You Demon Fox!
"Brides go up the mountain." Hebe repeated the tanuki's words. "Are you sure?"
"I saw it before, back when I was on Mount Ōe." The tanuki gave an affirmative reply.
Hebe shook her head. "Let's go. We'll take a look."
"Saga, let's go."
"Woof!" The little black dog spirit happily ran ahead.
Saga was the name of this little Shiba Inu. In theory, it was quite presumptuous—because the fifty-second Imperial Monarch's honorific title was Saga. But no one present cared about Propriety and Law, so it did not matter.
Most importantly, the little dog spirit liked the name.
So they called him that. Besides, Imperial Monarch Saga himself did not mind.
The mountain path was not particularly difficult to traverse, but it took more time than expected. By the time Hebe's group arrived, they could only see the tail end of the procession.
"We're not too late."
Hebe calmly tucked her hands into her sleeves and openly followed behind the group.
Saburō was already exhausted.
They had carried the bride's palanquin over two barren mountains, passed through the gloomy black winds above a great lake, and entered a lush mountain wilderness rich with water and grass.
In this long procession, the bride sat in the palanquin at the front, while a horse-drawn flatbed cart trailed behind.
A black-robed mage sat cross-legged atop the cart.
So tired! I'm so tired!
Saburō felt as though his body was crying out in agony. Where his shoulder pressed against the carrying pole burned like fire, making his steps unsteady, and even causing hallucinations to flicker before his eyes.
In truth, after so many people had shared the burden, the long pole was not particularly heavy on him alone. Yet Saburō felt as if he was about to collapse beneath the weight.
There were many others like Saburō. They secretly exchanged glances and saw exhaustion and fear on each other's bloodless faces.
—As long as the mage on the flatbed did not speak, they could not stop.
At this rate, they would die of exhaustion before delivering the bride to their destination.
The convoy slowly proceeded through the luxuriant wilderness. Even the musicians who had played at the beginning had now joined the bearers.
Suddenly, the horse pulling the flatbed whinnied sharply. Its hooves rose and fell, leaving deep prints in the meadow—the marks grew deeper and deeper, gradually sinking into the grass and mud.
The horse whinnied unwillingly, but it could no longer move forward even an inch!
"Hm..." The black-robed mage slowly released his hand seal and looked at the sky, which had darkened at some unknown point, as well as the rolling clouds gathering overhead.
"It's here."
The black-robed mage's words rang clearly in everyone's ears.
Before, those words would have sounded like a divine decree from an immortal palace. But now that something strange had happened, with sinister winds howling in the sky, how could these ignorant commoners leave in peace?
The palanquin carrying the bride was set down in the meadow, and everyone rushed anxiously toward the black-robed mage.
The black-robed mage remained seated on the flatbed, looking up at the sky.
"Everyone without a family name, without a deity to worship, and without an official post, close your eyes and cover your ears."
As soon as the words fell, the vast majority of people shut their eyes, covered their ears with both hands, and crouched trembling on the ground.
The few guards beside the black-robed mage followed suit.
"Heaven crashes, Earth splits; five corpses shed their forms; three terraces hang inverted; nine luminaries slay together... Hum."
The black-robed mage raised his left hand and formed a seal before his brow, then pushed it toward the flatbed.
An inverted pentagram emerged from the cart.
The black-robed mage chanted in authentic Tang pronunciation, "By the wondrous arts of Master Dōman, act with all haste!"
Black wind roared up from the ground, lifting the black-robed mage and the guards who had not closed their eyes or covered their ears. In an instant, they vanished.
"...Mage? Mage!"
The guards abandoned by the black-robed mage shouted in despair, waking all the commoners still crouched on the ground.
Once they realized the mage had abandoned them, their last remaining hope turned to despair.
And at that moment, the storm brewing in the clouds descended.
By sheer coincidence, Hebe's group was also within the storm's reach.
"Let Miss A-Long handle this!"
Miss A-Long, whose hands had been itching for a fight, volunteered and immediately transformed into her true form.
A colossal flood serpent wrapped in dense black wind soared from the ground, raised her head, and unleashed a breath toward the clouds.
Intense flame burst from the great serpent's mouth, tearing through the clouds like a sharp sword and ripping the gathering storm into scattered, aimless gales. The winds blew the people on the ground so hard that they could not stand, forcing them all to kneel and prostrate themselves, wishing they could bury their heads in the dirt!
"Hm?" A startled voice came from the clouds. "Such dense divine aura! Could it be about to become a dragon?"
As the words fell, two thick banks of cloud gathered once more.
This time, not only a storm was brewing, but blue-white lightning as well.
After transforming into her true form, Miss A-Long said nothing. Her throat moved, and she spat out another blast of flame.
"Hmph. I meant well, yet you cannot tell good from bad and have allowed wicked people to use you... Fine, then. I shall let you suffer a little!"
The figure in the clouds spread her wings and turned the folding fan in her hand.
Heaven and earth darkened. Above and below, far and near, all turned upside down. White thunder and violet lightning suddenly burst in the western sky, while evil clouds and strange winds rose from beneath the earth. Wild thunder roared, shattering rocks on the ground into dust; storms swept through, uprooting ancient pines at the foot of the mountain.
The lush mountains of Bungo Province seemed to lose all color, and even the rivers flowing through them turned upside down.
The tengu above the clouds laughed loudly. Watching the great serpent, who had been so imposing moments ago, now flounder in the wind like a straw rope, she leisurely rode the wind down and landed atop the mountain in tall geta sandals.
