This was certainly not the first time Shinji had witnessed war.
Leaving aside what he had seen while wandering alone before, just half a month ago, during the war between Imagawa and Hōjō, he had seen it up close and even participated.
That time, the Shichinintai had been slaughtering indiscriminately in the war zone, creating resentment.
After Shinji killed four of the Shichinintai and then swept away the four directional demons in a single night, the course of that war had shifted.
On the Imagawa side, the thunder beast was slain, the calamity in the city was removed, and morale soared.
On the Hōjō side, Gaikimaru was slain, the entire city awoke from its nightmare, and military morale steadied.
The two sides should have fought even harder.
But the sudden departure of the demons had instead made both sides calm down.
After the demonic aura on the battlefield dissipated, the soldiers who had been driven mad by resentment gradually regained their senses.
The battle-crazed commanders finally realized that the ones benefiting from this war were not either of them, but the demons hiding in the shadows.
So Imagawa and Hōjō reached a temporary ceasefire.
Not for peace, but just to catch their breath.
But at least, the flames of war in Kantō had temporarily been extinguished.
That was good for Shinji and Kikyō.
No war, no large-scale killing and resentment.
No resentment, and the demons in Kyoto lost their most important nourishment.
Kidōmaru's plan had been largely disrupted.
That was why, over the past half month, Kaede Village had been able to maintain a rare peace.
But though Shinji never thought this peace would last long.
Human wars, in essence, never needed demons to drive them. As long as there were interests, ambitions, and power struggles, swords would never stop clashing.
The ceasefire between Imagawa and Hōjō was only temporary.
And there were far more than just these two powers on this land.
Yet the speed with which this second war had arrived still surprised Shinji.
Too fast!
Musashi Province, northern mountain path.
A soldier was running.
He wore battered ashigaru armor. His helmet had been lost somewhere. His disheveled hair was caked with dirt and blood.
His left arm hung at his side, twisted unnaturally, broken, probably cut off by a blade.
Blood seeped from the wound, dripping onto the mountain path, leaving a long, dark red trail.
But he didn't stop.
He didn't dare stop.
Behind him, the sound of hooves grew closer.
"Run… run…" His lips were cracked, his voice so hoarse he could barely form words.
He was a soldier from a Hōjō frontline outpost.
That morning, everything had been normal.
The ceasefire between Hōjō and Imagawa was still in effect. Though the front was tense, at least swords weren't drawn.
Then, from the opposite direction of Imagawa, from the north, an army appeared.
No declaration of war. No ultimatum. Not even advance scouts.
They just suddenly appeared in the Hōjō's northern defense line's field of vision.
The banner read Bi.
He recognized that character.
The Dragon of Echigo.
The God of War.
Uesugi.
He hadn't had time to see more.
Because that army charged too fast.
The outpost was crushed. The defense line was breached. Over a hundred defenders scattered in less than fifteen minutes.
He was one of the few who escaped, but he knew he couldn't get away.
Those cavalry were far too fast.
"Please… someone help…"
He stumbled over a hillside.
The view suddenly opened up.
A flat field, with cooking smoke rising in the distance.
A village.
He used his last strength to run toward it.
Kaede Village.
Under the torii gate at the village entrance, little Kaede was squatting on the ground, drawing with a stick.
She was drawing Sister Kikyō and the handsome big brother standing side by side.
Though her artistic skills were questionable, big brother had become a ball of yarn, sister a crooked triangle
Kaede was quite satisfied.
She was just about to add two eyes to 'big brother' when she heard something.
Footsteps.
Urgent, panicked.
And heavy breathing.
She looked up.
A man covered in blood came running down the mountain path, stumbling and falling on the road at the village entrance.
"Help…" He lay on the ground, his voice so weak it was almost inaudible.
"There's… an army… coming from the north…"
Kaede was startled. She dropped her stick and ran.
"Big brother—!" She ran toward the shrine.
But she didn't need to call.
Shinji was already standing at the village entrance.
Demonic aura condensed, ghostly energy dense.
Grey robes, white hair, crimson demon mask, blood armor and bone armor surrounding him, he looked like a Shura demon, a true demon of hell, cold and terrifying.
