After Menōmaru's death, the skies over Mutsu Province returned to their normal color, but the hearts of men did not.
The news spreading outward from Kurokawa Castle burned across the six northeastern provinces like wildfire, the daiyōkai Menōmaru had been slain. The moth legion had been annihilated. The puppet Date Terumune had collapsed upon the floor of the tenshukaku's great hall and had not awakened since.
But the most important thing of all, was a name utterly new to the northeastern provinces.
The Demon Who Split the Sky. Nakai Shinji.
It was legend.
And it was ghost story.
Accounts of his deeds spread among the common folk at a speed far surpassing any military dispatch.
From Kurokawa Castle in Mutsu to the snowfields of Dewa. From the mountain paths of Shimotsuke to the passes of Kōzuke.
Old men whispered tales by the hearth. Merchants in inns embellished them over cups of wine.
Even at roadside shrines, someone had secretly offered up prayer.
Osore poured in from every direction.
Shinji sat beneath the repaired eaves of Kurokawa Castle's tenshukaku. His crimson demon eyes were half-lidded.
He could feel the surging demonic energy within his body.
From the seven provinces of the Kantō to the six provinces of the northeast, the osore of thirteen provinces was converging upon his name.
The Oni-Matoi had thickened.
The threads of osore wrapped around his form had gone from invisible to faintly perceptible, revealing a distinct luster beneath the moonlight.
At the same time, behind him, in the main hall of the tenshukaku, things were far livelier than the corridor.
The great hall on the top floor had been transformed overnight into an astonishing banquet venue.
It had not been part of Shinji's plan. But on reflection, it was probably within expectation.
After a battle like this, the hundred demons under his command needed to celebrate properly.
As their sovereign, he had no reason to stop them.
The great kappa had been the first to propose it.
"Master! Today's great victory deserves a celebration!"
The jade-scaled colossus pounded his chest, nearly sloshing the water out of the dish atop his head.
Fortunately, halfway through the motion, he remembered and hastily covered it, glancing furtively around to see if anyone had noticed.
Someone clearly had.
The kamaitachi's silver-white form flashed beside the great kappa. His tone was airy.
"Art thou trying to kill thyself?"
The kappa's dish was the vessel of his demonic energy.
This was not wrong.
But the great kappa would never admit it.
"…Shut up."
"Celebrate."
Shinji glanced at them.
"Fine. Don't tear down Kurokawa Castle. Also, set up a sound barrier. Don't wake Kikyō."
Kikyō was resting in the rear courtyard. She had been rather exhausted today, dealing with Kaguya.
The instant those words landed, the entire Hyakki Yakō exploded into action.
The kamaitachi immediately set to work, using wind to draw up a sound barrier.
The sliding doors of the great hall were all removed.
Lanterns scavenged from the storehouses, motley in color and shape, strange-looking but lively, were hung beneath the eaves.
The demons sat upon the floor, gathered around fires, drinking, roughhousing.
Shinji sat at the head, posture casual, one hand propping up his head as he watched the commotion below.
The commotion below was… truly something.
"Come, come! I'll dance!"
The great kappa suddenly stood.
His two-to-three-meter jade-green body knocked three nearby demons flat.
He clapped his hands and seriously drew a pair of bamboo chopsticks from his waist.
He addressed the kamaitachi, who was peering curiously from the side.
"You! Give me a beat!"
"…By what right?"
"You're fast as the wind. Keeping a beat should be easy for you."
The kamaitachi sneered.
His silver claws tapped against the floor, sending out a thin arc of wind, a layer of the wooden boards was shaved off, wood shavings flying.
"Art thou certain?"
The great kappa instantly fell silent.
He clutched the bamboo chopsticks tighter, glancing hesitantly between the two sticks in his hand and the kamaitachi's claws.
"…Don't hit me with those."
"A trifle—"
Before the words finished, the kamaitachi raised a claw.
A wind blade slashed diagonally, passing perfectly between the two fingers the great kappa had wrapped around his chopsticks, and severing the cord of a lantern above his head.
The lantern fell with a pat, striking the great kappa on the head.
The water in his dish spilled again.
The great kappa exploded with fury.
His two-meter body surged upright.
A ring of surrounding demons toppled like dominoes.
Three or four wine cups flew through the air.
The kamaitachi was already gone, the instant the great kappa's gaze swept over, that silver-white form flashed and hid behind a pillar.
"You did that on purpose, you bastard!"
"A mishap."
The kamaitachi's voice came from behind the pillar.
His tone was exceedingly calm, as though he were truly apologizing.
