The thunderous rumble of hooves shook the earth like an awakening beast.
The air split with their war cries—raw, primal yells that shook the stars themselves. Overhead, sheets of moonlight broke through ragged clouds, illuminating the riders in sudden, ghostly flashes as they hurtled toward the inferno below.
From the cliff's lip came the first glimpses of the enemy: flickering arcs of magic—brilliant spheres of emerald and sapphire flame—launched in tight volleys by the Tsurara mages.
The glowing projectiles cut through the night sky like meteors, trailing smoky tails of cursed energy before slamming into Komoda shields and armor in deafening detonations.
Sparks rained upward, washing the hillside in greenish firelight.
"Deflect now!" bellowed Lord Yoshitake from his mount, voice carrying above the chaos. His great black-and-silver banner whipped behind him. "Those who can deflect their cursed techniques— do so now!"
Beside him, Satoshi Sekai raised his sword in a precise arc, sending a crescent of shimmering white steel spinning into the air. It met a magic bolt head-on, shattering the projectile into a shower of sparks. "Sekai Clan, to your left flank—make way!" he roared. "Hold your lines and push through!"
Lord Yusuke Rokkau, astride a massive destrier, gestured sharply to his kin. "Rokkau, form wedge! Pierce their rear guard!" His words were clipped, taut with urgency. "And show NO mercy!"
Among them galloped Reinhardt Aratake, nineteen years old and already tempered by two brutal campaigns. The white katana at his hip flashed in the moonlight. As a volley of teal-blue orbs streaked past, Reinhardt dipped low in the saddle, tearing his sleeve across his forehead to clear the hot sting of a comrade's blood.
He reined his horse along the flank, weaving between comrades and fallen bodies alike, eyes blazing with focus.
He wiped it off with a grunt, eyes burning. "Shit."
This wasn't his first war. But it was by far the biggest.
A sapphire bolt slammed into a shield just inches from Reinhardt's head. He ducked, leather jerkin sizzling, and cursed under his breath. Warm blood spattered across his cheek—the gore of a comrade caught in the blast. He swiped a sleeve at his face. Not my first war…but it may be the worst. The thought raced through his mind as he spurred his mount forward, hooves sliding on gritty soil stained red.
To his right, the Rokkau Clan peeled off in a wide arc, slipping around the enemy's flank in practiced silence. Arrows whistled past Reinhardt's ear.
More explosions. More bodies. More screams.
Khagan Kilux stood upon the deck of his flagship, lips curled in a grim smile. The silver plates of his armor reflected each incoming burst of flame and ice. He swept an arm toward his lords of Tsurara. "Hold your lines," he ordered in a deep, resonant voice. "When they break, sweep them into the sea."
High above the din, Tetsujin Yoshitake sat like a hawk atop his horse. The moon caught the edge of his crescent blade, Mikadzuki, carved in a perfect arc. With a roar, he leapt from his mount, blade flashing like a shooting star, slicing apart half a dozen incoming bolts before they could strike the horse lines.
Each swing sent crescent-shaped slashes tearing through the air, each arc of steel dissolving another fiery mage's missile in midflight.
Landing amidst the stunned mages, Tetsujin activated Fubatsu—his clan's fearsome eye technique. His vision fractured time itself; reflexes so honed that blades slowed to molasses.
In the space of a heartbeat, he cleaved through a group of black-clad sorcerers, their clan symbols burning off their robes as he passed. Then he vaulted into the enemy's heart, leaving broken bodies and shattered staves in his wake.
Reinhardt pressed on, racing downhill until his horse reeled, nostrils flaring.
Then, ahead of him—
"REINHARDT!"
He barely had time to react. A shriek filled the air as a cursed projectile flew toward him. His horse reared—and its head exploded. The beast collapsed in a heap, sending Reinhardt spiraling down the hill, tumbling through grass, dirt, and smoke.
His world spun. He coughed, blinded, battered, until a hand grabbed the collar of his red-plated armor and yanked him up.
For moments he lay face-down in ash and gore, vision swaying. A gloved hand yanked at the back of his red-plated haori, lifting him until his knees buckled.
Reinhardt twisted, hand ready to draw.
"Relax, it's me!"
That voice. Ryuzo Senti.
"Reinhardt—are you all right?" Ryuzo's voice was strained but urgent.
Reinhardt coughed, blinking through the smoke at his now decapitated horse. "I… I'm good…sorry Kysouke." he rasped, though his lungs burned.
He glanced back: bodies strewn like broken dolls, crimson smoke curling above the hillside.
