Part 2: Silent Vows

Namida's mind raced with excitement. This was the perfect chance to prove herself to Kuroyama and earn his exclusive favor. She had to find him right away.

With barely contained glee, she sprinted from the hall, calling out, "My lord! I bring urgent news!"

Namida's voice rang out as she dashed through the quiet halls. Rounding a corner, she felt the cold breeze and saw snow drifting in from the half-open castle door. Dark figures loomed in the entrance. She halted suddenly, her heart racing.

"Lord Kuroyama!" she cried. 

Namida's joyous cry died on her lips as she approached the castle entrance. Rather than Kuroyama, she was met with a chilling sight - the lifeless bodies of guards strewn haphazardly across the snow.

Halting abruptly, her excitement turned to unease. She scanned the area warily, one hand drifting to grip her chain-sickle. The night air was heavy with foreboding.

A faint sound drew her gaze upward. Perched on a tree branch above her was a silhouette she knew all too well - Obanai. His coat billowed in the wind, obscuring his form, but the moonlight glinted off two horns protruding from his forehead.

Her heart sank. He had summoned his Hanketsu—or was it the dreaded Ryugami? She swallowed her fear.

"Obanai," Namida hissed through gritted teeth. She took an involuntary step back as his gaze bored into her.

"Did you deliver my message to Kuroyama?" Obanai voice was colder than the icy wind.

Namida's mind raced. To defeat Obanai, she would have to invoke her Ryugami form. But the ensuing loss of control had nearly driven her mad last time.

Gripping her chain-sickle tightly, she raised her chin. "I don't have time for your games, Obanai. Stand aside, or i will kill you!!"

Obanai laughed mockingly. "You dare challenge me? You're more of a fool than I thought."

With blinding speed, he leapt down, spear aimed at her heart. Namida barely managed to deflect the blow, the force of it numbing her arms. She knew then that she was gravely outmatched.

Invoking Ryugami was her only chance of survival. As Obanai pressed his attack, she made her desperate choice. This battle would push her to the brink.

As Namida's inner turmoil raged, the spectral spirit of the deity Susanoo began to materialize from within her, emerging as a ghostly essence of raw power. Obanai watched the unfolding spectacle, a knowing grin spreading across his face while his grip tightened around the shaft of his spear.

The air crackled with ancient magic as Lord Susanoo's imposing figure solidified, his voice a rumble like distant thunder, "If you seek my strength, I demand the blood of the Minamoto Clan as a tribute."

With a sly grin mirroring that of the deity's own, Namida pointed a defiant finger at Obanai. "The very blood you require flows through his veins, Lord Susanoo. Grant me your might that I may claim it."

Obanai scoffed at the audacious demand, the spear in his hand finding its home in the snow-packed ground. "Remember, if you fail to slay me, it is your own blood that the deity will claim."

Namida's eyelids fluttered shut, her chest rising and falling with a rhythmic patience that belied the storm gathering within her.

"You need the Minamoto blood?" she whispered, her voice steady yet laced with the undercurrent of something dark and untamed. "Watch closely, for I shall spill it across this snow."

The laugh that slipped from her lips then was not her own — it was colder, harsher, a sound that seemed to freeze the very air it traveled through. "Yes, Lord Susanoo!

Her body began its grotesque transformation, an ode to the deity's might, each blade that sprouted from her spine a testament to their merged wrath. Her beauty, once serene, now warped into a visage of demonic splendor, crowned with burgeoning horns that arched defiantly toward the heavens.

Obanai, his grin unfading, leaned on his spear with a relaxed posture that mocked the gravity of her metamorphosis. "Namida, make sure your new form is not just for show. I'm getting quite bored of you."

With her eyes still sealed, Namida's transformed lips curled into a grimace, revealing the slightest glint of her now sharpened teeth. "For show?" she echoed darkly. "You'll find Lord Susanoo doesn't bother with illusions. The blood you so carelessly mock will be the offering I lay before him."

Her voice, now a blend of her own and the deity's, echoed with a dual tone of promise and peril.