In this moment of crisis, Oda Nobuna truly could still laugh. She genuinely found it fascinating. Even at her most wretched, the fire blazing within those golden pupils burned brighter than when she had unleashed her hellfire at full force.
"Interesting," she repeated.
Shibata Katsuie shielded her from the front. Her great axe was braced horizontally. Her amber eyes were locked dead onto that gray silhouette across from them. Every muscle in her body was coiled taut. Maeda Toshiie hid behind Katsuie, her short sword raised before her chest. The tip still trembled.
The three or four hundred remaining ashigaru were scattered across the shallows. Some still couldn't rise from the seawater. Some lay slumped, gasping for breath. No one dared move. No one even had the spare strength to pay attention.
The great kappa knelt to the side, its two-meter-tall jade-green form prostrate in reverence. And Shinji stood at the end of the pier. Banryū gripped in his right hand. Kikyō at his right side.
Absolute dominance.
One Eighth Transformation high-ranking yōkai. One Ninth Transformation, with strength approaching the Twelfth, peak-tier yōkai. One strongest miko of the Warring States.
Across from them, three or four hundred broken, defeated soldiers. One exhausted Demon King incarnation. One divine-artifact warrior maiden who couldn't defeat the great kappa. There was no suspense.
Yet it was precisely at this moment, that Oda Nobuna stepped forward. Katsuie reached out to block her. "My lord—"
"Step aside." Nobuna pushed her arm away. Her feet, bare upon the cold, wet sand. Step by step, she walked toward Shinji. The hem of her kimono dragged through the mud, picking up more silt and seawater with every stride.
She had no hellfire. No weapon. Even her leather armor was shattered. But she walked without the slightest hesitation. She stopped a few paces away from Shinji. The sea wind howled through the space between the demon and the human, whipping up the pale ends of his hair and the golden ends of hers.
"Kishin Nakai Shinji." She spoke his full title. Shinji merely lowered his gaze. He didn't respond. Since he couldn't kill her, he wasn't in a rush to strike. He wanted to see what she intended. Surely she couldn't overturn the board from this position?
Nobuna, however, fixed her gaze upon his face. Then she spoke. Her pace was unhurried, yet every word was crisp and clear. "What is your relationship with Imagawa Yoshimoto?"
"Cooperation."
"Just cooperation?"
"What do you think?"
Nobuna tilted her head. Her wet hair slid from her shoulder, revealing the clean line of her jaw.
"If it's merely cooperation, then I believe… you deserve a better partner than Imagawa Yoshimoto." This time, Shinji didn't respond. Kikyō also didn't move. Her longbow remained at her side. Her cool, clear gaze rested calmly upon the golden-haired girl.
Nobuna continued. "Imagawa Yoshimoto has seven thousand soldiers. Three provinces. The First Archer of the Tōkaidō. On the surface, she seems very strong. But she fears death. When Shibata Katsuie cut her way to the very front of her tent, only then did she finally step forward. If you hadn't arrived, she would already be dead. Someone who fears death, cannot walk very far." She spoke with blunt, almost harsh directness.
Yet Shinji noticed, as Nobuna said these things, there was no contempt for Yoshimoto in her voice. She was merely stating a fact. And using that fact to draw a comparison.
"I don't fear death." Nobuna thumped her own chest, right at the spot where the wound had just healed. Through the soaked fabric of her kimono, the fresh pink skin beneath her collarbone was visible.
"You cleaved me in two with a single slash. I came back. You blasted me with lightning. I came back. The vessel of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven will not die. Imagawa Yoshimoto will die. Not just that arrogant fool, even a military genius like Uesugi Kenshin will die. Will undergo succession. Even a warrior as fierce as Takeda Shingen will be the same. After succession, they may not remain as they were. But I will never change. If you cooperate with someone who will die, what will you do when she's dead? Cooperate with me." Her golden slit-pupils met his crimson demon eyes directly.
"I am the one who can help you become the guardian deity of all under heaven. What's more, a Demon King and a Demon God, they are natural allies from the very start!"
As a fellow incarnation of a "god or buddha", or rather, a divine demon, Oda Nobuna naturally knew of the succession of gods and buddhas. Though her intelligence channels didn't inform her that the current Uesugi Kenshin was already the second generation, that didn't stop her from holding contempt for those of her kind who needed to start over from scratch through succession.
Her words fell. The shallows fell silent. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore was amplified in the stillness.