Relief flooded Reinhardt's body. "Damn… Ryuzo, I thought you were going to kill me…"
Ryuzo Senti's hand was firm, hauling him upright. Ryuzo's twin ninjatō—Kiba and Kurai—gleamed at his waist. His face was streaked with ash and blood, chest heaving. "Hah! You looked like a sack of grain rolling down that hill."
Reinhardt wiped blood from his brow. "Yeah, sure. Thanks for the save."
Ryuzo frowned toward the charging Tsurara horde. "Don't thank me yet. They're cutting through the center."
Reinhardt spat mud. "What's the situation?"
Ryuzo hefted himself into the saddle of a nearby warhorse. He tossed a reins to Reinhardt. "Mount up. We're riding east—toward the gorge. Things are starting to get ugly."
Reinhardt nodded grimly. "Already is."
Ryuzo taking the reins. As they rode, dodging spells and bodies.
"You ever seen magic like this?" Ryuzo asked, blocking a projectile with one of his blades.
"Not since Kaminari Gorge. But this is worse." Reinhardt ducked another missile. "There's no cursed spirits here. Just people. And they're worse."
"Yeah, these guys don't quit," Ryuzo muttered.
A shrieking gust suddenly roared from above. Ice glinted in the moonlight.
"INCOMING!" Ryuzo yelled.
A frozen wall—sharp as blades—descended from the sky.
He squinted through the haze, spotting a braid of frozen air racing toward them. "Ah damn, It's the Hyouga Clan!"
"N-now?" Reinhardt doubled over, bracing himself.
"Jump!" Ryuzo shouted.
They leapt off the horse just as the creature was impaled and detonated into a mist of blood and snowflakes.
The shockwave threw Reinhardt and Ryuzo back, embedding them into the earth.
They were on the battlefield now.
Reinhardt lay beneath a half-crushed banner, dazed. He forced himself upright, wincing as every breath scorched his lungs.
The battlefield before them was a nightmare of death: soldiers hacking through waves of foes, screams punctuating the slashes of steel, entrails spilling across the churned ground like crimson rivers. "Fuck..talk about an entrance. Ugh."
The stench was overwhelming—a blend of sweat, rust, burnt flesh, and corrupt mana that turned the air viscous. Twisted limbs and shattered armor littered the plain.
Down below Kohaku spearmen thrusting at Akuma infantry. The distant roar of Tsurara war drums pulsed like a second heartbeat.
Reinhardt seized his white katana from the mud-crusted earth. A Mongsu warrior lunged at him, serrated iron claws snapping. The two collided in a spray of mud and blood.
The Mongsu snarled. "Your clan's honor died with your leaders!"
Reinhardt's eyes narrowed. "Not yet!"
With a brutal heave, the Tsurara raider spun to slash—only to catch Reinhardt's white katana in mid-air. The bright steel snapped beneath the force; Reinhardt's hands stung as the blade fractured. Reinhardt's heart hammered.
"No..no..no."
Shock jolted through Reinhardt's bones as the Mongsu's claw raked across his forearm, tearing flesh. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the warrior's wrist, yanking him off balance. With a savage right hook, Reinhardt snapped the Mongsu's jaw. Bone crushed and blood spurted. The enemy staggered back, dazed—but still far too strong.
Reinhardt drew back, searching desperately for an opening. The Mongsu countered with a flurry of clawed jabs, each one a promise of death. Then, with a roar, Reinhardt lashed out with his free fist—steel gauntlet meeting bone in a thunderous crack. The warrior's eyes bulged before he collapsed, crushed beneath Reinhardt's blow.
He seized his fallen foe's iron-clawed hand and pried it open, retrieving his white katana, its hilt slick with gore. "Ahh, thank you…."
In the distance a voice rose, voice raw.
"THEY HAVE A KEKKAI EXPANSION!"
No sooner had he spoken than an oppressive wave of dark purple gas billowed from beyond the front lines. It slithered across the battlefield like a living shadow, choking torchlight from the air. Thunder rolled—silent rain of lightning—but no drops fell. The sky boiled with stagnant menace.
Reinhardt's heart thundered. "Ryuzo!" he yelled, voice ripped by panic.
Through the violet haze, a shape collapsed to one knee. It was Kiendo, a young Sekai clansman, sword arm trembling. Reinhardt lunged to his side and hoisted him over his shoulder, limbs like wet silk. Kiendo's face was ashen; his breaths came in shallow, rattling gasps.
"Kiendo!"
"It's—okay," Reinhardt forced himself to whisper, voice cracking. "Let's get you out of here."
Footsteps dripped through the gas—wet, leaving footprints in the clotted earth.
Kiendo's eyelids fluttered; he moaned, blood bubbling at his throat. Reinhardt tried to smile, voice cracked: "Just breathe—help's coming."
