"Yato! Look!"
Yato looks up at the sky at Yukine's exclamation as they were walking down the steps from Tenjin's shrine. The moon hangs in the sky; a dull, magenta-violet sky. Clouds looks like wisps of dark smoke against the starless cloth of night. The moon itself is turning rusty colored, a dull wine color.
"The eclipse …"
The two are suddenly shaken, almost off their feet, as a rumble seems to ripple through the earth. The nearby trees and shrubbery rustle and birds flock away, leaving ruffled feathers. The night air is filled with the barking of local canines from nearby residences. To the west, a large column of light flashes, near the heart of the mountains bordering the city. Its flash is brief and brilliant, tinged pink, though apparently unseen to earthly eyes, all whom where staring instead at the moon.
"What was that?" Yato peers out towards the mountains, "Another effect of the eclipse…?"
The flash is gone. However, a steady glowing light emanates still from the mountains in a thin stream toward the heavens. There's an inhuman screech that ripples through all who can perceive it.
Yukine looks up, a distraught look on his features, "It sounds like an ayakashi … but…"
Yato doesn't let him finish his thought and quickly dashes down the steps, "Let's go, Yukine!"
Yukine is slightly flustered as his master runs ahead. He follows, slightly slower.
"B-But what about Tesso!?"
"One thing at a time, Yukine!" The delivery god jumps down, several steps ahead, to the bottom landing, "Sekki."
His hafuri jumps to his hand. Without a wasted movement, the delivery god leaps up high to the rooftops and onwards, from roof to roof and pole top, towards the forest.
"Yukine, I think that place… is roughly familiar …"
"Eh? Yato, what…"
Yato picks up in pace, "I'm almost sure … that's where we last saw Fudou…!"
As he runs, the dark skies seem to turn an ominous hue of red. Humans gathered to watch the eclipse stare in awe as the moon turns a ruddy color and a shadow slowly encroaches on its circumference. They are ignorant of a slight tremor, which evades their modern devices.
The dark shrouded magatsukami stood above the ruined lands spreading about the mountain. Even without a heavenly shroud, he effortlessly hovered to where a long, snaking chain wavered. It lead all the way up to the heavens, and was seemingly anchored on a small stone structure at its base on the ground.
He raises his blade, a short sword with a bit of pink string lied to the end, ready to cleave the chain.
His intention is suddenly disturbed by a sword which comes slashing at him. On the other end of the blade is Yato, brandishing another blade. Fudou easily sways and darts out of the way. The delivery god, with no shroud, drops back down and stands atop a tree, glaring at Fudou in the manner a cat may hiss at a threat. That face was that of a true god of disaster.
"Where is Hitori!?"
Fudou said nothing. He merely lifted up his weapon, with that bit of pink string attached. Yato's eyes look instantly drawn to the bit if pink. As he put two and two together, his eyes slowly widen.
"Yato? Yato what's wrong?!"
Yukine's voice is drowned out by the deafening roar in his years. His grip on the sword tightens so hard it's a miracle his joints didn't burst from the pressure.
"FUDOOOOU!"
Like an alley cat, he springs; like a stupid animal, driven solely by the rage he felt, by the fear and all those emotions. He hated this guy. Why the hell was he standing so calmly?! Wipe that calm demeanor off… better yet, I'll cut your whole face!
Too many openings.
Fudou vanished like a mirage from before him. He could hear the tap of the geta clog land behind him. Did he get him? Yukine was still up in the air…
His scarf fluttered, cut into strands. The strands disintegrated as the step Fudou made seemed to have destroyed it.
"Y-Yato!"
Yukine paled from within the boundary space. This guy was faster than even Bishamon or Take… was he hiding his strength during that fight against the ayakashi? This is bad!
Yato stood, a bit numbed by another loss. He hadn't felt the blade nearly graze his neck. And right now, he couldn't hear Yukine yelling for him to pull back either. Fudou held his blade up, as though to admire it against the dimming twilight.
"Magnificent."
Without warning, he made his strike on the chain. Yato, still stunned, moved too slow to fully block. The rend of the blade tore the space around him. He could feel himself getting shredded by a billion little blades. The force of the swing was threatening to bend his bones. The energy was so immense that it engulfed him, like a bright, pink-tinged light. Like a ravenous devourer, it blew Yato back and ravaged the ground as it went and seemingly obliterated the delivery god from existence. Upon destroying that feeble resistance, the force goes straight at the chain tethered; the chain of the world. It touched upon the chain… and disintegrated it.
The explosion was brighter than the eclipsed moon, and the energy could be seen for miles, and felt in Heaven. The moon changed, dying a reddish color, until it was dark mahogany... And then, it was gone.
Kouto's head snaps up at the gleam of that awesome, brilliant glare. A twinge runs through his body. An ill omen… The name dances on the edge of his tongue.
"Yaboku…."
"Father?"
Nora stares as he does. She looks to him. He says nothing, except look in awe. Eventually, the moment seems to pass and he quickly calls her name. She obeys and takes on the form of Mizuchi in his hand. With slight uncertainty, the magician jumps from the ledge where he had been waiting for the big event.
