Kurokawa Castle.
The great hall.
The candle flames were dimmer than before. Over half had been extinguished when the north wind gusted through the cracks, but no one dared relight them.
"Date Terumune" sat at the head. His lapis-colored pupils stared at the military map spread before him.
On the map, the dozens of small flags representing the southern invasion force had already advanced into the interior of Musashi Province's northern border.
Three thousand at the front, pinning the Uesugi-Hōjō coalition.
The eastern wing of fifteen hundred, circling behind from Shimotsuke.
The western wing of fifteen hundred, enveloping from the Kōzuke border.
Four hundred moth demons covering the sky.
A perfect three-pronged, no, a four-pronged encirclement.
Dominating both land and sky.
Holding an advantage unparalleled in this era.
Amidst this, the retainer kneeling at the center of the hall had learned his lesson this time. His report was precise.
What he did not know, what should not be said, he did not say a single word.
"Good."
The corner of Date Terumune's mouth twisted.
That expression, upon a gaunt face past forty, combined with the inhuman luster refracted by his lapis pupils, sent chills down the spines of the kneeling retainers.
"Keep pressing. Do not give Uesugi Kenshin any room to breathe. Once that woman, who carries the power of a false god-buddha, has her crescent-wheel formation halt and reform ranks, three thousand rabble won't last two rounds."
Date Terumune naturally could not fail to know of Uesugi Kenshin. And the daiyōkai Menōmaru, who controlled this body, was also well aware of the existence of god-buddha incarnations.
Daiyōkai and gods were not entirely opposed, but they were wary of one another.
"Yes, my lord."
"Have the moth scale-powder been spread sufficiently?"
"Reporting to my lord, it has covered a radius of 20 km around the battlefield."
"Increase it. Extend it to 40 km. If that miko named Kikyō from Musashi makes a move and unfurls a barrier, the scale-powder can, to some degree, interfere with the weaving of her reiryoku. At the very least, it can slow her down."
The will behind Date Terumune clearly possessed no small degree of intelligence on the Kantō.
He knew of Kikyō.
Knew of her barriers.
Knew how to counter them.
All of this, without a doubt, had been told to Menōmaru by Kaguya.
The retainers within the hall kept their heads lowered.
None dared look up.
They had grown accustomed to it, this lord of theirs had become less and less human over the past several years.
His orders were so meticulous that every minute detail of the battlefield seemed as clear to him as lines upon his own palm.
Separated by a thousands of km, he could still deduce how many steps forward an infantry position should advance.
His temper had also become incomprehensibly violent.
And those lapis-colored eyes, when making decisions, seemed utterly unlike those of a living person.
As though something else was thinking on his behalf.
"If the report is finished, withdraw."
Date Terumune waved his hand.
The retainers filed out quickly.
Even faster than last time.
Because the bloodstains of the colleague who had reported poorly last time still hadn't been fully scrubbed clean.
Only Terumune remained in the great hall.
He closed his eyes.
His lapis-colored pupils flickered once as his lids shut.
His consciousness returned to that colossal spirit-body thousands km away.
Menōmaru's six compound eyes rotated slowly within the dim mountain valley.
The pulse of demonic energy from the south was normal.
The presence of the Hyakki Yakō remained concentrated within Musashi Province.
That demon called Nakai Shinji had not moved.
Very good.
As long as the human war at the front proceeded according to plan, once the three-pronged encirclement was complete, even if that demon rushed to the battlefield, all he would find was an already-collapsed defensive line.
By then, whether to press the assault or withdraw, the initiative would be entirely in his own hands.
Using human power to wage war between demons, it had indeed been the correct approach.
Menōmaru's compound eyes half-closed, preparing to continue waiting.
But, it was still at this moment.
This instant.
Above Kurokawa Castle.
The very same instant Date Terumune closed his eyes.
The sky, split once more.
From the south.
From the southern horizon 4000 km away, a bolt of violet-white lightning tore through the clouds at a speed he had never seen.
The rift did not appear at the northern border of Musashi.
