"You're not Shinichi!"
"Why would you say that?"
Despite the sudden accusation, Shinichi remained remarkably composed.
His black eyes rested calmly on Shinobu Kocho, betraying neither surprise nor irritation.
Shinobu stood frozen before him.
Her voice was steadier than she had expected, but the trembling of her remaining hand betrayed the panic building inside her.
She desperately wanted to believe that her accusation had been nothing more than an absurd misunderstanding.
Yet the longer she looked into those unfamiliar eyes, the more certain she became.
Whoever stood before her, he was not the Shinichi Moriki she knew.
"I'm not mistaken. Shinichi would never look at me like that!" Her voice rose as her emotions finally broke through.
"Who are you? Where is my Shinichi?!"
By the time she finished speaking, veins stood out along her forehead, and her left hand had moved to the hilt of her Nichirin blade.
Shinichi sighed.
Rather than answering immediately, he tilted his head back and gazed at the clear blue sky.
Several seconds passed before he finally lowered his eyes to meet Shinobu's guarded stare.
His expression had grown complicated, almost as though he had no idea where to begin explaining himself.
"Shino… Shinobu Kocho."
The voice was unmistakably Shinichi's, yet hearing him address her so formally made it feel painfully unfamiliar.
"I am Shinichi Moriki," he said, enunciating every word with quiet clarity. "But I'm not only Shinichi Moriki."
Shinobu's pupils contracted, and for an instant, she could only stare at him.
"What… what are you talking about?"
"I've had many names."
Shinichi raised the Nichirin blade in his left hand and studied his reflection in the steel.
The face looking back at him was young and handsome, with features that still carried the vigor of youth.
"I've lived many lives and worn many faces. Shinichi Moriki is simply the person I happened to become in this lifetime. And these past twenty years…"
His gaze lingered on his reflection.
"Compared to the thousands of years I've existed, they're barely worth mentioning."
Shinobu's eyes widened in disbelief.
"That's ridiculous! How could anything like that possibly happen? What do you think you are, some kind of god who can reincarnate whenever he wants?"
Her expression suddenly hardened.
"No, wait! What the hell are you? Did Shōkyū leave something behind? Or Muzan? Give Shinichi back to me!"
"I'm not a god. Strictly speaking, I'm not even from this world."
Shinichi shook his head.
"Shinobu Kocho, to explain what happened, I'd have to go back a very long time. Much further into the past than you could possibly imagine."
He paused briefly before continuing, his voice flowing with an almost unsettling calm.
"Thousands of years ago, this world was nothing like the one you know today. Back then, monsters existed that were countless times more terrifying than the demons you've spent your life fighting."
"The balance between the living and the dead had collapsed. All manner of immortal creatures roamed the human world, the boundary between life and death had been broken, and the realms of Yomi and the living no longer existed in harmony."
"Tengu, Shuten-dōji, Yuki-onna, fox spirits… Many of the creatures you've only heard about in legends actually existed. And compared to those monsters, humans were as helpless as ants."
Shinobu's fingers tightened slightly around her sword.
Everything he was saying sounded like complete nonsense.
Yet his expression was so serious, his manner so matter-of-fact, that she found herself unable to dismiss it outright.
'Could he actually be telling the truth?'
"In that dark age, a certain power deep within Yomi drew a soul into this world from another realm."
Shinichi raised a finger and gently tapped his chest.
"That soul became bound to Yomi, and with that bond came a duty: to maintain the balance between life and death as best it could, and to eliminate the immortal monsters that threatened it."
He looked directly at Shinobu.
"I imagine you've already guessed who that soul belonged to."
Shinobu parted her lips, but no words came out.
"Over the past several thousand years, I've been reincarnated more times than I can count."
Shinichi spoke without any particular emotion, as though he were recounting something perfectly ordinary.
"I've been a master swordsman who hunted yōkai and took the heads of countless monsters. I've been a general who led armies to destroy their lairs. I've even lived as a bandit, a monk, an onmyōji, and a government official. I've worn all those identities, and many more."
He paused, then gave Shinobu a faintly helpless look when he saw the disbelief still written across her face.
