their hideout, their secret base, or their zombie laboratory.”

There were damp spots here and there, but that may have been due to a nearby water vein or spring.

In addition to the shacks and scaffolding, there was a lot of digging equipment. This ranged from handheld equipment like shovels, pickaxes, and hammers to heavy machinery like a bulldozer and a power shovel. Wooden boxes were casually stuffed full of cylinders that probably had explosives inside.

They didn’t seem to have many subordinates, so had Majina and Shikimi tied a headband around their forehead and dug out the cave themselves? It sounded like everyone had it rough.

“But when creating a secret base, how you dispose of the dirt you’ve dug out is the trickiest part. They did that and lived here for ten years without the slightest whisper reaching the outside world, so they really are monsters. I can’t believe it.”

“?”

The shacks had been given more and more rooms like a reckless stack of containers. I peeked inside one and saw a tatami mat room beyond wooden bars crisscrossing horizontally and vertically.

“Is that a cell?”

“Hm.”

I grabbed a voice recorder hanging on the scaffolding’s bamboo railing. It was as blatant as everything else. I hit the play button with my thumb and heard Majina’s voice beyond some static.

“Every time I see them, the relics of our supposed ‘glory days’ make me sick. But I can never regain the lost methods to develop a Zashiki Warashi without following in their footsteps.”

I listened while walking along and came across a slightly smaller cell. Further along, I found an even smaller one. As I kept walking, I found more and more, each smaller than the last.

“If they stripped a Zashiki Warashi bare and had their way with her in the name of research, then they were, without a doubt, monsters. But in their own monstrous way, they would be treating the Youkai the same as us through their lust. But what they did was different. In a way, they were far more awful than mere monsters.”

“W-wait a second,” said the Sunekosuri with fear in his voice. “What is this...!?”

The box in front of us was large enough to hold in your arms. If I were to climb inside, I would have to squeeze inside while holding my knees in my arms. Shrinking it any further could easily break all of the bones in one’s body and leave only a lump of flesh behind.

But...

It went further...

“They did not even view Youkai as beings with a body and mind of their own. They viewed them as mere phenomena that happened to speak the same language as us and act on the same thoughts as us.”

The next box was downright tiny.

Each side was at most thirty centimeters across. It would be perfect for holding a birthday present.

“What they did was simple. They prepared a cell to rob the Youkai of their freedom. Next, they moved them to cages that gradually restricted their ability to live their lives. They could not eat, they could not sleep, they could barely walk around, they had no way of knowing the time, and eventually it was too small to fit inside. By letting them gradually grow accustomed to each step along the way, the Youkai would lose their body and mind. They would return to being a mere phenomenon.”

“What was...inside this?”

The Sunekosuri gulped as he asked.

There was only one Zashiki Warashi that Hyakki Yakou had done anything to.

The surface of the box had a number blotted out with ink and “Ver. 40” was written next to it.

“But...this is...but!? How much would a humanoid Youkai have to lose their humanoid form to fit inside this thirty centimeter box!?”

This was a museum of the truth behind the “glory days” of Hyakki Yakou several centuries ago. Majina had recreated it using immense amounts of data and his own definite skill.

But unlike a Western wax figure museum with a torture theme, this was not an accurate model meant to point out the mistakes of the past and warn the present.

“Yes, and what makes me sick most of all,” spat out the voice, “is that I’m so worthless that I need something like this.”

“He’s even more insane than I thought,” I summed up while stopping the voice recorder.

Leaving all the documents out in the open both here and in the dog square up above had not been carelessness. It had likely been an attempt to confess. But rather than tell someone, he had found meaning in letting it out of his heart in some way or another. It may have been a lot like the story of King Midas and the donkey’s ears.

“Basically, he made a wax figure torture museum, made his own personal customizations, and then threw his wife, that white Zashiki Warashi, into it. And that created the Ver. 40 that surpasses the Ver. 39. Maybe it’s like sitting around on a sofa made of human skin.”

“Wh-what was Majina-sama trying to do?”

“That I can’t tell you yet.”

For ten years, Majina and Mei had watched the world continue under the assumption they were dead. Who could say how much that had broken them?

I couldn’t tell what they wanted from the Ver. 40 or the zombie panic.

I couldn’t see any direct connection to his apparent goal of taking Hyakki Yakou from the young lady.

Or rather...

