THE SHRINE OF TWO MOONS PART 3: MUREI’S JUDGEMENT

The impact was a dull thud that vibrated through his marrow. Somewhere along his scalp, blood trickled. Asahi closed his fingers around the hilt of his Katana; however, pain exploded through his shattered shoulder.

Inhale.

Nothing.

His chest refused to expand. The sensation he’d felt before —Kokyū Ryoku—was gone.

I messed up.

He’d gotten cocky. Mouthy. Exactly what Reiji had always warned him about.

Never underestimate your opponent.

Speaking of Reiji—

Still trapped.

He had one option left.

Arukuro—Kami of Hollow Flames.

Asahi hated the idea.

Okay. Do it….or we both die.

FINALLY.

Images flashed of a dark place with chains of light and a shrine buried in roots. Asahi’s awareness began to slip to that darkness, like ink diffusing in water. His eyes rolled back into his head, the warm brown of his irises replaced by a cold red.

TRY TO RELAX

The blood trickling from Asahi’s nose stopped flowing down and floated upward in tiny spheres, defying gravity.

Lanterns across the shrine flickered violently. Broken ema plaques snapped back onto their racks as splinters knitted together seamlessly. The cratered stone basin beneath Asahi’s hummed repairing itself.

Murei felt it before he saw it.

That aura….it cannot be.

His Enshō-kyaku faltered instantly. The ribbons recoiled around him, shrinking. He had felt something similar earlier —but this was different.

Denser.

Asahi’s body snapped upright as if yanked by invisible wire. His skin darkened into matte black, spreading outward from his collarbone. Angular runes etched themselves across his chest, glowing faintly like embers beneath ash—

—and then Asahi was swallowed inward.

......

Sound

That was the first thing Asahi noticed.

Too much sound — overlapping vibrations that blurred together. He could hear water trembling inside the stone basin, hear rain clinging to the shrine’s eaves and even his own heartbeat.

Loud and erratic like a trapped animal.

Is this…..how Arukuro hears? It's so intense.

The air was mapped into visible currents of Kishin threads, pulses and distortions. The shrine was saturated with it, every object humming with its own signature.

He watched Murei bow—twice, precisely at forty-five degrees—his Kishin fluctuating with each movement.

Ribbons of burning flesh peeled away from Murei’s body, fragmenting—thin slivers breaking off from his spine, calves, wrists.

“L-Lord… Aru… Arukuro…” Murei swallowed. “I am humbled…to welcome you back....”

YOUR ATTEMPTS AT LIES ARE TEPID.

I KNOW YOU SERVE ANOTHER.

Murei's Kishin fluctuated, his eyes wide and fixed on the dirt.

He knows?

“No, My Lord,” his voice cracked. " Sutoku was merely a means to an end. To witness your return...to see the seal finally broken...it is all I have ever prayed for." 

More fragments peeled away, embedding themselves into lantern frames and pillars.

Avoid direct combat. 

Arukuro’s Kishin is immense but spread thin. The human vessel must be limiting him.

Is the boy who Sutoku wants…..?

WHAT IS ON YOUR MIND, MUREI?

“If I may ask,” Murei spoke, his voice barely a sound, “have you formed a contract with the samurai boy?

Arukuro's eyes flared. The silence stretched until Murei could feel his pulse hammering against his neck.

“Of course, y-you," he stammered, "...don't need to answer. Forgive my impertinence.”

Arukuro slowly leaned over to him.

TELL ME WHERE THE REST OF ME IS SEALED

The voice was like a physical force that pressed Murei further down until his forehead bled.

“I….I have searched, My Lord,” he whispered. "but....."

I AM DEEPLY DISSAPOINTED, MUREI

Inside the void, Asahi yelled—

[‘Hello?! Arukuro?! Just finish him!]

Ignored.

Now, Murei thought, snapping his fingers. He ignited

“Kagerō-bin — Heat Wave Mirage.”

