's body was this mountain. The moment he attained enlightenment and nirvana, transforming into light and departing, the centuries-old flesh that had composed the mountain's very form lost its foundation of support.
Yet there was no collapse. No violent toppling. Only dissolution. Like snow melting in the morning light. It vanished in utter silence. A silence so profound it was nearly solemn. The summit dissolved into nothingness first. Then the mountainside. Then the base.
The Buddhist wall of power that had blanketed the two provinces of Mino and Owari dissipated in its wake. That invisible curtain of golden light, like fabric whose warp threads had been pulled free, shattered piece by piece, drifting apart, returning to the very fabric of heaven and earth. The suppression was lifted.
The western face.
Takeda Shingen stood at the two-hundred-and-tenth step of the mountainside. The stone steps beneath her feet were turning transparent. She glanced down. Her iron fan had shattered until only a single central rib remained.
The remnants of the gold lacquer upon it bore only half the character for Wind. Her knees were scraped and bleeding. Her palms oozed blood, still coated in stone dust and sweat. Yet she was smiling.
In the direction of the mountain peak, that five-colored pillar of light had abruptly contracted a few breaths ago, then vanished. In its place, was a fissure that stretched across the entire heavenly dome. Like someone had taken a blade and carved a gash across the night sky. The light of the long-since-fallen moon poured down through that rift, ten times brighter than usual.
It was the aftermath of the Bodhisattva Aspect of Saint Hakurei being shaken. The mark left upon the heavens when yōki and vow-power collided head-on and tore the very sky asunder.
Shingen tilted her head back. Her deep crimson hair spilled behind her. The sweat-soaked fabric clung to the curve of her spine. "He won… that bastard." Her voice was very soft. Yet the smile at the corner of her lips stretched wider and wider.
Yamagata Masakage followed two steps behind, rubbing the back of her head where a stray rock had struck her. She looked at her lord's silhouette, then at the dissolving mountain. "My lord, beneath your feet—"
"I know." Shingen hopped on one foot off the increasingly transparent stone step and landed steadily on a patch of rock below that was still relatively solid. The shattered remains of her iron fan were tucked back at her waist. She dusted off her hands. "Let's go. Back to Kai."
"My lord, won't you go up and take a look?"
"Look at what? I've already reclaimed what was mine." Shingen didn't look back. "And besides.... he won. Am I supposed to run up there and join the celebration?"
She paused.
"Next time." Her stride had already regained that dragon's-prowl, tiger's-stride ease she had carried before entering the mountain. Her loose kosode swayed heavily with her sweeping steps. The curve of her waist, cinched impossibly slender by her sash, flickered once through the night. Behind her, the newly condensed, re-emerged spectral silhouette of the Golden Lion followed her down the mountain in silence.
The eastern face.
Oda Nobuna was slumped behind a massive boulder. The soles of her bare feet were blistered and bleeding from the continuous running. Her golden hair was filled with fine stone powder.
The instant the suppression vanished, she felt it. The Buddha statues no longer pursued. The air no longer pressed down. Her limbs felt light and nimble once more. She lifted her head and looked at the sky.
The fissured night sky stretched from the direction of the mountain peak. Moonlight slanted down along the crack, bleaching half the heavens a ghastly white. "…Did that bastard punch a hole straight through the entire mountain?" The crimson lotus hellfire within her golden pupils flickered twice.
Shibata Katsuie stood at her side. Her gray-iron great axe was planted in the ground as a makeshift staff. Her amber eyes also gazed toward the mountain peak.
Katsuie's expression was complex. As a divine-artifact incarnation, she could feel the texture of that power from moments ago. That was no longer an ordinary yōkai. Within that power, there was yōki. There were fragments of reiryoku. There was faith and osore. There was even… the human heart. "My lord," Katsuie spoke in a low voice.
"Mn?"
"That one… will only grow stronger in the future."
Nobuna didn't reply. She stared at that celestial fissure for a very long time. Then she clicked her tongue. A mix of displeasure. And regret. And even more..... longing.
'How could a powerhouse like this, refuse to join hands with her to seize the realm and instead ally with that coward?
"Let's go. The Celestial Eye and the Leopard Tail are probably gone by now. I'll just have to steal someone else's later." She stumbled a single step as she rose. Toshiie immediately darted over from the side and steadied her. "My lord, your feet—"
"Don't touch them! It hurts!"
The southern face.
Yoshimoto had already been brought out. The white mist from before had dispersed after roughly the span of an hour.
Kikyō and Shinji emerged from within. Kikyō's white uwagi and crimson hakama were impeccably neat. Not even a single strand of hair was out of place. Only the rims of her ears held an exceedingly faint flush, impossible to notice without looking very carefully.
Shinji's gray robes were also perfectly normal. The twin blades at his waist were sheathed. Banryū was planted across his back. Only the color of his lips was slightly deeper than before, the exact same shade as Kikyō's.
