he thought of trying out skydiving would have never crossed my mind in the outside world, but I was now actually doing something that far exceeded my imagination; I was not falling but rather ascending towards the clouds. My trip would not take me through them, as Utsuho's trail led me to a place halfway between the blackening clouds that spanned the sky like a ceiling, and the forest below.

Closely followed by the Tengu named Momiji, I flew up a flight of stairs in the mountainside and approached a large red Torii, much like the Hakurei Shrine's, but double its width. As I reached the top, I could not believe what I saw before me. Utsuho was kneeling on the ground, a circle of several meters around her melted as if it had been assaulted by great temperatures. However, she looked beat up, bleeding from a head wound that caused her to keep an eye closed. She was breathing hard, trying to stand back up, but her opponent did not care about any chivalrous behavior such as not hitting a downed person. This was different from a regulated fight in a tournament; it was a battle for survival, a death match in which the winner was decided by who was alive at the end.

Utsuho's opponent was someone completely unexpected, at whose sight my eyes widened in utter disbelief: She had long flowing purple hair that gradually turned into a light brown towards the tips, featured a beautiful face with the calm demeanor of a Buddha, and was wearing the robes of a Buddhist nun which still couldn't fully hide the mature curves underneath.

"Byakuren...?" I muttered, as the nun shot forward with blinding speed and knocked Utsuho through the air with a kick to her head. She was Hijiri Byakuren, the head priestess of the Myôren Temple, whom I had become acquainted with in my short stay in the human village, just after my journey into Gensôkyô had begun. She was completely expressionless, as her eyes viewed the hell raven as nothing but an enemy to be defeated.

"An intruder here? How did this happen on my watch?!" Momiji growled and shot forward, sword and shield ready.

Utsuho crashed into one of the pillars that lined the shrine's grounds, but immediately turned her right arm, the one that had a hexagonal bronze tube attached, around to face Byakuren, a light gathering at its tip. Momiji approached, but jumped to the side when something crashed into the spot she would have stepped on a split second later. The nun, unhindered, assaulted Utsuho with a chain of palm-thrusts that scattered the latter's focus, upon which the light dispersed uselessly.

Momiji came to a stop and braced her shield to face the new enemy that had appeared. The object that had stopped her was a temple bell, which had dented the paved ground from the impact. However, it did not seem like it had been thrown, as the owner became visible when the dust settled around it. A woman in a Kimono that featured a large snake coiling around her body, with her blood red hair in a bob cut, was showing an extremely wide smile that did not reach her yellow eyes, as she gripped the bell's top ring. Her irises were slits, like those of a snake, and a split tongue shot out from her mouth to lick her thin lips. The expression was one of self-confident superiority.

"Let's keep it fair, shall we?" She said, her cold eyes fixed on Momiji. Despite the fact that the Tengu's base, the wolf, was considered an apex predator in some parts of the world, this snake lady seemed to think of her as nothing but prey. Especially considering the fact that Tengu Yôkai were ranked among the strongest type of Yôkai in the supernatural world, only overshadowed by Oni, Kitsune of the highest order and some individual Yôkai of lore, the confidence of this particular opponent was worrying. "I'll be playing with you."

Without a word, Momiji charged forward, as the snake lady was still preparing to pull the bell out of the ground, and slashed towards her. The opponent hid behind the bell and used the impact of the sword to fully pull free her weapon. In the same movement, she spun it around her own axis like a hammer throw, and swung it in the direction of the Tengu, who jumped back instead of blocking it with her shield. Even I could tell that the bell was so heavy that trying to block it was suicide. However, after the attack missed, the woman dropped the bell to the ground, as if it was too heavy for her, and her expression showed surprise that her attack had been avoided. Taking the opening, Momiji went in to attack again, who was now exposed in front of the bell and would not have enough time to round it to hide behind it again.

From her angle, she was unable to see the woman's expression, but I watched in horror as a smile, which caused the hairs on my body to stand on end, crept onto her face.

