The broth smelled divine.
Kōbe Hikaru lifted the bowl and drank it slowly, one measured sip at a time.
A Ghost Warrior's body had no need for food — but that didn't mean he couldn't eat, and it certainly didn't stop him from enjoying the taste. At his core, he was still human. A person who had crossed over from the modern world, who had once lived without ever worrying about where his next meal came from, and who now had even less reason to scramble for one.
Being free to simply pursue what tasted good — in its own way, that wasn't a bad thing at all.
"This is really good," he said, and meant it.
Kikyō sat across from him, a bowl of her own cradled in both hands.
She drank with quiet refinement — small, delicate sips, her movements so unhurried they might have been part of some private ceremony. Her white kosode and red hakama were freshly changed, clean and unwrinkled, no trace left of last night's battle. Her black hair had been combed smooth again and gathered at the nape of her neck with a plain cloth tie, baring the pale line of her nape.
Sunlight drifted in through the window and fell soft across the side of her face, casting shallow shadows in its wake.
Kōbe Hikaru glanced at her once, then looked away.
He had other things on his mind.
Last night's battle had left a deep impression — and not only because of the danger.
More than anything else, it was the Kamaitachi.
As a yōkai himself, he had already spent the months since his crossing sorting through and cataloguing the hierarchy of demonic kind. But that had always been inference and extrapolation — logical deduction based on his own growth, theory laid out neatly on paper. The Kamaitachi, a high-ranking Corporeal Sublimation-class yōkai, had given him the first true, lived understanding of what 'Sublimation' actually meant.
Kōbe Hikaru set down his bowl and quietly ran the battle back through his mind.
Physical Transformation, as he had always understood it, was structural change to the body.
Growing horns. Sprouting wings. Developing claws. Reshaping eyes.
All of it structural modification. His own Six Changes followed that same logic — Spearman's Core Mutation, Razor-Eye Mutation, Bowman's Mutation, Spearman's Core Mutation, Shield-Bone Mutation, Resonance with Blood. Each Change caused a specific part of the body to undergo a transformation, granting abilities that exceeded the natural limits of flesh.
But when all was said and done, it was still renovation within an existing framework.
Like swapping out tyres, adding a new engine, bolting on a turbocharger. The car was still the same car — just significantly higher-spec.
Corporeal Sublimation was something else entirely. That much was obvious.
He thought back to what the Kamaitachi had done in that fight. It had freely altered its own size — compressing from three jō down to half a jō, then expanding back out to two. The volume changed. The mass did not.
Which meant what, exactly?
It meant it could compress the same amount of force into a smaller volume for greater speed and sharper strikes. Or disperse that same force across a larger volume for wider defensive coverage and superior resilience against impact.
That wasn't structural change. That was attribute change.
Manipulation of the most fundamental properties.
Big and small. More and less.
The understanding came to him all at once, clean and clear.
Physical Transformation changed how you used what you had.
Corporeal Sublimation changed how much you had.
One changed the method. The other changed the substance itself.
No wonder the gap was so vast.
He had completed Six Changes, and his ghost-qi was pure enough to genuinely surprise the Kamaitachi. And he had still been completely outmatched — because his attributes weren't enough. Raw strength, speed, defensive capability — the most fundamental building blocks — were an entire tier below what a Corporeal Sublimation yōkai could bring to bear.
And then, following that thought, something else clicked.
He had noticed that the Kamaitachi's demon-qi was inferior to his own in terms of quality. But demon-qi, beyond its relationship to one's Changes, also required years of accumulation and refinement to fully mature.
In other words — the Kamaitachi, as a yōkai, was probably quite young. Measured against the typical lifespan of a demon, it had in all likelihood been born not long ago at all.
Born recently, and already past Six Changes. By the standards of ordinary yōkai, that talent was self-evidently exceptional.
But Kōbe Hikaru suspected that had less to do with innate talent and more to do with fundamental nature.
The Kamaitachi's essence wasn't biological — it was wind. Formless, intangible wind.
Much like the six-Change fog-yōkai he had encountered before: entities whose fundamental nature was non-corporeal were harder to demonize in the first place, but once they managed it, they seemed to advance through their Changes far more readily than conventional yōkai.
By extension, they likely also found it easier to step from Physical Transformation into Corporeal Sublimation than their more conventional counterparts did.
And by further extension — their Corporeal Sublimation was almost certainly tied to their fundamental nature. In this case, wind.
Because beyond the physical properties of mass, yin-yang, the Four Symbols, the Five Elements — those were attributes too. All of them were. That was the distinction between physical and elemental.
Physical or elemental, it didn't matter. Both were attributes. Both were changes to substance.
And it wasn't simply a matter of controlling an element. It was a matter of becoming one — just as the Kamaitachi's fundamental nature was wind itself.
The Kamaitachi had gradually coalesced out of wind, condensing into a physical form.
For an ordinary yōkai to walk that same path, it would have to do the reverse — become wind.
Kōbe Hikaru understood.
"What are you thinking about?"
Kikyō's voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
He looked up. The shrine maiden was watching him, and there was something in those cool, clear eyes — curiosity.
