The night had grown deeper, and the evening wind had grown colder.
After the last demon fell, the battlefield went utterly silent.
Kōbe Hikaru stood in the middle of a pile of corpses. Muramasa was still dripping in his hand.
Then the panel flickered to life before his eyes.
[Shikon Jewel — Naohi: Affection +5]
[Current Affection: 14 (Trust)]
Kōbe Hikaru blinked.
Five points at once?
That jewel had been stingy as a miser up until now — two points at a time was its personal record. Since when did it start being generous?
[Shikon Jewel — Naohi: Affection +3]
[Current Affection: 17]
It went up again.
Kōbe Hikaru glanced sideways — toward the Shikon Jewel floating before Kikyō.
The light within it was changing.
The ink-black malevolence that had saturated it moments ago was being pressed back by a thin layer of pale white radiance — like milk dripping into a pot of ink, black and white distinct, the boundary between them sharp and absolute.
[Shikon Jewel — Naohi: Affection +4]
[Current Affection: 21]
[Bond Dialogue Unlocked (I)]
[It is conveying a message to you —]
Kōbe Hikaru waited.
The characters emerged on the system panel one by one — slower than he had ever seen before.
['Thank you.']
['It has been a very long time since anyone helped her.']
['You are the first.']
The Shikon Jewel's Bond Dialogue was actual dialogue — direct words, not just a vague transmission of feelings?
No wonder every demon in the world wanted their hands on it.
Far more intelligent than Muramasa, that was certain.
Kōbe Hikaru looked up at Kikyō.
The shrine maiden stood before the hovering Shikon Jewel, hands forming seals, her spiritual power unraveling into threads of light that coiled around the jewel and bound it fast.
Her expression was grave.
While Kōbe Hikaru had been dealing with the last of the demons, she had been doing exactly what she was meant to do — executing the suppression of Magatsuhi.
['She is strong. But she is only one person.']
['Those who guard the Shikon Jewel have always been alone.']
['That duty cannot be shared. It should not be shared.']
['So… thank you.']
Kōbe Hikaru said nothing in return.
He didn't know what to say.
You're welcome — to a jewel?
…Actually, that probably wasn't the worst thing he'd ever done.
[Shikon Jewel — Naohi: Affection +2]
[Current Affection: 23]
[It is conveying a warning —]
['Tonight is not over yet.']
['What came before was only an appetizer.']
['The true threat has not arrived.']
Kōbe Hikaru's brow furrowed.
The true threat?
That horde just now didn't count? The four-armed ape was Five Changes. The Mist Wraith was at least Six. If that didn't qualify as a threat, then —
['Watch the sky.']
['Watch…me.']
When those last three words appeared, something lurched in Kōbe Hikaru's chest.
Watch you?
What did that mean?
But the system panel went still. No more characters appeared.
The Shikon Jewel's radiance settled into something precarious — white light and black miasma holding each other at a knife's edge, neither gaining ground.
Kōbe Hikaru wanted to press it further. He knew it was pointless.
This jewel was nothing like Muramasa — that insufferable chatterbox of a blade, who could never shut up when it had something to say. The Naohi said what it wanted to say, and when it didn't, you'd get nothing out of it.
"Something wrong?"
Kikyō's voice reached him.
Kōbe Hikaru closed the panel and turned around.
"Nothing—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
The back of his neck went cold.
That was a Ghost Warrior's instinct — the raw, wordless sense of danger.
Kōbe Hikaru snapped his gaze upward.
The moon above was fuller than before — so full it looked ready to fall from the sky. The moonlight was a corpse-pale white, and beneath it, the entire shrine had taken on the grey-blue cast of something long dead.
And then he saw it.
At the far edge of the sky, a mass of shadow was closing in.
Not a mass.
A curtain.
Dense and boundless, blotting out everything behind it. Several times more numerous than the horde they had just slaughtered.
"...Damn."
Kōbe Hikaru swore under his breath.
[Shikon Jewel — Naohi indicates — it wishes to speak, but can no longer do so.]
[Magatsuhi is suppressing it.]
The system panel pushed out one final notification.
Then nothing.
Kōbe Hikaru looked at the Shikon Jewel one last time.
The white light was retreating at a visible rate — peeling back like skin being stripped away. The black miasma surged back in, denser than before, thicker, heavier, on the edge of coagulating into something solid.
"The Hour of the Rat has come," Kikyō said.
Her voice was perfectly calm.
She had apparently abandoned her attempt to keep suppressing Magatsuhi's malevolent force — because it was no longer suppressible. She walked to Kōbe Hikaru's side and looked up at the shadow spreading across the sky.
"The full moon at its zenith. Yin energy at its peak."
"At a time like this, Magatsuhi overrides Naohi."
"So…"
She paused.
"What comes next is the real trial."
Kōbe Hikaru tightened his grip on the hilt.
As promised.
Muramasa's gifts had fused into his body — but the blade itself still mattered. The sharpness stacked from all those feeding sessions remained. The bloodlust passive remained. It simply wouldn't speak to him for a while — after an ability fusion, an object's spirit always went dormant for a period, gathering itself before recovering. Not too long. But not soon enough.
"They're here," Kikyō said.
She drew the bowstring.
The curtain of shadow had reached the shrine's airspace.
Not demons.
Birds?
No.
Kōbe Hikaru narrowed his eyes.
They had wings — but they weren't birds.
Bats.
Tens of thousands of bats, each one the size of a human head, eyes glowing green, two needle-sharp fangs jutting from each open mouth.
A Blood-Bat Swarm.
Individually weak. Collectively — a problem.
But they weren't the main course.
The main course was behind them.
Kōbe Hikaru saw it.
At the very rear of the swarm, a larger shadow hung in the air — immense, at least three jō from end to end, suspended in the sky like a small hill that had forgotten it was supposed to be on the ground.
"What is that?" Kōbe Hikaru asked.
Kikyō didn't answer.
She simply loosed the bowstring.
The demon-breaking arrow launched, detonated in midair, and scattered into dozens of streaks of white light — reducing the first wave of a dozen bats at the vanguard to ash.
A drop in the ocean.
More bats dove.
Kōbe Hikaru drew a slow breath.
The demon-qi in his body rose like a tide — surging, boiling. Blood coursed through his veins with the roar of a river breaking its banks.
This was the Blood Change.
His blood was no longer ordinary blood.
"Come on, then," Kōbe Hikaru murmured.
He raised his left hand.
In the center of his palm, a single droplet of blood condensed — and then burst.
It bloomed outward into a crimson mist.
The mist drifted and spread, wrapping the entire shrine in a veil of red.
Through that veil, Kōbe Hikaru could perceive every bat — their positions, their speeds, the exact arc of every flight path.
This was Resonance with Blood.
The first bat reached him.
He swept the blade horizontal.
The edge passed through it. Two halves fell.
The second. The third. The fourth.
Steel light strobed. Corpses rained down like fallen leaves.
But there were too many.
Kill ten, a hundred remained. Kill a hundred, a thousand took their place.
And that massive shadow at the rear was drawing closer with every passing second.
Kōbe Hikaru finally got a clear look at it.
Not a bat.
Something enormous, winged —
A flying squirrel?
No.
That was…
"Kamaitachi."
A name renowned across this land.
A true yōkai — in every sense of the word.
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