Far, far away in the Japan.
West of Kyoto, on the border of Yamato Province, deep in the mountains.
A temple built atop a peak — no, temple was the wrong word for it.
It looked more like a palace.
Gold leaf covered its roofs, vermilion lacquer wrapped its pillars, and its halls rose in nine tiers, an extravagance verging on the absurd, built in the middle of a wilderness where no human lived for dozens of miles around — yet gleaming gold and jade, as though a palace from the heavens had descended to earth.
At the very top of the hall, on the highest level of the nine-tiered pagoda.
A woman stood beside the railing.
She wore crimson ritual robes, layer upon layer of silk embroidered with the Sanskrit script and lotus patterns particular to esoteric doctrine — yet at key points, subtly warped, so that orthodox Sanskrit twisted into something older, more ambiguous.
Her face was extraordinarily beautiful.
Beautiful to an uncomfortable degree — too perfect, so perfect it looked meticulously carved, without a single flaw, and therefore without a trace of humanity.
Black hair cascaded like a waterfall down to her waist, and tucked into it bloomed a golden datura flower.
Her eyes were gold.
Not the slit pupils of a yokai, but ordinary round ones — yet that gold was so pure it seemed to reflect not the scenery before her, but something of a far higher order of existence.
Sesshouin Kiara.
The true Sesshouin Kiara.
Not the puppet whose identity had been stolen by a vengeful Demon, but the actual head of the Tachikawa sect.
A living person.
Yes, she was a living human being.
At least her body was human. As for her soul... that was another story entirely.
At this moment.
She stood atop the nine-tiered pagoda, gazing east.
The eastern sky had lit up once, half an hour before.
That had been the radiance of spiritual power released when the Earth Barrier spread out, when the faith of two provinces gathered into Kikyo — a glow that had blanketed the lands of Musashi, Sagami, and Kozuke.
It had lasted less than half a night before fading.
But the afterglow of that light still echoed in Sesshouin Kiara's eyes.
She had seen it.
With those golden eyes of hers that could pierce through the mundane and reach the essence beneath — she had seen the source of that light.
Not the shrine maiden.
The shrine maiden was only the conduit.
The true source was faith.
The faith of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people, all directed at the same being.
That being's name, layered and amplified and elevated by the will of countless hearts within that radiance —
Demon God Hikaru.
Sesshouin Kiara's golden eyes narrowed slightly.
The corners of her lips curled up.
That smile was tiny, yet impossibly deep, like the faint curve at the corner of a Buddha statue's mouth — mercy and cruelty coexisting, the sacred and the profane fused into one.
"I saw it," she said.
Her voice was clear and bright, pleasant to the ear, like a bell swaying in the wind.
Behind her knelt two rows of attendants.
All young women, dressed in identical plain white ritual robes, heads bowed, not daring to lift their eyes.
Sesshouin Kiara turned to look at her followers.
Her golden eyes shone brilliantly in the morning light.
"I have seen our god," she said.
Her voice carried an inexplicable fervor — so intense it made the skin crawl.
"He is beautiful."
She raised a hand, her slender fingertips tracing lightly through the air, as if sketching the outline of someone far away.
"More beautiful than any god or buddha I have ever seen."
"More beautiful than Bishamonten."
"More beautiful than Dainichi Nyorai."
"More beautiful — than even I am."
Her lips parted slightly, revealing a dazzling smile.
That smile was as bright as the sun, yet as dark as an abyss.
"One day," she said, pressing a hand to her own chest, "I will go to him."
"And then... I will offer him the most devout of offerings."
The kneeling attendants all lowered their heads at once.
It was reverence, but even more, it was dread.
For they knew that when their High Priestess spoke of an 'offering,' it was never merely incense and prayer.
...
Echigo Province.
Kasugayama Castle, Honmaru Palace.
Deep night had passed; dawn was near.
The wooden floor of the corridor had been polished spotless, and each footstep made only the faintest creak.
Aya-Gozen crossed the gallery, the hem of her indigo riding kimono still dusted from hundreds of miles of travel, several strands of black hair loosened from the bun at the back of her head, brushing her cheeks.
She stopped before a half-open sliding door.
From within came the rustle of turning pages, and a faint sound somewhere between a sigh and a huff.
Aya-Gozen slid the door open.
The second Uesugi Kenshin sat behind a pile of documents.
Her blue haori hung loosely on her shoulders, her dark blue hair unbound and falling to one side, and her headscarf tossed carelessly, no one knew where.