"How to get stronger," he answered honestly. "That Kamaitachi last night made me realize I still have a long way to go. Even with outside help, I couldn't hold my own against it in a real head-on fight."
As a yōkai, and as someone walking through a world at war, being strong enough was the only real form of stability. The only foundation from which you could pursue the life you actually wanted.
It was a reason that needed no elaboration. A goal that needed no further justification.
Kikyō gave a small nod.
"That was indeed a formidable yōkai," she said.
She set down her bowl and let her gaze drift to the sunlight outside the window.
"The ability to freely alter its own size and shape, to manipulate the fundamental nature of wind… a yōkai of that level is beyond what ordinary means can handle."
"But," she added, "at the rate you grow — you'll surpass it soon enough."
She glanced at him as she said it, her dark eyes calm and bright at once, and she meant every word.
Kōbe Hikaru paused, very slightly.
"You're not an ordinary yōkai," she said.
"I don't know the specifics, but I can sense it — the way you grow is not normal."
Well. She wasn't wrong.
Kikyō was no yōkai, and she had no framework to articulate anything like the Four Transformations or the Six Changes. But as a shrine maiden of extraordinary spiritual power, her perceptions were sharp — sharp enough to feel the changes in the Ghost Warrior standing before her.
Kōbe Hikaru wasn't surprised in the least.
"You're right, it isn't normal," he said. "But I can't explain the specifics. Not right now."
Kikyō didn't press him.
She only nodded, then rose to her feet.
"I understand," she said. "Everyone has their secrets."
She moved to the window and stood with her back to him.
The sunlight fell across her from behind, and it turned the white of her robe into a soft, warm gold.
"But whatever your method may be — there is one thing I feel certain of."
"What's that?"
"The way you grow stronger is different from other yōkai," she said. "It isn't chaotic. And it isn't driven by bloodlust."
She turned back to face him as she said it.
Kōbe Hikaru met her eyes — and, despite himself, smiled.
"You're right," he said.
He stood and walked over to her side.
The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder at the window, looking out at the village below.
Kaede was in the courtyard, chasing a chicken. She was red-faced and sweating, her short legs pounding furiously after the bird, and losing.
"Big brother! Sister! What are you two doing up there!"
The small girl's voice carried up from outside.
"Standing that close! Are you whispering secrets?!"
Kōbe Hikaru and Kikyō fell silent at exactly the same moment.
"We're discussing something important," Kikyō said.
"What kind of important thing requires you to stand that close?!"
Kaede planted both fists on her hips, wearing the expression of someone who has seen everything and will not be fooled.
"Adults always make excuses!"
"…"
Kōbe Hikaru privately concluded that this little girl was genuinely a force of nature.
He glanced sideways at Kikyō.
The shrine maiden's ears had gone ever so faintly red at the tips. Her face, however, remained perfectly composed.
"Kaede," she said.
"Yes, Sister?"
"Go catch that chicken. We're having it for lunch."
"Eh—? But I wanted to play with big brother—"
"Now."
"…Fine."
Kaede trudged off, cheeks puffed out in a pout.
Kōbe Hikaru watched her go and couldn't help it — he laughed.
"That kid is something else."
"She's always been like that." There was a faint note of exasperation in Kikyō's voice. "She's had a mouth on her since she was small. Says whatever comes to mind."
"But —"
She paused.
"She's not entirely wrong."
Kōbe Hikaru blinked.
Kikyō gave him no chance to respond. She simply turned on her heel and walked back inside.
"Get ready," she said. "We're leaving."
"Where to?"
"The Demon Slayer village."
Kikyō paused mid-step and turned back to look at him.
"The elder entrusted the Shikon Jewel to me. Now that Magatsuhi within it has been suppressed, it's time I go and tell his people myself."
"And besides —"
"His family is still waiting for him to come home."
Kōbe Hikaru went quiet.
He thought of what the old man had said in his final moments.
"Understood," he said, and gave a single nod. "When do we leave?"
"Tomorrow morning," Kikyō said. "Today we rest and recover our strength."
"Alright."
He watched her disappear into the interior of the building.
She hadn't asked if he wanted to come along. Because she already knew he would.
They had only fought side by side once. And yet she trusted him — fully, without reservation.
In some sense of the word: she was still a little naive about the world.
But as for actually accompanying Kikyō to the Demon Slayer village — Kōbe Hikaru had absolutely no intention of refusing, regardless. Even setting aside anything personal, if only for the sake of accumulating more Affection with the Shikon Jewel, he would have followed her.
To say nothing of the fact that the Demon Slayer clan's village contained important characters from the original story.
The one who would be active fifty years from now was almost certainly not born yet. In all likelihood, not even close.
But their weapon —
Hiraikotsu.
The enormous boomerang used by the Demon Slayer clan to cut down yōkai, fashioned from the bones of demons themselves. Its destructive power was staggering.
If he could max out that weapon's Affection…
He ought to receive a sufficiently powerful Talent transformation out of it, shouldn't he?
He wondered — could something like that even bring him to the level of Corporeal Sublimation?
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