Chapter 114: The Demons of the Night, The Twins of the Pagoda
The Hour of the Rat—midnight.
Moonlight was swallowed by a thick shroud of clouds, plunging Kaede Village into an oppressive, near-total darkness. The only illumination came from the faint, ethereal glow of the spiritual barrier, a soft light that draped itself over the sleeping village like a fragile shroud.
Kikyo was not asleep.
She sat beneath the shrine's veranda, her longbow resting across her knees. The night wind stirred the white fabric of her kosode, causing it to billow slightly and cling to the contours of her shoulders, back, and chest. Her red hakama was drawn taut over her folded legs, the fabric tracing the gentle curve of her hips where she sat upon the wooden floorboards. Her jet-black hair, unbound, cascaded down her back, its ends trailing on the polished wood.
Her dark, almond-shaped eyes narrowed, her gaze fixed on the northern woods.
Something was approaching.
A subtle disturbance had rippled through the outermost warning layer of her barrier. It had not been triggered by a single entity, but by many. They were closing in from three directions at once: north, east, and west.
It was not the scent of Yao Qi.
A faint frown creased Kikyo's brow. She could clearly distinguish the difference between the auras of yokai and other beings. The energy of a yokai was turbid and heavy, carrying the deep, earthy undertones of the world's corrupted qi.
But these things… their scent held the lingering traces of humanity. A faint, almost extinguished life force, twisted and warped by something profane.
Kikyo's pupils constricted. She remembered the creature she had encountered outside the Demon Slayer Village—one of the immortal demons Hikaru had described, born from the blood of the so-called Progenitor, Kibutsuji Muzan. They were neither yokai nor human, belonging to no classification she had ever known.
Their only true weakness was the sun.
Last time, she had been unable to eliminate that demon instantly. Her ignorance had been her failing; it was her first encounter with such an abomination.
But now, things were different.
After that battle, Kikyo had spent a great deal of time contemplating the demon's characteristics: its near-limitless regenerative ability, its capacity to reform even after being shattered by spiritual power, and how an ordinary Sacred Arrow could only suppress it for a moment.
The conclusion she reached was simple. It was not that her spiritual power was insufficient, but that her application of it had been wrong.
The spiritual power of a Sacred Arrow was designed for purification. Its greatest lethality lay in cleansing the foulness of Yao Qi and corrupted energy. But Muzan's creations were not yokai, and they were not driven by Yao Qi. They were, at their core, human—or what was left of them. Strange, twisted humans.
Therefore, what was needed was not greater destructive force.
It was sealing.
To destroy and, in the same instant, use her spiritual power to seal the very source of the distortion.
Kikyo rose to her feet. With her longbow in one hand, she deftly plucked three arrows and held them between the fingers of the other. She descended the shrine steps, her white tabi making no sound as they met the cold stone slabs of the courtyard.
At the edge of the barrier, the first demon crawled into view. It appeared to have once been a middle-aged man, still clad in the tattered rags of a farmer. But its face was now a grotesque mask, its mouth split open to its ears to reveal rows of dense, needle-like fangs. Its eyes were bloodshot and feral, and its fingernails had elongated into vicious claws.
The unmistakable characteristics of one of Muzan's get.
Last time, there had been only one.
This time…
A second one scrambled over the low wall from the east. A third burst from the treeline to the west. Then a fourth, and a fifth.
Seven in total.
Without a flicker of hesitation, Kikyo drew the bowstring taut. She loosed three arrows at once.
Brilliant white spiritual power condensed at the arrowheads, but this was not the explosive energy of a standard Sacred Arrow. These were spiritual arrows imbued with a different technique, one not meant for simple exorcism. The power at their tips spun in a tight spiral; the inner layer was for destruction, the outer for sealing.
First seal, then annihilate.
The three arrows struck the heads of three demons in perfect unison. A blinding white light erupted.
Unlike the last encounter, the spiritual power did not dissipate immediately after the impact. Instead, the light coalesced, forming a gossamer-thin membrane of spiritual energy that clung to the demons' sundered flesh, encasing each fragment.
The demons' regenerative abilities activated instantly. Torn flesh writhed and squirmed, attempting to knit itself back together. But the sealing membrane of spiritual power locked every piece firmly in place. Each shred of tissue was individually trapped within its own cocoon of light, unable to reconnect with the rest of the body.
And then came the destruction.
The inner layer of spiritual power ignited, not for purification, but for raw detonation. Isolated by the seal, the demons' regenerative abilities were helpless against the spiritual power trapped within the same space.
Those pieces of flesh turned to ash amidst the searing white light.
For the three demons, the entire process—from the moment the arrows struck to their complete annihilation—took less than a single breath.
Kikyo's hands did not stop.
The fourth arrow. The fifth.
