Chapter 56: Clash of the Upper Moons
The dueling arena, still scarred from the Lower Moon battle, seemed to brace itself for a conflict of a higher magnitude. Momiji and Kagemi faced each other across the splintered wood. The air didn't just crackle with tension; it grew thin in some places and dense in others, a subconscious leaking of their potent, reality-warping auras.
Momiji's magenta hair seemed to glow against his leaf-patterned skin. His three Blood Demon Arts thrummed within him: the hungry Crimson Bramble, the colossal Red Thorn Flurry, and his newest, most terrifying creation—the Black Thorn Abyss, a personal domain of consuming darkness. He was an ecosystem of violence given humanoid form.
Kagemi stood serene, her crimson hair perfectly still, her golden serpentine eyes unblinking. She held no weapon, but the space around her felt off, like a painting where the perspective was subtly wrong. Her Layered Space and the rule-setting Ban were powers of absolute control, turning any battlefield into her curated, lethal gallery.
There was no signal. They simply began.
Momiji moved first, a flicker of crimson. He didn't aim for Kagemi. He slammed a palm onto the wooden floor. "Blood Demon Art: Crimson Bramble – Bloom."
The arena didn't just sprout thorns; it erupted. A forest of barbed, whip-like crimson vines exploded from every surface, growing with insane speed, seeking to fill the entire space, to entangle, pierce, and drain. It was an overwhelming, area-denial opening gambit.
Kagemi didn't flinch. She took a single, graceful step to the side. The space where she had been folded. It wasn't a dodge; it was as if the universe itself conceded that spot was now elsewhere. The thorn-forest surged through empty air.
As she completed her step, she whispered, "Ban: Prohibition of Linear Growth."
The law took effect within the immediate space she occupied. The voracious thorn vines, as they reached for her, suddenly lost all direction. They coiled in on themselves, grew in spirals and knots, their tips blunting, their furious advance becoming a tangled, harmless thicket around her feet. She had banned the very concept of straight-line advancement in her vicinity.
Momiji's eyes narrowed. So it was control versus chaos. He could feel the unnatural law suppressing his art. He changed tactics. With a roar, he raised both arms. "Blood Demon Art: Red Thorn Flurry!"
Behind him, two of the colossal, pillar-like crimson thorns erupted from the floor, each thicker than a man, studded with sword-sized barbs. They didn't try to be precise. They became battering rams of pure biomass, swinging in wide, devastating arcs to crush Kagemi and the distorted space around her. Force, not finesse.
Kagemi looked up at the descending pillars. She didn't try to ban "force" or "mass"—too broad, too costly. Instead, she pointed a finger. "Layered Space: Displacement."
The space directly in the path of the right-hand pillar sheared. It wasn't destroyed; it was relocated. The titanic thorn passed through where Kagemi had been and found itself slamming into the left-hand pillar mid-swing. The collision was cataclysmic, a shower of crimson woody shrapnel and a shockwave that shook the high platform.
In the debris cloud, Momiji grinned, a flash of sharp teeth. The collision was part of his plan. The destruction created cover. From within the exploding thorn-matter, a single, needle-fine, jet-black vine—the essence of his third art—shot towards Kagemi, silent and faster than sight. It wasn't meant to pierce. It was a tether. The opening filament of the Black Thorn Abyss.
Kagemi' golden eyes saw it not with normal sight, but as a flaw in the spatial tapestry. She couldn't ban "projectiles" in time. So she did something else. She didn't move herself. She moved the air in front of her.
"Layered Space: Compression."
The pocket of air containing the black filament was suddenly compressed to the density of a star. The filament, unimaginably tough, didn't break, but its trajectory was violently deflected, burying itself harmlessly in the floor yards away.
The counter was flawless, but it required focus. In that moment of supreme spatial manipulation, Momiji struck with his true body. He became a storm of thorns, launching himself across the shortened distance, his arms elongating into scything blades of hardened crimson wood aimed to bisect her.
Kagemi, her focus just returning from micro-compression, didn't have time for another complex space-fold. She enacted a simple, brutal rule. "Ban: Prohibition of Sharpness."
The law washed over Momiji's striking limbs. The razored edges of his thorn-blades didn't dull; they simply… ceased to be sharp. The concept was removed. He hit her with the force of a speeding tree trunk, not a blade. The impact was still tremendous, hurling Kagemi back with a crack of bone, but it wasn't a killing cut.
She landed, rolling, one arm hanging at a wrong angle, already healing. A trickle of black blood traced from her lip. Momiji landed in a crouch, his arms reverting to normal, frustration on his face. His most direct attack had been neutered by a single word.
They paused, assessing. Momiji was a powerhouse, but Kagemi was a lexicographer of lethality, rewriting the rules of engagement on the fly. He had forced her to use defensive measures, had even landed a blow, but he hadn't cornered her. And he hadn't lured her into his Abyss.
