"Shit... shit... shit! What do I do?!"
The thoughts raced through Omaru's mind like wildfire. He forced his trembling legs to lock, his katana shaking in a white-knuckled grip as he pointed away from him.
Wabonoske's body continued to distort, his frame growing larger and more bloated, his skin stretching until it turned a bruised, oily black. Thick, viscous drool leaked from his unhinged maw, hitting the floorboards and sizzling like hot lead.
Without a word, the creature charged. It opened its massive, clawed hand.
CLAP!
The impact was like a falling timber. Omaru was sent flying backwards, his body crashing through the remaining shrine supports. He hit a stone wolf-man statue with a sickening crack and slumped to the dirt outside.
"Oho..." Omaru coughed, a spray of dark blood staining the moss.
He pushed himself up, his vision swimming. The poison was moving faster now; he could see the veins in his arms turning a jagged, angry red.
"How... how is he a demon?" Omaru wheezed. "The Hōsōshi... the cleansing ritual at the Academy... they should have found him. Unless..."
He glanced back at the forest. The entrance was gone, replaced by the infinite wall of bone-white bamboo.
"Tch. I guess I have no choice but to fight," Omaru growled, his fear finally curdling into a desperate, cornered-animal rage.
Da-dam. Da-dam.
His heart hammered a frantic rhythm. Omaru closed his eyes for a split second, taking a long, shivering breath.
"Shuuuuuuuuu..."
The air in his lungs felt heavy, but his grip on the hilt tightened. 'Think. Think. Think, how am I going to exorcise it? He killed the servants first to stop them from setting the barriers, without them I can't..'
Just as the demon lowered its head to charge again, a sudden, warm pulse rippled against Omaru's chest, beneath his layers of travel-worn fabric.
His eyes widened. He had forgotten.
….
"Here, take it. That way you can remember me, no matter where you go."
The voice rang in Omaru's head, crisp and clear as a temple bell. It was an old memory, buried under years of resentment and hunger, but he remembered it as if it were yesterday. He saw a young woman standing over his smaller self, her face blurred by the fog of time, handing him a simple pouch.
"This is the Omamori that my mother gave me, and her mother before her. Now, I am giving it to you. Keep it close to always."
With those words, she had turned away, leaving the toddler Omaru on the cold steps of a Buddhist temple.
Against his chest, the pouch began to glow with a soft, persistent light. It wasn't the aggressive flare of an exorcist's talisman, but a warm, maternal pulse that began to fight back against the jagged red poison crawling through his veins. As the light spread, the heaviness in his limbs lifted. His breath steadied. Most of his composure returned.
"Haaaaaaa..." Wabonoske sniffed the air, his horned head tilting at a sickening angle. "There's something different about you. That sweet scent of fear... ffff... fffff... It's gone. Where did this new confidence come fr—"
…
"I hated that temple," Omaru murmured to himself, his eyes locking onto the demon with a cold, focused intensity.
"It's all a sham."
As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed a fallen bamboo stalk beside him. With a practised, discreet flick of his katana, he sliced his own palm, letting his blood soak into the porous wood. He didn't let the creature see the wound.
SWOOSH!
He hurled the bamboo stick with all his strength. To the demon, the movement looked slow, almost desperate. Wabonoske let out a mocking chortle and stepped to the side, letting the stick jam harmlessly into the earth.
"Missed," he hissed, his predatory smile widening.
"Is this your plan? You think you can win by throwing sticks at me? Childish," Wabonoske hissed. He raised his hands, interlocking his fingers to form a sharp triangle.
"Demonic Art of Severance," he whispered.
Almost instantly, the half-broken statues lining the path groaned. The moss-covered wolf-men shuddered into life.
BANG!
The wolf statue directly behind Omaru lunged, delivering a palm strike with the weight of a mountain. Omaru reacted just in time, snapping his blade up to block. The impact sent a vibration through his teeth, and he was hurled back, only to look up and see ten spheres of roaring flame screaming toward him from the sky.
….
There is an old Shinto teaching that says "shizen no Kami no Yadoru", which roughly means everything is god or god is in everything. It's believed that everything, from the smallest pebble to the oldest tree, possesses a soul and can be god. Wabonoske's art seems to possess the ability to forcibly awaken the spirit consciousness of inanimate objects, making them his servants.
"Tch... this won't do!" Omaru realised.
He dropped his sword to the dirt and dug his heels into the earth. His hands began to move in a fluid, circular motion, stirring the stagnant air into a localised gale.
"Mabita!"
Omaru slammed his palms together in a prayer position. As his hands shot forward, a wave of pressurised wind erupted, meeting the rain of fire head-on. The flames were snuffed out instantly, but as the smoke cleared, the truth was revealed.
The fire was just a shell. Inside each fireball was a massive stone boulder, now hurtling toward him with great velocity.
"Shit! I thought it was pure Reiryoku flames. What is his affinity then?!!"
Omaru prepared to leap clear, but as he tensed his muscles, the ground beneath him buckled. The earth turned wobbly and fluid like water. He lost his footing, his centre of gravity vanishing as he tumbled toward the dirt.
BOOM!
The boulders slammed into the earth, the shockwave tossing Omaru's prone body like a ragdoll.
A massive wall of dust exploded on impact, turning the air into a gritty, grey shroud.
As the haze began to settle, Omaru saw them. The three resurrected, looming their stone limbs creaking as they flanked Wabonoske's.
"Shishishishishishi..." Wabonoske's chuckle was a ragged, wet sound.
"What do you think? Pretty nice, right?! See how much power I have now? You can't laugh at me... You can't laugh anymore!" his speech was rabid, his eyes bleeding into a frantic crimson. His tongue lolled from his mouth, slick with black ichor.
"Mhh?! What the hell is he talking about?" Omaru thought, his ribs aching from the shockwave. "Who laughed at him? He is making no sense."
"Shishishishishi! Let me show you the power that He gave me!"
The demon locked his fingers together in a complex, overlapping mudra.
"Four-Star Poles Array... OPEN!"