Unfortunately, there was not a shred of sincerity in it.
The great kappa surged to his feet, making as if to throttle him!
The surrounding demons collectively shifted to either side, eyes bright with anticipation.
A bull-headed demon leaned in to whisper beside a mountain dog demon.
"You betting on the kappa or the kamaitachi?"
The mountain dog demon thought for a moment.
"Kappa. He's got the strength."
"I'll take the kamaitachi. He's got the speed."
"Both have a point. What are the odds—"
The two demons faced off on the spot.
Demonic energy clashed against demonic energy in the air.
Just as it looked like a real fight was about to break out,
They both stopped.
Because Shinji, wine cup in hand, had lowered his gaze and glanced at them.
He said nothing.
Just looked.
The great kappa and the kamaitachi deflated simultaneously.
The great kappa sat back down sullenly and tucked his chopsticks back into his sash.
The kamaitachi slowly emerged from behind the pillar and resumed drinking as though nothing had happened.
"…The Master is so boring."
The great kappa muttered under his breath, his voice very low.
Beside him, the mountain dog demon and the bull-headed demon burst into laughter.
The great kappa whipped his head around and glared.
They shut up instantly.
Shinji paid the muttering no mind.
He took a sip of wine and let his gaze drift toward the other side of the great hall.
That side was lively too, but in a different way.
The Yuki-onna, Oikawa, sat amid a row of snow-spirit female demons.
Her face, usually cold as frost, now carried a faint flush.
A row of wine jugs, most of them empty, sat before her.
She was still cradling one, tilting her head back, gulping it down.
The demons around her kept a delicate distance, not because they didn't want to get close, but because they couldn't.
Because the moment she drank, she began to freeze things.
The kind of aimless, whimsical ice of a drunk.
A little female demon sitting to her left had just raised a cup to drink, only for the wine inside to freeze solid the instant it neared her lips.
She couldn't drink it.
She had to gnaw off a chunk of ice.
A demon who had barely come closer on her right found the cushion beneath him frozen to the floor.
He couldn't move.
Further away, three demons were pooling their strength to pull a companion free.
The companion had been walking past the Yuki-onna when, from somewhere unknown, half his body was encased in ice.
From waist to foot, all ice.
His upper body was still sticking out, thrashing his arms.
Oikawa herself was entirely unaware.
She was still earnestly drinking.
After finishing a jug, she tilted her head and swept her surroundings with a serious, dissatisfied gaze.
Then she muttered to herself,
"…So quiet."
"Why isn't anyone dancing?"
"Dance! Everyone dance!"
She even began pounding the table.
The surrounding demons: "…"
What is she saying? They were all frozen by her!
Tanuki Jūsaburō circled around that disastrous frozen zone in a wide arc, hugging his bamboo scrolls.
He bounded over to Shinji's side.
His tiny bean-eyes were filled with a complex mixture of sympathy and schadenfreude.
"Master, should we… Commander Oikawa…"
"Let her drink," Shinji said. "It's a rare occasion."
Tanuki Jūsaburō thought about it and found it reasonable.
The Yuki-onna usually governed the region north of Musashi. She had many duties and was always wound tight.
It was rare for her to relax like this.
So what if a few things froze?
And one could see, this Yuki-onna seemed cold on the outside, but her true nature was not necessarily so "cold"!
At worst, the frozen demons would thaw tomorrow.
Tanuki Jūsaburō thus abandoned his worries, sat down, unrolled his bamboo scroll, and cleared his throat twice.
"Then, shall this subordinate report on the progress of the absorption?"
When it came to absorption, that was the greatest gain of this battle.
Tanuki Jūsaburō had led the remnants of the moth demons absorbed from Kurokawa Castle across the six provinces of Mutsu.
From southern Mutsu to the north, within three days, over seventy percent of the original demonic forces across the six provinces had submitted.
Add to that the stragglers drawn in from Dewa, Shimotsuke, and Kōzuke, and the original hundred-plus core demons of the seven Kantō provinces, nearly a thousand demons.
The total had skyrocketed to eight thousand.
Eight thousand demons who had not particularly victimized the innocent.
Managing such a vast number of demons was naturally no simple task.
But in this regard, it had never required Shinji to manage anything himself.
In a world where power reigned supreme, as long as he maintained his position as the strongest leader, no one could defy him.
He merely had to delegate responsibility.
No need to handle everything personally.
That was the role of "administrative officers."
The tanuki, now at the Sixth Transformation, looked nearly two meters tall.
His furry body stood upright, his round form draped in a kimono, looking for all the world like a minister presenting a memorial at court.
