The old priest's sutra-sword gleamed with divine light, every strike carrying the weight of centuries of training, while the lantern girl's pale flame bent and twisted, suppressing every ounce of Ranmaru's strength. His chest bled, his knees ached, and the stump of his arm throbbed with each movement, held together only by the spectral stitching of the onryō's hair.
"Hold still, Hayate no Kuro," the priest growled, his eyes burning with zealotry. "I'll end this filthy game you've started, and the souls you and your father tormented will rest in peace."
The lantern girl lifted her glowing orb, bathing him in its pale blue light. His Qi, his yokai energy, even his yang itself—sealed, crushed, smothered. He staggered back, forced to parry with nothing but sheer grit and swordsmanship.
Then the onryō moved.
Her shadow unfurled like a tide, miasma writhing. She darted past the priest, her gaze locking on the lantern girl. "Child's trick," she hissed, her voice a chorus of whispers. Her hair, longer than rivers, lashed out, weaving like a nest of serpents.
The lantern girl tried to retreat, raising her orb high. But the onryō's strands pierced her from every angle, binding her limbs, wrapping her throat, and pulling her close until their faces nearly touched.
A scream echoed—not fear, but despair—as the onryō opened her mouth and devoured the girl's light. The lantern flickered, then dissolved into a burst of flame that she drank greedily, her body swelling with stolen power.
The gorge seethed with two battles at once.
The lantern girl shrieked, her pale face twisting in rage as the onryō's hair constricted her body. Her lantern flared—not steady now, but a blinding storm of azure light. The ground split open at her feet, and from the rift clawed hands pushed upward—half-rotted corpses dragging themselves into the open. Their sockets burned with blue fire as they surged toward the onryō, grasping, clawing, hissing in chorus.
The onryō only laughed, though her miasma shuddered under the strain of the expanding light. "More bones? More regrets? Child, I've eaten deeper sorrows than yours." Her strands lashed, wrapping corpses, snapping spines like brittle twigs. Yet for every one she tore apart, three more rose, the lantern's glow birthing an endless tide.
Meanwhile, the priest pressed Ranmaru mercilessly. His sutra-sword burned with ancient divinity, each swing hammering against Ranmaru's katana until sparks danced like fireflies.
"You cannot run from judgment, Hayate no Kuro!" the old man roared, each word striking like thunder. "That light binds you—your corruption cannot escape it!"
Ranmaru's lungs screamed with every breath. His chest wound burned, his knees buckled, and the stitches holding his arm tugged painfully with each parry. The blue radiance gnawed at his marrow, suppressing the strength that begged to rise. Yet survival carved his path sharper than pain. He twisted aside from another devastating swing and bolted toward the treeline.
"Coward!" the priest bellowed, pounding after him. Sutras flared behind, holy words scattering across the ground, burning lines meant to herd Ranmaru back into the lantern's reach.
But Ranmaru leapt them, boots tearing through undergrowth. Branches whipped his face, roots clawed at his legs, yet with every step away from the cursed blue glow, his body stirred. The blood in his veins boiled hotter, darker. His muscles swelled, vision sharpened, and beneath his ribs the black heart beat louder, stronger.
The priest hurled sutra after sutra, his voice breaking with fury. "Stay in the light! You will not—cannot—leave it!" Holy fire lashed Ranmaru's back, searing flesh, but he kept running, deeper, deeper into the dark woods.
And then the blue light faltered.
Distance smothered its suppression. Chains broke inside him one by one. His Qi roared back like a river uncorked, yokai and yang igniting in his marrow. Flesh stretched, bones groaned, horns pushed through his brow. Skin darkened, sinew thickened—his form blooming into the oni the light had denied him.
He stopped running.
The priest burst into the clearing a heartbeat later, panting, sweat steaming from his skin. His eyes widened. Ranmaru no longer looked like a man. His silhouette towered, shadows swirling, horns gleaming like obsidian. His katana smoked with yokai energy, his glare burned red as coals.
