"I'm sorry, haha-ue." Monjumaru apologized between pants, his short silver hair and his kimono a complete mess. The room he and his mother were in was no better – the little raccoon demon in his arms had thoroughly trashed the place before the boy could take hold of it, leaving fallen curtains, torn wallscrolls and toppled lamp stands in its wake, among other things. Unfortunately, it seemed no amount of apologetic attitude would please his mother, who was only short of going on a full-on rampage.

"You vile, twisted little monster!" his mother yelled, "Where did you get that disgusting creature? Why did you have to unleash that evil being on me? You horrible scum from hell!"

"This is my shikigami. I haven't quite trained it properly. I will make sure it behaves, I promise!" Monjumaru's said, but his words were drowned out by his mother's screaming. He was too paralyzed in fear, he couldn't move even as she grabbed him by the collar and was about to slap him. That was, until a servant arrived just in time to stop her and he used the opportunity to sneak away.

Monjumaru was glad that he finally summoned his first shikigami, small and unimpressive though the raccoon demon might be. But again, it also opened a whole new realm of problems for the young onmyōji in training. As he reached a painful conclusion after several more succesful summoning attempts that brought him even more annoying creatures that landed him in hot water ever more frequently, at one point even getting him locked up inside an empty room and not getting any food for a whole day, his shikigami didn't like him. No matter whether he tried acting more commanding towards his summons, like his father advised, or more friendly, like Dōji suggested, he just couldn't get them to listen to a single word he said, let alone have them swear eternal service the moment they appeared before him like either of them did. Was it because he lacked charisma? Was it because he didn't look good enough? Whatever the cause, soon once again Monjumaru was down in the dumps.

They weren't like the dolls, the eggs and the rocks he talked to alone in his study – the souls that actually befriended him, stayed by his side and never caused trouble. If only he had a shikigami that could walk and run, yet possessing the kind souls of the various inanimate objects he had…

"What have we here?" he heard the all too familiar mocking voice of his younger half-brother coming from behind him when the tiny frog demon he summoned in the garden spat at his feet as soon as it materialized and hopped away, "Even demon freaks supposedly serving the demon freak hate his guts. Ani-ue really is a helpless case."

"Shut your mouth, Fugenmaru!" Monjumaru growled.

"Get out of my way, bastards!" Hiromasa shouted, cursing his luck for making him take care of yet another band of waylaying strangers instead of just letting him go hunt in peace. Halting his horse, he swiftly drew an arrow and fired directly at one of the strangers' throat, what he hoped would be a brutally quick death within milliseconds of the musical twang of the bowstring that taught the rest to not mess with Minamoto no Hiromasa and back down if they valued their lives. Unfortunately, these strangers, these ominous monstrous creatures engulfed in green and purple flames, were no ordinary strangers, be it human robbers or man-eating yōkai. The poor arrow soon found itself firmly caught in the large, bulky hand of its target and snapped in two within the blink of an eye.

"Damn it!" Hiromasa cursed, realizing his arrows had become useless as the creatures got closer. He had no choice but to reach for his sword… and he found a yari pointed at his face quicker than he could touch the hilt. Curses under his breath, he could do nothing but glare at the creature pointing its weapon at him, shiver at the dark aura emanating from its body, from the blade just a hair's breadth away from penetrating his skull.

"Are you not one of the Minamoto family? An onmyōji, no less." it said, "I can sense the power from you. Too bad it's not powerful enough." it then glared at one of the fellow creatures, "This is not the one we're looking for! You useless garbage!"

"But isn't he a Minamoto? See, he even has the power!" the other one said, cowering from the glare.

"I do not want to hear anything else from you, good-for-nothing scum!" the leader growled, and with one quick gesture of its head, the other one's head immediately tumbled from its shoulder under another creature's blade. A second later, both the head and the dismembered body vanished, leaving a blade with its tip broken off in their place. "We will continue our search again, but" the leader turned to Hiromasa and said to him, "that doesn't mean we'll let you go."

At that, a cold and brutal pain struck Hiromasa's shoulder from behind – a purple-flame-covered naginata blade drove a particularly deep cut into his flesh that made Hiromasa draw blood from his lower lip biting it to keep from shouting. He felt as though his brain fried and his veins burned from the strike. The wound didn't bleed; all that came out from the fresh gash upon his shoulder was purple smoke, much like the ones enveloping the band of monstrous creatures that instantly vanished from his sight without a trace.