Finding the Thunder Beast's location was, in truth, not difficult.
When Kōbe Hikaru set out from Kaede Village, he already had a sense of where it was.
As a yōkai, he was born able to perceive the presence of yōkai aura — an instinct, as natural as a human being able to see light and hear sound.
And the [Spiritual Intuition] talent he'd captured from the Shikon Jewel — Naohi made him sensitive to changes in spiritual power to the utmost degree.
Yōkai aura and spiritual power — one turbid, one clear — were relative existences to begin with.
As he advanced toward the Imagawa clan, that dense yōkai aura, along with its repulsion of the surrounding spiritual power, was like a bonfire in the dead of night — impossible to miss even if one tried.
Lightning-attribute yōkai aura, in his perception, manifested as a glaring purple radiance.
Leaping, flickering, restless and agitated.
It was hidden right beneath the Imagawa clan's main castle.
This was also why he'd dared to come out alone.
He could see the enemy, but the enemy could not see him.
An information gap is forever the greatest advantage in battle.
...
But at this moment, Kōbe Hikaru still very much wanted to grumble.
How had the Imagawa Yoshimoto of this world turned into a woman?
And what's more —
young.
Far too young.
She looked sixteen or seventeen, wearing a gorgeous jūnihitoe kimono, layer upon layer of fabric wrapping her petite frame.
Her dark-brown long hair hung down to her waist, giving off a soft sheen in the candlelight.
A genuine, bona fide, long-straight-haired beautiful girl.
In this world, even the Sengoku daimyō were goddamn maidens now?
Gender-bent Sengoku, is it?
Next time, am I going to find out Oda Nobunaga is a loli too?
But although he grumbled inwardly, Kōbe Hikaru appeared calm and placid in expression from start to finish — even though the Imagawa Yoshimoto before him actually rather suited his tastes… being a black-haired, long-straight-haired girl just like Kikyō.
But now was not the time to be considering such things.
Imagawa Yoshimoto looked at this yōkai before her who called himself Kōbe Hikaru, and her mind couldn't quite keep up either.
What had this fellow just said?
He wanted to help her deal with that lightning? And to borrow her castle, on top of that?
What kind of operation was 'borrowing the castle'?
"You—"
She'd just opened her mouth.
BOOM—!
The sky exploded.
Thunder more violent than any time before, as if to overturn the entire castle keep.
Imagawa Yoshimoto's expression changed.
She rushed to the window.
What met her eyes was purple lightning, gathering in the sky.
Not a single bolt.
A dozen, dozens of them.
Like countless purple serpents slithering through the clouds, and then—
plunging down.
The target was the castle keep.
It was this very room she was in.
"This is bad—"
Imagawa Yoshimoto wanted to run.
But she knew it was already too late.
That lightning was far too fast — so fast she didn't even have time to turn around.
And then.
She heard a sound.
Very faint, yet clear as if it had sounded right by her ear.
It was that yōkai's footsteps.
Kōbe Hikaru had already walked up to the sword rack.
He reached out and grasped the hilt of the Sōza Samonji.
That famed blade passed down through generations of the Imagawa clan had once been the personal sword of the Ashikaga shogunate house — incomparably sharp, cutting through iron like mud.
The blade was long and slender, its edge glinting with a cold light.
Red cords were wound about the hilt, steady and assured to the grip.
Kōbe Hikaru drew the sword.
Kiing—
The cry of the blade echoed through the room.
That sound was peculiar — not like the friction of metal, but more like a living thing humming low.
[Capturable target detected]
[Famed Blade: Sōza Samonji]
[Quality: Superior (Mundane Weapon)]
[Current favourability: 0 (Stranger)]
[Appraisal: A blade treasured away for far too long; it misses the scent of the battlefield.]
Kōbe Hikaru looked at the prompt on the panel.
No surprise there.
A famed blade is also an implement, and any implement can be captured.
But now was not the time to be farming favourability.
He raised his head; the lightning had already torn through the roof.
The purple bolts, carrying an air of annihilation, plunged straight down.
Imagawa Yoshimoto closed her eyes.
She knew she couldn't dodge it.
And yet, the agonizing pain she'd anticipated never came.
She only heard a soft sound.
Like something being sliced apart.
And after that, the crackling pop of lightning dispersing.
She opened her eyes.
Kōbe Hikaru stood before her, the sword in his right hand, its edge pointing slantwise at the sky.
