"Falling Cherry Blossom Slash!"
Five sword auras instantly cleared the evil spirits and monsters around them.
"Begone, all evil!"
Kikyo took out a string of prayer beads and cast them forward... The vengeful spirits were immediately purified and vanished.
"Prepare to taste my power! Scarlet Fire Hell!"
Higokumaru spread her arms. A beam of fire swept forward, clearing away all the miasma.
"There's too much miasma. This is pointless."
Kikyo took out the Gale Blade Yae Sakura had given her and released a tornado, but... before long, the vengeful spirits and miasma returned.
"Forget about them. Let's keep moving..."
Holding the Spirit Blade, she looked at the miasma that seemed impossible to clear. There was no point in carrying on like this.
"This place must have been more than just a battlefield. It was probably a mass grave before that; otherwise, it couldn't have such terrifying miasma." Kikyo studied the terrain and thought it over before making her guess.
"A mass grave... I see. Let's go!"
The three continued onward, no longer paying attention to the vengeful spirits and miasma...
After walking only a few steps, they spotted an old well beside a crude dirt path. Several soldiers' corpses lay beside it.
As Yae Sakura and the others passed the desolate old well, a terrifying croaking sound suddenly came from inside. It made their hair stand on end.
"Be careful."
The three stopped at the same time and looked toward the well.
"There's a monster. And it's strong."
As she spoke, Kikyo nocked an arrow and aimed her longbow at the well.
Then... a white skeletal claw reached out, followed slowly... by a second claw... and then a head completely hidden beneath long black hair. It crawled out of the well at a leisurely pace.
It was just like Sadako from The Ring.
Except this one crawled out of a well, while Sadako crawled out of a television.
"Gah-gah... Would you like some water?"
Surrounded by ghostly flames and wrapped in white cloth, the monster asked Yae Sakura and the others.
"Yes."
Just as Yae Sakura was about to say something, Kikyo agreed.
"This is a youkai called Kyokotsu," Kikyo explained to Yae Sakura.
"Kyokotsu..."
The first thing Yae Sakura thought of was a certain snake-playing woman called Kyokotsu.
Kyokotsu was a terrifying skeletal youkai that lived in old wells. It appeared in the dead of night and asked passersby, "Would you like some water?" If they drank as it asked, it would disappear.
If they refused, it would twist its whole body and start dancing. Anyone who saw the dance would immediately go mad, throw themselves into a well, and die.
"Drink up!"
A wooden ladle suddenly appeared in Kyokotsu's hand, filled with water.
But... the water was black.
"Black water..."
Yae Sakura and Kikyo moved closer to Kyokotsu and looked at the water in its hand. It certainly didn't look like anything good.
"Drink this? No way!"
There was no way they'd drink something like that. Who knew what it was?
"Gah-gah... If you don't drink, you'll die."
Kyokotsu's ear-splitting voice rang out again. It sounded like Kayako, the indiscriminate avenger from the Ju-On films, making an unpleasant noise with her throat after it had been slit.
It was a well-dwelling youkai that specialized in curses.
Yae Sakura had finally had enough. The sound was tormenting all four of her ears... She was about to go mad.
"Then you can die."
A flash of pink light, and Kyokotsu, still holding the wooden ladle, was cut down by the Spirit Blade.
Because of the Spirit Blade's special properties, the slain Kyokotsu immediately began to disintegrate, leaving behind only a few dry bones.
"That wasn't it..."
It was too weak to be a great youkai.
"Actually, drinking that water wouldn't have killed you..."
Looking at the dead Kyokotsu, Kikyo lowered her bow.
"But it would've cursed us, right?"
"Yes, though it wouldn't have been a very serious curse..." Kikyo nodded.
"Then why leave it alive?"
"Ah... Because wherever Kyokotsu appears, there's always some terrifying big creature nearby. Now that we've killed it... we're bound to draw its attention."
Before Kikyo could finish speaking, the ground began to shake.
"An earthquake?"
"No. Get out of here! That thing's awake!"
Kikyo immediately grabbed Yae Sakura's hand and hurriedly ran back. Higokumaru followed close behind them.
By the time the three had made it several hundred meters from the well, the ground had split wide open, and a pair of enormous skeletal hands had emerged. They were as huge as skyscrapers.
The ground shook more and more violently. Before long... a half-skeletal figure, a hundred meters tall, appeared before them.
Why was it only half a skeleton?
Because it looked as if it had been cut in half at the waist. It had only an upper body, but even that alone stood a hundred meters tall. If it had a full body...
"Big sis, those bones are huge!!"
Higokumaru stared at the colossal skeleton before them, drool already running from her mouth.
"Uh..." Yae Sakura had been stunned, but Higokumaru's words left her speechless.
"It really did appear... Gashadokuro. This is the great youkai you mentioned, right?" Kikyo held three arrows and aimed at the giant skeleton's eyes.
Ghostly blue flames burned in Gashadokuro's eyes.
"I think so!"
Gashadokuro was formed from the resentment of the souls of people killed on battlefields whose corpses had never been buried. That resentment took the form of a gigantic skeleton.
Born on the battlefield, it was far more powerful than an ordinary great youkai.
But the conditions for a Gashadokuro to form were extremely demanding. It certainly couldn't have come into being in just a few months. There must have been some other factor at work.
Still, Yae Sakura was happy to have a great youkai appear before them.
"Exorcism Arrow!" Seeing that Gashadokuro had completely emerged from the ground, Kikyo immediately fired an arrow imbued with exorcising power at the flames in its eyes.
But... Gashadokuro simply raised a hand to block it. Kikyo's arrow was stopped without inflicting the slightest injury.
"Kyokotsu... You killed... Kyokotsu."
Gashadokuro had no legs, so it could only crawl along on its hands, but it wasn't slow. Once it reached the three of them, its enormous hand swung down at them.
"Fall back!"
Yae Sakura hefted Tyr's Broken Arm and fired a shot at the gigantic skeletal hand, as big as a mountain.