Tora sat quietly, gazing at the slowly setting sun. His thousands of years of life had never been easy, but the difficulties he was experiencing now were something completely different.
The fierce battles between Hakumen no Mono with himself, Ushio, the yokai, and humanity were still vividly etched in his mind. As were his final moments.
Especially Ushio... his partner, whom he had ultimately 'devoured' completely.
"You have fulfilled your promise, Ushio. I have already eaten... all of you. I hope you live peacefully with your mother, that damned father of yours, and that gorilla woman."
Tora's chest felt full, and his stomach felt satisfied. He felt content. He was satisfied with the death that would claim him.
However, when he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a remote, unknown place. He had searched everywhere for days, but there wasn't a single human or yokai that he recognized.
He searched not because he wanted to meet them. But because... they should have been there. He also realized that a part of him was missing. He could no longer sense the existence of the Kemono no Yari (Beast Spear) in this world.
Remembering the curse and tragic fate of the Kemono no Yari's wielders, Tora felt a little relieved. That meant Ushio hadn't suffered the same fate as him, becoming a monster. However, the spear's absence and their disappearance gave him a new kind of anxiety.
"Forgive us!"
The screams of the Rokurokubi—a female yokai with an elongated neck—as well as the Kasa-obake—a large-eyed umbrella yokai with one leg—and some other lesser yokai who were hanging bound by Tora's orange fur, shattered his reverie. They were screaming for mercy.
"Urusai! (Shut up!)"
Tora, annoyed by their whimpering, immediately unleashed a lightning strike, electrocuting them all simultaneously until they fell silent and emitted smoke.
He didn't know how long he had been wandering. Mountains, cities, rivers—everything was unfamiliar. Until, something disturbed his nose, he smelled a very concentrated familiar scent. Arriving at the source of that disturbance, behind a misty hill, he found a magnificent Edo-era building with a large gate that was heavily guarded. Surrounding the main building were smaller buildings arranged neatly, framing the grandeur of the place.
Feeling that he would find clues in that place, he landed, approached the gate, and 'knocked' politely.
Although the word 'politely' was far from what actually happened—considering the shattered gate and several charred guard yokai from being electrocuted. Tora's effort to restrain himself was actually commendable, but the lesser yokai appreciate it.
As a result, the yokai ended up battered, unconscious, and piled up in a mountain to serve as a seat under Tora's butt. Some of them were even tightly bound by his orange fur.
"At least give us a reason why you attacked us!"
Feeling unfairly treated, Retsuza—a Kamaitachi yokai in human form with weasel-like features visible from the shape of his ears on top of his head and his tail—spoke up. He was one of the victims bound by Tora's fur.
Hearing Retsuza's protest, Tora pulled the fur that bound him, bringing the Kamaitachi's face closer to his own. Seeing Tora's terrifying, ferocious face from such a close distance, Retsuza's courage immediately vanished without a trace.
"I-I mean... what do you want from us, Sir?" he quickly corrected himself.
Tora snorted roughly. His breath made Retsuza's hair fly.
"You're a Kamaitachi, right?"
"Y-yes, Sir." Tora's rows of sharp teeth, clearly visible when he spoke, scared Retsuza half to death.
"Do you know a male Kamaitachi named Raishin and a female Kamaitachi named Kagari?"
Retsuza thought for a moment. As a Kamaitachi, he knew every single name in their clan very well. However, he was not at all familiar with the names mentioned by the ferocious monster in front of him.
"As far as I remember, no, Sir."
Tora frowned and immediately electrocuted Retsuza again.
Bzztt! Bzzztt! Bzzztt!
"Gyaaaaaaaaaaa!"
"Are you really a Kamaitachi or a Tesso (iron rat), huh? How could you not know them!" Tora grumbled, feeling annoyed.
Remembering Raishin and Kagari's brutality when finishing off Hakumen no Mono's minions, this Kamaitachi in front of him felt very weak, and his scent was too young. Tora felt he had wasted his time asking the wrong Kamaitachi.
Retsuza could only grimace silently at the unreasonable treatment from this monster.
