The charge came suddenly. A wispy snake snapping out with jaws wide enough to swallow him whole. The acrid maw exuding a pungent cloud of decay, forcing the surrounding grass to wither and blacken. Fangs as long as sabers glinting under frozen sun. It's eyes wide and hungry as it blurred forward. Animistic and wild.
A samurai from a long gone era, trudged onward. With a steady stride, weapon held aloft to point it's tip forward. Ready to pierce through skin, bone, and muscle. Aiming to puncture vital organs, or better yet, slit the neck from ear to ear. It's crimson and obsidian armor, despite looking heavy, didn't let out a single chime with each sandaled step. Glowing blue orbs in the place of eyes, blazed to life under that decorative helmet. It's lower half mask pulled into the insidious grin of an enraged Oni.
And followed from behind, twin shrine maidens drew golden fans out from their bags. Legs dropping in unison, in a mocking mirror of youth and old age, with one hand each holding a paper charm and the other an unfolded fan that let out a soft ringing sound. Ki welled up from within, coursing through their bodies and into the air itself. Intermingling with one another loosely as they began to dance.
Slow at first, their hands fell. Sending out a wave of clattering metal. A single foot sliding across the ground, and the energy surged. Step after step, arc after arc, they performed that ancient rite. Calling upon the world, the spirits of the land to heed their aid. To call upon the power of their Kami to smite down this interloper, and show him the foolishness of his ways.
Twisting like weaving threads, a simple shape began to take shape. Small in nature but still insubstantial despite the sweat visibly pooling down their faces or how skin began to bleed color to the point where it looked like they were nothing more than painted figures on the canvas of reality.
It was an impressive sight, how else was anyone suppose to face down two shrine maidens with their Shikigamis summoned?
'They haven't changed a bit.'
Iori honestly didn't know whether to be surprised or disappointed. Fighting Shinto Priests, or Shinshokus, had been a routine thing, especially with a Tenko kitsune as a disciple. There had been so many fools blinded by blind and 'righteousness' coming out of the woodwork to either slay or subjugate her for the 'good' of humanity. Fighting like talisman masters, they often panic spammed charms throughout combat. At least the untrained or novice fighters did.
The actual trained Priests, often called Negi, were something a bit different. Most of them didn't carry more than five Shikigami and primarily used charms to help support their summon. Maybe it was because each summon took up a massive chunk of their time, effort and Ki. So to combat that, each Shikigami transitioned over and gained more substance. More refined, trained and powerful than entry level specters. Usually collected from ancient warriors, nature spirits and of course, Yokai.
With those powerful summons out front distracting the enemy and drawing their ire, they were safe to throw paper charm after paper charm into combat with impunity. Their ranged talismans weren't really something to worry about normally, but a lot of their more dangerous techniques involved slapping a charm right on their opponent. Effectively sealing them in place. And if that did happen, things would snowball.
In fact, he'd head of a few Gūji (Head Priest) and Gon-gūji (Assistant Head Priest) in his earlier years that had turned fully fledged cultivators into living Shikigamis. Wrapping them so tightly in charms that they were more akin to mummies. Sure, these 'evil' members who'd 'lost their way' were quickly hunted into extinction the moment any of the cultivator clans heard about them, often with the aid of other Priests.
The Heavens were already suppressing Cultivators, there was no way they were going to be willing to allow some mortal mages do the same.
But that didn't mean that's they did in combat, otherwise they'd just be glorified beast-masters. In fact, some of the more Senior members would even cast rituals to bring out something incredibly nasty and honestly, a bit cheaty.
If the Yokai only had to deal with summoned creatures and spells, it wouldn't be so bad. They could deal with mages just fine with their vastly superior bodies...if only they didn't have a cheat button. The Kamis were a significant reason why the Five Principal Clans, the strongest and most prestigious of all Shinshokus families, had risen to such providence. Just being able to pull on the power of beings far stronger than anything else in this reality, was something that not a lot of people could contend with.
Frankly, it was like bringing a rifle to a knife fight. Completely skewing the battle in their favor immediately when the ritual was completed.
Normally, the best option would be to quickly kill off the summoners and just ignore the Shikigami all together.
But, he was curious. The old monster back then didn't go out of their way to hunt or interfere with the Shrines but neither did the Shrines ever dare to step within their territory. There had to be a reason as to why. Did the Kamis and them come to a sort of agreement? Or was it for mutual respect? Or was it impossible to call upon divine aid in their presence?
Whatever the reason, he kinda wanted to see the end of this. As so far, this current era had been extremely disappointing in terms of finding good opponents. Grayfia might've been a decent fight if she'd been playing to her strengths instead of trying to melee a known martial artists in an attempt to assassinate him.
Even now, looking back on that he couldn't help but shake his head at the waste.
Leaning back as the twin summons sped up from a near crawl, Iori only looked on in mild interest.
These youngsters had no idea what they'd just stumbled into.