Chapter 225: Nue and Master Hakushin
By now, the entirety of Owari Province had fallen firmly into the grasp of the Imagawa Clan.
High above Kiyosu Castle, the Triple-Stacked Tortoise-Shell Diamond crest snapped violently in the wind, casting its shadow over the conquered territory.
With seven thousand main troops at her disposal, bolstered by the integrated ranks of Owari's surrendered soldiers, Imagawa Yoshimoto could now mobilize a formidable force of nearly nine thousand men. The remnants of the Oda Clan had been thoroughly scattered to the winds.
Niwa Nagahide was captured the very day Kiyosu Castle fell. She hadn't even attempted to run; leaving a mere fifty men to guard an empty fortress was nothing more than a theatrical display. The moment the heavy wooden gates groaned open, the Imagawa forces found her sitting quietly in the Honmaru, waiting for the inevitable.
Oda Nobuna's twelve hundred loyalists had suffered catastrophic losses, their numbers halved in the brutal clash. The remaining three or four hundred were currently stripped of their armor, heavily supervised, and forced to haul supplies in the baggage train.
As for Nobuna herself, she was placed under strict house arrest on the bottom floor of Kiyosu Castle's Tenshukaku. The physical body of the so-called Demon King of the Sixth Heaven could not be easily killed, nor could she truly be contained by mere wood and iron. However, with her people held hostage in Imagawa's hands, the invisible chain wrapped around her neck was far stronger than any iron cage.
Shibata Katsuie had not yet surrendered to the Imagawa camp.
Neither had Maeda Toshiie.
Yoshimoto was acutely aware of these loose ends, yet she chose to feign ignorance. She was far from stupid. Over the past five days, she had seen exactly what kind of bizarre methods Kobe Hikaru employed with her prisoners.
Watching a terrifying yokai actively court and win over the favor of a Sacred Artifact—right in front of the original incarnation of a god or Buddha—was a sight completely unheard of in the bloody history of the Sengoku Period. But since that undead Oni Samurai was standing on her side, Yoshimoto tactfully chose to turn a blind eye to the sheer absurdity of it all.
She simply didn't have the time to worry about his eccentricities.
Inside the dimly lit command tent, a massive parchment map lay unrolled across a low wooden table. Owari was settled. The next step on the board was painfully obvious.
West from Owari, cutting through Ise Province and pushing past Omi Province, lay Yamashiro Province. And nestled deep within Yamashiro was the capital city of Kyoto.
The Kinai region. The absolute center of the world.
"The provisions in the province can sustain the army for another twenty days."
Matsudaira Motoyasu knelt quietly in the corner of the tent. She pushed her round-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose, her fingers deftly flipping through the thick pages of her ledger. "If we factor in the grain seized from the captured Owari granaries, we can stretch that for an additional five days."
Yoshimoto nodded slowly, the tip of her closed folding fan tapping a rhythmic beat against the edge of the table.
Twenty-five days.
From Kiyosu to Kyoto, a relentless forced march would take seven days at the absolute fastest. But there were still two massive walls standing in their way: Ise and Omi.
Ise would not pose a significant threat. The ruling daimyo, the Kitabatake Clan, possessed weak, undisciplined soldiers and crumbling fortresses. Imagawa's nine thousand battle-hardened troops could roll over their borders without breaking a sweat.
Omi was the true hurdle.
The Azai Clan and the Rokkaku Clan were deeply entrenched around the shores of Lake Biwa. While neither clan was overwhelmingly powerful on their own, a combined alliance would field a military scale exceeding ten thousand troops.
More, Kyoto lay directly behind Omi. And Yoshimoto had already dispatched her shadows to investigate exactly what was waiting for them inside the capital.
Hagoromo Gitsune.
A massive, suffocating swarm of ancient demons.
When a human Daimyo led tens of thousands of mortal soldiers into Kyoto, they would not merely face the political scheming of court nobles and the Shogun. They would be marching directly into the maw of thousand-year-old great yokai entrenched deep beneath the city streets.
However...
"Lord Hikaru."
She turned her gaze toward the far side of the tent.
The grey-robed Oni Samurai leaned casually against a thick wooden tent pole, his glowing Crimson Demon Eyes half-closed in silent contemplation. Kikyo, as always, sat serenely by his side, her pure spiritual presence a stark contrast to his dark aura.
