"Oh?"
"From human to yokai."
"The summoned Servant is a half-demon?"
Naraku surveyed Rikuo with idle curiosity. Half-demons were supposed to be rare, yet he kept running into them.
'But this one is different from either me or Inuyasha.'
The transformation had been seamless. One moment, a meek-looking boy with glasses. The next, a predator draped in elegance. The transition flowed so naturally that even Naraku's senses hadn't flagged the human as anything other than human until the change was already complete.
"Wait, Rikuo, your sword looks like it's about to fall apart!"
Shippo gawked at the transformed Rikuo, then jabbed a finger at the weapon in his hand.
Everyone followed his gaze. The blade was riddled with fracture lines, barely holding together.
"It's fine. The original was destroyed. Using it again in this form, even with cracks, is more than enough."
Rikuo answered without concern. The true Nenekirimaru had been shattered by Seimei during the Thousand-Year Demon Capital. It was supposed to be reforged, but he'd been summoned here before the work was finished.
As a Servant, his materialization had managed to reconstruct the blade with its cracks sealed just enough to hold an edge. That was sufficient.
After all, this sword was a nightmare for yokai.
WHOOSH!
'A frontal charge?'
Kagura watched the figure sprint past her, baffled. He didn't even glance at her or Kanna. He simply launched himself skyward and closed on Naraku.
"I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, but it's pointless. Even among half-demons, the gulf between us is vast."
Tentacles lashed outward and pierced the airborne figure with surgical precision.
"Rikuo!!"
"RIKUO!!"
Sango and Kagome cried out in the same breath, watching his body skewered and dangling limp.
"That guy..."
Kagura hesitated. Something didn't sit right. She'd seen Servants fight. They weren't supposed to go down this easily.
'No. There's no resistance. No impact.'
Naraku's composure fractured. Even though his tentacles punched clean through the silhouette, not a single drop of blood emerged. It wasn't a body. It was nothing.
"You can't see through this."
The impaled figure grinned, speaking in a voice dripping with quiet confidence.
'These yokai in this world don't fight using Fear. That's why they can't touch me.'
Rikuo's form dissolved into the air like morning fog. Gone. Naraku's brow creased.
He couldn't see or smell the boy, but he could sense the presence lingering nearby, everywhere and nowhere at once.
"He vanished?"
Kagome stared in astonishment, then felt it. The air itself had changed. A domain of yokai energy was spreading outward from all sides.
"Rikuo's power is everywhere."
"What is this?"
Even Shippo could feel the crushing weight of that aura pressing against his skin.
"Interesting. It seems you do possess some tricks I haven't seen before."
Naraku recovered his composure easily enough. He couldn't locate Rikuo's true body, but he was equally confident the boy couldn't hurt him. The barrier alone had weathered Inuyasha's Wind Scar. And even if something punched through, his immortal body could absorb any wound.
Two insurmountable walls.
"!"
Then killing intent slammed down from above.
Naraku looked up. A blade was already descending toward his skull.
SZZZT!!
Steel met barrier in a cascade of white-hot sparks. The impact shrieked through the night.
"Hmph."
Just as expected. If the Wind Scar couldn't breach this shield, neither could a half-demon's cracked sword.
"Hard shell you've got there."
"But what about now?"
Rikuo's voice carried no alarm. No frustration. Only anticipation.
'Hm?'
Naraku noticed the shift. The world around him was changing.
Green meadows and dark forests melted away. In their place rose streets lined with red lanterns and paper screens, lit by warm, floating firelight. The sounds of a bustling yokai city filled the air, drums and laughter and the clatter of wooden sandals against stone.
And behind Rikuo, something was gathering.
He held his stance, blade still pressed against the barrier, and dark shapes began to materialize at his back. One. Two. Three. Then dozens. Then too many to count.
"What in the..."
Yokai energy rolled outward in tidal waves. Everyone present staggered.
Not just power. Numbers. A legion of spectral figures stretching into the lantern-lit streets behind their lord.
"Those are all yokai?!"
Kagome couldn't make out individual faces, only shifting silhouettes and gleaming eyes, but the sheer volume of yokai presence was staggering.
"Commanding this many yokai at once?! Who IS he?!"
Kagura pulled Kanna behind her and retreated, eyes wide.
'!'
Even Naraku's expression darkened. Whatever this was, it wasn't going to be pleasant.
"I am the one who commands a hundred demons!"
"The one who will become the Lord of Pandemonium!"
The declaration rang through the transformed landscape like a war drum, answering every question at once.
"This yokai aura is incredible!"
Miroku raised a hand against the gale now tearing through the domain. He'd faced countless yokai in his life, but never felt anything like this.
The scale defied comprehension. This wasn't a small army. This was a civilization.
Wind howled. Bone-deep cold bit into their flesh. Every hair stood on end.
"I had no idea Rikuo was something like this."
Miroku had never seen the boy fight. Now he understood why.
"Miroku, do you know what this is?"
"I've heard the legends. Never thought I'd witness it with my own eyes."
"A being who commands yokai. A parade of darkness that swallows the night."
"Its name is..."
"HYAKKI YAKO!!"
The words left Miroku's lips, and in the same heartbeat, Naraku felt something he hadn't felt in a very long time.
His barrier cracking.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
"What?!"
Fracture lines splintered across the once-impervious shield. The concentrated Fear of a hundred yokai, channeled through their lord, was doing what no single weapon could.
CRASH!
"The barrier shattered!!"
"Now's our chance to hit Naraku!"
"But ordinary attacks can't kill him!"
Kagome, Sango, and Miroku traded shouts in rapid succession.
"Hah!"
Rikuo didn't hesitate. He brought the cracked Nenekirimaru down toward Naraku's head in a single, devastating arc.
"!"
Every survival instinct Naraku possessed screamed at once. He did not stand and take this blow. His body jerked backward, twisting away from the direct line.
SLASH!
Not fast enough. The blade carved a deep wound across his chest.
'That level of damage won't kill Naraku.'
Kagura watched with satisfaction tempered by experience. A flesh wound on Naraku was like pouring a cup of water into the ocean. It changed nothing.
Then she saw what was pouring from the wound, and her eyes went wide.
"!"
"My yokai power?!"
Black vapor gushed from the gash. Not blood. Yokai energy itself. Naraku's power was bleeding out of him in visible streams, scattering into the night air like smoke from a dying fire.
For one frozen instant, even Naraku couldn't believe what he was seeing.
CRACK!
Nenekirimaru shattered in Rikuo's hand, the damaged blade finally giving way.
"That sword!!"
Naraku's shock hardened into recognition.
That wasn't an ordinary weapon. It was a blade forged specifically to destroy yokai from the inside out. It couldn't kill him outright. But every ounce of yokai power this body had accumulated until this very moment was hemorrhaging away through a single wound.
That was a cost even Naraku could not afford.
Without a shred of hesitation, his form dissolved into a cloud of black miasma and scattered in every direction.
Rikuo watched the fleeing darkness spread and spoke with absolute certainty.
"It's useless."
"You cannot escape from this domain."
"This is, in every sense of the word, MY world!"
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]
[TN: Rikuo's Reality Marble.
[Hyakki Yako: Night Parade of a Hundred Demons] (EX). A Reality Marble born from Rikuo's own reputation and achievements as the Third Head. It manifests the yokai under his command and transforms the environment into their ideal combat terrain. The more Fear that accumulates within it, the stronger it becomes. Rikuo himself receives a feedback loop from the gathered Fear, amplifying his own power. Any use of Matoi within this domain is dramatically enhanced.]