"Well? You great serpent on the verge of becoming a dragon! Have you learned the name of Kishibō Hōgen now?!"
"What is she muttering about?"
Miss A-Long looked at the tengu who had suddenly fallen from the clouds earlier and performed a one-legged crane stance on the ground.
Even after landing, the tengu did not settle down. At times she laughed loudly, at times she grew furious, all while mumbling incomprehensibly under her breath.
"I reckon she got caught in Lady Tamamo's illusion, then thought she was mighty and had beaten all of us," the tanuki said casually.
The laughter gradually faded, and the white-haired tengu slowly came to her senses.
She abruptly shook her head, her expression changing drastically. "When—when did I fall to the ground? No, wait, that means just now—I actually fell for an illusion?!"
The tengu's gaze paused briefly on Tanutarō before meeting Hebe's eyes.
"Golden-Furred, Jade-Faced Nine-Tailed Fox?" The tengu laughed in self-mockery. "Ha. Falling into a trap because of excessive pride—that is the nature of tengu. I never thought I, Kishibō Hōgen, would become such a negative example."
Hebe's long brows rose slightly.
Kishibō Hōgen—this name was often linked to another famous figure from the eastern lands.
—Ushiwakamaru, or rather, Minamoto no Yoshitsune.
As one of the most legendary heroes in eastern land tales, Minamoto no Yoshitsune suffered a misfortune in his youth and was forced to become a monk. After reaching adulthood, he leaped across eight warships in the Genpei War and personally slew several great Taira commanders.
Afterward, Minamoto no Yoshitsune fell out with his elder brother and was ultimately betrayed and killed.
Kishibō Hōgen was Minamoto no Yoshitsune's teacher, a Great Tengu from Mount Kurama.
It was said that she possessed the Cathayan military treatise Six Paths and Three Strategies.
And now, this tengu urgently wanted an answer.
"When exactly did I fall under the illusion?" the tengu repeatedly demanded. "I was clearly flying in the sky. I never even met your gaze... When did I fall into 'Kongming's trap'?"
Was it while fighting that great serpent? Or at the moment she stirred the winds and thunder?
Kishibō Hōgen could barely trust her own memories anymore, which was why she desperately wanted an answer.
Hebe merely kept her hands tucked into her sleeves and smiled as she shook her head.
"Miss A-Long never fought you."
The tengu's expression stiffened like stone.
In other words, she had fallen into the illusion from the very beginning.
Once she understood that, the tengu's gaze at Hebe filled with terror.
"What a demon fox!"
The Reasoning of a Demon Fox
"You demon fox!"
The Great Tengu, renowned in legend for both her wisdom and courage, now looked at Hebe as though she had seen the thing she feared most in this life.
Kishibō Hōgen's reaction was entirely understandable.
She could not determine whether Hebe's illusion was still in effect at this very moment.
Once the seed of doubt had been planted, pulling it out became immensely difficult.
Hebe neither confirmed nor denied it and did not care about the tengu's angry words... Come to think of it, were tengu also a kind of dog? Then this Great Tengu could be considered a defeated dog too.
"Rather than that, I would like to know what exactly this business of a bride going up the mountain is about." Hebe gestured with her chin at the palanquin draped in white cloth curtains.
The tengu's expression darkened somewhat. "That is exactly what I intend to explain... Come with me."
They came to the palanquin. The tengu waved her hand, sending forth a gentle breeze that blew away the white cloth covering it.
There was no one in the palanquin, only a wooden doll covered in yellow talismans.
An inverted pentagram was drawn on the talismans—an upside-down Seiman seal.
"The black-robed mage who fled on the wind earlier is Ashiya Dōman's disciple," the tengu said. "I do not know what Ashiya Dōman is plotting, nor do I care about his entanglements with that brat Seimei. But since he dared turn his attention toward us, he must learn the consequences."
She very deliberately used the word "us," trying to close the distance between herself and the Golden-Furred, Jade-Faced Nine-Tailed Fox.
If Minamoto no Yoshitsune was the representative of warriors, then Abe no Seimei and Ashiya Dōman, those two old rivals, were the symbols of eastern land onmyōji. Thanks to later adaptations, the two onmyōji were even more famous than Minamoto no Yoshitsune.
"Hmm... So that is how it is." Despite saying so, Hebe had no intention of involving herself in this affair. "In that case, I, Tamamo, wish you boundless prospects and swift revenge. Perhaps we will meet again in Heian-kyō someday."
"Huh?"
Now it was the tengu's turn to be dumbfounded. She had not expected the conversational techniques she had gleaned from Six Paths and Three Strategies to be completely useless against Hebe.
"Are you not someone deceived by that Ashiya Dōman fellow?"
"I have never met him."
"Then why did you come up the mountain with them?"
"Because I suspected someone was performing a blood sacrifice."
"If I truly were conducting a blood sacrifice, what would you do?"
"Nothing in particular." Hebe still had her hands tucked into her sleeves. "If I happened upon it, I would deal with it."
Her tone was unhurried, as though she was not discussing killing someone at all, but merely what to eat that evening.
The tengu was choked speechless.
Was she relieved that she was not truly an evil god who delighted in sacrifices of living people? Or was she frightened by the scene Hebe had described? Or perhaps both?
The tengu's face turned slightly pale, and she remained silent for a long while.
"But I did not do those things."
"Yes, I saw that." Hebe nodded. "That is why I am willing to speak to you like this."
This time, the tengu quickly indicated that she understood.
Before you continue