"Wh-What did you do to me you bastard!"
Tatsuo spat, or at least tried to. His tongue felt like it had grown a few sizes too big and rubbed against the roof of his mouth with the same consistency of sand paper. Instead, saliva just dripped weakly down to the grass below.
"Simple." That smug bastard looked so high and mighty, with an idiotic face that looked way too punch-able right about now. Those otherworldly blue eyes pulsating with energy, pure and churning. "I shot a strand of Divine Pressure into your Liver, temporarily stimulating and it's currently working at purging the long term affects of your alcohol abuse along with other things. You should be feeling a lot better right about...now."
"What the he-" Just as prophesied, his mind ceased it's endless tumble. His stomach could only cough up air and acid, and his body no longer felt as if it was being slow roasted over an open fire. But most importantly of them all, that piercing headache that had completely incapacitated him. Enough for him to open his tightly shut lids and nearly threw him right back into vomiting mess. This time, from disgust. Curiosity was an awful thing sometimes."WHAT THE FUCK!"
Tumbling further away, he tried to increase the distance between him and the puddle of...wrongness. Thick and slimy, it looked almost solid and somehow even the grass around it turned a dead yellow. As if it could sense his horrified gaze, it even began to bubble. As though in greeting.
There was no way 'that' came out of him. No way in any version of hell.
"You should be thanking me." Iori waved him hand and an innumerable number of verdant green strands slammed into the spot of wrongness. It tried to fight, did it ever but a single loose stone was no match for a rushing river. And with a demonic scream, it sizzled out of existence. The threads, now done, gently soaked into the deadened grass. Eating away at the expired foliage and restarting the cycle. Aew, greener and stronger grass patch grew from the death. Standing taller and more lifelike than it's brethren. "It seems you've also unlocked your ancestor's eyes as well. Good."
"W-what-" His mouth felt dry, throat refusing to swallow at the impossible sight before him. Like an anime, one with animators whipped with both by monetary gain and passion. With that in mind, everything had that bright and colorful look about it. From the newly grown grass, the towering trees above. They all oozed this verdant green fog, flowing off their surface and high into the sky to disappear among the clouds. Slight movement snapped his attention and off on one side, he witnessed what looked to be innumerable ants march in unison to a small hill just of his reach. Like a lens focusing, a small outline connected each of the small insects with one another. From their antennas, both receiving and expelling a thick ooze, all of which started and ended at the entrance of the ant hill, where their queen must dwell. "What did you do to me?! Did you inject me with some drugs?!"
Even though he's never touched the stuff, they're had been plenty of his 'friends' that had gone through a really rough party phase where they tried almost everything under the sun. Plus, he did distinctly remember some rather shady guys stalking his old high school all those years ago and how they tried to get him to peddle their wares...along with the possibility of earning a little money on the side if he could get some of his female classmates hooked on the stuff. Obviously, he just sat back as some of his larger 'friends' knocked their teeth out.
Life wasn't a doujin and stuff like that actually ruined lives, plus with how small this town was, they all grew up together. Who in their right mind would want to put someone they knew since childhood into a life of sex work? They might've been delinquents, but that didn't mean they were monsters!
What Tatsuo was seeing was almost exactly what he imagined those drugs would do to a mind and if this was some long plotted revenge…
"Your ancestor, Takemoto Fuji, had a very particular ailment when we first paths." Iori leaned back and with a burst of that same energy, nearby trees bent unnaturally to form into a makeshift chair to support the deceptively frail figure. "For some reason, despite being but a simple farmer's child, he was blessed or cursed with a form of blindness but could still perceive the world. What you're seeing around is the life energy, called Ki. It comes in manner forms and your ancestor could only see the world in terms of this energy. Due to how thin your bloodline is, I do not suspect you can see anything but faded outlines but you have the use of your eyes, so a plus over your ancestor. But that's the only advantage. With his sight, he could see the flows of Ki and differentiate minute details from each other...even touching upon energy that no other Practitioner ever could."
"I-If all that is true," The man struggled from his knees, wobbling in place as eye strained with all his might to focus on the mysterious old man. "Then why can't I see yours?!"
It was true, despite him physically being there in all ways that mattered, from sight, sound, smell and touch, his 'signature', that he called it, wasn't coming into view. He could even see his own fog, looking wispy and barely substantial when in comparison to the thick smog that threatened to overtake the sky. Like someone had painted a canvas green with a massive brush and he only added a mere speck of watery yellow. Something that could be entirely overlooked.
But for some reason, the man just didn't exist.
Was he some sort of evil spirit? Could the dead possess this 'Ki'? If not, then all that would more than explain so many things. The old man's apparent age, otherworldly strength and the means to bend trees to his will. It all started to sound like a yokai, a very old one from legends.
"Despite awakening your bloodline," Iori looked so serene there, like a moral reading themselves to transcend this earthly coil and ascend this reality. An inky river flowed around them, dancing and frolicking in an unknown breeze at the very edges of his perception. Trying to focus in on it only caused them to fade away from the world like it had all been just one dream. "You're still very much mortal. From your veins, to your muscle, bone, skin, hair and organs. Your body decays and rots, and will forever do so until it all catches up with you in death. Poisoned by the insidious concoction known as time. You trying to gaze upon me is like trying to stare up at the sun. You can do it, but it'll cause permanent damage to not just your physical eyes but your infant bloodline as well. It would be a shame for the famed, and coveted Tsuki Tsumami No Me (Moon Plucked Eyes), said to have been ripped right out of the moon Kami himself, Tsukuyomi."