“He supposedly has a Zashiki Warashi that can construct a brand new destiny from nothing rather than change the existing destiny. If he has that, then he wouldn’t need to bother with all this. He could directly mess with the world to make himself Hyakki Yakou’s leader.”

“Th-then is the Ver. 40...um, Mei-san not complete yet?”

“Do you really think Majina would be that inept?”

Hyakki Yakou Special-Made Ver. 40 Zashiki Warashi was complete. He could use it at any time and he had no reason to hesitate. Nevertheless, they never used that power to put us in checkmate.

Why?

“No, that isn’t it.”

“?”

“Maybe he’s already using it. And for something that makes his return to Hyakki Yakou a secondary concern in comparison.”

“What would-...?”

The Sunekosuri trailed off because someone appeared from behind one of the complex shacks as if dragging their heavy bodies along.

There were two of them and they had huge chunks torn out of their shoulders, sides, and thighs.

“Eek!?”

The Sunekosuri shrieked, but not because these were zombies.

Every zombie had been a human at first.

But the identity of these two zombies was a surprise.

“Uchimaku Hayabusa and Hishigami Enbi...? But, eh? But...it can’t be...!?”

“Did they sniff out this incident like normal but were knocked out of the running? Honestly, there’s no saving them when they take it this far.”

When their blank eyes spotted us...or rather, spotted some fresh flesh that had yet to rot, they turned their heads our way. They had torn clothing, dry white hair, and red and purple mottled skin. With their tongues hanging out and their heads lolling weakly, they barely looked like their former selves.

“Is this any time to remain calm!? What do we do? How do we save them!?”

“Save them? How?”

“What?”

“I’ll save them if I can. I’m willing to be flexible when it comes to family. But I’m pretty sure this is a lost cause. I may be able to restore or swap out body parts to a certain extent, but not even I can save a brain that’s already rotted away.”

“Th-then what do we do?”

“There’s only one thing to do.”

I clenched and opened my hand.

I focused on the idea of a beast’s claws.

“Whoever they were originally, an enemy has appeared before my eyes. I’m not going to be nonsensically sentimental and say I want to destroy my family with my own hands. I’m just going to defeat them and move on.”

“...............................................................................................................................................................!?”

And Enbi.

You didn’t release your Hishigami Woman side even with that going on?

She was second to none when it came to human opponents. Even if it meant eventually standing before that detective as the worst possible murderer, she might have been able to save him from the zombies “for the time being” if she had released that side of herself.

Or maybe she decided she would rather die by his side.

“Come here, human.”

It felt so empty.

Not sad, but empty. That was how I felt about a world with nothing but sacrifice.

“I’ll bury you with that man you loved. Maybe that will make up for the sin of killing my family.”

She replied with a roar.

Both of them charged forward in perfect unison. Based on the speed and strength, they were probably about the same as a three hundred kilogram grizzly. A normal human wouldn’t have stood a chance, but I was an exception.

I would decapitate one with my first strike and behead the other a moment later.

As soon as I planned out that accurate course, something else happened.

Suddenly, a great power struck those full-power monsters and they crumbled to the ground.

No one had touched them.

It was blatantly paranormal, as if a shockwave had forced them down from every direction.

“What a pain.”

I heard a voice from overhead.

A woman said to have overdone her anti-aging to the point of shrinking stood on the wood and bamboo scaffolding arrayed in three dimensions. She had long white hair that seemed out of place on what otherwise looked like a girl. The hair was worn up like a giant flower, she wore a colorless white kimono, and she used a shimenawa in place of a sash. Stabbed in the ground was a golden three-pronged vajra that glittered to an ominous extent.

“I thought I’d warned you not to justify the killing that really comes from your own weakness, final generation.”

“Hishigami...Shikimi!?”

After those words, all illumination vanished from the large underground space: the bare lightbulbs, the candles, and the hanging lanterns. Like a switch had been thrown, everything went dark.

“...!! I had a feeling you’d do that!!”

I relied on my memories to grab a shovel that had been leaning up against a shack’s wall. I swung it around and it must have struck the three-pronged vajra she had apparently picked back up because orange sparks flew.

One of the hanging lanterns must have spilled its plate of oil because a flame burst out.

The flames and oil fell to the ground and then spread to the surrounding shacks and cells.

My eyes met those of a young face illuminated by scarlet flames.

