Episode VIII

Inner Sanctum of Shogun Takashi, Capital City.

Takashi was looking into a crystal ball that was floating in midair. With it he was able to look through the eyes of his shadow birds he saw a massive army lead by Ashi. If her army takes back the city and destroys him then all he's plans would've been for nothing. He needed to bring his army and destroy her before it was too late. He turns toward his summoning circle and castes a spell on it. Many demons were seen, they are waiting patiently for something to happen.

"Soon my comrades," Takashi said. "In a few more days you will enter this world and we will burn it to the ground."

Ashi's base camp, located in a forest miles from the capital city.

The army had been traveling for days but they finally made it to their goal. By tomorrow they'll kill the traitor Takashi and liberate the empire from his evil rule. Ashi looked around the base camp and saw her soldiers interacting with one another. It had only been a few days since her coronation but it almost felt like a lifetime. She then returned to her tent and unsheathed the Sacred Blade. She looked at it and remembered what her father told her about it. He said that it was forged by three gods, each one from a different culture here on Earth. He told her that they would judge her on her twenty-fifth birthday to see if she is truly worthy of the blade. Her twenty-fifth birthday is tomorrow but she believes that the gods won't mind if she postpones it for her to fight in a battle tomorrow. She sheathes the blade and turns in for the night.

The next day.

Ashi's army marches out of the forest and comes onto a large field of short grass that leads to the capital city. And on that field was Takashi's army, it contained both humans and Oni all of them ready for a fight. Ashi is at the front of her army on a horse and with her are Izanagi, Hamato, Mei, and Daishin. Izanagi was looking through a spyglass to get a good look at the enemy.

"Empress you need to see this," Izanagi said.

He gives the spyglass to Ashi for her to see what he saw. And what see saw filled her with both surprise and hate. On a horse in the middle of the enemy army was a man in gold Japanese army was Shogun Takashi.

"Takashi is here," said Ashi. "If we can kill him in this battle then we can free the country in one fell swoop."

She then turns toward her army and says to them, "My countrymen, the traitor Takashi has come to participate in this battle. He killed my father the previous emperor and believes that he can just take control of our home. He is enslaving our people and has summoned demons from the Pit of Hate to wreck havoc upon us all. We will not allow him to do as he pleases!"

The soldiers then cheer at Ashi's words.

Ashi then has her horse face the enemy army and yells, "ATTACK!"

Her army charges toward Takashi's army and they charge as well. Both sides clash with each other. Several soldiers injure and kill each other, whether they be human or Oni. Hamato and Mei are sticking close with each other as they engage several Oni wielding katanas. One Oni charges at Mei and slashes her but she blocks it and pulls out a tanto and stabs the demon in the neck. Hamato then attacks three Oni he slashes one killing it and the other two then charge at him. He picks up the dead Oni's sword and fights the two Oni with it, he stabs one of the Oni and decapitates the other. Meanwhile Daishin was surrounded by three human warriors and three Oni warriors.

"Ashi must be desperate if she's allowing the blind in her army," said an Oni.

"I'll make this quick blind one," said a human warrior.

He charges at Daishin and then...SLASH. The man was standing behind Daishin with his sword held up high and Daishin had his sword drawn out and dripping blood. The warrior then falls onto the ground dead, his comrades then charge at Daishin but they too fell to his sword as well.

Meanwhile Ashi and Izanagi were charging through Takashi's army on their horses to get the Shogun himself. They saw him dismounted and effortlessly killing anyone who tried to fight him with both his word and dark magic blasts. He sees the two coming for him and he stands ready for them to attack. Ashi jumps from her horse and tries to kill Takashi but he manages to block the attack. They both make attacks on each other but they block each other's attacks. Izanagi stays out of the fight as he saw this as one that Ashi wants to do alone, so he fights Takashi's soldiers instead. Takashi then fires several dark magic blasts but Ashi manages to block them.

"Why did you do this!?" Ashi yelled.

"This world is complacent and must burn," said Takashi.

They lock blades with each other and Ashi was noticeably angry at the words he said and then punches Takashi in the face. She knocked his helmet off and noticed something about him when he staggered back. It was his face. She saw that the skin had been moved into the wrong positions and Takashi was moving them back into their correct positions. Ashi was confused but regained her composure and charged at him. She jumped over him and grabbed his face. When she landed she looked into her hand and saw she took it off him. When she looked at Takshi she was horrified at what she saw. The skin on his head was dark as the night, he had two horns protruding from his forehead, and his eyes were something else. The sclera were black instead of white and the irises were red. The other people around the two stopped and saw Takashi's face, even the people not close enough stopped and heard what the others were saying. Takashi wasn't human he was a demon.

