<div style="text-align: center">KAZUE<br/>​</div>Kazue awoke, raising his weak, sickly neck from the pine floor upon which he was curled up. He wondered how long he had been asleep. If his thirst was any indicator, it had been well over a day. Each pulse of his heart sent throngs of pain through his body like a blunt surge of electricity. He looked upon his bound hands and arms. Thick veins bulged from pale, chafed flesh. Tattered garments barely covered his groin and thighs. A wave of nausea overtook him as he struggled to his feet. Dazed, he stumbled to his bruised knees and vomited what little remained within his stomach. He was unaware of what sorcery the Onmyoji had used to subdue him, but it had left him drained and battered. He recalled flames, a spectacle of light and a sensation of inexplicable grief as spiritual energies tore at his soul. Ren had warned him of the dangers posed to skinwalkers by Onmyodo, and had expressed her regret for having not better prepared him against it's users before her passing. And yet, he had never anticipated having to do battle with the court sorceress of Nakamura’s shogunate herself.<br/><br/>His blade appeared lost to him. Summoning a new blade from Kami no Tochi would take at least one day of focused meditation, and by such time Kazue had little doubt he'd be executed. Judging by the briskness of the air, he suspected that he was likely in Aka, capital of Ame, though with no windows in his wooden cell he could not be sure. He was unable to sense any beasts for miles; even insects had been scoured from the premises. Nakamura had apparently gone to great lengths to deprive him of skins to possess. He heard footsteps approaching. The wooden door creaked open and two samurai emerged, clad in red attire with katanas in hand. The mens’ apprehension and disdain was palpable. The mask of “Sho” would no longer serve Kazue. Not only had his true identity as a skinwalker had been exposed, he had attempted to assassinate the leader of the most powerful shogunate in Hinan. He expected his execution to be especially painful.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center"><div class="bbImageWrapper lazyload js-lbImage" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-single-image="1" data-src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fs31.postimg.cc%2Ftkonbwbsr%2Fphotomania-4899a3a78a83031ea4ee813024adef67.jpg&amp;hash=a2ec43d9219bc47ef44b18deeb600669" title="photomania-4899a3a78a83031ea4ee813024adef67.jpg">
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<i>Aka Castle</i>​</div><br/>“On your feet, creature. You are to be prepared by the shrine maidens,” the leftmost samurai said. Kazue struggled to stand, his limbs weak and his thirst debilitating. “I said on your feet, godling!” The samurai grabbed his neck violently and pulled him upright. Kazue cringed as a chain leash was placed around his neck: the sharp, rusted edges cutting into his skin. “Walk!” The samurai tugged at the leash, forcing Kazue to stumble forward, their blades pointed in his direction. They proceeded through elaborate gardens, hallways, and at last the winding steps of a tall pagoda, the grandeur of which was unlike anything Kazue had ever seen. Cherry blossom trees were in full bloom, and intricate murals depicting demons and epic battles lined every wall. As they passed through the streets, the nobles of the court recoiled, fleeing indoors and pulling their children safely to their side. After nearly an hour's journey, they had at last arrived upon an ornate temple sprawling out across the top floor of the pagoda. The doorway was guarded by two stone Komainu and a half dozen soldiers who looked Kazue up and down with suspicious eyes.<br/><br/>“You’re here, and not soon enough. She is ready for him,” a guard said to the escorting samurai. They proceeded through the temple, past numerous statues of Ken, god of war, that, beneath plates of armor and a clocks of crimson, held nagainatas fiercely within their grips. They came upon the shrine maiden, a hunched-over crone near a table of pungent oils and herbs. Her eyes sunk into their sockets like the pits of rotting fruit. Long, filthy nails protruded from her fingertips as though they were claws. She was clad in ceremonial garb of red and white, with white makeup caked upon her wrinkled skin. She pulled a knife from the table and cut Kazue’s cheek without hesitation.<br/><br/>“You have come at last. The Ghost seer must be prepared for the ritual. There is little time: the Daimyo grows impatient,” the woman said as she dripped drops of Kazue’s blood into a bone basin. The woman began to chant in some indiscernible tongue. Smoke rose from the blood stains of the basin, singeing the bone below. Nausea and pain turned to euphoria and fatigue.<br/><br/>The shrine maiden was interrupted by the roar of an explosion in the distance. A litany of screams followed, as soldiers scrambled, weapons in hand, to make sense of the commotion. Kazue resisted the tempting delirium which called out to him from the crone's spell. He looked through the narrow window of the temple and beheld plumes of ash and flame rising from several guard towers. Another explosion, closer in proximity than the first, rattled the entire room. Wood and debris fell from the ceiling. A bloodied soldier burst through the temple door. “The Tsukitsuji, they’ve infiltrated the castle!" The curled up woman and samurai looked upon the guard towers and then Kazue with shock. “Kaito, Asahi, take him to fort Shīrudo; do not let the skinwalker escape! I must inform Senhime immediately," the woman said as she bolted from the room.<br/><br/>Relief and elation surged over Kazue. His brothers and sisters of the Tsukitsuji had not abandoned him. The organization had likely sacrificed much to lay siege to Aka, and Kazue intended to make the most of their sacrifice. He could sense a beast of enormous power nearby: a giant Wāmu, or spined wurm tunneling deep beneath the castle. The Tsukitsuji had undoubtedly released the creature, providing him with a destructive vessel to possess. His eyes turned pale green once again as he slipped into the behemoth’s skin. The creature was blind, but vision was of little use to a denizen of the underground. Each step of the castle’s inhabitants sent small shock waves through his muscular body, altering him of their precise location. After taking a moment to adjust to the foreign form he now possessed, he tunneled upwards, racing toward the surface and the castle floor above. Splinters of wood shot in every direction as he tore through the first several levels of the temple. He let out a guttural shriek from the wurm’s segmented throat as he breached the top floor, unfurling massive, razor sharp spines from the creature's mouth and impaling the samurai in the neck and belly. The clamor of the statues tumbling onto the floor resonated throughout the temple. Still bound at the wrist, Kazue, through the eyes of his mortal vessel, jumped into the creature's esophagus. With a violent twist of the worm's head, Kazue shattered the pagoda in two, large wood and stone smithereens plummeting onto the gardens below. His body safely lodged in the creature’s throat, he retreated into the hole from whence the creature came, burrowing deep into the ground and out of the Kamaitachi's immediate reach.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center"><div class="bbImageWrapper lazyload js-lbImage" data-lb-caption-extra-html="" data-lb-sidebar-href="" data-single-image="1" data-src="/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fs31.postimg.cc%2Fhwulhshnf%2Fphotomania-b545e4f729c0cd36b0405bca6ce6a89f.jpg&amp;hash=dce1ae52624092553782bf6044594bcf" title="photomania-b545e4f729c0cd36b0405bca6ce6a89f.jpg">
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<i>Wāmu<br/>
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