The Tsuchigumo clan, exiled from the Council centuries ago for using forbidden, bloody Kokuro involving sacrifices and corruption of Scars... They had survived underground, accumulating power and thirsting for revenge.
Deep within the forbidden mountain range, where not even echoes of the human world reached, lay their temporary refuge. It was a vast cavern whose walls were covered in frost that hadn't melted for millennia. In the center yawned a depression filled with water from the Well of Souls—black, motionless, light-absorbing. Around it, thrust into the stone like ancient gravestones, stood dozens of blades and spears—not as weapons, but as trophies. Each had once belonged to a warrior whose Scar had been erased from reality by Magoro. The air was thick with silent might and centuries-old contempt.
It was here, risking destruction on approach, that Jibetsu came.
He appeared at the edge of the cave without entourage, without weapons. His figure in a dark, earthy-colored haori was gaunt and angular. His face was hidden by a mask of baked clay, crude, with slits for eyes that expressed nothing but emptiness. He was the embodiment of the Tsuchigumo clan—the "Earth Spider," exiled centuries ago for bloody rituals and corrupting Scars. They had survived in the shadows, weaving webs of revenge.
Akatsuki Magoro sat on a stone by the black pool, his back to the newcomer. His disheveled black hair and ash-gray kimono were the only spots of color in this monochrome realm. Raidou stood apart, his icy gaze fixed on the guest, fingers ready to clench and turn him to icy dust.
Jibetsu bowed low, almost prostrating himself.
— Great Tenmaou, — his voice was grating, like stones rubbing together. — The world that rejected you is still ruled by blind fools. Their fear of your return is pathetic.
Magoro did not turn around.
— And?
— We, the Tsuchigumo, can be your tool. We offer power they have hidden from all. The locations of the "Phantom Arks"—artifacts that will serve as better anchors for your spirit than this cave.
Raidou shifted slightly, and frost at his feet crept toward Jibetsu.
— A tool... — Magoro finally spoke, slowly turning his head. His gaze, devoid of all interest, slid over the mask. — That seeks to use me itself. You are a spider weaving threads even around a god's throne. Bold.
He paused, letting the words hang in the icy air.
— Foolish.
Jibetsu did not flinch.
— We do not seek to use. We seek to... serve. In the new world you will build, we will have a place. We will provide the Arks and our resources. In return... you will destroy the ruling clans.
Magoro laughed quietly behind his scarf. The sound was like the grinding of ancient stones.
— You come to me empty-handed and demand promises? You ask a god to overthrow your enemies in exchange for... information? No.
He stood up. His shadow fell upon Jibetsu, who instinctively wanted to retreat.
— Show me your usefulness. Bring me one of these Arks. By your own power. By your own cunning. Then... then we will talk. Until then, you are merely noise at the door.
It was a refusal. But it was also an opportunity. Magoro was placing them in a subordinate position, forcing the Tsuchigumo clan to work for him without giving any guarantees. Jibetsu understood. He bowed even lower.
— As you wish, Tenmaou. You shall have your Ark.
Turning, he vanished into the tunnel's shadows. Raidou looked at Magoro.
— Was it worth the time, master?
— An ant carrying a sugar crumb may lead you to the whole anthill, — Magoro replied indifferently. — Let us see where this spider leads us.
Meanwhile, in "Tenran," nervous bustle reigned. After Magoro's incarnation and the guard's massacre, the Council was in despair. They played their last trump card—they summoned the one they feared almost as much as the Emperor-Demon himself.
Reiden Kagetori. "The Strongest Magus of the Current Era." To many, he was not a man, but an incarnate element, a living god of war.
He appeared in the auditorium for the chosen ones twenty minutes late. The door opened, and he walked in, stretching casually as if he'd just woken up. He wore a black jacket with golden lightning bolts, unbuttoned at the chest, and wide hakama. His golden eyes with vertical pupils lazily surveyed the assembled: Kaede, Ryūnosuke, Shiori, and a dozen other top students.
