Shinji's appearance here was naturally not a coincidence.
After coming up empty-handed at Odawara Castle, he had already changed his plan.
The Hōjō's main force had moved south. The Imagawa had raised an army and marched east, the two forces were facing off at Yajirōgen. And there was still the Echigo Uesugi army, which could march south again at any moment.
Large swaths of the Kantō region were being consumed by war.
And behind him, he had twenty-three small demons with nowhere to go.
These creatures needed a place to settle.
A place with people.
A place where fear could be generated.
But in the cracks of war, no village or town would welcome a group of demons.
Unless someone vouched for them.
And vouching required influence, and also a demonstration of power.
It required everyone to see with their own eyes what stood behind these demons.
So he needed a stage.
The battlefield between Imagawa and Hōjō was precisely the biggest stage.
Three thousand five hundred soldiers.
The elite troops of two nations.
Dozens of banners.
And all he needed to do was assess the strength of both sides, ensure his own safety, and do one thing....
Walk in.
And then, let everyone see.
…
Blood mist spread. The bone forest stood.
The two armies had been forcibly split apart. The soldiers at the front fell back, pressing into their comrades behind, their faces full of horror.
That white-haired figure stood at the center of the battlefield, one hand on his sword, the other at his side, purple electric arcs silently dancing at his fingertips.
Crimson demon mask.
Bone for armor.
Blood mist for a banner.
This sight, under the gaze of thousands of eyes, was already terrifying enough.
But what truly made everyone's breath stop was what was behind him.
The blood mist churned.
The thin red fog slowly spread out from behind Shinji to both sides, like a curtain being drawn back.
In the mist, shadows stirred.
First, a crooked, tattered flag.
On it was painted a skull so hideous and off-kilter it looked like a child's scribble.
Holding the flag was a short, stout figure, the tanuki, who had now abandoned its disguise and returned to its original form.
A round belly, a bushy tail, two bean-sized eyes wide open. Its legs were trembling.
But it didn't run. It held the flag and stood there.
Standing behind Shinji.
Then came the second.
The one-eyed little monk walked out of the mist, barely three feet tall, holding its broken paper umbrella. The painted eye on the umbrella no longer darted around in panic but stared straight ahead, at the humans.
The third.
The fox-eared girl, holding the tail of the giant rat with the broken leg, emerged from the deepest part of the blood mist. Her furry ears were perked straight up. The flower garland on her head was askew, revealing the tips of her ears.
The fourth, the fifth.
The two-headed crow spread its wings and landed atop the bone forest.
The half-centipede burrowed up from the ground and slithered to Shinji's feet.
Kappa, lantern demons, fragments of a ittan-momen, a cat without eyes… one after another.
Twenty-three of them.
All had emerged from the blood mist.
They were weak, so weak that any armed ashigaru could easily kill them.
So weak that in the world of demons, they didn't even qualify for the bottom of the food chain.
But now, they stood behind Shinji.
Standing amidst the bone forest, in the lingering echoes of lightning, under the gaze of three thousand five hundred people.
The blood mist enveloped them.
That thin red fog was no longer concealment, but a rendering.
It rendered their shadows, stretching them tall and large.
It rendered their presence, amplifying them many times over.
In the contrast of that mist, these originally weak and laughable demons somehow projected an inexplicable sense of oppressive power.
Not physical pressure.
But the spectacle.
A Shura-like existence in a crimson demon mask, followed by a motley crew of demons, walking through blood mist and bone forest.
That image alone was enough to inspire fear.
"A hundred… a hundred demons…" In the Hōjō formation, some soldier's teeth chattered.
"A hundred demons marching…"
The word spread through the army like a plague.
A hundred demons marching.
Legend had it that this was the sight of the Demon Lord leading his horde of demons on a public procession.
What they saw before them though only twenty-three.
Though it was daytime.
Though those demons were so weak they could be chased away with a broom.
No one found it laughable.
Because the figure at the front, the one who had just split the battlefield of three thousand five hundred with lightning was too strong.
So strong that even if only a single ant followed him, that ant would seem formidable.
That was presence.
That was fear.
None of those little demons needed to spread terror themselves.
They just needed to stand behind Shinji.
Humans would be afraid on their own.
And the fear that condensed into 'awe' was now silently spreading across the battlefield.
It flowed toward those little demons, toward their weak bodies.
Like nourishment.
Like power.
The one-eyed little monk's single eye suddenly brightened.
The fox-eared girl's ears twitched more violently, not from fear, but from a strange sense of fullness.
The tanuki froze.
It looked down at its own hand.
Were its fingers glowing?
No, not glowing.
Demonic aura.
Its demonic aura was increasing.
Minutely, but increasing.
…
Shinji stood among the bone forest, his gaze beneath the crimson mask sweeping over the army formations on both sides.
He wasn't looking at the changes among the little demons behind him.
He was looking at his panel.
More precisely, at the panel for the cat demon's paw in his robe.
[Cat Demon's Paw: Affection +12]
[Current Affection: 45 (Resonance)]
[It has suddenly reacted.]
[For the first time.]
[The aura of the dead, the fresh souls slain on this battlefield, the lingering spirits in the air, it is absorbing them.]
[It is awakening.]
Shinji's brow, hidden beneath the demon mask, rose slightly.
Twelve points?
A jump of twelve points at once?
This thing had been gaining one or two points a day, like a lifeless object that couldn't be appeased. Now it suddenly surged?
He looked down, feeling the withered black claw in his robe.
It was vibrating.
Not the unconscious, sluggish, wooden trembling of before, but a real, rhythmic vibration, carrying a certain longing.
Like a beast that had been sleeping for a long time, suddenly smelling meat.
The battlefield.
Death.
The departed souls.
These things were nourishment for the cat demon's paw.
It was a demonic artifact that controlled the dead. The more death, the more active it became.
And on this battlefield, the clash just now had already left dozens of corpses. The air was thick with the aura of death.
This was the catalyst for its awakening.
Not Shinji's infusion of demonic aura.
Not the patient, day-by-day claiming.
But the right circumstances.
"I see," Shinji said to himself.
This thing didn't respond to gentleness. What it fed on was 'death.'
Good.
Noted.
[Cat Demon's Paw: Affection +3]
[Current Affection: 48 (Longing)]
[It wants more.]
Shinji ignored its longing.
He withdrew his gaze and looked forward again.
The two armies were still separated by the bone forest and lightning. The soldiers had retreated to a safe distance, but neither side had withdrawn.
The Hōjō were watching.
The Imagawa....
A single rider burst from the southern formation.
Hooves struck the withered grass. The pace was not fast, but the footfalls were even, like drumbeats.
The rider wore a sumptuous twelve-layered kimono. Her long brown hair flew in the wind, the golden butterfly hairpin glittering in the sunlight.
Her small form sat upright on the horse, back straight.
On her delicate, charming face was a smile so bright it was almost dazzling.
Imagawa Yoshimoto.
The lord of Suruga.
She rode through her own lines, alone, heading toward the bone forest.
Her attendants tried to follow, but a look from her pinned them in place.
The sound of hooves drew closer, then stopped at the edge of the bone forest.
Imagawa Yoshimoto dismounted. The hem of her twelve-layered kimono dragged on the grass, getting muddy. She didn't care.
She looked up at the grey figure standing deep in the bone forest.
Her bright eyes were full of excitement.
"We meet again," she said.
"Demon God."