"The road ahead, from Ise to Omi, and finally to Kyoto... I can complete it on my own."
As Yoshimoto spoke, she gripped her folding fan tightly, her knuckles turning slightly white. "There is no need for you to follow me the whole way. Your battlefield is not out here in the mud."
"It is inside Kyoto."
Yoshimoto had already made up her mind. Demons and gods should be unleashed on their appropriate battlefields, not wasted on mortal skirmishes. Her words were sharp, direct, and pragmatic.
But her voice betrayed her, dropping slightly in pitch during the final half of her sentence.
No need.
She said there was no need. She didn't say she didn't want him there.
Hikaru opened his eyes, his gaze sliding over to her.
The sixteen-year-old girl Daimyo sat upon a low couch draped in rich brocade. Her deep purple, gold-threaded Junihitoe kimono layered heavily over her small frame, projecting an image of absolute authority. Elaborate gold hair ornaments rested atop her head, catching the flickering candlelight.
The display was grand. The aura she projected was imposing enough to command an army.
But the slight tremble in the hand gripping her folding fan gave her away. She was apprehensive. She was forcing herself to project an image of an unshakable ruler.
Taigen Sessai was gone. She had no choice but to support the weight of the clan entirely on her own shoulders.
Yoshimoto waited in the heavy silence for two agonizing seconds. When no immediate response came, she snapped her fan open, concealing the lower half of her face and leaving only her bright, nervous eyes visible over the painted paper.
"My point is... you must have your own matters to attend to, right? Don't you need to go back and check on Musashi?"
It was an out. An out for her own pride, and an out for him.
She refused to let a demon think that Imagawa Yoshimoto was completely incapable of managing her own conquest without him holding her hand—even if, deep down, she knew she had grown dangerously dependent on his presence. He had saved her life twice in rapid succession. Without his intervention, her head would have been mounted on a pike long ago.
Hikaru pushed himself off the tent pole, standing straight as he accepted the offered path. "It is time to head back."
He did, in fact, have pressing business of his own.
Banryu's favorability had slowly ground its way up to forty-eight. He was only two agonizing points away from unlocking the halberd's second talent at fifty, but the remaining progress had hit a massive bottleneck. Banryu craved raw power and 'heavy' things. The heavier the impact, the better. He needed to hunt down something substantial to feed its bloodlust.
Besides that...
The black pearl was still steadily climbing. The Shikon Jewel's favorability sat at a staggering ninety-one, inching closer and closer to its absolute maximum value.
As for Yoshimoto... with Kikyo constantly present by his side, certain interactions were always going to be somewhat inconvenient. It was simply more efficient to return to his own territory for now.
Hearing his calm agreement, Yoshimoto pursed her lips behind the folding fan. The painted surface hid the disappointment in her expression, but the tips of her ears flushed a bright, betraying red.
"Then... take care on the road."
After forcing the words out, she rigidly turned her head back to the map, refusing to look at him any longer.
Hikaru and Kikyo turned and walked out of the command tent. The moment the heavy canvas flap fell shut behind them, Yoshimoto instantly lowered the fan from her face, letting out a long, shaky breath.
Motoyasu secretly peeked over the top of her ledger, trying to catch a glimpse of her lord's expression. Yoshimoto was glaring daggers at the closed tent flap, her cheeks puffed out slightly in a thoroughly un-daimyo-like pout.
Motoyasu quickly ducked her head back behind the ledger. She didn't dare look any longer.
Outside, before their footsteps even carried them past the inner gates of Kiyosu Castle, Hikaru suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
Kikyo halted at the exact same moment.
Both of them turned their heads, their gazes locking onto the northeastern horizon simultaneously. They weren't looking toward Musashi, their intended destination.
They were looking toward Mino.
Yao Qi... no, it wasn't Yao Qi.
An ancient, suffocatingly deep power was surging from the jagged mountains in northern Mino Province. It pulsed outward like a heartbeat, spreading in all directions along the hidden leylines of the earth.
The quality of this energy was fundamentally different from the chaotic, bloodthirsty nature of a demon's Yao Qi. It wasn't turbid. It wasn't heavy with malice.