It appeared at....
Mutsu.
Directly above Kurokawa Castle.
Date Terumune's eyes flew wide open.
Thousands of km away, within the mountain valley, Menōmaru's six compound eyes simultaneously snapped wide.
Deep within those compound eyes, the memories inherited from his father over centuries, the images of battle against Tōga were triggered.
That stimulation of a powerful enemy breaking into the very core of his territory made his colossal spirit-body surge up from the valley floor.
He tried to sense.
And then, he truly "saw" it.
Above Kurokawa Castle, a dense mass of demonic energy pouring through the rift.
Nearly a thousand in number.
From lesser demons to high-ranking demon commanders.
This was…
The Hyakki Yakō.
From Musashi Province.
From that demon now revered by the provinces of the Kantō, the Demon God— Nakai Shinji!
They had not gone to the battlefield at Musashi's northern border.
They had come directly to Mutsu.
Directly to his headquarters.
Skipping the front lines.
Attempting…
A decapitation strike!
"ARROGANT!"
Menōmaru was enraged.
In his perception, the demonic presence in the direction of Musashi had still been there just moments ago.
That was residual osore traces.
False.
A feint.
The true Hyakki Yakō had never assembled in Musashi.
Instead, they had taken advantage of the window while all his attention was focused on the southern battlefield, to bypass every sensory network and drive straight into the heart of Mutsu.
He had been deceived.
Moths never charged.
They waited for their prey to exhaust itself.
That was his creed.
And now, he himself had become the prey.
But though he was indeed wary of that Demon God, whose demonic energy scale nearly equaled that of a daiyōkai, that did not mean he was afraid.
He was the son of Gaki no Maru.
He was a daiyōkai who had inherited his father's power!
His consciousness instantly returned to Kurokawa Castle.
Date Terumune's lapis pupils spun violently within his eyes.
The sliding door of the great hall was shoved open by a messenger.
The man knelt at the threshold, his face bone-white.
"M-MY LORD! A large number of demons have suddenly appeared outside the castle—from the SKY—"
Date Terumune rose to his feet.
Before the messenger could finish his words, Terumune had already drawn the short sword at his waist.
And then, the blade fell.
Venting fury!
The head rolled across the tatami.
The messenger's body crumpled in convulsions, blood gushing from the severed neck.
Terumune did not look at the corpse.
His lapis pupils, in the candlelight, refracted a flicker of panic.
It was Menōmaru's emotion, overflowing from the eyes of this puppet for the first time.
His voice squeezed from Terumune's throat, hoarse and deep.
"Ruri. Hari—"
Two figures emerged soundlessly from the shadows.
The purple-haired girl in white robes and light armor.
The blue-haired girl with the twin buns.
One purple, one blue.
Strikingly similar faces.
"Go out and meet them. Take every moth still in the castle. Stop that demon, even if only for a quarter of an hour. 'I' am on my way."
Ruri lifted her eyes.
Her purple pupils swept past the window.
The sky above Kurokawa Castle had already been dyed dark crimson by demonic energy.
Dozens of silhouettes, large and small, poured from the rift in the clouds.
She did not hesitate.
Her hands closed around the hilts of the two broad white blades at her waist.
"Yes."
Her voice was like the fluttering of moth wings.
The blue-haired girl, Hari, followed with her spear.
Her long boots struck the corridor floor with urgent yet steady steps.
Ten seconds later.
The window of Kurokawa Castle's tenshukaku top floor was pushed open from within.
Dozens, hundreds of moth demons surged from every corner of the castle.
The golden scale-powder kicked up by their beating wings shrouded the entire fortress in a yellow haze.
Like the setting sun.
Like a curtain.
Ruri and Hari stood side by side upon the castle walls.
The purple long hair and blue twin buns billowed in the demonic wind.
They lifted their heads and looked at the sky.
Within the rift, a gray figure was slowly descending.
Crimson demon eyes.
Four blades upon his person.
Behind him, demons spread out in a fan formation, like a net unfurling from the heavens.
