The path was clear at last.

As another, stronger soldier began to form right before her, Arisa didn't allow its body to complete. She brought Ifrit's blazing shape down as hard and as fast as she could, cutting through it and sending it sizzling back to the ground.

She'd reinforced her legs to ensure she could keep pace as best as possible, to take care of any enemies or obstacles that A-188 may have missed.

The benefit of fighting in a decrepit ruin like this was that it didn't matter if some of it became damaged or destroyed.

The rough center of the old mansion had to be close.

Suddenly the ground in front of them erupted.

Rows of razor-edged spears exploded from the black ooze coating the floor, forming a perimeter. Just beyond them, a larger, muscular figure had formed, black shape clad only in hakama, massive hands reaching out to grab at A-188 and halt her advance. Even if only for a moment.

"Damn it...!"

Arisa raised Ifrit back, but as she swung it down another blade swiftly intercepted, this one holding just long enough to delay her strike.

Beyond was a figure on its knees.

Clad entirely in dulled, faded armor befitting a high-ranking samurai, anyone who could view it clearly would see that all the flesh had long ago sloughed away and turned to dust.

It was a mere skeleton, surrounded by black ooze.

On one side lay a bow. On the other, a pristine blade that looked as if it had been maintained every day for hundreds of years.

The kneeling figure twitched.

Shakily, its right hand raised, audibly clicking as bones realigned, fingers wrapping around the hilt of the katana.

Arisa could feel it. Anyone could, at this point.

Everything else was a mere extension of this figure. Simply a part of a larger haunting.

This was the true anomaly at the root of it all.

Slowly, bones snapping into place, the figure rose.

The armor plates began to realign. Damage faded, dust falling away.

A sickly crawling, fleshy sound came from the rising skeleton. Dust gathered in the empty eye sockets, twisting together. First it formed what looked like withered, rotted grapes.

But as they stabilized, it was clear they were in fact eyes, reforming at becoming whole again.

Soon, they were staring directly at the agents beyond the spears.

Muscle crawled along the skeleton like numerous red worms, writhing as they covered the samurai's bones in layers, stacking up over one another to form a human shape.

His feet slid apart as his left had joined his right on the hilt of his blade.

Skin was reforming, now. Flowing over his raw, glistening muscle. Hair regrowing.

Those eyes burning.

What stood before them was assuredly a ghost, but undeniably looked nearly alive. A young man, but with a certain weariness to his features regardless.

And yet those eyes still burned.

"On my honor---"

The blade gleamed, not only with the moonlight but with a deeper, far less natural power.

"---You shall come no further."

[@Raineh Daze][@Eisenhorn][@Izurich][@OwO][@Rune_Alchemist][@PKMNB0Y][@Psyker Landshark]