Outside the Temple of the Moon, the world had become a war zone.
The white stone courtyard, once a place of serenity and quiet tourism, was now a sea of running bodies, screams, and stumbling figures.
Black smoke rose from overturned cars on the adjacent street, blending with Kyoto's neon lights and staining the night sky.
"RUN! SOUTH GATE! MOVE!" Liora shouted, her voice projected through the throat amplifier of her tactical suit. In the same fluid motion, she decapitated a lesser Yokai with her ceremonial blade, carving a path through the chaos for a group of elderly civilians.
The Order's ninjas moved like living shadows, fast and precise, forming a defensive perimeter, but they were being pushed back.
Sayuri burst through the main gate, the Chainsaw King heavy on her back, the White Lotus Magnum in her hand.
"What a mess…" she muttered, eyes scanning the carnage.
Near a dragon-shaped ornamental fountain, a man in a business suit tripped, his glasses skidding across the stone. He tried to crawl away, but a shadow rose behind the cascading water.
It wasn't a folkloric monster.
It was a biological nightmare.
A Yokai resembling a Kappa, but with synthetic gray skin and breathing tubes protruding from its back. Mechanical claws rose, ready to shred the man's spine.
"Hey, ugly!" Sayuri shouted.
The creature turned.
BANG.
The Magnum's bullet, infused with spiritual energy, detonated the monster's head like a rotten melon. The body collapsed into the fountain, turning the water black.
The man stared at Sayuri, frozen in terror.
"MOVE!" she barked.
He didn't need to be told twice.
"Alpha Unit, civilian protection! Beta Unit, containment!" Liora commanded, cold and surgical, ushering people toward the safe exit.
"Hikari, assist the wounded!"
Hikari was pale, drenched in cold sweat, but he didn't stop. He helped a woman to her feet, guiding her away from the danger.
Then he saw it.
A little girl, no more than six, stood alone at the edge of the courtyard, clutching a filthy teddy bear, frozen in terror.
Behind her, something climbed over the wall.
A Mutant Oni.
Three meters tall. Exposed crimson muscle. Metal plates grafted into its shoulders. A concrete club clenched in its massive hand.
"Hey!" Hikari dropped the stretcher and ran.
"HIKARI, DON'T!" Liora shouted, locked in combat with two monsters.
Hikari threw himself in front of the girl, wrapping his arms around her and turning his back to the beast, a human shield.
The Oni roared and raised its club to crush them both.
Hikari shut his eyes.
VRRRRRRMMMM!
The scream of an engine tore through the air.
CHAK!
Heat blasted past him. Gasoline and ozone filled his lungs.
He opened his eyes.
Sayuri stood before him, back turned, holding the Chainsaw King one-handed. The serrated blade had stopped the concrete club mid-swing, its spinning teeth grinding stone into dust, blue sparks exploding outward.
"You have a terrible habit of trying to be a hero," Sayuri said over her shoulder, smiling.
She twisted the throttle.
WRRRZZZZT!
The blade superheated, glowing incandescent blue. With a guttural shout, Sayuri shoved the club upward, throwing the giant off balance, then pivoted into a horizontal slash.
The chainsaw blade tore through the Oni's waist.
Flesh. Metal. Bone.
The monster split in two, screaming before dissolving into biological sludge.
Sayuri flicked the blade clean.
"Get her out. Now."
Hikari lifted the girl into his arms, staring at Sayuri with a mix of awe and fear.
"Thank you…"
"Less talking. More running." She nudged him forward.
"I'll handle the rest."
Hikari sprinted toward Liora's perimeter.
The courtyard was now empty of civilians.
Only Sayuri remained.
And the monsters.
Dozens of them, crawling Ghouls, smaller Onis, low-flying Tengus, closed in, drawn by blood and power.
Sayuri cracked her neck.
"Alright. Let's see what this new toy can do."
She holstered the pistol and reached into her belt, drawing three Order shurikens, large, silver, each with a pulsing energy core.
She threw them.
The shurikens carved perfect arcs through the air. When they struck the first monsters, they didn't just cut, they detonated in bursts of sacred light, stunning the front line.
"Strike."
Sayuri charged.
She gunned the sword three times.
VROOM. VROOM. VROOM.
Static electricity wrapped around the blade.
She slid across the stone, severed the legs of two Ghouls, used the momentum to leap, spinning midair like a living buzzsaw, shredding a Tengu that dove from above.
She landed, surrounded.
Sayuri planted the Chainsaw King into the ground and revved the engine to its limit.
"OVERDRIVE!"
The stored energy discharged into the earth.
A blue electric shockwave erupted in all directions, frying nearby enemies and hurling them back like ragdolls.
She drew the Magnum again, alternating shots with blade strikes.
Headshot.
Saw slash.
Chest shot.
Reverse cut.
A brutal dance of technology and feral instinct.
The final monster, a larger Ghoul, tried to flee.
Sayuri hurled the sword.
The spinning blade chewed through its spine, dropping it instantly. She finished it with a point-blank shot.
Silence reclaimed the courtyard, broken only by the low idle growl of the sword's engine.
"Hmph. Thought they'd be tougher."
She retrieved the blade and secured it on her back, scanning for further threats.
That's when she noticed something wrong.
The electric blast had cracked the base of an ancient fox statue near the temple's side entrance.
But beneath the broken stone wasn't solid rock.
It was empty.
Cold air breathed out from the fracture.
Curious, Sayuri approached and kicked away the rubble.
The stone collapsed, revealing a hidden passage, dark steps descending deep underground, far beneath the modern temple's foundations.
"Well, well…" She switched on the flashlight mounted to her jacket.
"What were you hiding down here, old man Reigan?"
She glanced back toward where Liora and Hikari had vanished with the civilians.
No one would see her go down.
"Well… curiosity killed the cat." She smirked, adjusting her eyepatch.
"But I'm a wolf."
Sayuri descended into the passage.
Below, the corridor opened into an ancient subterranean crossroads, stone architecture centuries old, fused with freshly installed fiber-optic cables bolted into the walls.
Three paths diverged.
One radiated stifling heat.
Another exhaled biting cold.
The third carried a sickly sweet scent of flowers.
"A secret labyrinth beneath a sacred temple…" Sayuri murmured, her voice swallowed by the shadows.
She took her first step into the unknown.
And felt, deep in her bones, that the true night had only just begun.
To be continued…