The golden light swallowed his vision whole. After Shinji stepped into the Buddhist domain of Mount Hakurei, the scenery around him shifted violently.
The ramparts of Kiyosu Castle. The main road.
The banners of the Imagawa encampment. All of it dissolved within the pale golden radiance. What replaced it, was mountains. Endless, unbroken mountains. The air was saturated with a thick white mist. Yet it was not the condensation of natural water vapor. It was hōriki. It was vow-power. The vow-power seeped in from every direction. Omnipresent. So dense it was almost tangible.
Like being immersed in warm water. The temperature was not high yet it enveloped the body completely. A human in this environment would likely feel nothing at all. But for a yōkai, beneath the suppression of Buddhist power, the yōki within Shinji's body was confined within his physical shell.
More precisely, it was compressed back into the crevices between his bones and blood vessels. It could not be released outward. The yōki overflow brought by the Eighth Transformation was completely locked down. Without external release, the blood mist of his Blood Transformation could not diffuse beyond his body. His bone spurs could not detach and fire outward. Thunder could not be unleashed at range.
The lock-on radius of his Soul-Chasing BowArm was reduced from a hundred paces to point-blank range. An entire arsenal, all ranged capabilities, completely disabled. But at least, close combat still remained.
Shinji clenched his fist. The Lightning-Sinewed Body activated across his physical form. Violet-white arcs of electricity flashed between his fingers, streaked up his arm to his shoulder, then shot down his spine.
The thunder within his bones was still abundant. It was merely trapped inside his body. The Blood-Fire Transformation was also still usable. The yōkai-fire within his blood burned fiercely. As long as it made contact with a target, it could be released.
The Shura Form, he tested the mobilization of his four viscera. Heart-Fire blazed. Kidney-Water descended. Lung-Metal purified. Liver-Wood unfurled. The quadruple cycle operated normally. The Bone Thunder Shura could be constructed outside his body, because that thing grew from him.
It was a projection directly connected to his main body. It did not count as detached.
"Good." He exhaled. Ranged capabilities were restricted. But his core combat strength remained. In close-quarters battle, he could still exert his full power. He could fight.
In that very instant he completed his self-assessment, the comb at his waist trembled. With excitement. And even more, with breathless impatience. As though sensing that Kikyō was no longer at Shinji's side. Ink-black light surged from the comb. Black hair shot forth like serpents, weaving rapidly through the air.
Then, a humanoid form coalesced beside him. Short black hair. The tips tinged with an emerald sheen. Delicate features. Small, refined features. The corners of her eyes faintly lifted. Her lips were thin but sharply defined.
Within her ink-black, slit-pupiled eyes was written irrepressible eagerness. Yura's manifested form. Black hair coiled around her body as clothing, covering only what was strictly necessary. Her shoulders, neck, and collarbones were largely bare. Her waist was almost impossibly slender. Strands of hair wound around her ribs, tracing faint arcs before cascading down along her hips.
She braced both hands on Shinji's shoulders and pressed herself against him from behind, her chin resting in the crook of his neck. Her ink-black slit-pupils curved into crescent moons.
"Myyy—Looord—" Her voice dragged long and sweet. Sickeningly sweet. "That miko isn't here. Now it's just the two of us. A place like this, so quiet. So private—" What a pity, she never even finished.
Golden Buddhist light surged violently from beneath their feet. Like an invisible, colossal hand, it slapped directly onto Yura's manifested form.
"—?!"
Her body, once again, disintegrated in an instant. The black hair exploded into a sky full of shattered threads. Her delicate features twisted for a single moment before shattering into motes of light.
Within her ink-black slit-pupils was written sheer, absolute disbelief. The entire manifested form was brutally smashed back into its original shape by the Buddhist power in less than a second.
The comb dropped back against his waist. The necklace of seven stones rattled in a rapid cascade.
The System panel flickered.
[Sakasagami no Yura: It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts… what IS this thing?!]
"…"
Shinji glanced down at the now-silent comb. He clicked his tongue.
A bit of a pity.
Yet upon second thought, not really a pity at all.
After all, Kikyō was still waiting. It wasn't Yura's turn. He also thought to himself: this idiot truly loved courting death.
He offered no comfort. He merely reached down, straightened the comb, and hung it back at its original place on his waist. He was not the least bit surprised by this outcome. Nor disappointed. Setting aside the fact that he had yet to cross the threshold of the Twelfth Transformation, even if he could, the interior would still be hollow and incomplete.
Without the ability to release, he could never achieve the sensation of a true living body. Moreover, even though Yura's max Affection allowed her to take form, that form itself was false. It was an illusory shape, not a true body. It required external yōki to sustain a human form. And here, within the interior of Mount Hakurei, the Buddhist power's suppression of external yōki was absolute.