Instead, it was clear to the point of being bone-chilling. It carried the distinct, unmistakable scent of the spiritual power wielded by high-ranking Buddhist monks—the pure 'Power Of Will' forged through decades of agonizing ascetic cultivation.
And it was incredibly majestic. The sheer volume of it was so vast that it almost eclipsed the maximum spiritual power limit of Kikyo herself.
But buried deep within that blinding purity... was a hidden, festering unwillingness.
It carried a deep resentment.
Hikaru's Crimson Demon Eyes suddenly constricted. A cold light, resembling ghostly green phosphorus fire, flickered deep within his pupils. It was a violent reaction from his Spirit-Tracking Archer's Soul Anchor.
But this anchor wasn't attached to Tamayo, who was currently hidden far away in Kyoto's Honnō-ji Temple and would never dare step out of line without his explicit command.
This specific anchor belonged to the girl who had traveled from Kyoto to the Kanto region. The young Onmyoji from the Kyoto Onmyo Bureau—Tsuchimikado Koketsu.
Back when they first crossed paths, the girl had seemed entirely harmless, a bumbling mess of anxiety. But since she hailed from Kyoto, Hikaru's pragmatic paranoia demanded he leave a silent 'anchor' on her soul, monitoring her movements from the shadows.
But at this exact moment, that anchor had been violently severed.
It was cleanly cut off by that overwhelming mixture of pure Buddhist power and dark resentment.
At the exact same instant, the Shikon Jewel resting against Kikyo's collarbone reacted violently.
She looked down, pressing her right hand firmly against her chest. The Shikon Jewel emitted a searing heat against her skin. The delicate balance of the four souls trapped within its crystalline surface fluctuated wildly. It was the Naohi, screaming in sudden alarm.
Or rather...
It was Midoriko's remnant soul, desperately trying to warn her. The Naohi itself was born from the lingering, eternal thoughts of the great priestess Midoriko.
Kikyo slowly looked up, a rare, heavy gravity settling over her porcelain features.
"In that direction... something ancient has awakened."
Hikaru's demon eyes remained locked on the northeastern horizon. The sky over northern Mino Province was physically changing color. A faint, unnatural layer of gold was bleeding into the normal azure blue, as if an invisible giant had dragged a brush full of divine paint across the heavens.
He knew exactly what that was.
Great mountains, overwhelming Buddhist aura, rising white mist, and a lingering, unwilling resentment.
Without a doubt, it was the very place he had once mentioned to Kikyo.
Mount Hakurei.
"Kikyo."
"I'm afraid we can't return to Musashi immediately."
He stared toward Mino Province, the dark purple patterns within his Crimson Demon Eyes beginning to swirl with violent anticipation.
The northern mountains of Mino.
The undulating mountain ranges wore thick, dark green forest canopies under the warm afternoon sunlight. The distant, peaceful sound of birds chirping rose from the valley floor, carried away by the gentle wind.
A cracked stone path, almost entirely swallowed by wild grass and creeping moss, wound its way upward into the dense foliage.
Tsuchimikado Koketsu had been trudging along this miserable stone path for what felt like an eternity.
She was still dressed in her standard, formal Onmyoji attire—a pristine white Kariginu worn under a dark black Hitatare, with a heavy Haori embroidered with the Tsuchimikado Pentagram Pattern draped over her slender shoulders.
Her deep chestnut hair cascaded down to her waist, loosely tied with a simple black cord, with a few stray, sweat-dampened strands clinging to her cheeks. Her face was delicate, her features balanced and soft, and her large amber eyes looked nearly transparent under the thick, suffocating shade of the ancient trees.
She didn't walk fast. Her steps were steady, but her expression was one of absolute, soul-crushing misery.
After fleeing the Imagawa Mansion in Suruga, her only objective was to go straight back to Kyoto and report her failure. The Imperial Decree had been delivered, and although Yoshimoto had politely but firmly blocked it, the errand itself was technically finished.
As a result of her haste, she got completely, hopelessly lost.
The proud daughter of the head of the Tsuchimikado family, the seventeenth-generation direct descendant of the legendary Abe no Seimei, had managed to get herself lost in the untamed mountains of northern Mino.
Her Onmyodo compass had completely failed her. The direction-finding technique imbued within her pentagram talismans had become a chaotic mess since the second day of her trek. The ink indicating the four cardinal directions spun wildly on the paper, as if the very magnetic field of the earth was being warped by something massive.
