Chapter 39: I Shall Guard This Land
Nura Rihan's words seemed to drift away on the wind as he exhaled another lazy puff of smoke from his pipe. The grey plume dispersed into the night, its tendrils following his voice toward the distant, burning shrine.
"Look at that old man," he said, gesturing with the pipe's stem toward the hunchbacked Village Chief in the corner of the courtyard.
The old man was crouched at the foot of the wall, his spine bent even more severely than usual, as if crushed by a weight he could no longer bear.
"What do you think he's afraid of?" Nura Rihan asked, his tone deceptively casual. "Is he afraid of monsters? No, that toad is already dead. Is he afraid of you? Even less likely. You're his saviors."
The blond yokai paused, the flickering firelight of the burning shrine dancing in his golden, vertical pupils.
"What he fears," he said softly, "is tomorrow."
Kobe Hikaru remained silent, his gaze fixed on the broken old man. He knew exactly what Nura Rihan was about to say.
"The lord of this domain… what was his name again?" Nura Rihan scratched his head, feigning forgetfulness. "In any case, he's some samurai with a surname, a subordinate of the nearby Hojo Clan. I hear he's struck it rich these past two years, and his greed has become quite… unsightly."
"Unsightly?" Kikyo spoke for the first time, her voice a calm, clear note in the tense air.
"He collects seventy percent in Annual Tribute," Nura Rihan clarified, holding up seven fingers.
"Seventy percent?" Hikaru's brow furrowed.
The Annual Tribute was the land tax farmers paid to their lords. In this brutal era, forty percent was already considered a crushing burden. Seventy percent wasn't a tax; it was a death sentence. It was designed to drive the farmers off their land or into their graves. And that was just the beginning.
"And that's just the most basic item on the list," Nura Rihan continued with a grim smirk. "Then there's the corvée labor, military service, road tolls, poll taxes… he collects on every excuse imaginable. If they can't pay, he seizes people. If he can't find people, he burns their houses."
He gestured around them. "This village is actually doing okay, all things considered. At least there are a few houses left to live in. The village next door was burned to the ground three months ago. All the men were dragged off to build his castle walls, and the women…"
He let the sentence hang in the air. He didn't need to finish. Everyone present understood the grim fate that awaited them.
"So, you understand now, don't you?" Nura Rihan's gaze settled on Hikaru. "You see why that toad was able to play 'god' here?"
"It wasn't because it was particularly powerful. It was because these people needed a god. They needed something—anything—that could protect them."
"Even if that thing ate one person every month, it was still a better deal than being dragged away by the lord's soldiers. At least being eaten is one person's tragedy. Being targeted by the lord means the end for the entire village."
Hikaru's jaw tightened. Kikyo's expression remained impassive, but a shadow passed through her dark eyes. Of course, they were aware of these truths. The cruelty of men was often a far greater plague than any demon.
"When that toad was alive, the lord's men didn't dare set foot here," Nura Rihan said with a shrug. "That lord even threw a fit once, hired a bunch of so-called Demon Slayers, but they were no match for a toad that had cultivated true 'Fear' from these villagers."
"But now…" He glanced at the smoldering ruins of the shrine. "The toad is dead. The 'god' is gone."
"Can you guess what that lord will do the moment he hears the news?"
Hikaru knew. He would descend upon this place like a vulture. He would come to collect his "dues," to seize people, to wring every last drop of blood and sweat from this village that had already suffered so much. This was the price of their victory.
"That's why I said what you did was useless," Nura Rihan stated, tucking his pipe back into his sash. "Killing a monster is satisfying for a moment, but the rotten core of this world isn't the monsters."
"It's the humans."
"The saying that the human heart is more vicious than any demon isn't just empty words. Best-case scenario for this village? Another monster wanders in, they make another desperate deal, and the whole cycle starts over. Nothing will have changed."
As if on cue, the Village Chief finally pushed himself to his feet. He shuffled over, his cloudy old eyes swirling with a storm of complex emotions.
"Saviors…" His voice was a dry, rasping whisper. "This old man has something to say, though I know not if I should speak it."
"Go ahead," Hikaru said, his tone even.
"I shall never forget the great kindness you two have shown us tonight." The Village Chief bent his frail body into a deep, trembling bow. "But… but I must make a bold request…"
He looked up, his voice shaking. "After you two leave… what is to become of our village?"
