December 24.
The morning mist had just begun to thin along the ridges surrounding Matsue Domain.
Kashimo stood at the highest peak. He held his hand in a familiar, precise posture. His thumb braced against the knuckle of his index finger, his other three fingers curled tight. It was the stance of a marksman, an Archer preparing a shot.
But his hand was empty.
He no longer needed a physical projectile to compress his lightning. Three months had been enough to refine his control to its absolute limit. He began to draw in his cursed energy, crushing it into a single, microscopic point.
The density of the energy at his fingertip was staggering, a concentration of power that rivaled the void itself.
"Moonlight," he whispered. "Thunder. The lake and the sky: Piercing Lightning."
The air began to vibrate. Cursed energy surged toward his finger, the compressed mass emitting a blue light so blinding it looked like he was holding a fragnt of the sun.
He snapped his thumb.
There was no initial roar or explosion. The electromagnetic bolt moved at a speed the human eye couldn't track, leaving only a distorted ripple in the air as it tore across the distance.
Five hundred ters away, Zenin Sawara stood on the mountain path. His arms hung loosely at his sides as he looked up at the silhouette on the ridge.
His pupils constricted. He felt it before he saw it. A massive, terrifying volu of cursed energy closing in with impossible speed. He didn't have ti to think. He reacted on instinct, throwing his arms up to guard his face.
The sound finally hit. A deafening, bone-shaking blast. A shockwave erupted from the point of impact, uprooting the surrounding trees and carving a jagged trench into the earth.
As the smoke cleared, Sawara remained standing. He was still in his defensive stance, his cursed energy flaring as he funneled everything into his reinforcent.
His hands were gone. His upper body was charred black, his skin cracked and weeping steam. Behind him, the mountain path had been obliterated. A massive scar stretched a hundred ters into the forest, the dirt at the edges of the trench turned to glass by the heat.
Sawara looked down at his blackened torso. He didn't say a word.
An instant later, Kashimo was there.
It wasn't a run or a leap. He simply appeared. From five hundred ters away to within three paces, the movent took less than a second.
"Surprised?"
Kashimo tilted his head. He watched as blood and new muscle began to sprout from the charred remains of Sawara's wrists. A small, mocking smile touched his lips. "Ten Shadows."
Sawara slowly lifted his head. His reverse cursed technique was working at full capacity. The blackened skin sloughed off in flakes, revealing the raw, pink flesh beneath. He stared at the man in the white robes, his eyes as dark as a stagnant well.
"Average," Sawara said. His voice was calm.
He shook his arms, the last of the ash falling away. His new hands curled into fists. Cursed energy began to pool at his knuckles.
"Allow to teach you what a real curse looks like."
Kashimo didn't answer. He tightened his own fists. Lightning snapped around his fra as he focused his energy into his strikes.
They lunged at the sa ti.
The sound of their fists colliding echoed through the pass. A shockwave rippled outward, sending loose stones flying.
Sawara was the larger man, his fra broad and heavy. His punches landed with the weight of falling boulders. But in terms of pure skill, they were not the sa.
Kashimo's life had been defined by close-quarters combat. Every punch and kick had been forged in a thousand life-and-death struggles. It wasn't a family legacy or a gifted technique. It was seventeen years of honed, lethal instinct.
His fists were faster. More precise. More savage.
Three hits. Five. Ten…
Sawara's guard began to falter. The opening lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was enough. Kashimo broke through and drove a punch directly into Sawara's shoulder.
Flesh and bone disintegrated. The sound was sharp and sickening as a massive hole was blown through the Zenin master's torso. Gore sprayed out from his back, painting the mountain path in crimson.
Sawara groaned, stumbling back. Kashimo watched the wound, his smile widening into sothing predatory and manic. He looked like a hunter who had just heard the trap snap shut.
Sawara stared at that smile, his pupils narrowing. "Madoka."
He wove a sign without hesitation. His shadow churned, and a massive, deer-like shikigami erged from the dark. A soft, golden light radiated from the creature, enveloping Sawara's shoulder. The positive energy of the Round Deer flooded the wound. Muscle and skin grew back over the void, and the shattered bone fused in seconds.
Sawara rotated his new shoulder, his gaze never leaving Kashimo's face.
"The mont you strike," Sawara said, his voice low and heavy, "you're injecting sothing into , aren't you?"
Kashimo's grin only deepened.
Sawara watched him for another mont, then looked away. He raised a hand, and the Round Deer sank back into his shadow.
The sun broke through the clouds, illuminating the road between them.
Sawara charged again. He was faster this ti, his movents carrying a new, desperate aggression. He blurred across the gap, throwing a punch aid directly at Kashimo's face.
Kashimo took a step back. The fist whistled past his nose, the wind of the strike stinging his cheek. He pivoted, preparing to counter.
His wrist went tight.
Sawara had caught him. His fingers were like iron bands, squeezing until the bones in Kashimo's arm began to groan.
Kashimo's eyes widened. In that sa heartbeat, a high-pressure torrent of water began to spiral in Sawara's palm. It was the Piercing Water of the Max Elephant.
Kashimo didn't move to escape.
The blast hit him square in the chest. Flesh was torn away and ribs were exposed as his clothes were shredded by the force of the water. He didn't even flinch. He twisted his trapped wrist, wrenching it free with a violent snap.
He drove a fist into Sawara's face.
The Zenin master's head snapped back. The skin of his face was vaporized, leaving behind a raw mask of muscle and exposed bone. His eyeballs remained fixed in their sockets, staring wildly at the blood-soaked man in front of him. Blood poured from his missing nose and mouth, soaking his robes in a dark, bruised red.
Sawara stumbled back, but he refused to fall. He raised a mangled hand and began to weave a sign.
"Domain Expansion," his voice was a raspy growl, forced through a mouth that no longer had lips. "Shadows of All Creation."
The world turned cold.
The shadows grew teeth. They were no longer re absence of light, but living, sentient things. They spilled from Sawara's feet like a black tide, swallowing the mountain path. Every inch of ground covered by the shadow began to pulse and writhe as things woke up in the dark.
Kashimo imdiately wove his own sign. A translucent film wrapped around his body.
Hollow Wicker Basket.
He stood in the center of the black tide, watching the silhouettes of shikigami take form in the gloom. He could feel their power rising, fueled by the environnt of the domain.
The Shadows of All Creation was a domain Sawara had mastered at sixteen. It lacked a traditional sure-hit attack, but it offered sothing far more dangerous. Every shikigami summoned within its bounds was granted a massive, overwhelming increase in power.
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A/n: 500 power stones = 1 bonus chapter. Don't forget to vote with your power stones!!
For early access to 15 chapters ahead: p@tre~~/Demonic_Fiction (Link is in the synopsis and my profile).
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