A shrine maiden's resolve (III)

The shrine maidens helped the Yokai Exterminators tend to their ragged, gruesome wounds.

Meanwhile, Zhiyá led their chief to a quiet room, erected a barrier, and held a secret conversation.

"This is..." Tsubaki, who had followed Zhiyá, widened her eyes in surprise.

A purple Demon Jewel lay quietly in the Yokai Exterminator chief's open palm, its surface shimmering with an alluring light.

This was the treasure countless demons fought to possess-the Shikon Jewel!

"Yes! It is indeed the Shikon Jewel." The chief sighed, helplessness filling his face, weathered by years of fighting demons. "We accepted a request from the nearby villagers and destroyed the Evil Mountain God that had been terrorizing them. Then we found this inside his body."

The Yokai Exterminators' village stood at the birthplace of the Shikon Jewel. No one knew more about it than they did.

"Then your purpose in coming here is...?" Zhiyá asked cautiously.

When it came to the Shikon Jewel, coveted by countless demons, even someone as powerful as Zhiyá had to be careful.

"As you can see, only someone pure of heart can purify the Shikon Jewel. That is why I, Zhegu, wish to entrust it to you. Please do not refuse." After speaking earnestly, the Yokai Exterminator chief bowed deeply to Zhiyá from his kneeling position.

Zhiyá gave a bitter smile. Purity of heart was precisely what he lacked most.

"Please rise, Zhegu." Zhiyá helped the Yokai Exterminator up. "If I could, I would gladly take on this responsibility for you. Unfortunately, I do not have the necessary ability."

Seeing Zhegu try to pull free of his hands, apparently intending to bow down again, Zhiyá hurriedly held the Yokai Exterminator upright.

"However," Zhiyá continued at once, "I know someone who has that ability and would be willing to shoulder this duty."

Seeing the longing on the Yokai Exterminator's face, Zhiyá gave him the name directly. "The shrine maiden Kikyo." He paused. "Have you heard of her?"

"Yes!" the Yokai Exterminator said excitedly. "We have long heard of Lady Kikyo's reputation, but we do not know where she is."

"She lives in Kikyo Village, in Musashi Province. If you ask her, I believe she will agree," Zhiyá said with a smile.

"Yes! Thank you for your guidance." Overcome with emotion once more, the Yokai Exterminator bowed down again.

After the Yokai Exterminator left, the room fell silent once more. The sky had already grown dim.

"Tsubaki, are you unhappy?" Zhiyá lifted his cup of long-cold tea and looked at Tsubaki, who sat silently with her head lowered.

"No," Tsubaki said insincerely, unable to hide her dejection. "Why did you refuse, Master?" In her eyes, her master was so powerful and righteous, as though he had been born radiant. Surely no one was better suited to purifying the Shikon Jewel.

"I am simply unsuited to it," Zhiyá said calmly. "Everything I said just now was true. I was not making excuses."

Only he knew that, the instant he saw the Four Souls, he too had been tempted by that magnificent treasure. It was said to grant any wish! Although he did not believe that claim, he had still fallen under its spell for that brief moment...

He, too, had a wish he could never speak aloud.

But Tsubaki did not believe him.

How could Master lack the ability to purify the Shikon Jewel?!

Besides-

"Even so, why give it to Kikyo?" Tsubaki asked indignantly, her face bearing its usual reserve and pride. "Is no one at Kiyomori Temple capable of doing it?" Was she not capable?

"Do you mean yourself, Tsubaki?" Zhiyá's voice cooled. From the beginning, he had noticed that the temptation on her face when she saw the Shikon Jewel was exactly like his own.

"You are unsuited to purifying the Shikon Jewel as well." Zhiyá looked sternly at the little shrine maiden kneeling before him. "As long as you want something from the Shikon Jewel, you cannot purify it. You will only taint it further!"

The rare rebuke and his stern expression frightened the usually pampered girl, and tears welled in the corners of her eyes.

"I... I don't! I hate you, Master!" Tsubaki wiped her eyes and ran out of the room, panicking because he had struck upon her secret.

"Tsubaki..." Zhiyá sighed softly and set down his teacup. It struck the saucer with a clear clink. He had been careless enough to make a sound. He knew he had lost his composure.

Keeping Tsubaki away from the Shikon Jewel was, in part, a selfish wish of his.

The tales of the Shikon Jewel bringing misfortune had always proven true.

Although he also felt for Kikyo, who had lost her father so young, perhaps she was simply too strong. She seemed to need no adult's care and could even look after her equally young sister, Kaede. Perhaps that was why he had devoted more concern to the usually more spoiled and willful Tsubaki.

