Chapter Text
The moon stood high, full in its splendor as it illuminated the outskirts of Souya City. As far as Japan knew, it was another quiet night. The people of Souya slept soundly in their blissful ignorance. To an Executor of the Holy Church, it was their job to ensure it stayed that way—and Ciel took her job seriously.
A veteran Executor, and elite member of the Burial Agency, Ciel was charged with the relentless persecution of the undead that preyed on humanity from the darkest corners of the earth.
Her current mission was to investigate the status of a particularly troublesome creature expected to wake in Souya. Hunt it, destroy it.
“That still remains the priority, but I suppose I can't just let this one go running off,” Ciel remarked to herself, watching her fleeing prey.
It hadn't taken her long to sense a stray Dead Apostle upon arriving in the city. It was an amateur, masking its presence so poorly that Ciel had made quick work of its zombie servants upon infiltrating its nest. Shaken by the overwhelming power of the Executor, the vampire had fled immediately.
The city grew still as the game of cat and mouse moved away from the populated streets and into the foggy outskirts. With superhuman senses honed over years of grueling combat, Ciel hunted with confidence. No matter how fast the lowly Apostle ran, she would never be far behind.
In spite of her confidence however, every attempt to close the distance and pounce was met with failure.
It was not a simple matter of a sudden increase in distance. Ciel could physically sense that their proximities were indeed drawing closer, but instead, it was as if the essence of the creature was flickering, akin to a dying flame.
“Strange…Is this a localized concealment ritual utilizing the fog, or is the creature dissolving its spiritual foundation to flee? A self-destruct?"
A number of thoughts went through Ciel's head as the chase persisted. All the same, the creature's presence continued to fade. Even her physical senses were starting to lose track of her prey. It wouldn't be long until the creature completely vanished.
Shifting her focus to the environment, the pieces finally began to click. She was so single mindedly focused on her prey that she neglected to notice the changes in the mana density in the air.
Fluctuations in the surrounding mana density is common when traveling from country to country, but for it to be changing so drastically with such negligible distance covered was inconceivable. Such an act would require the sudden application of an immense amount of magical energy.
“...It's not that it's disappearing, rather-” Ciel internalized. All signs seem to be pointing to the creature attempting a last ditch ritual to escape, the fading essence, its presence flickering in and out of existence.
However, the Experienced executor knew to look beyond the surface. It's not as if the air around her felt like it was dying, it was changing. Not just that, all sensations around her were rapidly being replaced. A new weight to the air, a new smell, the ambient light of the city dying.
“I'm the one who's disappearing-”
Abandoning her pursuit, she immediately assumed a defensive position, raising her senses to the highest alert as she prepared to adapt to the rapidly changing situation. In a few moments, she would no longer be in Souya…
—
The transition was instantaneous. One moment, Ciel was tracking a Dead Apostle through the barren outskirts of Souya, and the next, the smell of asphalt and ozone was replaced by damp earth and green wood.
Ciel adjusted her collar, her boots sinking slightly into the soft soil. The moon still hung high and full above, casting erratic shadows through the dense stalks of a bamboo forest.
"A Reality Marble?" Ciel murmured, her voice calm but analytical. She scanned the area. "No... the mana density is too thin. The ether in the air feels ancient, unpolluted, but raw. I've been displaced.”
She didn't panic. As a member of the Burial Agency, anomalies were her Tuesday afternoon. Even so, the possibility that she had just failed her mission before it ever truly began, all over a stray that she could have left to her partner, was aggravating to say the least.
Nevertheless, reflection can wait. Right now, there were more pressing matters to attend to, such as finding out where exactly she was.
She began a brief inventory of her armaments, counting her black keys and tightening the straps of the massive, shroud-wrapped construct on her back.
“Good,” She hummed. She wouldn't be empty handed in this new environment at least.
Shifting her attention back to her surroundings, it was a stark contrast from the city. Enormous bamboo trees stretched for as far as the eye can see. Ciel stood in a clearing, a wide patch of about 10 meters radius of walking space and the local shrubbery.
A silence was present in the air, filling the night with an eerie nothingness.
