Scene 6.
Three days later, at night.
During the time it took him to travel from Ryokotsusei Valley to the village of Mizukaze, Kawakami, riding on the back of the draconian demon Ryokotsusei and aided by his enhanced spiritual sense, was able to locate and retrieve nine more fragments of the Jewel of the Four Spirits. This increased his total from six to fifteen fragments. What used to be a journey that would have taken almost a month to complete on foot now took less than a week of flying, thanks to the prodigious flight speed of the dragon spirit. Additionally, the boy was able to test his new combat abilities to some extent. The demons he faced while claiming the new jewel fragments were easily dealt with and then offered as food to Ryokotsusei. Telekinesis, spiritual swords, most of the eight forms of the primordial sword, his soul sword, and his new special attack, the spirit energy ball—Kawakami used all of these to dispatch the demons. Even when some of these demons were already quite powerful and possessed two to three fragments to enhance their strength further, they were unable to react to Kawakami's simplest attacks. Such was the tremendous difference in power.
In the skies above Mizukaze Village, riding on the back of the dragon spirit, Ryokotsusei.
Kawakami gazed somberly at the landscape below from the heights. He looked at the place where the small village of Mizukaze once stood, the village where he was born and raised, his true home. It had been, because now the place was nothing more than a massive cemetery surrounded by ruined homes and graves, dozens of them. The expression on the boy's face was not only somber but also held a glint of silent fury among his features. In his heart, he already feared the worst—that in his absence, whatever little remained of his family might have vanished from this world forever. Guilt slowly began to overshadow his features. Chaos welled up within him, and consequently, the world around him echoed that feeling, echoed the feeling of a wounded immortal. Black rain clouds forewarned the imminent arrival of a storm, lightning struck the ground in an uncontrollable frenzy, and rain fell furiously over Mizukaze, now a place of death and sorrow. Kawakami summoned his soul sword and then, maintaining a serene expression, he spoke.
"Wait here, Ryokotsusei."
With those words, his heart heavy, the boy mounted Ryūkonken and then, slowly, descended from the skies while scanning the entire village with his spiritual sense in search of any sign of life he could find. He urgently needed to find out what had happened in Mizukaze. He needed to know for certain if his mother and brother had truly departed to the afterlife. The storm of desperation-driven emotions within him gradually turned into a gentle drizzle. His descent finally came to an end. Inside one of the few homes still intact amidst the mysterious devastation, Kawakami had detected the single sign of life. He recalled his soul sword with a quick mental command, his feet touched the ground, and he proceeded towards the designated location. With most of his emotions locked away, he walked towards that place. Many questions were swirling in his mind in a process of cold situational analysis; the surrounding houses appeared utterly demolished, with no signs of fire anywhere he looked. It seemed as if a stampede of a thousand beasts had swept through the village, catching everyone off guard. Additionally, there was a faint, almost imperceptible trace of demonic energy all over the place. Yet, curiously, there were no visible signs of demons anywhere at first glance—not even scorched bodies, blood, or the like. It was as if they had meticulously erased all traces of their presence from the village, beyond the usual. The village was essentially abandoned, and it didn't seem like much time had passed since then, at most three days. To Kawakami, it made no sense for such effort to be put into covering up a demon attack. What's more, that particular fact was quite contradictory in itself; Kawakami knew very well that if such a massive demon stampede had attacked the village, there would be no bodies left to bury. Demons that attacked villages in that manner typically devoured their victims down to the bones. However, the boy had felt, through his prior spiritual sense scan, that most of the bodies of the people buried underground in the graves were mostly intact. All of this was definitely odd, and he hoped that his encounter with the person he had sensed earlier in the village with his spiritual sense would help answer these mysterious questions—whether peacefully or violently.
Inside a dwelling in the northwest corner of the village.
