The covenant was mediated by faith.
No talismans. No spells. No artificially constructed ritual of any kind.
Shinji simply pressed his fingertip gently against the center of Kikyō's brow. That power of faith, directed toward him, condensed from the offerings of hundreds of thousands, moved with his action.
Like an exceedingly, exceedingly fine thread, it peeled a single strand from the depths of his soul.
Through skin. Through meridians. Into the deepest corner of her soul.
Taking root in silence.
From this moment on, his soul and hers were eternally linked.
Thus, Kikyō felt it too.
A connection tighter than reiryoku, like two strings plucked simultaneously, then entwined, never to be separated again.
She closed her eyes. Her cold, clear features were still as a painting in the candlelight.
"...Is it done?"
"It's done."
Shinji withdrew his hand.
The residual light faded from Kikyō's brow. She slowly opened her eyes.
Her dark pupils met his crimson demon gaze. Each saw their own reflection in the other's eyes.
What needed to be said had been said. No superfluous words remained.
The barely maintained ties of her clothing whispered in the night wind, then were eased away by his palm, falling soundlessly upon the laid-out bedding.
This time, Kikyō did not set a barrier.
Because she knew, Shinji would still restrain himself, yet at least could experience more deeply than before. And she had recovered somewhat.
She also wanted closer communion with her beloved, her husband.
The moonlight narrowed upon the window, then spread, spreading into a room full of silver.
The lotus root does not break; its fibers only connect more.
Moonlight beat against the window with the wind, rising and falling.
Across from the bedchamber, upon the roof ridge of the tenshukaku, Yura's comb sat cross-legged, her ink-black slit-pupils fixed on that utterly motionless sliding door.
She huffed.
"This time they didn't even set a barrier..."
Her tone was full of disdain, yet also carried an inexplicable sense of loss.
The Yuki-onna, Oikawa Yukiri, stood beside her. The sleeve of her kimono was lifted at one corner by the north wind.
Her expression was as usual.
But having stood so long, the thin frost beneath her feet had silently spread across 9m of roof tiles.
"The wind is strong tonight."
Yukiri spoke.
Yura's comb shot her a sidelong glance.
"What strong wind. You're making excuses."
Yukiri did not deny it. She merely lifted her head.
Her blue-black hair drifted in the night wind.
"Perhaps I am, indeed, making excuses... Lady Yura."
Yura's comb blinked.
She had not expected such a direct admission.
For a moment, she had nothing to say.
The two stood side by side in silence.
Moonlight stretched their shadows into two slender marks upon the roof ridge.
Yura's comb hugged her own arms.
"...Tomorrow."
"Mn?"
"Tomorrow it's my turn."
She leaped down from the roof ridge.
Her black hair spread in the air, then gathered. Her human form dissolved into comb form the instant she touched the ground.
With a ding, she bounced into the night.
Oikawa looked down at her feet and stood for a moment.
Then she, too, left.
The next day.
Morning sunlight spilled through the brand-new eaves, falling upon the window frame of the bedchamber.
Kikyō woke.
The first thing her returning consciousness registered was that she could not move at all.
From shoulders to waist, from waist to legs, every inch felt as though it had been dismantled and reassembled. So sore and weak she lacked even the strength to turn over.
The white silk wrapped around her. The bedding still held the body heat of two people.
The hairpin was still at her temple. The faint glow of its dark crimson crystal rose and fell against her hairline like a tiny star.
Kikyō shifted slightly... breathing in the lingering scent of Shinji.
For a moment, she lost herself.
A moment later, she realized what she was doing.
Her face flushed faintly, yet she did not want to pull away.
She tried once more to lift her hand.
Just like the first attempt last night, she lifted it a little, then gave up.
So she remained lying on her side, casting her gaze toward the entrance of the bedchamber.
The sliding door was half-open.
Morning light poured in from the doorway.
Within the backlit outline, a gray-robed figure sat upright upon the threshold.
His back to her.
And not leaving her side for even an inch.
The hem of his gray robe spread upon the wooden floor. His long hair was brushed gently by the morning breeze.
His radiant gaze bloomed in the sunlight.
His waist was bare.
The five blades, and Tessaiga, were not on his person.
He simply sat quietly at the door, like a stone guardian lion.
Kikyō looked at his back.
The corner of her lips curved.
Very reassuring.
That reassurance spread from deep in her chest all the way to her fingertips, not only because he was guarding there, but because she could feel that covenant thread beating gently between them.
His heartbeat, she could hear it.
Steady. Strong. Alive.
Hers.
"Awake?"
Shinji tilted his head.
His crimson demon eyes reflected the morning light. The golden ring rotated slowly once.
Amidst this, Kikyō's gaze also passed over his shoulder, toward the sky beyond the door.
Then her pupils shifted.
She saw it.
High in the celestial dome, five blades suspended in the sky.
Onikiri. Yomi-giri. Raikiri. Suijin-kiri. Banryū.
The five blades hung within the dawn sky, each occupying one of the five directions; east, west, south, north, and center.
Blade tips toward the heavens.
Hilts downward.
Between them, exceedingly fine five-colored radiance wove into a colossal net.
The net spread outward from directly above Kaede's Village, blanketing the heaven and earth for dozens of kms.
The five blades each inhaled and exhaled the impure energy diffused between heaven and earth.
The turbid substance of demonic energy was siphoned from every direction, pouring into the Five Elements cycle formed by the five blades.
Upon entering it was processed, transformed, and purified by the circuits projected from the Five Viscera, then output again, then absorbed by another blade, then transformed again.
A cycle.
Operating on its own.