The priest lifted his sutra-sword, shaking but unyielding. "Demon," he spat, though his voice cracked. "I will—"
Ranmaru moved.
The ground ruptured beneath his step. His katana tore through the priest's guard, shattering the sutra-sword's divine light in an eruption of sparks. His other hand, clawed and monstrous, seized the priest's throat and slammed him into the earth, cratering the soil. Bones cracked.
The old man struggled, talismans fluttering, lips trembling with half-formed prayers. Ranmaru snarled, dragging him up only to bring him down again, skull splitting stone. Again. And again. The forest rang with the wet crunch of bone until the priest's words dissolved into gargled blood.
Finally, Ranmaru's blade plunged through his chest, pinning him to the earth. The zealot's eyes rolled back, the divine fire guttering out. His last breath rattled into silence.
The sutra-sword slipped from his hand.
Ranmaru seized it. The steel radiated holy heat, trying to sear him, to reject the yokai filth gripping it. But his hand tightened, black blood forcing the relic to bend. Its glow faltered—no longer divine, but twisted, corrupted, yet still powerful.
He stood in the ruined clearing, horns glistening, katana dripping blood in one hand, the sutra-sword blazing dimly in the other.
The priest was dead. The lantern girl still screamed in the gorge. And Ranmaru had claimed both vengeance—and his enemy's blade.
The gorge was a battlefield of light and shadow.
The lantern woman stood in its center, her pale blue orb burning brighter with each breath. Corpses staggered at her command, movements sharpening, wounds forgotten. Archers climbed the gorge walls, skeletal fingers drawing ghostly arrows of azure fire. Warriors in rotting armor dragged rusted blades, lurching toward the onryō. Each movement echoed the will of the lantern—regret turned to weaponry.
The onryō's laughter rang, low and venomous. "Do you think the dead frighten me, child? I am the dead."
Her hair surged outward, miasma thickening into a writhing tide. Strands split into countless whips, snapping through the mist. One lashed an archer clean off the cliff, bones splintering against rock. Another snapped around a samurai's waist, jerking him apart at the seams.
Yet for every corpse she destroyed, three more rose, the lantern's glow birthing an endless tide. Arrows rained in blue arcs, piercing her miasma, each impact rippling searing light through her body. Warriors pressed in, blades glowing with borrowed strength.
The onryō hissed, shadows wrapping close like a cloak. Her strands impaled three, four, five corpses at once, then swung them like clubs into their brethren. Bones shattered, skulls burst, the gorge echoing with the shrieks of the unmade dead.
But the lantern girl only laughed beneath her Noh mask. "They are infinite. Each regret feeds the flame—yours, mine, the samurai's at your side. All grief becomes my army." She raised her lantern high, corpses glowing brighter, their broken forms straightening, movements unnaturally swift.
The onryō's miasma flared in answer, her grin sharp and merciless. "Then I will turn your army against you."
Her hair writhed, seizing half a dozen corpses at once. Archers and warriors were dragged into the black veil of her tendrils. They clawed and thrashed, the lantern's blue strings glowing at their joints, pulling them back toward their mistress.
The onryō whispered, her voice like a dirge. "You belong to me now."
Her strands coiled tighter, pulsing with dark light. Then suddenly, the black turned blue. The glow spread through her hair, seeping into the undead like veins filling with blood. Their hollow eyes shifted—from lantern blue to deeper sapphire. The strings snapped, reattaching under her command.
The corpses fell silent, then rose again—not to the lantern's call, but hers. They turned, bows creaking, blades lifting, and marched toward their former mistress.
The lantern girl staggered, her mask tilting as if in shock. "No—impossible! My light cannot—"
The onryō's smile widened, her miasma churning into a storm. "Your regrets are mine now, child."
The newly bound undead drew their bows in perfect unison, dozens of blue-lit arrows nocking at once. Their aim fixed—not on the onryō, but on the girl with the lantern.
And for the first time, the pale flame flickered.