The girl's face was fine-featured and spirited, but at this moment those usually indifferent eyes held an emotion rare indeed for Aya-Gozen to see —
Frustration.
"The budget's wrong," she said, holding a document, her brow furrowed into a knot. "Why are the repair costs for northern Echigo's coast after the Imagawa fleet's raid higher than the entire year's military spending?"
"Because the fishing port burned too, Kagetora," said Aya-Gozen, using her sister's given name as she entered and knelt down across from her.
It really was astonishing.
The Nagao Kagetora of before would never have worn such a troubled expression.
It seemed the trip to Musashi Province in the Kanto had genuinely left its mark on this girl... kneeling before that person and all...
The second Kenshin muttered on. "And this — the compensation demand from Musashi Province. Hojo Ujiyasu wants us to pay for repairs on several checkpoints. On what grounds? It was her own fault she couldn't hold them."
"And then there's the compensation Imagawa is demanding, plus the pensions for those three thousand wounded — however I do the math, this debt doesn't add up!"
"Because you're the one who fought that battle, and you lost, and you signed the treaty and withdrew your troops."
Uesugi Kenshin slapped the document down on the table.
Those eyes, which should have been indifferent to the point of seeming inhuman, now carried an inexplicable sense of grievance.
After all — that battle really hadn't been fought by her!
She muttered, "Why hasn't Lord Hikaru sent Kanetsugu back yet?"
Naoe Kanetsugu — though she'd never actually met him, by all accounts he was an extremely reliable subordinate.
Someone talented enough that even the previous generation had left behind a safety net for his sake.
Aya-Gozen laughed.
That smile was gentle, and in her expression — so similar to Kenshin's own features — there was even more warmth than usual.
"These things are what you're supposed to learn to handle yourself, Kenshin."
"I'm a war god, not a clerk."
"Bishamonten is also the god of wealth in the Buddhist pantheon, you know — that means managing accounts too."
Kenshin fell silent, knowing she couldn't out-argue her sister. She lowered her head and went back to flipping through the documents, then looked up again after two pages.
"Sister, was your trip back uneventful?"
"Well enough," said Aya-Gozen, pausing. "I ran into a yokai."
Kenshin's hand stopped moving.
"What kind of yokai?"
"Pale, long hair, Demon eyes, two swords at his waist — during the day he kept talking to the flowers and grass and trees by the roadside, even to the rocks, and at night he cut down dozens of things that looked like vengeful Demons in a single stroke."
Aya-Gozen's tone lilted, as though she found it all rather amusing.
She glanced sidelong at her younger sister — her lord, and the current head of the Uesugi clan.
"He carried your scent, Kagetora."
"A lingering trace of Bishamonten's power of the gods and buddhas — the kind that only someone who has crossed blades with you directly would carry, wouldn't it?"
Uesugi Kenshin set down the documents.
The frustration vanished from her eyes, replaced by an unmistakably radiant look.
"Kobe Hikaru."
She spoke the name aloud. "It was him."
Aya-Gozen watched the unfamiliar expression on her little sister's face and only smiled.
Kenshin was silent for a moment.
"...He saved you, sister. So now I owe him yet another debt, don't I?"
Aya-Gozen smiled, watching a brightness in her sister's eyes she had never seen before, and pressed her hands together lightly.
Kenshin said nothing more, only picked up the documents again and bowed her head.
But Aya-Gozen noticed — she was turning the pages faster than before.
As if she were steeling herself.
Preparing to do something.
So then, what exactly did this 'debt' really mean?
Aya-Gozen didn't understand. And Kenshin never said.
Musashi Province, Kaede's Village.
Dawn.
The last threads of light from the Earth Barrier withdrew from the land, like a receding tide, drawing back slowly from a range of hundreds of miles across three provinces, until they gathered directly beneath the Shrine's torii —
At Kikyo's feet.
She knelt there, hands pressed together, in a posture she had held the entire night.
Her white robe and red hakama, the shrine maiden's garb, remained spotless in the morning light; her black hair fell along her sides, her features cool and delicate, her eyelids half-lowered.
The instant the barrier drew inward, her body swayed slightly.
Not merely from physical exhaustion — but from emotion as well.
The whole night.
From the moment she'd received that crimson signal beam, she had stayed right here, using herself as the conduit to drive the faith-power of two provinces in spreading the Earth Barrier across hundreds of miles.
She didn't know what had happened over there.
Didn't know what he was facing.
She only knew — he had sent the signal, and so she had done as he asked.
This trust needed no reason, and expected no reward.
But the taste of waiting was, in truth, not a pleasant one.