Koketsu had tried to turn back.
But she couldn't find her way out. The stone path behind her had simply vanished, replaced by sheer mountain walls and dense, thorny forests she had never seen before.
She had even tried climbing to a high vantage point to identify her location. But halfway up a steep ridge, the rock beneath her boots suddenly crumbled. She took a brutal tumble, sliding down the unforgiving slope, scraping her knees and palms raw, and tearing two massive holes in the hem of her sacred pentagram Haori on the sharp rocks.
No matter which direction she desperately chose, she eventually found herself dumped right back onto the exact same mossy stone path.
And at the end of this cursed path lay a deep, terrifying pit that resembled a dried-up ancient well. Beside it stood a massive, jagged rock. Its weathered surface was heavily carved with ancient Sanskrit characters, the edges mostly consumed by thick green moss.
"Back again..."
Koketsu squatted miserably by the giant rock, wrapping her arms around her scraped knees. Her large amber eyes stared blankly at the Sanskrit she couldn't translate, the corners of her mouth drooping in defeat.
She had already confirmed her worst fears. This was Mount Hakurei.
The oldest, dustiest archives locked away in the Onmyo Bureau had recorded this terrifying name.
Hundreds of years ago, a legendary high monk named Master Hakushin attained Nirvana on this very spot. His physical body became a Sokushinbutsu—a living Buddha. Over the centuries, his mummified corpse absorbed the ambient spiritual energy of heaven and earth. He gradually expanded, petrified, and physically merged with the earth itself, eventually rising from the ground to become a massive, sprawling mountain range stretching for miles.
Mount Hakurei.
The mountain itself was the colossal corpse of Master Hakushin.
The real problem was—she hadn't intended to come anywhere near this place. She was literally just passing through Mino!
"The Barrier of this stupid mountain must have pulled me in..."
Koketsu muttered to herself, her voice trembling with an undisguisable sense of helpless grievance.
She reached out, her slender, bruised finger hesitantly tracing the grooves of the ancient Sanskrit characters. She merely wanted to sense the flow of the Barrier, hoping to find a weak point or a hidden exit.
Spiritual power, driven by her innate Onmyodo, seeped from her palm into the cold stone wall.
Instantly, blinding golden light patterns flared to life, spreading rapidly along the carved Sanskrit like glowing blood being injected into dead veins.
The mountain rang.
It was a low, deafening, drawn-out sound, identical to the lingering, bone-rattling resonance of a massive Buddhist temple bell being struck by a battering ram.
The sound erupted from deep within the earth. The entirety of Mount Hakurei violently trembled beneath her feet.
Massive flocks of birds shrieked in terror, exploding from the forest canopy in a chaotic cloud of feathers. Loose gravel and boulders tore loose from the mountain walls, crashing down into the valleys below.
Koketsu was so terrified that she sprang backward, her boots slipping on the moss, sending her crashing hard onto her backside.
"I-I didn't do it on purpose—!"
She panicked, her large amber eyes going wide with absolute horror as she waved her hands frantically in front of her face like a windmill.
The mountain, however, ignored her apologies.
The violent vibration continued, growing exponentially stronger. The ground beneath her began to splinter and crack. Thick, suffocating white mist hissed violently from the fresh fissures, carrying an ancient, heavy scent—like incense that had been burning in a sealed temple for hundreds of years.
Koketsu's blood ran cold as a horrifying realization hit her.
She hadn't just touched a barrier. She had directly touched the soul of Master Hakushin himself.
The pure Onmyodo of Abe no Seimei's direct descendant had violently collided with the slumbering soul of a centuries-old Sokushinbutsu.
"A descendant of Abe no Seimei..."
A voice suddenly echoed all around her. It sounded like the wind howling through the jagged mountain peaks, wailing and sobbing with the weight of centuries of isolation. "Why awaken this old monk from his slumber?"
Koketsu froze entirely, her breath catching in her throat.
She hadn't wanted to awaken anyone! She just wanted to find her way home!
But it was too late. Master Hakushin's soul, wandering aimlessly within the stone of the mountain, had already been violently disturbed by the distinct signature of the Abe no Seimei bloodline.
"If the one you brought before me were Abe no Seimei himself, then this old monk would pause and listen for a moment. But if you stand on the side of 'Nue'..."
