Crash, clatter...............
"Bleh! Ptooey, ptooey!"
Yasutaka emerged from the pile of rubble!
"Hey, you all right!?"
"I'm fine! Truth is, I've been hiding here the whole time, sizing things up!"
"What the hell are you doing!"
Mōha stared at him, exasperated by his friend's slapdash antics, but Yasutaka stayed perfectly calm.
"Now, now. Granny Moon drilled it into me good: 'Don't fight what you can't beat. Just let it slide by.'"
"That old bat never teaches anyone anything worth a damn..."
Mōha's face soured further, but then something occurred to him.
"So that means..."
"Monster like that or not, there's a way to handle it!"
With that, Yasutaka raised his voice to a shout.
"Shinnosuke! Shinnosuke, where are you!"
"Over here!"
Shack!
Shinnosuke cut down the Sugar Man standing in front of him and came striding over!
"What's going on!?"
"Where's Chiho!"
"Right here!"
Chiho popped out from behind Shinnosuke.
Then...
Clang!
"Whoa!"
Yasutaka caught a Dan Lizard's mace strike on his shoulder guard.
"Mōha! Take this one!"
"Got it!"
With that, the two of them swapped opponents.
Yasutaka turned to Chiho.
"Chant a sutra at Riheiji's ghost!"
"But! The Spirit-Pacifying Sutra hasn't been working on it at all!"
"Not that one!"
Yasutaka grinned.
"The Dharma Power Vanishing Sutra!"
"Huh? But..."
"Just do it already!"
"Fine, I got it!"
Chiho scrambled to chant the sutra as told.
"Dharma Power Vanishing Vow!"
The moment she cried it out, an orb of light shot toward Riheiji's ghost...
Fwip...
and it vanished, just like that!
""Whaaat!""
Onihei and the whole crowd of samurai gaped in shock!
Seeing this, Yasutaka bellowed at the top of his lungs.
"That thing's no ghost! It's just a plain illusion!"
"What did you say!?"
Onihei's hands trembled with fury!
It was, if you want to call it that, a simple enough trap.
But smack in the middle of a battle this fierce, no one could really be blamed for falling for it.
Only Yasutaka, who'd been hiding off to the side watching it all unfold, had kept a cool enough head to figure it out.
Next, Yasutaka shouted up at Kana, who was flying overhead!
"You! You had the nerve to trick me like that! Give me back my innocent heart!"
"You should be thanking me for giving a Country Samurai like you a nice little dream! Here, have some more!"
Fwoosh!
With that shout, Kana hurled a fire spell straight at Yasutaka!
But...
Hop, skip~♪
Yasutaka dodged it without the slightest effort.
"What's wrong? Is that all you've got? Not much to it, huh?"
Hearing that, Kana's fine eyebrows twitched up just slightly, and she unleashed another spell!
"""""How about this, then!"""""
Ka-boom-crackle-zap!
Lightning, fire, water, ice, wind, and earth, all six spells surged into being and rained down on Yasutaka at once!
But...
Hop, skip, jump~♪
Boom-crash-clang!
Every spell slammed harmlessly into the bare ground and fizzled out.
The samurai standing around blinked, dumbfounded at the sight.
""""Why?""""
Kana's hōjutsu commanded all six elements at once: lightning, fire, ice, wind, water, and earth.
And yet Yasutaka was dodging every single one of them.
Yasutaka muttered under his breath to Mōha, who stood nearby.
"While she's busy with me, go wipe out the youkai... If she's not in the way, you can take them down..."
He kept his voice low enough for only Mōha to catch, then immediately switched to a taunting shout.
"Come on, throw some more at me!"
Mōha hurried over and whispered urgently to Onihei.
"He says he's drawing Kana's attention! Now's our chance!"
"Understood!"
With that, Onihei threw himself back into the fight against the youkai!