That was his own description, at least.
Shinji preferred to say he looked like an eunuch… and in truth, it was quite close.
It was said that before becoming a demon of the borderlands, Tanuki Jūsaburō had spent some time as a "house cat."
This one was truly suited for "management."
"Master, I have completed the organization according to your instructions."
Tanuki Jūsaburō cleared his throat and respectfully unrolled his bamboo scroll.
"Divide all demons into sixty-six groups, the Sixty-Six Great Halls of the Hyaku Monogatari groups.
Each group to be led by a single officer.
Minimum requirement for now: Fifth Transformation or above…"
The clamor of the banquet did not quiet at Tanuki Jūsaburō's report.
But Shinji clearly did not care.
He listened while sweeping his gaze over the commotion below.
Sixty-six groups of Hyaku Monogatari.
Sixty-six officers.
This number was not chosen at random.
In later ages, during the Edo period, the Japanese tradition of the Hyaku Monogatari ghost-story gatherings involved lighting one hundred candles and telling one hundred ghost stories.
With each story finished, a candle was extinguished.
When the last candle went out, a true demon would descend.
Sixty-six was two-thirds.
In other words, the stories were not yet finished.
Still growing.
Could still grow.
"…Sixty-six groups. Total: eight thousand and seventeen."
Tanuki Jūsaburō finished reading and lifted his head.
His tiny bean-eyes were filled with poorly concealed pride.
"Master, this is no longer a Hyakki Yakō. This is eight thousand demons."
Shinji glanced at him.
Eight thousand.
From the original twenty-three to eight thousand now.
In less than a year.
One could not call that speed slow.
"One more thing."
Tanuki Jūsaburō closed the bamboo scroll and reached into a nearby bundle, pulling something out, several fragments of a blade, shattered into five or six pieces.
The edges were jagged.
They gleamed with a dim luster.
It was Menōmaru's demon blade, the one inherited from his father, capable of sealing demonic energy.
The blade that had been smashed apart in the great battle by Shinji's five blades and Tessaiga combined.
"This subordinate found it while clearing the battlefield. Its spirituality is completely gone, it feels like nothing but a pile of scrap iron. This subordinate does not know how the Master wishes to handle it."
Shinji took the fragments and weighed them in his hand.
His crimson demon eyes swept over them once.
The blade was shattered.
Its spirituality had entirely dissipated.
Along with Menōmaru's demonic energy, a portion had scattered into heaven and earth with the daiyōkai's destruction.
Another portion had been devoured by Tessaiga in the final strike.
That moth-demon energy now resided within Tessaiga's body, waiting for future use.
Given the nature of moth demons… only fellow moth demons could use it.
At this thought, Shinji glanced toward the corner, toward Ruri and Hari, silently drinking, saying nothing.
As moth demons, they could naturally inherit it.
They had likely also sensed the presence of that energy.
But Shinji did not mention it.
Not out of distrust, Shinji had always trusted those he employed.
That had always been his rule for the demons under his command, even those who had surrendered.
It was simply that he did not wish to create another existence like Menōmaru.
Menōmaru was powerful, but his power was hollow.
His so-called command over all things relied solely on crushing others with that moth-demon energy.
He had no accumulation of his own.
No Truth that truly belonged to him.
In the end, he was an empty frame with a name but no substance.
Such a so-called "daiyōkai" was, without question, false.
A thousand times falser than even Sesshōmaru, that daiyōkai who possessed the demonic energy of a daiyōkai but could not bring it out.
He would wait.
Wait until Ruri and Hari's own abilities were sufficient.
And ideally, wait until they found their own "Truth."
Then he would bestow this moth-demon energy upon them, letting them use it to complete their final accumulation.
Not as a crutch to lean on from the very start.
Only what was achieved that way would be a true daiyōkai, not an empty shell that had merely inherited the skin of another.
As for the demon blade—
"Keep it. Store it."
He tossed the broken fragments back to Tanuki Jūsaburō, his tone casual.
"If someone needs a blade forged later, these materials can still be used."
Without spirituality, it could not be cultivated.
And Shinji did not lack such "transformation" power anyway.
Tanuki Jūsaburō blinked.
A thoughtful look surfaced in his tiny bean-eyes.
He quickly nodded, wrapped the broken blade, and tucked it into the leather bundle.
"Got it!"
He said, then bounded off with his bamboo scrolls.
Relative quiet returned to the surroundings.
The night wind blew in from the mountains of Mutsu, carrying the cold of the northern lands.
