"Flow and Curle River Mastru!"
As soon as those words were uttered from Gabimaru's mouth, the toxic voices filling his head instantly vanished. The occult markings etched across his back began to bubble up, shifting dynamically from the edges of his skin to become fully actualised. They slithered like living ink, racing up his spine and branching out across his shoulders.
"Hmph... kukukukuku... He has finally done it," a man murmured softly to himself from far away, sipping a cup of sake back in the quiet village where the divine gates had first been forged.
"Master... I have finally found someone to carry your will..."
The man chuckled quietly, his cheeks flushed with a rosy hue, clearly intoxicated by the sake. Just before him, a magnificent, giant white fox with three sweeping tails lapped peacefully from its own massive lacquer dish of sake.
"Honestly, I didn't think he would actually pull through," the man mused, swirling the remaining sake in his porcelain cup. "I sensed he was weaker—far less talented than the other three he travelled with, so I thought I'd lend him a bit of power. Yet he somehow managed to stave off those lingering spirits latched to it... Kukukukuku."
The man laughed once more, his voice booming with such sudden, heavy reverberation that it sounded like a crack of thunder rolling across the distant sky.
"Well, whatever. I suppose that, too, was simply the whim of the heavens."
He smiled, tilting his head back to take another massive gulp from his cup, completely unbothered by the storm brewing far in the distance.
Back in the alleyway, the stone ground beneath Gabimaru had vanished beneath a vast pool of crimson. The thick expanse of blood surged upward, rising high enough to lap at the children's knees.
"Ha...—?!"
They all panicked, stumbling back through the crimson pool in terror, shrinking away from Gabimaru. He was now cloaked in a dense, suffocating aura of Reiryoku—a murky, oppressive weight that felt surprisingly steady, his eyes burning with a ghostly luminescence while his mind felt crystal clear for the first time in hours.
"So this is the true power of the clan..." he thought, raising both hands to his face to examine them. "No, that's not all... There's something else here."
He felt a heavy, unnatural chill clinging tightly to his shoulders. Without hesitation, Gabimaru brought his hands together to form an intricate hand seal, his lips moving as he whispered words entirely swallowed by the roar of the rain.
Then, the pooling blood around his feet began to bubble and violently surge, rising from the crimson depths to form a massive beast.
It manifested as a majestic bird, easily the size of two fully grown men. Its feathers shone with the purest white, etched with intricate, glowing symbols identical to the ones now actualised across Gabimaru's back. The creature carried an undeniable, ravenous aura its razor-sharp beak was nearly the size of two large hands, and its piercing eyes possessed a freezing glare that paralysed anyone who dared to meet its gaze.
"Eeeek...!"
The children huddled behind him shrank back, wailing once more in pure terror. They couldn't form words, but Gabimaru could feel the raw emotion radiating off them with crystal clarity.
Fear.
All his life, Gabimaru had used his clan's blood arts as an excuse—reasoning that because his techniques were born of blood, he was naturally destined to look terrifying and monstrous. But looking at the weeping children behind him, a profound truth settled into his chest: if people were going to fear him, it was up to him to decide how much of that fear was truly warranted.
Standing opposite the giant white avian, a second massive beast rose from the surging blood.
It manifested as an enormous elk, its towering frame casting a dark shadow over the small shrine structure where the children had been huddling. Its antlers spread outward like the thick branches of an ancient tree, and like the bird, its hide was blindingly white, carved with the same glowing symbols of the ritual mark. Yet unlike the bird, its hollow, pitch-black eyes stared forward with an eerie, silent calm.
"So... those are my Shikigami," Gabimaru realised, his hands still holding the seal. "I've never trained in the summoner arts, let alone forged a contract... Well, it doesn't matter right now. I can feel our souls linked. I might as well use them and figure out the rest later."
With a sharp flick of his wrist, a wave of pooling blood surged forward, slamming violently against the collapsing wooden carriage to reinforce the barrier against the flood.
"You brats!" Gabimaru barked, turning his head back toward the alleyway. "Hurry up and climb onto those two creatures! They'll carry you to safety!"
"HA—?!"
The children froze, their eyes wide with sheer disbelief. Instead of obeying his orders, they scrambled backwards through the water, shuddering in horror as they looked at the two monstrous, ravenous beasts standing right before them.
"Ahhh..."
Gabimaru took a long, heavy breath, his chest rising and falling slowly.
'Don't tell me they're frightened of me... Well, I can't blame them. After everything that's happened to them—and how I was acting earlier—I'd be terrified of me, too. But I don't have time to pamper them right now. I need a surefire way to get them to listen.'
Suddenly, an idea crossed Gabimaru's mind. It wasn't a gentle one, but it was guaranteed to work.
"All of you—listen up!" Gabimaru growled, his voice ringing out over the roar of the rain. "Anyone who doesn't climb onto those beasts right now is going to get eaten by the monster behind you!"
With a swift flick of his wrist, the pool of blood behind the children began to violently churn and bubble, coalescing into the grotesque, shadowy silhouette of a towering demon.
"AHHHH—!"
Terrified screams pierced the night air as the children panicked, scrambling over one another in a mad dash toward the giant white bird and the majestic elk Gabimaru had summoned earlier.
"Huuuuu..." Gabimaru let out a long sigh of relief, watching the children hurriedly climb up onto the backs of the two Shikigami.
'Now I can finally fight properly without worrying about these brats. I have a feeling whatever trapped them here is about to wake up... and even with this newfound power, I won't be able to exorcise that spirit if I'm constantly holding back to protect them.'