“Not much time seems to have passed, the position of the moon being consistent pre-displacement would suggest this. Alone it wouldn’t be enough to determine an exact location, but seeing as this appears to be a bamboo forest, it is possible that I could still be in Japan.”
Ciel let out a huff, folding her arms in contemplation. Even if it were the case, and she was still indeed in Japan, that didn’t explain the cause of the displacement in the first place, and why there was so much magical energy behind it. With that kind of power, she should be across the world by now.
Suddenly, a breeze rattled the bamboo, interrupting her thoughts. It wasn't the wind.
The atmosphere that was once simply eerie was now heavy with dread.
Ciel’s eyes narrowed through the darkness. She sensed a presence. It felt like a vampire, yet distinctly different. It lacked the decaying rot of a Dead Apostle, replacing it with a cold, sharpening-stone pressure.
A far cry from the creature she was pursuing just a moment ago, this one bore the aura of a being that had spent centuries perfecting the art of killing.
"Come out," Ciel commanded, her hand slipping three Black Keys between her fingers. "I'm fresh out of patience for hide-and-seek."
From the darkness, a figure materialized. No approach was signaled, it simply appeared, as if the shadows had suddenly coalesced into a person. They wore a purple-patterned kimono and hakama, an almost fleshy, sheathed blade at their hip.
Most striking of all was its face. Six eyes. Three pairs, vertically stacked, glowing with a crimson malice, staring directly at her. Above all, that which made Ciel’s lip curl in disgust was the cleanliness of its scent of blood, strong as it was. The scent was akin to that of a perfectly preserved corpse, similar to that of a True Ancestor.
"A human..." The creature spoke. His voice was deep, resonating with a calm authority. "You appear... out of place. Your attire... is strange."
"And you are hideous," Ciel retorted flatly. "I’ve yet to index a creature like you, so I assume you're the local heresy? You reek of blood, yet you possess a spiritual pressure closer to a nature spirit. What are you?"
Their middle eyes narrowed, curiosity behind the initial annoyance. He was Upper Rank One among the demons that terrorized humans by night. For centuries, anyone who had the misfortune of crossing his path, Demon Hunter or not, would find their heads sorrowfully parted from their torso. It was simply the natural order of things. Thus, he was not accustomed to insults. Above all, what truly stood out was that this was a human who did not tremble in his presence.
"I am Kokushibo. And you... have no fear. Foolish."
He didn't signal his attack. He simply moved.
“Moon Breathing, First Form: Dark Moon, Evening Palace”
In a single heartbeat, Kokushibo drew his blade. A horizontal slash tore through the air, faster than the eye could track. But this was no ordinary cut; chaotic, crescent-shaped blades of energy erupted along the slash's trajectory, changing size and length unpredictably.
CLANG.
Sparks illuminated the forest. Ciel had not moved to evade, and instead stepped forward. In her hand, a single Black Key, reinforced with high-grade magecraft, held the flesh-blade at bay.
However, the chaotic moon-blades sliced at her sides, tearing her habit and drawing blood.
"Fast," Ciel noted, leaping backward, creating distance. The cuts on her arm were already knitting together. "And an erratic hitbox. A sword technique that manipulates space? No...a projection of your blood?-"
Kokushibo stood still, his blade low. He had seen it. With his Transparent World vision, he watched her muscles move, her blood flow. He saw the wound heal in seconds.
"You..." Kokushibo’s six eyes widened slightly. "You are not a demon. You breathe... you have a pulse. Yet you regenerate. What manner of creature are you?"
"I am the Church's answer to that which should not stand with humanity," Ciel said. She threw her arms wide, scattering her black keys into the surrounding ground. "Set."
Just as quickly, she rearmed herself, this time hurling the next round of blades toward her opponent.
The thrown blades launched like bullets. Kokushibo deflected them with lazy precision, his blade moving in a blur of purple light. But as the keys struck the trees, Ciel murmured a rite.
"Cremation Ritual."
It was a split second, but Kokushibo could feel the pressure in the blades that surrounded him as they rose in temperature and volatility.
