Taking on a master—such a thing was exceedingly rare in this world.
Especially when a great yokai like Sesshōmaru sought apprenticeship under a human, it would undoubtedly shock the entire realm.
Thus, in the end, only a select few knew of this matter.
Although Sesshōmaru himself—being one of the involved yokai—strongly opposed the idea, his objections held no weight once both Lord Tōga and Princess Inukimi agreed.
After leaving the Cloud Palace in the Sky, Satsuki's next course of action was soon set into motion.
From her departure at Katori Shrine to now, having achieved her initial objective, not much time had passed.
With nearly two months remaining before the Celestial Coronation Ceremony of the Miko, she had plenty of time to spare.
Casting a glance behind her at the silently following Sesshōmaru—who had yet to utter a word—Satsuki contemplated whether to visit the Yasaka Shrine.
Satsuki asked, "Sesshōmaru, how much do you know about Yasaka Shrine?"
"Yasaka Shrine?" Sesshōmaru frowned, his tone sharp. "Within all the Western Lands, that place alone poses a threat to our Dog Clan's unification."
"How rare," Ruri remarked from the side, idly flicking her fan. "For a proud yokai like you to call something an obstacle—it must be a formidable place indeed."
Sesshōmaru merely replied coldly, "The humans there are unlike any others I've seen—they face death without fear."
Face death without fear, huh...
Hearing his assessment, Satsuki's curiosity toward the shrine grew slightly.
If she remembered correctly, the Miko had once mentioned that Yasaka Shrine housed the largest number of exorcist and dark priestesses, and its patron deity was the war god Susanoo and others of his pantheon.
Perhaps it would be worth a visit.
However, before that, there were a few loose ends to tie up.
With that thought, Satsuki halted her steps, half-turning as she asked, "In the Western Lands, the Dog Clan and the Panther Tribe don't get along well, do they?"
Sesshōmaru answered curtly, "They're nothing but a pack of mongrel yokai."
"Is that so?" Satsuki replied mildly. "Then your first lesson begins now. Show me just how strong you are."
"Pointless."
Though his words dripped with disdain, Sesshōmaru still drew the long sword he had received from the Celestial Palace and swung it toward the nearby forest.
A massive wave of blue-green demonic energy burst forth from his blade, exploding through the forest with thunderous force.
Whoosh~ whoosh~ whoosh~ whoosh~
From the shattered woods, four figures shot out in different directions. Their movements were swift—far beyond what any human could achieve.
With a few leaps, the four landed before Satsuki and her companions.
"It's been a long time, Lord Sesshōmaru. Your nose is as sharp as ever," said the woman who appeared to be their leader. Her skin was pale as snow, her long hair a shimmering light blue. Clad in a blue-gray robe, she stood with one hand on her hip—an archetype of icy beauty.
Then her gaze shifted to Satsuki. Turning slightly, she addressed the woman beside her. "Karan, is this the powerful one you mentioned to our lord?"
"Y-Yes, Sister Furan—it's her."
At the sight of Satsuki, Karan's fur stood on end, her body trembling as if struck by lightning. Clearly, the impression Satsuki had left on her last time had been too overwhelming. Even with her three siblings at her side, the fear within her heart refused to fade.
Upon receiving her sister's confirmation, the icy beauty—Furan—turned her gaze back to Satsuki. "Human, would you consider joining forces with our Panther Tribe to drive out the Dog Clan from our ancestral lands? If you agree, I can persuade our lord to grant any wish you desire."
Satsuki ignored her words entirely. Her interest in the four yokai faded the instant her golden Tenseigan finished analyzing their demonic energy.
They were nothing more than small fry.
To her, these four yokai possessed only the most basic ability to manipulate natural forces—nothing worthy of further observation.
Thus, she turned calmly toward Sesshōmaru and said, "Show me your sword, Sesshōmaru."
At her words, a wave of killing intent surged from Sesshōmaru's body, forming a chilling gale that swept toward the Panther Devas.
In the next instant, the handsome yokai vanished, reappearing as a blur rushing straight at their leader—the icy beauty, Furan.
"Hm?!"
The Panther Devas were taken aback. The son of the Dog Clan's ruler, Sesshōmaru, was actually obeying a human's command?
