On the stage of a battle to the death, blood seeped from Inshun's eyes, yet he wore an expression of solemn serenity. His spear tip swept the ground as he muttered under his breath.
Sakumura could not help recalling the descriptions of Hozoin-ryu Spearmanship.
Every form was a killing move.
No matter how the weapon was wielded, it always went straight for a vital point.
Thrusting, sweeping, smashing, hooking, pulling—every motion was meant to take the opponent's life.
Sakumura had once been fortunate enough to cross weapons with a capable inheritor of Hozoin-ryu Spearmanship. That man had been the captain of the Shinsengumi's Tenth Division—Harada Sanosuke.
After Sakumura successfully assassinated Tokugawa Shogunate shogun Tokugawa Iemochi, he fled with Iemochi's head in his arms. However, in order to buy time for his fellow assassins, Yamanami Keisuke and Okada Izo, to retreat, he had chosen to remain in the dense forest outside Kyoto and face the Shinsengumi division captains tasked with protecting Iemochi.
According to the records, Sakumura had fought the Shinsengumi's First Division captain Okita Soji, Second Division captain Nagakura Shinpachi, Third Division captain Saito Hajime, Sixth Division captain Inoue Genzaburo, and Tenth Division captain Harada Sanosuke in succession that day.
The other four division captains had all been swordsmen. Harada Sanosuke alone had originally been a warrior monk.
A monk, yet he had mastered such an art of killing.
Although the inheritors of Hozoin-ryu Spearmanship Sakumura knew, including both Inshun and Harada, possessed compassionate and peaceful hearts—
If matters reached this point—
Hozoin-ryu Spearmanship, an "art of killing" originally created to pacify a troubled age and exhort people toward goodness, would instantly become a terrifying technique that cast the world into the realm of asura.
Just like this—
[Eleven Forms of the Hazy Moon].
His eyes wide with wrath, the