[Third Person POV]
While Hisao stood at the shrine entrance, watching out for anyone coming to the shrine, Dai, Midori, and Jiro got to work.
Midori had entered the house behind the shrine, quickly locating Hanako and Yutaka. After a brief struggle, Hanako was knocked unconscious, while Yutaka was asleep and unable to put up a struggle.
Restraining them with rope, he put one on each shoulder and carried them outside, dropping them down a few feet from Jiro's preparations.
*Thud*
"Careful!" Jiro shouted, not looking up from his work. "Any interference would force me to redo everything!"
"Just finish it so we can go." Midori gruffly demanded.
Jiro ignored Midori, knowing the misanthrope wanted nothing more than to head back to base and hide away until their next job. "I can't 'just finish'. This is a very sensitive formation, and if even the slightest thing goes wrong, we could all die."
While the two of them bickered, Dai was watching the courtyard for anything that moved. He had already covered a few sections in a poison cloud to kill the few bugs he could sense. Neither Midori nor Jiro paid mind to his actions, both knowing how over-the-top the half-oni could be when following instructions.
Though neither were fond of yokai, Dai was more tolerable.
Midori liked how he rarely spoke, mostly speaking when it was necessary. Jiro, meanwhile, liked how he always followed orders, even if a little extreme in some cases.
While Midori and Jiro argued, Hisao finally spoke up.
"Midori, stop arguing already. Jiro will finish when he finishes. If you're that bored, then start preparing the prisoners we brought."
"Tch," Midori clicked his tongue before doing as told. He knew not to piss off Hisao, especially when they were working.
Hisao, seeing the three working, headed into the shrine, looking for the prize he was after.
Ten minutes of searching had turned up nothing. He'd already checked everything with a magic signature, but hadn't found his target.
Frustrated, he slams a magically reinforced fist into a nearby statue, sending cracks throughout it.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, knowing getting worked up wouldn't help, Hisao started to think about whether there was somewhere else it could be.
His thoughts were soon interrupted by Jiro's call. "Hey, Boss! I'm done setting everything up! We can begin now!"
A large smile formed on Hisao's face. "Hahaha, excellent!" He laughed before muttering, "Now I just need to find the seal."
However, he had already checked all over the shrine, but hadn't found a trace of one.
Expanding his senses once more to see if there was something he missed, Hisao was surprised to feel a weak magic signature coming from the room he was in.
Turning toward it, he saw the cracked statue before realization struck.
Reinforcing his fist once again, he slammed it into the statue, further enlarging the cracks until the stone crumbled into a pile of rocks.
Sensing again, he found that the magic he sensed had grown. Looking at the floor under the statue, he saw small markings.
Clearing the rubble out of the way, he saw large painted lines stretching into the darkness under the raised floors. Each line was going in a different direction, and when he looked up, he saw they were directed toward the other statues.
With a renewed enthusiasm, Hisao started smashing the other statues, feeling the magic in the room grow and grow until everything started to shake.
-----
Meanwhile, Hajime and Monet were busy trying to deal with the chaos.
Although Hajime could easily embrace Doflamingo's personality and ignore everyone's suffering, he was more curious about why these magicians were attacking the village, though he already had his guesses.
Monet had been putting out fires the best she could, though the constant heat was starting to get to her. As she flew over the city to deal with the next fire, she faltered slightly before continuing as if nothing had happened.
After putting out the fire, Monet flew back to Hajime, planning on recovering before she continued.
She landed a few feet from Hajime, just as he finished impaling another magician.
"Hajime-sama?"
He turned upon hearing her voice. "Monet? Did you put out the fires?"
"Most of them, yes. Dealing with the heat has been exhausting, though."
"Take a break then. If I'm right, the worst is yet to come."
Monet nodded before walking away. Just because she was tired didn't mean she was weak. Even if one of these magicians tried fighting her, as long as they didn't use fire magic, she could elementalize and freeze them at minimal cost.
After Monet left, Hajime sighed at what was happening.
Though it was only a guess based on story patterns, the information he learned about the Masshirona clan and the gashadokuro they sealed, combined with this attack, made him almost 100% certain that the attack on Itose was a diversion.
Despite that suspicion, Hajime didn't think about going back to the shrine.
If the culprits behind the attack were there, they would've likely done something to stall intruders. Going now, especially without knowing who he was dealing with, could be a waste of time.
Better to stay here and help others for now.
A few seconds later, the ground started to rumble.
At first, it was minor, but it quickly grew in intensity.
Turning toward the direction of the shrine, Hajime saw a minor glow coming from the place.
Activating his observation haki to its maximum, he sensed over a dozen individuals there, most of whom were unconscious.
Suddenly, a new presence appeared, dwarfing all others. If the others were like matchsticks, this one was a bonfire.
Instinctively, Hajime knew what it was. It was the only creature there that could have such an aura: the gashadokuro.