And those purple bolts of lightning had all been cut apart.
Yes — not blocked, but cut apart.
The trajectory traced by the sword's gleam still lingered in the air — an exceedingly fluid arc.
The lightning had been split in two, grazing past either side of Kōbe Hikaru to strike the ground.
BOOM!
The floorboards burst apart, scorched-black marks spreading outward.
But the spot where Kōbe Hikaru and Imagawa Yoshimoto stood was utterly unharmed.
Imagawa Yoshimoto was stunned — this scene was truly identical to the one in her dream.
Pale long hair, crimson eyes.
A long sword in hand, cutting apart the lightning.
"You…"
Her voice was trembling.
"You really are…"
Kōbe Hikaru glanced back at her.
"Probably."
He said it quite casually.
Nor did he seem at all surprised that Imagawa Yoshimoto appeared to recognize this form of his.
After all.
"The Naohi within the Shikon Jewel sometimes does strange things."
"Like sending dreams."
Yes.
Although the Shikon Jewel was still over with Kikyō, it was still exerting its power.
Kōbe Hikaru, too, could sense the handiwork of the Shikon Jewel — Naohi through his [Spiritual Intuition] talent.
This was, all the more, Kikyō's assistance to him.
Imagawa Yoshimoto, on the other hand, was left utterly bewildered.
What Shikon Jewel? What Naohi?
She couldn't understand a word of it.
But now was not the time to be fixating on that, either.
Because the lightning was still falling.
One bolt after another, as dense as a downpour.
Kōbe Hikaru said nothing more.
He merely adjusted his grip on the sword.
And then—
he moved.
A horizontal slash.
The sword's gleam swept across from left to right, and that bolt of lightning descending from the heavens was cut clean through at the waist.
A vertical cleave.
From top to bottom, another bolt of lightning was split down the middle.
A diagonal cut.
The blade's edge, carrying a curve, shattered three bolts falling at once all together.
Every stroke was fast.
Every stroke, too, was utterly lethal.
Imagawa Yoshimoto was dumbstruck.
Swordsmanship, of course, was not unfamiliar to Yoshimoto — even if she herself couldn't wield a blade and had no need to, the Imagawa clan kept no small number of samurai, every one of them a powerhouse who'd survived a hundred battles.
But those people's swordsmanship, compared to this yōkai before her—
was simply not on the same level at all.
Even though he looked utterly without form or method, fast, precise, and ruthless alone was already enough.
This was not swordsmanship.
This was art.
A divine miracle.
And more than that, sorcery.
It was absolute force and speed, and more than that, absolute precision and ruthlessness — fast, precise, deadly!
Although Kōbe Hikaru had indeed never systematically studied such things as blade arts or swordsmanship, in the nearly half a year since he'd transmigrated to this world, every single day he'd swung a blade, every single day he'd fought.
The essence of so-called 'technique' is, in fact, simply use.
And between life and death, he had long since carved into his very bones how to use a saber, how to use a sword.
And so, here and now.
All the lightning was severed, the thunderbolts utterly extinguished.
"Is that enough?"
Kōbe Hikaru suddenly spoke.
He wasn't looking at Imagawa Yoshimoto, but rather at the ground.
The moment he'd appeared, the lightning had come — clearly aimed at him, and not at Yoshimoto.
But that didn't matter.
He'd come here precisely to cut the other party down!
"Hiding underground, daring only to fling lightning."
"Scared to this degree, yet still daring to call yourself a yōkai chieftain, a vanguard?"
His voice wasn't loud, but its penetrating force was immense — as if it could pierce through the floorboards and reach deep underground.
What answered him was even more violent lightning.
This time it wasn't only descending from the heavens.
There was also lightning boring up from underground.
Purple electric light surged out from the cracks in the floorboards, like countless venomous snakes.
Imagawa Yoshimoto gave a cry of alarm and retreated.
But Kōbe Hikaru still stood where he was.
He merely sheathed the sword back into its scabbard.
And then—
his left hand pressed down on the Muramasa at his waist.
"I told you — I'll be borrowing your castle for a bit."
He said to Imagawa Yoshimoto: "Things might get a little messy from here on."
The words had scarcely left his mouth.
Kōbe Hikaru's body began to change.
Blood-mist seeped out from beneath his skin, spreading through the air with him at its center, creeping outward in all directions.
[Blood Mutation] activated.
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