Her movements were a seamless, practiced flow, a perfect economy of motion without the slightest wasted effort. The string sang, the arrow flew, it struck, it sealed, it destroyed. Each sequence was completed in one fluid motion.
In less than three breaths, all seven demons had been wiped from existence.
When the brief battle concluded, only seven piles of dissipating ash remained on the clearing, and the faint, clean fragrance of purified spiritual energy lingered in the air.
Kikyo lowered her bow. Her breathing had not even quickened. For the woman she was now, seven low-level demons were not even a proper warm-up.
But her brow furrowed even tighter.
According to what Hikaru had told her, Muzan's demons were typically solitary predators. They would never appear here in a group without a reason.
What had drawn them?
Kikyo looked up, her piercing gaze scanning the surrounding darkness. The warning layer of the barrier remained silent. The immediate area was safe.
Yet, her intuition screamed that this was not over.
"Sister!"
Kaede ran out from the shrine, her hair in its usual twin tails, wearing simple sleepwear. Her face was still clouded with the confusion of being startled awake.
"It's alright now," Kikyo said, turning to gently shield her younger sister behind her. "Go back to sleep."
"But those things just now—"
"They have been dealt with."
Kaede glanced at the fading piles of ash on the ground, pursed her lips, and then obediently turned to run back into the shrine.
Kikyo stood alone in the clearing. The night wind blew, sending her long, loose hair fluttering behind her and framing her delicate, beautiful face. Her pale, cherry-blossom lips were pressed into a thin line.
She knew someone was watching from the shadows.
But she did not move to find them.
Because—
"Shrine Maiden Kikyo?"
Two figures rushed up the mountain path from the south, moving with surprising speed.
The one in the lead was a girl of about fourteen or fifteen, dressed in the white kosode and red hakama of a shrine maiden. Her long, jet-black hair was tied into a high ponytail. Her features were delicate and held a certain innocence, but at this moment, her eyes blazed with anger.
Following close behind was a younger girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen, with a round face and large eyes, dressed in the same shrine maiden attire. She clutched several paper talismans in her hand, panting from the exertion of the run.
They were Tsubaki's two junior apprentices. Disciples of the Black Pagoda.
Kikyo's gaze sharpened slightly as a sudden, cold understanding dawned on her. The Black Pagoda had once been deeply connected to the Shikon Jewel, and its former master had a history with the chief of the Demon Slayer Village. As the jewel's designated guardian, Kikyo was naturally aware of this. She even recognized Momiji and Botan from their childhood, though they were too young then and would not remember her. They were merely responsible for guarding the pagoda, largely unaware of the Shikon Jewel's true nature.
And now, they had arrived.
The scene that greeted them was Kikyo, standing alone in the center of seven piles of ash. Ash that still contained the lingering, twisted, but undeniably present traces of a human aura.
Momiji's sprint came to an abrupt halt. Her expression froze.
"You…" she breathed, her voice filled with shock. "What have you done to them?"
Botan also stopped, her large eyes wide with disbelief.
"What Senior Sister said is true…" she whispered, her voice even quieter, yet laced with a deeper, more deep confusion. "Are you really helping demons… by killing people?"
Kikyo looked at the two young priestesses, and in that instant, she understood everything.
Tsubaki.
It was Tsubaki's doing.
The demon blood attracted the abominations, the abominations attacked the village, and she eliminated them—only for these two apprentices, who knew nothing of the truth, to arrive at this precise moment. They couldn't sense any Yao Qi because Muzan's demons possessed none. They could only sense those faint, lingering traces of human life.
In their eyes, she was a priestess who had murdered seven people in the dead of night and was now standing among their ashes as if nothing had happened.
Tsubaki's poisonous words were surely echoing in their minds.
Kikyo's lips parted, but seeing the righteous anger in Momiji's eyes and the terrified confusion in Botan's, she knew that no explanation would sway them. They had already 'confirmed' everything their senior sister had told them. Preconceived notions, now combined with the so-called 'evidence' they had witnessed with their own eyes.
Explanations were futile.
Kikyo did not speak. She simply tightened her grip on her longbow, a faint, chilling light flashing through her dark eyes.
And farther away, down the southern mountain path, hidden in the deep shadows of the bushes, Tsubaki stood watching. Her gaze passed over the shoulders of her two junior sisters to land squarely on Kikyo.
She smiled. A silent, smug, triumphant smile.
The first step of her plan was a success.
But Tsubaki's smugness lasted only for a fraction of a second.
Because in the next instant, Kikyo suddenly drew her bow, nocked an arrow, and fired it straight at her.
Explanations were useless.
A priestess, however, never needed to explain. She only needed to… exorcise demons.
And as Hikaru would say, the demons in one's heart are demons all the same.
They, too, must be exorcised.
Tsubaki's eyes widened in shock. "!? "
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