Chapter 1: The Night of the Oni Raid
The moon hung swollen and luminous over Kaiju Bay, its silver light trembling across the ink-black waters. The night was eerily still—no wind stirred, no waves broke against the rocky shore. It was as if the sea itself had stilled in fear, holding its breath for what was to come.
Then, from the mist, they came.
Five monstrous war-boats loomed into view, their hulls blackened and scarred, their shapes like beasts slithering across the water’s surface. These were no ordinary ships; their frames were bound together with sinew and iron, their decks slick with the blood of past raids. They moved without sail, without the creak of rigging or the snap of banners. Only the rhythmic splash of water echoed as oars plunged deep, pulled by the raw, inhuman strength of their masters.
The Oni had arrived.
The Landing
The boats grounded upon the stony beaches of Sakana Cove, their weight sinking deep into the sand. The first to step ashore was Gozumaru, his towering form casting a long shadow in the moonlight. His crimson skin gleamed with sweat and dried gore, his massive arms rippling with tension as he hauled himself onto solid ground. His tusked maw curled into a snarl, and he slammed the base of his kanabō—a spiked club longer than a man is tall—into the earth. The sound was a dull, heavy thud, like a war drum calling for slaughter.
Behind him, forty Oni followed, their numbers spilling across the cove like a rising tide of malice. Their skins bore the colors of nightmares—deep reds, bruised purples, ashen grays—and their horns jutted from their skulls in wicked, jagged spirals. Their eyes burned like smoldering embers, and their breath steamed in the cold night air, thick with the stench of alcohol and blood.
They were not here for gold.
They were not here for riches.
They were here for flesh.
The Sleeping Village
Sakana Cove lay defenseless.
The village, known for its bustling fishing trade, had long since gone to sleep, its streets empty, its boats swaying in the quiet harbor. Only the occasional lantern flickered in the darkness, and a thin trail of smoke rose from a dying hearthfire. It was peaceful.
It would not remain so.
With a guttural snarl, Gozumaru gave the order.
The Oni split into smaller groups, each moving with dreadful purpose. Their orders were simple:
- Take the women—Shuten-dōji demanded new playthings.
- Slaughter the men—their bodies would fill the feasting halls of Onigashima.
- Burn what remains—leave no trace but ruin.
The first house fell in an instant. An Oni’s massive foot shattered the wooden door from its hinges, sending splinters flying into the room beyond. A man barely had time to sit up in his futon before a kanabō swung down. The impact caved in his chest, his ribs snapping like dry twigs. His wife’s scream barely escaped before she was hauled away, her nails raking against the floor as she was dragged into the night.
One by one, doors shattered, walls buckled, and homes collapsed beneath the oni onslaught.
Fishermen woke to find shadows looming over them, their last moments filled with the gleam of serrated fangs and the wet crunch of breaking bones. Children were ripped from their beds, their cries silenced beneath calloused hands. The elderly, too feeble to run, were crushed beneath the boots of the monstrous raiders, their lives snuffed out like candle flames in a storm.
Screams tore through the village.
The pier ran slick with blood, pooling between the cobblestones as bodies were torn apart in mindless, brutal slaughter. Fires bloomed, devouring wooden homes, their light casting dancing shadows of the oni as they reveled in destruction.
The Feast of Flesh
On the beach, a new horror unfolded.
The captured men, still gasping for breath, were dragged onto the war-boats. There, the Oni wasted no time—teeth gnashed, claws tore, and flesh was devoured while still warm. The once-proud fishermen, the fathers and sons of Sakana Cove, became nothing more than meat beneath gnashing fangs.
Bones were snapped, marrow slurped, and screams faded into pitiful gurgles as their throats were crushed beneath monstrous hands. The Oni feasted without restraint, their hunger insatiable, their revelry grotesque.
One Oni, his face stained with blood, raised a severed limb high into the air and howled with laughter before biting deep, his tusks sinking through muscle and sinew. Another scooped out a man’s heart with clawed fingers, swallowing it whole as if it were a delicacy.
They did not eat out of necessity.
They ate for pleasure.
The Silence of the Aftermath
As dawn crept over the horizon, the war-boats began to depart. Their oars once again sliced through the bay’s calm waters, pulling them back toward the mist-veiled hell of Onigashima. The raiders did not look back.
There was no need.
Sakana Cove was destroyed.
The village was a graveyard of burned homes and shattered bodies. Smoke curled into the sky like the last breaths of the dead, while the bloodstained streets stood silent, void of life. The survivors—those few who had hidden well enough—emerged from the wreckage, their faces pale and hollow, their eyes vacant.
