"Minamoto Style, Seventh Form: Formless Blade."
The voice was raspy, echoing through the thinning mist like a grinding stone. Yorimitsu's eyes drifted behind him. Lord Yoshitomo was on his feet. His hands were empty, fingers curled into a drawing stance, but he held no physical steel.
"Father..." Yorimitsu's mouth gaped.
Blue spiritual energy flickered and hissed against Yoshitomo's palms. A katana began to manifest not of metal, but of hollow, incandescent light. As the blade fully materialised, it hummed with a sharp, vibrating frequency that pushed the mist back. Yoshitomo's gaze was steel. He drew the blade in a single, upward arc.
SHIN!!!
A white light tore across the courtyard, crushing the gravel and splitting the earth. It struck Inoe before the demon's claws could touch Hikaru. There was no explosion, only a sudden, violent wind that blew past as the attack sliced Inoe cleanly in half. Yoshitomo's spirit-blade flickered and vanished as he buckled, falling heavily to his knees.
Yorimitsu didn't wait for the demon to reform. He charged forward, his hand diving into his inner sleeve. He pulled out a small, crude straw doll tied with hemp cord.
"The Witch's Forbidden Art: Soul Capture."
The ink lines on his hands flared, burning with a cold, blue light.
"Karana" Index and little finger extended, others folded, and a golden light surrounded Inoe's body, tearing it down. The dissipating remains of Inoe's spirit began to float.
The demon's form shrank, twisting into a red wisp of screaming energy as the wind roared in a tight spiral around Yorimitsu's palm. The wisp was dragged into the straw doll. Yorimitsu slapped a yellow talisman onto the doll's head, pinning the spirit inside.
"Seal Close," he murmured.
The roar of the wind vanished. The doll went limp in his hand. Yorimitsu's legs finally gave out, and he collapsed onto the stone.
"Brother!!!"
Hikaru rushed forward, her hands shaking as she grabbed Yorimitsu's shoulders. He was cold to the touch, the purple venom still tracing jagged lines up his throat.
A few feet away, Yoshitomo staggered toward them. His movements were slow, his frame buckling against the weight of his own exhaustion. He reached out a trembling hand toward his daughter and his son.
"My... children," he wheezed, his eyes finally clear of the yellow rot as he collapsed beside them in the dirt.
"Hikaru, Yori…." Yoshitomo pulled himself from the ground, his joints popping with the sound of dry wood.
The blue light emitting from Hikaru's hands began to flicker and fail as the venom spread further, the purple veins on Yorimitsu's neck pulsing with a toxic, rhythmic heat.
"It's okay now. I have brought so much pain upon you. As your father, let me take back the role I haven't been doing for so long." Gently, he lifted Hikaru's trembling hands off Yorimitsu's body.
"He is dying, no, brother, brother, please don't go", She scried her hands shaking as he stared down.
"It's okay.. I won't let him down ever again."
Yoshitomo knelt. He placed his calloused palm an inch above Yorimitsu's forehead. A faint, ethereal tether of blue light began to drift from Yorimitsu's brow, flowing upward like smoke into Yoshitomo's hand.
The Reiryoku didn't just sit there; it swirled in a violent, controlled vortex around Yoshitomo's fingers. He moved his hand with the precision of an expert physician, tracing the air above Yorimitsu's body.
"Tch, how dreadful…." His fingers began to darken.
The blue energy dived down, pressing into the primary pressure points: the temples, the base of the throat, and the centre of the chest. At each touch, the purple veins recoiled, forced downward by the overwhelming pressure of the Minamoto patriarch's Reiryoku.
The venom was corralled and driven into the vessels of the left arm. Yoshitomo's face was a mask of intense concentration, beads of sweat mixing with the grime on his forehead. With a sudden, sharp motion, he used his thumb to prick the centre of Yorimitsu's palm.
Splat.
A jet of thick, black-violet liquid hissed out, sizzling against the gravel. The spiderweb of veins on Yorimitsu's neck receded instantly, replaced by a healthy, if pale, flush.
Yorimitsu's eyes snapped open. He gasped, his lungs burning as they pulled in the cold night air. Before he could sit up, he felt a pair of massive, trembling arms wrap around him. Yoshitomo pulled both Yorimitsu and Hikaru into a crushing embrace, his head bowed between them.
"I am sorry," Yoshitomo sobbed, the sound raw and unpolished. "I failed you. I sat in that darkness and let a monster use my hands to hurt my own blood. I failed as a father... I am so sorry."
Hikaru let out a choked cry, burying her face in her father's shoulder. Yorimitsu remained still for a moment, the warmth of the embrace feeling foreign and heavy. Slowly, he raised his hand and rested it on his father's arm. The silence of the courtyard was no longer heavy with malice, but with the weight of years of unspoken grief.
"It wasn't just you, Father," Yorimitsu whispered, his voice cracking. "Mother... she has been experiencing something similar for a long time. Though it is not as great as the rot that took hold of you, the scent is the same."
Yoshitomo stared down without saying a single word.
"Because her Reiryoku was unrefined, the rot didn't take hold so deeply as it did for you."
Yoshitomo stiffened, his eyes widening in realisation. He pulled back, looking at Yorimitsu with a newfound, desperate clarity. Without a word, he stood and hoisted Yorimitsu onto his back, reaching out a hand to Hikaru.
The three of them turned away from the wreckage of the courtyard, moving as a single shadow through the thinning mist. They walked with purpose toward the distant, silent chambers where their mother lay, the moonlight finally breaking through the clouds to light the path ahead.
As they reached the Tsumado, the heavy, pivoting corner doors of the mother's inner sanctum, Yoshitomo paused. The air here was stagnant, smelling of old incense and a faint, cloying sweetness.
"I thought her illness was simply a fading of the spirit," Yoshitomo whispered, his voice trembling. "I let them tell me she was weary of this world while they were carving her away from us from the inside out."
He looked at the thick wooden panels, then back at his children.
"Stay close," he commanded, his hand gripping the edge of the door. "Whatever is behind this door dies tonight. I will not lose her twice."