The voice dropped, the spiritual pressure crushing down on Koketsu's shoulders like a physical weight.
"Then please, stop at the foot of the mountain. Turn back."
"This old monk does not welcome demons into his sanctuary."
Koketsu scrambled backward, her voice cracking. "I don't stand on any side! I'm just lost! Please let me out!"
Her voice was thick with the desperate urge to cry, but she was too terrified to even shed a tear.
Master Hakushin did not respond to her pleas.
The mountain continued to quake violently, and the blinding white mist surged higher, thick and suffocating.
Koketsu staggered weakly to her feet, her expression twisting into a mask of bitter despair. She couldn't get out. She couldn't go forward, and the path behind her was gone. She was completely trapped at the foot of the mountain by a grumpy, centuries-old mummy.
She really was just passing by!
However—
Something infinitely worse was about to happen.
Koketsu's body suddenly locked up. Her spine snapped completely straight. This was no longer the stiffness caused by fear or helpless grievance; her limbs had violently stopped obeying her commands.
Her large amber eyes snapped wide open. The color of her pupils shifted in a terrifying instant.
The soft amber burned away, replaced by a piercing, cold gold. Her pupils narrowed into sharp, snake-like vertical slits.
Her lips parted, but the voice that slithered out of her throat was completely, horrifyingly different from her own.
"Does the Master still feel... unwilling?"
The voice spoke each word with agonizing deliberation. It carried an ancient, suffocating composure that transcended time itself.
That was absolutely not Tsuchimikado Koketsu's voice.
It was Abe no Seimei.
Or rather, it was the dark, twisted existence belonging to the demon side of Abe no Seimei's identity as a half-demon.
The legendary great Onmyoji of the Heian period, the undisputed founder of Onmyodo, was a half-demon born of a white fox. During his mortal life, his yin and yang were perfectly balanced—half-human, half-demon. After his death, his human teachings were passed down through the Onmyo Bureau, while his demon side... persisted, festering in the shadows, waiting to return in another form.
The successive heads of the Tsuchimikado family knew this dark secret. Koketsu knew it too.
But knowing the lore was one thing. She had never, in her wildest nightmares, thought that her ancestor's demonic half—the terrifying entity known as Nue—would forcibly hijack her body to speak in this exact moment!
Even though the family texts vaguely recorded that the ancestor could descend using the bloodline as a channel...
Koketsu's trapped consciousness was screaming in absolute terror, but her physical body was completely puppeted, her mouth forced to speak words she desperately wanted to swallow.
"Our ancestor has sent a 'person' from the underworld to have me bring a message to the Master..."
Koketsu's lips curled into a sinister, unnatural smile.
"I can lend the Master a helping hand."
"To finally make up for your lingering regrets."
Nue spoke through Koketsu's mouth, the words dripping with dark temptation.
Master Hakushin's soul remained dead silent within the trembling mountain for a long, agonizing time.
After what felt like an eternity...
The holy light of Mount Hakurei violently expanded.
Blinding white light erupted from the mountain's core, illuminating the entire base of the mountain with the intensity of the midday sun. The monk's overwhelming spiritual power and the heavy vows of the Buddhist clergy surged outward like a tidal wave, spreading in all directions along the earth.
The oppressive presence of Nue instantly vanished from Koketsu's mind.
Her body immediately slumped forward, collapsing onto the rough gravel. Her limbs felt like lead, completely devoid of strength, and her forehead was slick with cold sweat.
She lay paralyzed on the rocks, staring up at the grayish-white sky above Mount Hakurei. Her large eyes had finally returned to their normal amber color.
"...I knew it..." she wheezed, her voice trembling. "...nothing good would ever come of this stupid business trip..."
Sure enough.
The moment her words fell, an even greater disaster struck.
The blinding white light continued to violently expand, forming a colossal, impenetrable wall of Buddhist power that spanned from the earth to the heavens. It moved like a solid tsunami, beginning to swallow everything in its path.
Koketsu was suddenly swept up by an invisible, crushing force. She was violently dragged backward, pulled directly into the glowing interior of Mount Hakurei.
She didn't even have the strength to struggle.
"Help—me—!"
Her desperate scream was instantly muffled, her small figure vanishing completely within the blinding white light.
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