"Just kidding," She casually remarked as her expression relaxed into that of a cold-blooded killer. Momiji had already swung her sword and its momentum prevented her from dodging in time. Grabbing the ring on top of the bell, the snake lady lifted it above her head and brought it down onto the Tengu, its force increased by gravity. Momiji twisted out of the way and angled her shield, redirecting the blow to the ground. However, the sheer weight sent her flying sideways, right towards me. I braced myself and caught her, the impact nearly knocking the air out of my lungs.

"Momiji-san, are you alright?" I pressed out.

"Don't worry about me, human!" She snarled and readied herself, when she realized that her left arm hung down limply and the shield dropped out of her hand. Her arm was hanging at an angle that was clearly not natural. That grazing impact had broken every bone in her arm like they were dry twigs. If it had hit her as initially intended, she would have been crushed underneath the bell. Her eyes widened as she looked down at her useless arm. Momiji breathed in sharply and suddenly howled, like a wolf. It did not sound like a scream of pain, and a moment later I realized what it meant; her howl was repeated from several locations, further down the mountain. Reinforcements were on their way.

"Oh, you're calling your pack? And here I thought it was going to be a fair one on one battle," The snake lady remarked in a tone dripping with sarcasm. Her demeanor showed no concern at more people getting added to the fray, but I immediately understood why, when her eyes fixed on Momiji again. She was going to take her out before the others arrived, and I guessed that the purpose would be to break the reinforcement's spirit even before the battle began for them.

"I won't let you do that!" I stepped between Momiji and her opponent. No, she was my opponent as well - she had been from the moment she was helping the person attacking Utsuho. I could not believe that she was really Byakuren, the gentle priestess that had received me with so much hospitality when I first visited her temple. I was reminded of the shape-shifter that had attempted to infiltrate the temple on the second day.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing, human!? She's not an opponent you can take on!" Momiji pressed out between her teeth, as she suppressed the pain. I had my arm and ribs broken by a similarly heavy impact only a while ago, and I knew how painful it was. So I knew that the wolf Tengu was in no condition to continue the fight.

"Not human... my name is Kagami Kyôma. Remember it," I said and picked up Momiji's shield. "I'll be borrowing this." The impact from the bell had not dented it in the least, meaning it was made of a very sturdy material. Of course, it would not help me against my opponent's heavy weapon, but it felt better than going into battle empty-handed.

"Bring it on, snake!"

"Ohh, that's unexpected," The snake lady said, very obviously faking surprise in her expressions. "I bet you're thinking 'I'm a high priority target' - since that stupid Kurara let it slip out - 'so they won't kill me' or something like that?" She lifted the bell effortlessly and flung it over her shoulder as if it was just a jacket, holding onto the ring with only two fingers. Her snake-like smile grew even wider, as the look in her eyes changed to something sinister. "We were never told to bring you back in one piece, though. I bet O-hakuka-sama wouldn't mind if you were missing a few limbs." She licked her lips with a sadistic smile.

Honestly speaking, I did not think I stood a chance against any Yôkai that could beat a Tengu at the moment, aside from the fact that my opponent was physically stronger by a magnitude completely separate from human definition. The only thing I had going for myself was the fact that she looked down on me and would surely underestimate my abilities.

However, there was another problem; I could not simply stall for time until reinforcements arrived. Even if I could keep the snake lady busy, Utsuho was being beaten up badly, and I doubted she would survive such a relentless assault much longer. From where I stood, I could see that she was barely even responding to the strikes, and was unable to make an effort to fight back. It was up to me to defeat my opponent and then go to help Utsuho.

In the instant in which I looked away from the snake woman to see how the hell raven was doing, she charged forward. It was my mistake, to dare and take my eyes off her for even a moment despite the fact that she was clearly stronger, and she immediately took the opportunity to make me pay for it.

But her attack did not connect, as she swung the bell down with the open side, trying to capture me. Jumping backwards, I took the opportunity of her delay from the attack to charge forward, going for a shield bash. Once again, she hid behind the bell, which was slightly buried in the ground from the impact. However, I did not finish my movement and avoided hitting the bell, and instead rounded it from the left with the shield held horizontally. My aim was to hit my opponent with the shield's rim anywhere between stomach and throat, for an instant knockout, or, if necessary, a kill.

