'Mmm... those three feel completely different from the mindless corpses she's been spawning,' Watanabe analysed, skidding backwards through the mud.
Focusing his spiritual energy, he infused a concentrated layer of Reiryoku directly into his eyes. The glowing energy illuminated the dark battlefield in his vision.
'They hold almost the exact same quantity of Reiryoku as her main body! If I destroy them, I'll cut her overall power reserves right in half!'
Watanabe raised his katana high over his head. Drawing in a sharp breath, he exhaled slowly. A dense cloud of freezing white mist billowed from his lips, instantly crystallising the falling raindrops into tiny flakes of ice that tumbled to the frozen dirt.
PPRRRR—!
From his left flank, a spectral arrow whistled through the downpour with lethal speed.
Before it could pierce his neck, a dense sheath of dark ice materialised instantly in mid-air, intercepting the projectile. But the bow general didn't pause; a rapid volley of spectral arrows rained down from the sky. With a sharp wave of his free hand, Watanabe summoned an overhead arch of thick ice, though the barrier immediately began to spider-web and crack under the relentless barrage.
SOOOWWSH!
Taking advantage of the barrage, the sword general burst through the mist, swinging its giant nodachi in a devastating upward arc.
Watanabe's eyes snapped toward the incoming steel. Whipping his katana around in a mirrored counter-arc, he met blade to blade with violent force.
CLANG-BOOM!
The impact of their clashing steel was so massive that the shockwave shattered Watanabe's overhead ice wall into a thousand glittering shards. The sheer weight of the giant's swing overwhelmed his stance, forcing Watanabe to skid several feet back across the frozen mud.
"Tsk..." Watanabe clicked his tongue, resetting his footwork to prepare for his next movement.
Just as he pushed off, a pair of cold, decaying hands wrapped tightly around his ankles, pinning his heels to the frozen mud.
"Big... bro... ther..." a small, raspy voice whined from below, a rotting child corpse desperately tugging at his thighs.
"Ah—!"
Watanabe hesitated. His breath caught in his throat, his head snapping downward for a fraction of a second to look at the terrified, hollow face pulling on his legs.
That momentary lapse in focus proved fatal.
The Sword General blitzed forward in a flash of spectral motion. Its giant nodachi ignited with a sickening, ethereal green flame as it executed a blinding horizontal slash straight across Watanabe's torso!
SLASH!
"Pffftg... GRRR!"
Watanabe gagged, coughing up a spatter of fresh blood onto the mud as he staggered backwards. The horizontal wound across his chest didn't bleed out; the unnatural green hellfire instantly cauterised his flesh upon impact, leaving an agonising, blackened sear across his sternum.
Before Watanabe could stabilise his breathing, the Sword General pulled back its massive blade and delivered a heavy boot directly to his chest.
THWACK!
The kick sent Watanabe skidding backwards out of control across the slick ground right into the path of the third general. Looming through the storm, the Shield General stepped forward, raising its massive, heavy tower shield high before smashing it downward to crush him into the mud!
"Ahhh...!"
A wet cough tore from Watanabe's throat as the crushing weight of the tower shield slammed directly into his spine.
The kinetic shockwave launched his body upward, hurtling him helplessly into the storm-drenched air. Positioned high above the battlefield, he looked up through the rain—only to see the Bow General's glowing spectral arrows zooming down toward his chest with lethal precision.
'Tsk... how pathetic can I be...?' Watanabe thought as the rain suspended around him.
Time seemed to grind to an agonising crawl. Floating weightlessly between the sky and the mud, he watched the ethereal arrows inch closer, inch by inch.
'It's always like this... No matter how strong I think I get, when it's time to actually protect someone... when it's time to use my power... I'm completely useless.'
As the cold air bit into his cauterised chest, distorted echoes from his childhood began to resonate within his mind voices from a life that felt a million years away.
"Oh, Watanabe..."
A gentle, soothing voice echoed inside his fading consciousness. It was his mother. Or at least... who he thought was his mother. It had been so many years since he last heard her speak that he couldn't even be sure if he was remembering her true voice anymore.
"You are such a kind, sweet boy, aren't you...? It's alright if you choose not to pick up the blade... It's fine if you just stay home and become a farmer, just like your father..."
Watanabe's eyes glazed over as the first spectral arrow grazed the edge of his shoulder.
'Oh... that's right. I used to despise the sight of violence, didn't I...?'
Floating weightlessly in the downpour, Watanabe's thoughts drifted deeper into his forgotten past. He remembered watching from the shadows as the weaker branch members were routinely humiliated and abused by the main family.
'When was it that I actually picked up the sword...?'
As his internal resolve shifted, his Reiryoku flared with absolute, sub-zero cold. His heart rate slowed to a calm, icy rhythm. Frost erupted across his armour, spreading over his arms and legs in intricate crystalline patterns. His skin paled to an alabaster white, and his long hair bleached into a stark, snowy white that fluttered against the howling wind.
'Oh... that was it, wasn't it? It was the day I saw them laying hands on my little sister. That was the first time I gripped a blade in earnest... and that was the exact moment my life started going to hell. That was when I was scouted...'
A bitter, cold smile touched his lips.
'Ah... damn it all. If I'm going to do this... if I'm going to fight... I might as well go all the way to the end even if it costs me my life!'
Watanabe's eyes snapped open, blazing with an intense, frozen glare.
SNAP!
The swarm of spectral arrows plummeting toward his chest stopped dead in mid-air. An invisible wave of absolute frost engulfed the projectiles, turning the glowing arrows into solid glass before they shattered into harmless white dust that blew away in the storm.
"WHAT—?!"
The four-armed spirit recoiled, taking several involuntary steps back through the mud.
"Who... what are you...?" she stammered, her hollow eye sockets widening as she watched the cauterised green-fire wound across Watanabe's sternum freeze solid under a protective seal of ice.
He touched down lightly on the frozen earth. In his grip, the katana's steel turned into the purest, translucent white, shimmering like fresh snowfall under a winter moon.
"That isn't even Onmyōdō sorcery..." the spirit hissed, her raspy voice trembling for the very first time. "It's raw, unfiltered Reiryoku nature... How can a mere human hold such power?!"
For the first time since the fight began, the creature's decaying face twisted into absolute horror.