From the celestial dome to the earth, covering a radius of dozens of kms centered on Kaede's Village.
Within that range, the very texture of the air in the sky changed visibly.
It became clearer. Brighter.
Because the impure energy had been devoured.
It was as though the entire sky was being slowly consumed by the five blades.
This was the most fundamental difference between a daiyōkai and an ordinary demon.
As stated before.
The reason a daiyōkai was great lay not in attack power.
Not in speed or technique.
It lay in quantity.
A daiyōkai could externalize demonic energy through its own Truth, devour heaven and earth to convert into its own use, then overlay its existence upon a region of the world to achieve "Phenomenon."
However vast the world they perceived, their Phenomenon could be equally vast.
The longer they existed, the more terrifying their demonic energy.
As long as they did not die, this growth had no upper limit.
Ordinary demons could not do this.
Their demonic energy existed only within their bodies. Its total volume was finite.
And though Shinji was still one final step from that realm, had not yet found his own Truth, had not completed true Phenomenon—
The Five Elements cycle domain of the five blades had replaced that step.
The Five Viscera and Five Elements, externalized through the five blades, constructed a self-sustaining demonic energy circuit outside his body.
Devouring external impure energy.
Transforming it.
Devouring again.
In terms of magnitude, he had achieved... pseudo-Phenomenon.
This Phenomenon could be named....
Swallowing Heaven.
Five blades swallowing Heaven.
Kikyō watched those five lights interweave and flow in the morning sky.
She felt the faint tremor of the earth beneath her and the continuously shifting density of demonic energy in the air.
No less than the pressure of any daiyōkai she had ever seen.
No less than the scale of that Tsuchigumo's first descent upon Kaede's Village years ago.
"You're... doing what?"
"Eating breakfast."
Shinji's expression did not change.
Or rather, he was cultivating.
Devouring vast quantities of demonic energy through this method, containing it within the Five Viscera, accumulating and strengthening himself through it, allowing his demon body to advance further, and further still, infinitely approaching a daiyōkai.
This was, in truth, the true function of these five demon blades.
Shinji had naturally relied on considerable external forces along the way.
But what he pursued had always been returning all power to himself.
The five blades were merely for convenience in walking.
But he could not become unable to walk without them.
In truth, even without the five blades, Shinji still possessed the Twelve Transformations.
The demonic energy of the Five Elements.
He could externalize it.
He simply could not construct an external cycle.
But if he could accumulate vast quantities of impure energy within his body, strengthening his demon shell through it... he might not be unable to achieve power of an equivalent scale.
Perhaps even stronger.
As long as that impure energy... could equal that of a world.
When the time came, if anyone thought he was helpless without his blades, then he would show them what a daiyōkai's "second phase" truly meant.
To this, Kikyō had nothing to say.
She lay on her side upon the bedding.
The hairpin at her temple caught the morning light.
Her dark pupils gazed at the sky beyond the door, bathed in five-colored radiance.
The emotions rising within her were complex.
Reassurance. Sweetness. Contentment, these were certainly there.
The covenant thread beat gently in the depths of her soul, allowing her to feel his presence at every moment.
That sense of being utterly accepted, utterly protected, was more real than any words.
But beyond that, there was also an inexplicable sense of urgency.
She was a miko.
His wife, and even more, his miko.
He was growing stronger.
At a speed she had never witnessed.
From that newborn demon warrior who once needed her help to finish off even an ordinary demon, to this eastern lands' foremost demon who now commanded five blades that swallowed the heavens, a pseudo-daiyōkai Phenomenon, the distance crossed in between, to call it a gulf between heaven and earth would be an understatement.
And herself?
Her reiryoku was powerful.
Her physical stamina was limited.
Last night's covenant had freed her from the erosion of time.
But it had not made her physically stronger.
She was still the miko who needed him to stand in front.
Her barrier, layered with faith-power, could at maximum cover a range of hundreds of ri.
Her spirit-cleaving arrows could kill in a single strike.
But against a powerful daiyōkai, she would still need him to create the opening to loose her arrow.
If, in the future, he needed to go further, face stronger enemies....
Could she keep up?
The miko's gaze rested on that gray-robed figure at the threshold, then lifted to the five-colored blade-light flowing in the sky.
Then, it shifted toward the direction of the Sacred Tree in the distance.
The canopy rustled in the morning breeze.
The pale golden halo that had risen during last night's wedding had faded.
But the growth-ring patterns upon the trunk's surface still pulsed slowly.
That divine tree connecting past, present, and future.
Kikyō was silent for a long time.
"Shinji."
"Mn?"
"There are two places I want to go."
Shinji tilted his head to look at her.
Kikyō did not name the specific locations.
She merely gazed at the direction of the Sacred Tree, her dark pupils calm and resolute.
"...Fine."
He did not press.
He merely said, "When the time comes, I'll go with you."
Above, in the celestial dome, the five-colored light continued to interweave.
Swallowing heaven, devouring earth; endless and unceasing.
Like the miko's emotions at this moment; surging, and joyful.
Thus, the demons of the east were unified.
A new Shintō "momentum" for the Kishin Mikoto-no-Mitama was also steadily rising.
Upon a distant coastline, moreover, "someone" was watching.
Observing.
"After the disappearance of Mount Hakurei..."
"A new heavenly deity is about to appear?"
"It seems the search for those 'fingers' must be accelerated somewhat."
Otherwise, if this great earth gained a true master, things would become difficult...
You see, a "god" with the qualification to ascend from earth to heaven, to step into Takamagahara.
"He," too, had not seen one in a very long time.
...
End of Volume one: The Rise of Mara