Kagemi straightened her arm with a sickening pop that was already muffled by regenerating flesh. Her golden eyes held a new respect, and a colder calculation. He was stronger, physically. But her domain was possibility. She hadn't even begun to attack.
"A formidable thorn," she said, her voice echoing from multiple points as she subtly layered the space around her voicebox. "But even the sharpest thorn cannot pierce a hole that does not exist."
She raised her hands, palms facing each other. "Let us see if your forest can grow in a vacuum. Layered Space: Isolation. Ban: Prohibition of External Energy."
The space immediately surrounding Momiji detached. It became a sealed, layered bubble. And within it, the law took hold: no energy from outside the bubble could enter. This included life-force, demonic energy from the ambient environment… and the physical connections to Momiji's thorn-forest outside.
Momiji felt it instantly—a sudden, draining silence. The vibrant feedback from his sprawling Crimson Bramble network vanished. He was cut off from his own power source. Inside the bubble, he was just… himself. His core energy would last, but it was finite.
A sly, thorny smile spread across Momiji's face. She had made a mistake. She had isolated him. But his most dangerous technique wasn't external.
"You sealed the gardener," Momiji whispered, his voice muffled by the spatial barrier but his intent clear. "But the seeds were already planted."
He looked directly at her, and his eyes seemed to drink the light. "Blood Demon Art: Black Thorn Abyss – Beckon."
The black filament he'd fired earlier, still buried in the floor, was not just a projectile. It was an anchor. And the "Beckon" didn't pull the target in; it expanded the Abyss out.
A circle of pure, lightless black, ten feet wide, erupted on the floor around the filament. From its edges, not thorns, but grasping shadows in the shape of thorns lashed out. And at the center of the circle, a terrifying gravitational pull yawned open, not on Kagemi's body, but on the space she was manipulating.
Kagemi's eyes widened. Her layered space, the isolation bubble around Momiji, wavered. The Black Thorn Abyss wasn't attacking her; it was attacking the integrity of her spatial construct. It was trying to consume the very pocket dimension she'd created.
It was a battle of domains. Her controlled, rule-based space against his voracious, nullifying void.
She poured more energy into maintaining the isolation bubble, fighting the drag of the Abyss. Momiji, inside, felt the pressure relent slightly. He used the respite not to escape, but to gather his power. He was going to explode the bubble from within with everything he had, hoping the combined force would destabilize Kagemi enough for the Abyss to catch her.
It was a stalemate hurtling towards a mutually destructive climax.
From the high platform, Shuichi Mayuki's voice cut through the building vortex of spatial and demonic energy.
"Enough."
The word was a command infused with the absolute authority of the Blood Curse. The power behind it didn't just speak; it enforced.
The Black Thorn Abyss snapped shut like a startled mouth, the black circle vanishing. Kagemi's layered space smoothed out, the isolation bubble popping like a soap bubble. The raging thorn-forest sagged, then began to dissolve into motes of crimson light.
Momiji and Kagemi staggered back, the feedback from their abruptly canceled techniques vibrating through them. They stood panting, glaring at each other across the now-empty, scarred arena. There was no clear victor. Only a demonstration of catastrophic potential.
"The outcome is clear," Shuichi announced, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Kagemi's control is supreme, but Momiji's destructive and domain potential is unparalleled. In a prolonged, unrestricted battle, the result would be annihilation for both, and likely this entire realm. For the sake of the organization's strength, a decision is made."
He pointed to Momiji. "Upper Moon One: Momiji, the Crimson Bramble. Your power is the spear, the unstoppable force. You break the gates."
He then pointed to Kagemi. "Upper Moon Two: Kagemi, the Mirror Shadow. Your power is the shield, the unassailable law. You control the battlefield and preserve our interests. You are the left and right hands. Your ranks reflect your purpose, not merely your power in a vacuum."
He looked between them, his gaze heavy. "This is not a defeat for either. It is an allocation. Challenge between you is henceforth forbidden without my direct command. Your rivalry will be channeled outward, against our enemies. Is this understood?"
After a tense moment, both demons bowed their heads. "Yes, Lord Oni."
The hierarchy was set. The Twelve Kizuki now had its undisputed pinnacle: a monarch of thorns and void, and a queen of space and law. The message to the watching world, though they did not know it yet, was grimly clear: when the Kizuki moved, they would bring both anarchy and absolute order, a paradox of destruction that would be impossible to defend against. The upper ranks were decided. The real war could now begin in earnest.
✨Enjoying the story? You can support me on Patreon —
Patreon.com/MizuSan
✨ Patreon members get early chapter access, bonus content! 🥰
🎉 Plus, I'll release 1 extra chapter for every 5 reviews!💎 Or grab 1 bonus chapter for every 50 Power Stones you send my way! 🥳
🌊 Let's reach 20 Patreon members to unlock 5 extra chapters together