The careless Sunekosuri was still at my feet, so I kicked him back with my heel. Hishigami Shikimi was the oldest and leading killer of Youkai. When she faced a Youkai, it was harder for her not to kill it.

Shikimi’s white hair spread out.

The next thing I knew, she had removed the top of her kimono, revealing an undershirt and bare shoulders.

The poisonous flower had become a dangerous and deadly fruit.

“I had a feeling you would come here, but did you really think the final generation could hope to match the founder of the Hishigami line!?”

“I had a feeling you would be waiting here. But did you really think an ancient one-trick-pony could stay at the top forever!?”

Nothing more was necessary.

This battle had been decided before it began, so the two Hishigamis obeyed the pre-established harmony and clashed.

Part 5

During the final stage of the conflict between Hyakki Yakou and the Aoandon’s group, Hishigami Shikimi had mocked me as an expert bluffer with no other skills. I had been completely at her mercy. She had been holding back, yet I had not even lasted three minutes.

However, that was not because her bones or muscles were extremely strong.

“Hh!!”

In the conflagration, Shikimi twisted her hips inside the white kimono. The golden three-pronged vajra in her hand fell like lightning. No matter where I ran, I would be forced to the ground like Enbi and the detective had been.

That was not what I needed to do.

I twisted my own body around and used the great strength I had acquired from the technology of those sickening Hishigami Men. And it was all to swing my shovel down.

I half-forcibly destroyed the ground at my feet, creating a crack between Shikimi and me.

That was all I did, yet it stopped Shikimi’s attack.

“Oh?”

“You’re the Hishigami Woman that specializes in combat. None of your attack methods are going to require targeting each individual person!!”

“So what!?”

She swung the vajra and I blocked its tip with the metal part of the shovel. Orange sparks flew.

I immediately noticed something invisible covering the surface of the shovel, as if crawling up the wooden handle from the point of contact.

I quickly let go and grabbed a hammer that was as long as a wooden sword. I swung it to smash the mysteriously infected shovel in midair.

A bursting sound came after a short delay.

“Your method is a terrain effect. It’s probably something like the ‘fill’ tool in image editing software. You desecrate a surface based on the points of contact to remake it into your own field. Then you can freely influence any object, phenomenon, or life form in that field. Since you’re using a three-pronged vajra, I’m guessing it’s based on Kobo Daishi’s Flying Vajra. In that story, he threw a three-pronged vajra to determine the proper site for his headquarters and it stabbed into Mt. Koya!!”

So if there was a crack in the ground, the “fill” would be interrupted.

So if I stuck the shovel in the way before it hit me, the target of the “fill” would change.

While I had strengthened my physical body to face Youkai, she created a “killing territory” that weakened her target.

Under the right conditions, this could cover an entire city or region at once. Then she could instantly kill every single soldier standing there. Even if a 6000 shots per minute Vulcan cannon or a cruise missile were fired her way, she could shoot them down, break them apart, remake them, destroy them, or neutralize them. She specialized in taking on large groups and her firepower was so great that accurately targeting a single person was difficult.

But that didn’t mean she was an immortal monster with no blind spots.

If I didn’t mess up my response, I could avoid an instant death!

“You can only rest easy when you’re looking down on everyone else, so I’m surprised you did so much research. How humiliating was it to realize the truth is much more useful then lies?”

I ignored her and threw the giant hammer at her.

The blunt weapon rotated horizontally, but she made no move to avoid it.

“But have you forgotten? The Flying Vajra covers a surface based on the points of contact, but why does that have to be limited to the ground?”

“Kh.”

“And I rule over a territory, not the land itself. In other words, my rule extends to the airspace directly above that surface as well.”

As soon as I threw the hammer, I forced myself into a leap despite my unnatural stance. I felt my entire skeleton screaming in protest, but I had more to worry about. I left my body to the custom Yozakura that seemed like a creaking mass of rubber and springs.

After all, Hishigami Shikimi had slammed her vajra into the wall of a shack.

A dull sound burst out as the flying hammer crashed into that wall as if it had been pulled there by a powerful magnet. It also turned to stone. If I had stayed there, the same would have happened to me.

When she struck the ground, it affected the area above it.

When she struck the wall, it affected the area “above” it but in the horizontal direction...in other words, straight ahead.

It was like being targeted by the invisible spotlight of an electromagnetic weapon.

But what exactly was this attack based in?

