If the Demon of Silence had previously been a passive entity, the roar of the blades cleaving the vacuum of the clearing had fully awakened it. The creature was no longer sitting. It stood tall, its height now surpassing the tilted torii gate. The white ribbons that had been scattered across the ground began to lift, swirling around it like a blizzard made of mantra paper.
My swords roared, but it felt strange. Normally, these blades cut through flesh with a satisfying splat. Here, however, every time the sharp edges frictioned against the air, the sound seemed sucked back into a black hole. The demon raised its gaunt hand, and instantly, the ribbons hardened into sharp blades as tough as steel.
I lunged. My demonic speed was usually unrivaled, but in this domain, every movement felt like pushing against a heavy current. The demon didn't dodge. It simply waved its hand, and thousands of white ribbons lashed out, coiling around the sword on my right arm.
CRACK!
My momentum halted. Not because the energy died, but because the ribbons clogged the gaps between the saw-teeth of my blades. The demon pulled me close. Its flat faceitself (no eyes, no mouth) was now only inches from my head. From the pores of its pale skin, a chorus of thousands of overlapping human voices whispered.
"...help... cold... don't forget me... my name is..."
These were the voices of those it had erased from history. Devil hunters, ancient villagers, and wanderers lost in Kyoto for centuries. The voices tried to seep into the gaps of my head protection, attempting to scramble the frequency of my demonic energy.
"Aqua-kun, focus on the pain!" Sumeragi's voice echoed, cutting through the frantic whispering. "It's trying to swap your identity with the soul-scraps it keeps. Burn them all!"
I let out a roar—a deafening, mechanical shriek. I revved the twin blades in my hands until they spat sparks. The heat produced began to scorch the ribbons binding my arms. The stench of burning paper and the briny smell of a demon filled the air.
I broke free and performed a backflip, landing atop the ruins of the shrine's roof. From there, I could see the demon's strategy. It wasn't fighting with raw physical strength; it was using spatial manipulation. Every time I moved, the distance between us seemed to stretch. I ran ten steps, but my position remained exactly the same.
"Kageyama! Natsu!" I tried to call out, though my voice was distorted by the void.
Kageyama began to stir. He saw me struggling to close the gap. With his remaining strength, Kageyama drew his short sword, the blade contracted with the Curse Devil. He knew he couldn't use his full power here, but he had another plan.
"Aqua! Don't attack directly!" Kageyama shouted, his voice hoarse. "It controls 'distance' through the silence. You have to break its focus!"
Kageyama hurled several small bottles of antiseptic into the air around the demon. "Oi, Natsu! Now!"
Natsu, still weak, raised her hand. Using the last bits of blood on her fingertips, she detonated the bottles in mid-air. BOOM! The liquid inside sprayed out, creating tiny particles that hovered in the air.
Now, the vacuum around the demon was filled with physical matter. I could see the air currents, the swirls of wind, and the fissures where the silence was weakest.
"Go, Aqua!" Sumeragi commanded from the tree.
I no longer ran on the ground. I slammed my arm-blades into a fallen bamboo stalk and used the rotating edges as a springboard to launch myself through the air, weaving through the particles Natsu had created. I moved in a zigzag, evading the white ribbon blades trying to intercept me.
The Demon of Silence looked panicked for the first time. It tried to create a wall of solid sound, but the noise from my swords—now spinning at a resonant frequency—began to crack the invisible barrier.
CRAAAASSSSHHH!
I broke through its defense. My right sword slammed directly into its left shoulder. There was no scream, but an ink-like black liquid spurted out, drenching my body. It felt cold, far colder than ice. The fluid tried to freeze Charon's soul energy, but I kept pushing.
"Deeper, Aqua-kun! Shatter the heart of its history!"
The demon gripped my head with its long hands. Its needle-like nails tried to pierce the slits of my eyes. The pain was agonizing, but simultaneously, I felt something strange. Through that touch, I saw flashes of Kyoto thousands of years ago—a burning shrine, people kneeling for mercy, and a figure... or someone very similar to Sumeragi, standing in the distance, watching everything with the exact same gaze she had now.
Was this why Sumeragi sent me here? Not to exterminate a demon, but to retrieve something buried in the past?
"You're thinking too much, Aqua-kun," Sumeragi whispered, as if she could read my doubt. "Think only of me. There is only my command for you to remember."
I ignored the vision and swung the blade on my left arm, slashing the demon's waist in a brutal horizontal arc. The demon's body was nearly severed in two, but the white ribbons immediately crawled over, trying to stitch the wounds back together with nonsensical speed.
"It can't die as long as this silence exists!" Kageyama yelled. "We have to destroy the source!"
Kageyama pointed toward the old peach tree behind the shrine—the tree where Sumeragi's crow perched. At the roots of that tree sat a small bell, half-buried in the earth. The bell didn't ring, but it vibrated with a frequency that absorbed every sound in this forest.
That was the heart of this damn demon.
I took a deep breath, feeling the heat of the engine burning in my chest. I had to reach that tree, but the Demon of Silence now stood before me as the final barrier, gathering all its white ribbons into a single giant vortex ready to swallow anything.
"Hey... Aqua," Charon's voice sounded clearer now, "use our blood. If this world doesn't want to make a sound, let our blood do the screaming."
I understood. I let my blades tear deeper into my own flesh, allowing Charon's demonic blood to spray onto both my swords. My blades, once silver, turned a glowing crimson, radiating a powerful scent of iron and death.
I was no longer just attacking with a curse. I was attacking with life itself.