Yet Kaede was no longer afraid of him at all. Instead, she felt a sense of relief, as if seeing Sister Kikyō.
He walked past Kaede, went to the fallen soldier, and crouched down.
"Hōjō's army?" he asked.
The soldier looked up, saw the crimson demon mask, his pupils contracted, and he instinctively tried to retreat.
But he had no strength left.
"It's… Echigo…" His voice was fragmented.
"With a banner… bearing the 'Bi' character…"
"So many… thousands…"
"Marching south… nothing can stop them…"
Shinji's eyes narrowed.
Echigo.
The 'Bi' banner.
Just as he thought.
Though Musashi Province was under Hōjō control, it bordered Kōzuke Province, controlled by the Uesugi of Echigo, to the north. To the south was Sagami, the Hōjō's home territory. To the west were Kai, controlled by the Takeda, and Suruga of the Imagawa. It was a land surrounded on all sides.
And the only one coming from the north was Echigo.
The forces of Uesugi Kenshin, who in this era claimed to be the 'incarnation of Bishamonten'!
But regardless,
Shinji would not sit by and let them destroy the hard-won, brief peace he had found in this world.
He would not let the flames of war they stirred up affect this rare tranquility in the chaotic age.
Shinji stood and looked north.
In the twilight, a moving dark mass was visible on the horizon.
The outline of an army.
Banners, armor, spears, cavalry.
A thousand soldiers, advancing toward this direction.
And their vanguard had already arrived.
At this moment, the sun was sinking behind the mountains.
At this moment,
The light between heaven and earth was murky, neither bright nor dark, as if something had stirred it.
This was the twilight hour.
The most dangerous time of day.
As legend had it,
The yang energy of day retreated at this hour, but the yin energy of night had not yet fully descended. In the gap where the two met, the boundary between humans and demons grew blurred.
And in the fading glow of the setting sun,
The soldier who had fled from the north had completely collapsed.
The blood on his severed arm had long since coagulated, but other wounds were still seeping, a long gash on his ribs, a round hole in his back where an arrow had been pulled out.
He lay on the muddy road at the village entrance, his breathing growing shallower.
Kaede crouched beside him, her small face full of worry. She reached out to help him.
"Don't touch." Shinji's voice came from behind.
Kaede looked back at him.
The grey-robed, white-haired demon warrior stood under the torii gate. His crimson eyes were not looking at the soldier, but at the northern sky.
"Big brother?"
"Go back and get all the villagers inside the barrier, make sure no one comes out."
Kaede looked at his expression and didn't ask questions.
She stood, ran a few steps, then stopped and looked back at him.
"Big brother, be careful."
"Yes."
Kaede turned and ran back into the village.
Her figure disappeared between the houses.
Shinji looked down at the soldier, who had already lost consciousness.
His ashigaru armor was battered, the neck guard broken, the scabbard at his waist empty, whether lost while running or taken by someone, it was impossible to know.
He didn't save him.
Not because he didn't want to, but because there was no need.
The man's wounds looked severe, but they weren't life-threatening.
Now was not the time.
Shinji stood.
His gaze went past the village entrance, past the fields, to the northern mountain path where the army was approaching.
The last rays of the setting sun fell on those rolling hills, dyeing everything dark red.
In that dark red, he saw something else.
In this twilight hour, under the dimming light,
What he saw was not just an army.
Behind those cavalry, along the path they had come, several plumes of black smoke rose from the valleys in the distance.
That smoke was not from cooking fires.
Too thick, too black, and carrying a familiar scent.
The residue of demonic aura after being exorcised.
Shinji's eyes narrowed.
He recognized those smoking places.
Not human villages but Demon settlements.
In this world, not all demons were solitary wolves.
Though most demons were beasts, spirits, or even skeletons transformed by obsessions and resentment absorbing the turbid demonic aura of the world, without clear self-awareness, often unable to communicate
There were some special demons who, during their transformation, first 'mutated' their brains, evolving their consciousness.
They were not strong. In terms of power, they were even weaker than ordinary lesser demons. But they were smart.