An elderly monk knelt in prayer before a roughly carved wooden Buddha statue. He wore a white and yellow kasaya, a white bead necklace hung around his neck, his head was completely shaven, as was customary in his religion, his eyes were large and dark gray, his ears stretched by two orange hoops, his wrinkled pale skin marked him as elderly, his thin frame bordering on malnourished, a clear sign of his ascetic dedication. His height was average, and his posture notably hunched. Before him, on the floor, lay a golden khakkhara, his weapon, his life, and his tool against the forces of evil. His expression was solemn, defined primarily by one emotion: sorrow.
"Amitabha Buddha."
Completing his prayer, the old monk rose slowly, using his khakkhara as a staff. With one last lingering gaze at the wooden Buddha, he exited the small hut at a brisk pace. Outside, he was met with the presence of Kawakami, whose expression remained as serene as ever. Only the invisible tension in the air belied that fact; that tension was a consequence of the boy's silent fury. The old monk sensed this unseen pressure and couldn't help but look towards the young man with a mix of fear and uncertainty. Kawakami's spiritual energy made the stones on the ground jump, and the wind and rain diverted unnaturally around him. However, the old monk didn't sense any demonic energy coming from Kawakami, leading him to conclude that the young man before him was definitely human, albeit one with arcane powers unknown to him. Consequently, he spoke.
"W-who are you, young one? What brings you here?"
Hearing the stuttered words, Kawakami calmed down, and the supernatural events around him subsequently ceased. His expression remained serene as he scanned the monk with his spiritual sense. Instead of responding to the old monk's question, Kawakami posed one of his own. His use of spiritual sense had yielded no unusual results; the old monk was simply that—a frail old man and a follower of Buddha's teachings.
"What happened here, venerable monk?"
Despite the results of his spiritual sense, Kawakami trusted the old monk not at all. Therefore, he omitted any information that the elder might exploit from his question. His face never wavered from its habitual stony expression. Having heard the boy's question and ignoring his rudeness, the old monk sighed.
"Jooo."
Conflict filled the old monk's features. The memories of what he had seen when he arrived at the village three days ago couldn't help but surface in his mind—death, chaos, and destruction; that could easily summarize the scene. The corpses of people of all ages, men, women, the elderly, and children, lay scattered on the ground in the most gruesome and visceral ways possible. None had escaped this disaster. Even the farm animals had met their end in this conflict. His eyes then met Kawakami's, and words followed afterward. An idea had started to form in his mind after witnessing the young man's agitated reaction earlier.
"A demon attack, young one. Something terrible. Amitabha Buddha. May the gods watch over their souls. Um, this? I apologize in advance if my question is intrusive, young one. You don't have to answer if you prefer not to, but... Did you have family here in this village?"
In response to the old man's question, Kawakami, naturally, remained silent, and once again, he posed another question to the old monk. His expression subtly shifted between initial annoyance at being read so easily and the typical serenity of his habitual demeanor. Yet, undoubtedly, for the moment, the elder seemed to be telling the truth. Kawakami's hands gestured impartially around him, followed by his next question.
"Were you here when all of this happened?"
The old monk shook his head immediately. A chaotic expression of recollection became clear in his features, as if he were remembering something disturbing. Then he spoke.
"It's regrettable, but by the time I arrived here, the attack had already occurred. All I could do for the dead was give them a proper burial. Three days later, here we are."
The old man's words seemed honest once more. Accordingly, Kawakami nodded. His expression momentarily held gratitude, a gratitude that veiled an unknown sentiment. The conversation had reached a pivotal point. At some point during it, the rain had ceased, the skies cleared from black, and the sun emerged from the ever-shifting clouds.
"Thank you for that, venerable monk. My name is Kawakami, and yes, I was born here in Mizukaze. My mother and my brother, both of them. Both probably perished here that day. Um. I do have one last question for you, if you don't mind, venerable monk. It's curious. How did you learn that it was a demon attack? Weren't you here, according to your own words, and I don't see any corpses or evidence of the demons' burning anywhere? I kindly ask you to be very careful with what you'll tell me next, venerable monk."
Silence hung in the air for several breaths. The formless pressure returned to the scene once again. The veiled threat in Kawakami's words became more than evident. Both the boy's and the old monk's expressions were currently shaded by the veil of a potential conflict. At the end of a prolonged staring contest, the elder, once again, relented.
