-Break-
Φ The dark cloud in the sky me and Cyrus see suddenly collapses in on itself and disappears. Following this, screams are heard, and debris flies everywhere even in our direction.
As it comes at Cyrus and me, I freeze it, but looking around me, not everyone is so lucky. Debris blasted off some of their body parts, crushed some of their bodies, and landed on lots of the buildings. Seeing this, the feeling to vomit almost overtakes me, but I hold it back.
Then I say to Cyrus, “I need you to go back to the inn to drop the medicine there. When you get back, make sure Sparrow is ready. If this is what I think it is, we might need to proceed with our plan tonight instead of tomorrow.”
“R-R-R-Right,” Cyrus says as he leaves, I go around and start helping the people who were crushed by the debris around me. The spirits in the area and the buildings, also come out to help.
“Do you have any idea what is doing this?” I ask one of the spirits.
“It’s a minus. I can feel it, all of the spirits can. But this one is, without a doubt, the strongest I have ever felt. I am scared to be here.”
“Then why don’t you run?”
“All the humans here are like our parents; no matter how scared we are, we can’t abandon them.”
Looking around, I see all the spirits in the area shaking out of fear but still moving relentlessly to help the citizens. After a while, we put all the people in a cart Spirit and send them off. Using all my strength, I head off towards the origin of this source.
Φ You can ruffly divide spirits between ranks between five ranks from D to S.
D-rank spirits are those that form right away.
C-rank spirits can form immediately or evolve from a D-rank in about 15 years.
B-rank spirits rarely form on their own, but it is still possible that it also takes another fifty years to evolve from a C-rank.
There are no records of an A-rank spirit forming naturally. They all evolve from a B-rank in about two hundred years.
Then it takes another thousand years to evolve from an A-rank to an S-rank. When a spirit reaches ranks A and S, its power can even be greater than legacies.
So the fact that an A-rank spirit lies in front of me fills me with nothing but terror. As my men get blown back by that monster, I feel the need to run and save my life, but I integrate my Spirit (Jun washi) into my sword and go ahead fighting it.
As I and the other twinstars in the area continue to fight it, I realise how dire our situation is. With each attack, he splits the ground around us, and this spirit energy comprising him is so dense that none of the samurai can leave a dent in him. Only the shamans with their spirits can even harm him.
What’s worse is that most of the twinstars here are rookies, so we can’t even use any complex formations.
“Captain, we won’t be able to hold out much longer. It is too strong.”
“We have no choice until commander Shinkō gets here.”
I scream, “SAMURAI FOCUS ON RESCUE EFFORTS. SHAMAN COME WITH ME AS WE HOLD THIS MONSTER BACK”, so we all proceed to try and fight the monster off.
As we fight, I start to notice its patterns. Even though it has the power of an A-rank, it is still missing the almost three hundred years of experience one of them would have, so its attacks are predictable. All it is doing is throwing around its unbelievable amount of power.
Spirit weapons may be weaker than legacies, but if I fed it my spirit energy, I could make it temporarily stronger. So, as we continue to fight it, I find an opening, and after pouring in most of my spirit energy into my spirit weapon, I attack and cut off the minuses hand.
“EVERYONE SEE, THIS MONSTER ISN’T UNBEATABLE. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS NOT LOSE THE WILL TO FIGHT”
I hear the screams of all the shamans around me, invigorated by my words and actions. This is good. If we can keep this up, we can hold it off until commander Shinkō arrives to finish it. My Jun washi has a paralysing effect on people, so they shouldn’t be able to move.
“Did you think restricting my movement would help you? What utter foolishness? I thought playing with you humans would be fun, but it is completely pointless,” The minus says as it regrows its hand.
There is no way he could regrow a limb cut off by spirit energy, unless, someone is feeding it spirit energy, but who outside of the commander even has that amount of spirit energy?
As I am lost in thought, the minus says, “Shōtōren”, and then a katana appears in his hand. After swinging the sword, gusts of wind come out of the blade.
“MOVE!” I scream to everyone. This enables some of us to dodge, but this move hits loads of us. Even all the buildings around us are sliced.
As I recoil from the blow, I look at the monster, and it says, “Daitōren”, then a new katana appears in his hand. It trusts the katana, and a large amount of water rushes towards me. I try to move but realise one of my legs has been cut. Closing my eyes, awaiting the impact, I get sent flying back, but it doesn’t feel like water hitting me.
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As I open my eyes, I see that some samurai shielded me. “What the hell are you rookies doing?”
“We can’t fight that thing.”
“Where useless on this battlefield, all we can do is lay down our lives.”
“Go get it, captain.”
“Sorry, we couldn’t do more.”
“Shut up, you idiots. No way in hell am I going to let such gutsy rookies die here.”
I rip off some of my pants, tie them around my leg to close the wound, and then reinforce it with spirit energy. “COME ON; EVERYONE, DO YOU ALL PLAN TO DIE HERE!”
“Your stupidity is astounding,” the minus says as it says another thrust of water directly at me.
The rookies are behind me, so no matter what, I cannot move from this spot. So, as I prepare to take the blow head-on, I see all the water freeze and hear, “Are you ok?”
Looking up, I see a young boy.
Φ Staring at the minus, I see it has a sizeable humanoid body but is entirely monstrous. That is what caused all this chaos. Did it form right away? Then I hear a sudden burst of sounds flow into my ears that of people’s screams, making me look around and see a few people scattered everywhere.
Seeing this anger fills my body, but then I hear a familiar voice, that of Suzuka. I knew she must be here. I focus on her voice to find her location. But then I realise she is at the base of that monster.
