The Kaidan had finished her statement.
To Ren's surprise, the Samurai screamed out something with extreme fear. He couldn't hear exactly what it was. But he could tell from the tone of his voice.
But Ren himself was at the end of nowhere. What the Weeping Mother pronounced sounded like a curse. Yet, nothing came. Not at first.
Ren's heart pounded; his eyes grew watery from staring at the hollow pairs for too long.
Wind gusted in his face. He felt a real pressure to sneeze. But before he could, his eyes shut closed and his body slumped unconsciously onto the floor.
The Samurai's wide eyes stared between Ren and the Kaidan, who began to retreat. As she did, her dark tendrils released the man's hands and legs. And he dropped to one knee just beside his sword.
In a moment, he retrieved the blade, standing tall.
…
He breathed sharply a couple of times.
The Kaidan's body started to dissolve into black mist again. But this time, the process was much slower.
The samurai confronted her with caution.
"You cursed him."
The ghost's voice pierced through, tiny like a baby's.
"No. He was chosen…"
"By the same forest spirit that turned you into a ghost?"
The Weeping Mother was quiet. Her body drifted endlessly into the air. With every second, she was losing her shape, not looking either like a human or a complete demon.
The Samurai nodded.
"I will take your silence as a confession. You're losing your form because that spirit is no longer inside you. Instead…" He glanced down at the boy, "... it's now dwelling in him."
"I shall slay you with my sword then. Take that as my last respect. Dying this way is like dying as the human Kodomo-naki could have, not the Weeping Mother Kaidan."
He said that, and the Kaidan didn't react. She shut her eyes in submission instead. In that split second, the samurai could feel her slight gesture of appreciation.
Because he was giving her a gift she never believed she could get.
As the blade drew a few drops of blood from the man's wrist, a red mist coiled around it. Same as around the wielder's body.
Thus, in a single flash, the samurai dashed to the Kaidan. Red cast on her wholeness as well.
Holding the blade up straight, the samurai whispered:
"Lunal Ascent!"
The blade sang upwards in a deadly arc, slicing the Kaidan's body into two parts. As the residues met the ground, they dissolved into black mists.
Soon, the man shifted to Ren's side.
He stared down at him for a while. Then he held his sword up, with the pointed end facing the centre of Ren's chest.
"My apologies, kid."
He thrust it downwards.
As if the heavens were watching, a cacophony of sound spread all over the seaside. The blade stopped just before touching Ren's clothes, and the man turned towards the source of the sound.
The kingdom centre.
His brows creased immediately when he saw dark ashes drifting all over the sky a distance away. Booming noises cascaded without relent. Pale lights pulsed in the night sky. Most importantly, the air smelled of something different.
It was the scent of the boundary between life and death. Like iron sealed in frost.
Moonlit frost.
"Cursed Kaidans!" The Samurai grabbed Ren from the floor immediately. He slung him over his shoulder and dashed with lightning speed back towards the market.
… After a few seconds, his straw shoes touched the soil at the market's entrance. But that was where he froze.
His jaws dropped.
"How… How could this happen?"
He whispered.
CLASH! KABOOM!
The creatures of twisted figures, features no different from a monster's, jumped men and women from place to place. Blood splattered all over the walls and shopping counters.
What was more terrifying was that even the samurais present there stood no chance.
"Commander Jinrei!"
The man glanced right and saw who called for help. A knight bleeding right below a kaidan with a larger head.
He gritted his teeth.
FLASH!
In a moment, as he dashed to the kaidan, he severed its head. The ground trembled as its body fell.
But the knight was far beyond savable. He had lost a lot of blood through his slitted stomach.
"Forgive me..." the knight pleaded before choking to death.
The Samurai clenched the sword in his grip. Looking around, a lot more had died. Not only the magical fighters, but also ordinary humans. As a matter of fact, a lot more were probable to die.
'The boy!'
He turned back upon recalling having dropped Ren while trying to save the knight. The boy was still lying unconscious at the market's entrance.
The Samurai held a stare at him for a few seconds before returning his glance forward.
There were a lot more people he had to save here.
'Amaterasu will decide his fate.'
He got to sprinting.
Just like an intangible mist, his body slipped from one spot to another. From one Kaidan to the other. The quickest way to kill these creatures was by severing their heads.
So, he did.
But deep inside this deadly side of his was a fearful one that keeps imagining how far this has spread. Because he couldn't imagine what would happen if it had got to the capital too.
Or even worse, other kingdoms.
No.
'Otherwise, the Demon Age is as good as back!'
SLASH!
***
Ren's eyes shot wide open to a sky that seemed to grin back at him. It was dark. Winged creatures danced around in it.
Some strange things manifested before him…
A small creature with fangs, horns, and even red eyes… like a demon. Plus, a set of bone fragments joining together to form text.
It said:
[Wake up, Child of Misfortune!]