"KRRRRRRRRRR!"
The Shinigami roared, discharging its purple beam of volatile Reiryoku straight toward Yorimitsu's chest.
"Roar and devour all things... Dōjigiri," Yorimitsu whispered.
He drew his blade.
As the steel cleared the scabbard, a piercing wail echoed through the courtyard, vibrating through the very air. The caked layer of rust coating the katana shattered and peeled away, revealing a pristine, silver blade that left a faint trail of light as it traced through the air.
With a fluid, downward flick of his wrist, Yorimitsu cut through the air.
SHING!
The heavy discharge of raw energy was bisected effortlessly, splitting cleanly in two. The severed halves of the beam hurtled past Yorimitsu and slammed straight through the boundary wall, cutting through the barrier with virtually zero resistance.
BOOOOOOM!
Outside the compound, a massive detonation erupted, instantly flash-vaporising the surrounding floodwaters into a wall of white steam.
"Tch... Careless," Yorimitsu muttered, smoothly re-sheathing his blade. 'I just hope the brat lying over there didn't get caught in the blast wave.'
Yorimitsu turned his sharp gaze back onto the artificial Shinigami, eyeing its stark white skin and protruding bull horns.
"Now then... Let's see what we're dealing with," Yorimitsu mused aloud, analysing the entity. "I've drawn two distinct conclusions from watching you."
He adjusted his hold on Inoue as he stepped forward onto the scorched earth.
"First: when your core split into four separate bodies, you lost the ability to perform complex Onmyōdō. However... the more you mature, the more familiar you become with lost sorcery. Given enough time, you will eventually relearn those techniques or unlock new ones entirely."
Yorimitsu's eyes narrowed into cold, lethal slits.
"And either way... that is very bad news for you."
'I've been wanting to test something out anyway... Let's make this quick,' Yorimitsu thought.
He extended his right arm. Beneath his sleeve, the mark of Ryuu etched into his skin began to twist and squirm. The black ink lines shifted across his forearm, reweaving themselves into a brand-new, intricate pattern.
"Hmph... So it can be used like this," Yorimitsu muttered under his breath. 'I still don't fully understand why I received this mark in the first place... but I had better make good use of it while I still have it.'
Without warning, the Shinigami materialised directly behind him. A searing beam of purple light erupted from its freshly torn mouth.
Yorimitsu didn't even turn around. With effortless grace, he dipped forward into a low, fluid bow, allowing the destructive beam to singe the air inches above his back.
Flowing directly out of the evasion, Yorimitsu pivoted on his heel and thrust the butt of his scabbard backwards, striking the monster square in the chest and launching it several paces back.
Yet the creature was undeterred. Within milliseconds, hundreds of glowing purple spheres coalesced in the air surrounding Yorimitsu, locking onto his position.
"Mmm... Just as I feared," Yorimitsu observed calmly, casting a brief glance at the floating circle of death. "It's already beginning to construct its own dedicated technique."
"KKRRRRRRR!"
The Shinigami shrieked, sending the massive cluster of spheres raining down simultaneously.
"Incredible speed... I can't allow a single one of those to touch me."
Yorimitsu's chest heaved as he closed his eyes, instantly initiating the refined breathing techniques taught to him by the masters of Bushidō.
Spark!
A faint blue spark ignited beneath the soles of his boots. Before the barrage could land, Yorimitsu vanished.
A fraction of a second later, the floating spheres detonated in a synchronised explosion, tearing a massive, smoking crater into the courtyard where he had been standing just an instant before.
"Tch..."
A wispy plume of ember-like heat sparked from between Yorimitsu's lips as he exhaled.
He lunged forward with blinding speed. The Shinigami barely had time to register his approach, stumbling backwards on sheer instinct, a movement that barely spared its neck from Yorimitsu's initial decapitating strike.
"Sun Blossom Secret Art: A Thousand Blades of Ending!" Yorimitsu roared.
Adjusting his footing in a fraction of a second, Yorimitsu shifted his grip on the hilt. What followed was an impossible storm of steel.
Yorimitsu's arms moved with terrifying grace and fluid precision—slashing up, down, diagonally, and across in a seamless, blinding blur. His silver blade carved through the air hundreds of times in the span of a single heartbeat, systematically hacking and dicing the monster's pale body into hundreds of tiny, bloody fragments.
SPLAT!
The whirlwind of slashes abruptly ceased.
Yorimitsu flicked his blade to the side with a sharp snap, clearing the black, sticky goo clinging to the steel before smoothly driving the katana back into its scabbard.
"Phew..."
He exhaled deeply, taking a slow step backwards. Behind him, the shredded remains of the creature dismantled completely, sloughing onto the rain-slicked earth with a heavy, sickening squelch.
"Phew... That takes care of that," Yorimitsu muttered, turning on his heel to walk back toward Inoue's small, unconscious form. "Honestly... why is it that you end up beaten half to death every single time I come to pick you—"
CLANG!
"Tsk...!"
Yorimitsu grunted, his sentence cut short as a sharp bone-spike slammed into his rear shoulder. Reaching back, he casually plucked the jagged projectile out of his flesh and tossed it aside, his eyes narrowing as he turned back around.
Behind him, the mountain of shredded meat was already writhing.
The severed pieces sloughed together like living clay, fusing and expanding with horrifying speed. The Shinigami pushed itself up from the mud, rising taller and significantly bulkier than before. Sprouting across its muscular torso, shoulders, and spine were dozens of jagged, bull-like horns forming a brutal suit of natural armour.
"Of course it can regenerate..." Yorimitsu sighed, watching the beast's newly armoured form settle into place.
Where the bone-spike had pierced his shoulder, the black ink lines of the Seal of Ryuu flared, crawling across his skin to cover and knit the punctured flesh.
"So slicing it to pieces won't kill it," Yorimitsu mused, his grip tightening on his hilt. "Which means I either have to shatter its conduit or destroy the main body... and both of those options sound like a massive hassle."
He let out a long, heavy breath and took a low, balanced stance.
'It didn't work the way I expected last time... but let's try it again.'
"Seal of Ryuu: Soul Capturing Technique..." Yorimitsu murmured.
The dark ink crawling across his hand and arm began to writhe and flow like liquid thread. Striking out from his skin, the black markings slithered up the hilt of his sword and fused directly into the silver steel of Dōjigiri, etching intricate, draconic runic patterns along the length of the blade.