"Yes... I understand, Master Sukemichi," Byakuya muttered, his body flowing fluidly beneath a barrage of incoming claws.
Sukemichi's telepathic command still echoed sharply inside his skull. Leaping high into the blood-soaked air, Byakuya drove his blade straight down through the skull of another mutated beast.
'These things simply refuse to die,' Byakuya mused, ripping his steel free as the creature's flesh began to unnaturally knit itself back together. 'Every single time I cut them down, they return to life. Tch... well, it matters little now, considering Master Sukemichi requires authority over this vessel.'
Landing seamlessly amidst the chaos, Byakuya bit down hard on his own index finger. Using the welling crimson drop, he traced a precise, intricate insignia across his forehead.
The blood-drawn symbol pulsed with a faint, eerie light. Instantly, Byakuya's eyes rolled back into his head, and his posture slumped forward limply.
"Grrrrtttt." A beast ran towards him.
A heartbeat later, his head snapped back up, but his entire countenance had fundamentally transformed. Three distinct, dark dots manifested above each eyebrow, his eyelashes grew thick and voluminous, and his hair shifted rapidly, taking on the vibrant, shimmering hues of exotic feathers.
Just moments before the beast attacked him, it shrouded and turned, running away from him.
"Hmmmmm... not bad. Not bad at all," the entity occupying Byakuya's flesh murmured, rolling the shoulders and testing the limbs. "The boy has done an admirable job training this vessel."
Taking a single step forward, the possessed warrior vanished entirely from the Sanctuary outskirts.
He materialised seamlessly at the edge of the jagged mountain peaks, right where the cataclysmic battle between Bushido and Orochi raged on. He masked his presence entirely, becoming invisible, soundless, and utterly perceptionless to most detection.
'Ha...?!'
Yorimitsu's eyes darted subtly toward the edge of the ridge, a sudden chill running down his spine. 'What is this bizarre pressure...? It feels as though another person has entered.' Despite the internal distraction, his lips never faltered, his voice maintaining the unbroken, resonant cadence of the Ōharae no Kotoba.
'Mmm... so this is the grand design you were weaving, Orochi, you disgusting traitor...' the entity thought, his hidden gaze locking onto the half-masked Calamity.
A cold, predatory smile touched the possessed vessel's lips. 'Well... you shall soon receive exactly what you deserve. To think you went as far as stealing that sacred mask... Do you truly possess the arrogance to believe you are the only one who wishes to ascend to the seat of a Kami?!'
…
"He...!"
Bushido vanished once more, blipping through the displaced space to materialise directly above Orochi's head. The entire cascading curtain of raining purple lightning instantly condensed, flowing into the iron pole of his staff until the weapon hummed with blinding, concentrated voltage. He drove the strike downward. Orochi managed to twist his frame away at the absolute last moment, dodging the lethal blunt force but completely losing his left shoulder and leg to the trailing energy arc.
'What is happening...?' Orochi panicked, his teeth baring as a fresh, grotesque arm began to rapidly sprout from the raw wound. 'I am supposed to be a Kami now... so how is this mortal so staggeringly powerful? I can barely track his movements!'
Drifting frantically to the flank, Orochi attempted to re-establish his distance. But a secondary flurry of purple lightning tracked his trajectory like a pack of starving wolves.
"Not again…"
The moment the lightning brushed against the mountain peaks, the energy instantly solidified into jagged, physical stone pillars. They floated in the air and turned back towards Bushido an instant later, the rocks shattered, transmuting back into pure, roaring plasma as the current reversed direction and surged back toward Bushido, who collected the lightning back with his poll.
"Don't play with Lighting in front of me," Bushido vanished yet again. The deafening rumble of thunder rolled across the mountain ridges, perfectly harmonising with the unbroken cadence of Yorimitsu's purification chant.
'The kid is about to finish the liturgy...' Bushido thought, his weathered eyes narrowing as his gaze intensely scanned the Calamity's shifting physiology. 'I must locate his spiritual root, and I must do it quickly.'
But that single, brief moment of analytical hesitation cost him dearly.
From the shifting terrain beneath his heels, a pale, severed arm constructed entirely of mud and blood clamped violently around Bushido's left ankle. Within that fraction of a second, the flesh of his leg began to bulge and throb hideously.
Reacting on pure instinct, Bushido rippled, blipping away to reappear a few paces beside Yorimitsu.
The unnatural bulging along his leg immediately subsided, returning to its normal shape, but the damage was already done. Left behind on his calf was a deep, weeping crater of blackened flesh that looked exactly like advanced, corrosive rot.
"Tch... the bastard almost had me there," Bushido spoke, his voice remaining level though his left leg gave a slight, involuntary tremor against the stone.
He didn't want to admit it, but the devastation of that single contact was horrifying. Had any regular warrior taken that direct influx of Orochi's attack, they would have been instantly disintegrated from the inside out.
"But... thanks to that, I managed to perceive exactly where his spiritual root is hiding," Bushido muttered, a grim, dangerous smile cutting through his weathered features.
"Boy... ready your blade. I am going to expose it to you now," Bushido commanded, taking a deep, heavy breath.
As he inhaled, the chaotic torrent of purple lightning tearing through the mountain ranges suddenly ceased its erratic strikes. Every rogue bolt across the horizon flew directly toward the old master, condensing and solidifying around his weathered frame until it manifested into a brilliant, blinding crown and a shimmering kimono woven entirely of pure, crackling plasma.
'I can feel his Reiryoku steadily compounding... what is he planning?' Orochi mused, a sudden spike of panic piercing through his arrogance.
With a frantic swipe of his hand, Orochi shattered the very foundations of the mountain peaks, completely obliterating them.
"Ah?!"
Instantly, the landscape dissolved into nothingness, sending them all hurtling into a terrifying mid-air free fall toward the distant earth below. But before the vertigo could disorient them, Bushido lunged forward through the sky, snatched Yorimitsu by his armour, and hurled him upward into the vortex with such savage, explosive velocity that he felt as though his flesh was about to be torn from his bones.
Mid-flight, Yorimitsu forced his spinning vision to lock onto the target. Twisting his torso, he braced his feet against the rushing wind as the final lines of the sacred mantra surged to the tip of his tongue.
All around them, the debris of the shattered mountains transformed into a swarming cluster of floating, volatile boulders, closing in like a vice to swallow Bushido whole.
PRRRRRRRRR—!
A colossal dragon forged from roaring purple lightning violently erupted from the tip of Bushido's iron pole, its massive jaws consuming absolutely everything in its path, reducing the incoming mountain rubble to microscopic dust.
"Tch..." Orochi scoffed, his gaze darting through the blinding glare.
But before the sneer could leave his throat, Bushido materialised directly in front of his face. This time, instead of swinging the weapon for a blunt strike, the old master pointed the poll forward, driving the tip straight against Orochi's abdomen.
A brilliant, cataclysmic burst of concentrated light erupted from the point of contact, blinding the very sky. The immense power caused Orochi's body to violently detonate, sending a shower of scorched flesh raining down into the void.
Left behind in the centre of the blast radius was the naked truth, a grotesque, pulsating fetus-like entity covered in hundreds of blinking, frantic eyes.
"...Then bring silence."
Yorimitsu spoke the final sentence of the liturgy. Kicking the air beneath his boots, he triggered a sonic boom, launching himself like a falling star.
A fierce, lethal glare ignited within his eyes as he drew his soot-covered weapon back.
"Hehehehehe... the Dōjigiri can slice through anything in existence. You are utterly finished, Orochii" Bushido smiled.'