The clamor of the banquet continued, the great kappa had switched tactics.
No more chopstick dancing.
Now he was competing with several nearby water demons to see who could drink more in a single breath.
The kamaitachi was competing with a great wind-bird demon to see who could slice things more accurately.
He had already cleanly severed seven chopsticks planted upright in the ground.
But the eighth went crooked.
The wind-bird burst into laughter.
The kamaitachi was silent for a moment, then without a word severed the ninth, the wind blade grazing past the wind-bird.
The wind-bird stopped laughing.
When questioned by bystanders, he could only stiffen his face and claim he was born not liking to laugh.
Then it was the kamaitachi's turn to laugh.
Only Oikawa's area continued to expand its frozen territory.
She had even started singing… unfortunately, completely off-key.
A stark contrast to her usual self.
Shinji glanced over and decided to pretend he had not seen it.
Amidst this, osore continued to converge upon him from every direction, from the entire eastern region.
The seven provinces of the Kantō.
The six provinces of the northeast.
A total of thirteen provinces.
A population exceeding two million.
Even if only half, or a third, of that produced osore, it was still astonishing.
And beyond that, there was also faith.
Immense faith.
Shinji looked down at his waist.
Onikiri trembled within its sheath.
Unlike the usual hum of demonic energy, this was a finer, more complex pulse.
Like a heartbeat.
In the instant the osore arrived…
[Onikiri: Awakening Progress 94% → 100%. She has fully awakened.]
The System panel flickered.
From the mouth of Onikiri's sheath, a wisp of dark crimson mist spilled forth.
Exceedingly faint.
Nearly invisible.
But after leaving the sheath, the mist did not dissipate, instead, it condensed, rotated, and elongated in the air.
Demonic energy was taking form.
First the outline.
A slender humanoid shape.
Slightly taller than Yura's comb, another tsukumogami.
Narrow shoulders.
Slender waist.
Then the details.
Dark crimson hair cascaded from the crown of her head, the ends carrying a blood-red gradient matching Onikiri's blade.
Her face shifted from blur to clarity, narrow eyes with lifted outer corners.
Pupils of dark crimson base and golden vertical striations, identical to the blade.
Thin lips, slightly pressed, carrying an innate sharpness.
A pale short garment.
A black sash.
Bare feet.
Her collar open, revealing winding, delicate lines.
A Demon Blade Maiden.
Oboro.
Full name: Oboro Onikiri.
It had been decided from the beginning, Oboro was the demon name.
Onikiri was the vessel name.
Her body was semi-transparent.
A tsukumogami in the Phantasmal Form stage had not yet fully materialized.
Dark crimson motes of light drifted at her edges.
But form, voice, and touch, three transformations completed simultaneously.
Three transformations in a single instant.
This was nearly unheard of in the transformation system of tsukumogami.
Yura's comb had taken over a hundred years to go from Phantasmal Form to Phantasmal Touch before meeting Shinji.
Onikiri had crossed all three stages in one breath beneath the surging osore.
Yet this was the terror of the osore brought by thirteen provinces and two million people telling tales.
Oboro stood in the corridor.
Her bare feet made no sound upon the wooden floor, because she was not yet solid enough.
But her voice already existed.
"…Master."
A low, husky girl's voice.
Her dark crimson, gold-striated slit-pupils looked at Shinji.
Within that gaze were many things.
Loyalty.
Longing.
And, an utterly direct, undisguised hunger.
The girl-shaped, semi-transparent body leaned forward half a step.
The angle of her open collar widened.
The lines below her collarbones flickered in and out of visibility within the dark crimson mist.
Slender fingers reached out and touched the back of Shinji's hand.
No sensation.
Her fingertips passed through the surface of his skin.
A flicker of unwillingness surfaced in Oboro's slit-pupils.
"…Still can't touch you."
Her voice was very soft.
Very crisp.
"Next transformation will do."
Shinji looked at Oboro.
His crimson demon eyes reflected that sharp, fierce face.
Oboro lifted her head.
A faint smile surfaced upon her semi-transparent features.
"Then hurry, Master."
After speaking those words, her body dissolved into dark crimson mist and withdrew into the sheath.
The corridor fell silent again.
Shinji looked down at Onikiri.
Upon the sheath's surface now lay an exceedingly faint layer of dark crimson luster, nearly invisible to the naked eye.
"…What's the rush?"
He murmured to himself, then tucked Onikiri back at his waist.
Alongside Yomi-giri, Raikiri, and Suijin-kiri.
And opposite the Banryū standing at his side, corresponding from afar.