Shibata Katsuie stood behind her, great axe in hand. Her amber eyes didn't blink. Maeda Toshiie shrank even further back, her large eyes spinning wildly. Our lord is at it again, she thought.
The great kappa knelt to the side. No reaction. A yōkai's mind was simple. It had long been utterly subjugated by Shinji's combined grace and authority. It obeyed only its master's commands.
Kikyō remained silent. No emotion could be read from her. As though none of this concerned her. And she supported whatever decision Shinji made.
Shinji looked at the girl before him, fifteen or sixteen. Golden hair soaked. Kimono tattered. Covered from head to toe in mud and silt. Her forces had been decimated. Her plan was in complete ruins. She was trapped upon the shallows, unable to advance or retreat.
Any other daimyō in this situation would have long since knelt and begged for mercy, or drawn their blade and taken their own life. But not her. She walked straight up and tried to win him over. And did so with absolute, righteous conviction.
Shinji admitted, this woman possessed something he had never seen in Imagawa Yoshimoto. Yoshimoto was intelligent. Bold. Visionary. Yet at her core, Yoshimoto was a consolidator. What she wanted was stability. Security. To minimize all risks to the absolute lowest.
First the Tōkaidō. Then the Kantō. Then the march on the capital. Then, and only then, the realm. Step by meticulous step.
Oda Nobuna was different. What she wanted was the realm itself. From the very beginning. With half a province and twelve hundred soldiers, she had dared to launch two surprise raids. The second, a seaborne strike against the rear of a daimyō commanding three provinces.
This was not merely madness. This was gambling. Victory would flip the board. Defeat meant total annihilation. And beyond her temperament, in other aspects as well, she truly seemed… special enough. Even compared to Takeda Shingen. Even compared to Uesugi Kenshin.
In that moment, Shinji saw something else. The Illusion-Breaking talent of the Black Agate Pearl he carried was in operation. His vision pierced through the surface reality his naked eyes perceived. It fell upon the space behind Oda Nobuna, the place where the spectral silhouette of a Guardian Spirit should manifest.
Though Owari was small, though Oda Nobuna was still impossibly far from the position of "ruler of all under heaven", she did, indeed, possess a Guardian Spirit. And not just one. Two. On the left, a peacock of pure gold. Three eyes upon its crown.
The Celestial-Eye Peacock. In esoteric Buddhism, a sacred beast symbolizing insight and precognition.
On the right, a black beast with the tail of a leopard. Its body was like a tiger's, yet its tail was a serpent's. Its four paws tread upon clouds. Upon its forehead was the character for War.
The Leopard-Tail God. Guardian of the military path. Symbol of conquest and destruction. Dual Guardian Spirits. For Imagawa Yoshimoto, Shinji had seen only a single White Elephant. But upon Oda Nobuna, he now saw two.
And more than that, his demon eyes could see something was wrong with those two Guardian Spirits. The Celestial-Eye Peacock's wings were bound in dark crimson chains. The texture of those chains was identical to the crimson lotus hellfire within Nobuna's body.
The Leopard-Tail God's four paws were likewise entangled in the same dark crimson flames. As though branded with some mark. They were not free. They were not Guardian Spirits naturally coalesced from the intersection of the Mandate of Heaven and the hearts of men. Nor were they gifts bestowed by some willing existence.
They were more like something that had been forcibly controlled. Bound by the hellfire of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. Seized. Or plundered. This—this seemed to be the true nature of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven's incarnation. Not merely immortality, but the ability to devour the fate and fortune of others.
To steal their Guardian Spirits. Who had these two Guardian Spirits originally belonged to? Shinji didn't know. They might have been vanquished foes. They might have been the leaders of factions Nobuna had absorbed. They might even, have been torn from her own elder brother when she had assassinated him and seized power.
But regardless of their origin, there was only one conclusion. The terror of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven extended far beyond the word "immortality." She could also plunder. Plunder the lifetime's accumulation of destiny and virtue from others. Turn it into her own.
The more she killed, the stronger she became. The more she fought, the more ferocious she grew. This was Māra. The true essence of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven of the Realm of Desire. To take all human desire. All ambition. All fortune. And make it her own. In the original trajectory, she would declare Tenka Fubu, "The Realm, Under a Single Sword." And she would dominate this land.
That, too, seemed to be in the most literal sense: to trample everything beneath heaven underfoot by force of arms. To devour it all.
Shinji's thoughts churned. Then he spoke. "You.... do not die?" he said. "If you ask me, that's debatable." Nobuna's smile froze. Because in the very next instant, Kikyō moved.
