[KAMO INNER TRAINING GROUND – DUSK, CONTINUED]
Blood sprayed across the stones.
Yui's strike had landed — a clean cut across Shugen's ribs — but she didn't celebrate. She knew better. The moment her blade connected, Shugen grinned.
"Good," he said, voice like a blade being unsheathed. "Let's stop pretending."
His blood surged unnaturally fast from the wound. But instead of falling to the ground, it coiled mid-air—forming an intricate sigil that pulsed like a beating heart.
Yui's eyes widened. "You let me cut you on purpose—"
"To activate the domain," he replied, calmly.
"Domain Expansion—Blood Scripture Chamber."
The world inverted.
Stone dissolved into parchment. The sky turned the color of dried blood. Glyphs glowed along the air itself, forming invisible threads that mapped out a lattice of laws. Inside this domain, every drop of blood was scripture—and Shugen was the author.
Yui staggered. A glyph burned into her shoulder. Another coiled around her thigh. Each movement she made was being recorded and converted into cursed contracts mid-action.
"Rule One," Shugen said, as if reading from a scroll. "Each movement is logged."
He raised two fingers. Glyphs around her blinked.
"Rule Two. If a motion is repeated thrice—your blood flow halts for three seconds."
Yui's eyes narrowed. That wasn't just clever. That was deadly.
He struck.
This time it wasn't clean or graceful. Shugen fought like an old Heian war tactician: deliberate but ruthless. He didn't need elegance — the domain warped the battlefield for him.
Yui dodged low—once, twice—
On the third repetition, her leg seized up. Blood froze in her veins, and her body pitched sideways.
Shugen's blade, made from hardened scripture blood, carved straight through her side.
She screamed—but only for a second. Her instincts flared.
Her cursed technique spiraled inwards—an act of desperation.
"I... won't die here."
Yui clapped her bloodied hands together.
"Blood Technique: Vermilion Pulse Bloom."
She compressed blood through her muscles and violently overrode the domain's freezing effect, shattering the binding glyphs with sheer internal pressure. It tore something inside her. She coughed up blood—but moved again.
She vanished into a mist of blood vapor—then reappeared above Shugen.
Before he could react—
Three blood spears rained down, each laced with her own veins. Her face twisted in focus.
"Let's test your rules."
Two spears missed. The third hit—
And exploded.
Boom.
Shugen was flung across the domain's parchment floor. His control faltered—the script cracked, his glyphs flickering.
Yui stumbled to her knees. Her side was pouring blood, and her skin was pale.
Shugen stood slowly, his left arm limp and broken, hanging by threads of cursed blood.
But he was laughing.
"I yield."
Yui blinked. "What…?"
"I yield," he repeated, smiling like a war-drunk noble. "If we continued, I'd have to kill you. Or die. You're ready, Yui. Or close enough."
The domain shattered.
The world returned to stone and dusk, though blood still painted the arena.
Yui collapsed backward, breathing heavily. "...That's what passes for a training match now, Uncle?"
Shugen coughed, wiping blood from his mouth. "This is Heian era, girl. If we train soft—we die softer."
Above them, two Kamo elders watched from the shadows, their faces unreadable.
One whispered to the other, "She will survive this age."
The other frowned. "If the age itself survives her."
---
[RYOMEN COMPOUND – SEVENTH DAY CEREMONY]
One week had passed.
The child had not cried since birth. Not once. No howling, no hunger screams. Not even in his sleep.
Some in the clan whispered that silence was a bad omen.
Others said it was proof of power.
The Ryomen compound, nestled between craggy ridges and veiled rivers, had grown unnaturally quiet. The usual training fields were deserted.
The household servants walked with their heads lowered, eyes averted, as if trying not to disturb something that had already noticed them.
Inside the main hall, torches flickered green, reacting to the ambient cursed energy. A bitter scent wafted through the air—burning bloodroot and preserved umbilical cord, ritual components for the ceremony.
The elders sat in a circle, dressed in ceremonial robes dyed with ochre and ash.
In their center lay a stone basin filled with obsidian water. Floating within it was a lock of the child's hair and a single drop of his blood — taken when he first opened his eyes.
A masked priest began the chant.
The child's parents were not present. They were forbidden. This was no celebration. This was a verification ritual — one not done in generations. A rite to determine the nature of the soul born into the clan.
Only the elders and the Seer were allowed here.
A wind stirred the flame. The blood in the basin boiled—without heat.
The Seer leaned over the water, her eyelids tattooed with runes. She spoke no words, but her breath grew ragged. Her spine arched. The basin cracked.
Then she screamed.
[INNER SANCTUM – UNKNOWN LOCATION]
She stood barefoot in a world of shifting red mist and pulsing black stone. A skeletal throne rose in the distance, surrounded by pure darkness that whispered secrets in dead tongues.
There was no sun. Only a heartbeat. His heartbeat.
Then came a voice. Not booming—but gentle, cold. More like mocking her.
"You shouldn't be here."
She turned—and saw it.
Not the child. Something ancient wearing his face. Four arms folded neatly. Two mouths smiling. Its eyes… were pits.
The Seer tried to speak—but her tongue turned to ash.
The being stepped down from the throne, barefoot, blood trailing in its wake.
"You came to understand me."
It leaned in. Whispered:
"Don't."
Her body convulsed. Her eyes rolled white. Reality shattered around her. The last thing she saw before she was cast back was a massive black chrysanthemum blooming from the floor, weeping blood.
[BACK IN THE RITUAL HALL]
The Seer collapsed.
Blood streamed from her mouth and ears. Her breathing was shallow, spasming.
One priest rushed forward. "What did you see?!"
Her burnt tongue was back. She barely managed a whisper:
"Leave him."
They leaned in.
"Leave him… alone. Don't try to raise him. Don't try to bind him. He is not ours. He is not a child. He is..." Her eyes widened in horror. "He is already a being beyond our comprehension."
The ritual was ended.
Continued...