The Split Persona

As the hidden yokai revealed itself, a thick, demonic miasma filled the entire Secret Realm. The once-bright daylight had vanished, replaced by an oppressive, pitch-black sky. Faint, unnatural glimmers flickered between the dark clouds, casting an eerie tension over the entire dimension.

The Hata manor acted as the font for the massive waves of demonic energy surging through the space. The miasma was so dense it could be seen without the aid of spiritual vision, erupting from the mansion like a fountain and soaring into the sky, visible even from the furthest reaches of the realm.

In the forest not far from the estate, Miketsu looked up at the fountain of darkness gushing from the manor and let out a long breath.

"Phew... she feels like a petulant child, yet her strength is quite unexpected..."

"Indeed. Theoretically, that girl has only been a yokai for less than a century. How could she have obtained power rivaling that of a Great Yokai?" Standing beside Miketsu, Tsuruha spoke with equal amazement.

Only moments ago, Tsuruha and Miketsu had briefly clashed with the girl who had transformed into a monster within the mansion. Miketsu discovered that the girl was far from easy to deal with. Initially, she had assumed that since the girl could manipulate so many restless souls and the Kawakatsu masks—dictating their thoughts and memories—she would be a specialist in mental or spiritual control. Miketsu, relying on her divine immunity to negative status effects, expected to handle her with ease. However, she hadn't anticipated that the girl's physical destructive capabilities would be just as formidable.

Miketsu glanced at their surroundings. A swath of massive trees had been leveled, and the earth was plowed with long, wide furrows by some titanic force. Traces of powerful demonic energy still clung to the wreckage.

"Actually firing demonic beams like that... she's truly reckless," Miketsu remarked, shrugging as she looked at the signs of the attack.

From that brief exchange, Miketsu had gained a preliminary assessment of the girl's power. She was no easier to handle than Roku, who had gained the power of the Tengu-do. She could unleash high-intensity barrages of demonic energy and even condense them into demonic beams thicker than Miketsu's own Golden Light Spell. Her offensive output was immense; her defense, bolstered by her masks, was equally sturdy. She could even cast specialized spells through those masks. Her volume of demonic energy was so vast that the Evil Subjugation Mantra couldn't fully suppress her.

While Miketsu was confident she could win, doing so would require significant effort and would likely result in massive collateral damage. The mansion, which served as the primary battlefield, might be reduced to rubble—an outcome Miketsu hoped to avoid. Therefore, she had found an opening to temporarily retreat during the battle. Fortunately, the Hata daughter seemed to be something of a recluse; once Miketsu withdrew beyond the manor’s grounds, the girl did not pursue.

"It is a pity we couldn't resolve this once and for all... but Your Grace, you didn't come away empty-handed."

"True. At the very least, by bringing this with us, we might find a way to counter her." As she spoke, Miketsu turned toward a nearby tree. There, pinned by a spirit spear and bound by a mantra, was the black-clad girl wearing the Hannya mask. She was the entity that had appeared in the third lie told by the Hata daughter, appearing almost as an identical clone except for her color palette.

Miketsu had brought this bound, black-clad girl out during the retreat. Her reason for doing so was simple: the voice she had heard when first entering the Secret Realm saying, "Go back..."

At that time, Miketsu had followed the sound and caught a final glimpse of a shadowy, pitch-black figure in the fog. That figure looked exactly like this girl in black, which was why Miketsu decided to take her along.

"You have a sense of self now. Can you communicate?" Miketsu asked, looking at the black-clad girl. The fact that the girl had warned her to leave suggested there was no primary malicious intent. Her earlier attack had likely been due to the Hata daughter’s direct control.

In response to the question, the black-clad girl gave a slight nod. Seeing this, Miketsu activated her causality vision just to be safe, then slowly approached the girl. She dispelled the mantra, withdrew the spear, and supported the girl down while keeping her hand protected by her sleeve.

Once the black-clad girl had steady her footing, she reached up and removed the Hannya mask. Revealed beneath was a face identical to that of the white-clad girl in the manor.

"Thank you..." the girl said in a soft voice, her hostility toward Miketsu seemingly vanished for the moment.

"Could you explain your relationship with the one inside the mansion?" Miketsu skipped the pleasantries and got straight to the point.

"I am... her double. A fragment of her. A product born from all the emotions she discarded, manifesting in this world by possessing the Hannya mask from the Kawakatsu set..." Unlike the volatile girl in white, the girl in black spoke with a calm and mature steady tone. Her expression was far more composed than the original's.

"A part of her that she discarded?"

"Or rather, the part she refuses to acknowledge. You likely noticed it yourself—despite a century passing, my primary self remains as mentally immature as a child. This is because, in order to deceive herself and run from reality, she chose to refuse growth. All the growth she cast away ended up within me," the black-clad girl explained slowly, her gaze fixed on Miketsu.

"I am her maturity. I am her conscience. I am her remorse and her guilt... I am the collective embodiment of everything she has thrown away, the incarnation she refuses to face.

"Because I represent the truth, she refuses to see me. She fears me constantly, branding me a 'black demon.' But even so, I am merely her appendage, moved by her subconscious. I possess no means to truly threaten her."

Listening to her words, Miketsu finally understood her origins. That pampered daughter, who petulantly refused to admit anything to the very end and could think only of her father, wasn't truly devoid of conscience or responsibility. Instead, she had discarded those parts of herself precisely because she couldn't live with the reality of the heinous crime she had committed. To have a conscience would be to admit the truth.

In order to dwell comfortably in a fantasy of self-deception, she had cast aside her morality, her guilt, and her sense of duty. These abandoned emotions had coalesced into a sub-persona—one far more mature than the primary one. This sub-persona manifested using Hata no Kawakatsu’s mask as a vessel. And because she possessed the girl's conscience, she had tried to warn away those who wandered into this ghostly domain.