"Hu,hu,hu….." Harumichi's breathing was heavy and ragged, his blood staining the white gravel of the courtyard a deep, sickly crimson. His Koto lay shattered around him. Dozens of paper Shikigami now protruded from his flesh like jagged white feathers.
Standing before him was Osaimaru, but the child was unrecognisable. His eyes were bloodshot and ringed with a blackish hue, and a single long horn had erupted from the centre of his crown. Despite the torrential rain, the bird Shikigami circling him remained dry.
"Master, we can help!" another cried, his voice hitching as he still played the drums inside the temple wall.
"I forbid it," Harumichi roared, eyes still locked on the youngest.
'I will not have my sons try to kill each other, what kind of parent would that make me?' he took a deep breath, realising the only way to save his son was to use a forbidden art. Harumichi made a final, fatal decision, though he didn't realise it at the time, it would have been better had he killed the youngest there and then.
He roared, "I will end this now, even at the cost of my life," and stabbed a broken shard of the wooden Koto directly into his own heart.
"Blood Sacrifice: Eternally Reaper Sealing".
Strings of blinding white light erupted from his chest, latching onto Osaimaru and physically pulling the dark mass out of the boy.
As the darkness left him, Osaimaru's eyes cleared, and he regained his senses, crying out in terror for his master.
"Father!!!" he called out.
"Hahahaha, you brat, you finally call me your father?" Harumichi, despite the dark sealing lines beginning to crawl across his skin, managed one last genuine, soft smile.
"Don't cry... It's not your fault."
He then turned towards the door from which the rest of the disciples were looking.
"I love you all my children."
"Father…" they all called out, dropping their instruments and running towards Harumichi, who had fallen to the ground, as rain poured down, washing his wounded body. When they all gathered around him, they found a soft smile on his face.
….
"Ahhhh... I remember now. I killed them all, didn't I? After all that talk of parenthood... at the end of the day, I killed them." Harumichi's thoughts drifted through the searing blue flames of Fūin-jin array. The purification was intense, but to his fading human consciousness, the fire felt strangely warm like a mercy he didn't deserve.
"You failed me again, Harumichi!"
The voice echoed inside Harumichi's mind, cold and mocking. It was a voice he didn't recognise, yet it felt tethered to his very soul.
"Ha... who are you?" he managed to ask, his thoughts racing.
"You wouldn't recognise this voice... my father gave you the mission to create the Deity Gate at first, didn't he? But then you let that paper boy escape."
The mention of the paper boy Osaimaru sent a jolt through Harumichi.
"Ahhh, I see it must have been one hundred years ago; your spirit has been so corrupted that you must have forgotten. Well, it doesn't matter anymore. I will be using you to finish the gate. I can't let his will fail now," the voice whispered.
"Forbidden Art: Blood Burial."
In an instant, the blood within the Shichishō no Kama began to boil and churn. It rose like a tidal wave, washing over the blue flames of the Fūin-jin array, and it snuffed them out with the weight of blood that could fill an ocean.
"No!" Harumichi's eyes darted through the dimming light, searching for any sign of salvation, even from his enemies. But it was too late, the Kekkai was a graveyard; everyone was either dead or unconscious.
"These flames were really something else," the voice mused as it began to fade. "Had the array been deployed properly, they would have managed to seal you... What a shame. It seems I win again, Minamoto!" The voice vanished completely.
The tidal wave of blood acted as a battering ram. It flowed with the might of the ocean waves and shattered the Kekkai from the inside out. The bone mountains and the bruised sky dissolved, dumping Yorimitsu, Watanabe, and the others back into the real world.
The blood swirled with a violent, purposeful movement, latching onto the skeletal frame of the Deity Gate. It solidified into a gargantuan door, carved with two monstrous entities, one wielding a sword to judge the world, and the other a shield to block out the light of the gods.
…
Flleeeeeeeewwwwww!
The sound of fluttering wings drowned out all other sounds.
"Ha... it is over, is it not?"
A voice, calm and melodic, drifted down from the clouds. A massive Shikigami, constructed from thousands of interlocking paper slips, descended like a falling leaf. Standing atop it was a figure Harumichi thought was dead.
It was Osaimaru.
He looked exactly as he had one hundred and fifty years ago, a child's face, untouched by time, but he wore the heavy, ornate robes of a High Priest. He stepped off the paper bird and bowed deeply to the Gate.
"Mabita, it might hurt for now, but you should bear with it a little longer, my brother's and master, so is the will of the world."
Osaimaru walked past the fallen warriors, his sandals clicking softly on the ground. He stopped beside the twisted, limp body of Shion.
"Mmmhhh... the world truly should belong to the youth," he mused, looking down at her. "Look how much they fought. Commendable talent, every one of them."
He knelt beside her and raised his hand. A ghostly green flame ignited in his palm.
"Interesting... the techniques of the Iga are fascinating, truly. To think she is still alive, even with her neck twisted like this."
Osaimaru placed his hand upon Shion's crown.
CRACK!
With a sickening snap, Shion's neck jerked back into its proper alignment. The violent, masculine transformation melted away, and her body returned to its original form.
"Truly fascinating, who came up with such an art body transformation? I should visit Iga sometime, I'm sure to find something interesting." His head then turned swiftly towards Yorimitsu.
"That one is even more interesting."