Momiji and Botan stood guard on either side of the torii, likewise having gone without sleep all night, their faces weary.
Kaede sat on the steps of the main hall, the little girl hugging her knees, her head nodding, exhausted but stubbornly refusing to go to sleep.
Naoe Kanetsugu sat by a pillar of the main hall —
The morning light grew brighter.
Kikyo rose to her feet.
She turned, facing the direction of the village entrance.
The dirt path stretching in from the south flickered in and out of view through the morning mist.
At the end of the path, there was no one yet.
But she knew — he would come from there.
In this waiting, Kikyo's expression didn't change; she remained as coolly composed as ever, almost unapproachably so.
Beyond that composure, though —
Momiji and Botan exchanged a glance, and quietly withdrew even further away.
The morning mist gradually thinned.
At the end of the path, a figure truly appeared.
Gray robes, pale long hair, a sedge hat slung across his back.
Onikiri at his left hip, Yomikiri at his right.
His pace wasn't fast, yet each stride seemed to fold the ground beneath him, covering meters at a step as though soaring.
He walked casually, walked loosely, like a wanderer who'd traveled a month on the road and was finally almost home —
A few early-rising villagers at the village entrance spotted him first, froze for a moment, and then someone called out, "The Demon God is back!"
Scattered greetings spread through the crowd, but no one dared get too close.
Kobe Hikaru had once been a yokai.
Now, he had become a god.
Faith, sometimes, was built up just that simply.
Kobe Hikaru walked on past the village entrance and came to stand in the shadow beneath the Shrine's torii.
He looked up.
And saw Kikyo standing there.
White robe, red hakama, black hair like a waterfall.
The morning light fell on her, tracing her slender yet clearly curved figure in a rim of gold.
Her sash was cinched at its narrowest point, the front of her robe drawn taut across her chest, her skirt falling to her ankles, revealing a stretch of calf wrapped in white socks above her geta.
Her curves flowed smoothly, her hips gently flared, the shrine maiden's face cool and refined, her lips pale.
Her gaze, too, had been fixed on him from the very start.
It was very quiet — so quiet that no one around dared make a sound.
Kobe Hikaru stopped three steps in front of her.
"I'm back—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Kikyo moved.
She took a step forward, seized his wrist, her grip heavier than usual by more than a little.
Then — she turned.
The motion was crisp, her stride swift.
Momiji's mouth fell open.
Botan's eyes went wide.
Kaede bolted up from the steps, rubbed her eyes, stared blankly for a long moment, failed to understand, and drowsily sat back down.
Naoe Kanetsugu, leaning against the pillar, opened one eye, then closed it again — he'd been handling paperwork every single day lately, and he was simply too tired.
Kobe Hikaru, dragged along for a dozen or so steps, showed surprise on his pale face.
"Are you going to grab me and refine me on the spot?"
Kikyo ignored him.
She walked to beneath the Goshinboku — that guardian tree, thousands of years old, its branches spread like a canopy, sifting the morning light into scattered flecks — and stopped there.
She turned, rose onto her toes.
And kissed him.
The instant their lips met, they carried the faint chill of a sleepless night, yet burned with an unbelievable heat.
It wasn't gentle, because there was force behind it.
Almost like a bite.
Venting all her discontent.
A month.
He had been gone a month.
She hadn't asked a single question, had thrown her full support behind everything Kobe Hikaru did.
But that didn't mean she wasn't angry.
Didn't mean she didn't feel longing.
And didn't mean she didn't feel want.
The back of Kobe Hikaru's head knocked against the rough bark of the Goshinboku, his crimson Demon eyes narrowing slightly.
Then he closed his eyes.
He gave up resisting.
He even reached out on his own and gently cupped the small of her back.
His fingers were cold.
Kikyo's body stiffened for a moment, the red at the tips of her ears spreading rapidly down her neck.
But she didn't let go.
Morning light filtered through the branches of the Goshinboku, wrapping the two figures in a mottled patchwork of light and shadow.
Not far off, Momiji and Botan clapped their hands over each other's mouths, their wide eyes darting back and forth between each other.
Kaede had finally fallen fast asleep.
Naoe Kanetsugu leaned against the pillar, facing the other direction, pretending not to have seen.
A notification flickered at the corner of Kobe Hikaru's vision.
[Shikon Jewel: Favourability +2. Current favourability: 8.]
Because Kikyo's heart was now at ease,
the true spirit within the Shikon Jewel had settled as well.
All the discontent, all the unease, had come to rest with his return.
That was enough.
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