My Scourge Wife can't be this Cute

Chapter 6: Sealing Formation

The moment he saw what lay before him, his steps stopped dead.

On the bare stretch of earth beneath the open night sky stood seven metal pillars driven deep into the ground.

Seven of them.

Of varying heights.

Arranged in a formation he recognized immediately.

Not randomly placed.

A deliberate replication of the positions of the seven stars in the Big Dipper.

The wind across the summit carried the smell of cold iron and something dry and ancient, the kind of quality that came from years of sun, blood, and lightning hammered into an object over and over until the material itself remembered it.

Hikaru's pupils contracted slowly.

"The Heavenly Seven-Star Dipper... Sealing Formation."

He murmured it almost below audible range, the words dissolving into the wind before they could carry far.

He moved forward with careful steps.

From below, the seven pillars had looked like nothing more than tall metal stakes driven into the earth. But up close, he could see that the dull gold tint they carried under the moonlight was not paint.

It was Talisman Script.

Layer upon layer of it, overlapping endlessly. Dense enough to cover nearly every surface of each pillar. Every stroke had been written in gold dust, one layer pressed onto the last, season after season, year after year, until all seven pillars looked as though they had been coated entirely in fine gold powder.

Hikaru reached out and touched one of them lightly.

The metal was ice-cold.

But deep inside that cold lived an energy that was profoundly old and heavy.

This formation was not recent.

A hundred years old at the very minimum.

Along the surface of the pillars, in several places, long dark scorch marks ran like old wounds, the blackened grey color eating into the metal itself.

Not ordinary burn marks.

Lightning strikes.

Many of them.

Over many years.

Hikaru drew in one slow breath.

The Heavenly Seven-Star Dipper Sealing Formation was one of the most complex and near-perfect sealing arrays in all of Daoist practice.

The seven steel pillars had to be forged individually, then exposed to daylight continuously to absorb Yang energy, and submerged in rooster blood each night. This cycle had to be repeated for exactly thirty days before Talisman Script could be written on the surface using gold dust.

After the pillars were complete, the one laying the formation then had to drive each one into the earth at the precise position of its corresponding star in the constellation. Each pillar required three days of unbroken chanting before it could properly anchor into the earth's meridians. Twenty-one days in total for all seven.

In daylight, the pillars absorbed Yang energy from the sun to suppress the malevolent force sealed inside.

In storms, when Yin Energy rose and pressed down heavily, they drew in lightning and thunder to break apart the dark energy.

At night, the seven pillars aligned with the seven stars of the Dipper and drew celestial power down to reinforce the seal.

By any measure, this was a formation so complete it was almost beyond credible.

Whatever had been imprisoned inside was, if not a Demon King, then certainly not far behind one.

Hikaru stood in the night wind, looking at the seven pillars rising silent as seven mute sentinels that had kept watch over this place for more than a century. A coldness rose inside him slowly.

A villa belonging to Hashira Maruhi, built precisely on the slope of a mountain containing a sealing formation like this.

Coincidence?

He did not believe that for a single moment.

The wind across the summit picked up slightly.

The white of Hikaru's clothing rippled. The dark strands of hair at his temples brushed across his cheek. He did not leave immediately. Instead he walked slowly into the center of the seven-pillar formation and stood there, carefully tracing the flow of energy running through the array with his senses.

The seal was still active.

Old as it was.

Worn in places by time.

It was still functioning.

Which meant whatever was buried beneath it was still there.

Possibly no longer fully conscious.

Possibly greatly weakened.

But present without any doubt.

And at that very moment, something in Hikaru's instincts stirred.

Not violently.

Not with any killing intent behind it.

Instead, a strange and inexplicable pull, part urgency, part grief, the feeling of being watched quietly from somewhere below the cold dark earth by something that was waiting for him to do something.

Hikaru stood still for several beats, then reached slowly into his pack.

He took out three sticks of incense the color of jade.

Verdant Jade Incense.

This variety carried the effect of clearing Yin Energy, calming the souls of the dead, and creating a brief interval of peace between the world of the living and the world of the departed. He had brought it along in case he needed to communicate with a spirit carrying resentment too heavy to approach otherwise.

He had not expected to use it here first.

Hikaru pressed the three sticks into the earth, then drew out a lighter and lit them.

Pale green smoke rose slowly into the night air, holding its shape rather than dispersing at once, drifting between the seven pillars like a thin thread of mist that refused to be scattered.

He pressed his hands together before his chest, eyes half-lowered, his voice slow and low, each word falling onto the bare ground beneath him like something laid gently over a wound that had been left untreated for far too long.

"Spring... Summer... Autumn... Winter..."

"Good and evil pass like dreams..."

"Cause and consequence turn in their cycle..."

"The body returns to earth, the soul ascends to heaven..."

He opened his eyes and let his gaze rest on the ground at the center of the formation.

The night wind moved through. The incense smoke trembled.

His voice dropped lower. It no longer sounded like recitation. It sounded like a genuine farewell offered to something that had been buried in cold ground for far longer than it deserved.

"I hope that if there is a next life..."

"You will be someone good."

"And make right everything that was left undone."

The moment the last words fell, the wind on the summit stopped.