Though, when they had first started walking, Kikyō had still needed Shinji's support. The faint trace of red upon the camping mat the miko had packed away had taken considerable time to fold neatly.
Yet upon seeing Yoshimoto, she had forced herself to stand steady on her own. Shinji, seeing her recover so swiftly, hadn't insisted. He simply watched, deeply amused, as she propped up her own "dignity." Though dignity had nothing to do with it. All that remained was an adorable flush that hadn't yet receded.
To this, Yoshimoto didn't say a single word. Her back was turned to them. Her arms were folded across her chest. Her chin was lifted so high it was nearly pointing at the sky.
"Let's go," Shinji called to her.
"…Hmph." Yoshimoto replied with a single sound. Yet her footsteps followed. She walked two paces behind Kikyō and Shinji. Neither one step more, nor one step less. The three of them descended along the dissolving mountain.
The stone steps beneath their feet shattered with every section they passed. Yet the speed of the shattering was, by fortunate coincidence, exactly one step slower than their pace. As though Mount Hakurei, or rather, Saint Hakurei, was using the last remnants of his will to preserve a path of departure for them.
At the mountain's base, the fissure carved across the heavenly dome had unfurled even more completely. It stretched from northern Mino all the way to the skies above Owari. A celestial scar, spanning dozens of kilometers. Moonlight spilled through the rift and drenched the plains below in a brilliance bright as day.
The Imagawa ashigaru tilted their heads back to stare at that scar. Every single one of them had their mouths hanging wide enough to fit a fist. The remnants of the Oda forces were watching as well. The three or four hundred soldiers who had been absorbed into the Imagawa supply train and scattered throughout it were crowded outside their tents.
The silence was so profound one could hear a pin drop.
The Hōjō scouts, crouched upon a distant hill, borrowed the moonlight to sketch that celestial fissure onto their sketch paper. Their hands were trembling. And then they saw it. Three figures emerged from the dissolving mountain.
From beneath the fissured heavenly dome. They walked out slowly. Led by that existence, both human and yōkai, both demon and ma. The moment the three of them stepped forth, the final boulder of Mount Hakurei crumbled into powder behind them.
It merged into the night. The flesh-buddha of centuries, thus dispersed into the vast expanse of heaven and earth. All that remained, was a stretch of flat, open plain. And, above their heads, the scar of the sundered sky.
Matsudaira Motoyasu stood behind the supply carts of the Imagawa main camp. Her round spectacles reflected the moonlight. The expression on her round face shifted from shock to blankness. From blankness to something indefinable.
She closed the ledger in her hands. Not because she no longer wanted to calculate. But because her hands were trembling. Her writing would come out crooked.
The ten-year-old hostage lowered her head and looked at her own quivering fingers. Then she lifted her head once more and gazed at that gray silhouette, emerging from the vanished mountain in the distance. She engraved this image into her heart.
She felt, even many, many years from now, she would surely still remember the moonlight of this night. And that fissure torn across the heavens.
And in the distance, others were also watching.
Hōjō Ujiyasu of Sagami was watching. At the border of Kai and Musashi Province, Inuyasha, now in human form, was also watching.
And even further, in the direction of Echigo. Atop a certain mountain peak. Aya-Gozen received a messenger pigeon from her scouts. She unfolded the letter. Read it several times over. Then she folded the slip of paper and tucked it into her sleeve.
She spurred her horse back toward the castle. She did not go to find Kenshin. Because Kenshin, at this hour, should be in the Buddha hall, chanting sutras. Aya-Gozen merely paused for a single step as she passed by the entrance of the Buddha hall. Through the paper door, she spoke a single sentence. "Little Tiger. That mountain that suddenly appeared in Mino, is gone again."
Within the Buddha hall, there was silence for two seconds.
Then Kenshin's voice came through. It was the exact same tone Aya-Gozen remembered. Clear. Gentle. Carrying a soft, almost delicate lilt at the end. Like a stream brushing over stone. Yes. Exactly the same as she remembered. "…Was it him?"
Aya-Gozen did not dwell on it. Her little sister had always spoken this way. Always. She merely said a single sentence, then turned and walked away. Behind her, the sound of sutra chanting within the Buddha hall paused for a very long time. Then, the door was flung open with a crash.
Behind the sliding door stood a young girl. Her deep indigo hair cascaded from the crown of her head all the way past her waist. A plain white band was tied across her forehead, gathering the stray strands to either side. Her pupils reflected the lingering glow of the candle flame within the Buddha hall. Large and bright. She was somewhat shorter than Aya-Gozen. Her features were delicate, yet not sharp.Between her brows and eyes was an indescribable softness. Like a keen blade whose edges had all been honed smooth and sheathed away.
The corner of her mouth lifted faintly. She thought of that yōkai. The one who had left something within her soul. Her benefactor. She had always wanted to find an opportunity to see him. Now, was the perfect chance.
Aya-Gozen's final words still echoed in the air. She had said… "Just now, there has been unusual movement among the northern provinces. It appears they harbor intentions of probing Musashi."