Now, as for what Mani was doing all this while, well, she was simply watching.
Only Yasutaka, mind you.
"Tacchan... so cool..."
Mani-hime gazed dreamily at Yasutaka as he struggled and suffered through his fight.
In terms of sheer strength, Granny Moon was overwhelmingly superior, and Mōha fought far more smartly, but such things meant nothing at all to a girl in love.
"......"
Granny Moon scratched her cheek.
Seeing no other dangerous foe besides the Dan Lizard, she decided to stay by Mani's side for the time being.
Meanwhile, as for Mōha...
"Hah!"
He put some distance between them and hurled another firecracker!
"Ice Coffin Technique!"
Clank!
The Dan Lizard's body froze solid, locking it in place!
Mōha struck at its neck!
Slash!
Both of its heads flew off with pathetic ease!
Mōha let out a sigh of relief, having managed to take down one of them.
"That leaves just..."
"Mōha! Help me!"
"Guess I've got no choice."
So saying, Mōha moved to back up Yasutaka.
Even Yasutaka seemed to be struggling against the shamisen attacks unleashed by the woman on the creature's back.
Mōha's face twisted with exasperation at the sight.
"Why the hell did you pick a fight with an enemy this badly matched against you?!"
"Ahh, well, there's kind of a story behind that..."
Yasutaka's awkward laugh gave Mōha a bad feeling, but he decided to deal with it later.
Mōha hurled a kunai at the woman on the Dan Lizard's back!
Tak-tak-tak-tak... Snap!
The shamisen's strings snapped, and the Dan Lizard lost the ability to cast its spells.
"That ought to even the odds, don't you think?"
"Yeah!"
Yasutaka shouted back and turned to face the Dan Lizard.
Without its spellcasting, Yasutaka's raw combat strength outmatched the creature, so Mōha figured he'd finish it off without trouble. Mōha glanced around to check for other threats... and noticed something strange.
"What in the world is that?"
In a word, it was a giant flying mandarin orange.
A mandarin large enough to fit a grown man hovered in midair.
Incidentally, the mandarin bore what was unmistakably a human face, so there was no doubt it was some kind of monster.
"What's that?"
"Who can say? Even this old body has never seen the like."
Mani and Granny Moon exchanged words like these.
"A new species of monster?"
Mōha grumbled, but he kept his guard up all the same. It was a peculiarity of the world of Toyoashihara that new monsters could spring into being without warning.
Nue-type Monsters especially, owing to their very nature, had a habit of turning up as entirely new breeds without notice.
Slash!
"Finally got it..."
Yasutaka had at last sent the Dan Lizard's head flying.
All the while, the orange-like monster had been drifting lazily through the air right above him.
"...This is bad!"
Absorbed in his fight with the Dan Lizard, Yasutaka hadn't noticed at all.
Mōha rushed in and body-slammed him out of the way!
Thud!
"Whoa!"
Yasutaka let out a strange yelp as he went flying along with Mōha.
"What the hell are you doi—"
He was about to start complaining, when—
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!!
Something rained down in a hailstorm, shredding the Dan Lizard to pieces!
Splat...
Both men shuddered at the sight of the Dan Lizard's mangled corpse.
"No way..."
"What the hell is that thing..."
What had rained down were sickles and heavy mallets.
A deluge of sickles and mallets had torn the Dan Lizard to shreds.
Then, just as strangely, the sickles and mallets floated back up... returning to the mandarin above...
The mandarin had been completely peeled, its insides now hollowed into a shell.
Clatter, clatter, clatter...
The countless sickles and mallets settled into the hollow shell one by one...
Shhhwip...
and the mandarin resumed its original shape.
"That thing's no joking matter..."
"So that's why none of the other Kabukimono ever came back!"
Both Yasutaka and Mōha went pale.
It seemed that this mandarin-shaped monster had been killing every Kabukimono who came this way.
That said, Yasutaka, with no ranged weapon to speak of, had no way to defeat it.
"Hyah!"
Granny Moon flung the chakram she carried!
It flew straight toward the mandarin...
Thunk...
and simply lodged itself in the rind, going no further.
Granny Moon frowned at the sight.
"Hmph... its thick skin is in the way."
Thk-thk-thk-thk-thk...
Mōha followed up with a flurry of kunai, but they too only stuck in the rind and went no deeper.
"This isn't doing a damn bit of good."
A cold sweat ran down Mōha's brow as well.
Watching this, Yasutaka wavered for a moment.
None of their ranged attacks were working at all. This wasn't going to be an easy fight to win, and besides, they'd already finished off the Dan Lizard...
Realizing he had no reason left to fight, he made up his mind at once.
"Alright, let's run—"
Yasutaka had settled on retreat, but...
"Come forth, Medea!"
Fwoooom...
A beautiful spider-woman shikigami, bare from the waist up, appeared before Mani.
"Catch it!"
Shhhrrrp...
From Mani's shikigami Medea, a torrent of white silk threads shot toward the mandarin hovering in the air!
Fwip-fwip-fwip-fwip!!
They bound the mandarin tight, wrapping it up completely!
"Ah..."
Bound like that, the mandarin apparently couldn't do a thing, and it froze completely in place.
What's more...
Tug... tug...
it was hauled down out of the sky with pathetic ease.
It tried to flee upward, but the threads dragged it back down every time.
Then the mandarin tried a different tack, plunging down to crush Medea...
Whiff! Thud...
but since Medea had no physical body, the mandarin simply passed through and slammed into the floor.
Fwip-fwip-fwip...
The mandarin found itself pinned completely to the floor, unable to move an inch.
"......"
Yasutaka and Mōha had nothing to say in the face of such a blunt, one-sided victory.
Mani tilted her head, puzzled.
"Tacchan... don't you have to finish it off?"
"...... Right, guess I do."
Prompted, Yasutaka swung his sword!
Slash......
He cut through the Nue's core, lodged where the mandarin's stem had been.
"Guh...... ba......"
The mysterious mandarin monster quietly breathed its last.
Seeing this, Mōha gave Yasutaka a pat on the shoulder.
"Let's think about matchups a little more carefully before picking jobs, alright?"
"Yeah, you're right."
Having learned firsthand the importance of good matchups, Yasutaka reflected on it a little.