The courtyard erupted.

The fragmented ribbons combusted into superheated mist that distorted every light and shadow alike. To any human eye, Murei had vanished into thin air, but Asahi tethered to the void saw clearly.

Murei’s fragments were no longer a single ribbon. His Kishin reassembled between them, reforming wherever the heat distortion peaked.

[To your left, Arukuro!]

Murei struck—

—and hit only an afterimage.

What—?
He dodged that?

Murei didn't stop, dissolving back into the heat and reappearing from different fragments, each time.

Arukuro evaded the strikes thanks to Asahi's instruction, eventually catching Murei mid-strike.

“What are you doing?!” Murei yelled.

Ignored.

Asahi felt it immediately, a sudden pulling sensation, like his breath being siphoned through his spine.

Murei’s flames were dragged back through the fragments, flooding into Arukuro’s body. The fire darkened — from orange to violet to black.

“…Impossible?” Murei froze. “You can’t….!”

I AM ARUKURO-NO-MIKOTO.

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE

The wood warped, beams twisting inward. Rain evaporated before it even touched the ground, hissing into nothing.

Murei screamed, looking at his hands— the fingers were already crumbling into ash, siphoned away by Arukuro’s insatiable void.

If I don't escape right now, I'll die.

Murei stopped pulling away. With a desperate, feral snarl, he lunged into Arukuro’s grasp. He reversed the flow of his Kishin, from the ribbons back to his own veins.

“If you want my power, Great Lord….” He whizzed, eyes bleeding. “….then take EVERY DROP!!!”

Arukuro’s eyes narrowed.

YOU WOULD DARE?

“Transmutation Art – Kijin-Hokai!”

His chest ruptured. Blood igniting into sun-bright spontaneous combustion. The heat was so great that it bypassed Arukuro’s spiritual defences, searing inward—

Asahi collapsed as the void convulsed, forcing Arukuro to release his grip.

INSOLENT—

Murei used the blast as a propellant, shooting aimlessly past the courtyard. His left arm burned black, flesh ripping away as Kishin ripped violently from his body. He crawled across the wet stone, dragging himself toward the torii gate, leaving bloody handprints behind him.

Move. Move. MOVE

At the base of the pillar, a single ribbon fragmented waited. Planted before the fight ever began. Murei pressed his ruined forearm against it.

The fragment ignited.

He was wrenched sideways along the shrine’s own Kishin currents, vanishing in a streak of light —

—and reappeared beyond the shrine grounds, crashing through underbrush and stone.

He rolled to a stop, gasping, smoke pouring from his body.

Half his torso charred.

One eye refusing to open.

Kishin flickering

But alive.

Murei let out a wet laugh.

“….This isn’t over,” he rasped. “Not even close.”

MEANWHILE……….

Reiji looked up at the sky above, which was a swirling of dark currents of water. A broken wooden roof tile drifted past, tumbling end over end like debris caught in a flood.

He reached for his floating katana and the water beneath it suddenly reached up like a hand, wrapping around the scabbard and yanking it downward. Reiji dove after it without thinking.

Pressure slammed into him from every direction, crushing his chest, his throat snapping shut as black water forced its way into his mouth and nose. His limbs felt heavy with each movement.

Focus

His fingers stretched around the hilt.

Once he did, he was hurled upward violently, the force wrenching the sword from his grip, vanishing into the dark below as he burst back onto the surface, gasping.

The world jittered.

Sounds dulled into muffles as if his ears were full of water. His vision blurred, stomach twisting with the unmistakable vertigo of drowning.

Dammit! If I could just….

“Little Samurai…” Tsukuro’s voice whispered.

Even Tsukuro’s voice felt like a vibration in his own chest. Reiji collapsed onto the black water. He sucked in air greedily, lungs burning with each attempt.

“….You cannot escape my Mizugokoro no Ori.”

The black water rippled then Tsukuro rose from the surface, giggling.