Chapter 26: The Thorn Cage and the Finale
"They're coming." The sound of approaching footfalls and frantic wingbeats reached Momiji's ears. He pushed off from the tree trunk, his posture shifting from boredom to focused readiness. This was it. The final play.
Beneath the thin layer of soil at his feet, a vast network of his blood thorns stirred, ready to surge forth. If Tenmu had cared to use his Byakugan just then, he'd have seen a subterranean sea of crimson waiting to erupt.
But Tenmu was occupied with his own detached calculations, wondering if he should simply let the others pass. The first to burst into Momiji's view was Kagemi, clutching the severed head, her eyes widening in alarm as she spotted him through the trees. Close behind was Mushiji, his insectile form churning with effort, the distance between them shrinking. One of his chitinous wings was half-regenerated, hampering his speed. Trailing last was Onigarasu, a flurry of furious black feathers and shrieks, clearly having lost ground in the final stretch.
What happened? Why is the crow last? Momiji's mind raced. Kagemi has the head. Expected. Her spatial art, even nascent, is overpowered.
His hands moved. A snap of his fingers was the trigger.
The ground erupted. A circular wall of interwoven, barbed crimson thorns shot up, over twenty meters high, then began to curve inward at the top, forming a vast, impenetrable dome—a thorn cage sealing the finish line clearing.
Kagemi, in the lead, skidded to a halt just before crashing into the sudden barrier. The needle-sharp tips were centimeters from her face. She looked up. The dome was already sealing shut overhead. No way through except to break it.
Shuichi Mayumi, locked inside the cage: "…" He'd anticipated Momiji's interference, but locking the Ghost King in a cage? That was sheer audacity. A wall would have sufficed. This lack of reverence will be addressed.
Seeing the cage, Kagemi knew Momiji had played his hand. He hadn't abstained; he'd laid an ambush. She immediately tried to focus, to shift into her Layered Space to buy time and think.
But Momiji gave her no quarter. Thorns erupted at her feet, ensnaring her legs, barbed tips piercing deep into her thighs. Blood welled.
"You think this holds me?" she snarled, ignoring the pain. With demonic strength, she ripped her legs free, the barbs tearing through flesh. The wounds healed instantly, leaving only smears of blood.
"You escaped," Momiji's voice echoed from within the cage. "But what of the head?"
Kagemi looked at her left hand. It was empty. In its place was a ball of thorns that had grown through her palm without her noticing. The head was gone.
When? How?
Momiji, now holding the grisly trophy, walked calmly toward the thorn wall. The thorns parted before him like a curtain, opening a passage that sealed shut behind him as he stepped through the barrier.
"Where is it?" Mushiji arrived, panting, seeing Kagemi's empty hands. He assumed she'd hidden it again, but the spectacle of the thorn cage gave him pause.
"See for yourself." Kagemi nodded toward Momiji, now on the other side of the crimson barrier.
"Momiji took it? I thought he wasn't participating…" Mushiji was exasperated. "You fought him before. Why not now?"
"Why bother? Even if I snatched it back, I can't get through that." She gestured at the dense thicket of thorns. To prove her point, she drew her blade and struck a thick vine.
CLANG!
The steel bit only a third of the way through. It would take multiple strikes on the same spot to sever one vine, and there were hundreds, woven tightly. The gaps were too small for anything larger than the head itself.
They were stuck outside, spectators.
Onigarasu, soaring above, saw the cage and Momiji's ploy. It didn't surrender. Recalling its clones, it dove at the thorn dome, ignoring the barbs that pierced its wings and body. It pressed against the vines, and a few droplets of its blood, squeezed through the tiny gaps, floated to the inside. There, they coalesced into new, small crow clones that immediately streaked after Momiji.
"Annoying," Momiji muttered, frowning. He hadn't anticipated this blood-teleportation trick. A fresh wave of thorns sprouted, impaling several clones and trapping others in a newly grown 'forest' of spikes. But it was a delay, not a stop.
Ignoring the furious cawing behind him, he sprinted for the center. Find the Ghost King, deliver the head. Game over.
Soon, the familiar, impassive figure came into view.
"My Lord! I have brought the head!" Momiji launched into a final, dramatic flourish. A powerful leap, a mid-air flip, a perfect one-knee landing before Shuichi. He presented the head with both hands, a flawless performance.
The pursuing crow clones stopped, seething with silent fury.
Shuichi looked at the bewildered, slack-jawed face of Dry Arrow, then at Momiji. He did not take the head.
"Momiji. You performed admirably. You retrieved the head." His voice was calm, but a dangerous undercurrent ran beneath it. "However, the flaw… was your method. Especially your attempt to cage me within your technique."
Though his expression remained cold, the anger in his tone was unmistakable.
Momiji made the Ghost King angry! The eavesdropping ghost crow rejoiced internally. No reward for him! Punishment, maybe!
"This subordinate would never dare!" Momiji bowed his head lower. With a thought, the colossal thorn cage dissolved into crimson dust that scattered on the wind.
The other demons, now unblocked, cautiously entered the central clearing. They felt the thick, tense atmosphere between the kneeling Momiji and the standing Ghost King.
Shuichi's gaze lifted from Momiji, sweeping over the nervous newcomers. An idea, cold and instructive, took shape.
"Momiji." His voice cut the silence. "You will now fight the others. Alone. Against all of them. If you win, I will forgive your transgression, and you shall receive your reward."
He paused, letting the weight of the alternative settle.
"If you lose… you receive nothing. And you will face my punishment."
With that, Shuichi reached out and placed a hand on the head Momiji still held. A flicker of terror crossed Dry Arrow's vacant features.
Shuichi's fingernails sharpened, piercing the temples. The veins in his hand writhed. Before their eyes, Dry Arrow's head desiccated, collapsing in on itself, crumbling into a pile of fine ash that sifted through Momiji's fingers onto the dirt.
In that act of reclamation, Shuichi felt it—not just the return of the invested demon blood, but something more. Information, a template… the knowledge of Dry Arrow's Blood Demon Art. And with it, the latent ability to use it himself.
A demon who awakens a Blood Demon Art… when I reclaim their blood, I gain their art?
His gaze, sweeping over Kagemi, Mushiji, Tenmu, and the seething ghost crow, shifted. The cold evaluation was now tinged with something darker, more acquisitive. They were no longer just subordinates or experiments.
They were repositories of unique powers, waiting to be harvested.
He looked at them like a farmer eyeing a ripe field, or a collector surveying unique, living trophies. The game had ended. A far more ruthless calculus had begun.
(End of Chapter)
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