She was just about to reappear from behind the bell on the side I was attacking, and her eyes widened at the fact that I had anticipated it. In the middle of her movement, she would not be able to correct her trajectory anymore; I would hit her neck and sandwich it between the shield and the bell. Then, her expression relaxed into a smile, as her body dropped down, avoiding my attack by a hair's breadth. I hit the bell with the rim and a loud gong resounded throughout the shrine grounds.

The snake lady shot up again, and grabbed the ring on top of the bell over my extended arm. I knew what she was trying to do: She wanted to use her entire body to break my arm at the elbow.

"No you won't!" I muttered and bounced off the bell with the shield, angling my elbow while spinning my body to the left. It appeared our speed was about equal, so with her physical strength she would be far ahead of me in terms of fighting power. From Suika I had not learned special techniques, but rather the form of the strong; an Oni only needed to rely on raw strength to fight battles. I filled in the blanks myself, since as a human, I could not walk the same path as she did. Now that I had a body that could perform even the most extreme athletic feats, I could try and mimic the techniques used in the few K-1 and mixed martial arts matches I remembered from watching them on TV on New Year's Eve. Of course, I could not replicate any of them, but I at least understood the principles of using angles, joints and pivots. The rest would have to be done the Oni way - through raw strength.

Just as her body touched my arm, I drew it back with the entirety of my body, as I dropped myself backwards at the same time. The shield was pulled into her wide open back with all my weight and power, separating her from the bell and sending her face-first into the paved ground. My body followed, the shield's rim still in her back, and I dropped my right arm onto it with all my strength, hearing a cracking sound from beneath me. It was the sound of a vertebra getting knocked out of the spine.

The air was knocked out of the snake lady's body, as for the first time her expression showed genuine surprise. Her legs went limp and she screamed out in agony, ramming her fist into the ground and crushing the stones underneath. So even for a supernatural being, getting a vertebra dislodged caused tremendous pain and immobilized them. However, just as I lifted my shield to bring it down on the back of her neck to knock her out, I heard a dangerous voice emerge from underneath me.

"Don't... get ahead... of yourself... HUMAN!" She screamed, and in the next instant, the Kimono and her body melted together, as she became elongated. I heard a crack in her spine again, presumably from the dislodged vertebra jumping back in place, when she turned into a large serpent with a head as big as my upper body. In the same motion as the snake was getting up, its tail whipped around and came at me, ready to snap me in half. I lifted the shield and jumped up and backwards, to take the force out of the blow as much as possible, but it still sent me flying through the air. I had jumped up with a clear purpose in mind, though: Since I could now fly and fight in midair, I let the force propel me away from my opponent to gain distance. Still, the arm holding the shield went numb from the heavy impact.

"You're not getting away!" The serpent shouted, its voice deep and reverberating, befitting of the size of its body. In the next instance, it uncoiled itself like a spring and jumped after me, the mouth wide open in an attempt to eat me whole. Rows of teeth greeted me, something I had not expected, as I always thought snakes only had two long teeth on the upper jaw. Reacting immediately, I jammed Momiji's shield into its jaw and drew back my right arm for a punch into its eye.

Suddenly, a light illuminated the inside of its maw, and a wave of heat assaulted me, causing me to let go of the shield. Quickly drawing back, I had to watch as the shield began to soften and lose its form, before the serpent’s powerful jaws crushed it. She spit it out again, at which point it looked like a half-melted, giant bent coin. Embers played around its six nostrils, as its yellow slit eyes fixed themselves on me again.

Having lost my protection, I floated in midair, thinking of ways to fight this opponent, when suddenly several figures, dressed just like Momiji, flew up the stairs and confronted the enemy. They all looked very similar to the wolf Tengu, and all of them had the same ears, white hair and fluffy tails. The weapons they carried were the same as Momiji's, too, including the large round shields. Reinforcements had arrived.