"A dying man, young Kawakami. It was a dying man who spoke to me. With his last strength, just before he passed away, that poor man told me that a horde of monsters had attacked the village two days before my arrival. Not only that, he was able to identify the demon leading the attack. It was that very demon who ordered his subordinates not to leave any trace of their presence behind."
Kawakami patiently waited for the old monk to continue his narrative. His heart now burned with a pure desire for vengeance, calling for blood, for death. He eagerly awaited to know the appearance of the perpetrator responsible for his family's demise. The elder, resigned, forced his mind to recall the most significant details behind that old conversation. Then, one second up, one second down, he proceeded. His current expression was the epitome of powerlessness and conflict. He didn't like delaying the cycle of death and revenge that plagued this era so profoundly; it went against his beliefs and constituted one of his strongest biases, even if the cause of the tragedy was an evil entity, a demon, in itself. Unfortunately, being an old man himself and having lost his beloved apprentice in a demon attack barely two seasons ago, he deeply feared denying vengeance to another man. He feared his own hypocrisy and the judgment of the gods upon his death. He feared dying in a depopulated village, utterly alone. Most of all, he feared the pure power that Kawakami's senses could constantly perceive, that arcane and unknown power that crackled dangerously around the boy—instinctively, it terrified him beyond reason. Doubts clouded his judgment and plagued his dusty heart.
"Um, let's see? According to the poor man, the leader of the demons appeared human, the appearance of a tall, handsome man with long silver-white hair and features as cold as death. His chief servant seemed to be a small green demon whom the demon leader addressed as Jaken. All the demons under his command referred to him as, 'My Lord Sesshōmaru.' Um. That's all I remember—By all the gods?! Wait, young Kawakami! Revenge is not the way! Young one!"
The old monk's words were left hanging in the air, unfinished. His surprised yet heavy-hearted eyes watched Kawakami's back as he soared into the skies upon his soul sword. In his mind, the old monk cursed his cowardice many times over and was also extremely astonished at how a young man, a mere human as he supposed, could fly through the skies at will.
"Could that boy be a god, perhaps? Amitabha Buddha. What have I done?"
The old monk felt as if he had aged a decade right at that moment. His expression was filled with deep regret. He knew that all the blood and death Kawakami would leave in his wake would, in part, be due to his previous cowardice. In the end, as he weighed his life against all the possible lives lost in the future due to his choice, a shattering pain couldn't help but cleave his chest, prompting him to utter a guttural scream.
"Ah!"
The old man's body collapsed onto the ground with a dull thud. His greatest fears had come true. Death overtook him as he writhed on the painful mud in complete solitude. His expression was frozen in shame and the infinite bitterness of his mistake. Whether he would go to heaven or hell constituted his final and most desperate thought.
Meanwhile, behind Ryokotsusei.
Kawakami sat rigidly on the spirit dragon's back. A silent fury dwelled in his features, now as cold as ice. His emotions were under tenuous control, on the brink of exploding. His mind was a jumble of reckless fantasies and highly incoherent thoughts of extreme destruction. He malignantly yearned to find the demon Sesshōmaru and torture him until he broke, both mentally and physically. He wanted to take everything from him and then slowly dismantle him in front of his impotent eyes, just as he imagined the demon Sesshōmaru had done to his family. For a moment, the violet glow of the Four Spirits Jewel in Kawakami's possession flickered. Its hue turned to a malicious black as coal. Sensing his companion and rider's anger, Ryokotsusei roared powerfully.
"Gruuuaaah!"
The contained rage behind that roar audibly reverberated across Japan, giving rise to fearful whispers and exaggerated rumors among all the wise beings and creatures of its diverse landscape.
Meanwhile, inside a distant castle veiled in violet mist and gray clouds.
"... Gruuuaaah!"
Having heard the furious roar of the spirit dragon, a man shrouded in shadows abruptly opened his blood-red eyes. After a moment of recognition, a vicious smile spread across his lips.
"It has begun."