There were two ways yokai came into being. The first way was how Kunou, Hajime, and the Toujou sisters came into being, born from a yokai parent. While cases like Hajime being born human were rare, most yokai were considered full-blooded, even with a human parent, since their genetics were dominant.
The second way yokai were formed was something common among spiritual yokai, like the gashadokuro, which was being born from emotions. Gashadokuro in particular are born of the rage and bones of the unburied who died in battle or starved.
Despite the curse that was weakening it, this gashadokuro was much stronger than the average, ironically because of its actions all those centuries ago.
When it got connected to the Masshirona bloodline after consuming their dead, it gained strength, even while sealed, feeding off the anger of the dead. What makes it so ironic is that most of the clan's anger over the dead stems from the weakness imposed on them by the yokai, leading to a reinforcing cycle.
As they weaken and die, they hate the gashadokuro even more, which strengthens it and the curse, weakening the clan further and causing more of them to die.
That was why, despite the curse placed on it, the gashadokuro wasn't much weaker than it was when it was first sealed.
-----
Hisao, watching the giant skeleton crawl out of the seal, was horrified and amazed.
He knew the creature would be strong, but this exceeded even his expectations. Hisao had done his research, so he knew that this yokai had been cursed and sealed for centuries, yet its strength was immense.
"HAHA, YES!" Hisao yelled with joy, drawing the skeleton's attention.
Seeing it turn to face him sent a shiver down his spine, but whether it was joy or terror, he was too busy to identify.
The moment the gashadokuro started moving, Hisao did too.
Quickly exiting the building, he turned to watch as a giant skull burst through the roof, still looking in his direction.
Hisao reached the formation with his three subordinates, a large grin covering his face.
"Jiro, the formation is ready, right?"
"Yes, Boss, just channel your magic into the formation when the gashadokuro gets close enough, and it should take care of the rest."
"Got it, the three of you, go ahead to the shrine's entrance. I'm sure a few people have realized what we're up to by now, and I don't want them ruining everything now that I'm so close."
The three gladly moved away, all unnerved by the giant skeleton that was staring at them.
Now almost freed from the seal, the gashadokuro started to move towards its first victim in centuries.
It reached its hand down toward the human beneath it, its bones rattling despite the slow movement.
As the hand stretched closer, Hisao activated the formation when the giant skeletal hand was over it.
The formation began to glow, its light brighter than the seal breaking a few minutes ago.
The hand that stretched out over the courtyard froze in place, along with the rest of the giant yokai.
The glow soon solidified into a construct of light that wrapped around the bony hand. The light then started crawling around each bone, leaving a small pattern on it, until the hand was covered in a strange, glowing tattoo.
From there, it kept climbing, moving up the arm until it started to fade around the shoulder.
As the light dimmed, the construct vanished, but where it covered the bones, a dark ink pattern remained.
"Yes! Finally! All the power of such a beast, and it's mine to control!" Hisao laughed with unbridled joy. He'd been planning this for years, ever since he learned about the shrine.
This gashadokuro was one of the few remaining ones whose location was known.
Gashadokuro were common up until a few decades ago. After World War 2 ended, it became rarer for the dead to remain unburied and for starvation to claim the living. Though it was possible to 'engineer' their creation, so to speak, these 'artificial' gashadokuro were much weaker than their natural counterparts.
An ancient yokai like this one was much stronger but generally remained hidden due to its simpler nature.
"Now, my pet, go destroy the rest of that acursed town!"
However, unlike what Hisao expected, the beast reacted strangely. The tattooed arm clawed at the ground, while the rest of the yokai stood frozen in place.
"What's wrong? Why aren't you going?" Hisao asked aloud, though he never expected a response.
The giant skeleton, instead, stood up, hunched over, and before Hisao realized what it was doing, the other hand slammed him into the ground.
It didn't know what happened to its arm, but the gashadokuro knew that the tiny human before it was responsible. It could no longer control its arm; most of its 'feeling' had been stripped away.
When it heard the command, its first instinct was to squash the bug before it, but, remarkably, instead of killing him, its hand seemed to listen, clawing its way toward the town in the distance.
Furious that so soon after it regained its freedom, it was being attacked, the gashadokuro slammed its other hand into the human below it, burying him into the floor.
Seeing the town in the distance, the gashadokuro felt drawn to the death occurring there.
It's large, skeletal body slowly lumbered toward Itose, the yokai's thoughts only on absorbing the energy there and growing stronger.
The trio of Midori, Dai, and Jiro, meanwhile, just stood frozen at the shrine entrance, having seen what the beast had done. Midori and Dai, in particular, felt minor sympathy for Jiro, knowing that, if Hisao survived, he wouldn't.
__________
Author's Note:
Really late on posting today. I was playing a game on my phone last night, trying to finish the stuff that refreshes daily (around 11 AM). Fell asleep around 5 AM without finishing. I've been trying to fix my sleep schedule, but that'll probably end up waiting till Christmas break in two weeks.
Thanks for reading; I'll see you next time!