"So what?" The serpent suddenly growled and turned its attention to the newcomers. "You're only going to end up as my food!"

"Oh, scary, scary," A familiar voice, dripping with sarcasm, spoke from above me. I had not heard it in a long time, but I remembered it clearly. Turning around, I looked up to see the all-too-familiar red Tengu geta with the impossibly long single teeth, the slender legs that disappeared under a black skirt which would never fall prey to the wind to reveal what was underneath, the white shirt with the strip of red leaves print on the right side, all the way up to the shoulder, a slim neck to a beautiful face displaying a confident smile that extended to the red, predator-like eyes. The pompoms dangling from the Tokin hat were lifted into the air as she descended and came to a stop next to me. "It's been a while, Kagami-san."

"Shameimaru-san!" I responded. The crow Tengu, Shameimaru Aya, did not have her trademark camera dangling from her neck and was holding an orange, five-feathered fan as she crossed her arms in a domineering pose. Her eyes were looking down at her opponent with contempt and hostility, and the intensity sent a shiver down my spine.

"Another Tengu won't make a diff-" The serpent started, but in the next instant Aya had closed the distance and rammed a geta onto the top of its head, shutting its mouth with the impact.

"I don't remember giving you permission to open that filthy mouth of yours," Aya's spoke in a tone I did not expect coming from her. Her entire demeanor radiated overwhelming power, something I would have never thought her capable of after having seen her relaxed behavior in the human village. I had forgotten a simple thing: She, too, was a Tengu, and as a crow, she was of the highest order among them.

"Why you... I'll-" The serpent dropped its head to open its jaws again and take a bite at Aya, but the latter avoided it by flying up, only to come down with both her feet again. She impacted the serpent's head, but continued to force it down towards the ground, where it crashed into the paved road leading up to the main shrine building.

"Who gave you permission to talk," Aya said and kept the serpent pinned to the ground. "Patrol squad, secure this one, I'll take care of-"

Byakuren appeared before Aya, ready with a palm strike to her gut. The crow Tengu's eyes widened in surprise, but in the next split second, a mocking smile played on her lips. The palm went through Aya's stomach, or so it would seem, but she had already disappeared. In the next instant, she reappeared behind Byakuren. "You're a million years too early to compete with me in speed." With these words, the Tengu ground her geta into the nun's back.

Using the opportunity, the serpent attempted to get back up, when Aya landed on its head again and forced it down. "Patrol squad, you're being slow!" She casually dodged the serpent's tail as it tried to swat her off its head and avoided another attack by Byakuren while countering with a kick to her solar plexus. Aya was completely dominating her opponents.

"Utsuho!" I remembered, and dropped down to the battered bundle of feathers, leaning against one of the onbashira, pillars carved from divine tree trunks, lining the paved road. She appeared to be breathing, but was unconscious, bruised all over and bleeding from her forehead, nose and a cut on her lips. All that strength she had shown before had been reduced to such a state in the face of the shapeshifter's physical combat style; I was quite sure that she was not really the Buddhist head priestess, considering her position as someone who sought the path of peace. I was sure the real Byakuren would never do something so violent.

"Aya, there's someone at the shrine!" Momiji suddenly shouted, her eyes wide and focused on the far end of the shrine grounds. The Tengu patrol had fixed the serpent to the ground using ropes, while Aya had begun to fight Byakuren directly, when she heard it. In the next instance, she was drawn to the floor by her right hand, which was holding the Tengu fan. It crashed onto the pavement and even from where I was, I could hear the sound of bones breaking; her hand had been crushed.

"What..." She pressed out between her teeth, surprise in her eyes as she spun her head around to the shrine building. I turned to look as well and was astonished to see another face I had seen before. A young woman with light-blue hair, wearing a kimono that exposed her slender shoulders, stood there looking in Aya's general direction with the eyes of a dead fish. Her arms were dangling beside her as if she was a puppet with its strings cut, and her lips were forming words without making a sound.

