Chapter 13: Successful Creation
Inside the secret room, silence reigned.
Even with the sealing talismans in place, Kasugano Sora's soul was still slowly breaking apart under the pull of the underworld.
Gin Tsumugi knelt beside her body and gently laid her down on the floor. Her face was as pale as paper, drained of every trace of warmth, like a doll abandoned by life itself. He raised two fingers and lightly touched them to her forehead.
Spiritual power flowed.
Guided by his will, a hazy, vacant soul was slowly drawn out of the body.
The moment it separated, the dissipation worsened.
Her soul, already fragile, began to scatter even faster, as though some invisible current from beneath the world was dragging it away.
"Soul-hosting wood. Collect."
Gin formed several hand seals in quick succession.
The piece of soul-hosting wood floating in front of him emitted a deep black radiance. It was not a violent light, but a quiet suction, like a hidden abyss opening in midair. Kasugano Sora's soul was immediately drawn into it.
The change happened at once.
Once the soul took residence, the surface of the wood began to shed its outer layer. What had looked like a dull, charcoal-dark piece of dead wood slowly cracked apart, revealing its true form beneath.
It gleamed like black jade.
Cold.
Smooth.
Exquisitely pure.
That was the real face of soul-hosting wood.
As its name implied, it was a rare material capable of containing and nurturing a soul. Such wood generally formed only in places drenched in yin energy, ancient cemeteries, riverbed silt that had settled for centuries, and other locations where the boundary between life and death had worn thin. For the creation of a Shikigami, it was indispensable.
Its value was obvious now.
Without it, a soul was like a drifting thing without anchor, liable to disperse at any moment. But once Kasugano Sora's soul settled inside the soul-hosting wood, the dissolution stopped. More than that, the wood itself began gently nourishing her.
The vacant, lifeless look on her face gradually softened.
A trace of awareness returned.
Though faint and uncertain, it was there.
"Next step."
Gin exhaled slowly.
Then he raised a hand, condensing his spiritual power into something like an invisible engraving pen.
One by one, ancient Sanskrit characters were inscribed into the soul-hosting wood, and through it, into the depths of Kasugano Sora's soul itself.
Now that the problem of dissipation had been temporarily resolved, he had to sever the underworld's grasp on her existence.
First, he would stabilize her as a spirit capable of remaining in this world.
Then he would use Onmyodo to shield her from the distortions and contamination of the living world. In her current weak state, if that process failed, she could easily be twisted into an evil ghost.
Only after that could he form the contract and bind her as his Shikigami, using the spiritual pathway created between them to feed her with his own power, little by little, until her existence became stable enough to endure in this world without fear of fading away.
Every step required absolute precision.
It demanded not only perfect control, but also deep understanding of the soul itself.
Neither could be lacking.
Otherwise, why were cases like this so rare in the modern age?
Many onmyoji did, in fact, possess ghost-type Shikigami.
But that was fundamentally different.
Those spirits had already survived on their own through chance, obsession, hatred, karma, or some other twist of fate. They already possessed the qualifications to exist. What an onmyoji did in those cases was only subdue them and form a contract.
Directly transforming an ordinary human soul after death into a Shikigami was something else entirely.
What Gin possessed was not ordinary knowledge.
It was the inheritance brought by the role-playing system.
[Shikigami Contract: Minor Accomplishment.]
Just as [Basic Talisman Compendium: Minor Accomplishment] was not merely one technique, but an entire foundation of talismanic arts, [Shikigami Contract: Minor Accomplishment] was not limited to making contracts alone. It encompassed a whole system of operations concerning Shikigami, including their stabilization, refinement, and, in cases like this, their very creation.
Time passed.
The secret room remained quiet except for the faint hum of spiritual power.
About an hour later, Gin's eyes brightened.
"It's done."
A faint smile finally appeared on his face.
"The contract succeeded."
Under his precise control, Kasugano Sora's soul had fully transitioned into a ghost state, and the contract had taken root without issue. From this moment on, she had become his Shikigami.
Through the spiritual bond linking them, he could clearly feel it.
Kasugano Sora, still resting inside the soul-hosting wood, had begun drawing on his spiritual power little by little to reinforce her existence. The process was slow, but steady.
Then, after absorbing enough of his power to stabilize herself, she floated out of the soul-hosting wood.
Her figure was translucent, pale and fragile, but clearly visible to the naked eye.
She looked around blankly, as if waking from a long and terrible dream.
"Where... is this?"
Her voice was soft and uncertain.
"Kasugano Sora," Gin said calmly, "I am Gin Tsumugi, director of the White Fox Office."
At the words White Fox Office, something in her dulled eyes trembled.
"The White Fox Office..."
Fragments of memory stirred.
On the Non-Scientific Supernatural Forum.
The accepted request.
The private message she had clung to as her last hope.
"You came to save me...!"
She looked at him with naked expectation, almost pleading, like a child who had been drowning in darkness for so long that the first glimpse of light felt like salvation itself.
Sadly, her mind was still trapped halfway inside the nightmare.
Her consciousness remained caught in the lingering horror of what had happened, and she had not yet realized the abnormality of her own state.
Gin looked at her quietly.
"I did come to save you," he said. "But it was too late to save everything."
Then, with deliberate patience, he guided her gaze.
"Look at yourself."
Kasugano Sora slowly raised her hands.
They were translucent.
Her body was translucent.
Then her gaze dropped to the floor—
To the corpse lying there, pale, bloodless, and still.
Her corpse.
Her eyes widened in disbelief.
"What... happened to me...?"
Her voice shook.
The answer was already in front of her. Everything pointed to it. Yet the truth was too cruel, too abrupt, for her to accept immediately.
Gin did not hide it.
"You died in the supernatural incident."
As the one who had endured it, she had the right to know.
So he explained.
Patiently.
He told her the entire course of events, from the truth of what had happened in the house, to Kurazaki Fuko's arrival, to her current state as a newly formed Shikigami. He did not embellish it, nor did he soften it unnecessarily. He simply laid out the truth in full.
When he finished, Kasugano Sora said nothing.
She only stood there in silence, staring blankly at her own body.
Gin did not interrupt her.
He merely waited. Quietly.
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 10–50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
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