*A darkness is swallowing the mountain—and the exorcists are doing nothing.*
When lower ayakashi vanish from the Yatsuhara range without a trace—not exorcised, not devoured, but hollowed out until nothing remains but empty vessels waiting for orders—the Matoba clan's young head, Seiji Matoba, is the only one who sees the threat for what it is. A forbidden art. Ayakashi-name binding. The greatest taboo of the exorcist world, and someone is using it.
But Seiji has spent his whole life learning t
The Law of Ayakashi: Seiji Matoba's Conviction - The Abandoned Village That Calls Names — The Ritual, Everything Taken Away
The mountain air cut against the skin like a blade.
Seiji Matoba walked in silence along the ravine of the Yatsuhara range. The hem of the navy haori he wore over his black suit brushed across damp fallen leaves. Beside him walked a boy with gray-tinged hair, Takashi Natsume. And on that boy's shoulder perched a plump white beckoning cat, its face set in a look of deep displeasure.
Several days had passed since that night.
The cold orders from the clan headquarters. The sting of having three shiki stolen. And this awkward, grudging cooperation with Natsume, bound by nothing but a common enemy. All of it sat heavy and unsettled at the bottom of Matoba's heart.
"Are you really sure it's up ahead?"
Matoba asked quietly, his gaze fixed on the dark grove ahead. His voice rang out dry and sharp against the stillness of the ravine.
"...I don't know. But the presence is flowing."
Natsume furrowed his brow, scanning the air around them as if tracing something. His eyes saw what ordinary humans could not—the presence of ayakashi, and the currents they moved along.
"Presence, hm. You can see it?"
"See it, or... more like feel it. Those hollowed-out ayakashi are all flowing in from the same direction. Over there—northwest."
Natsume pointed deeper into the ravine, toward where the mountain slopes folded over one another in a tangled layering.
Matoba drew a slip of paper from his coat. A miswritten scrap he'd found in the cave at the dry riverbed. The two characters "Hiiragi" left on it—he had looked at them again and again.
"The current you sense matches the flow of miasma I can read from the remnants of that formation."
Matoba tucked the paper away and fixed his eyes on the far end of the ravine.
"The cave at the dry riverbed was only one ritual site. Douan isn't there. But if we follow this current, we'll reach where he's really hiding."
"That'd be the abandoned village."
"Yes. It isn't on any map of this mountain, but the clan's old records mention a small settlement deep in the ravine. A village wiped out by a landslide decades ago."
"Can anyone even live in a place like that?"
"People, no."
Matoba smiled. A gentle smile, yet somewhere in it, the sharpness of a blade.
"For someone who commands ayakashi, there's no more convenient a hiding place. The locals fear the mountain and stay away, and there's no cell signal. Put up a barrier, and you won't be found from the outside."
"...And you're still going, Matoba-san? It could be a trap."
A faint hesitation bled into Natsume's voice.
"Whether it's a trap, we'll have to go and find out. Are you coming, or not?"
Matoba turned to look at Natsume, meeting his eyes directly.
Natsume was, for a moment, at a loss for words.
(Matoba-san's way of doing things—I still can't accept it. He treats ayakashi like tools and doesn't even blink. But...)
Natsume clenched his fist.
(I can't just leave those hollowed-out ayakashi alone. Having your name stolen, losing yourself like that... that's just wrong.)
"...I'm going. I want to save those ayakashi too."
Natsume's voice was quiet, but a fierce resolve burned in his eyes.
"Hmph. Don't go deciding on your own, Natsume. I haven't yet said I'll accompany this exorcist."
On Natsume's shoulder, Madara growled in irritation.
"But Sensei, you don't like what's happening to the ayakashi of this mountain either, do you?"
"That's... well, true enough. But listen, Natsume. This one is the strongest exorcist there is. If things go wrong, he'd cut you loose without a second thought."
Madara glared at Matoba. In those round eyes lived a clear wariness.
"I haven't trusted the two of you either. This is a temporary alliance, nothing more than a shared enemy. Don't forget that."
Matoba deepened his smile, as if letting Madara's gaze slide right off him.
"I know. I haven't trusted Matoba-san either. But right now, there's no other choice."
Natsume let out a small breath between Matoba and Madara.
The three of them began walking again.
The air in the ravine grew heavier with every step—as if something ahead were warning them of what waited.
The wind threading through the trees swept past with an eerie sound.
Without realizing it, Matoba had clenched the back of his right hand.
An old burn scar. The day his father's shiki—a white fox—vanished. The backlash of ayakashi power had seared the hand he'd stretched out to grasp that fading light.
(Ayakashi are tools. If you lose one, you simply prepare the next piece.)
He declared it firmly within his heart.
But the words no longer resonated the way they once had.
(Douan... that man is after my shiki. He means to take my pieces one by one. Then I'll go to him myself and settle this face to face.)
Matoba's stride held no hesitation.
With Natsume and Madara trailing slightly behind, he pressed deeper into the ravine.
Before long, dusk drew near, and the mountain sky began to stain with madder red.
"...There it is."
Matoba stopped.
The ravine opened up, and beyond it spread the remains of a small settlement.
Crumbling houses. Toppled stone walls. Fields overgrown with weeds. A place where people's lives had once been—now reduced entirely to ruins.
"So this is the abandoned village."
Natsume looked around and caught his breath.
"Yes. A village that isn't on any map. But there's no mistake. Douan's miasma is rising from the whole of it."
Matoba stood at the village entrance and smiled quietly.
"Well then. Shall we pay our respects?"
It was the instant he set one foot inside the village.
—Kiiin.
A high, piercing note rang out across the entire village.
"What the—!?"
Natsume braced himself.