Sring! Sring! Sring!
Suddenly, Retsuza's body slumped. He felt the bonds on his body loosen, as did the other yokai who had been bound all this time.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The thick fur that bound them had been cut with great precision, and one by one, the lesser yokai fell to the ground.
Feeling a familiar Youki ( Yokai spiritual energy), Retsuza raised his head. He realized that the figure who had just saved them was the leader of their faction, Nurarihyon. A Great Yokai with the characteristic shape of his elongated occipital region.
That perverted old geezer who usually acted silly was always a reliable figure in critical momment. His usually friendly and relaxed face now looked hardened with anger. The blood-red kimono with blue koi fish motifs that he wore contrasted with the jet-black katana that was already drawn in his hand.
"Boss!" Retsuza called out in relief.
The tense situation suddenly changed. The yokai who had been trembling in fear instantly felt safe with the arrival of their Supreme Commander.
Nurarihyon observed the figure sitting on top of the pile of corpses—or rather, the pile of yokai pretending to be corpses.
He analyzed and tried to deduce what was actually happening.
He had just returned from a routine meeting with the Onmyouji families from the Five Principal Clans and representatives of the Devil faction. A "pleasant meeting" filled with finger-pointing, arguments, and shouting. Truly a mentally and emotionally draining meeting. And upon arriving at his residence, he instead found a strange yokai from unknown place wreaking havoc on his base.
Letting out a long sigh, Nurarihyon threw away the sword in his hand. He took out a smoking pipe from inside his kimono, lit it, and then took a deep puff. He exhaled the smoke into the air, creating a thick fog that slowly enveloped the area.
After looking around and realizing that the damage wasn't too severe—proving that this giant creature only needed a short time to incapacitate all of his people—he looked back at the creature in front of him.
A creature with an incredibly ancient aura. Its evil aura was so dense, as if all the malice in the world had gathered into one and manifested into the form before him.
"May I know who you are and what business you have here?" Nurarihyon asked calmly.
Even so, Nurarihyon knew that this issue could not be resolved peacefully. More precisely, for this one time, Nurarihyon didn't want this issue to be resolved peacefully. His pride as the Supreme Commander of the Eastern Faction and a Daiyokai (Great Yokai) felt trampled upon. He also needed a punching bag to vent his frustration that had been on the verge of exploding since the meeting earlier.
Just like Nurarihyon was observing him, Tora was also observing the old man in front of him. Even though the yokai around him called the man 'Boss', Tora didn't feel any great aura or immense Youki emanating from that elderly figure.
However, his nose smelled danger. His wild instincts screamed, saying that this old man in front of him was very dangerous.
As the smoke began to thicken, blurring his vision, Tora's nose caught something.
His grin widened. He didn't turn arround. He didn't need to. Something was there—right behind him. The same filthy scent as the yokai standing before him.
As he felt something sharp touched his back.
Just the tip.
In that instant—the world froze.
From his spine, from his bones, from something far deeper—lightning erupted, tearing outward in all directions.
The ground shattered.
The air screamed.
The scenery around him vanished in a blinding white flash.
Nurarihyon gritted his teeth. Pain surged through his body—far beyond what he had anticipated. His illusion… had failed.
Around him, yokai screamed as the lightning devoured everything in its path. Still he forced himself to stay focused and chant his teleportation spell according to the initial plan, to send them to Aokigahara Forest. He needed to get this monster away from his base. However, a second before the magic activated, he remembered who was on standby waiting for them there. Nurarihyon cursed loudly.
"Damn it, Megari!"
Sure enough. Just as the magic teleported them to the middle of the dense forest at the foot of Mount Fuji, they were immediately greeted by a woman with jet-black hair. A pair of cat ears perched on her head, combined with an all-black kimono and nine tails waving wildly behind her back.
The woman's hands were already clenched tightly, enveloped in a dazzling white spiritual flame, ready to destroy anything that came out of the portal.
"Stop, Megari!" Nurarihyon shouted in panic.
