"Tch, how long has it been? I remember it like it was yesterday."
Harumichi groaned, trapped in the ice; he could see everything happening, but couldn't do anything. From his back, black tentacles began forming, spreading all the way through the ice.
"Yorimitsu…"
…
Harumichi blinked, and his vision shifted, pulling him back one hundred and fifty years.
The sky was no longer bruised; it was the golden-blue of a clear afternoon at a mountain temple. A young disciple, bright-eyed with the spark of discovery, ran across the courtyard.
"Master Harumichi! Look! Look! I finally managed to do it!"
Above the boy's head, two paper shikigami birds fluttered, chirping with a life that seemed impossible for mere parchment.
"Mmmmm, that is incredible, Sai... what a talent you have," Harumichi spoke. He was a different man then. His hair was pulled back into a neat bun beneath the red ornamental hat of a High Priest. His face was unlined, holding a soft, paternal smile that reached his eyes.
'Truly, this child is gifted,' Harumichi thought, his heart swelling with a pride that had nothing to do with power. He reached into the inner pocket of his clean, white vestments and pulled out a solid white stone.
"Here. Take it. I got it from the capital; it's a new kind of treat the young nobles are fond of."
The boy's eyes went wide. As he tasted the sweetness, a smile of pure, uncomplicated joy broke across his face. "Mmmmm! It's so sweet!"
"Hahaha, it is, isn't it?" Harumichi's laughter was light and genuine, "Don't tell your elder brothers... they might rob me dry." He giggled, staring at the door.
"Master! We heard everything!"
Six more boys tumbled out from the temple doors, led by the eldest in a two-toned blue and green robe. They surrounded Harumichi with the chaotic energy of children's curiosity.
"Hehehe... I knew you were coming. Don't worry." Harumichi reached back into his pocket, pulling out six more rocks of sugar.
As he watched them eat, a profound sense of stillness washed over him. 'Huuu... my heart is at peace seeing them like this. Truly Mabita.'
Two years passed in the blink of an eye. One peaceful night, the stillness of the temple was shattered by a storm so violent that the bamboo groves smashed against one another with the sound of breaking bones.
CRACK!
Thunder roared, drowning out the world. Harumichi, his priest's robes soaked and heavy, stood at the temple gates.
"SAI!!"
He screamed into the gale, but the wind snatched the name from his lips. The youngest disciple was gone.
"Okaimaru! Where is your youngest?!" Harumichi's voice was hoarse as he gripped the shoulders of the eldest disciple. He was now a man pulling the ropes on the temple beams, making sure that the wind wouldn't blow them away.
"He... he said he was going to the river... but he hasn't returned," Okaimaru stammered, his eyes wide with terror, but his body continued to move on.
"Then why didn't you look for him?! I told you that in this temple, you are brothers—!"
Harumichi's lecture was cut short.
"MASTER! THERE HE IS!"
One of the disciples pointed into the heart of the storm. There, standing in the centre of the courtyard, was Osaimaru. The boy was motionless, his small frame buffeted by the rain, looking like a ghost in the flickering lightning.
CRACK!
A jagged bolt of lightning descended like a divine spear, striking the Great Statue of the temple. A massive shard of the stone deity sheared off, crashing into the mud.
"Ahhh... why him?" Harumichi broke. He knew the spiritual weight of such an omen. He reached into the corner of the sanctum and pulled out his Koto. It was a sacred instrument then, meant for purification.
"All of you! Make a barrier around the temple and start singing Shiogesha!" Harumichi commanded, his eyes turning a dark, hollow obsidian. "Do not let anything in."
"Master!!" the eldest called out, but Harumichi didn't respond; instead, he stepped out into the rain to greet his youngest son.
…
"Ahhhh damn it, you made me remember such unpleasant memories…" Harumichi roared back in the Kekkai, and the ice that held began to scream as the obsidian tentacles lashed out.
Crunch!
One of them managed to break through, snaking around Watanabe's throat.
"Mmmm… mmmh!" Watanabe's vision blurred, his oxygen failing as he struggled to maintain the freezing temperature.
"Minamoto Style: Severance."
Yorimitsu inhaled, and for a fraction of a second, the entire domain went silent. Then, a sharp, buzzing.
TIIINNNGGGGGGGG
Filled the air, Dōjigiri vibrated the entire Kekkai, and even some distant bone mountains began to shred and fall.
BOOM!
Yorimitsu dashed. The sound was like a cannon shot. His speed was so immense that the pressure of his footsteps pulverised the bone-soil, yet in the craters left behind, small, radiant flowers instantly bloomed.
"In rot there is life," he murmured something under his breath as he ran.
The blade shone with a blinding, celestial white light. As he reached the ice block, Yorimitsu twisted his wrist to a forty-five-degree angle.
Dōjigiri passed through the black ice as if it were mere paper. It cleaved through Harumichi's torso, severing the in one clean, horizontal arc.
Yorimitsu landed on the opposite side, his sandals skidding through the skulls. With a trembling hand, he slammed the blade back into its sheath.
CLICK.
The moment the hilt met the scabbard, Yorimitsu's body gave out. He collapsed face-first into the dirt, his Reiryoku completely spent.
Watanabe stared, gasping for air as the ice fell away.
"When did he… he did it?!" Yorimitsu's speed was so great that it hadn't yet registered what had happened.
"Hahahahaha!" A laugh tore through the air.
The nightmare wasn't over. Harumichi's torso began to knit together with a sickening, gurgling sound.
"Uhhuuuuu… uhuuuuu," Harumichi groaned. 'That was dangerous... if I hadn't sacrificed another body... I would have died.'
His jaw unhinged once more, and he vomited the skeletal remains of the second sister, whose legs mutated into those of a goat.
"Did you think you could kill me? All fortunes belong to—!"
Harumichi's roar was cut short. He looked down to see Watanabe laughing as he slumped to the ground.
"You did it... Taisho..." Watanabe whispered.
Harumichi realised it too, but it was too late.
Hundreds of flaming blue strings erupted from Fūin-jin. They latched onto Harumichi's reattaching limbs, searing into his flesh with the heat of a thousand purification fires.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!"
The demon's scream tore through the Kekkai,