"Are you all right, demon sister?"
The strange shrine maiden had used a matchlock that could only fire once to kill everyone, then sat down on the ground, looking utterly unable to accept what had happened.
Could it be... this was the strange demon shrine maiden's first time killing someone?
But wasn't she a demon?
Was a demon's first time killing someone hard to accept, too?
Still... for some reason, the girl wasn't afraid of this strange demon. Maybe it was because she had saved her?
After hesitating for a moment, the girl got to her feet and walked over to Yae Sakura, who was holding her head in her hands.
She hesitated, then tried to comfort her...
"These bandits were unforgivable villains. You don't have to feel guilty. They deserved to die! They destroyed who knew how many villages and killed who knew how many good people. They defiled... so many... innocent girls.
You don't need to blame yourself at all."
The girl crouched beside Yae Sakura and tried to reassure her.
She was very grateful to the demon shrine maiden who had saved her.
"I don't blame myself..." Yae Sakura raised her head.
"Demon sister, you..."
The girl took one look at Yae Sakura's face and was so startled that she fell flat on her bottom.
There wasn't the slightest trace of guilt on the demon shrine maiden's face. This was... excitement? No, it was deranged!!
Her expression was so deranged it was terrifying...
"Demon... sister, are you... all right?"
The girl swallowed and stammered out the question.
"I'm fine..."
Yae Sakura picked up the Moon God from the ground.
Even though this was her first time killing someone, Yae Sakura didn't feel the fear a normal person might. Instead, she felt something like what "Saeko Busujima" felt... pleasure?
Was she not normal?
No... that wasn't it. The first time she killed a chicken, she couldn't bear to do it.
Though she had gotten used to it later.
But now, the first time she'd killed a person, she'd actually felt... as if she couldn't stop.
It wasn't her fault—or perhaps it was this body's? This was Yae Sakura's body, so she was being affected by it...
This state reminded Yae Sakura of the emptiness that had overtaken her after her father killed her younger sister, Yae Rin, in the Sakura Arc, leaving her vulnerable to Honkai Energy...
It wasn't like being lovesick. This was derangement!
Yae Sakura really had been lovesick. In one worldline, to keep Kallen by her side forever, she'd turned Kallen into a doll and kept her with her—a classic example of being lovesick, though it could also be called deranged.
But her current state wasn't entirely the same as being lovesick, even if there was some connection...
Still... the Flame Sakitama Yae Sakura must have had a deranged mind. It was simply that she rarely let it show.
Setting everything else aside, during the five hundred years that Yae Sakura and the Herrscher of Corruption were sealed away, the Herrscher of Corruption had tried to take over Yae Sakura's body. In Stigmata Space, it forced her to relive the history of her sister's sacrifice again and again, hoping to erode her heart through those cycles.
Yae Sakura had endured, but it was impossible to say that her heart had been completely unaffected. Even a saint couldn't go through five hundred years of suffering without being changed at all.
The effects had simply built up slowly, little by little. She hadn't noticed them in her daily life.
Later, Theresa accidentally entered Stigmata Space. After experiencing the ritual in which Theresa had replaced Yae Rin as the sacrifice, Yae Sakura—who had mistaken Theresa for Kallen—finally began to fall apart inside.
After countless cycles in that collapse, Theresa had saved her, but wounds of the heart weren't so easy to heal.
So it was perfectly normal for Yae Sakura to have a twisted, deranged mind.
After enduring so many despairing cycles, the fact that Yae Sakura could still be so gentle wasn't because a few words from Theresa had simply made everything all right. She had only hidden her derangement deep inside, never letting it show in her daily life.
There was also... the Herrscher of Corruption appearing as a chibi, only for Yae Sakura to fish her out of a sake barrel and name her "Higokumaru."
In Tenshukaku within Stigmata Space, Higokumaru had let go of her hatred and willingly stopped resisting. The Herrscher Core had then been converted into the Divine Key [Jizo Mitama] according to the previous era's program that Dr. MEI had set in the box. But that had only been the fourth cycle; there were other worldlines that had developed differently.
Thinking about it that way, Higokumaru had committed far too many unforgivable crimes against Yae Sakura...
Higokumaru herself was pitiful, too. Before she had fully become a Herrscher, she'd suffered greatly, and someone had even killed her outright. But that didn't mean she could be completely forgiven for what she'd done to Yae Sakura.
Still... she had confessed her love to Yae Sakura and decided to follow her forever, intending to spend her whole life making amends. There wasn't much else to say about it.
Her deranged state of mind now must have been caused by Yae Sakura's body.
That was it... it had to be.
"Big Sis, are you all right!"
Just then, Higokumaru finally hurried over to Yae Sakura.
"I'm fine. Go take care of these bandits' bodies, and... don't tell Kikyo about this."
Yae Sakura pointed to the bandits' corpses beside her. There was no need for Kikyo to know about this.
"Yes, Big Sis."
At her words, Higokumaru breathed out a mouthful of Fox Fire and quickly cremated the bodies.
"Go outside the village. There's a shrine maiden dressed just like me. She'll protect you. And don't say anything about what happened here. I'm sure you understand." Yae Sakura glanced at the little girl and pointed toward the outskirts of the village.
She wasn't planning to take the girl along from here.
After parting from the little girl, Yae Sakura continued deeper into the village with Higokumaru. The villagers' bodies lay on the ground, and blood stained the earth.
The villagers' screams and the bandits' excited cries rang out again and again. In this world, most bandits had twisted minds.
But...
"What am I yearning for?"
It was... slaughter!
Killing with a gun couldn't satisfy this excitement. Only a blade, and the thrill of every strike drawing blood.
She couldn't kill with the Spirit Blade. If she killed too much... she might turn it into a demon blade.
She already had a demon blade, the one in Flame Sakitama's hands. She didn't need a second one. The Spirit Blade's ability to harm divine beings was very useful.
So... she put away the Spirit Blade and drew the katana Void from her side...