She was the Yôkai I had met on my first night in Gensôkyô, on the bridge, who had made me abandon my shoes as they seemed to have been glued to the ground. Apparently they had done something to her, after she had been taken by Kurara, since she looked as if no soul inhabited her body. I understood immediately that this woman was responsible for Aya's fan becoming so heavy that it broke her fingers upon impacting the ground.

The situation experienced a full turn, as the strongest fighter, Aya, had been taken out in an instant. The fake Byakuren got back up, looking unhurt from the crow Tengu's kicks, while the serpent broke free of its bindings and immediately assaulted the patrol squad. I could not carelessly turn away from the newcomer, who opened up a third front in this battle, but I also could not simply sit by and watch the Tengu getting defeated one by one.

As if to crush all hope, the mastermind behind this incident, O-hakuka herself, appeared from inside the shrine, accompanied by another familiar face: Kamitsuki Senka, the Futakuchi-onna that had first infiltrated the Myôren Temple, suddenly attacked its residents, and vanished just as quickly as she had turned over. However, my eyes were fixed on another person, somebody Senka was dragging along. Disheveled pink hair, in which the hair band adorned with a heart had already lost its purpose, a slender stature with a very light skin tone from staying indoors, or rather underground, all the time. It was Komeiji Satori, one of the two people Utsuho and I had come here to save.

My mind went blank at the overwhelming odds stacked against us; the squad of wolf Tengu were no match for the giant serpent, Momiji was injured and would not be able to help, Aya was fixed to the ground by her crushed hand and the fake Byakuren was watching her, Utsuho was injured badly and unconscious, and I was clearly unable to fight all these monsters on my own.

"It appears things have been taken care of out here," O-hakuka announced as she looked over the shrine grounds. I spun my head around to see that the Tengu reinforcements had been reduced to a pile of bodies, and the serpent had turned back into her humanoid form, shouldering temple bell casually. "I thought the troublesome Arahitogami would be inside, but she seems to be out." So the living goddess was absent as well, even though I had hoped that a person with that title would be able to help us and stand up against these monsters.

"Then we can begin, before anymore interruptions happen," The Nurarihyon said with her red lips curling into a cold smile that sent shivers down my spine. Whatever she would begin meant nothing good.

Senka pulled Satori forward and O-hakuka grabbed hold of her head with a casual gesture. The dark clouds overhead unleashed an arcing lightning bolt, followed by a roaring peal of thunder. The Futakuchi-onna walked forward and turned around to reveal the metallic jaw on the back of her head, which looked like the bow on neck-brace headphones, and with a crunching sound, several pillars simply vanished. She had pulverized them in an instant, ingested by her second mouth, over a considerable distance. Repeating that process, soon there were no more pillars in the shrine grounds.

Suddenly, Satori's body lit up in a bright light, but it was sucked into O-hakuka's hand, which was firmly grasping the petite girl's head. Satori began to scream in agony, as if the oiran's hand was a hot piece of metal, and she attempted to shake herself free. However, since she was kneeling and her arms were bound behind her back, she was unable to move much, and the iron vise that was O-hakuka's grip was inescapable to her.

Next to me Utsuho stirred, as she forced herself up at the voice of Satori. Her stance was unstable and she could barely stand, but her eyes were burning with an intense flame. Lifting the bronze tube, her arm cannon, she pointed it at O-hakuka and instantly shot out a blast with the intense glow of the sun, in the size of a basketball. It approached the oiran, but was intercepted by Senka, who opened the metal jaw on the back of her head, and simply ate the energy ball.

"Right back at you," She said and opened the jaw again, shooting the ball back at Utsuho. The hell raven was taken aback, but held out the red dome-like eye on her chest to receive the miniature sun. It was absorbed into the eye, and Utsuho stepped forward to attack Senka head on, now that her long-ranged attack was rendered useless.

I turned around to see whether the fake Byakuren would respond, but she only stood above Aya, not letting the crow Tengu get back up. It appeared that everyone present was confident that Senka could take on the injured hell raven, who was seething with rage at seeing her mistress hurting. The Futakuchi-onna tilted her head to look over her shoulder, an unhinged grin on her face as her eyes looked at her opponent with delightful contempt.

