Ordinarily, Kyoto teemed with demonic energy once night fell.
Ibaraki Dōji enjoyed himself immensely every time he visited.
It was lively and bustling, and he could hardly have been happier.
Yet today, Kyoto was unusually quiet, its demonic energy greatly diminished.
For the yokai, an ominous air hung over Kyoto.
Traces of fighting littered the streets, and some yokai corpses had yet to dissipate.
They lay before Ibaraki Dōji just like that, their deaths utterly gruesome.
One mourned the suffering of one's own kind.
When he killed lesser yokai, he did it deliberately, to establish his authority and display his brutality.
The yokai responded particularly well to that.
But now, seeing his own kind lying strewn across the ground, he could not help being affected.
The more intelligent a yokai was, the richer its emotions and the closer it was to humans.
Humans hung up their enemies' corpses to create an atmosphere of terror and deter their foes.
Yokai did the same, in fact.
But this was the first time Ibaraki Dōji had seen yokai corpses treated this way.
"What on earth happened?" Ibaraki Dōji's brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
Any yokai would have found it strange.
It was like a human hurrying into Kyoto, only to discover that the once-bustling Capital City was utterly deserted.
Something was definitely wrong.
He had heard of fierce human warriors, but never of anyone who could clear out the yokai overnight.
According to rumors among the yokai, Oda Nobunaga had once had a jet-black Samurai at his side named Yasuke.
Tall, powerfully built, and exceptionally fierce, he was said to be very effective at warding off evil.
Tokugawa Ieyasu had a man named Miura Anjin at his side, who also possessed some unusual abilities and had opposed yokai.
But none of them could