Hima’s moonlight dragon towered over Fukuoka as it slithered its way towards Kyoto. Beaten and bloodied, Osamu and Hima stood inside the dragon’s translucent head, watching the exorcists and civilians retreat towards higher ground.
The air was saturated with the panicked screams of tens of thousands of men, women, and children as they scrambled towards the hillside neighborhoods and shrines to escape the swirling sinkhole engulfing the island.
Osamu looked down upon the massive crowd with an astonished gaze. He watched as people trampled over each other as they ascended the hill, the human stampede flooding the narrow, residential streets. He saw the tear-stained faces of untold thousands of terrified people fleeing from Osamu’s wrath in vain.
They didn’t want to die. They didn’t even know why they were being slaughtered and their island destroyed. They would never know why their lives were cut so brutally short. Osamu had dreaded this day ever since he decided he would eradicate mankind. He feared what committing genocide would do to him, how it would put a rift between him and the people he loved, and how he’d react once he actually initiated Dark Dawn.
He wondered what it would feel like when he commanded the monstrosities of the Underworld to crush, burn, and rip apart anyone and everyone they saw, all across the world. His eyes were wide with awe as he took in and absorbed all of the suffering and tragic death he had unleashed upon the world, even going so far as to kill children.
What he felt in that moment wasn’t regret or anguish. It was rage. He thought of Amaterasu and how the First Great Holy War stole her childhood. He thought of the Shoku Twins and their death in the crossfire of the Onīn War, only to be brought back to life as immortal gods of time. He thought of Tsukiakari’s awful upbringing during the Warring States era, which only happened because her family was torn apart by the politics of Heaven.
He thought of Inari, used as a tool in the Warring States era and then hunted down by her own pantheon. He thought of the exorcist, Belle Âme, who so visibly regretted having to fight him and Inari during their violent standoff. He thought of Hima, who was made an orphan by the Second Great Holy War on the very night she was born.
All of them had their lives and childhoods destroyed by wars they wanted nothing to do with. He looked to his left, then to his right, seeing their child selves standing next to him in spirit. Their eyes were occluded by shadow, but their heartbeats rang like war drums in his ears.
This massacre wasn’t just the result of his own wrath. It was the culmination of thousands of years of suffering and pent-up anger. It was the wrath of his loved ones, their lives ruined by the world’s senseless need for war.
“All of them…” Hima growled, tightening her fists. “We’re killing all of them, right?”
Osamu looked to her and saw tears sparkling in Hima’s eyes, the tears of a princess orphaned by war and forced into a life of hiding. “Yeah. All of them.”
The bloodshot eye of the Underworld twitched as its pupils dilated. Its irises snapped in the direction of the fleeing crowd, then shrunk into a tiny, black dot. All of a sudden, those tens of thousands of people were flung high into the air. For a few seconds, they were suspended several hundred feet above the city, floating like angels in the darkened sky.
Thousands of men, women, and children floated around the head of Hima’s moonlight dragon. Terrified, they all flailed and squirmed in vain, screaming in horror right in front of Osamu and Hima’s faces. Seeing everyone up close, Osamu noticed the smallest details about each person. Engagement rings, handwoven scarves, lunchboxes with their favorite superheroes and anime characters on them.
He looked at all of their pained and tear-soaked faces with widened eyes and raised brows. He was going to kill all of them, and his stomach twisted into knots at the sheer thought of that. His heart raced in his chest as he raised his hand skyward, the screams of tens of thousands of innocent people flooding his ears.
For the first time since he embarked on his mission to destroy the world, Osamu hesitated. He took a deep breath, remembering what the future held for humanity, and most of all, for his family. He remembered the death and destruction he witnessed, the future Great Holy Wars that would’ve brought an end to the world regardless.
Osamu released a furious scream as he slammed his hand downwards, sending everyone plummeting back towards the earth. People crashed headfirst onto pavement, onto the streets, through the rooftops of homes and businesses, and beneath the trees covering the hillside.
When people landed, their screams were immediately turned into silence. Their arms and legs were twisted the wrong way and their broken bones protruded from beneath their dirtied skin. Kids and adults alike shared the same, empty stare in their eyes after their deaths.
The rain of humans left the entire portion of the city looking like a nightmarish warzone as bodies lied on the streets, in deeply dented cars, and inside homes they crashed through. Their bodies lied mangled and broken, their necks and limbs twisted the wrong way and their faces pulverized by concrete.