Megari's eyes widened. The target of her attack suddenly appeared already enveloped in a deadly lightning shield. Unfortunately, She could no longer pull back her attack.
BAM!!!
Megari's white flame-covered punch struck Tora squarely in the stomach.
The impact was so brutal that it made Tora instantly nauseous. His eyes widened sharply, and his tongue lolled out.
Buegh!
Tora, who was startled half to death by the sudden attack, went berserk. Instinctively, he exploded and increased the voltage of electricity throughout his body many times over!
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!"
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
The screams of pain shattered the silence of Aokigahara. The brutal lightning instantly roasted Nurarihyon and Megari, whose unfortunate position was still attached to Tora's giant body.
Nurarihyon gritted his teeth, his fighting spirit soared. His pride and status as a Daiyokai strongly refused to be defeated without a meaningful fight. With all his might, he released the grip of his fingers on the tanto (short sword) that was still stuck in Tora's back. He exploded all the Youki that he had been suppressing, throwing his own body backward, just before throwing dozens of smoke bombs and poisoned needles at the monster's body.
"Megari, retreat!" he shouted.
Megari hastily focused all her energy on Touki (fighting aura), reducing some of the damage from Tora's insane electric shock. She forcibly pulled her hand away, which had stuck for a moment due to the electric pull, then jumped back and hid behind the dense trees and smoke screen.
Feeling his prey move away, Tora used his steel-hard fur to pull out the tanto and poisoned needles from his back.
"Poison? How amusing."
As if a lowly poison like that could hurt me. He thought.
Not to mention ordinary poison, Hakumen no Mono had attacked him using miasma that could corrode the soul. Furthermore, Tora had lived for 500 years with the Kemono no Yari stuck in his shoulder—a spear whose existence was purely a deadly poison to yokai. If he was that easily defeated by poison, he would have perished long before meeting Ushio.
"Mendokusai! (Annoying!)"
Tora blew away the thick smoke that covered his vision, clearing the area of the night forest, which was only illuminated by moonlight, in one breath. However, the yokai aura belonging to Nurarihyon and Megari radiated brightly like flares in the darkness.
He shot forward and ripped apart the tree where Megari was hiding with his giant claws, cutting the large tree trunk into messy wooden shards. Megari, who was aware of the deadly attack, quickly transformed into a black-spotted white cat and ran nimbly away.
Nurarihyon immediately came out of hiding. He clapped his hands together, focused massive spiritual energy on his mouth, and then spewed out gas that instantly filled the area. With a thin smile, the old man snapped his fingers.
BOOOM!!!
The gas exploded violently, destroying hundreds of square meters of the Aokigahara Forest in an instant.
"Did you manage to finish it off?" said Megari, who reappeared from behind the bushes, walking closer to Nurarihyon's feet.
"Heh." Nurarihyon laughed wryly. "If a weak explosion like that could defeat that monster, I would have taken over the Western Faction's territory a long time ago."
Megari froze in place.
"D-do you mean that monster is as strong as Yasaka-sama?"
Nurarihyon raised one eyebrow. "You've seen her before, haven't you?" he said calmly. "On the battlefield."
Megari swallowed hard. Of course she had. The leader of the Western Faction—the Nine-Tailed Fox who had clashed with their Supreme Commander more times than she could count. A monster whose flames could swallow entire battlefields whole.
"And even then… she was holding back."
He glanced toward the fading flames in the distance.
"That thing?" he muttered. His eyes narrowed slightly. "…doesn't feel like it knows how to hold back at all."
Nurarihyon took out his smoking pipe again, exhaled a thin stream of smoke. "This is going to be a very long night, Megari. And... it seems we should be thankful that the monster is willing to patiently wait for us to chat."
Just as the smoke and the remnants of the explosion faded, a giant silhouette slowly revealed itself. Tora's hunched body had now grown to reach 12 meters. The burn wounds all over his body from the explosion hissed, regenerating and healing slowly in a matter of seconds.
"Shit, its looks really angry," Megari growled tensely. However, instead of sounding threatening, her growling in her small cat form actually looked very adorable and cute.