Thud!
Yorimitsu hit the earth hard, the impact jarring his already battered frame. He lay there for a moment, staring up at the canopy as the adrenaline began to recede, leaving behind the dull, thrumming ache of reality.
"Tch... that was closer than I would have liked. Even moulting, that strength was still hovering at the peak of the fourth rank," he huffed, wiping a smear of grime from his cheek.
The violent storm clouds finally began to disperse, shredding into thin, wispy veils that left the Moon-Pale Cave bathed in a cold. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic drip-tap of blood falling from the leaves.
He stood and approached the decapitated mass of the Great Serpent. Even in death, the creature possessed a terrifying majesty; its massive coils shifted in slow, involuntary tremors like rolling hills of pale silk. Yorimitsu knelt by the severed neck, but rather than simply carving, he used a wind-thread to hoist the massive carcass, hanging it upside down from the sturdiest of the remaining cedars.
"This is always the arduous part," he thought, his breath misting in the cooling air as he began the harvest.
He produced a series of crystal vials, pressing them against the pulsing carotid artery. The ichor was thick, a dark violet that hummed with a residual, feverish heat. It pulsed, as if the snake's spirit was fighting to stay within its liquid essence.
"I don't think I will find another conjuring conductor of this quality for quite some time. I should collect every drop the vials can hold."
Next came the skinning. Using his rusted blade, the edge now jagged from the intensity of the fight, he made a precise, longitudinal incision down the length of the underbelly. He peeled back the iridescent, translucent scales, revealing the pearly flesh beneath.
Each scale was the size of a warrior's kite-shield and felt as unyielding as forged Tamahagane. He was selective, harvesting only the prime plates from the dorsal ridge where Reiryoku had been most concentrated.
He bundled them tightly with spirit-thread and stowed them deep within the hollow of the cedar, masking the area with a Void-Scent Talisman to ward off scavengers both animal and yōkai.
I will have to return for these once the dust settles. I'm certain there must be a skilled artisan hidden within the province who can help me forge this into a suit of armour, he noted.
Then, he reached deep into the cooling chest cavity. His small arm disappeared up to the shoulder into the beast's interior heat. With a sharp, sudden tug and a wet, visceral crunch, he extracted the Silvery Heart.
It throbbed within his palm, a fist-sized engine of muscle expanding and receding in a rhythmic, blue-white light. It felt like holding a living star.
"For such a great creature, its core is so small." His eyes gleamed as he turned the gem in the moonlight, watching the toxic gold mists swirl within the heart.
Finally, he turned his attention to the skeleton. He spent the remaining hour of the night in painstaking labour, extracting the vertebrae one by one. Each bone was hooked and sharp, naturally formed to channel the flow of energy.
By the time the horizon began to bleed with the first pale, bruised light of the Hour of the Tiger, Yorimitsu was a mere shadow flickering through the estate's outer wards. He slipped through his bedroom window, his hemp robes stained with the ghost-scent of the forest and the metallic tang of high-rank blood.
He did not rest. The sun was a clock he could not ignore.
Sitting cross-legged on his tatami floor, he laid out the spinal segments. They clattered against the wood like ivory dice. Taking a fine whetstone and a needle-thin chisel, he began the gruelling task of shaping the bone.
After wrapping the sharpened bones with cleansing talismans to stabilise their volatile energy, he stowed them inside a small, unassuming cloth bag. He stepped out of his quarters just as the first rays of the sun hit the courtyard, watching the servants begin the "Way of the Morning".
Yorimitsu moved through the central arteries of the Minamoto manor with the silent gait of a ghost. The servants were occupied with the morning's purification of the halls, allowing him to navigate the demon gates of the architecture unseen.
Drawing from the forbidden texts of Onmyōdō, he identified the specific nodes of the estate's pulse. He knelt first at the Northeast corner of the Kimon, where the most malevolent energy gathered. With a small trowel, he dug into the earth beneath the foundation stones, burying a sharpened segment of the White Snake's spine.
He repeated this at the Southwest, the Urakimon, and then at the cardinal points that governed the household's longevity. These were the traditional anchors used by court shamans to tether a manor to the earth's veins. As he placed the final bone near the central pillar of the main hall, he pressed his blood-stained palm to the soil and whispered a low, rhythmic incantation.
"Rule and cleanse, let a boundary be drawn. Let the hidden be revealed; let the rot be contained."
A thin, luminous blue line flickered into existence, hovering just above the ground. It raced between the burial spots, connecting the spinal segments in a jagged, electrified web. The manor's stagnant air suddenly shivered.
"Brother?"
Yorimitsu froze. He turned to find Hikaru standing in the shadow of a paper screen, her eyes wide as she looked from his dirt-stained hands to his tattered robes.
"What are you doing? And why do you smell of... blood?" she whispered, stepping forward.
"Hikaru, listen to me," Yorimitsu said, his voice dropping into a register of stern authority that made her flinch. "You must go to the inner sanctum. Hide yourself in the storehouse behind the mother's shrine. Do not come out, no matter what voices you hear calling your name."
Hikaru opened her mouth to protest, her face flushed with a mix of confusion and indignation, but the cold glare of Yorimitsu's eyes silenced her. She had never seen him look so... powerful. Reluctantly, she bowed her head, her shoulders trembling as she turned and hurried toward the inner gardens.
Yorimitsu watched her disappear, then retreated to a small, secluded courtyard near his own quarters. He sat in seiza upon the cold stone, closing his eyes. His Reiryoku was a shallow pool, nearly drained by the night's hunt and the morning's warding. He began to breathe deep, measured inhalations that pulled the morning's crisp Qi into his marrow, replenishing the blue spirals on his palms.
After an hour, the sun was high. He stood, his energy stabilized but his expression grim. It was time for the final layer of protection.
"I hope this goes well. I know Father sure is powerful, one mistake and I'm dead."
He raised his hands, his fingers weaving a complex series of mudras.
"Flow Misogi purify that which is impure ."
He exhaled, and a white mist began to form around the compound. It expanded, rising like a curtain of silk around the central manor.