"Though that toad was a demon, while it was here, the lord's men truly did not dare to come," he confessed, his words heavy with shame and terror. "Now that it is dead… once the lord in the city hears the news, he will surely come… He will say we hid the offerings meant for the god. He will say we owe three months of back taxes…"
The old man's eyes grew red, tears welling. "I am already old. If I die, so be it. But there are children in the village… and young people…"
He collapsed to his knees, his forehead touching the dirt.
"I am grateful to you both for slaying the demon! I have no intention of blaming you. We know a demon is a demon, and the path I chose was a wicked one, like drinking poison to quench a thirst. But I had no other choice! Now, I only beg of you, saviors… I beg you, save the others… For this, we will do anything. We will offer our very lives, and we will do so willingly!"
Hikaru looked down at the old man prostrated on the ground, his deeply wrinkled face a mask of tragedy in the flickering firelight.
Beside him, Nura Rihan had his pipe back in his mouth, watching the scene unfold with the detached amusement of someone at a play.
"See? What did I tell you?" he murmured. "Killing demons is easy. Cleaning up the mess is the hard part. This chivalrous approach of yours… in these chaotic times, it just creates more problems."
"I have a way," Hikaru interrupted, his voice cutting through Nura Rihan's cynicism.
The blond yokai blinked, momentarily stunned. "You have a way?"
"From the moment I decided to act, I had already considered the aftermath," Hikaru stated, looking from the kneeling Village Chief to the smoldering shrine. "Did you really think I wasn't aware of what would happen after I killed that toad?"
He continued, his voice low and steady. "The lord will come. His officials will come. And this village will be plunged into even greater misery. I know all of this."
He glanced sideways at Kikyo. "She knows it, too."
The miko did not speak, only offering the slightest of nods.
The frivolous, theatrical air around Nura Rihan vanished, replaced by a sharp, unexpected curiosity. "If you knew, then why did you still do it?"
"Because—" Hikaru reached down and helped the trembling Village Chief to his feet. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried with absolute clarity. "From the very beginning, I never intended to just kill the toad and leave."
Though he had claimed saving them was none of his business, he couldn't bring himself to simply walk away. There was no need to. He had already thought this through.
As they say, one must eradicate evil completely. Either don't start something, or see it through to the very end.
He turned to face Nura Rihan, the firelight dancing behind him, casting his pale face in a stark relief of light and shadow.
"This village needs a 'god,' right?" he asked. "It needs something that can protect them, correct?"
"It's simple." Hikaru's lips pulled back into a grin. In the dead of night, the smile was somewhat eerie, yet it carried a strange, inexplicable power that set one's heart at ease.
"Then we will be the ones to guard this place."
"What?" The Village Chief stared, his jaw slack.
Nura Rihan's eyes narrowed, a dangerous glint flashing in his golden, slitted pupils. "You mean…"
"My meaning is very simple." Hikaru patted the hilt of the Muramasa at his waist. "This village needs a 'god' to hold back the lord's men. It needs a demon to make those officials too terrified to come near."
"What that toad could do, I can do as well."
"And," he added, his voice dropping, "I don't eat humans."
He looked toward Kikyo. "She doesn't eat humans, either."
Kikyo did not refute him. She just stood there quietly, her black hair stirring in the night wind, her dark eyes revealing nothing. But Hikaru knew she had already agreed. From the moment she had picked up her bow and followed him from that dilapidated hut, she had consented to this path.
Anything Hikaru could think of, a mind as sharp as Kikyo's would have already considered. Killing the demon was merely the beginning. Dealing with the aftermath was the true challenge.
"From now on, this village is under my protection," Hikaru announced to the stunned Village Chief. "Whoever comes to collect taxes or seize people, just give them my name."
"As for whether it's useful… you will know soon enough. And so will they."
The implication was clear: he was about to do something that would shake the very foundations of this region.
"This… this…" The Village Chief's mouth hung open, unable to form a coherent thought.
Nura Rihan watched the scene, his golden eyes blinking slowly. He let out a low whistle.
"Now that's interesting, Oni Samurai," he said, his gaze appraising Hikaru with newfound respect. "What do you call this? Playing god yourself?"
"But do you really have a way to make humans and demons alike retreat with just your name?" Nura Rihan challenged. "Even if you can scare off the small fry, what if that lord comes to take people himself?"
"Then I'll kill him," Hikaru replied, his tone utterly flat. He then added, a cold edge to his voice, "Don't forget. Just like you, I am also a demon."
And demons didn't just kill their own kind. They could kill humans, too.
This was precisely what he intended to do next.
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