"Raimei Rensa..." Yorimitsu whispered.
What followed was a deafening, chaotic screeching like the frantic chirping of a thousand birds.
Prrrrrrr!
Blinding blue light rained down from the roiling storm clouds in rapid, violent successions. They descended like chains of solid electricity, striking directly toward Yorimitsu's position.
Using the momentary distraction, Yorimitsu violently kicked Aya off him, breaking her hold and skidding backwards across the shattered stone. The borrowed katana in his grip burned even hotter, the white-orange fire roaring to life.
Spppt! Spppt!
Strike after strike from the heavens hammered into Aya. Her agonising screams tore through the night as each bolt of lightning warped and deformed her stolen flesh, exposing the grotesque spirit beneath.
"Noooo, curse you, curse you, human," her voice screeched.
Yorimitsu stood up fully, walking calmly through the tempest toward her, a trail of blazing cinders following his footsteps. As the lightning continued to rain down in a furious barrage, it seemed to actively avoid his body, striking the earth precisely to his left and right.
'Why... why is the lightning not hitting him?' Aya thought desperately, her mind fracturing under the relentless bombardment. 'The flames..'. The realisation hit her too late. The Flames coating his body actively clocked him as natural fire has elements that don't attract lightning.
"Tch. How dreadful," Yorimitsu murmured, raising his blade high above his head.
"No, please." She pleaded now, her form like melting wax.
Splat.
With a single, decisive arc, the flaming steel sheared through her neck. Her head fell to the ground, instantly combusting into a pile of ash before she could even attempt to reattach it.
"Neeeeeeeew," the sound of a child's cry filled the air before instantly dying down.
…
"Hmmmm, Aya has fallen, how interesting." The man in the pavilion thought to himself.
…
As her core dissolved, the heavy thunder clouds began to rapidly clear away, revealing the silver moon once more.
"That was a worthy trial," Yorimitsu mused, rolling his shoulder. "I now possess a clear understanding of where I stand in comparison to the entities inhabiting this depth."
Suddenly, his head jerked up, his sharp gaze cutting across the sprawling courtyard toward the far, hidden pavilion.
"That... is one incredibly foul aura I am sensing over there."
Crash!
The katana in his hand abruptly fractured. With a sound like a thousand glass windows shattering simultaneously, Watanabe's blade disintegrated into tiny, useless shards of steel, leaving only the hilt in his palm.
"Ah..." He glanced down at his empty hand, a wry smile touching his lips. "The heat of the Kita flames must have been far too volatile for normal forging."
"Master..."
Yorimitsu felt a light, familiar tug on his clothing. He looked down toward his shoulder as Inoue landed softly against his armour.
"Ohhh, Inoue... you managed to find your way here as wel—" Yorimitsu paused, his voice trailing off as he looked at the cat spirit more closely under the moonlight.
"Oh? It looks as though you have undergone some sort of spiritual awakening yourself," he noted. Inoue's hair, which was usually a stark, midnight black, now bore striking streaks of pure white near the roots. Even the tips of his sleek two tails had been bleached a snow-white colour.
"Regardless, tell me what you have discovered," Yorimitsu commanded, his tone instantly snapping back to its rigid, militaristic stiffness.
Inoue purred, a low, vibrating sound as he began pacing restlessly back and forth across Yorimitsu's armoured shoulders.
"Well, while I was scouting the village on the other side, I crossed paths with Minakaze and his vanguard. They were locked in a fierce combat against an Ubume."
"An Ubume as well, ha? We encountered one of those ourselves while crossing a river," Yorimitsu responded, his footsteps echoing softly as he walked back toward the stone pedestal where he had left his own weapon.
"What occurred next?" Yorimitsu reached down, lifting Dojigiri and sliding the heavy blade securely back into his sash. Without missing a beat, he began walking forward, stepping over the ashes of Aya and heading deeper into the interior of the Sanctuary.
"It was profoundly bizarre," Inoue explained, his voice dropping to a sharp whisper. "Instead of performing a standard cleansing or slaying the beast outright, it looked as though they were executing a highly precise capture ritual. They weren't using exorcism spells; rather, it was Kuji-kiri they were using to bind it."
"That is highly unorthodox. Did he want to use it to track the missing people, hmm, but that is unlike Mai, what is going on here?" Yorimitsu murmured, his brow furrowing.
"I know. But right before the final seal could be locked into place, the phantom cry of a child echoed through the square. The distraction allowed the Ubume to shatter her chains. She fled directly toward a well, and I pursued her right into it. But instead of plunging into the well's water, the moment I crossed the threshold, I was instantly transported here. After that... I wandered through the fog until I witnessed them. The true horrors of this place."
'Horrors? For a demon spirit like Inoue to use such a word... the scale of the depravity here must be staggering,' Yorimitsu thought, his jaw tightening.
"What exactly did you see?" he asked, his voice low and measured.
"It is far better if I simply show you," Inoue responded. With a swift, agile bound, the white-tipped spirit leapt off Yorimitsu's shoulder, turning to lead the way into the darkness.
Moments later, their footsteps led them down a hidden stone staircase descending into an underground chamber tucked just beneath the roots of the serene Zen garden.
A massive, rusted iron gate blocked the threshold. Without a word, Yorimitsu channelled a sudden burst of Reiryoku into his heel and violently smashed the barrier open. The heavy gates groaned and tore off their hinges, slamming into the dirt inside.
The very instant the seal was broken, a wave of pure, concentrated putrefaction rushed out of the dark, assaulting his nostrils. It was an overwhelming stench of clotted blood, stagnant water, human excrement, and every imaginable scent of decay known to man.
"What is kept down here, Inoue?" Yorimitsu asked, pausing momentarily on the threshold, his hand instinctively rising to cover his lower face; he had a vague idea but didn't want to believe it himself.
But Inoue didn't offer a vocal response. He simply leapt forward into the pitch-black abyss, his white-tipped tails cutting a silent path through the gloom.
Yorimitsu followed a few paces behind, his hand resting on the hilt of Dojigiri. As his vision adjusted to the heavy darkness of the subterranean cavern, he was confronted by the most stomach-turning, abhorrent atrocity he had ever witnessed in all his years of warfare.
There were women. Hundreds of them.
Their limp, pale bodies were strung up systematically by heavy iron hooks, hanging from long, parallel clotheslines that stretched across the entirety of the massive cavern like rows of drying laundry.
Most of them had their stomach open, some were so pale it looked as if they had been there for months.