"Ahhhh… Da—" Mai paused mid-sentence, his brow twitching slightly as he tried to recall the name of the minor clansman standing before him.
"It's Danjuro, Mai-dono!" the young lad chimed in quickly. He stepped forward with a broad, eager smile lighting up his face, completely thrilled just to be noticed.
"Ah, yes. Danjuro," Mai smoothly replied, his voice sliding into a warm, practised tone. "Of course. I remember you."
'He actually remembers me!' Danjuro's heart soared with fierce pride as he stood before the stone basin. 'All I have to do is open this seal, and I will ensure he remembers my name forever.'
Desperate to prove his worth, the boy reached out and grabbed the small, black-bladed knife resting on a dusty stone table near the entrance. He didn't hesitate. Gripping the hilt tightly, he dragged the edge across his palm.
Tap.
Tap.
One heavy drop at a time, his crimson blood began to drip into the bottom of the basin. The moment the fluid touched the ancient runes, the stone structure violently shook and pulsed with a white light. Deep within the wall, the heavy door groaned and began to slide open.
But the moment Danjuro pulled his sliced hand back to stanch the bleeding, the basin stopped vibrating. The light died instantly, and the door slammed shut with a heavy, echoing thud.
"Ah..." Danjuro shuddered.
When he turned around to face the cohort, his smile vanished. Every single pair of eyes in the vanguard, including the judgmental Taira elites, was locked onto him, cold and waiting.
'Tch... if I stop now, they will think all my bold talk was nothing but empty boasting,' the young man thought frantically, his pride warring with the growing sting in his hand. 'I can't back down. Not now.'
Squeezing his fist tight, Danjuro forced the cut open once more, thrusting his hand back over the stone bowl. As a steady stream of blood began to drain into the basin, the runes flared to life again, and the door slowly began to grind open a second time.
"Ahg... h-huuu..."
Every few seconds, a low, agonising whimper escaped Danjuro's lips. The stone basin seemed to actively pull at his life, and the speed at which his blood flowed suddenly increased, rushing from the wound in a dark, unnatural stream.
"Hmmmm... now I think I understand it a little," a quiet, detached voice murmured from the shadows at the very rear of the crowd. "There is truly no greater betrayal to one's self than that which comes from trying to prove one's value to another."
As soon as those words echoed through the damp shrine, Danjuro's legs gave out. He collapsed heavily onto the cold floor; the vibrant colour completely vanished from his face. His skin had turned a sickly, washed-out grey—matching the rotting, weathered walls of the shrine itself.
With a final, heavy groan of wood and metal, the door slid fully open.
'Tch... he is completely useless now,' Mai thought, staring down at the twitching, pale body with an entirely expressionless face. 'Well, it is a good thing I let the weakest in our cohort volunteer for this. He was at least useful for something.'
"Thank you, Danjuro," Mai spoke aloud, bending down to tap the boy's head with two light, patronising pats. "We cannot afford to waste precious time waiting for you to recover, you understand? So, we will be moving ahead. We will slay that Ubume in your honour. Just wait here for our return."
Without a single shred of remorse or hesitation, Mai stepped over the collapsed boy and strode through the dark threshold. The vanguard cohort, entirely bound by his hypnotic pace, followed right on his heels without a single glance back at their fallen comrade.
But as soon as they crossed the boundary of the door, the suffocating, narrow shadows of the shrine vanished.
Krssh... Krsssh...
One heavy footstep after another, the vanguard's boots sank into a completely unexpected terrain. They were standing on a vast, surreal expanse of sand.
'A river?' Mai thought his sharp gaze was cutting through the thick, swirling mist to scan their new surroundings.
"\Where exactly are we?" A low, anxious murmuring broke out across the ranks as the remaining vanguard troops filtered through the threshold one after the other, their boots sinking into the fine, damp sand.
"Look over there. There is a ceremonial bell," Fujiwara no Byakuya called out.
Hailing from the prestigious Fujiwara clan, Byakuya wielded the highest spiritual strength in the entire cohort, but in terms of political power, he was right beneath Mai. Walking over to the weathered wooden post where the iron bell hung, he reached out and firmly pulled the braided hemp cord.
CHIME.
The deep, resonant note shimmered through the air like a physical wave. Instantly, the oppressive, suffocating fog began to unroll and open up, parting to reveal the true scale of the landscape.
"Ohhhhh..." A collective gasp of awe filled the air as the vanguard finally laid eyes on the vast, black river stretching out before them into the twilight.
"I believe the mechanism embedded within that shrine door just subjected us to the teleportation technique," Byakuya spoke over his shoulder, his voice easily carrying across the distance to Mai.
Mai quickly unfurled his tracking parchment, his eyes immediately locking onto the vibrant, crimson drop of blood pulsing against the inked lines. "Ohhh... so the Ubume has already crossed over to the other side," he whispered to himself, a cold smile touching his lips.
"Do you see that?" Oda no Miasaki spoke, her hand raising to point into the receding mist.
As the eldest daughter of the Oda clan, Miasaki possessed an incredible, terrifying strength in her own right. Along with Byakuya, she functioned as the elite backbone of Mai's command structure, the two ultimate lieutenants to his vanguard sovereignty.
Moments later, the silent, spectral silhouette of a small boat glided over the river. It was Tsushimamaru's group moving gracefully through the black water, approaching the sandy bank. Mai's group watched intently as the phantom vessel slowed, about to dock directly in front of them.
"Ha... look at the passengers inside the cabin. Are those... women?" Miasaki murmured, stepping over to Mai's side. Her eyes gleamed with a sharp, calculating intelligence as she leaned in close and whispered an unknown proposition directly into his ear.
"Ohhhhhh..." Mai listened, a dark, thoroughly mischievous grin slowly stretching across his face. "That sounds like a spectacular idea."
'Kekeke... I thought you would appreciate it," the Oda heiress bubbled with twisted joy, her fingers lightly tapping the hilt of her blade as the phantom ship finally hit the shoreline.
'Now, if everything goes exactly according to plan, he will owe me a massive favour,' Miasaki thought to herself, a playful, calculating smile touching her lips as she casually poked the dimple on her cheek.
Out on the black water, Tsushimamaru's massive gaze pierced through the newly parted fog. 'Ha... someone is waiting on the bank?'
The giant chief hesitated for a few moments, his large hands tightening. He briefly considered turning the vessel back around into the deeper mist, wary that this massive, heavily armed gathering could be an enemy ambush. But his anxiety quickly melted away when his sharp eyes spotted the prominent clan emblems emblazoned across the armour of several warriors in Mai's group, the same imperial insignia that Yorimitsu's squad wore.
'Ah... they must be honourable, trustworthy people as well, considering how noble that other young commander and his companions were,' Tsushimamaru reasoned, letting out a relieved sigh.
Shit...
Huddled in the shadows of the deck, Inoue's feline eyes widened in absolute horror. Having already reverted to his small cat form to conserve his energy, he recognised Mai's banner instantly. But before he could even open his jaws to hiss out a desperate warning to the giant, the spectral momentum of the boat carried them forward, and the hull softly hit the sandy port.
'Is that... a giant?' Miasaki thought, her eyes widening slightly in genuine surprise as the colossal form of Tsushimamaru stood up to secure the vessel to the wooden dock.
"Hello there!" the giant called out warmly, stepping toward the bow with an open, trusting expression. "You are warriors from the Capital, right? Please, I beg of you—help us!"