The two combatants ceased to be flesh and blood. Their forms swirled into a singular, violent vortex, their physical matter breaking down into a thick, claylike consistency. The emerald light of the Divine Body and the toxic purple of the demon bled together until all colour was bleached away.
BOOM!
The mass hit the earth with the velocity of a falling star, cratering the centre of the ruins.
CRACK! SPPPPPPPT!
The clay began to rise, defying gravity as it stretched toward the bruised sky.
It then hardened into a towering, bone-white Torii gate. From either side of the pillars, two massive Shimesha helms rose, one pure white, the other obsidian black, meeting in the centre to form a perfect, balanced knot.
"Deity Gate complete... Gate of Misshaku," the voice echoed once more, vibrating through the void.
"Now, if that mad monk can finish the sacrifices, we can open this one as well," the voice mused, sounding distant and satisfied. "And then... we will be left with only ten more gates."
The voice faded, leaving only the whistling wind and the towering, silent Torii where two young men had once fought for their lives.
At the heart of this transformation lies the perversion of In-Yo, now mostly known as Yin and Yang. There is a Shinto teaching that talks about balance. Once balance is found, a miracle can be invoked; thus, Arikuni, balancing these two extreme energies, managed to grant the miracle of a Deity gate, which by itself defies the laws of the world.
…
Tang! Tang! Tang!
The sharp, metallic ring of a Koto cut through the silence.
Yorimitsu and the remnants of the group blinked, their eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden shift in reality.
"What the hell is going on here? Where are we... and what is with that Koto playing its creepy if you ask me?!" Gabimaru growled, his voice rasping. He had finally regained his senses, but the disorientation was clear in his wide, darting eyes.
"I'm not sure," Watanabe responded, his voice low. He knelt, his fingers brushing against the pale, jagged terrain. He picked up a fragment of bone. "It felt as if the ground simply swallowed us."
He held up a bleached, hollow-eyed skull before dropping it back into the thousands of others that made up the soil of this place.
"Yorimitsu? What is it?" Watanabe called out.
Yorimitsu didn't answer. He was staring at the sky, a bruised, swirling expanse.
'What is this feeling? It feels like I have been here before...' The thought nagged at the back of his mind, a cold fragment of a memory he couldn't quite grasp.
"Taisho!" Gabimaru's roar finally broke through his trance, the volume of it causing the skulls on the ground to rattle and clatter like dry teeth.
Yorimitsu turned his head slowly, his expression bland. "Be careful of this place. This is... a domain of ritual completion. Look."
He pointed toward the horizon. In the distance, a massive mountain loomed, but it wasn't made of rock; it looked like calcified bone. A waterfall cascaded down its face, but the liquid was a thick, visceral red that smelled of old copper and iron.
At the base of the mountain sat a giant cauldron, flanked by two towering, faceless statues. The red liquid poured from the heights directly into the vessel, yet despite the constant torrent, the cauldron never overflowed. It swallowed the blood of the mountain as if it were a bottomless throat.
"It's this is a domain, shouldn't we be dead then only masters of the highest order can create them?!" Watanabe asked.
"Well, yeah, but it's not a true Kekkai, just think of it like a house, it's different from outside, but you both c—" before Yorimitsu could finish talking.
Bang, Bang, Bang!
The melody of the Koto shifted the rhythmic striking, turning into a frantic, dissonant tempo. As if the music were a command to the heavens, thousands of arrows erupted from the bruised sky. They screamed down like vengeful spirits.
"Shit, it's begun! Everyone, scatter!" Yorimitsu shouted.
The group splintered, diving for the meagre cover of the bone-white mounds. Only Gabimaru remained rooted to the spot. With a grunt of effort, he gripped his katana and drew it in a blur of motion. A massive crescent of white Reiryoku exploded from his blade, incinerating the descending arrows into fine, grey dust before they could touch him.
"Hmph. Look at that show-off," Watanabe murmured, evading a cluster of projectiles and parrying three more mid-air.
CLANK!
The arrows that survived the parry hit the ground with the heavy, dull thud of mineral hitting mineral. Watanabe glanced down at one wedged in the dirt.
"Are these... are these made from bone as well?"
"Don't let your blood touch the ground!" Gabimaru's roar echoed across the sea of skulls.
A swirling red beam pulsed faintly around him, his Spirit Blood Art; it was distorted, stretching out toward the horizon like a banner caught in a gale.
"I tried using my technique, and it was pulled toward that cauldron!"
At those words, Yorimitsu's head jerked up. The mark on his hand began to vibrate with a high-pitched, stinging heat. He looked toward the mountain."
"What type of Kekkai is this? The old hag never told me about anything like this, tch, I have been too complacent with learning since coming back."
…
"Well, it would seem I have met someone with a similar technique to my own."
The voice seemed to bleed from the air. It then condensed into a single point of cold, malevolent pressure. From the shadows of the bone-mountain, the same creature Yorimitsu had caught a glance of before being pulled into the Kekkai came into view.
It looked at Gabimaru, its eyes flickering like those of a fly.
'Shit... he's stronger than me,' Yorimitsu realised, his grip tightening on his hilt. 'His Reiryoku... is at the fifth stage. How long has it been cultivating itself?' He glanced at his utility pouches.
"Shit, they are all gone. I left them in the temple; I don't think I can win this without using Ryuu, but that will expose me to the rest of them."
His hand drifted to the side and to the only remaining pouch. I guess this will do for now. He raised his finger in the air, and a blue flame flared.
He began murmuring something under his breath.