Fathers, brothers, sons—gone, taken to the flesh-pits of Onigashima, where their lives would end beneath the fangs of the Oni.
Mothers, daughters, sisters—taken, doomed to fates worse than death within the halls of Shuten-dōji.
The village had been given a lesson.
Onigashima was real.
The Oni were real.
And they would return.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
Chapter 2: The Winds of Mourning
The winds carried the stench of burned wood and blood.
Tengukensei stood at the edge of Sakana Cove, his sharp eyes scanning the devastation before him. The morning sun had barely risen, but the light did nothing to soften the horrors left behind. Smoke curled into the sky like the lingering breath of the dead, and the once-bustling village was now nothing more than a graveyard of ash and sorrow.
His tengu robes, once flowing like the sky itself, felt heavier today. The weight of the massacre pressed down upon him like a mountain. The leader boots beneath his feet crunched over blackened debris, stepping over what was once the threshold of a home—now nothing but charred beams and shattered pottery.
The Silent Survivors
At first, the village seemed empty. No laughter of children, no shouts of fishermen returning from the sea, no chatter of merchants selling their wares. Only the wind, whispering through the ruins like a mourning spirit.
Then he heard it.
A soft whimper beneath a collapsed roof.
With a flick of his wrist, he summoned the winds. The broken beams lifted just enough for him to see a young boy, barely breathing, covered in soot and tears. His tiny fingers still clutched a wooden toy—now snapped in half, like the life he once knew.
Tengukensei crouched beside him. His long, fine fingers, usually so adept at wielding the power of storms, now moved gently, brushing away dust from the child's face.
“You are safe now,” he murmured, though even he knew safety was a lie.
A movement from the wreckage ahead. A woman, crawling from the ruins, her face streaked with blood, her kimono torn. She saw him and fell to her knees, her eyes hollow, as if she had already died but her body had not yet realized it.
"They took them," she whispered, her voice hoarse from screaming. "They took them all... my husband... my son..."
Tengukensei closed his eyes, the words cutting deeper than any blade.
The Echoes of Horror
The scars of battle were everywhere. Walls were torn apart as if a storm had ripped through them, but this was no storm—this was the work of Oni hands, cruel and unrelenting.
The streets were stained red, the blood now dark and drying beneath the morning sun. Kanabō-shaped craters littered the ground, marking where the Oni had struck down the innocent. He saw the remains of a man who had fought back, his fishing spear snapped in half, his body crushed beyond recognition.
The pier, where once merchants bartered and fishermen prepared their boats, was now silent. Splintered wood floated in the shallow water, the ocean itself reflecting the horror. Crates of salted fish lay spilled across the dock, trampled beneath monstrous feet, mixing with the blood-soaked boards.
He turned towards the center of the village, where the worst of the carnage had unfolded. Ash still hung in the air, the bones of homes still smoldering. A broken shamisen lay discarded in the dirt, its strings snapped—a song forever unfinished.
Then he saw it.
A message, written in blood on the side of a half-burned wall:
"Shuten-dōji thanks you for the feast."
Tengukensei’s nose twitched, the urge to summon a tempest rising in his veins. Shuten-dōji. The Oni King of Onigashima. A monster of legend and nightmare, a beast that drank the blood of men as if it were sake.
And now, he had torn Sakana Cove apart as though it were nothing.
Tengukensei took a slow breath, forcing his fury to still. Anger was a fire—it could burn bright, but uncontrolled, it would consume him before it ever reached the ones who deserved it.
No. He needed clarity. He needed strategy.
The people of Sakana Cove had been left broken, and vengeance alone would not heal them.
But vengeance would come.
The Rising Storm
He turned to the survivors—the few that remained, clinging to the ruins of their lives. A handful of villagers. Women who had hidden. Children who had been too small to be seen. Old men too weak to be taken as food. They looked at him with silent desperation, waiting for him to speak.
Tengukensei raised his hand, and the winds around him began to shift. The cinders on the ground swirled, lifting into the sky, revealing the earth beneath. He felt the land, listened to the pain that still lingered in the air.
"The Oni will return," he said, his voice steady as thunder before the storm.
Some of the villagers flinched. Others clenched their fists.
"But so will I."
His robe spread, casting a dark shadow over the broken village. His ruby staff—his treasured artifact of wind and war—gleamed in the morning sun.
Sakana Cove had fallen, but it would not remain broken.
Not while he still drew breath.
Not while the storm had yet to break.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
