"I thought I smelled a mutt."
Ikuse had come into this expecting some grand display. From the way everyone hyped up and warned him about the man known as The Heavenly Demon, he really didn't measure up appearance wise.
Yamato Iori was a slight old man, the plain kimono doing nothing to hide how easily it hung off his nearly skeletal figure. With a face covered in heavy and severe lines. Honestly, he barely looked like he could walk without tipping over completely. Or as if a simple rough shove would cause his entire form to come tumbling apart. If anything, the long gray hair, without even a single tangle or patchy appearance was more than enough to speak of his apparent health.
The source of this trouble sat back before a giant expanse of forest that surely wasn't this luscious since the last century. Before humanity began to encroach onto the domain of nature, the trees reaching high into the sky. Grass long and unruly, all of which seemed to curve around the old man. Roots sprouting out of the ground, wrapping up and around his waist and back. Forming a sort of chair, like a chair of honor.
Maybe a throne, but he did not put out even the smallest hint of noble air. No divine right to rule, no royal blood coursing through his veins or even propped up the decisions of an entire population.
So far, only the backhanded comment was to be expected. Everything else went straight out the window it seemed. Ever so minutely, Ikuse could feel the tension easing from his shoulders. Not as though to drop his guard, but to pull back on the levels of his force he had been prepared to dish out. This was a human man on his last leg of life, an old geezer that felt entitled to being rude to other just because of his seniority. Someone he knew how to deal with perfectly.
"Hello." That tried and true customer service smile forced it's way onto his face. "My name is Tobio Ikuse and you must be Yamato Iori, I have heard a lot about you. I'm sure such a powerful and renown warrior wouldn't stoop so low as to fight people so obviously beneath you. I'm sure you're tired by now, how about I escort you out of here and get you a nice drink."
"What you say might be true," Iori nodded sagely, something flickering out of sight too fast to see causing the tree at his back to...move it's branches enough to block the light from getting in his eyes. "But you're not one of my own. Be ware, mutt that thinking is a pitfall. Those that follow the 'Rightous' Path will go on and about what a warrior can and cannot do. What's beneath them and how they should conduct themselves when juniors are involved. None of the matters when they're peers are nowhere in sight. But they'll be the first to kill even over the smallest thing of interest."
"Of course, of course." He simply nodded, the same conciliatory tone he often used for exceedingly difficult older customers. Just let them spout they're 'wisdom' until they get bored enough to just wander of by themselves. Now that there was a topic to latch onto, it was time to keep him talking. "Then what about those that follow the opposing Demonic path? Aren't they somewhat better because they're at least honest about their treachery?"
"...To dare speak those words shows your ignorance. In what world is kidnapping, torturing and killing children from every village within 80 kiloliters for over fifty years just to refine a single pill any better?"
"Forgive me for being ignorant in that regard." He knew of dark rituals that did exactly that, had actually been sent on plenty of missions to thoroughly dismantle evil mages too drunk on power to even begin caring about the value of life. So now that he was off kilter and annoyed, now was the time to strike. "But if that's the other path, then why do you allow your student, Ange De Guignes, to openly walk down that path? Shouldn't you be over there disciplining them instead of waiting out here?"
"They'll be dealt with eventually, that is none of your concern." Those eyes, like spiral azure pools, slid off him and looked directly at a far away location. Somewhere, Ikuse knew a priest flinched mid step. "They're like cockroaches. Kill one and five more take their place. Well, Hound? Are you going to make your move?"
"Is there no way you would just be willing to let them claim this territory back?" He knew the jig was up and that a fight was well on it's way, but still he just wanted even a chance to resolve this smoothly without further blood being shed. "I know this is the home of your student...but don't you think he would rather know your somewhere out of danger and properly being taken care of?"
"…." Iori smiled, a wan but frigid thing. That mask of frailty shedding just as easily as breathing, exposing a gnarled and ancient monster. "It seems I've given you the wrong impression about me. Allow me to remedy that misunderstanding."
It was a sudden thing, in one moment, one frozen moment in time all was fine. And then, a single thump could be heard. Reverberating from the air-no-the world itself. Followed by another, this was just leisurely as before. But it still slammed home, and something deep within him fruitlessly rebelled.
A hand reached up quickly, slow in his dimming world. He couldn't feel it, couldn't feel that ever comforting beat, the signs of a companion still trucking along. Still living. Instead, there was nothing. Only a sense of loss, a sense of inferiority so deep that it even caused blood to stop flowing through his veins.
He couldn't think, mind sluggish as his hand weakly patted against his own breast, as though to try and forcibly restart it himself but it was all worthless. After all, what could an ant do to a mountain?
'TOBIO!'
The voice, desperate and deep sounded as if it was far, far away from here. Like he was hearing through a long tunnel, spanning kilometers in length. He could feel the concern, feel those ethereal jaws try to rip him away from the cold embrace of death...But did he actually want to leave this place?
Wasn't that...the light everyone talked about? Off in the distance, far beyond the width and span of the Earth, he could see something blurry...What looked to be a bright, crimson Torii. Larger than any he'd ever seen. Larger than large, impossible wide, just standing out in the open. In some place his rational mind told him would flatten this abandoned village into nothing.
But that wasn't what caught his attention, instead it was the old women besides it. Her long black and gray hair tied up in a traditional neat bun. That pure white kimono far, far too large for her slight frame. Heavy wrinkles around her eyes did nothing to hide the warmth in them, something he hadn't experience since he was in middle school from what felt like a lifetime ago.
"Gran-grandma?"
His voice was barely above a whisper, one hand reaching out desperately to try and touch her. To hold her, to fall into her comforting embrace just one last time. She did not speak and instead only sadly shook her head and somehow, impossibly, 'shoved' him away from that massive Torii.
A single word, a command, a scripture, a decree echoing out through the world itself from deep within in his spirit. Almost like a growl and howl, it shuddered through the fabric of reality. Bending to it's will. Dragging him back from taking that finally step to the other side.
SLASH!