Chapter 69: The Kyoto Vanguard
The battle was over.
For now, at least.
Hikaru retracted the Bone Spikes. The ivory blades, like plants suddenly deprived of water, slowly receded beneath the surface of his skin. All around him, the corpses of the demons that had littered the ground began to dissolve, turning into wisps of black smoke that dissipated into the night air.
This was the fate of most demons when purified by spiritual power. Their forms, coalesced from turbid energy, were unmade by the pure, returning to the ambient ether of the world. Only a stubborn few would leave a physical corpse behind, requiring special disposal.
Across the village, torches were being relit, their flames chasing away the oppressive darkness.
Kikyo was already moving among the wounded. A faint, white light coated her palms as she distributed herbs, each one glowing with the same luminescence, to the women who could still walk. She instructed them on how to apply the poultices to the injuries of their friends and family—a unique medical art of a shrine maiden. While the herbs infused with her spiritual power couldn't bring back the dead, they were more than enough to pull those with a breath still in their lungs back from the brink.
Kaede followed closely at her sister's side, her small hands clutching a water skin. The little girl's eyes were still red and swollen, but she had stopped crying, her face set with a grim determination that belied her years.
Hikaru didn't offer to help. He was a creature of the battlefield, not the infirmary.
He simply watched Kikyo work, marveling at the shrine maiden's sheer versatility. Barriers, medicine, shikigami—she was proficient in every discipline, a master of some. Even the traditional weakness of a shrine maiden, direct offense, she had more than compensated for with her peerless archery. And she was only getting stronger.
It wasn't that her reservoir of spiritual power had grown; that was an innate talent, a connection to the pure energy of the world that originated from the soul itself. In that regard, Kikyo had already reached the absolute limit. Whatever the heavens and the earth could offer, she could command.
No, her progress was in the application of that power.
With the same arrow that could once fell a single demon—or perhaps two or three at most—she now obliterated entire groups. Her previous reliance on speed and volume of fire was being replaced by devastating efficiency. She was rapidly approaching the level of the strongest shrine maiden from his memories.
Lost in thought, he stood his ground at the village entrance, his gaze fixed on the darkness beyond the protective barrier. The foul stench of Yao Qi still flowed on the wind. Though the bulk of the attacking force had been annihilated, he could sense more of it gathering in the distant mountains and forests.
This wasn't the end. It was merely the beginning.
"Hey."
A muffled, tinny voice vibrated from his chest.
Hikaru glanced down. The red comb, Yura of the Hair's true form, was trembling slightly. Her favorability was still in the negative, but it had climbed from the initial -30 to a less hostile -15.
"What is it?" Hikaru asked, pulling the comb from his robes and holding it in his palm. "Feel like a chat?"
"Who wants to chat with you!" Yura's voice snapped with irritation. "I just… I have something to tell you."
Hikaru raised an eyebrow. This was new. From the moment he'd captured her, her default state had been defiant silence, playing dead whenever possible. For her to speak up voluntarily was a first.
"Speak."
"Those demons…" Yura's voice paused, a flicker of hesitation in her tone. "They aren't just a random pack of strays. Someone is controlling them from behind the scenes."
Hikaru didn't respond immediately. He'd already pieced that much together. The intelligence he'd gathered from the Band of Seven, combined with the sheer scale of tonight's assault, made it obvious.
But her knowing this was another matter entirely.
"You seem to know a great deal about it," he stated, his voice flat.
Silence. The tiny skull adorning the comb seemed to swivel, as if wrestling with itself.
Finally, she spoke again. "Because I was one of them."
Hikaru's fingers tensed slightly around the comb.
"I was also a demon who was sent here," Yura admitted, her voice sinking low. "The day I attacked you… it wasn't just because I sensed the aura of the Shikon Jewel. It was because someone gave me an order."
Hikaru's eyes narrowed. "Who?"
"Kyoto," Yura spat the word out like a curse. "An envoy from Kyoto. A Crow Tengu."