"Get... your hands... off Satori-sama!!!" Utsuho screamed, her ashen voice resounding with a vibration that shook the air. However, it was not her voice that was distorting the atmosphere, but rather the immense heat her body radiated. Its effect seared my face, even as she stood several meters away, and I had to turn away from it. In the next instance, the heat was gone, and I spun around to see what had happened. The aura around Utsuho had disappeared, and Senka's second mouth was open, a tongue hanging out from it while a plume of smoke rose up like the comedic visual effect shown after someone ate something hot.

"I do like it spicy, but that might be a little much after all," The Futakuchi-onna muttered sarcastically, as her eyes rolled up in ecstasy. Utsuho's expression changed into one of pure surprise, but in the next moment, the second mouth snapped open all the way and an onbashira shot out from inside it, crashing into the hell raven's stomach. It was a sight that defied logic; it appeared as if Senka's metallic jaw led to a different dimension with infinite space, from which she could bring back anything previously ingested. This was completely different from the Futakuchi-onna's folklore.

Utsuho was flung through the air and pushed past the torii down the stairs, disappearing from sight. Without another look, Senka walked back towards O-hakuka, who was engrossed in her ritual that caused Satori immeasurable pain. I gritted my teeth and readied myself to go and help her, but I knew there was nothing I could do against these overwhelming enemies.

"I wouldn't, if I were you, human," The snake lady said, as she came up to me. "But actually... why not? Do try, please. Give me a reason to hurt you!" She was smiling, but her eyes were filled with rage, remembering our short battle earlier in which I had dislodged one of her vertebrae.

In the next moment, Satori's screams disappeared, as she seemed to have lost consciousness - or worse. O-hakuka let go and the petite girl dropped to the floor face first, discarded like a broken toy. The oiran looked up into the sky and lifted her right hand, from which a beam of light shot upwards in a straight line. The clouds began to spin around it and lightning arced across the heavens. Something had begun.

To the southwest, Suika spotted her destination from far away, as she flew through the air following the scent of the Kasha. Unlike Kyôma, she could not see the spiritual residue of other beings, but she had been able to pick up on the smell of the two Yôkai they had followed. With the general direction she had been pointed in, she found the trail of one of them leading her so far.

Even viewed from far away, the Garden of the Sun was an impressive sight; a field of golden sunflowers stretching over an area as far as the eyes could see. However, that was not where Suika's red eyes were fixed on; beyond it, surrounded by a cloud of mist, towered a gigantic tortoise. It was completely black and covered in spines and horns, but its most notable feature was the rugged mountain on its back, in which the general form of a castle could be seen.

"So that's the enemy's base, huh?" Suika muttered as she approached the place. "What's Genbu doing in the southwest...? This will mess a lot of things up here." The little Oni stopped to turn around and look back at Yôkai Mountain, where heavy clouds gathered. "I hope the boy's alright..."

With this, she continued on towards the titanic tortoise, when suddenly a beam of light shot up from the peak of the castle on its back, towards Yôkai Mountain.

At the fully repaired Hakurei Shrine, Reimu was preparing her dinner, when she felt a tingle she could not ignore. Putting out the flame and leaving the half-cut food, she walked to her room and picked up a stack of ofuda, large sealing needles and a handful of Yin Yang orbs. She stashed the items in her wide sleeves, finally took up her gohei and walked past the living room, out of the shrine building, halfway towards the torii, before turning around.

There was a beam of light coming from behind her shrine, extending towards the northwest. She could guess where it was coming from and going to, and she did not like the prospect.

"Hey, what's going on, Reimu? What's with dinner?" A girl with starry golden eyes and blonde hair tied into a braid hanging down from her left temple, with the rest left open, asked as she followed the Hakurei Miko out of the shrine. She was wearing all black and white, and she was holding onto a pointy black hat that could only be described as that of a witch.

"Dinner has to wait. Get ready..." Reimu's eyes were grim and focused. "It's an incident."