The space encircled by the seven pillars went utterly still.

The pale jade smoke ceased drifting and began to gather slowly at the center of the formation, as though lifted by an invisible hand.

At the same moment, from the very middle of the bare earth, where there should have been nothing but dry grass and dust, Hikaru felt a vibration. Faint, barely there.

No killing intent.

No venomous resentment.

None of the cold that made the skin want to pull away from itself, the kind he had felt radiating from Nakamoto's Wraith.

What touched him now carried instead a fatigue so deep it had reached the bone. Like a soul that had been imprisoned for so long that even its resentment had worn almost entirely away, leaving behind nothing but a last, paper-thin thread of fading awareness.

Hikaru's fingers tightened without him choosing to.

Then, from within the pale green smoke, a voice drifted out.

Barely audible.

Broken into fragments.

Thin as wind passing through a gap between leaves.

"Thank..."

Hikaru raised his head at once.

The incense smoke before him trembled again.

The voice continued, so weak it seemed as though a slightly stronger gust would be enough to scatter it entirely.

"...you..."

Every part of Hikaru went cold.

Because he knew without any possibility of doubt.

That voice...

Was the voice of a woman.

By the time Hikaru came back down to Hashira Maruhi's villa, the sun had fully set behind the distant ridge.

Night settled over the property in gradual layers, swallowing its extravagant lines in a blue-grey murk. Wind continued to move through the dense canopy on the slope, sending leaves brushing against each other in a steady, soft rustling, but as the darkness deepened, the sound became less like wind in trees and more like the murmur of countless mouths whispering from just out of sight.

Hikaru stood under the eave and looked up at the summit one last time.

From this position, the seven steel pillars of the Heavenly Seven-Star Dipper Sealing Formation were no longer visible. There was only the dark shape of the peak sitting heavy and still against the sky, a shadow without a clear outline.

He did not dwell on it.

Whatever was sealed up there was ancient beyond doubt, deeply dangerous, and thoroughly mysterious. The age of the formation alone, combined with the near-impossible completeness of its construction, told him clearly enough that what lay imprisoned inside was nothing he should go near carelessly, not at his current level.

And yet...

He had not sensed much Yin Energy from that direction.

Not nothing. It was there.

Only very little.

As little as a candle flame guttering in the face of a coming storm. The light had not gone out, but it was weak enough to be extinguished at any moment. Compared to the dense and ferocious Resentful Energy Nakamoto was radiating, whatever remained sealed on the summit was, by contrast, quiet to the point of being almost harmless.

So for tonight at least, what Hikaru had to face was not the grave on the peak.

It was the bedroom at the base of the mountain.

It was Hashira Maruhi.

And the Wraith that had been slowly gathering itself around her.

The housekeeper was waiting for him at the entrance and gave a slight bow. "Onmyoji-sama, the Lady is in her room. She asked that I bring you up the moment you returned."

Hikaru nodded without speaking and followed her inside.

The villa at night was a different place entirely from what it had been in daylight.

During the day it had felt like a miniature palace dense with money and concealed things. But after dark, the warm gold of the corridor lamps and the light in the entrance hall offered no comfort. They looked instead like small flames doing their best to hold back something cold and heavy that was pressing in slowly through every wall.

Hikaru passed through several long corridors, climbed the staircase, and stopped before the dark wooden door of Hashira's bedroom.

He raised a hand and knocked twice.

Hashira's voice came from inside, a fraction quieter and lower than it had been during the day. "Come in."

Hikaru opened the door and stepped through.

The room was still wide, still lavish, still oppressive in the same way it had been earlier. But unlike the afternoon, the lights had been turned down to something very dim. The heavy curtains were drawn completely across the windows, sealing the interior away from everything outside.

Hashira was standing beside the vanity table with her back to him. Her brown hair had been half unpinned, falling soft and dark over the smooth white of her shoulder. She had changed out of the kimono from earlier. What she wore now was a pale violet sleeping robe, the fabric thin and yielding, modest in the way it lay against her body but doing nothing to conceal the lines beneath it.

The collar sat slightly open at the neck, baring the delicate line of her collarbone and a stretch of smooth skin above it. The sleeves draped loosely at her wrists. The hem fell to just above the knee, and beneath it her legs were long and pale enough that in the low amber light they caught it and held it like a soft reflection.

Hashira turned around.

The moment she saw him, her eyes paused on him a fraction longer than usual.

Hikaru was not wearing the worn white Kariginu that marked him as an Onmyoji during the day.

What he had on now was a dark fitted shirt that followed the line of his shoulders and chest, paired with athletic pants. Everything simple, everything practical, nothing that resembled the composed formality of a ceremonial Onmyoji or the affected mystique some of them liked to project.

Hashira looked him over from collar to foot. A thin flicker of surprise moved through her expression. "I assumed you would be wearing the Kariginu tonight."

Hikaru set his pack down beside the table. "Too much fabric. It works during the day when meeting clients. If things actually come to a confrontation, it only gets in the way."

Hashira raised an eyebrow slightly. "So this is what you actually wear when you fight."

Hikaru glanced at her sideways. "If you were expecting an Onmyoji to sweep his robes dramatically and chant at the wind, I am afraid you are going to be disappointed."