"Hhmmmmpt... so you were hiding this much power from me, were you... Watanabe?"
A distant, raspy voice echoed across the silent, frozen graveyard where Watanabe lay unconscious.
'Kukukuku... You wretched brat. You actually found someone to redirect the curse I bound you with, didn't you? Your life belongs to me... why even struggle, you miserable little pawn?'
Without warning, an unnatural gale began to churn around Watanabe's motionless body. The howling wind ripped through the tundra, causing frozen mud, shattered bone, and pebbles to levitate into the air. Then, with a sudden, violent pull, all the swirling air rushed straight into his left forearm and dissipated into absolute silence.
Sssshhhppssst!
Across the pale skin of his left hand, a dark, unnatural seal flared into a sickening purple glow. The ink lines squirmed like living vipers, weaving into the shape of a grand, ancient tree with three twisted main boughs. From its curling branches hung three intricate, spherical fruits that resembled veiled crowns.
THUD!
With a heavy, sickening sound, the first bone-crown fruit withered, detached from the branches of the seal, and fell away, dissolving into black ash.
"Though I cannot claim you today as I wished... this will suffice," the voice hissed, its tone dripping with venomous pleasure. "BY THE TIME THE LAST CROWN FALLS, SO WILL YOU! Kukukukukuku..."
The menacing, feminine laughter echoed off the frozen tombstones, slowly fading into the hollow whistle of the night wind, leaving Watanabe alone in the quiet dark.
…
Elsewhere at that exact same moment—
"Ha...? What is this feeling...?"
Yorimitsu froze mid-stride, his hand instantly snapping up to press against his chest. He slowly tilted his head, his sharp eyes squinting up toward the storm-heavy night sky.
'Don't tell me... Watanabe...?' He clicked his tongue, a deep scowl carving into his forehead. 'Tsk, damn it! Why now, of all times?! I explicitly warned him not to overextend himself! Now the true caster of his curse has realised I redirected its tether... I just hope we still have enough time to reach him before it's too late.'
He turned his grim gaze toward Inoue, his voice tightening with urgency. "We need to finish our business here and move. Quickly."
Meanwhile, on the far eastern side of the settlement, Shion stood alone amidst a vastly different landscape.
Unlike the mud-slicked alleys and decaying straw roofs of the slums, the buildings in this district were modern, pristine, and imposing, crafted from heavy cut stone and capped with shimmering green and black ceramic tiles that gleamed under the rain.
Positioned in the shadows of the high-end district, Shion adjusted her grip, her eyes scanning the quiet courtyard ahead.
The green and black ceramic tiles glimmered beautifully beneath the dark sky, reflecting the rain so intensely they looked like stars that had fallen to the earth. The road here was paved with smooth, fitted cobblestones, preventing any mud from stagnating. Instead, the downpour channelled along the sloped street, forming what looked like an out-of-place, rushing river through the centre of the district.
Yet despite how pristine and new the houses appeared, a heavy, eerie atmosphere hung over the neighbourhood.
Peering through a dark window frame, Shion noticed something deeply unsettling: the buildings were completely empty. There were no hanging fabrics, no cooking pots, no furniture, nor any of the daily tools humans needed to survive. It was as if this entire lavish quarter had been erected purely for decoration.
"So... have you come to kill me?"
A young girl's soft voice echoed from a high roof above.
Sitting on the edge of a ceramic gabled roof was a little girl with vibrant, bright pink hair. She wore a simple male outer kimono garment draped loosely over her shoulders and wore straw sandals on her feet.
'Hmmm... that Reiryoku!'
The instant Shion glanced up, her combat instincts flared to absolute height. With a fluid flick of her wrists, her spiritual energy condensed into twin daggers forged from pure, writhing shadows.
"Hmmm... so you're a kunoichi who hails from Iga, huh?" the girl spoke softly, swinging her bare legs back and forth over the ledge in a playful, careless rhythm.
She slowly turned her gaze down toward Shion. Her eyes were a stark, brilliant red, a piercing hue that mimicked the exact shade of a blood-drenched sunset.
"Ohhh... what a shame that you cannot speak," the little girl said, smiling, her voice dripping with playful condescension. "Truly a pity."
With a casual kick of her legs, the girl leapt off the high ceramic roof. She descended through the downpour and touched down softly on the stone road. Yet despite her fall, not a single drop of water splashed, nor did a speck of mud rise beneath her straw sandals. It was as if her body were physically present, yet detached from reality at the same time.
'Can I actually defeat this thing...?' Shion's mind raced, her fingers tightening around the cold hilts of her shadow daggers. 'It feels unnaturally powerful... It doesn't even feel like a standard spirit anymore.'
As the weight of the girl's terrifying Reiryoku pressed down on her chest, an ancient teaching from the hidden halls of Iga echoed clearly through Shion's memory:
'A mission must be completed at all costs. Even if you must sacrifice your own life... the client always comes first.'
With her resolve hardened into iron, Shion sank into a low, soundless stance, her shadow daggers writhing with dark energy.
"No need to look so nervous... I don't really want to fight you, either!" the little girl chimed, crossing her hands behind her back with a sweet, innocent posture.
Shion's eyes narrowed, but she didn't lower her shadow daggers by a fraction of an inch.
"Now that the other two anchors have been broken," the girl continued, her sunset-red eyes gleaming with piercing intelligence, "I have finally managed to break free and become my own. We may have all shared the exact same origin at first... but I am a little different now. And because of that growth, I've actually come to understand you humans, albeit just a little..."
She smiled warmly, tilting her head as the rain parted around her body.
"So... let us make a contract!"