What was going on here?
But Sesshōmaru, who never wasted words, gave them no time to ponder.
Against an opponent of his level, they could not afford even a moment's distraction.
Furan immediately released her demonic power. A burst of frigid air erupted around her, and an icy spear materialized in her hand.
With a sharp clang, she parried Sesshōmaru's strike. Twisting her wrist, she deflected the tremendous force of his blade, then slid to the side, swiftly circling behind him. Raising one hand, she unleashed a torrent of freezing mist toward his back.
But evading Sesshōmaru was no simple feat—and clearly, her allies had already anticipated this.
From behind him, the only male among the Panther Devas—a burly figure—released a surge of lightning from his back, cutting across Sesshōmaru's path and halting his advance for just an instant.
That brief hindrance allowed the freezing air to close in.
Sesshōmaru immediately felt the temperature around him plummet. Ice crystals began forming across the ground, threatening to restrict his movement.
Yet, even surrounded by this coordinated assault, Sesshōmaru's expression remained utterly unchanged. After witnessing the battles between Lord Tōga, Satsuki, and even Ruri, he now saw the strength of these Panther Devas as laughably weak.
—Just as laughable as the power he had once taken pride in.
A torrent of demonic energy erupted from his body like a raging vortex, creating a barrier that effortlessly dispelled both the frost and the lightning.
Then, with his other hand, he summoned a whip of glowing yellow-green energy and lashed it toward a seemingly empty space nearby.
"Ah!"
A sharp cry rang out as the glowing whip coiled tightly around something invisible. A moment later, the smallest and youngest of the Panther Devas—a petite female—was forcibly pulled out of her concealment, her body shimmering into view.
In the next heartbeat, Sesshōmaru's figure flashed forward like a streak of light along the whip's path. In the blink of an eye, he appeared before her and brought his blade down in a single, decisive strike.
Sesshōmaru's blade came down in a single strike—yet, to his mild surprise, there was no splatter of blood. Instead, what burst forth were petals.
The woman he had struck dissolved into a flurry of flowers, vanishing beneath his sword with a faint, mocking laugh.
An illusion?
Sesshōmaru was slightly taken aback. To deceive both his sense of smell and his ability to perceive demonic energy—this level of illusion...
But he had no time for surprise.
The chilling air clung to him like a parasite, striking from behind. Though his demonic energy was stronger, and he could easily slay any of them one-on-one, he was currently outnumbered. The situation did not favor him.
Thus, Sesshōmaru's plan from the start was to finish this quickly.
However, his opponents were seasoned warriors, no less skilled in reading the flow of battle than he was. They deliberately left an opening to lure him in—and indeed, Sesshōmaru's sharp combat instincts had become their target.
It was clear now—these four yokai of the Panther Tribe had come fully prepared. They knew Sesshōmaru's fighting style all too well: swift, direct, and merciless.
Soon, Sesshōmaru found himself locked in a fierce and unrelenting struggle. Yet even then, his opponents clearly held back, wary of Satsuki and Ruri observing nearby.
Watching the battle, Satsuki turned her gaze toward the one standing guard—Karan.
Feeling that gaze, Karan flinched and instinctively leapt backward, crouching low as she stammered a threat through trembling lips. "Y-You... don't move! O-Or I'll... burn you with my flames!"
After saying so, she crossed her hands before her chest, preparing to summon her fire—but because her elder sister Furan had already filled the area with freezing air, her demonic energy failed to ignite.
In the frigid environment, even the smallest spark could not be born. Karan stood frozen in place, embarrassment written all over her face.
Satsuki, unfazed by such childish bluster, asked calmly, "Do you bear hatred toward the Dog Clan?"
"Of course we do!"
At the question, Karan momentarily forgot her fear, her anger flaring. "This land originally belonged to our Panther Tribe! It was Lord Tōga who stole it from us!"
Satsuki ignored the indignation in her tone and continued evenly, "Then tell me—why was your territory taken from you?"
"That's because..."
Karan froze mid-sentence. She almost blurted out because we were too weak, but that would only humiliate her tribe.
So she quickly corrected herself. "Because the Dog Clan took advantage of us while we were weakened!"