The next moment, from the eaves of the crumbling houses, countless threads of light shot up into the sky all at once.
The threads wove together in a complex net, forming a gigantic barrier that covered the whole village.
"A spell formation...! It was embedded in every house!"
Matoba's expression stiffened for the first time.
"Matoba-san, this is—!"
"A trap. They knew from the start that we were coming."
Matoba spoke calmly. But a faint tension bled into his voice.
"Natsume, don't leave my side. Madara, you too."
"Hmph. You don't need to tell me!"
Madara leaped down from Natsume's shoulder and landed on the ground. His body was wrapped in white light and began to swell.
"Sensei!"
"I'm returning to my true form. This barrier won't break with half-hearted power."
The light burst, and from within it emerged a colossal white beast.
It was a white beast like a wolf and yet like a fox, divine in its bearing. Madara, in his true form. Overwhelming ayakashi power poured from every inch of him.
"Come, then, Douan. I'll be your opponent."
Madara growled low.
As if answering that voice, a voice echoed from deep within the village.
"—So you've come, Seiji."
The voice reverberated across the whole village; there was no telling where it came from.
"Douan...!"
Matoba glared sharply toward the direction of the voice.
"Twenty years. You've grown. Back then you were a small child, toddling along behind me."
The voice carried mockery.
"I never imagined you were the man banished from the clan. That gentle uncle, of all people, dabbling in forbidden arts that enslave ayakashi."
Matoba's voice was cold as ice.
"Forbidden arts? Hmph. I merely devised a technique to properly manage ayakashi. Ayakashi are beings that harm humans. Then humans ought to rule them. What's wrong with that?"
"The 'management' you speak of means stripping ayakashi of their selves and leaving them hollow. That's domination. Not the work of an exorcist."
"Not the work of an exorcist? Don't make me laugh. You Matoba clan have used ayakashi as tools and discarded them for generations. My methods are merely an extension of that."
Douan's voice rang across the village, steeped in hatred.
"Ayakashi are tools. Your father taught you that too. And you followed that teaching—cutting ayakashi loose. Isn't that right?"
Matoba said nothing.
(He's right. Ayakashi are tools. I've believed that. And yet...)
Inside Matoba's heart, something gave a small, grinding creak.
"Your shiki too—you've discarded them all the same way, haven't you? Then what's wrong with me taking them? Ayakashi belong to no one. I'm simply putting them to more effective use."
Douan's voice rang out, triumphant.
The next instant.
The space around Matoba warped.
"—!?"
Matoba pulled back on instinct.
From his shadow, countless black hands rose up, reaching to coil around his body.
"My shiki...! They're being called by name...!"
Matoba felt something being peeled away from inside him.
The remaining shiki he commanded. Their true names were being summoned and stolen by a voice echoing from nowhere.
"Kh...!"
Matoba whipped talismans from his coat and scattered them around him.
But the moment the talismans touched the black hands, they crumbled to pieces.
"It's useless. This entire village is my ayakashi-name-binding formation. Your shiki are already being drawn into my register."
Douan's voice murmured at Matoba's ear.
"...Then—"
Matoba gritted his teeth.
(Before I lose the shiki, I sever the contracts with my own hands. Recover the ayakashi power, keep the damage to a minimum.)
He raised his right hand before his chest.
"Matoba-san, what are you—!"
Natsume shouted.
"Be quiet. These are my shiki. I'll settle this myself."
Matoba moved his fingers in a complex pattern, about to form the seal of contract dissolution.
That instant.
—Sizzle.
A searing pain shot through the back of his right hand—through the old burn scar.
"—Gah...!?"
Matoba's body pitched violently.
"W-what is this pain...!?"
"Hahahahaha! You took the bait, Seiji. I was waiting for you to try to cut your shiki loose."
Douan's laughter rang across the village.
"That wound on your right hand. It isn't just a burn. When your father's shiki vanished, you caught the backlash of its ayakashi power in that hand. That scar has become part of the 'circuit' linking your ayakashi power to your shiki. My art can interfere with you directly through that circuit."
"What...!"
The blood drained from Matoba's face.
"Matoba-san!"
Natsume tried to run to him.
But Matoba's body was pinned to the ground as if pressed down by an unseen force.
"Kh... I can't... move...!"
Matoba struggled desperately to rise. But it was as if a giant hand were crushing him against the earth—he couldn't move a single finger.
"It's useless. Your ayakashi power is completely sealed by my art. Right now you're just a human with no power at all."
Douan's voice rang out, merciless.
"Matoba-san! Damn it!"
Natsume ran to Matoba and tried to lift him.
But Matoba's body didn't budge.
"Natsume, you watch from there too. Your Book of Friends will be mine before long as well."
"What—!"
Natsume was stunned by Douan's words.
"The Book of Friends your grandmother Reiko made. That should have been the prototype for my ayakashi-name-binding. But that woman gathered the names of ayakashi and never used them for domination. What a waste. As her grandson, don't you think you ought to use that book properly?"
"Don't mock me! The Book of Friends is Reiko-san's... it's precious to me! I'd never hand it over to you!"
Trembling with rage, Natsume shouted back at Douan's voice.
"Precious, is it? Fufu, how amusing. But you don't deserve to hold it. That soft-headed notion of communing with ayakashi will destroy you in the end. Ayakashi are humanity's enemy. Why do you treat them like friends?"
"Ayakashi aren't enemies! They've saved me so many times! Ayakashi have hearts too!"
Beside Matoba, Natsume shouted desperately toward Douan's voice.
"Hearts, is it? Then show my shiki that heart of yours. Let's see how far you can fight with those fists of yours."
Douan's voice rang out coldly.
The next moment, countless black shadows began to writhe from every corner of the village.
They were
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