[h1][center]Tengoku/Minoru[/center][/h1]

[hr]

“Perhaps trying to climb up the castle walls wasn’t exactly the greatest dish that we could have prepared for our feast.”

The voice in his head spoke, in a way that reminded him of old writings of long-dead poets combined with the attitude of some sort of food-obsessed monk. Minoru had gotten accustomed to the ramblings of the often mournful Tengoku, to the point that he had completely blanked out when his Servant proposed the plan to raid the castle that another pair of Master and Servant were occupying.

The strangely-dressed boy merely did a mental nod in the space that both he and Tengoku occupied. In his view, the monk’s attitude was merely a way to cope with his failures, hearkening back to the pleasures that he had rejected in his life in order to distance himself from his ascetic atrocities.

“So what exactly are we doing, old man?”

The reply of the old monk was instantaneous, instructions given to the inexperienced boy in a time and efficiency that rivaled that of advanced supercomputers in speed and bandwidth. It was the result of their symbioses, the dissolving of their true essences into one mixture.

“Ah…”

The boy would visibly be perturbed with the game plan that the centenarian had concocted, further exacerbated by the grim look that the old one gave him in their mental space.

“...If that’s how it’s going to be…”

Something stirred within both of their hearts, an object that they had both learned to despise to varying degrees joining them in their mental space. Previously, it was the massive corpse that hung over them like the distant horizon, but now, the space’s clear waters had become black and blood-red alike, like the puss and ichor that came out of a rotting body’s various stages of death.

It was unusual, intensely so, for them to resort to such a thing, but the opponent that they were facing was far too much of a threat to go easy on. The impact of their arrows against their Servant’s shield was enough to tell them that.

“Then I guess we shouldn’t pull our punches…”

The corpse of the infant-like mummy revealed its faces, smiling with rot and puss as it dripped down a torrent of vile matter upon the two of them. In the material world, a small hiss could be heard, as if a pipe was about to burst from released pressure, before a massive torrent of red gas and curses would release itself from Minoru’s body.

A portion of Ryomen Sukuna’s power had been harnessed within the mind and body, resulting in the release of countless curses. Those very same curses would be re-absorbed into the body of the hosts as the stabilization would continue, resulting in the great pillar reaching slightly into the sky to recede until the form of Minoru could once again be seen.

But there was something far too different about his form.

Instead of the long, silver hair that  flowed down to his shoulders, spiky fields of black hair grew from his scalp. And instead of his modest height and build, a monster that stood over two meters tall and with a body that could be compared to that of the depictions of an Asura— four arms, two faces and two mouths, and muscular beyond belief— was present within the aura that was slowly dissipating.

Just as quickly as the nightmare was conjured, the Vajra that he held in his right hand would pulse, letting out an electric current into his new form. The phurba that was previously in his left hand was now sheathed on his hip, as it had no need in a battle of pure offense.

Daemons— deities— of a furious nature would be conjured up from the corpse of Ryomen Sukuna, converted through the countless wishes that were stored within. Their goal? To imitate the countless “gods” that surrounded the imitation of the god known as “Indra.” It was a lacking imitation, but it was the best that the two minds could create, the two pairs of Buddhas united together as if it was one whole deity surrounded by their mandala.

Their goal was rather simple: to increase their speed beyond the reckoning of modern man. The lightning would represent Indra’s victory over the beast’s that threatened mankind, a blinding speed that caused multiple booms to emanate from the monstrous Asura as it leaped forward and sprinted towards his target, lightning being embodied with every step, the Vajra further reinforcing the speed and elemental nature of his current form.

Magical circuits were enhanced, Od regeneration was bolstered, and the overall performance of magecraft was further pushed beyond the limits of normal mages. All, powered by the chanting and hand signs of two faces, three arms and two mouths that spoke of destruction in the way of the Buddha, for a single goal of striking down an opponent.