A snap of her fingers, and all the surrounding keys exploded into holy flame, turning a section of the forest into an inferno. The fire engulfed Kokushibo, but a whirlwind of crescent blades dispersed the flames instantly.
“Moon Breathing, Sixth Form: Perpetual Night, Lonely Moon - Incessant.”
Kokushibo unleashed a storm of slashes. The air itself seemed to shatter. The attack was overwhelming, a wall of death approaching Ciel.
"Annoying," Ciel sighed.
She reached over her shoulder and gripped the handle of the massive object on her back. The cloth unwound, scorching away as she cast them to the wind, followed by the heavy mechanical thunk-hiss of machinery and clockworks.
Ciel's ultimate weapon, The Seventh Holy Scripture, echoed a roar of steam and compressed air through the forest upon its activation.
This was no traditional weapon of warfare. It was a pile bunker—a massive distinctively modern slab of steel and magecraft logic.
Ciel slammed the Scripture into the ground as a shield. The Moon Breathing slashes struck the divine steel, chipping the earth, but failing to penetrate the conceptual weapon.
"You rely too much on cutting," Ciel said, her eyes glowing with magical energy. "Let's see how you handle blunt force trauma."
She lifted the weapon—which should have weighed tons—as if it were a feather. With a burst of speed that cracked the sound barrier, she closed the distance.
Kokushibo felt a chill. This woman possessed no Battle Spirit, no Breathing Style. She was purely a vessel of kinetic destruction.
He raised his blade to parry, but it did little to block the following blow as she thrust the tip of the Scripture directly at his chest.
THOOM.
The impact was cataclysmic. The bamboo forest fifty meters behind Kokushibo was flattened by the shockwave. The Upper Moon was launched backward, crashing through tree after tree.
No mortal weapon, other than the Blades of Nichiren can do lethal harm to a demon of his caliber. Thus, when every cell in body screamed at him not to parry the attack, but to avoid the blow from her weapon entirely at all costs, he froze for a fraction of a second, confused.
At the last possible moment, he dodged. He had narrowly avoided a direct hit to his solar plexus, but his right arm, along with a portion of his chest were obliterated. For the first time in centuries, he was dealt a blow that ruined a portion of his body into a mess of pulped tissue. But it was of no consequence. Within the next moment, his regeneration would kick in, and he'd instantly recover as if nothing had happened.
Except, that wasn't the case.
His regeneration that should have kicked in immediately, absent, if only for a moment. To the uninitiated, this small gap in time to heal was unnoticeable, to Kokushibo, it was utterly inconceivable. His regeneration wasn't just slowed, it was nullified. For that single, terrifying second, the wound was absolute.
As he skidded to a halt, his flesh regrew, surrounding bones snapping back into place, he stood up. His demeanor, once nothing more than fascinated curiosity, shifted to genuine combat readiness.
“...”
The demon stood still as he stared down the mysterious warrior.
"I am the Church's answer to that which should not stand with humanity,” Her words replayed in his head as he searched through his memories, trying to find anything that would give him a clue as to who, or what she was.
“The church…” A new branch of the Demon Hunters, or perhaps they've acquired foreign aid from overseas? No, such an expansion would have taken time to cultivate, and he, or his lord would have certainly noticed by now.
The only thing he was certain of, was that this being held the potential to threaten his life.
"Excellent…" Kokushibo whispered, the thrill of battle rising in his chest for the first time in decades. "A weapon... that crushes bone and spirit. You are... a worthy challenge."
Ciel adjusted her grip again, the moonlight reflecting off the Seventh Holy Scripture’s barrel. "And you are remarkably durable. This might take all night."
“Accelerated regeneration…remarkably so. I expect as much, but to such an extent-” Ciel grimaced internally.
She assumed a stance, the Scripture humming with magical energy.
Matching her resolve, Kokushibo’s blade grew longer, sprouting three additional blades near the hilt.
The air grew heavy, vibrating with the intent of the strongest demon swordsman.
“Moon Breathing, Fourteenth Form: Catastrophe, Tenman Crescent Moon!”