— Well then, hope you didn't get too bored without me, — his voice was somewhat muffled and relaxed.
Ryūnosuke gritted his teeth. Kaede studied him with cold curiosity. Shiori felt uneasy under his heavy gaze.
— Demonstrate something, — Kagetori tossed out lazily, dropping into a chair and putting his feet on the table. — Entertain me.
Kaede, without hesitation, activated her "Crimson Loop," creating around a training dummy a complex web of cause-and-effect meant to tear it apart. The dummy merely twitched and froze.
— Cute, — Kagetori smiled dismissively. — But too many unnecessary movements. You're trying to convince reality when you can simply command it.
Ryūnosuke, unable to hold back, unleashed his "Iron Vow" on the same dummy, ordering the metal in its structure to contract. The dummy warped.
— Loud, — Kagetori yawned. — And empty. Like the clatter of an empty bucket.
Then Kenta, one of the talented but hot-tempered students from a minor air-manipulating clan, stepped forward. His Kokuro allowed him to create blades of compressed wind.
— Kagetori-sensei! — he shouted. — Theory is fine, but strength is known in battle! I challenge you!
Kagetori didn't even turn his head.
— Are you sure?
— Yes!
— Alright.
Kagetori simply looked at him. His golden pupils flashed. Behind Kenta, three meters away, a sturdy training dummy... simply evaporated. Didn't explode, didn't crumble—vanished, leaving only a faint smoky wisp. There was no sound.
— See? — Kagetori smiled, looking at the pale-faced Kenta. — There is a chasm between us. And that was just my gaze. Strength is not techniques. It is the right to dictate terms. Remember that if you want to stop being extras in someone else's play.
The play, meanwhile, was already underway. The Tsuchigumo clan, following Magoro's order, attacked a remote "Tenran" repository in the mountains where, according to their intelligence, one of the "Phantom Arks" was stored. A panicked alarm signal reached the academy. The duty squad, including Kagetori, who happened to be "strolling" nearby, was scrambled.
He arrived among the first. The repository was a fortified complex at the foot of a cliff, but now its gates were torn off, and bodies of guards littered the area. A dozen Tsuchigumo fighters in dark robes and masks resembling Jibetsu's had already penetrated inside, while outside they were covered by six golems—crude, six-armed creatures of earth and stone, with sinister shards of suffering Scars burning in their eyes.
Seeing Kagetori, the golems rushed at him.
He didn't even change his pace. Kept walking forward, hands in pockets. The first golem swung its stone paw. Kagetori didn't dodge. The paw crashed down on him... and at the moment of contact, his body was momentarily enveloped in golden light. The golem disintegrated into fine dust. The second, third—same result. He walked through them like a knife through butter, not slowing.
A commander, larger than the others, with a mask adorned with red symbols, burst out of the repository doors.
— Hey, you in the ugly mask, — Kagetori called out lazily. — You ruined my walk.
The commander, wasting no words, activated his forbidden technique. Black, tentacle-like streams erupted from his hands, meant to drain the victim's life force and Scars.
Kagetori yawned. He took a light step to the side, and the tentacles passed by. The commander attacked again and again, resorting to hand-to-hand combat, but Kagetori dodged with incredible, almost imperceptible ease, yawning a second time.
— Bored now, — he said, yawning a third time. — Dull.
He snapped his fingers.
There was no thunder. A thin, almost invisible golden bolt of lightning pierced the air and passed through the commander. He froze in place. He was not wounded. But he felt something inside him... rupture. His connection to Kokuro, his very ability to feel and use Scars, vanished without a trace. He collapsed to his knees, silently opening his mouth behind the mask.
Kagetori turned and walked away, not even checking what was in the repository.
— See? Being weak is boring. And stripping power from the weak... is even more boring. Lucky for you, I'm in a good mood today.
He left behind a devastated squad, a commander stripped of power, and a growing legend in the academy about his might. The two powers, Magoro and Kagetori, had not yet clashed, but their shadows already covered the world, and the first blood in their future war had been spilled.