Then with a sickening thunk, an arrow tipped with blood magic sprang from the mist, embedding itself in Reinhardt's shoulder. He cried out, limbs spasming, and flew backward, landing hard against the churned earth. Pain flared, vision tilting.
"Gahh!" he cried, His arm felt like it was on fire.
Pain bloomed like white fire. Reinhardt spat blood. He crawled to one elbow and peered through the purple fog at Kiendo's prone form.
He spat grit, pushed himself up. "Kiendo—" he rasped, crawling back.
He looked to his right.
The young man's head was in half, one eye staring blankly, bone fragments glistening like cracked jade. Entrails snaked around his torn collarbone. Reinhardt stifled a retch, kneeling in the sticky mire.
He gagged. "Fuck!"
A chorus of tortured screams echoed all around—mangled voices pleading for mercy. Reinhardt swallowed bile and forced himself to rise. He yanked the arrow from his shoulder, chest heaving, and gripped his katana.
A blade struck the air—then the purple haze abruptly waned. Heading into the lingering curls of mist came Ryuzo Senti, Kurai held horizontally. The ninja sword seemed to drink in the vapors, smoke curling up the blade until the poison gas vanished as if never born.
Ryuzo pivoted, eyes blazing. "Hah. You holding up, friend?"
Reinhardt nodded, breath ragged. "Yeah… you saved me….again." He spat blood. "I'll buy you that drink you like. Gochi was it?
Ryuzo knelt beside Reinhardt, eyes blazing. "Enough about that. You're Lucky you don't harbor cursed mana," he said sharply. "Otherwise, that gas would have torn you apart. Damn..I didn't know you got caught in that."
Reinhardt coughed, heart pounding. He wiped sweat and blood from his brow. "Yeah, well it seems there's more trump cards for us. Tch. And how the hell did you know where I was?"
A distant horn sounded. Above the rising din, Tetsujin's voice rang out: "Advance! Push through the center—break their ranks!"
Ryuzo gave a short, grim smile. "Difficult to ignore an idiot yelling your name." He hauled Kiendo's broken form between them. "Come on. Lord Yoshitake's calling the advance."
Reinhardt drew in a heaving breath, the metallic tang of blood and sweat choking his senses. "We'll keep moving," he promised, voice soft but resolute.
Up the slope they staggered, using the battle's roar as cover. Lord Yoshitake's banner streamed like black lightning above a shifting tide of warriors.
"Boys!" came a booming voice.
Lord Yoshitake strode through the battlefield, blood on his blade.
"Are you alive?"
"Barely," Ryuzo replied.
Reinhardt nodded. "We're fine."
Lord Yoshitake's eyes softened briefly. "Alright, that's good. Now let's advance. We'll Push them back. Don't hesitate."
"Yes, lord Yoshitake." they both replied.
Reinhardt took a long, deep breath.
The air tasted like smoke and blood.
He tightened his grip on his katana.
Lord Sekai confronted four figures robed in onyx and crimson—the Shikotsu's finest.
Sekai's silver hair billowed around his face as he crouched into a combat stance. "You dare stand before me?" he challenged, voice a calm storm.
His smoke-gray eyes peered across the void ahead, where four figures strode from the shadows, each one a demon masquerading as man. The crest of Clan Shikotsu gleamed on their chests—blood red and fang-shaped.
"I was wondering when the rot would crawl out," Sekai muttered to himself.
"Daigen Shikotsu," Sekai said aloud, jaw tight.
Daigen wore resplendent gold armor, its curved edges etched with countless curses—each etched name a life taken by his hand. His crimson hair was tied into a high knot, streaked with gray, falling like burning silk down his back. His face was young, eternally so, but his eyes—
Narakugan.
A rarity even among the cursed elite. One eye shimmered like black oil, swirling with fractal shapes that did not belong to this world. The Narakugan—a hypnotic eye said to trap one's soul in a hallucination of their worst fate, replayed eternally until they broke.
Daigen laughed, hard, deeply amused by Sekai's calm.
"Still breathing, Lord Sekai?" he mused, arms spread wide as if welcoming an old friend to a theater. "I worried you'd aged into dust after our last meeting."
Sekai didn't respond. His left hand tightened slightly around the hilt of his curved blade, still resting in its sheath.
"You came alone," Gakuto hissed, swinging his sickle once, the chain screeching. "Unwise. Unwise. Unwise."
A woman—Nima of the Hollow Vein—tilted her head and giggled. Her body was covered in stitches—hundreds of them. Her veins pulsed visibly beneath sickly skin. In her hand was a black fan, one that when opened revealed dozens of embedded senbon needles. Her Akugang eye bled silently as she blinked slowly.
Daigen simply watched. That cursed eye of his never blinked.
