"Hmph... Damn it, keep quiet... Shut up... Shut up... Shut it!" Gabimaru barked loudly, startling the children who scrambled around him in panic.
"Mmmph...!"
Some who caught sight of Gabimaru's bloodied, thrashing form whimpered in terror, shrinking back and clawing at the stone walls to retreat.
"Look at how they look at you," the chorus of voices inside his mind rasped, dripping with cruel malice. "They think you are a monster. Why bother saving them? Just use them. Take that power for yourself."
'Yeah... that's right. What's the point in being kind...? Kind people always die first.'
His thoughts spiralled, yet even as he agreed with the dark temptation, the crimson whips of hardened blood behind him lashed through the rainy air, intercepting and destroying every single ritual rope that dared to streak toward the children.
"Hufff... hufff..."
He heaved deep, ragged breaths, hot steam rising from his feverish skin into the cold downpour. Black veins bulged against his neck, and his pupils dilated into wild, unfocused pinpricks.
"Yes... yes! That's right! The kind always lose first... just like your dear mother," the voices coerced, pressing deeper into his fracturing psyche. "Had she not been kind, she would still be alive right now. And your hand—had you not been soft, you would still have it! Look at them! Look at them! Are they really worth risking your life for?"
Gabimaru's eyes turned entirely bloodshot, red mist pooling into his vision until his pupils bled crimson.
In front of him, the rain distorted. The frightened faces of the children dissolved into dark, hollow-eyed shadows—monstrous silhouettes staring back at him through the storm.
"That's right... the weak are a poison," the voices slithered like vipers around Gabimaru's neck, tightening their suffocating grip. "They lack the power to protect themselves, yet they always try to force their fragile morality onto others. Why bother, ha...?"
"What am I even fighting so hard for?!" Gabimaru barked aloud into the roaring rain.
His rigid stance relaxed slightly, his guard wavering. Behind him, the jagged wall of hardened blood he had constructed to hold back the rushing floodwaters began to spiderweb with deep, echoing cracks.
"I'm... I'm scared," one of the frightened children whimpered behind his back, clutching another's arm. "What's wrong with that big brother...? Is he really going to help us...?"
"I promise not to ever do anything bad again! Please help us, big brother...!" a young boy cried out, his eyes glossy with brimming tears.
Even though Gabimaru looked utterly horrifying in that moment steaming, vein-bulging, and soaked in blood to the children- he was still far less terrifying than the unnatural disaster threatening to swallow them whole.
"Yeah... that's right," Gabimaru muttered under his breath, his eyes clouding over. "I'll just let this ritual take its course and usurp control... That way I can claim its power for myself. I'll finally be strong enough to face Yorimitsu... right? Right...?"
A thick, brittle crust of dried, crystallised blood began to creep across Gabimaru's jaw, slowly encasing his face like an iron visor. A heavy numbness washed over his mind, and his head grew strangely weightless, as if he were slipping into a dark, endless dream.
"Heyyy... you...!"
"Huh...?"
A sudden, sharp tug yanked at Gabimaru's damp yukata, snapping the heavy trance in an instant. The agonising chorus of voices in his mind dissolved, slipping away like smoke and vanishing into the roaring storm one by one.
"Aren't you a grown-up? You're supposed to help us! Why are you even here then?!"
A young boy, his face slick with rain and tears, roared with raw, unfiltered fury. He grabbed fistfuls of Gabimaru's fabric, yanking with all his strength to the point where the cloth began to rip at the seams.
"Your uniform—you're from the capital, right? My father told me capital guards are supposed to protect people! If that's true... then prove it and help us!"
"Huh..."
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Gabimaru's heart thundered in his chest as the crimson haze melted from his eyes, returning sharp clarity to his vision. Just seconds ago, he had felt as if he were sinking into the freezing, lightless depths of an endless sea, but this boy's desperate, angry grip was pulling him back up to the surface.
"Tch... Have I really become so weak?" Gabimaru whispered to himself.
The crust of hardened blood encasing his face cracked open, retracting swiftly back beneath his skin.
"To think that I let a shallow emotion like jealousy take over me... Hmph. I see now why I could never catch up to my brother. Instead of finding a real way to make myself stronger, I caught myself in an illusion of my own making... building an unclimbable mountain for myself. Tch... Well, no more!"
Gabimaru roared into the storm, the lingering blood mask shattering completely into thin air.
The blood techniques of the Gabimaru lineage were indeed formidable, but they suffered from one critical vulnerability: the physical volume of blood a wielder could expend. Even with his continuous use of healing Onmyodo to replenish his supply, his body had its absolute limits.
Right now, Gabimaru was rapidly approaching that wall.
The hostile ritual arrays spanning the alleyway were draining his blood at an alarming rate. With his vitality running thin and the torrential rain diluting his crimson constructs, he would soon be left at a fatal disadvantage.
It wasn't as if his clan hadn't devised a solution to this weakness. Stronger members of the bloodline could deploy a specialised technique known as Tankaichi—a method that allowed them to wield their blood effectively even in harsh environments by establishing a subtle Kekkai directly aligned with the surrounding area.
Instead of expanding a completely separate domain, the wielder would layer the rules of their barrier onto the existing physical space, turning the environment itself into an extension of their power.
Though Gabimaru had yet to fully master this advanced manipulation, losing his arm had granted him one unexpected, incredible advantage.
"AHHHHHHH."