Then, as the dots start to connect, the monster sends a thrust of water in my direction, just like the last time I freeze it solid. Shit, if this is what I think this is, I got to get Suzuka out of here before anyone realises.
“Hey, you over there,” I say to the woman I just saved.
“Umm, yes.”
“Coordinate with me to fight that monster. I can’t damage it, so I will try to stop it. While you guys attack.”
“It won’t work. That monster keeps getting feed spirit energy, so it will keep regenerating.”
Of course, Suzuka’s spirit energy never runs out as long as she can absorb others. “Ok then, if we can get me in close, I am sure I can get rid of that monster.”
“No, if you help us restrain it, we can wait for commander Shinkō to come and help us.”
“If we wait that long all the people here will probably be killed by that monster. I doubt you want that, so let us try to beat it.”
After taking a moment to look behind her, she nods for me and screams, “EVERYONE FOLLOW ME LEAD.”
And just like that, we all head towards the minus at full speed while manoeuvring away from its blows, we all charge forward, and I use a significant amount of ice to freeze its movements. Then, as I approach under it, the twinstars ward off its blows.
But then it says, “Kenmyōren,” then another sword appears in his unfrozen hand. Then crashing the blade down, it makes a giant pillar of fire around him which burns a lot of us, but I create as much ice as I possibly can to stop it partway, but it still burns us.
“DON’T GIVE UP, WE’RE ALMOST THERE.”
The twinstars around her scream with all their might, then we try for a second time, but he breaks out of the ice and says, “Daitōren” then, slashing forward, he creates dark black clouds that obscure our sight.
While in the dark cloud, I fell a strong blow come at me right in my stomach, the force of it sends me flying back out of the clouds. Then the minus flies into the sky and says, “Shōtōren.” After saying this, he swings his sword down into the shadows, where lightning comes out. The minus then returns to his last location.
After the cloud disappears, I see most of the twinstars either died or were heavily injured. Only four are still standing. But looking at them, they still shout, “LETS EXORICSE THIS MONSTER.”
I now have more than one reason not to lose now. So, as they go towards it for another attack, so do I.
Φ After running back into the inn to see Sparrow, I start panicking as I try to get my words out, but then I say, “G-G-Get ready, operation fox starts now.”
“Wait, what? I thought we were doing that tomorrow.”
“Orb has a b-b-bad feeling, so we got to get r-r-ready to move at any moment.”
“Ok, then I guess I got to get changed.”
As we start preparing, Zashiki walks into the room. “Thank the gods you guys are safe. There has been an order by the twinstars to evacuate everyone to one of the hidden shelters.” After looking around the room, she says, “Where is Orb?”
“He w-w-went in the direction of the spirit energy.”
“No, no, no, no, no. This isn’t good. I can feel it from here. Whatever is over there is bad news. The Gyaku kitsunes can barely move, their feeling so tense.”
After saying this, we hear a loud boom which causes us to look outside, where we see a giant pillar of fire in the direction Orb said he was going.
Seeing this, I start to panic in my head. Is Orb, ok? Maybe I should go over there to help. But he said to me to begin preparing operation fox. But he could be in danger, though he is strong. Still, he can’t use spirit energy, and that was a large amount of fire. He may be in trouble. No, Cyrus, you don’t want to make things worse. That’s right, follow instructions. You don’t need to mess up this life-or-death situation. Then I see lighting coming down from the sky.
Before I realise what, I am doing, I grab the sword we got in Deno and head toward the lighting.
“Cyrus, what are you doing!” Zashiki says.
I keep running at full speed, using spirit energy to make my legs stronger. What the hell am I doing. I know I can’t help, I know I can’t, so why am I running. I continue to question myself as I run, but every time I hear a big explosion, I speed up until I reach there.
I see Orb and the twinstars fighting their hearts out against a monster. As I try to draw my sword, I stop and start to shake uncontrollably. Looking at the monster, I feel something I thought I could only feel with some of the older dragons, the need to bow my head. This monster scares me.
Orb and the others are fighting with such conviction that they might die if I get in their way and become a burden. I should have never come here; I knew this, but I still ran because I foolishly thought I could do something.
As I continue loathing myself, I see Orb pushing into a building and about to be stabbed by a sword which causes my body to stop altogether. Seeing this helpless, I feel tears about to come out of my eyes, but then, in that instant, I remember Willow’s words “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO”.
Right now, even if I might ruin this all together, I want to help Orb despite my weakness. As I am about to lunge forward, drawing my sword, I hear a familiar voice say.
“That is some nice conviction. You seem to be getting better at this. So, all you need to do is focus me on this sword, then crush your enemies like the dragon you are.”
Φ As the minus flaming sword is about to stab me, suddenly, all the flames vanish, the hand of the minus is missing, and all that is left is darkness. The minus says, “Looks like a fun one has appeared.”
I stand up to see who did this, and I see Cyrus with a sword that looks like a legacy.
The minus says “Daitōren” and then swings its newly manifested katana at Cyrus. But then Darkness spews out of Cyrus’s blade and absorbs it all.
Looking up at me, Cyrus says, “I have come to help.”
Name: Jun Washi (B-rank)
Type: Plus
Description: A spirit Shaped light an eagle with a light green glow. It can paralyse people with negative emotions.
Fact: It was initially a D-rank spirit formed by a bird lover, but after generations of being passed down in said person’s family, it evolved into a B-rank, where it is used by the family’s eldest daughter Sato Sora.
Name Otakemaru (A-rank)
Type: Minus
Description: A humanoid-looking Spirit but is also wholly monstrous. It has three katanas, which it uses to control nature.
Fact: Half of the spirit energy that makes it up comes from Suzuka and the other half from the village’s residents.