The beam widened and encompassed all of O-hakuka, at which she lowered her hand and looked in my direction. Her entire face was filled with the confidence of a victor as she gestured to the snake lady next to me. "Take him."

"What shall we do with this one?" Senka asked, as she carelessly lifted Satori's limp body by an arm, the metal jaw on the back of her head licking what would pass for its lips.

"We don't need that anymore, do what you like," O-hakuka said without even looking. My eyes widened as Senka turned around, ready to eat Satori whole, when suddenly a raging raven roared back up the stairs. Utsuho's entire figure was covered in hellfire, as she charged forward to save Satori.

"You're really annoying, just die already," The snake lady muttered, clicking her tongue. She swung the bell around to meet Utsuho, as if trying to hit a speeding baseball with a bat; however, the hell raven simply burst through it, melting the heavy metal bell in the process, sending red hot slag flying all over. Nothing would stop her on her course towards Satori now.

"Stand down," O-hakuka ordered, the volume of her voice on its usual level. As if her words became a physical weight, the hell raven stopped in midair and crashed into the ground. Trying her best, she simply could not lift herself up, no matter what she tried. Screaming in anger, she punched the ground and dented it with her sheer strength, but it still did not allow her to even raise her head in face of the overwhelming dominance that the Nurarihyon's influence represented. "You can eat that one, too, Senka."

"Oh, I'll gain weight from all this," Senka said with a sneer and turned the back of her head to Utsuho first. "Just kidding." The jaw opened and a piece of the shrine grounds disappeared, along with the hell raven's entire left wing. A split second later, her agonized cry echoed throughout the area.

"Wow, you have such a bad habit of playing with your food," The snake lady next to me commented in a sarcastic tone. She looked down on the melted remains of her bell and shook her head. "I'll have to get a new one. Well, there's a temple in the human village, so it should have one, I guess." Her aloof attitude was proof of how desperate the situation was for me. I saw no way out at all. In the background, Utsuho just lost her right wing to the same vacuum-like bite from Senka's second mouth. "Now, human, I'll take you along. Please make an effort and fight back. I want to have some fun after all."

Suddenly, a basket filled with various fruits, nuts and mushrooms dropped from the sky behind me.

"This ends now," A female's voice resounded throughout the shrine grounds and everyone's attention was drawn to it. In the air above the torii floated a girl in her late teens, dressed in a miko outfit similar to Reimu's, but in white and blue instead of white and red. She sported long and straight green hair, with a frog hairpin on the left above her straight-cut bangs, a single hair tube on the left, around which a living white snake with red eyes was coiled. Her yellow eyes gave off a mysterious aura, one I had never seen before, but which I was convinced of symbolized divinity. She was holding a gohei, the variant with a rectangular piece of pure white paper embedded into the end of a straight wooden wand, pointed in O-hakuka and Senka's direction. "After all you've done here, I have to exterminate you."

"How scary," Senka said as she turned around and looked at the newcomer with a crazed smile. "I'll eat you first!" She jumped up and flew towards the shrine maiden, who swung her gohei up above her head and drew symbols into the air at an incredible speed while chanting inaudibly.

"Wait, Senka, get back!" O-hakuka yelled, but it was too late; the miko completed her motion and brought the gohei down, upon which a lightning bolt came down in front of Senka and crashed into the ground. The Futakuchi-onna stopped dead in her tracks and wondered what just happened, when from the dust cloud below a woman emerged.

"Trashing my shrine... you lot have some guts," The tall woman announced as she stepped forward, residual lightning coiling around her body. She was almost as tall as Yûgi, and had a body to match the Oni's, but her most striking feature was the large, ring-shaped shimenawa, the god-binding twisted paper-ropes hanging around divine trees or boulders, that seemed to be attached to her back, forming a big halo behind her entire upper body. She wore a dark red and black shirt with white sleeves, and an elaborately designed round mirror on her chest, a long red skirt with an autumn leaves print, similar to Aya's shirt, and sandals bound with the same shimenawa as the one on her back. Her short purple hair was also tied with a thin shimenawa and her piercing red eyes were vertical slits, the same as a snake's. However, her demeanor was completely different from the snake lady's next to me, who stared at the newcomer with pure hostility. Her divinity was unmistakable; she was one of the Kami of the mountain.