Sekai exhaled, his breath a quiet fog in the night air. "Four against one," he said. "I'd ask if that's the Shikotsu idea of honor… but we both know you slaughtered your ancestors for sport."
"Three," Daigen corrected, stepping back. "I'm just here to watch... for now."
"Then you'll be next."
That was all the warning he gave.
Sekai moved like vapor—his blade striking first at Gakuto, parrying the whip of the sickle and closing distance. Gakuto twisted, but not fast enough. Seijaku's edge sliced clean across his chest, spraying black-red blood in an arc.
But before Sekai could finish the cut, Onari lunged from the left, his twin spears stabbing like lightning bolts. Sekai rolled under the first, then used Gakuto's collapsing body as a springboard, kicking off his shoulder and launching himself skyward.
Nima moved.
The fan snapped open—dozens of poisoned senbon flying in a cone. Sekai twisted in midair, cloak torn by several needles but avoiding vital hits. He landed behind her, blade slashing low. She ducked with preternatural grace, her Akugang pulsing. She countered with a backward elbow—one enhanced with a jagged bone spike erupting from her skin.
It grazed his cheek.
Pain flared—but he ignored it.
Then came Onari, again—charging with both spears spinning.
"Impressive," Sekai muttered, eyes calm. His sword shivered in the air.
He activated a technique of his clan—Seijaku's Pulse.
A surge of smoke coiled from the sword, forming a thin ring around him. Time didn't slow, but perception narrowed—only attacks within the smoke radius were real. The rest became illusions. He could focus—cut through distraction.
In a single spinning slash, he caught Onari's spear mid-attack, slicing the weapon in half. Then he buried the tip of Seijaku into his chest.
Onari coughed black blood, muttering a string of curses before crumpling to the ash-covered ground.
Sekai turned just in time to see Nima again—faster now, mouth unhinged in a screech. Her fan turned into a bladed chain as she struck low.
This time he caught her by the wrist.
"You're fast," he said calmly, "but you rely on toxins."
With one sharp motion, he shattered her elbow with the pommel of his sword.
She screamed.
He followed with a diagonal cut—from hip to shoulder—splitting her body open. She fell to her knees, blood bubbling from her stitched lips. The fan clattered to the dirt.
Three gone.
Smoke curled from Sekai's blade as he stood, breathing heavy. His eyes turned, at last, to Daigen Shikotsu, who clapped slowly.
"Well done," Daigen said, stepping forward. "But now, shall we see if your dragon still breathes?"
Sekai raised his sword, but suddenly—everything fractured.
The sky shattered into glass.
The battlefield twisted sideways.
He blinked—and was somewhere else. A dream? No. A memory.
He stood in the ruins of Tya Academy, corpses of children piled around him, his blade dripping with blood. Screams rang out from nowhere and everywhere. His own reflection, blood-soaked and monstrous, pointed Seijaku at a sobbing boy—Reinhardt.
"You failed them," said a voice behind him—Daigen's voice, echoing like thunder in a cave.
"You were too slow. Too proud. Too old."
Sekai grit his teeth. The hallucination was vivid—overwhelming. The Narakugan's grip was iron.
But not unbreakable.
His eyes shut. His breath steadied.
Smoke curled from his shoulders—thick, dense, and alive.
"No," he whispered. "Not this time."
A gust of spiritual wind exploded from him. In that moment, he invoked his greatest power, and ally—
A spectral field erupted across the clearing, swallowing the illusion in roaring mist.
With a roar, he unleashed Seiryu, the Spectral Dragon: a massive serpentine form of twining azure flame that erupted from his blade.
Daigen's eyes widened. "Ah…shit."
The dragon roared—then dove.
With a thunderous crash, it slammed into Daigen, sending him flying backward. He skidded across the battlefield like a broken doll, smashing into a boulder the size of a shrine. Dust exploded. The Narakugan flickered.
Sekai smiled, sheath clipped at his side. The three remaining Shikotsu lay slumped in defeat: one pinned, one broken on the rocks, one disentangling himself from melted chain.
Sekai sheathed his sword. "Fall back," he ordered his men. "We move to the center."
Farther down the beach, Khagan Kilux leaned against the rail of his flagship, golden bowl in hand. Beside him, two officers laughed raucously as they clinked mugs of dark sake.
Then, without warning, a dark gray fog began to roll in—creeping across the beach like a living curse.
Khagan paused mid-drink. He looked to the fog. Smiled.
He gently placed his bowl onto the sand, as if paying respects to an unseen guest.
"It seems," he said aloud to no one in particular, "that old bastard has arrived."
He rolled his neck, a casual stretch—then cracked his knuckles.
He drew his naginata, its length gleaming like a thunderbolt.
His smile widened.
"This is going to be fun."