"Ha?!" Watanabe gasped, his hand dropping instinctively to the hilt of his katana.
'I couldn't even sense her approach...' he thought, a cold sweat breaking out across his neck. He glanced sideways, seeing Yorimitsu's lips curve into a sharp, recital.
Pock! Pock!
"My, my... it seems we share a rather curious connection, old man," the woman purred. In a literal blink, she had vanished from the air and materialised directly beside the towering Tsushimamaru, casually poking his freshly rejuvenated cheek with a pale finger.
Before anyone could strike, she vanished again. A fraction of a heartbeat later, she was hovering mere inches from Watanabe's face.
"You..." She tilted her head, her nostrils flaring as she caught his scent. "Though I utterly loathe the stagnant feel of your Reiryoku, you are rather cute. What do you say, little warrior? Become my slave, and I might just grant you the privilege of living."
Her eyes widened to an unnatural size, her voice shivering with a sickening, ecstatic pleasure.
"I think not," Watanabe ground out, the steel of his blade hissing as he unsheathed it in a swift, defensive arc.
"Mmmmm... truly? What a pity, then." The ecstatic warmth in her gaze died instantly, replaced by a violent, crimson glare.
'She possesses a reservoir slightly greater than my current limits,' Yorimitsu announced calmly, entirely unfazed by her speed. "However, with the Reiryoku in this courtyard so dense... forcing a temporary ascension should prove trivial."
Without hesitation, Yorimitsu bit down hard on his thumb. Using the rushing crimson bead, he rapidly traced intricate, glowing patterns across the back of his hand.
"Blood?" the floating woman exhaled, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. "How delightfully naughty."
She extended both arms toward the heavens, her fingers grasping at the empty air as if seizing invisible strings. When she violently released her grip, a catastrophic concussive force shot forth, tearing up the golden floorboards as it rushed toward Yorimitsu.
Yorimitsu simply glanced up through his bangs and smiled.
"Too late," he whispered.
He leapt into the sky, his feet leaving a blazing trail of blue afterimages in the twilight air.
"Flame Dance!"
From the upper reaches of the gilded pavilion, a torrential rain of brilliant orange fire cascaded downward, turning the beautiful landscape into a roaring furnace.
"Ohhhh... so it is you," she purred, materialising out of the smoke directly behind Yorimitsu. Her fist was already driven forward in a lethal, blinding punching motion.
Yorimitsu spun on his heel, crossing his forearms to absorb the impact, but her strike halted mid-trajectory. With a fluid, whip-like hiss, the Hagoromo scarf wrapped tightly around her body extended, coiling around his throat and slamming him violently into the golden floorboards below, right where his own orange fire was consuming the ground.
"Taisho!!" Watanabe bellowed. As his panic spiked, the air chilled instantly, and delicate Sakura petals of pure ice began to crystallise and swirl in a protective storm around his shoulders.
"Stand down, Watanabe. I have this one," Yorimitsu choked out, coughing as he pushed himself up from the smoking crater. He dusted the cinders from his shoulders, his eyes locked on the floating maiden. With a deliberate, steady motion, he unclipped Dojigiri from his sash and laid it carefully upon a pristine stone pedestal at the edge of the courtyard. "I desire to witness exactly where my own limits lie at this depth."
'Ha! He casts his blade aside?' the maiden thought, her eyes greedily tracking the weapon. 'Foolish boy. Out of everything, that singular sword was the only thing causing my skin to crawl.'
Grrarrraaaaaaaaaaaah!
A monstrous, translucent silhouette of a primordial spirit suddenly rose from the scabbard, letting out a silent, soul-shattering roar that vibrated purely within her spiritual perception. The phantom beast flared its jaws before dissolving back into the steel.
"A dragon?!" she whispered to herself, a cold bead of sweat rolling down her grey neck. 'That sword... it will make an exquisite tribute for Master.'
Yorimitsu strode over to Watanabe, ignoring the maiden's shifting expression, and held out an open palm. "I am fully aware that this violates a warrior's honour... but grant me the loan of your blade, Watanabe."
Watanabe hesitated for a heartbeat, staring at his Yormitsu, before reversing his grip and handing over his katana.
"What is this suffocating pressure..." Watanabe murmured under his breath, watching his master turn back toward the pink-haired entity. The moment Yorimitsu's fingers closed around the borrowed hilt, the air around him grew heavy, vibrating with a raw, jagged frequency.
"Tell me," the maiden's soft, melodic voice resonated through the courtyard, "Just who are you?"
"Oh? You wish to know my name?" Yorimitsu asked, lazily rotating his right shoulder in a smooth, circular motion to loosen the joint. "But is it not basic courtesy to offer your own before demanding another's?"
"Mmmph. If it pleases you, I shall grant you that much," she purred. The Hagoromo coiled tightly around her limbs like a nest of snakes as she drifted toward the tiles. "I am called Mikage no Aya."
Her delicate, porcelain feet touched the jade ground, her long hair floating lazily in the ambient air as though she were submerged deep underwater.
Sweeepppt!
The borrowed katana whistled sharply through the air as Yorimitsu slashed it down, shifting his weight into a perfect, low-centred battle stance.
"Son of Minamoto," he declared, his eyes flashing beneath his bangs. "You may call me Yorimitsu."
The moment his name left his lips, Watanabe's blade caught fire, a searing white-orange blaze erupting across the steel.
"Mmmm... the clan from the northern borders?" Aya mused, her head tilting. "You humans from the north sure are interesting. Why came here then?"
"I am on a mission," Yorimitsu replied smoothly. "I am hunting for the missing women from the surrounding villages."
"Ohhh..." She smiled.
In a seamless fracture of reality, she vanished and reappeared directly behind his neck. But Yorimitsu's blade was already waiting for her. He spun blindly, the flaming steel cutting a lethal arc. Instead of a wet, visceral slashing sound, a deafening crack echoed through the pavilion, a concussive collision of raw spiritual force that repelled them both, forcing them several paces backwards.
'Mmmm... so she wields two abilities,' Yorimitsu analysed rapidly, his eyes narrowing as he tracked her erratic positioning. The Reiryoku bleeding from that silk scarf is entirely separate from the technique she uses to bend the space around her.
Boooooong!
Before he could stabilise his footing, a heavy, resonant vibration pulsed through the earth. The solid ground beneath their sandals suddenly warped, turning soft and treacherous, shifting like the mud of a mushy rice field after a torrential monsoon.
Clap!
Aya appeared in front of him, her palms striking in a synchronised motion. The concussive impact caught Yorimitsu mid-shift on the unstable ground, the sheer velocity of the blow launching his body like a streak of lightning deep into the dark interior of the Sanctuary.
…
Deep within the shifting heart of the Sanctuary, the echo of a dozen feminine giggles drifted through the rafters of a hidden, colossal pavilion.
"It appears Sister Aya has encountered a group of uninvited guests," a blue-haired maiden purred, her voice dripping with malice. She hovered effortlessly in the dim light, supported by a long, winding Hagoromo ribbon of azure silk that rippled around her like ocean currents.
She looked down toward a massive, ornate dais where a silhouetted man sat motionless in the gloom. "What are your commands, Master? Shall I go and assist her?"
"Pay it no mind," the shadowed figure responded, his voice a low, resonant rumble that seemed to settle heavily over the entire hall. "Aya is one of our strongest Tennin. No ordinary mortal possesses the strength to unravel her thread, let alone defeat her."