Chapter 6: Branches
"Fruits cultivated with human bodies as nourishment..."
Gin Tsumugi's eyes rested not on the three fresh corpses alone, but on the blood red fruits hanging from the bronze saplings rooted inside them.
"So that's the special property of this Weird Wood Spirit."
What interested him more than the fruits that were still ripening was something else entirely.
The mummified corpses scattered around the basement clearly had produced similar fruits before. But those older bodies had already been drained and discarded like refuse, which raised the real question.
Where had those fruits gone?
Had someone harvested them?
Or had they already been taken away by the master of this Weird Wood Spirit, the ancient yokai Gin had suspected from the start?
A yokai that had lived for centuries was obviously not present here. If such an existence had truly remained on site, he and Fuko would never have entered this place so smoothly.
That left him with only a few possibilities.
"Was it abandoned..." Gin murmured. "Or is this just one of its cultivation sites?"
As he studied the basement, several lines of thought unfolded in his mind.
"If it had really been abandoned, then leaving behind something this valuable would make no sense. Even for powerful yokai, raising a Weird Wood Spirit is no simple matter. A specimen capable of producing special fruit would be even more precious."
He slowly swept his gaze over the web of bronze vines covering the basement.
"But if this is only one of several fruit cultivation sites, then everything becomes much easier to explain."
His voice remained calm, but his expression had turned more serious.
"Both ordinary Kikimora and modified Weird Wood Spirits are still plant based beings at heart. They naturally possess the instinct to branch. To divide. To spread."
Gin's eyes narrowed.
"The one in front of us is most likely just a branch. Compared to the Weird Wood Spirits in the memories I inherited, this thing is noticeably weaker by more than one level."
Behind him, Kurazaki Fuko had no room left to care about theories.
She kept glancing nervously around the basement, her face pale from the cold, the fear, and the sight of the dead.
Then she abruptly turned to him.
"Mr. Gin, where's Sora?" Her voice trembled in spite of herself. "Where's my cousin?"
The death of her aunt's family had hit her like a hammer to the chest, but she had not forgotten why she came here.
Kasugano Sora.
The only one who might still be alive.
Gin lifted a hand and pointed toward one side of the basement.
"There."
Fuko followed his direction and stiffened.
Wrapped tightly in a mass of bronze vines and hanging against the wall was a figure shaped unmistakably like a person. The body was slender and delicate, the outline small enough to match the image of the girl she knew.
"Sora!"
The moment she found her, a little of the crushing weight in Fuko's chest eased.
She had been terrified that Sora, the last possible survivor of her aunt's family, had already met the same end. Now, seeing that she was at least still there, even if only bound and unconscious, Fuko could not stop the wave of gratitude that rose inside her.
Her eyes flicked to Gin.
They had only just met, but being beside him gave her a sense of security so complete it almost felt unnatural. As though no matter how monstrous the darkness ahead became, this young onmyoji would still be able to force a way through it.
Gin, however, was not relieved.
His brows had drawn together faintly.
Sora's condition was bad.
Very bad.
She had not yet been rooted through and turned into a nutrient source like the others, which meant the Weird Wood Spirit was still using her as bait rather than a seedbed. But even so, her aura had weakened to a frightening degree. It was thin, unstable, and fraying at the edges like a candle flame on the verge of going out.
There was no doubt she had been imprisoned here for quite some time.
As for the false information she had posted earlier on the Non Scientific Supernatural Forum, Gin now understood it completely.
It was not simple lying.
It was confusion, distortion, and manipulation, all tangled together under prolonged terror.
He stepped forward.
With a flick of his fingers, several talismans flew out and neatly removed the three blood red fruits from the saplings growing inside Sora's family. Each fruit was immediately sealed away before any residue from them could spread.
Only then did Gin turn his attention fully toward the vine cocoon holding Sora.
He was just about to rescue the little bounty poster when the entire basement changed.
The silence broke.
No, not broke.
It woke up.
The Weird Wood Spirit, which had seemed little more than a passive nest until now, suddenly came alive. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that its shallow, fragmentary consciousness had finally concluded that the prey had entered deeply enough into the trap.
Which meant it was time to feed.
Hiss. Hiss. Hiss.
All at once, the bronze vines wrapped across the walls began to writhe like living flesh.
The entire basement shook.
Cracks spread through the walls. Dust and rubble rained down from above. The vines peeled themselves away from every surface and rose into the air, transforming into long bronze whips that layered over one another until they resembled a net cast from the heavens.
Then they came crashing down.
They swept toward Gin and Fuko in a tidal wave, countless overlapping shadows surging to drown and crush them where they stood.
Fuko's body moved on instinct.
She curled in behind Gin, heart hammering in her throat.
Gin did not move back a single step.
He looked at the onrushing vine mass with utter calm, as though he were looking not at a murderous monstrosity but at something fundamentally pitiful.
"A thing with only the thinnest scrap of consciousness," he said coldly. "Even its instinctive fear is fragmented."
Spiritual power erupted from him.
His voice snapped through the basement like a command from a higher law.
"Spirit Word: Protect."
"Spirit Word: Bind."
A transparent barrier unfolded in an instant.
The descending vine storm slammed against it and stopped dead. So did the falling rubble. It was as if an invisible wall had severed their momentum from reality itself.
The second Spirit Word followed immediately after.
The attacking vines froze in midair.
Every whipping tendril, every descending coil, every piercing spear of bronze plant matter halted at once, suspended and locked down by unseen force.
Gin did not waste the opening.
He raised one hand, drawing out another talisman between two fingers, and his voice took on a solemn, resonant cadence.
"To the enemy that repays grace with betrayal, strike it down with cage bow and feathered arrow, swiftly as commanded."
"Magic Bullet Spirit Talisman."
The chunks of rubble that had fallen throughout the basement suddenly lit up with a pale blue glow.
Runes spread across their surfaces.
Each broken fragment transformed at once, becoming a magic bullet packed with spiritual force, each one carrying destructive power comparable to a modern thermal weapon.
Then Gin waved his hand.
The entire storm of bullets roared outward.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The basement exploded with sound.
The bronze vines, so menacing a moment ago, became like a frail boat caught in a typhoon. The magic bullets tore through them from all directions, shredding them apart with overwhelming force. Whole sections of the vine mass burst into fragments before they could even twitch in response.
In less than a few breaths, the attack was over.
The floor was littered with shattered bronze pieces, chopped and blasted into ruin.
It looked like indiscriminate destruction.
But to anyone with sharp enough eyes, the truth was obvious.
Every single magic bullet had struck with surgical precision.
Each one found the weakest point in the vines. Each one cut only what needed to be cut. And throughout the entire barrage, not one shot harmed the bound Sora hanging against the wall.