Scroll 1 - Forgotten Blood Rain

In lieu of attacking Hakusa looked for a means to cause the angry divine to stumble. He gestured that the others should lure the nio into the trap. And prepare to throw it from the steps to tumble to its destruction.

Kayo keeps her distance and let them deal with the statue.

Hakusa's wisdom was shortchanged by his inability to assess where would be the best place to slow down the inexorable statue. Satoshi's twin kama's had damaged the nio guardian, but it was not enough to slow it down as it sought to prevent whom it judged as unwelcome intruders attempting to get past it.

The idea was still very viable; Kayo had kept her distance, unwilling to engage it, though her quick wit could consider alternate solutions. Ikari wanted to flee past it, although his feet could not carry him as quickly as he intended. Genji still stood face to face with the statue, using his bulk to present himself as a target, but the statue now focussed solely on its attacker, the nimble Satoshi! It stomped forward in a heavy charge, stone arms ready to bring down a crushing strike.

Genji looks up from his talisman to find a stone arm swinging in his direction. He ducks under just in time, and uses the crouched stance to explode with power pushing towards the animated statue.

His hands connect but with no force or at least not enough to move this rocky foe. It would probably take more than brute strength to deal with this situation.

Genji, as the bulwark of the group, had stood firm in the direct path of the statue as it dismounted from its pedestal. Ducking, he found that even with his great strength he could not budge it enough to do damage. They could continue to whittle it down, at risk of harm to themselves. They could find some way of using its ungainly weight against it, for while it was solid and implacable, it moved slowly and deliberately. Or they could try to flee, but unless they vanished into the forest, the guardian was sure to pursue them along the temple path it was positioned to defend.

Kayo had retreated behind a tree, leaving the more capable to deal with the battle. This was not without its downside, for she was now further away from the rest of them, further from the radius of lantern, and closer to the rest of the trees. The animalistic noise of the beast in the forest now felt much closer to her. Did it stay away thanks to the nio guardian, but now Kayo had presented herself that much closer to this feral danger?

Kayo is startled by the forest creepy sounds and gets closer to the lantern, taking care not to put herself at risk with the statue.

Ikari stuck between not being able to flee the statue's monstrous stride with his bad leg, and his little tano barely able to scratch the stone guardian, he looked for what element he was missing from the situation
"There!" Pointing at the discovery.

Ikari was racking his brains to see how they could get past this resolute guardian. Whilst Genji and Satoshi engaged it in combat, Ikari considered the possibility that the shrine itself could hold the solution to either destroying the statue, or returning it to its dormant state on the pedestal.

The center orb of the Vajra is a sphere of Amber* entombing a prehistoric centipede.

"That is the Kami !!!
The red corruption has awakened it's violence. A predatory insect now has the body of a stone Titan."

Here goes nothing, Kayo is not really brave, a few months ago an army of samurai was always between her and danger. But she is known for unusual luck and keen eye.

Here goes nothing, she thought, throwing her tanto at the centipede.

- " Cursed land... I hate it. I hate this place! "

The taint didn't help, making her scream while keeping a smile on her face.

The Ōmukade were legendary yokai of monstrous size, centipedes the dimensions of dragons, inhabitants of the high mountains and deep forests. In the dark times that followed Nisshoku's endless shadow, the darkness that used to be the substance of myth became rumour, and then subsequently rumour became fact to those who witnessed the changes wrought upon this land.

The tip of the nio guardian's stone club or vajra housed a rock of amber, a gem inset to 'complete' the statue when it was commissioned ages ago. Now it was corrupted with the fragment of an omukade spirit, tainting its former purpose, which was to symbolically protect a holy temple, into a mindless destroyer of all who dared to approach. Ikari's sharp perception had spotted the yokai's touch, and it required a very precise strike to shatter its power.

Kayo had kept her distance, but struck when Ikari spotted the weakness. Her tanto flew out from under the folds of her sleeves, her only defensive weapon and arced straight and true. With a clang against stone they all heard a crack. The sharp blade lay wedged in the pommel of the vajra, now dulled and useless. But the guardian immediately froze mid-strike, almost about to smash into Satoshi. It was inanimate again, no longer standing on its pedestal, posed in an angle as if it would be ready to harm the next person who came near. The miniature centipede yokai scuttled into nothingness.

Kayo wiped sweat from her forehead and slowly retrieved her tanto. She also picked up the staff. While close-quarters combat was to be avoided at all costs, she'd need a means to defend herself as all hell seemed to be breaking loose.

Genji stumbles back in disbelief. He looks back at Kayo just recovering from her throwing pose.

"The spirit is quelled... For now. Let us be on our way!"

Satoshi lets out a breath as the animated statue is quieted moments before its heavy stone weapon smashes into him.

"Well spotted and well struck. My deepest thanks for your help," he says gratefully as he rejoins the others. "I was sure that nio was going to bash me into a bloody pulp," he mutters to himself as they continue toward the temple.

"That it perverts a Nio guardian... this does not bode well"

The Leper mused as he slowly clambered up the steps to the temple. It was obvious each step caused him immense pain as he groaned the way up.

Kayo didn't need encouragement to move out; she is eager to get to the main temple.

It would rightly be regrettable that they destroyed the nio guardian of a sacred temple, an act of defilement that would typically not be countenanced in their religious culture. But these were extenuating circumstances: the guardian, corrupted by a yokai spirit, was a perversion of the holy order of things, and a forewarning of what might be the state of Karakurenai Temple that they sought. They had shattered the gem that controlled it, ruining Kayo's tanto, but leaving her with the statue's stone vajra as a more substantial replacement.

They pressed on in the darkness. It was hard to keep track of time after they left the village past the hour of the Rat, but it must have been the early hours of morning, and no one had stopped to eat nor rest since Ikari, Kayo and Satoshi left the inn, and since Genji, Hakusa and Kenji left the bridge station. The raw miasma of the atmosphere, no doubt an effect of the red rain, made everyone less tired, but hungrier and thirstier than expected.

Kenji forged forward like a man possessed, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of his revivication and those yurei that preceded him, not caring if he left the others behind. As they navigated their way past the shrine to continue along the path, Kenji was the first to discover the fate of the other nio guardian, for the nio always came in pairs. The earlier one was the agyo, and this one was the ungyo, and it lay shattered in pieces. Next to it was a twice dead yurei, one of those which they were pursuing. The guardian statue must have defended against the yurei zombies, and was destroyed in the process.

As if prompted by the now defenceless route to the temple, the baying in the forest now came closer again, no longer afraid of the now-demolished statues. And as if by coincidence, Ikari's lantern began to sputter; its oil running out.

At a distance, they could see a torii gate, whose steps heralded the trek to the temple grounds proper.