The Night Parade Of A Thousand Yokai
Akiro unknowingly lead disaster into India.
His journey became all too well known in Japan. He became all too well known in Japan. Thousands of weak vessels followed him in secrecy, some wanting to join him, many wanting to kill him.
En masse, Yokai supporters lead people after Akiro, even following him across the sea. While many of them were incredibly weak, they weren't all.
The Namazu - a great catfish that could cause earthquakes at will - ōkami - a powerful wolf spirit - and even the now crippled Orochi were among them, beings so powerful that they could easily tear up a country.
Reaching India's south coast, they spread out, sweeping across the country looking for the flaming swordmaster.
Ulric was the first to notice. His clones watching in dismay as thousands of people rushed inland, killing everything and everyone.
Some weren't harbouring malicious intentions, simply wanting protection from the strongest in Japan, but most of them were.
Earthquakes rang out across the continent, as people had their souls ripped from their bodies and Orochi's roar rang out across the land.
As they did, Cain's undead sense began ringing out like crazy.
Seeing the direction in which they were heading, we had to prepare.
"I'm sorry", Akiro offered an apology. We didn't know the specifics, but vaguely understood what had happened. One second, a Japanese serial killer shows up, and the next, thousands of angry Japanese people swarm the country.
"Don't apologise", Ulric reassured him. "We'll deal with them." He plucked more of his hair, before asking Akiro what weapon he'd like.
"Ame no murakumo no tsurugi", he answered, as though he'd been planning this all his life.
The cloud gathering (or grass cutting) sword. Ulric obviously knew the sword, the legendary blade that spawned from Orochi's corpse.
He produced a replica and handed it to Akiro. Rather than discarding his old blade, he now dual wielded the two.
Cain loaded his shotgun and Vladimir turned into an eagle. Ulric handed riyu bang replicas to a few of his strongest clones and prepared for the fight.
The yokai rushed, fast, storming through the cities, mowing down buildings and people alike, searching for our new ally.
Nue flew forward, its vessel unleashing bolts of lightning to propel itself. It was the first to reach us. Also the first to die.
After a closer inspection, we found several other powerful yokai, from Ootakemaru - a powerful kijin that could control the weather - Gashadokuro - a giant skeleton that could eat anything and even a Jorōgumo - a murderous spider woman.
The earthquakes continued, and fire began to rain from the sky.
Ulric stood at the front, wielding the riyu bang and sweeping away the yokai's vessels. Vladimir froze and burnt those on the edge, while Cain fired shells into the centre.
Ulric's clones corralled the crowd into narrow streets where Akiro and I dealt with them.
We fought them, while putting up with the lightning and fire crashing down from the skies, and ignoring the massive tremors all around us.
Everything did seem to be going well, until the strongest yokai reached us.
Buildings collapsed all around Namazu, crushing most of the weaker vessels nearby and easily killing them.
Gashadokuro's vessel was devouring the others nearby, making himself bigger and stronger, until each footstep left a small crater.
All of Ulric's clones near Jorōgumo were caught in webs, pinned down tightly.
Orochi was punching and smashing nearby people and buildings.
The yokai around Ootakemaru were scorched by fire and lightning.
Meanwhile, the clones fighting ōkami were being destroyed with every strike.
All six of them would've been formidable opponents, but together, they were hell.
Ame no murakumo no tsurugi swept through the crowd before finding its target. Orochi had found Akiro, ready for round 2.
I, on the other hand, got stuck with the cannibalistic giant, Gashadokuro's vessel. Pounding him with fire, he kept retaliating, smashing his meteor-sized fists at me.
Whenever I injured him, he would simply snatch a nearby vessel, crush them, and stuff them into his mouth, healing him fully.
Vladimir swooped down - still in his eagle form - attacking at Jorōgumo with his flaming talons, burning away any webs.
Cain shot at Namazu from a distance, activating spirit physique to avoid the effects of the earthquakes.
Meanwhile, Ulric took the hardest job, attacking Ootakemaru and using his clones to stall ōkami.
Individually, none of us would have a hope of beating ōkami, the wolf capable of taking anyone's life at will. To combat this, we decided that each of us would deal with a weaker one, before ganging up on the dog's vessel.
Orochi's human head flew off, I cut out Gashadokuro's stomach, Jorōgumo's last web was burnt, and Namazu's spine was split in two.
Ulric's luck wasn't quite as good.
Badly burnt by the rain, having been struck by lightning at least twice, and without any clones supporting him, Ulric really struggled.
His riyu bang was turned to ash, his hands could hardly move and his body out of body skill was exhausted.
The demon wasn't in great shape either, but was still doing better than Ulric.
Drops of fire kept raining like snow, as Ulric barely managed to dodge a bolt of lighting and land a punch on Ootakemaru's vessel.
His opponent was incredibly strong, strong enough to knock him down. Just as another bolt of lightning was going to hit Ulric, Ootakemaru's head rolled off.
Akiro, the one who brought the disaster, saved Ulric from it.
Together, the five of us approached ōkami's vessel.
He'd already killed at least twenty of Ulric's clones, along with many more yokai.
Our plan was simple, use fire to restrain him, before finishing him off with Ulric's clones.
Of course, it would never go to plan.
Even with me, Cain, Vladimir and Akiro all contributing fire, it was nowhere near to stop the vessel from moving about. He was just too strong.
ōkami were incredibly powerful, almost unbeatable. Naturally, its vessel would be just as strong. It managed to be one of the few yokai to be worshipped as Gods.
It overpowered the flames, bounding at us. Akiro's blade knocked him back, nearly breaking as it did so.
Deciding it was a bad idea to go after him, he charged at me. He was fast, faster than me. Luckily, when he got close, I managed to jump into my private heaven, dodging his instakill attack.
I came back out, throwing a spare riyu bang over to Ulric and luring the ōkami over. That would've been easy, had the ōkami been a dog; however, I was not luring the dog, but the human vessel that wasn't quite so stupid.
Ulric charged, smashing him with the riyu bang. No matter how strong you are, being hit by a 4,000KG staff can never be good.
A little more work from the rest of us, and we managed to kill him. Ending our own little night parade of a thousand yokai.