Hima suddenly cocked her head to the right, her sensitive ears picking up a strange, whooshing sound from the distance. She slapped Osamu’s shoulder with her limp wrist and pointed to the orange lights traveling through the dark clouds ahead. As the lights sped towards them, Hima heard a high-pitch whistling sound growing louder and louder.
“Rockets!” Hima screamed.
Osamu gazed at the swarm of rockets falling towards him with his arms crossed and a calm expression on his face. “They have to use all of this just to stop us…”
Thinking quickly, Hima commanded the moonlight dragon to coil in on itself, shielding both herself and Osamu with its body. The rockets carpeted the entire area, blowing apartment buildings, parking lots, and offices to pieces. Quick flashes of orange light splashed over the blackened sky as hundreds of explosions decimated the city.
Flattened by the explosions, the targeted area was reduced to rubble cloaked by noxious, black smoke. The bombardment came from a convoy of forty-six JSDF M270 MLRS vehicles, rocket-mounted trucks loaded with twelve rounds of ammunition each. The trucks sat in a line cutting across a sunflower field roughly twenty kilometers from Osamu and Hima’s position.
Each truck fired off their payload at the same time, meaning a total of five-hundred and fifty-two rockets were used to carpet the area with the hopes of killing Hima and Osamu. Such immense firepower for just two people was unheard of.
A cloud of white, wispy smoke left behind by the rockets’ exhaust covered the sunflower field and was slowly whisked away by the breeze. Seeing the pillar of black smoke towering towards the benighted sky, the MLRS operators looked on in awe.
They couldn’t imagine anyone being able to survive such a bombardment. Sweat dripped down their cheeks as they sat in their hot, stuffy vehicles. Their hands tangled in their hearts raced inside their chests. For all they knew, they had just managed to take down the world’s worst enemy.
The artillery officer’s voice blared through the radio, snapping the soldiers out of their trance“Don’t just stand there! Reload the launch pods!”
Seeing the devastation from inside her lightning dragon, Tsukiakari’s eyes widened in abject horror. Her heart fell into her stomach when she saw the colossal pillar of black smoke towering towards the sky.
“No. No, no…” Tsukiakari murmured. “Osamu!”
Hima’s moonlight dragon uncoiled and sprang its body high into the air, blowing away the cloud of black smoke. Its body shined brighter as both Hima and Osamu let out a furious scream that threatened to shatter the very earth. Both of them were soaked in blood and battered by the incredible force of the barrage, but they were far from willing to surrender.
They used their pain as fuel and their shared hatred for mankind as kindling for their burning ambition. They would not yield to this world. They would not submit. They would never give in. Osamu and Hima aimed their palms in the direction of the convoy of M270’s, commanding the moonlight dragon to open its mouth and spit out a retaliatory swarm of lunar javelins.
The javelins flickered and sparkled like stars in the dark sky. Their dazzling light was a warning to the MLRS operators that they were about to die, and each of them were helpless to stop it. Realizing they were about to be killed, the frightened soldiers jumped out of their trucks and tried to escape the barrage on foot, but it made no difference.
The moonlight javelins pierced through their kevlar vests and helmets, skewering every soldier that ran in fear. Those that couldn’t escape their vehicles were smashed by the sheer force of the javelins, which crushed the M270’s like soda cans.
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“That’s it for their missiles.” Osamu growled, his arms crossed. “They’ve probably moved their armor to defend the airports and docks.”
Hima smiled as she closed her eyes and pulled her shoulder with her right hand, forcing a few audible cracks out of her joints. “I don’t think there’s any need to bother with them. We’ll let the demons wipe them out while we cut a path straight for Kyoto. How long do you reckon it will take? Destroying the world, I mean?”
“Even with this many demons at our disposal, it could take weeks or months to wipe humanity out. The world’s a big place, and it’s a given the world will still try its best to fight back. Still, resisting this is pointless. They’re all going to die.”
“Minavere will make good use of that time. We’ll make sure of it.”
Hima suddenly cocked her head to the left as the wind pulled on her long, raven hair. Her scarlet eyes burned like sunsets behind her jet-black locks. Osamu caught her looking away in the corner of his eye and immediately assumed she sensed another threat.
“More missiles?” Osamu asked.
“No, worse.” Hima said, pointing towards the ocean. The clouds looming over the coastline flickered with blue light before Tsukiakari’s lightning dragon descended from their dark veil. Seeing a winged dragon made of thousands of blinding thunderbolts made Osamu’s heart stand still for just a moment. He pressed his hand against his chest as he took a deep breath of the foul, smoke-infused air. Merely breathing it in made his eyes water and his mouth taste of iron and burnt hair.