(AN: I've been giving subtle hints that Takashi is a demon in previous chapters.)

"Takashi," said Ashi.

"I am Uwaki-sha," the demon said in a low pitched voice that wasn't the same as Takashi's. "I killed the real daimyo Takashi twenty years ago and took his skin when he accidentally freed me."

(AN: Uwaki-sha is Japanese for deceiver. A reference to the fact that he has deceived everyone when he pretended to be Takashi.)

"No wonder the demons served you faithfully," said Izanagi. "If you were a human they would've torn you apart."

"Your discovery doesn't matter," said Uwaki-sha. "Your world will be mine."

"The humans in your army won't serve you anymore," said Ashi. "And you don't have enough Oni to fight us."

The human soldiers were surrounding the Oni waiting for them to try and fight. Uwaki-sha then grinned and then his irises glowed. Then suddenly multiple bright lights appeared on the battlefield summoning Oni taking the humans by surprise. This distracted the humans who were surrounding the other Oni giving the demons the opportunity to slaughter them.

Ashi herself is confused by this development herself and turns to Uwaki-sha and says, "What did you do!?"

"I had planted summoning rings underneath the grass," said Uwaki-sha. "If I felt that we were loosing then I would summon more Oni."

Uwaki-sha then throws a ball of dark fire on the around his feet which then engulfed him. His original armor was gone and he was now wearing a black suit armor that left his arms and feet exposed. The skin on his arms and feet were dark as night like his face as well. Uwaki-sha then uses his magic on his sword turning the blade black and emitting a devilish red aura. He then engages Ashi in a sword fight while Izanagi engaged several Oni.

Ashi locks blades with Uwaki-sha and says, "You will die Uwaki-sha."

"You've already lost," said Uwaki-sha as he pushed Ashi back.

"What are you talking about!?" Ashi said.

"Look," said Uwaki-sha as he motioned Ashi to look at the battle.

Ashi looks and sees what he meant. The Oni were beating the humans even though they were suffering heavy causalities as well. Ashi had promised her army victory but now she has brought them to their death even the humans that Uwaki-sha brought were doomed as well.

Uwaki-sha senses the doubt in Ashi and begins to chant a spell in the demon language, "Doubt that festers in the wielder of the unbreakable, become the strength that will feed thy blade to destroy the weapon forged in light."

The aura emitting from Uwaki-sha's blade then turns blue and he charges at Ashi. She sees him and blocks his attack. But that is exactly what the demon wanted. When his blade hit Ashi's there was an explosion that sends Ashi back. Her helmet was lost, most of her armor was destroyed, and she had several scratches on herself. She gets up and raises her sword but she sees that the blade was destroyed. She only had the hilt and the broken blade part that was connected to it. She was shocked and fell to her knees with tears in her eyes. The sword had contained a piece of her father's soul and a piece of her grandfather's and she lost them both in one sword swing.

Ashi was too in shock to see Uwaki-sha charge at her but luckily Izanagi locked blades with the demon. This managed to break the young empress out of her shock.

"Ashi call the retreat!" said Izanagi. "I'll handle Uwaki-sha while you retreat!"

"But he'll kill you!" Ashi said.

"Just to do it!" Izanagi commanded.

Ashi follows his command. She runs away, takes out a bow and arrow, ignites the arrow, and shoots it n the sky. The soldiers see the arrow and retreat. Daishin is told of the retreat and knocks out an Oni that was attacking him.

"We can interrogate this one for information," said the Daishin.

While Ashi joined her army in the retreat Izanagi was still fighting Uwaki-sha. Izanagi wasn't able land any hits but Uwaki-sha landed plenty on the daimyo. He made small slashes Izanagi's arms, legs, and chest. Izanagi was loosing armor and blood, he is clearly outmatched by demon. Then Uwaki-sha manages to stab Izanagi in the stomach. When he pulls out the sword the daimyo falls forward with his hands pressed against his wound. He then looks up at the demon with a hateful look and spits at him. In response Uwaki-sha holds out his hand and fires a stream of black fire that burns Izanagi to ashes.

"To all Oni," said Uwaki-sha in a booming voice. "Come to me and return to the capital. We must make sure that the city is still under my control by the time the planetary alignment happens in the next two days."

The Oni follow his command and come to him. Uwaki-sha turns around and marches to the city for his master plan.