Chapter 42: Demon Gods
"The shikigami of the Great Onmyoji Abe no Seimei?!"
Shock flashed across both Tsuchimikado Natsume and Tsuchimikado Harutora's faces.
Neither of them had ever imagined that the Tsuchimikado Clan still possessed shikigami once contracted to Abe no Seimei, much less that such beings would be sealed away beneath the estate. They had never heard even a whisper of it.
Natsume's mind raced, and one possibility rose first.
"Could they be... the legendary Twelve Divine Generals?"
It was the most natural guess.
Among all the tales surrounding Abe no Seimei, the most famous were the Twelve Divine Generals that served under him. Even now, the title itself had become a symbol. The Onmyo Bureau's Twelve Divine Generals and the Onmyo Alliance's Twelve Heavenly Generals were both modeled after that legacy, the highest honors pursued by modern Onmyoji.
But the moment the words left her mouth, Natsume herself felt something was off.
The Twelve Divine Generals were certainly fearsome, and some among them possessed fierce natures. Yet beings of that rank should not have needed to be locked beneath a seal like this. At the very least, something did not fit.
Hirotaka's answer confirmed it.
"The Twelve Divine Generals who served our ancestor followed him into the underworld after his death."
His gaze stayed fixed on the dry well, his voice grave.
"And the beings sealed here are, strictly speaking, not among them..."
He never got to finish.
Bang!
A deafening explosion tore through the courtyard.
The blue sealing formation above the well, which had only just been reinforced through the Marici Mantra, shattered like brittle glass. Sanskrit characters flew apart into fragments of light, then vanished. In the next instant, an overwhelming column of Yin energy burst upward, black and violent, shooting into the sky like a beacon of calamity.
Even from far beyond Mitsuwa Town, it would have been visible.
Then came the sound.
A howl that sounded half like an elephant's bellow and half like a tiger's roar rolled out from the heart of the Yin energy. It was followed by the clanking of heavy chains and the slow, thunderous tread of something vast emerging from confinement.
When the two figures finally stepped into view, Natsume and Harutora both froze.
They were not human.
They stood over three meters tall, their bodies swollen with raw malice. The very sight of them sent an instinctive chill through the soul.
Hirotaka and Chizuru moved immediately, stepping in front of the younger pair and drawing out talismans in a single motion. Their expressions darkened to the extreme.
"So they still broke free," Chizuru said through clenched teeth.
The demon god on the left had a crimson body, its muscles coiled like twisted dragons beneath taut skin. Thick chains hung from all four limbs, and in one hand it held a massive axe. Six eyes burned in its face, each one radiating murderous intent so intense that an ordinary Onmyoji would have lost the will to resist on the spot.
The one on the right was almost identical in build, except its skin was a deep, oppressive blue. It held a water vessel in one hand, while a cloth sack hung from its waist. Its silence was somehow even more unsettling than its companion's rage.
Natsume stared at them, her voice nearly lost.
"How... how can it be them...?"
Anyone with a serious grounding in the history of Onmyodo would recognize them.
These were not obscure spirits.
They were beings whose names had been carried through legend for centuries.
Zenki and Goki.
Demon gods.
To the public, they were famous not as Abe no Seimei's retainers, but as the legendary shikigami of Kamo no Tadayuki and, further back, of the ancient master Kamo no Yasunori no Sukune, the figure more commonly remembered in old tales as Yakushi Kaku. Though history preserved little about that distant founder, in the hearts of Onmyoji his place remained unshaken. And among the many remnants of his legend, none were more well known than these two demon gods.
"To think they were sealed inside the Tsuchimikado estate all this time..." Natsume whispered.
Hirotaka kept his stance firm, answering while never taking his eyes off them.
"After Yakushi Kaku died, Zenki and Goki were sealed and passed down within the Kamo Clan. Later, Kamo no Tadayuki handed them over to our ancestor, Abe no Seimei. From that point onward, they entered into a new contract, and our ancestor became their second master."
His voice deepened.
"But because the ancestor possessed the Twelve Divine Generals, Zenki and Goki never became as prominent in public memory. Only the Tsuchimikado Clan and a handful of insiders know that these two once served Abe no Seimei."
Natsume felt her scalp go numb.
No matter how she looked at it, these were not shikigami that should have remained in the modern era.
Beside her, Chizuru had already completed the preparation for a lightning type spell formula. Hirotaka's talismans were ready as well. Both had clearly reached the same conclusion.
Even if it cost them their lives, they had to stop Zenki and Goki here.
If these two left the estate, Mitsuwa Town would be the first to drown in blood.
After that, the disaster would spread far beyond Kyoto.
Awooo!
Zenki and Goki each loosed a roar. It was not merely loud. It carried pressure. With a single step forward, a wave of malice rolled across the courtyard, and the ground trembled beneath their combined presence.
Then came the first clash.
It was barely a movement on their part. Yet that one step alone was enough to disrupt the spell formula Hirotaka and Chizuru had been building. Their prepared Onmyodo scattered apart, and both suffered immediate backlash.
Chizuru's face paled. Hirotaka's breath caught.
The gap was obvious from the start.
"Natsume, Hokuto!"
Realizing the danger, Natsume acted on instinct. She flung out a talisman and called forth the hereditary shikigami that had long served the Tsuchimikado heads.
"Hokuto!"
A dragon's roar split the air.
The great earth colored dragon burst into being above the estate, more than thirty meters long, its body twisting through the sky with majestic force. It was one of the few true dragons still remaining in the world, a shikigami passed down through the Tsuchimikado line from the age of Abe no Seimei himself.
Its appearance alone would have cowed most yokai.
But not Zenki.
The moment the crimson demon god saw Hokuto, all six of its eyes flared with naked fury. It was the look of something seeing betrayal made flesh.
"A dragon!"
Its muscles swelled grotesquely, each one bulging as it poured power into the giant axe in its hand. A crushing pressure erupted from its body, thick with the scent of death itself, so overwhelming that even Chizuru and the others felt their breathing tighten.
Only then did they truly understand what a demon god meant.
"Natsume, call Hokuto back!" Hirotaka shouted.
But it was already too late.
Zenki moved.
The swing of its axe tore through the air with such speed that it left behind a pitch black line, as though the sky itself had been sliced open.
A single strike.
Hokuto let out a cry of agony.
Blood burst from its abdomen in a brilliant spray. The dragon's massive body fell from the sky, twisting in pain as scarlet rain poured down over the Tsuchimikado estate and the smell of fresh blood spread through the air.
"Natsume!"
Harutora caught her as she nearly stumbled forward in shock.
Her face had gone white.
One blow.
It had only taken one blow to nearly cut down Hokuto.
Awooo...
Zenki lowered its axe slowly, its six eyes sweeping over everyone present. Its voice rolled out like a curse from the depths of hell.
"Stand in our way again... and die."
The threat was simple.
There was no bravado in it, no deliberate intimidation.
It was merely a statement of fact.
.....
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