He had created Yato of his own selfish desires. They remained connected. In the same way the Ainu felt their gods die, he felt his son's life snap like a thread. He has to reconnect it. That thread… which winds towards the site in the mountains where that obscene explosion of light still towers, blocking out the night of the Heavens.
Masaomi sits in bitter silence, trying to ignore the maddening menagerie of sounds growing outside as the eclipse was at its apex. A feeling of dread had rippled through him then. Hiyori's blood pressure dropped as her breathing weakened. Now she lay still in that coma, with an oxygen mask affixed over her sleeping, pale face. She was growing weaker…
The young man instinctively grabs his head at the sound of sudden thunder. There were no storms tonight. It was supposed to be clear for the viewing…
Oh, but what did it matter? Outside, he could feel something fearsome build. He could see all those spirits, the ugly ones with the inhuman shapes, the eyes, the bodies… They were all suddenly surging. Why did some of them sound like they were laughing…? What… What was there to be excited about? Was it that light? That light that no one batted an eye at because only he could see it? It's still there, glaring its radiance against the night sky in the direction of the mountains… What is that?
The two halves of the rensa flailed and wavered, like a reed in the wind, severed. A great creaking sound went unheard by those ignorant humans. But anyone with an inkling of the supernatural felt a tremor go through the world. Clinking, like that of several chains, filled the air as all the other rensa suddenly came to visibility. A dark shadow leaps up and weaves about them, severing them one by one.
The court in Heaven felt it. They were slowly slipping. The chains which kept them anchored as the Shores…
Amaterasu, the mature goddess, only looked forlornly at the incomplete court gathered to sentence the great rat Take dragged in. The rumbles of separation did not shake that nonchalant demeanor. There was absoluteness in Heaven.
"Mitama… rally the gods. Swat down that annoying fly."
Their forces remained relatively diminished and in disarray after that whole incident with Bishamonten. How annoying. But their main gods were still active. Yatagarasu, Kagutsuchi, Daikokuten, Takemikazuchi… If needed, even Tenjin and Ebisu will be called. This was surely more than enough to dispatch of one rogue god of misfortune. Heaven's will must be obeyed, for it is absolute…
The gods in their radiant shrouds descend in a sudden storm onto the ebon god with the straw hat. He peered at them almost like a duelist greeting a challenger; a face of mockery.
Take readies his regalia and Kiun with an arrogant scowl, "Prepare yourself, nameless god of misfortune! In the name of Heaven—"
He can't finish his address as a slash from the god sends a shockwave at him. Though he blocks, the strike is so immense in power that he is knocked tumbling in the air, and his shroud is partially cut aside.
"What is the point of such a pompous declaration even…" The pitch black god tips his hat slightly, waving his short blade almost jauntily. A dull pink gleam emanated from the washizaki.
"Hmf," Kagutsuchi wastes no time, unlike Take, and exhales a great billow of flame, enveloping the dark god.
The fire burns for quite a while, able to reduce one to cinders in a matter of minutes. But this did not matter to a weapon meant to cut matter. A wave of compressed pink energy lashes and cuts the flames in twain as though they were solid. The wave travels quickly and catches Kagutsuchi by surprise.
In a desperate measure, he blows another weak flame at it while Yatagarasu tries to buffet the enemy with his familiars. The army of Shii-gun also appears and thunders towards the single dark god from Arahabaki.
Fudou merely gives a smirk at these attempts.
In the next few moment, Kagutsuchi's torso is cleanly slashed by the wave. It diminished in size from his flames, but cut his body into the spine, nearly severing his body into halves. Without a chance to cry out, the fire god plummeted from the skies down towards the ground. The other gods barely register it as they were occupied, the incredibly swift fall of their comrade. Shii-gun, being a young shiki, loses focus for a second and cries out.
The next movements Fudou makes create a whirlwind of furiously fast slashes around him, decimating the crows. His irregular slashes send out waves that fly like shearing bullets. Arahabaki gawks a bit as Shii-gun is quickly depleted.
"What is this?!"
"Ha! Yellow bellied fools… your opponent is me!" Take leaps back at the foe and brings out a great stroke of thunder down with his swing.
The god, without even a shroud to keep himself afloat, bears the brunt of the strike and then even deflects it. Sakuya-bime gives a shrill screech as the strike fries her instead, knocking her from the fight and down as well. A murder of crows gather towards the two in free fall to try and save them.
"Impossible…!" The storm god breathes in disbelief.
"Why do people worship gods like you…" The god peers out with violet eyes, with a glint of magenta light, at Take, "Did I train all these millennia to be disappointed?"
"SHUT UUUP!"
Enraged, Take was like Yato. Too many openings.
The god of storms felt it first in his gut, on the same wound Yatogami dealt him. Then another one across his face, diagonally from fore to cheek. The last one cut him from shoulder to stern, to bowel, before the blade repositioned and ran him through completely.
Crimson sprays from his lips and nose as the blood vessels in his body all feel like bursting. With a bloody flourish, the dark god sends Take plummeting as well. The storm god could hear the voice of his regalia all screaming as spots form in his vision. The sky grows further and further away…
The loss of Take is much more prevalent. Now all the gods hang back warily, with great fear of this seemingly invincible enemy.
Fudou gives a mocking sneer to the Heavens. There is a rumble as Amaterasu meets his gaze. Even from such a distance...
"I am coming now."