However much she manifested, was exactly how much was smashed back. Wanted to run wild here? Not a chance. The comb fell silent. Thoroughly silent. Not even a tremor remained. Most likely, she'd been smacked senseless again.
Shinji withdrew his gaze and continued forward. The mountain was a normal mountain. Though it was the flesh-buddha formed from the physical body of Saint Hakurei, it was also a substantive upheaval of the earth, a natural phenomenon built from soil and stone.
Amidst this, Shinji was not merely walking. He was also using. The Hair Transformation. Freely controlling and extending hair growth. Because the Hair Transformation had already fused into Shinji's body, becoming one of the components of his ongoing Tenth Transformation.
Hair grew from his scalp. Extended from his bones. It was part of his body. Likewise, it did not count as detached. His white, flowing hair split at the ends, grew finer, grew longer, and spread along the ground like creeping roots.
The tips of the strands seeped with a dark crimson hue, the searing heat of the Blood Transformation combined with the extension of the Hair Transformation, weaving into a net that clung to the earth.
A Blood-Hair Web. The range was not large, barely a hundred paces in radius. But it was sufficient to probe the surrounding terrain and detect reactions from living beings. Sufficient to pierce through the vast, obscuring mist around him. To see his surroundings. The instant the hair-net unfurled, all intelligence from the surrounding area flooded in.
Ahead, stone steps ascending upward. Along both sides of the stone steps, Buddha statues. Countless Buddha statues. Some were forty meter tall. Some were barely the size of a fist.
They lined the cliffs on either side of the stone steps in dense, innumerable rows, stretching to the very limits of his sight. Every single statue had a different face. Wrathful Vajra, Merciful Bodhisattva, Arhat with palms pressed in reverence.
Tathāgata seated in serene meditation. But they all shared a single commonality. Every one of them was carved from the very body of Mount Hakurei. Carved from the flesh of Saint Hakurei. It was a forest. A forest guarded by Buddhas.
Shinji pierced through the mist and finally reached the base of the stone steps. His crimson demon eyes swept across that dense forest of stone Buddhas. The violet veins within his pupils swirled slowly.
Buddhist power seeped from every single statue. Converged. Layered. Forming an even denser layer of suppression above the stone steps. The higher one climbed, the stronger the suppression became.
He was just about to take a step forward. The Blood-Hair Web suddenly touched something and sent out an alert. It was no longer merely Buddha statues. It was the presence of something living. It was… a person. Deep within the forest of Buddhas.
The presence the hair-net had touched was exceedingly unique. It carried intense fluctuations of divine-buddha power, yet it was different from Uesugi Kenshin's Bishamonten. Wilder. Heavier. Like a mountain.
At the same time, the master of that presence was accompanied by another, even more distinct characteristic. Human spirit. A human presence of tremendous intensity. It was the kind of momentum that only coalesced at the level of a daimyō, the convergence of tens of thousands of human hearts.
Shinji's demon eyes narrowed. The Illusion-Breaking talent of the Black Pearl was in operation. He suddenly saw a distant silhouette. The outline of a tall, powerfully built woman. Beside her, three or four smaller silhouettes. And above the head of that female silhouette, floated the spectral image of a colossal Guardian Spirit. A lion. A golden lion. Its mane was like fire.
"A red-haired woman… divine-buddha power…" He spoke under his breath. A flicker of surprise crossed his features. "Takeda Shingen?" Red hair. Divine-buddha power.
The guardian spirit of a golden lion. The one who held all three, in this era, could only be the ruler of Kai, whom he had heard of so many times yet never formally met.
Deep within the forest of Buddhas. The stone steps stretched to their end. The terrain suddenly flattened, forming a circular platform surrounded by colossal Buddha statues. Several chunks of shattered stone were scattered across the center of the platform, as though they had crumbled from the shoulders and arms of the surrounding statues.
Takeda Shingen sat upon one of those chunks of stone. Her deep crimson hair cascaded like a waterfall, spilling from her shoulders all the way to her waist. The ends rested against the stone. Her features were striking, brimming with heroic spirit. Her brow bones were high and proud.
She wore a loose, plain kosode beneath her armor. Yet the collar inside was slightly parted, revealing skin tanned to a honeyed hue. Further down, the fabric was stretched to its absolute limit. It hung heavy to either side, curves too full to be restrained spilling from between the lapels.
So full that the fabric of her kimono was drawn taut into sharp, clear crease-lines. Her build was tall and powerful. Her waist was impossibly slender, a single narrow grip, making the contrast between upper and lower all the more extreme.