The Hyakki Yakō.
Descending upon Kurokawa Castle.
And at this very moment when the Hyakki Yakō marched north, Mount Fuji.
Within the depths of the palace, the luminous mirror floated in midair, reflecting the churning black clouds on the northern horizon and that rift of thunder stretching across the heavens.
Kaguya watched the image in the mirror.
Her golden slit-pupils narrowed faintly.
"He moved."
She had been waiting for this very moment.
Menōmaru in the north had finally bared his fangs, three thousand soldiers plus the moth legion pressing at the front, two wings circling to flank, churning the northern border of Musashi into chaos.
And that Demon Who Split the Sky had, as expected, led his Hyakki Yakō north.
To the north.
And behind him.... the defenses…
were empty.
"The opportunity has come."
Kaguya rose from her jade throne.
The layered hems of her twelve-layered robes unfurled like white flower petals.
Her silver-white hair drifted on its own within the windless hall.
Her golden slit-pupils reflected the world beyond the mountain, mirrored upon the surface of the luminous mirror.
Truly, not a trace of defense remained.
She stepped toward the palace doors.
The moonlight-colored gauze of her robes shifted between light and shadow with each step.
The mirror floated beside her, following her movements of its own accord.
But, the instant she pushed open the stone doors, she stopped.
Her golden slit-pupils contracted violently.
What met her eyes, Mount Fuji's exterior had, at some unknown moment, been enveloped by an immense, majestic barrier.
White threads of reiryoku spread from the mountain's base to its summit.
Dense as a spider's web, they were woven across the entire surface of the mountain, sealing every space from the crater to the foothills.
The barrier was not large.
It covered only Mount Fuji itself.
But it was exceedingly dense.
Every thread of reiryoku carried the property of purifying demonic energy.
Any demonic power attempting to pass through would be dissolved upon contact.
From the inside out, there was no exit.
Kaguya had used her temporal stasis to seal everything within the mountain.
And now, someone had used a reiryoku barrier to seal the entire mountain in turn, preventing her from leaving.
"WHO?!"
Kaguya's voice sank.
The mirror spun rapidly, reflecting the scene at the mountain's base.
The northern foot of Mount Fuji.
A white figure stood at the end of the forest path.
White uwagi.
Crimson hakama.
A longbow in hand.
Black hair fluttering gently in the mountain wind.
A cold, clear face like an ice sculpture in the morning light.
It was that Kikyō, the one from her investigation, the one who was always with that Nakai Shinji…
"How… How can this be…"
When had she arrived?!
Kaguya's golden slit-pupils rotated several times, scanning the mirror once more.
Amidst the black clouds on the northern horizon, the gray-robed figure was unmistakably present.
But the white-robed, crimson-hakama figure..... was truly absent.
From beginning to end, she had never been there.
This miko had never gone north in the first place.
Instead, at the very moment the Hyakki Yakō had taken flight, she had come south alone.
In truth, the instant Menōmaru made his move, Shinji had sensed the stirring at Mount Fuji.
He had been watching this place all along.
How could he possibly have had no countermeasure?
One person south.
One person north.
It was only natural.
The Hyakki Yakō marched north.
And the miko, naturally, went south.
One person.
Holding an entire mountain.
"Heh."
Kaguya let out a single syllable, hovering between a scoff and admiration.
"It seems my movements cannot escape you… That so-called Demon God trusts you quite a bit."
She stepped out of the stone palace.
Her bare feet tread upon the ice of the crater.
The long hem of her dark finery dragged a trailing white path behind her.
Her jet-black hair cascaded like a waterfall in the summit's air currents.
Her golden slit-pupils looked down upon that small figure in white and crimson at the mountain's base.
The daiyōkai who had devoured a celestial maiden, and the most powerful miko of this era, separated by the full vertical height of Mount Fuji.
But their gazes, pierced through rock.
Through ice.
Through frozen time... and met.
"Since you've come, then enter!"
Kaguya proactively opened a gap within her "domain."
"Do you dare?"