At sunset, birds returned to their nests.
On a mountain ridge path carpeted with fallen leaves, two figures climbed step by step.
A petite girl in a gorgeous purple kimono walked ahead barefoot, an indigo sake gourd hanging from her waist.
Behind her followed a ferocious blue, one-horned oni, its knotted muscles bulging as it carried a stone blade over its shoulder.
Beauty and ugliness, petite and towering—an unmistakable divide that created a striking contrast.
As they climbed, the blue one-horned oni kept its head lowered, not from exhaustion, but from fear.
"We're here. Open the door, Kazeyomaru."
The petite, beautiful girl stood upon an ancient platform at a bend in the mountain path and lazily waved her hand. Hearing the order, the blue one-horned oni hurried forward, inserted its stone blade into a gap at the center of the platform, flexed its knotted muscles, and twisted the hilt.
At once, dense lines of incantations lit up across the ground, forming pentagram-shaped Magic Formations. Their interwoven, pulsing lines outlined the shape of a vermilion gate.
The girl habitually untied the indigo sake gourd at her waist and was just about to take a sip when she seemed to remember something. She hung it back up, raised her hand to push open the doors, and stepped through, her petite body vanishing into the eerie red glow.
The light faded, and the sensation of space writhing ceased along with it. The girl stood atop a keep platform built primarily of massive stone blocks and looked toward the towering Castle Keep ahead.
The keep was the tallest, most important, and most iconic section of an Eastern Ying castle. It served as a lookout and command center, and was one of the symbols of ruling power in ancient times. "Tenshu" was sometimes written as