in the forest...reactions

This reminded me of Beneath the Cherry Blossoms by Kaiji Motojirou, where the narrator comes to the conclusion that there are bodies buried beneath the sakura and that is the reason for their color. The mysterious beauty in full bloom filled him with unease that never went away until he came to that conclusion. If I think about this the bandit’s reactions to the sakura and the others described makes sense. The sakura are so beautiful that it’s unnatural, perhaps even supernatural and instinctively knowing this people became overwhelmed with fear in the flowers’ presence, like how some old cultures believed rainbows were bad luck. When people face the unknown or strange things they become fearful and irrational; the bandit was able to avoid this by putting off thoughts of the sakura but when beneath them the standard reaction arose again.

Also I’m not quite sure how to classify this story, it doesn’t really feel like horror but it does have an air to it similar to Gothic or Romantic literature.

My question: do you think the woman really was a demon, or just the bandit’s hallucination?