They also knew how to band together.
Though rare, these low-tier demons often spontaneously gathered, forming communal settlements similar to human villages.
During the day, those places were hidden deep in the mountains, suppressed by pure energy, hard to detect.
Only at the twilight hour, when yin energy spread, did they emerge from beneath the daylight's surface.
Like a thin film layered on the normal world, peeled back by the last light of the setting sun.
Shinji had encountered such places before.
Even entered one.
It was not long after he had crossed over, when he was still wandering.
He had stumbled into a demon settlement like that, home to over a dozen low-tier demons.
A tofu-selling little demon. A spider demon weaving cloth. A one-eyed nyūdō fortune-teller at a crossroads.
Like a human market.
A true ghost market.
They saw him and were startled.
He saw them and was also startled.
But in the end, no harm was done.
After all, Shinji was not entirely on the side of humans. It was just that humans could generally communicate, while demons who could communicate were very rare.
Most demons, heavily influenced by demonic aura, would only fight on sight, whether you were human or demon.
Ultimately,
What he was hostile toward was never a specific race, but the individuals within it.
Killing people or slaying demons, it was the same.
One, two, three.
Within his field of vision, there were three such places.
Within a twenty-mile radius, only three very small demon settlements.
But now, that army from Echigo, sweeping southward from the north,
Seemed to be clearing everything that carried demonic aura along their path.
And now
They were heading toward Kaede Village.
The sound of hooves grew closer.
The vanguard cavalry had already crested the last hill, appearing at the edge of the fields.
They were near.
Iron armor reflected the dying sun. Banners unfurled in the wind.
A large flag with a white background and blue characters.
That 'Bi' character was even more distinct.
Bishamonten.
That word, that name, Shinji was certainly familiar with it, though he was more familiar with its other title.
One of the Four Heavenly Kings of Buddhism. The guardian of the north.
The god of war and treasure.
And as mentioned, if he remembered correctly, in later records, there was a person in this era who claimed to be the incarnation of Bishamonten.
That person was deeply connected to the source of this army.
The lord of the Echigo region.
The head of the Uesugi clan.
The one called the God of War… Uesugi Kenshin.
And beneath that banner, the cavalry formation was deployed, flanking from both sides, sealing off the exits of Kaede Village one by one.
This was clearly not a passing army.
Not an accidental intrusion.
It was a siege.
A purposeful siege.
They had sensed the demonic aura here.
Sensed Shinji's presence!
Shinji stood at the village entrance, his grey robes snapping in the evening wind.
The crimson demon mask covered his face, his white hair streaming behind him.
His left hand rested on Muramasa's hilt, his right hand hung at his side, a faint purple arc occasionally jumping from his fingertips.
The cavalry stopped.
Not out of hesitation.
Because someone was blocking their path.
One person.
One demon.
Standing before a thousand-man army.
At the center of the cavalry formation, one rider emerged alone.
A woman.
Young, around seventeen or eighteen.
She wore a set of dark silver armor. The armor was light yet exquisite, the curve of the breastplate fitting her form.
Her silver-grey hair flowed loose over her armor, blown backward by the evening wind.
In her hand, she held a tachi. Sanskrit characters were carved on the scabbard.
Her features were delicate, but her brows and eyes carried a sharpness.
Not the noble bearing of Imagawa Yoshimoto, nor the unwillingness to submit of Hōjō Ujiyasu.
Pure sharpness.
Like an unsheathed blade.
Her gaze fell on Shinji.
"A demon," she spoke.
Her voice was clear, neither loud nor low, but it carried far.
"In the name of Bishamonten."
She raised her tachi, pointing its tip at Shinji.
"Exorcise it."
Exorcise a demon?
Shinji didn't speak.
He just stood there, watching this woman, watching the thousand fully armed soldiers behind her.
On their armor, all were engraved with the same Sanskrit symbols.
This was no ordinary army. This was an army seemingly organized for the purpose of 'exorcism.'
And their target...
Had never been just the demon settlements along the way.
Him, too.
The demon of Kaede Village.
Shinji.
"Interesting."