Satsuki nodded, not exposing the lie she had already discerned from the girl's mind. Instead, she spoke lightly, "Then, suppose an opportunity lies before you. If you can take advantage of your enemy's weakness and kill Sesshōmaru here, I may consider forming an alliance with your tribe."
"Meow~?"
Karan's feline instincts slipped through as she yowled in disbelief. "You're serious? You won't interfere?"
Even Sesshōmaru, fighting in the distance, gave Satsuki a brief, sharp glance before turning back to deflect an ice spear and resume combat.
"As long as you can accomplish it," Satsuki replied calmly.
Beside her, Ruri added with a teasing smirk, "Such chances don't come often. True or not, Panther Tribe—do you even have the courage to try?"
Hearing that, Karan's face twisted with inner conflict.
But Furan, ever the more decisive, made the call. "Karan, stand down. We'll bury Sesshōmaru here."
Her mind was sharp, far more so than her sister's. If Satsuki was truly as powerful as Karan had described, she could have acted long ago. There was no need for such words unless she truly meant to stand aside.
At first, Furan had thought the relationship between the human and Sesshōmaru was special—but now it seemed clear: this foolish Dog Clan heir was being used by a human woman, just like his father before him.
With that thought, she raised her ice spear high. A wave of frigid energy surged outward, gathering rapidly into a massive storm.
Within moments, a colossal blizzard dragon roared to life around her.
Meanwhile, the burly warrior of the Panther Tribe gathered a massive surge of lightning between his hands and slammed it into the ground. Several thick bolts of thunder split outward, merging with the surrounding frost-laden air to create a wide zone of crackling ice and lightning. The technique's range was enormous—though its destructive power was insufficient to harm a great yokai like Sesshōmaru, its paralyzing effect was formidable.
"Hmph."
Sesshōmaru let out a cold, disdainful snort. In response, he released a violent surge of poison gas that burst outward from his body.
The toxic miasma was so corrosive that it rivaled the most potent of acids. Within seconds, the terrain surrounding him melted and warped, dissolving into a wasteland of decay.
Seeing this, the Panther Tribe warrior immediately ceased his attack and retreated swiftly. Even for one whose physique ranked second only to their commander, the Panther King, it was impossible to withstand such venom.
Yet that terrifying poison was only the prelude.
Sesshōmaru began to spin in place, his glowing whip stirring the air, drawing the cold mist and lightning together. Mixing with his own lethal toxins, the energy coalesced into a massive blue-green storm.
His golden eyes fixed on Furan's direction—where a colossal ice tornado roared toward him.
With a flick of his whip, Sesshōmaru unleashed a tornado of his own, equally fierce and blazing with deadly energy.
BOOOOM—!
The two monstrous storms collided, churning the atmosphere into chaos. The earth itself fractured beneath the impact, splitting apart in all directions as spiderweb-like cracks extended for hundreds of meters.
In terms of pure demonic power, Sesshōmaru held the advantage.
However, his technique had drawn on the existing frost and lightning in the air—borrowed elements rather than his own strength. Against Furan's fully unleashed ice tornado, the result was a temporary stalemate.
But that was exactly what Sesshōmaru wanted.
Within his tempest swirled the virulent miasma. As the two storms clashed, the toxic pressure spread outward with terrifying speed, carried by the violent winds. In an instant, the emerald-green gas expanded across the battlefield, devouring everything in its path.
"Fall back!"
The sudden shift caught the Panther Devas completely off guard. They had faced Sesshōmaru's venom before—but this was on another level. Normally, the poison could be dispersed with enough wind, yet now the strongest gusts had already been bound to his storm, leaving them powerless to counter it.
Elsewhere, as the poisoned gale swept toward her, Satsuki raised a hand, a shimmering barrier of spiritual energy forming around her and Ruri. The deadly miasma was completely repelled, dissipating harmlessly against the glowing ward.
Ruri, meanwhile, summoned swirling vortices of demonic energy—each vortex flickering with countless watching eyes—that absorbed and redirected the poison into their depths.
Sesshōmaru's toxins, though deadly, were little more than child's play to Satsuki and Ruri.
Still—child's play was more than enough to drive away the four pitiful little cats.