|
Desperate and in need to retrieve the lost Sword of Dark Clouds before his master’s return, Tsukinowa was quick to locate the heroic foils that threatened to undo everything he had worked so hard to achieve. Planting his staff on the cliff, he began a prayer to summon an evil being, a creation for his reckoning. Channeling the evil of the moon in conjunction with the countless lost spirits at sea, a dark presence brewed under the water’s surface. A radiating green light bubbled as a horrific demon gestated, created with an objective in mind. Its presence induced storm clouds to rush over the forming creature, drizzling heavy rain and crackling decisive lightning. The ocean wrestled in torrents of powerful waves, kicked up by the fearsome gales that accompanied the wrathful storm. Swooshing its giant tail, the half-beast, half-fish monstrosity made itself known: Kaishin Muba had completely manifested.
 Without missing a beat, Kaishin Muba lunged one of its many bodily tentacles at Yamato Takeru, constricting and pulling him back. Oto tried to save him with her flaming magic, yet did little against the aquatic beast’s slimy skin aside from irritating it. Noticing the young warrioress, Kaishin Muba’s facial fins surged with sparking magic and discharged a green beam from the crystal ball on its forehead. Though it barely missed, it was not compelled to kill her nor use the full extent of its power, but rather take the prize Tsukinowa had sought: the sacrifice of Takeru and the return of the Sword of Dark Clouds. With that, it submerged under the sea to complete the ritual, taking the young prince with it.
Even with the odds against him, Takeru tried to hack and slash his way out of the water specter’s tight grip, but did very little to actually harm the fish-beast. Yet the more he tried, the more futile his attempts were until he passed out. But this time, Oto came to his rescue. While her fireballs were ineffective against the leviathan’s body, its tentacles were far more susceptible by comparison. Her burning magic forced it to relinquish its hold on Takeru, but she was unable to carry the both of them. Oto, in her final moments, gave Takeru the air needed for his unconscious body to return to the surface. She herself was entangled in the fish-beast’s firm grip, becoming a substitute offering on Takeru’s behalf.
Content with this sacrifice, Kaishin Muba dissolved into golden particles of light, with the deceased Oto in its clutches. Like a whisper in the wind, they both vanished, ending Kaishin Muba’s reign of terror. |
