On the battlefield, she had taken so many lives without restraint that the "oni" within her had begun to stir. It wanted to devour more lives to sate its desires.
If it hadn't been for Miss Tamamo's blood...
If Hebe had not given her blood before the battle, Okita Sōji would inevitably have fallen into becoming the Sword Demon Asura on the battlefield.
Yet Okita Sōji had still wanted to charge into battle because she knew Hebe would not stand idly by. If she had not died on the battlefield, Hebe would surely have erased her.
Though Tamamo's blood had kept Okita Sōji from falling on the spot, once the killing stopped, the withdrawal reaction surging from within nearly made Okita Sōji want to rip out her organs, tear apart every bone in her body, and claw every inch of her skin to shreds...
Pain. Struggle. These emotions surged from the Oni Blood, crashing through the young swordswoman's mind like a tidal wave.
Then came blind fury and grief rising from her chest. Okita Sōji knew that was the inherited fate within the Oni Blood—one of extermination, desire, and history.
From the Oni Blood, she understood how generations of great oni in the mountains had struggled to escape their fate of eating flesh and drinking blood, only to fall into it helplessly.
She saw more than one generation of oni kings trying to cast aside the fate of slaughtering their blood relatives and seek a peaceful future, only to be murdered by their own descendants. In their dying moments, they saw their children gnawing on their organs with tears of joy in their eyes.
She saw oni who thought they had escaped their fate leave the mountains, disguise themselves with painted skins and masks, and live among human society. Yet