Besides, Tsubaki shared his blood. She was the girl he had promised to see safely into adulthood.

So... I am sorry, Kikyo. I hope you can break the ill omen of the Demon Jewel.

Zhiyá sat motionless in the quiet room. Sunlight shone from behind him, turning him into a shadowed stone statue.

The shrine maidens spent that New Year with the Yokai Exterminators who had remained at Kiyomori Temple.

Although neither their master nor the Yokai Exterminators mentioned what had driven the demons to swarm after them, heedless of life and death, the shrine maidens had quietly guessed. It was probably a powerful sacred or demonic artifact, and the likeliest possibility was the Shikon Jewel, revered as the ultimate treasure by the demons of this era and even certain ambitious humans.

The shrine maidens shared an unspoken understanding and kept their silence, while the Yokai Exterminators remained immersed in grief.

Although none of the Yokai Exterminators had died on the journey here, the fallen mountain god they had first set out to destroy had possessed the Shikon Jewel, which had greatly strengthened its power. The Yokai Exterminators had not anticipated that at all. During the battle, several older slayers had died protecting their younger comrades.

"This was my greatest failure in battle since becoming chief," Zhegu said with a bitter smile.

He was actually still a young man, at the age when a Yokai Exterminator's strength, experience, and spirit were all at their peak. Yet now his face was etched with the helplessness of life.

The shrine maidens fell silent.

They could imagine those ill-prepared Yokai Exterminators, one generation guiding the next, the old and young carrying on this ancient duty together. Yet before a demon far stronger than they had expected, they had seemed so weak. The strength of ordinary humans, even combined with years of experience fighting demons, was still no match for a demon.

Yet behind them stood defenseless villagers. They had to stand in front of those people, unable to retreat a single step. All they could do was grit their teeth and face that hideous enemy, prepared to die.

The shrine maidens' hearts were unbearably heavy.

They were different from the Yokai Exterminators. Whether spellcasters, onmyoji, monks, or shrine maidens, they all possessed powers ordinary humans lacked. Those innate gifts could be strong enough to rival demons. Yet those who became Yokai Exterminators were merely ordinary humans. They had no spiritual power, no magical power, and not even powerful weapons. Yokai Exterminators generally used ordinary blades or weapons made from demons' hard bones, while spellcasters and shrine maidens could wield all manner of ritual implements and talisman arts against demons.

Yokai Exterminators were, by their very nature, sacrifices fighting on the edge of a precipice.

"Then..." A little shrine maiden's voice was as faint as a mosquito's. "Why did you take the mountain paths on your way here? There are so many demons in the mountains."

"Perhaps..." An older shrine maiden spoke with admiration. "The Yokai Exterminators could not bear to let the demons following them hurt ordinary people." There might be fewer demons on the main roads, but there were also more travelers. If they had taken those roads, the people along them would surely have been harmed by the demons. Few people ventured into the mountains, so innocent people would not be caught in the fighting.

"We Yokai Exterminators were born to protect people," Zhegu said, looking at the sky outside the window. "Generation after generation."

His calm, composed tone made him seem entirely different from the man who had just been grieving for his fallen clansmen.

The little shrine maiden bandaging the enormous wound across his waist and abdomen suddenly stopped. Then a dark spot appeared on the white bandage, gradually followed by a second, a third... She discreetly wiped the corners of her eyes and made her already careful movements gentler still.

Not far away, Han looked at the exhausted Yokai Exterminators and froze when she heard their chief's words.

Her master and the others had always made protecting humanity their mission. Yet this was the first time she had seen people who were not shrine maidens throw themselves into danger for that same belief, even at the cost of their lives.

"Yunai, is wanting to protect humans what the Yokai Exterminators feel?"

The corridor on that winter night was covered in snow and bitterly cold. Neither Han nor her little rabbit minded.

"I don't know. For demons, not eating people counts as protecting humans, doesn't it?" The rabbit rolled over on the girl's lap, exposing a soft belly, begging for strokes, for smooth fur, for cuddles~

Han fell silent. Discussing the protection of humans with a demon really was a little strange. No matter how harmless Yunai was, the rabbit was still a demon.

An unspoken loneliness suddenly welled up in her heart.

She alone was caught in the gap between humans and demons.

Kikyo was human, a shrine maiden who protected humans. Ran, Gardenia, Sayuri-everyone was.

Sesshomaru was a demon, born an enemy of humans. Yet even someone as cold as he was would not go out of his way to attack humans, who were too weak to withstand a single blow in his eyes. They were not worth attacking, but neither would he ever think of protecting them.

As she gazed at the hook-shaped crescent moon in the night sky, a seed of confusion took root in the girl's heart.