The moment those desperate words left her lips, Ayumi drifted backwards through the air. The massive, flaming shikigami that had been hovering in the darkness instantly rushed to her side, their jawed silhouettes growling with unbridled malice. Simultaneously, a series of dark, intricate brands began to manifest across her skin, transforming into long, jagged lines that stretched down from her face to her chest. One of her eyes violently shifted colour, glowing an eerie yellow.
"What do you mea—?!" Watanabe tried to call out, taking a frantic step forward.
But it was already too late. Ayumi's dark hair rapidly lengthened, snapping wildly in the wind as her fine robes elongated, the fabric seamlessly transforming into a brilliant, flowing silk made of pure, crackling fire.
"This is my primary technique," she whispered, her dual-toned voice echoing with immense sorrow.
"Desolated Ocean."
A sickening, heavy clamping sound reverberated through. From every single direction, the ancient structures of the Sanctuary and the surrounding trees instantly caught fire. But they didn't just burn. The wood and stone warped violently, twisting until horrific, agonised faces began to form within the bark and the stone pillars.
"Kkkrrrrrr... it hurts… it hurts… so bad..." the burning buildings and weeping trees cried out in a chorus of shattered voices.
Desolated Ocean is a function of Ayumi's Onmyōdō technique, an art that carries the Karma of every single thing she has ever slaughtered. By forcing an object to act as a vessel for her spiritual flames, that object could temporarily inherit the tortured soul of one of her victims.
This horrific process is a section of which Orochi used to manufacture the Ubume, the monstrous creations that were secretly sold to the surrounding Noble clans of the Capital, including the very beast Mai had been tasked with hunting down.
'Tch... what use is talking anyway?' Watanabe thought, his gaze hardening as the chorus of screams filled the air. 'I have to kill her. I have to end this.'
He gripped his hilt with white-knuckled intensity. Through the steel of his weapon, he could feel his newly unsealed Reiryoku vibrating violently. The sword itself felt as though it were crying out to him, begging him to cut down the woman who had been forcing her to endure such unimaginable pain.
Watanabe steadied his footing on the damp earth, taking short, hyper-focused breaths as his blue eyes locked onto the burning 'kami' before him.
"Tshh... tshh... tshh..."
The sound of hissing steam filled the air. Watanabe's gaze sharpened into needles of pure focus as the legion of fiery beasts turned in unison to face him. They began their slow, rhythmic march forward as a discordant, chaotic symphony of agony, where some of the burning silhouettes wept bitterly while others laughed hysterically.
"There's something I've been meaning to try out anyway," Watanabe muttered. He glanced down at his sword, watching the distinct purple aura that lingered over the steel, hovering alongside his own energy. 'That blessing I received back in the river... it feels like it has its own unique Onmyōdō. It must be the lingering hopes of that woman.'
Clank.
Watanabe adjusted his grip on the hilt, channelling his own Reiryoku directly into the core of the blade. At first, the two spiritual energies violently rejected one another, sparking and fighting for dominance across the steel before finally yielding, melting together into a harmonious, luminous violet light.
"Mmm... so that's how it works, ha?" A fierce, quiet smirk broke across his face, his back foot digging deep into the scorched earth to anchor his weight. "Let's give it a shot. It's not like I have anything stronger left in my arsenal anyway."
Sprrrrrrrrrrr—
A sharp, whistling sound vibrated through the air, instantly cut short by a profoundly calming tap, a sound as clean and tranquil as a single droplet of water falling into a perfectly still river.
Suddenly, the sky above the burning domain began to change. Heavy, petals of ice began to fall through the smoke, drifting elegantly toward the earth. Wherever a frozen petal touched the ground, the roaring flames instantly suffocated. The screaming, agonised souls trapped within the burning structures fizzled out, their distorted faces smoothing over as the wood and stone returned to normal.
And in the areas where the flames had already died, the ice began to grow. The frost dynamically shaped itself into elegant, frozen trees and smooth, crystalline spheres, rapidly structuring the horrific battlefield into a peaceful, playground-like sanctuary meant for children to play in.
"For someone who claims a warrior must let go of absolutely everything..." Watanabe called out, his voice cutting clearly through the dying screams of the horde, "You sure are carrying a hell of a lot of baggage yourself."
With that final declaration, Watanabe charged.
He blurred into motion, rocketing forward through the newly formed labyrinth of ice. His violet-infused blade slashed with rhythmic, unyielding precision, cutting down every fiery beast that lunged into his path. And with every single entity his steel struck down, a gentle, shimmering silver mist erupted from the wounds, flowing peacefully upward into the dark Heian sky as the souls were finally set free.
Watanabe surged forward, his frost steadily invading and conquering the Kekkai. From afar, the battlefield looked like a cataclysmic, swirling tempest of colliding fire and ice. He cut down the flaming beasts with unyielding rhythm, though now and then, the sheer heat of the colossal shikigami would violently push him back, vaporising his falling ice petals into scalding steam before they could even touch the earth.
Beyond the raging frontline, Ayumi stood perfectly still. She had stopped moving, her voice completely silent as her mismatched eyes tracked Watanabe's relentless advance through her army.
"You may truly believe you are liberating them... but you are no different from me," she whispered underneath her breath, her words swallowed by the roar of the flames. "They still feel the agonising bite of your steel when you cut them down. Eventually, the weight of those souls will drag you down, and you will become just like me. So hurry... let me use your strength to destroy this curse so I may finally sleep."
Watanabe continued his desperate charge. There must have been thousands of wretched, howling creatures standing between him and Ayumi, but he refused to halt his momentum. The skin across his palms had split and began to bleed from the force of his grip, but his focus never wavered.
"Ohhhh... look over there. Isn't that the pathetic failure, Watanabe? He's... he's fighting an entire army by himself," a voice mocked from the heavy fog.
Mai's vanguard force had finally reached the threshold of the courtyard, breaking through the dense perimeter of the Sanctuary.
"What do you think, Mai-dono? Should we step in and help him out?" another asked, his hand resting casually on his hilt.
"Ha... that is actually Watanabe?!" Mai mused, his dark eyes snapping wide open in genuine shock. His serene, arrogant facade fractured for a fraction of a second. "How the hell is he doing that? That shinobi stated he was talentless trash... yet he is trading blows with that?"
Mai's gaze drifted past the charging swordsman, locking onto Ayumi's radiating silhouette. The sheer density of her spiritual pressure made his stomach turn. "That incredibly dense aura... se must be around the old man's level to deploy a Kekkai, though it's without a barrier."
Mai adjusted his silk sleeves, his tactical mind quickly reasserting control. "Hold your positions. Let us wait and analyse the situation for a moment. Prepare to deploy the Four Poles Array to neutralise the outer edges of her Kekkai."
Deep within the storm of fire, Ayumi's eyes cut toward the newcomers. 'Tch... more to have arrived this will complicate things,' she thought grimly, her gaze snapping back to the bleeding, advancing swordsman.
'Hurry up, Little Brat. Get to me right now... so you can finally free me".