The blue light flared brighter, its brilliance swallowing the gorge until it was as if the night itself had been undone. Ranmaru felt it pierce through him—through muscle, through marrow, down into his dantian.
And then, like shackles snapping shut, it sealed.
His yokai energy quieted. His yang Qi guttered out. Even his techniques—his lightning, his yin-born fury—were gone. His body was left naked in spirit, human once more, a swordsman stripped of every weapon save the steel in his hands.
The priest's grin widened, teeth flashing in the lantern glow. "There. Only a man. Nothing more." He hefted the blazing sword that had burst from the shrine, its edge dripping sparks that hissed on the stone. "Now kneel, sinner."
The blade came down in a savage arc.
Ranmaru twisted aside, gravel exploding under his boots, his katana intercepting the swing with a ringing crack. The force numbed his arms to the elbow, but he turned the deflection into a roll, sliding under the priest's reach and slashing upward. Sparks burst where steel kissed steel, his keen edge clashing against the unearthly flame-forged weapon.
The old man laughed, rasping. "Good! Squirm as you die!"
Again and again the sword fell, each strike shaking the earth, cleaving through stone and leaving molten scars in the dirt. Ranmaru moved like a shadow between the blows, his blade weaving arcs of desperate precision.
But the priest pressed harder, and harder still. His blade was not only weight and flame—it carried the power of regret, a crushing burden that each parry seemed to drag deeper into Ranmaru's bones.
The strike came swift, almost unseen.
Pain flared white. His arm spun away into the dirt, katana tumbling from numb fingers.
He staggered back, breath ragged, blood pouring from the stump. The priest did not relent. A lunge—steel biting into his chest, sliding deep, tearing Qi channels that no longer answered him. The world swam, hot and red, his vision pulsing.
Another cut, low, brutal—severing both knees in one savage sweep. His body buckled, forced down onto the gravel. Dust rose with the fall.
The priest's shadow loomed above him, sword raised high, burning brighter than the lantern itself. "Kneel before your sins, and be judged!"
The woman's lantern pulsed, blue fire searing Ranmaru's soul, filling him with every memory of failure, every regret he had denied. The corpses moaned in the mist. Even the earth seemed to join their chorus.
Blood filled his mouth. His head bowed. His hand, trembling, still tried to reach for a weapon that was no longer there.
And in that moment, with the fire of death above him, Ranmaru's lips moved.
"…Onryō."
The mole at his brow seared hot, igniting with unnatural light.
The miasma split the air. Shadows screamed.
And she came.
The Onryō's form tore free of his body like a specter ripped from hell. Draped in pitch-dark miasma, hair trailing like rivers of night, she stepped into the clearing with a smile that froze even the corpses in their moans. Her presence bent the gorge, a chill suffocating everything alive.
Her voice was silk and venom. "I would not have thought you… this resourceful."
The blue lantern faltered, its light dimming as if cowed by her shadow.
Miasma wrapped around Ranmaru's broken body, caressing wounds that poured like rivers. Her hair writhed forward like living tendrils, stitching back his severed arm, coiling around his chest to knit torn flesh, even binding his ruined knees into strength once more.
The priest's blade struck—she turned her head lazily, and a curtain of black hair caught the fire-sword, strands thickening into iron cords that did not break. Sparks hissed and died in the miasma.
Her gaze lifted to the priest, her smile widening.
"What a strange technique you've taught me," she whispered, her voice spreading like fog. "And to have fed me such a nasty curse as my first application… how sweet of you."
The priest faltered—for the first time.
The Onryō's miasma boiled, her form swelling with power, her shadow stretching into the shrine ruins. She was no longer the spirit that once lingered at his side—this was something higher, darker. A true high Onryō, born of his sacrifice.
The woman with the lantern hissed, her blue flame flaring in defiance. The corpses buried underground, jerked upright, strings of regret reattaching as she screamed, "Then it is two against two!"
Ranmaru's reforged hand clenched around his katana's hilt as he rose. His eyes were twin embers in the dark.
The gorge trembled as the battle began anew—Onryō against Lantern, Ranmaru against the priest.
The priest's blazing sword crashed down in a storm of sparks, and Ranmaru's katana shrieked against it, steel bending but not breaking. His arms trembled under the unnatural weight, the old man's strength drawn from years of devouring regrets.
The priest's grin split his face. "How long can a cripple stand on borrowed bones?" He shoved forward, fiery blade inches from Ranmaru's skull.
Ranmaru snarled, twisting his shoulders, letting the strike slide past. He stepped in close, steel flashing in a desperate cut for the priest's ribs. But the monk's broken prayer beads clinked, glowing red—and the flame-sword spun in a backhand slash.
The two blades met. Sparks blinded the dark.
Behind them, the gorge was chaos.
The Onryō and the lantern-woman circled one another, shadows against blue fire. The woman lifted her lantern high, and its flame burst into a web of azure threads. The corpses screamed as they were yanked upright, their broken spines jerking like puppets. A wave of them surged, hollow eyes blazing with regret, hands clawing for the Onryō.
She did not move.
Her hair writhed forward like a thousand serpents, each strand thicker than rope. It lashed out, spearing through skulls, binding torsos, ripping corpses apart in wet explosions. Miasma poured from her like a tide, swallowing screams.
The lantern's blue fire flared hotter, trying to burn back her shadow.
"Your regrets will chain you!" the masked woman cried, her voice echoing with dozens of stolen throats. "You cannot escape them!"
The Onryō's laughter was low, resonant, vibrating through the mist. "I am regret."
Her miasma surged. Two corpses impaled on strands of her hair twisted in the air, bones shattering, before she flung them back into the horde like weapons.
The clash of shadows and flame split the gorge like night and dawn colliding.
Ranmaru, chest heaving, pressed forward in his own duel. His katana darted like a snake, slashing for arteries, tendons, the soft underbelly of the priest's guard. Yet the fire-sword was tireless, cleaving his strikes aside with brutal power.
A sudden feint—Ranmaru ducked under a vertical slash, his blade cutting for the priest's knee. Steel bit flesh, sparks flew, and the old man hissed—but instead of faltering, he laughed.
"You bleed me? Good." His grin stretched impossibly wide. "Yet another regret to your conscience, boy!"
The sword roared downward.
Ranmaru raised his katana in both hands, bracing the edge. The impact split stone beneath him, the shock rattling his bones until his arms screamed. Blood spilled down his wrists.
He forced himself forward anyway, snarling into the old man's face.
Steel ground on steel, sparks bouncing between their locked eyes.
"You call this judgment?" Ranmaru spat blood. "I've walked with death my whole life. What regret could you show me that I haven't already buried?"
The priest's grin faltered—just slightly.
The lantern-woman screamed as the Onryō's hair coiled around her mask, cracking it. Blue flame burst wildly, struggling to contain the spreading miasma.
The gorge thundered with two battles, each a storm of light and shadow.
The priest roared, flame surging along his sword, weight pressing down. "Then kneel, and I'll bury you with them!"
Ranmaru's knees buckled under the force, gravel shattering. His katana shrieked in protest. His breath came ragged, chest pierced, bones splintered.
But still—his eyes burned.
The Onryō's voice cut through the chaos, silk and venom:
"Rise, my vessel. Fight."
Her hair coiled around his waist, miasma pouring into his wounds, stitching flesh where it should not have healed.
Ranmaru growled, strength searing through his veins once more. He shoved upward, forcing the priest back a step, sparks cascading as their blades tore apart.
The battle was far from finished.
The gorge quaked, a crucible of shadow, flame, steel, and regret—two against two, locked in a storm that promised only blood.