Earth, ground, territory? No!

“A certain concept exists in almost every religion around the world.”

Shikimi slowly turned her gaze toward my airborne body.

“Namely, holy ground. Just like the land on which Kobo Daishi chose to build his headquarters. And what is the greatest power that ties people to the earth?”

I kicked left and right off the burning shack walls to escape upwards like a pinball.

“Tch. Universal gravitation!?”

“Precisely. As the planet pulls at us, we too pull at the planet. So you will pull power of this holy ground to yourself and cause it to burst inside your body. ...No human body can escape the power of the planet itself.”

I could only remain airborne. My knees and hips were undamaged, so I had to praise the Yozakura suit. A head-on battle was not easy. The best plan was to escape outside the range of her “fill” and use my handgun or whatever else to snipe her from within the smoke!

But then Shikimi placed a hand on her hip and stared up at me.

“Did you think you could reach safety by fleeing high enough above the holy ground? But have you forgotten, final generation?”

“?”

“This is the depths of the earth. It is a single space surrounded in all directions by dirt.”

“...!!???”

The three-pronged vajra had left her hand.

She had thrown it to her feet where it stabbed into the ground.

An instant later, I heard a high-pitched sound and something invisible spread out in no time at all. Shikimi’s territory began at her feet, continued up the nearby wall, and instantly reached the darkness overhead. It was just like choosing the wrong spot and filling up the entire image.

This ridiculous universal gravity attack had me pull the planet’s disaster into myself and it rushed in at me from all 360 degrees.

Oh...

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

I could no longer worry about appearances.

I pulled a wooden charm doll from the open chest of the kunoichi suit and a line of light burst out as if slicing through space. I forcibly pulled out my Shikigami that wore a short kimono.

It was the Deadly Dragon Princess.

The artificial lifeform moved back-to-back with me.

The instant she showed any sign of movement, countless giant cracks ran through the entire underground space. Water poured out like a dam had burst and the solid bedrock crumbled. Cracks had cut apart and broken up Shikimi’s territory.

Then the murderous amount of water swirled, became a great dragon, and rushed toward Shikimi.

“Did you mess with the water vein?”

The founder of the Hishigami line pulled the three-pronged vajra from the ground using its decorative thread and then grabbed it in one hand.

“But did you really think that would be enough to kill me?”

All sound vanished.

First, the Deadly Dragon Princess’s fierce deluge froze over in an instant. As soon as the water dragon entered what little remaining territory she had, all of the water molecules froze in a chain reaction.

The crumbling underground space stopped moving, like instant glue had been dumped over everything.

But I had other things to worry about.

By the time I heard an explosion, Hishigami Shikimi was already five centimeters in front of my face with vajra in hand.

By the time I realized she had used her incredible leg strength to launch herself forward, she had taken her next action.

First, she kicked the Deadly Dragon Princess away. Like two balls on strings clacking together, the kinetic energy was transferred over and the Shikigami stabbed into the bedrock like a shell or a missile. I didn’t have time to gasp. Shikimi spun around in midair and swung her three-pronged vajra down toward the center of my face!

“...!!!!!”

I immediately pulled my handgun from my boot, but the vajra shattered it. Not only that, I was forcibly slammed into the ground directly below me.

“Gah...ah...!?”

I broke through a shack wall, smashed a pile of wooden boxes, and rolled along the ground.

The damage to my body and the remaining moves I had in stock were of secondary importance.

Oh, no. This location is very, very bad!!

“That is my territory left over even after all those cracks. That is the holy ground determined by the vajra.”

Something twisted near my spine, the contents of my head swelled up like a balloon, I felt like I was wrapped in intense heat, and I could not tell front from back, left from right, or even up from down. I frantically moved my arms and legs, but I could not stand up or even sit up.

Damn. Is this what they call an unexplainable fever?

It was a stereotypical form of divine punishment or curse. It was the judgment given to those who rudely violated divine land.

“If you wouldn’t get inside, all I had to do was throw you inside myself.”

I heard a soft sound as Hishigami Shikimi belatedly landed.

She spun the three-pronged vajra like a baton and slowly walked over.

Things were not looking good. The inside of my head was boiling and I was having trouble figuring out which way her voice was coming from.

“What are you trying to do...with all that power?”

“If you see Majina as an insane man trying to overthrow the country, you wouldn’t understand. He is a normal human being. Although that is exactly why he broke.”

