Thunder rumbled.
"I've done everything I could." Hebe smiled easily and brightly. "Now it's your turn to sweep this world clean, Yorimitsu."
Her image rippled like water, then returned to normal after the tachi came down.
—It wasn't even her true body!
In her mind, Ushi Gozen burst into laughter.
That laughter was full of mockery, but also an unknown desolation.
The cycle of cause and effect turned again and again, only to repeat itself in the end.
"Teacher, where are you going?" Minamoto no Yorimitsu's eyes split wide, crimson blood streaming from the corners of her ruptured eyes. "Where are you going?!"
She roared, but it sounded more like wailing.
"Can we still meet again... can we meet again, Teacher? Tell me—"
"We can't, Yorimitsu." Hebe's figure gradually turned into scattering petals. "I'm going back to the mountains and forests, to keep being a wild fox wagging her tail and living free."
"If that's the case, Teacher!"
Minamoto no Yorimitsu raised her tachi, her bloodied, tear-streaked eyes staring stubbornly at Hebe.
The mysterious assassin chosen by fate finally made a declaration that would shake the entire age.
"Then I'll kill every oni and every yokai in the world, until there's nowhere left for you to hide!"
Hebe smiled. "Easier said than done."
She knew that saying this would make Minamoto no Yorimitsu resolutely embark upon the path of exterminating yokai and oni, until she had slaughtered every last "non-human."
Along with Minamoto no Yorimitsu's solemn declaration, Hebe could see the Lostbelt's Completion Rate soaring rapidly.
The fox demon's phantom vanished completely.
Thunder roared.
Torrential rain poured from the clouds. Minamoto no Yorimitsu stood in the courtyard with her head lowered, her long hair hanging loose and covering her rain-soaked eyes.
The cold seeped into her skin, yet Minamoto no