"Once Ayami is dead... the ritual can finally begin," the master murmured, casually settling back onto his golden chair. He reached for a stark white silk cloth resting on the small table beside him, and slowly but deliberately wiped the black miasma and blood from his pale hands.
Lying motionless on the floorboards next to him was Ayaka. Her blue eyes were wide, frozen in a glassy stare of absolute despair, her chest and abdomen torn completely open to expose her insides.
On her side was a small, makeshift shrine that had been made. It consisted of a simple wooden frame housing, a copper basin filled with clear water, accompanied by three smouldering incense sticks and a single floral arrangement tightly bound by hemp string.
Elsewhere across the dim room stood three other distinct shrines. Each possessed a different focal offering: one held a jagged, weathered stone; another displayed a meticulously pruned miniature bonsai tree. Yet, what united them all was a single, heavy tallow candle resting at their centres.
Three out of the four candles were already burning with an eerie, flickering flame.
…
Thirty minutes earlier.
…
"Mmmm... I cannot sense a single person living within this place. They all appear to be nothing more than cold corpses," Yorimitsu muttered, fluidly weaving and ducking beneath the rows of macabre, suspended bodies hanging from the ceiling beams. "What do you make of this, Inoue?"
"Ha! Can you hear th—"
"Ahhhhhh, hmmmmmmpt.."
"…." Their eyes shot up.
"Please... I beg of you... kill me... please."
Yorimitsu froze, his ears catching the faint, ragged whisper of a woman's desperate cry. Stepping cautiously through the gloom, he approached one of the suspended forms. To his horror, the woman's eyes were still open, her glazed pupils trembling with residual life. Fresh, dark blood dripped rhythmically from her bare toes, splashing into a massive wooden ceremonial drum beneath the rows of hanging humans.
"Ha?! Someone is still breathing here?" Yorimitsu moved, his sandals stepping carefully past the hanging rows.
Following the sound of the faint whimper, he discovered a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties. She possessed what might have once been vibrant blond hair, though it had now darkened into a matted brown, encrusted with thick grime and debris. Her face was so thoroughly caked in dry earth and filth that she resembled a creature dragged from the depths of a burrow.
When Yorimitsu reached her suspended self, he hesitated for a brief moment. His sharp gaze locked onto the iron chains binding her skin to the overhead beams; the dark metal was meticulously engraved with an intricate script.
He wrapped his calloused hand around the cold links, and the moment his fingers made contact, a strange, warm sensation surged up his arm, and he felt a sudden influx of vitality flowing into his own body.
"What... what is this sorcery?" Yorimitsu muttered. His eyes were drifting downward, locking onto the massive wooden vats positioned beneath the bodies, sluggishly collecting the rhythmic dripping of blood.
Then, the truth clicked in his mind.
"Ahhh, I see these inscriptions... they are using them as healing," he whispered. "The chains are regenerating their vitality so they cannot die from the blood loss. How utterly horrid... the unimaginable pain she must be enduring. How has her spirit managed to survive this long?"
Yorimitsu gripped the iron links and pulled downward, snapping the ceiling anchor. The woman dropped instantly toward the stone floor.
"Ahhhhhh!" she shrieked in agonising torment as the rusted hooks tore and pulled brutally against her skin during the descent.
But just moments before her fragile body could impact the ground, the dark blood pooling inside the wooden drum began to churn violently. The liquid rose upward in thick, tendril-like waves, lunging through the air as if a sentient beast were trying to aggressively reclaim its escaping feed.
"Inoue!" Yorimitsu roared.
Responding instantly to the command, Inoue leapt high into the moonlit air. His talons cleanly sliced through the remaining chains.
Yorimitsu let go of the iron links on his side and lunged upward. Mid-air, he securely caught the woman's hooked, frail body, absorbing the momentum as he vaulted across the churning wooden drum. The moment his sandals hit the other side, the malicious fluid stopped bubbling, settling back into a stagnant, heavy silence.
"What was that just now?" Yorimitsu muttered under his breath, casting a grim look backwards.
He gently laid the trembling woman down upon the cold ground. She curled into a tight, desperate ball, her weeping and whimpering echoing through the dim rafters.
"Please... just kill me... the pain... the pain is unbearable," her voice cracked.
"Tch." Yorimitsu gritted his teeth.
He unhooked the iron barbs that were stretching and tearing at the skin of her shoulders, flinging the bloodied metal to the side. The wounds instantly began to seep. Yorimitsu pulled the remaining links close and wrapped them securely around her lacerations. Her wounds began to stitch back together, and the bleeding skin shut.
Stripping off his outer Kimono vest, he wrapped the fine silk over the unclothed, shivering woman to preserve her dignity, before hoisting her carefully into his arms, and turned to leave.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The instant he stepped across the threshold and out into the open air of the courtyard, a massive, suffocating pressure of Reiryoku washed over him.
"Ha! A Kekkai has been deployed?!" he murmured, his sharp eyes instantly darting toward the distant inner pavilions where the sky was fracturing. He carefully placed the woman back down on a dry mat. "Inoue! Guard her."
Without waiting for a response, Yorimitsu launched himself high into the air, his silhouette cutting across the silver moonlight as he rushed directly toward the epicentre of the spiritual disturbance.
"No! Wait—Minamoto!" Inoue called out, but it was entirely useless; Yorimitsu was already a soaring blur across the rooftops.
Inoue let out a frustrated sigh, but just as he turned back to the wounded woman, heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed from around the corner of the structure.
It was Tsushimamaru.
The giant man was completely laden with survivors, moving with an incredible, but sluggish pace. A heavily pregnant woman was securely balanced over his left shoulder, a young boy clung desperately to the fabric of his back, and a frail, older woman was cradled securely against his opposite side.
"Ha?! A cat? What is a stray cat doing in a wretched place like this?" Tsushimamaru muttered, his heavy brows furrowing as he approached the small bundle wrapped in the fine silk fabric. "Mmmm... wait. That is the Young man's kimono?!. Why would he cast it aside here?"
As he drew closer, Inoue slowly pushed himself up and stood on the side. It was only then that Tsushimamaru noticed the draped silk rising and falling in a slow, erratic rhythm, the distinct, shallow breath of a living soul.
"Ha?!!! There is a person hidden beneath that cloth?"
Tsushimamaru approached with uncharacteristic caution. Shifting his massive weight, he spoke gently to the survivors clinging to his torso. "Please... brace yourselves securely against my shoulders for a moment." The pregnant woman and the woman shifted their grips, locking their arms tightly around his neck to keep their balance.
With trembling, calloused fingers, Tsushimamaru reached down and carefully pulled back the edge of the silk vest.
The very instant the fabric cleared the young woman's dirt-caked face, Tsushimamaru's legs completely gave out. The towering giant crashed heavily onto his knees, causing the two women balanced upon his broad shoulders to wobble and sway madly in mid-air.
"It... it cannot be..."
Thick tears immediately welled in his eyes, spilling over his scarred cheeks as his hands began to shake uncontrollably. He reached out toward her matted, dirt-encrusted hair, his voice cracking with a decade of suppressed grief.
"I thought... I truly believed I was never going to see your face again... Orihime!"