Chapter 5: Weird Wood Spirit
Gin Tsumugi took the lead, with Kurazaki Fuko following close behind.
The deeper they went into the villa, the heavier the yin energy became. It seeped into the air like freezing mist, clinging to the skin and sinking straight into the bones. Even Fuko, who had some experience with the supernatural, could not stop herself from rubbing her arms as a chill crawled over her body.
A short while later, Gin stopped in front of the innermost utility room on the first floor.
His gaze dropped to the basement entrance built into the floor.
A massive stone slab had been used to seal it shut, but it did nothing to stop the atmosphere pouring out from below. Dense yin energy was surging up from the cracks without pause, thick and cold, carrying a stench of rot and old blood. From the moment he had observed the villa from outside with his spiritual sight, this was the place where he had sensed all of the evil converging.
So he had not been wrong.
The source was underground.
Gin drew out a talisman and spoke in a low voice.
"Rock Crushing Lion, swift as law and command."
"Boom Wrist Spirit Talisman."
The talisman left his fingers and attached itself to his right arm without a sound. At once, lines of incantation spread across his skin, forming the character for boom in layered spiritual script.
Power gathered.
It brewed and swelled inside his arm like a tightly coiled explosion waiting to be released.
Then Gin drove his fist down into the stone slab.
Boom!
The impact rang through the room like thunder.
The slab shattered apart under his punch, fragments scattering across the floor. In the same instant, the yin energy below erupted upward as if it had finally found an opening. The cold intensified so violently that a thin layer of dark green frost formed over the windows and metal surfaces in the utility room.
"Hah... so cold...!"
Gin barely reacted, but Fuko sucked in a breath. The surge of yin energy had become several times heavier than before, and to someone like her, it was already hard to bear.
Gin took out another talisman.
"Armor Clad Yelo, swift as law and command."
"Vajra Spirit Talisman."
The talisman attached itself to Fuko.
A wave of warmth instantly spread through her body, chasing away the freezing sensation that had wrapped around her limbs. At the same time, a faint golden film covered the surface of her skin, so thin it was nearly invisible, yet undeniably there.
Gin glanced at her.
"There may be dangers below that I won't be able to shield you from in time. This Vajra Spirit Talisman will keep you safe."
With that, he stepped through the broken entrance and descended into the basement.
Fuko hurried after him.
"Thank you!"
The basement passage was pitch black.
It was the kind of darkness that felt thick rather than empty, a darkness that swallowed depth and distance until even the shape of one's own hand vanished. As soon as they entered, Gin snapped his fingers.
The corridor lit up at once.
Cold light spread across the passage, revealing the walls, floor, and ceiling.
Fuko's face changed immediately.
"So this really is where those things came from..."
The entire passage was carpeted with bronze colored vines.
They covered every surface in tangled masses, layered so densely that the corridor seemed more like the inside of some living creature than a manmade structure. Compared to the vines she had faced upstairs, these were even worse. Their bronze sheen remained, but now streaks of blood red energy flowed faintly across their surfaces, as though they were feeding something deeper in the dark.
Fuko stared at them, her brows drawn together.
"What are these things, exactly? Are they Kikimora?"
She had wanted to ask that for a while now.
Kikimora were not unknown to her. They were a kind of wood based yokai born in deep mountains and ancient forests, spirits that developed consciousness after long years rooted in old trees. But those creatures normally kept far away from cities. Compared to polluted urban districts, they preferred untouched wilderness. More importantly, the Kikimora she knew were nothing like this.
These vines were too vicious.
Too bloodthirsty.
Gin swept his gaze across the corridor.
"It wouldn't be wrong to call them Kikimora," he said. "At their core, that's what they are. But these have been altered through artificial processing."
He paused.
"This type is known as a Weird Wood Spirit."
Fuko blinked.
"Weird Wood Spirit?"
It was her first time hearing the term.
Gin spoke calmly as they continued forward.
"Back in the Heian period, there was an old method used to process and modify Kikimora by force, enhancing the abilities they naturally possessed. The thing we're looking at now is exactly that."
The knowledge did not come from guesswork.
It came from Abe no Seimei's inheritance.
A thousand years ago, this sort of technique had been common enough among certain circles. In the present day, however, there were probably very few onmyoji left who had even heard of it, much less recognized it on sight.
Fuko's expression turned uneasy.
"Then... does that mean an onmyoji placed this thing here?"
It was a natural conclusion.
To her, this sounded uncomfortably similar to the way onmyoji modified spirit puppets and artificially manufactured shikigami that lacked true will or life. Anyone hearing the explanation would likely think in the same direction.
Gin shook his head.
"The method may have originated with onmyoji," he said, "but the ones who truly pushed it to its peak were yokai."
His voice grew slightly more serious.
"Certain powerful yokai used demonic energy and fear alongside that old method, nourishing a Kikimora for over a century. That prolonged corruption caused mutations and gave rise to abilities ordinary Kikimora could never develop."
He looked at one of the vines winding across the wall beside them.
"For example, these bronze vines. Their hardness is comparable to actual bronze. That's not something a normal Kikimora can produce."
Then he added, quietly but firmly, "From this point on, we need to be even more careful. Anything capable of keeping a modified Cursed Wood Spirit like this is not something easy to deal with."
Fuko swallowed and nodded.
"I understand."
She understood his meaning very clearly.
A yokai that could cultivate and control a monstrosity like this had to be powerful, ancient, and dangerous on a completely different level from the evil spirits and vengeful ghosts she was familiar with. At the very least, it had survived for several hundred years.
That alone was enough to make one's scalp tingle.
The next moment, they stepped into the main basement.
It was a space of over a hundred square meters.
Fuko had prepared herself.
Even so, the scene before her hit like a blow to the chest, and a cold current shot all the way up her spine.
The entire basement had been consumed by bronze vines.
They stretched everywhere in a dense web, wrapped around the walls, hanging from above, rooted in the floor, layered upon layer until the room looked like a giant nest. But the vines were not the most horrifying part.
That honor belonged to the corpses.
There were nearly twenty of them.
Their bodies had been dried out until they resembled mummies weathered by centuries of time, their skin clinging tightly to bone. Every single face was twisted in unbearable agony. Even after death, the expressions they wore suggested desperate struggle, the kind born of prolonged torment rather than a quick end.
It was the sort of sight that made cold sweat break out instinctively.
And then something even worse happened.
The hollow eye sockets of the mummified corpses turned toward them in unison.
Fuko's breath caught.
For one awful moment, it truly felt as if all of them would lunge forward at the same time.
She stumbled back several steps, face pale.
Above the mummified corpses were withered bronze saplings, each one growing directly out of the bodies themselves. From their form, it was obvious enough that they had sprouted from the same vine network surrounding the basement.
As for what those saplings were for—
The answer stood on the far left side of the room.
Three bodies there were much fresher than the rest, not yet fully dried by time. Bronze saplings had rooted themselves into those corpses as well, greedily drawing out everything they could. Along the branches, blood red fruits the size of apples had begun to swell, nearly ripe.
Fuko's eyes widened.
She knew those faces.
Even distorted by death, she still knew them.
Her aunt.
Her uncle.
And Sora's brother.
The missing family of three.