The miko made no extraneous movement. No verbal signal. No need for words. She didn't even glance at Shinji. It was purely instinctive, wordless coordination. She pressed her palms together. Reiryoku surged from her hands. Not for purification. Not for a barrier. But a purer deployment of reiryoku. Sealing. Reiryoku transformed into countless threads of white light, fine as spider silk, erupting from between Kikyō's palms.
They wove into a net in the air. The net was not large, barely ten paces in radius. But every single thread of that net carried the vast, majestic reiryoku of the miko. It did not kill. It did not wound. It did not purify. It only sealed. To lock all of the target's power. All of their transformations. All of their possibilities. Into a single "vessel." Never to emerge.
Oda Nobuna's smile completely vanished. She even stumbled backward two steps, her bare feet slipping in the mud and silt. She nearly fell. Immortal? Yes. She would not die. The vessel of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven could be destroyed ten thousand times, and would restore itself ten thousand times.
But if she were sealed, then it was no longer a question of life or death. It was being buried alive in a prison with no escape. Forever. And ever. And ever.
Of the two utterly different immortal existences Shinji had encountered thus far, Kibutsuji Muzan, the Demon King, had not feared sealing. Because he could infinitely split himself. His backups were scattered across the entire realm. Seal one, and a thousand more remained. The only way was total annihilation. Eradicate his regeneration.
Oda Nobuna, however, could not. The power of the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven was bound to this single mortal vessel. No clones. No backups. If she was sealed, she was sealed.
"Wait—!" Nobuna's composure shattered. In the final accounting, these so-called "great figures" destined to be etched into history were still human.
And humans had weaknesses. Humans had things they relied upon, and thus, things they feared. Do not overestimate those in high places. Do not scorn those below. Human nature was all the same.
Those without fear or desire certainly existed. But such people also had no desire to step onto the stage of history. Shinji had always believed this.
Amidst this, the sealing net continued to close. Kikyō's expression was as cold and clear as ever. No killing intent. As though she were performing a daily chore.
Nobuna frantically retreated. Katsuie raised her axe to shield her. The divine-artifact power upon its blade erupted. The white threads, upon touching that gray-iron light, emitted a sharp hissing sound. But they did not snap. The threads passed through the axe-blade and continued closing toward Nobuna.
The divine artifact could suppress the supernatural. But Kikyō's reiryoku was far too pure. Even Uesugi Kenshin, the true incarnation of Bishamonten herself, had been unable to suppress it. How much less Shibata Katsuie?
"You—!" True panic finally surfaced in Nobuna's golden pupils. And then, the sealing stopped. Kikyō withdrew her hands. The white threads halted three shaku away from Nobuna, suspended in the air, advancing no further.
Shinji stood where he was. His crimson demon eyes gazed at Oda Nobuna, whose entire body had gone rigid. He had not let Kikyō truly strike. He had understood from the very beginning, the Oda Nobuna before him was not truly his enemy. In fact, if he could subjugate her, she would only add more chips to his future "march on the capital."
Thus....
"This is a warning," he said. "Immortality is indeed a valuable bargaining chip. But immortality is not invincibility. You're right. The Imagawa will die. The Takeda will die. The Uesugi will die. But you.... will be locked away. Which is worse, think on it yourself."
Nobuna stood within the encirclement of sealing threads. Her chest heaved violently with each breath. The fire in her eyes flickered for a long, long time. Finally, she spoke. Her voice was far lower than before. "…What do you truly want?"
Shinji did not answer this question. He turned. He walked back toward the pier. Kikyō likewise withdrew her reiryoku. The white threads dispersed like smoke. She cast a single glance at Nobuna. Then she turned and followed. The meaning, required no words.
Only the remnants of the Oda forces and a kneeling great kappa remained upon the shallows. Nobuna stood where she was. Her bare feet sunk into the silt. The sea wind whipped the tattered remnants of her kimono.
Shibata Katsuie walked to her side and spoke in a low voice. "My lord…"
"Shut up." Nobuna's voice was muffled. She kept her head lowered. Her golden hair veiled half her face.
"Let me think." But in truth, she had no options left. Because at some unknown moment, a fog had risen around them. And within that fog, shadows loomed.
Every single one, was a yōkai. The lesser demons under the great kappa's command. The Hyakki Yakō, escorting them under guard. They had come. And now, they would not be allowed to leave.
It was over.