“I guess we know where Tsukiakari stands on the matter.” Hima said. “How do you want to handle this?”
Osamu shut his darkened eyes as he recomposed himself and straightened his back. “I get the feeling she won’t let us continue to Kyoto. We have no choice but to fight.”
Hima crossed her arms, bowing her head with a slight smile on her face. “She is a vital part of our plan, but if she really wants to try and stop us, then I suppose the Shinto pantheon can stand to lose one little runaway princess.”
Tsukiakari’s lightning dragon landed softly upon the pulverized city, flapping its electric wings to soften its approach. Her throat was strangled by the odor of burning gunpowder and black smoke. The stench of sulfur and carbon made her eyes water as she held her black sleeve over her nose and mouth.
Tsukiakari’s eye’s widened in horror as she saw of steel skeletons of apartment buildings and offices buried beneath a bed of rubble all around her. She was no stranger to the sight of dead bodies. Her experience in the Warring States era desensitized her to the sight of bodies stretched out across sunbaked fields and muddy marshes. But this was different.
Never before today had she seen the unfathomably cruel effects of an active genocide. The true inhumanity and evil of what Osamu was doing struck her all at once when she noticed the tens of thousands of civilian corpses littered across the ruined city. It was enough to make her stomach churn.
The bodies of the slain lied in undignified repose, many of them burnt to char with all skin color, facial features, and hair seared away. All that remained was hardened, black skin, spots of red flesh and yellow, rendered fat, and their ivory teeth. Others died with their backs broken and their legs twisted in the wrong direction.
So many died with the clothes ripped open and dirtied, exposing their breasts and genitals. Since tens of thousands of people died all at once, most of the bodies lied on top of other corpses.
The city had become all but a barren, mass grave. The young, the elderly, male, and female alike all died together with their faces frozen in terror and their mouths wide open, their faces forever contorted and disfigured from the impact that killed them.
Never, until this day, had Tsukiakari seen the faces of so many dead children, nor the sheer terror that remained in their lifeless eyes. Their white school clothes were torn, barely hiding their sundered flesh.
Their mouths were filled with dirt and rubble, their nails blackened by soot and congealed blood. Ponytails tied by their mothers earlier that day had come undone, and the neatly combed hair of once beloved sons had become disheveled messes sitting atop their concave skulls.
Those were just the bodies that managed to stay in tact. It wasn’t hard to spit blackened arms and legs sticking out from the bed of rubble. They had become so caked in dirt and soot that they almost seemed to become suffused with the earth and concrete they were buried under.
The sheer scale of human suffering Tsukiakari witnessed was just the tip of the iceberg. She returned her gaze to Osamu and remembered that the sight before her would be recreated all across the world. The man she had dedicated her life to had already started the process to bring every nation and city to the same horrifying end as Fukuoka.
The scale of this genocide was difficult for Tsukiakari to fathom. It was a heinous crime too grand and too far-reaching to picture in her head. Japan wouldn’t be the only country reduced to rubble and mass graves.
It was going to be China. It was going to be the Philippines. The United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Israel, Iran, India, the whole world over. Countless cultures and races would be brought to the same, miserable end, all at the hands of Osamu Ashikaga.
It all reduced Tsukiakari to tears. She wept violently inside her lightning dragon, hardly able to look Osamu or Hima in their eyes.
“Osamu…” Tsukiakari cried. “You have to stop!”
“No!” Osamu shouted. “You can’t stop this, Gekko!”
Tsukiakari already figured that Osamu wouldn’t listen to her emotional pleas. She had to quickly conjure up a tactical reason for Osamu to stop the massacre.
“Listen to me, you’ve already decimated the city!” Tsukiakari began, making up her line of reasoning as she went along. “You’ve opened a whole in this island and sent demons out in every direction! Even if you do nothing, you’ll still get your wish!”
“Even with this many demons at our disposal, if the exorcists and the gods combine their strength, they could still repel the onslaught.” Hima interjected. “Most of their forces are deployed here and in Kyoto. We’ll make our way there and crush Japan’s exorcist program.”
“But not even you two can take on the nation’s exorcists and the pantheon all at once!” Tsukiakari cried.
Osamu smiled, and in that instant, Tsukiakari’s heart sank to her stomach. It was a clear sign that he had even planned this far ahead. Everything was going as he designed.
“The pantheon will already have lost most of its members by the time we get to Kyoto. The exorcists and JSDF will be all that remain.” Osamu said, his arms crossed.