"He said that if I could get the Shikon Jewel, or kill that shrine maiden, I would earn the appreciation of 'that lord.' I could join the yokai organization in Kyoto and become the subordinate of a true Great Demon."
Hikaru fell silent. Kyoto. It was Kyoto again. Of course it was. The employer behind the Band of Seven was there, and now the force behind Yura of the Hair was, too. It seemed the demons of the capital were truly determined to claim the Shikon Jewel.
"Who is 'that lord'?" he asked.
"I don't know." Yura's skull-adornment shook from side to side. "The Crow Tengu never said. But he did mention a name."
"What name?"
"Under that lord's command… is Kidomaru."
Hikaru's pupils contracted.
Kidomaru.
He knew that name. In the stories from his past life, Kidomaru wasn't the most famous of demons, but he was undeniably one of the strong ones. He was said to be a subordinate of the legendary Shuten-doji, one of the most brutal oni in all of Kyoto. And considering the presence of Hagoromo Gitsune in this era… with Shuten-doji long since defeated, it was highly probable that Kidomaru now served her.
This was trouble. Real trouble.
Kidomaru was not an opponent on the same level as the Band of Seven. By Hikaru's own metrics, if he wasn't a true Great Yokai who had undergone thirteen transformations, he was at the very least a top-tier demon on the cusp, having completed ten or more transformations and mutations. He was in a completely different league from the Kamaitachi he'd dealt with before.
"What else?" Hikaru pressed.
"Also…" Yura hesitated for a moment. "That Crow Tengu said that besides us 'ordinary yokai,'there are four high-level yokai leaders acting as the true'vanguards.'"
"Four?"
"Yes." Yura's voice grew heavy. "They came from Kyoto, then dispersed. They've positioned themselves in the four cardinal directions, surrounding this entire area."
Hikaru's expression hardened. Four vanguards. A complete encirclement. Were they trying to completely seal off Kaede Village? The situation was even more severe than he had imagined.
Which brought him to the most important question.
"Why are you telling me this?" Hikaru asked, his gaze sharp. This was the key. Yura was his captive, her favorability still negative. Why the sudden cooperation? He had a feeling the answer was crucial to farming favorability with this comb in the future.
The skull on the comb was silent for a long moment.
"Because I hate them," Yura finally hissed, her voice thick with irritation and resentment. "That Crow Tengu, that Kidomaru, and the great power in Kyoto behind them… they don't see us as anything at all."
"They just treat us as pawns to be discarded at will. Vanguard? A test? Grinding down the enemy's strength?" She scoffed, her voice rising. "It sounds nice, but they were just sending us to our deaths! Compared to being captured by you—"
Her voice grew even more agitated. "I hate being used by them even more! At least you treat me like something! They never even bothered to look me in the eye!"
Hikaru stared at the comb in his hand. The pair of tiny eye sockets on the skull seemed to flash with an angry light. This little demon… she had quite the backbone. Even for a comb.
[Yura of the Hair: Favorability +5]
[Current Favorability: -10 (Disgust Reduced)]
[Its hostility toward you has decreased because you did not look down on it as those from Kyoto did.]
Hikaru processed the system prompt, then finally spoke. "So you've decided to turn against them?"
"Who's turning against them!" Yura bristled defensively. "I just… I just think that telling you this might cause that bunch from Kyoto some trouble! I just don't like them! If you defeat them, then that's my victory too! And if you lose…"
Her voice trailed off for a second before returning with smug finality. "Well, that has nothing to do with me. I've already been captured, after all."
Hikaru was silent. The logic, twisted as it was, was actually quite sound.
"Fine," he said, tucking the comb back into the folds of his robes. "I suppose you're useful."
"Who cares if you think I'm useful!" Yura's muffled voice shot back from inside his clothes.
But Hikaru could have sworn he detected a faint, obvious note of satisfaction in her tone.
He turned, his gaze finding Kikyo as she finished tending to the last of the wounded. He strode toward her.
"I have intelligence," he said, getting straight to the point.
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