“...”

“Even after marrying his wife and having a child, the Zashiki Warashi was nothing more than a Zashiki Warashi. Mei could not escape her primary objective of bringing her family prosperity. At the same time, Majina was brought to despair by his own talent. Without him, he felt Mei never would have suggested modifying her body into the Ver. 40. Without him, he felt things would have turned out differently. But they had everything necessary to bring further prosperity. The situation pushed at his back, Mei took his hand, and he fell straight into hell. What if he had forcibly rejected it? That’s simple. A Zashiki Warashi will naturally leave a family that does not desire prosperity. In other words, she would have abandoned him. Her feelings as an individual were irrelevant. It came down to her trait as a species. Majina had no other option.”

So the Zashiki Warashi who had fallen in love with a human had thrown her own body into the compressor.

She had shaken off the hands of the man who wanted to see that least of all and she had taken the shortest route to prosperity.

It was a revoltingly awful form of “happiness”.

But...

“That explains Majina and the Ver. 40’s situation.” I took a slow breath and shook my hazy mind. “But what threat do they see coming? What threat do they think they need the Ver. 40 to face? And how does that connect to this zombie panic? I’m curious about all that as well, but that isn’t what I’m asking. ...What do you gain by following Majina? If you just want success as a Hishigami Woman, you wouldn’t need to go along with all this.”

She did not answer my question.

In my blurry vision, I thought I saw the white-haired woman form a slight smile as she looked down at me.

She prepared to swing down the golden three-pronged vajra.

“Sweet dreams, final generation. This is the end, Hishigami Woman who only wanted success on an individual level.”

“Shut it, you old hag. Your loss was set in stone from the moment you didn’t kill me the instant you had the chance.”

“?”

This isn’t one of those bluffs you say I love so much.

Have you forgotten?

We’re surrounded by the sea of flames created from the fallen lanterns spreading to the shacks and cells.

And I just destroyed a bunch of wooden boxes when you threw me to the ground.

Now, what had I seen in boxes much like these on my way here?

The answer is blasting explosives.

A deafening roar and shockwave exploded from nearby. I could barely move and Shikimi was standing boldly above me, but we were both blown away. We were thrown through the air as if gravity had vanished.

This is no longer your world.

We’ve left it.

“Damn...you!?”

She spun around and tried to throw her vajra, but it was too late.

Before she could, I grabbed at her shoulders in midair. My thumb traced along her slender collarbone and then forcibly grabbed it. It broke with a dry sound.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

One of her arms was unusable.

The vajra slipped from her hand and vanished into the pitch black abyss.

We crashed into the roof of a different shack a good distance away. I couldn’t breathe, but I raised two fingers on my right hand. We had escaped her territory and the mysterious fever was gone. I held her to the ground and our arms quickly crossed paths as we targeted each other’s vitals.

The air audibly split apart.

My fingers stabbed into her throat and her finger slipped just past my temple.

“Gah...gh...?”

She looked up at me with a look of surprise.

Her mouth flapped like a goldfish’s and she forced her voice out with her windpipe mostly crushed.

“You...”

“?”

“You might know...all you can do...is destroy...but did you never...wish...even once...to be useful to someone...?”

“Oh...”

So that was the founder of the Hishigami line’s desire.

Had she wandered the world for a thousand years in search of nothing more than that?

But...

“I gave up on that less than a year after being born into this world.”

Shikimi was approaching death, but her eyes widened for just an instant. At the very, very end, she utilized her muscles rather than beg for her life. She was not trying to escape and she was not trying to get back up.

She was going to kill me.

She was going to kill the target before her eyes.

Because she believed that would be useful to someone.

Even as a Hishigami Woman, she wanted just one person in this wide world to say “thank you”.

But you know what?

That’s why this happened, old lady.

I didn’t win because I specialize in bluffing. Nor because I had prepared everything in advance.

It was much simpler. The Hishigami Women summon disaster.

So much so that you had to wish to be useful.

“That’s why I won’t die.”

“!?”

“And that’s why you won’t be useful to anyone. Not ever.”

That was the difference between the founder and the final generation.

There was no point in discussing who was right. I dug my two fingers deeper into her throat to destroy both her windpipe and the medulla oblongata sticking down into her neck.

A wet sound burst out.

There was a winner and a loser.

Unfortunately, those were the only two categ-->>

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