Tsukiakari recoiled in terror. She knew he had done something, but she didn’t know what yet. “…What did you say?”
“Everything is going exactly as I planned.” Osamu said.
Once again, Tsukiakari looked around and noticed not a single god in the vicinity, despite the massacre going on. Even with Amatsu wounded, the pantheon should’ve been able to respond with full force.
If they were able to overpower Hima and Osamu and steal the power of Bloodcraft from him, they could use that power to command the demons to stop. They could save the world with one risky, but concentrated assault. So why weren’t they?
“Even so, you have to stop!” Tsukiakari urged. “Think about Aika or Rei! They’ll get caught up in all of this! I don’t care if your plan is to stop all wars or whatever insane idea you’ve had in your head! It’s not worth killing our friends! It’s not worth murdering all of these people! Look at what you’ve done! Nothing can justify this!”
Hima’s shoulders shook with laughter, her voice growing bubbly. “Nothing can justify this? Not centuries of vampiric extermination at the hands of humans? Not the deaths of my mother and father? Not our exile into the frozen wastelands of Siberia? Until today, my people had resigned to their fate. They were ready to live in Yakutsk for generations until our race slowly faded from existence. What you see as genocide, my people will surely see as salvation.”
“My reasons should be obvious to you, Gekko.” Osamu said. “Stop wasting our time.”
“Osamu! If you go through with this, there will be no going back! I’m begging you to stop!” Tsukiakari yelled, the veins in her neck thickening with rage.
“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Osamu chuckled. “My death won’t nullify the order to exterminate mankind. It’ll only make it impossible to stop. You can’t afford to kill me in any way that would spill my blood or damage my heart, or else the world will lose the power of Bloodcraft entirely, and there’ll be no way to issue a counter-order. Your only hope is to capture me.”
“I wonder how you intend to do that while I’m here.” Hima said with a smirk. “Start a fight with us and all of Minavere will call for your head. What do you really think you can do here?”
Tsukiakari could hardly stomach the horror of it all. The man she had dedicated her life to stood before her as a genocidal madman, his once altruistic nature twisted into an ironclad determination to secure world peace at the cost of humanity itself. Even more sickening to her was that Hima and Osamu were right. There was very little she’d actually be able to do to stop Osamu’s Dark Dawn.
But that wouldn’t stop her from trying.
“Inari…” Tsukiakari murmured. “I’m so sorry…”
With just a flick of her sword, Tsukiakari sent down a blinding bolt of lightning from the sky that rended Hima’s moonlight dragon into two pieces, one half holding Osamu while the other held Hima. The two pieces fell apart from each other as the moonlight aura faded into twinkling stardust and colorful nebulae.
Spotting their master falling to his death, two winged Shikome swept in and caught Osamu in mid-air, one carrying him by his left arm and the other by his right. Osamu gritted his teeth, his heart racing in his chest as the winged Shikome carried him to the safety of a nearby skyscraper rooftop.
“Damn her…” Osamu growled. “She knows Hima’s senses are troublesome for her. She used lightning so she could strike faster than sound.”
Hima sprouted her bat-like wings from her back and ascended out of her free-fall. Spotting Osamu, she retracted her wings and slid across the rooftop towards Osamu. “Osamu! Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Osamu said, his gaze focused on Tsukiakari.
“Looks like your wife has made her choice. We need to take her out.” Hima said.
With another flick of Tsukiakari’s sword, the sky flashed with a blue light, but neither Hima nor Osamu saw any bolts of lightning headed towards them. It was only when the thunder boomed from the distance that they turned their heads towards the Underworld’s Eye. Tsukiakari had sneakily prepared another lightning dragon and kept it hidden in the clouds. It punctured and immolated the Underworld’s Eye, turning it red with gushing blood.
“She’s going after the eye!” Hima raged.
“There…” Tsukiakari sighed. “That should at least buy us some time. Osamu’s a lost cause. I need to capture him and give his blood and heart to one of the girls. Then we can end this massacre.”
Tsukiakari turned her attention towards Hima and Osamu, shouting at them from inside the head of her lightning dragon. “Try and muster up more of your moonlight tricks, Hima! I can keep you two grounded until you get swallowed up by your own sinkhole!”
“I had a feeling she wouldn’t lie down and let this happen.” Osamu said. “Fine then. If it’s a fight she wants, it’s a fight she’ll get. Hima, are you with me?”
Hima nodded her head, the two them standing side-by-side with tall, confident statures despite their severe wounds. “She thinks she can stop this. Let’s crush that hope once and for all.”