The Tiger of Kai. One of the most ambitious and strategically brilliant female daimyō of the Warring States era. Ruler of the two provinces of Kai and Shinano. Self-proclaimed, and indeed, the reincarnation of Fudō Myōō.
At this moment, one leg was folded beneath her, the other propped up. She tilted her head and looked toward the person beside her.
Three warrior maidens stood at her side. The one at the forefront was tall and powerfully built, clad in light vermillion armor. A short sword hung at her waist. Her features were delicate, yet her expression was bold and carefree to the point of brashness. Her name was Yamagata Masakage.
One of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Takeda, the one who had once crossed paths with Shinji, recognized the disparity, and decisively fled. The heavy power of a divine artifact still radiated from her body, of the same lineage as Fudō Myōō, yet lighter, thinner. A fragment, rather than the whole.
"My lord, this mountain… is very strange." Yamagata Masakage's voice was kept very low. She seemed deeply uncomfortable. The other two warrior maidens were in visibly poor condition as well. One crouched at the foot of a Buddha statue, gasping for breath. The other leaned against a stone wall, eyes closed in forced rest.
"Obviously. I know." Shingen's voice was lazy. It carried a looseness utterly at odds with their predicament.
"But it's nothing more than being temporarily unable to leave. It's not the end of the world." She picked up the folding fan resting beside her. Not the delicate pine-and-crane fan of Imagawa Yoshimoto, but a colossal iron war-fan, its frame like a hammer, its surface pitch-black, inscribed with the four golden characters of Fūrinkazan.
She tapped it against her palm. "What a pity, though… while Imagawa is off campaigning in the west, and the new Uesugi is still busy cleaning up her predecessor's mess, I had intended to march out of Kai and seize Mino. The west is embroiled in chaos. The east lies empty. Such a perfect opportunity. And then, the moment I entered the northern mountains of Mino, I was swallowed by this damned mountain."
She sighed. "At least it looks like it's just the few of us. My Takeda warriors didn't get pulled in."
That was, indeed, the reason Takeda Shingen was here. She had signed the tripartite pact. She would not strike the Imagawa. She would not strike the Hōjō. But the pact never said she couldn't strike Mino. Mino's Saitō Dōsan had run off to Owari and surrendered to the Imagawa.
Mino was now an empty shell. Not taking it would be a waste. Takeda Shingen would never betray her word, but she was absolutely not the type to sit and watch a fat piece of meat fall into someone else's mouth. This was the Warring States. There was no absolute righteousness. Only relative interest.
And Takeda Shingen had never considered herself a good person. She had never bothered to whitewash herself. And so, she had ended up trapped here.
"My lord, the range of this mountain is still expanding." Yamagata Masakage added. "If this continues—"
"Shh." Shingen suddenly raised a single finger, cutting her off. The ends of her deep crimson hair slid off the broken stone. She tilted her head. Her gaze swept past the forest of Buddha statues at the edge of the platform and fell toward the direction of the stone steps. "Someone is watching us."
Yamagata Masakage's hand flew to her sword hilt. The other two warrior maidens snapped to alert simultaneously. There were no footsteps on the stone steps of the Buddha forest. No silhouette. But Shingen's battlefield instinct would never deceive her. And she would never deceive them.
"Come out." The red-haired woman tilted her chin toward the stone steps. The iron fan tapped lightly against her palm. Her tone was utterly casual, like calling out to a neighbor. "Lurking in such a place to spy on us, don't you find it rather discourteous?"
The mist-shrouded world seemed to fall silent for a single beat. Then, from behind a forty-meter-tall statue of a wrathful Vajra at the end of the stone steps, a figure truly emerged.
Gray robes, Crimson demon eyes, Onikiri at the left hip. Yomi-giri at the right. In his right hand, he dragged the colossal pale greatsword Banryū, which matched the height of a man. Shinji stepped onto the platform.
Takeda Shingen looked at him. Her deep crimson eyes blinked once. "White hair… crimson eyes…" She rose from the broken stone. Her height, now standing, was considerably greater than when seated, nearly 1.7 metres. Exceedingly rare for a woman of this era. The collar of her plain kosode, in the motion of straightening, pulled even tauter. The full, heavy curve swayed once with her movement, the weight of it dragging the fabric half an inch lower. She seemed completely unbothered. At least, unbothered before an audience of a few.
"So you're the Lord of the Hyakki Yakō. The Guardian Deity of the Imagawa clan. The Master Who Cleaves Thunder. Kishin Mikoto-no-Mitama?" Shingen had recognized his identity.