"Take Kagami Kyôma, we are leaving!" The Nurarihyon ordered, as she was still surrounded by the beam of light. Senka clicked her tongue and turned her back on the Kami, to return to O-hakuka's side.

"Showing your back to an opponent?" The Kami said with her arms crossed, as she looked over the intruders with an expression you would expect to see from a host at a banquet viewing uninvited attendants.

"Please, Kanako-sama," The green-haired miko prayed.

"I understand," The Kami named Kanako responded. She breathed in and held her breath for a moment. "You are not leaving alive!" Her voice thundered across the whole mountain, as her previously casual countenance changed drastically, into the enraged visage of a war god.

"Oh, but we will," Senka said, as she passed me. I saw her smile widening, as the mouth on the back of her head opened, and in the next instance another onbashira shot out, right towards Kanako.

"Throwing my own onbashira at me? Know your place!" She responded and grabbed it with one hand, before it fully left Senka's mouth. In the same motion, she proceeded to shove it back into the metal jaws. The snake lady quickly transformed into the giant serpent form and attempted to coil around me, now that the newcomer was busy with the Futakuchi-onna.

Up above, the miko chanted again, this time pointing the gohei at the ground below her. She finished, but nothing happened, and I wondered if her ritual had gone wrong. In the next moment, a boulder explosively emerged from the ground below the serpent and sent it flying up into the air. The boulder broke apart and from inside it a girl barely taller than Suika emerged. She had blonde hair and featured a light brown, wide-brimmed leather hat and a short purplish-blue dress with a frog-print. As she had her back turned to me, I could not see her face, but the atmosphere around her was the same as Kanako's. She was another Kami.

"Suwako-sama, please," The miko prayed once again.

"I got you," The Kami named Suwako responded. Her voice was tender and lacked the powerful, almost physical pressure that Kanako's held; however, the tone sent shivers down my spine, as it possessed a different kind of strength.

"We're retreating! We can get Kagami Kyôma some other time," O-hakuka said. The large serpent turned back into her humanoid self, as she fled to the Nurarihyon's side. Byakuren, whose presence I had completely forgotten over the sudden events happening one after another, dashed to join them in the light, and the light-blue haired woman stepped back to them as well.

However, Senka was being pinned down by Kanako. The Kami was grabbing the metal jaw on the back of her head with one hand, while the other was braced against the Futakuchi-onna's neck. With a mighty roar, Kanako ripped it off Senka's head, along with the headphone-like ear covers. An entire collection of organs followed, as the girl in the kimono with the bloody motifs collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, a large hole in the back of her head, twitching in her death throes.

"You won't get away," Suwako stated, as she turned around to the beam of light into which O-hakuka and her three remaining underlings huddled up. From the side I finally saw her face and noticed her grey eyes with horizontal slit irises, like those of a frog. Her hat featured two bulges at the top in which two similar eyes but in black were embedded. When I saw the intensity within her eyes, which belied the calmness in her voice, I witnessed the difference between a Yôkai and a Kami who received the faith of many people and grew immensely powerful in the process.

Suwako clapped her hands together, and the ground around the group of Yôkai distorted, then suddenly welled up like a giant earthen maw, before crashing together to flatten them all. However, when the rock touched the beam of light, it was violently dispersed, as if blown away. Kanako pointed to the sky and then at O-hakuka, upon which a smooth and black hexagonal pillar, an onbashira, emerged from the clouds and flew towards the targets. Yet, even this was repelled by the light.

"We will meet again soon, Kami of the mountain," The Nurarihyon announced. She looked in my direction. "And you, too." With that, they disappeared, along with the beam of light, leaving behind only chaos and destruction.

Double release, since I had some time today. Almost caught up to the original, where a choice is still outstanding, just two more chapters. I may be able to do another one or two tomorrow.