"It's true. I've met many of the people whose names have survived in your legends. I've seen them with my own eyes. I even left behind quite a few names of my own. Some were remembered, while others disappeared into history."
He lowered his sword slightly.
"But no matter who I became, my purpose never changed. I was meant to destroy monsters and preserve the balance between the living and the dead."
Shinobu struggled to process everything he had told her.
After holding back her questions for what felt like an eternity, she finally managed to ask, "Then… was Muzan part of that too?"
At the mention of Muzan, Shinichi's expression shifted.
"Perhaps all those reincarnations and battles eventually left my soul numb. Whatever the reason, roughly a thousand years ago, on a certain night when I was living as a wandering samurai, I made a terrible mistake."
His gaze grew solemn.
"The world was engulfed in war. The conflicts waged by the various daimyō had become even more horrifying than the monsters themselves. During my travels, I encountered a physician."
"He was a genuinely good man. Kind, sincere, and deeply respectful of life. I stopped at his home to rest, and we spent a long time talking."
Shinichi's voice became quieter.
"The wars between humans had been weighing heavily on me. After drinking together for some time, I carelessly revealed the existence of Yomi."
He gave a small, bitter sigh.
"Of course, that physician was a kindhearted man. Unfortunately, kindness doesn't always lead to good things."
Shinobu's eyes widened.
Something about his story had suddenly fallen into place.
Shinichi met her gaze and nodded.
"That's right. He was the very physician who would later create Kibutsuji Muzan."
For a moment, the air seemed to freeze around them.
"I believe he genuinely wanted to save a dying man's life," Shinichi continued. "Unfortunately, what he ultimately created was the progenitor of demons."
"Muzan was extraordinarily powerful from the moment he became a demon. In that lifetime, I was little more than a wandering samurai with some skill in swordsmanship. I couldn't defeat him."
Shinichi lowered his eyes, his expression darkening.
"He killed me that night."
"Whether it was some kind of punishment for my mistake, I don't know. But the moment I died, my soul split in two."
"One half returned to the cycle of reincarnation. The other became attached to another person."
"Shōkyū?!"
Shinobu immediately thought of the man who had claimed to have returned from Yomi and sought to control life and death itself.
She had assumed his claims were nothing more than the delusions of a madman.
Could it be that he had actually been telling the truth?
"Exactly."
Shinichi nodded.
"With half my soul gone, what remained became terribly weak. When my soul was whole, I could carry certain memories from one lifetime into the next. Those memories helped me fulfill my duty and hunt down monsters more effectively."
"But half a soul couldn't sustain that ability. Every time I reincarnated afterward, I had to start again from nothing, without the memories of my previous lives."
He gave a self-deprecating smile.
"It sounds absurd, doesn't it? Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened."
Shinobu no longer knew what to say.
Her hand still rested on the hilt of her Nichirin blade, but the tension had gradually drained from her fingers.
She studied Shinichi's face.
There was something in his expression now, an indescribable weariness that seemed to belong to someone who had lived far longer than his youthful appearance suggested.
It did not look like the face of a liar.
"Then…"
Her voice grew smaller.
"Are you still Shinichi?"
There was almost a pleading quality in her eyes as she looked at him.
Shinichi fell silent for a moment.
"I suppose I am, and I suppose I'm not."
He looked at her with genuine regret.
"I'm sorry, Shinobu. I understand how Shinichi feels about you. I have all his memories, and I know what those feelings mean to him."
"But twenty years is such a small part of my existence."
His voice softened.
"Shinichi Moriki loves you. The people I was in all those other lifetimes don't share that love."
Shinobu stared at him.
For a while, she could not bring herself to speak.
Then her lips trembled, and the tears she had been struggling to hold back finally spilled from her eyes.
"It's okay…"
She raised her remaining hand and wiped at her cheeks.
"At least… at least now I know that Shinichi really did love me."
She tried to steady her breathing, though fresh tears continued to gather in her eyes.
After a moment, she looked at him again.
"Then what are you going to do now? Muzan is already dead."
Shinichi raised his gaze toward the distant horizon.
"I'm going to restore the balance of Yomi once and for all!"