And she smiled. "Kishin Nakai Shinji." She spoke his name. Though they had never met, the commotion in the Kantō had been far too great. Uesugi's withdrawal. Kenshin forced to kneel. The Tsuchigumo's severed arm. The Imagawa fleet's raid on Echigo. The Demon King of Okehazama struck by divine thunder from the heavens.
All of it, recorded in the intelligence network of the Takeda shinobi. A yōkai who had climbed to such a position, even if not known across the entire realm, was certainly known to every major daimyō in the Kantō.
Shinji did not respond. He merely looked at her. And at the faint fluctuations of the Fudō Myōō divine-artifact fragments emanating from the three warrior maidens beside her.
In the next second, Takeda Shingen moved. Without any warning whatsoever. The iron fan flipped in her hand. The fan ribs snapped open. A ring of heavy golden light exploded from the fan's face. The divine-buddha power of Fudō Myōō surged from within the fan ribs, transforming into a visible shockwave, hurtling straight toward Shinji's face.
"I've heard you're strong...." Shingen's voice rang out from behind the shockwave, brimming with irrepressible excitement. "Let me test it!"
In the same breath, Yamagata Masakage and the other two warrior maidens struck simultaneously. Yamagata Masakage drew her blade in a horizontal slash. The divine-artifact fragment power of Fudō Myōō condensed into a golden blade-light upon her sword.
The one on the left hurled a short spear, its tip wrapped in the lingering resonance of faith-power. The one on the right clapped her palms together, releasing a fan-shaped golden curtain of light. Four directions. Encirclement. A simultaneous surge. No killing intent. No malice. Only pure, undiluted battle-lust.
A battle maniac. The most war-hungry daimyō in the entire Warring States era. Bar none. Even the previous Uesugi Kenshin would at least invoke the name of righteous war. Takeda Shingen couldn't even be bothered to find an excuse. Fight when you want to fight. Justify it afterward.
To this, Shinji naturally did not unfurl the Shura Form. He didn't even move his blades. Banryū was thrust into the ground before him. Onikiri and Yomi-giri remained hanging at his waist. He simply raised his left hand.
The Lightning-Sinewed Body activated within his palm. Violet-white arcs of electricity erupted from between his fingers, not released outward, only condensed upon the surface of his hand.
Shingen's iron fan shockwave crashed into that palm. Poof. It shattered. The golden light-wave tore like paper before the violet-white lightning.
The residual shockwave swept past the Buddha statues surrounding the platform. The statues didn't budge. They were the flesh of Saint Hakurei. Harder than iron.
Shinji's left hand pierced through the shattered light-wave. His five fingers spread wide and pressed directly against the face of the iron fan Shingen had raised to block.
The divine-buddha power of Fudō Myōō collided with the Lightning-Sinewed Body. The golden characters Fūrinkazan on the iron fan hissed and smoked beneath the searing arcs of lightning.
And then, Shingen's entire body was sent flying. Along with Yamagata Masakage, who hadn't even had time to retract her strike behind her. The two of them flipped twice through the air and crashed at the foot of a Buddha statue at the edge of the platform.
The warrior maiden on the left who had hurled the short spear fared even worse. Her spear, mid-flight, was casually slapped aside by Shinji's right hand. The shaft bent into a V-shape and ricocheted back, sending both her and her weapon crashing into the stone wall.
The one on the right, who had unleashed the curtain of light, before the light curtain could even fully expand, Shinji had already stepped before her. His left palm pressed against the center of the light curtain. Thunder poured in. The light curtain detonated from its center.
That warrior maiden was hurled backward by the blast wave. The back of her head struck a chunk of shattered stone. She lost consciousness.
Less than three seconds, start to finish. Takeda Shingen pulled herself up from the foot of the Buddha statue. A corner of the lacquer on her iron fan had shattered. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
She wiped her lips. Her deep crimson eyes locked onto that gray figure at the center of the platform. From beginning to end, he had not drawn a single blade.
To this, Shinji simply stood motionless where he was. He slowly spoke. "What a weak god-buddha." Though she was a "god-buddha" capable of opposing Uesugi Kenshin, capable of standing against Eighth or Ninth Transformation high-ranking yōkai, by now, even though Shinji was still only at the Ninth Transformation, his four viscera were forged.
Even in his normal state, without activating the Shura Form, his strength could already approach the Eleventh Transformation. Fully unfurled, he could approach or even directly match an ordinary Twelfth Transformation yōkai.
Though he still couldn't compare to a thousand-year-old demon like Kidōmaru, who wielded the Rashōmon domain and approached the level of a daiyōkai, the gap was no longer insurmountably vast. To him, they were truly… very weak.