Inoe unhinged his jaw, the skin stretching until it tore at the corners, and fired a sphere of violet miasma. As he took to the air, silver scales moulted from his wings, fluttering down like cursed snow through the thick white fog.
They merged with the mundane. The scales touched a discarded straw sandal and a torn oil-paper umbrella. Instantly, the atmosphere shifted from ghostly to grotesque.
A jagged mouth, lined with needle-teeth, tore open in the umbrella's silk, and the sandal grew a singular, bulging eye that rolled frantically in its socket. They swelled to twice their size, their wooden frames groaning and snapping as they became Tsukumogami.
"Get him!" Inoe roared, his voice echoing with the hollow resonance of a tomb.
The umbrella spun, generating a vortex of piercing wind. Hundreds of spirit-needles shot toward Yorimitsu.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The needles shredded the wooden shutters of the building behind him. Before he could reset, the sandal rushed his feet, its wooden base clacking like teeth.
"Crrkkk... wear me," the thing buzzed, stumbling forward with clumsy, murderous intent.
Yorimitsu leapt. He used the falling leaves as momentary anchors for his Reiryoku, bouncing through the air until he landed on the roof of a nearby storehouse.
"Tch... so this is how yōkai are born," Yorimitsu noted, his eyes tracking the silver scales that continued to drift. "Those scales carry his malice. If he wills it, even the simplest objects can gain a perverse sentience."
The two objects turned in unison, their hunger shifting toward the unconscious, vulnerable Lord Yoshitomo lying on the veranda.
"No, you don't."
Yorimitsu flicked two yellow paper talismans. They slapped onto the umbrella and the sandal with a sharp hiss. The spindly limbs that had sprouted from them retracted instantly, the malice purged by the holy cinnabar ink. They collapsed back into mundane, lifeless objects.
His gaze snapped up. Inoe was already upon the nearest bone-anchor.
Crack!
The serpent-vertebrae shattered under Inoe's obsidian grip. The Misogi veil didn't break, but it shivered and shrank. The thick, protective white fog thinned, allowing glimpses of the courtyard to bleed through the mist.
"Yorimitsu charged, his rusted blade held in a two-handed grip.
Shing!
Sparks sprayed like dying stars as his steel met Inoe's primary claws. The demon's four auxiliary limbs extended with a sickening squelch, catching Yorimitsu's arms and legs, pinning him in mid-air against the cold moonlight.
"You are a real odd little thing," Inoe hissed, his thousands of yellow eyes focusing into a singular, burning glare. "A sickly child who couldn't gather energy for years suddenly lays a grand array? It was clearly poison for you. Who is pulling your strings?"
Inoe's mouth opened. A long, purple tongue lined with thousands of microscopic needles slid out. It shimmered with a wet, spear-like presence.
Shhhhh! Shhhh!
A thick purple sludge leaked from the tip, sizzling as it hit the stone.
"My speciality is venom, you know," Inoe whispered, the tongue drifting like a viper's head. "I have consumed a thousand poisonous things to reach this state. A single drop of this can kill a thousand whales. Tell me who is behind you, or I'll face the pain of seeing your stomach eat itself."
The tongue lashed out, wrapping around Yorimitsu's throat. It pulled tight. Yorimitsu's face turned a bruised plum-red.
Shruuuuuu!
The tongue tip stabbed into the side of his neck. Purple veins immediately began to spiderweb across his skin from the puncture.
"You have two minutes before your insides turn to mush," Inoe mocked. He let go, and Yorimitsu hit the ground.
Thud!
"Now, answ—"
Yorimitsu's body melted into the shadows. He appeared behind Inoe, the rusted blade already in motion. He carved through the air with such velocity that the path of the steel was invisible.
Boom!
All six of Inoe's limbs fell to the tatami. His torso crashed down a second later.
"You talk too much," Yorimitsu said. He walked around to face the demon and drove his blade into the wood an inch from Inoe's head. "Tell me how many of your kind have infiltrated the Capital."
"That was close; it took more than half my energy to form that clone." Yorimitsu's thoughts drifted momentarily, but then returned quickly as they wondered.
"Tch... how?" Inoe stammered. "I injected you... that skill... the cloning technique... the Minamoto do not have this!"
Yorimitsu raised his blade and stabbed one of the demon's drifting eyes. Yellow ichor splattered the floor. He swung the blade vertically, blinding another.
"You like talking, but not about things with use. Blabber again, and I make the blindness permanent."
"What the hell are yo—"
Yorimitsu stabbed another eye. Then another, and another.
"I will make you pay, you brat," Inoe hissed, his whole body trembling.
You really are something," Yorimitsu mused coldly. "I will ask you one last—"
"Brother?"
A small, trembling voice called from the west. The outline of Hikaru appeared, her footsteps echoing aloud against the gravel as she stepped into the thinned mist.
"Tch... Hikaru!"
"What the hell are you doing her I told you not to come!"
Yorimitsu's focus flickered for a few seconds, but that was the first blunder he had made. In that brief window, Inoe's tongue shot onto Yorimitsu's ankles. His legs gave out, and he fell to his knees, coughing up dark blood.
"DAMN HE GOT ME!"
Inoe didn't miss the chance. A brilliant, sickly green light bubbled around his severed stumps. His legs and arms regenerated in a burst of violent growth.
"The Divine Body!" Hikaru screamed, her voice high with terror.
"I will just take it this time, my luck sure is great."
Shit... I messed up, Yorimitsu thought. His eye closed and opened heavily, desperately circulating his energy to guide the venom out of his veins, but it was moving too fast.
Inoe lunged, not at Yorimitsu, but toward the girl.
"I will not get there in time," Yorimitsu roared, his voice raw with a panic he hadn't felt in centuries. "Get out of there! Run, Hikaru!" he staggered on his feet.