Yoshitsune was exploring the other wing with Shizuka, Noritsune, Benkei, and Goyo. Much like Enya's, they got caught in an endless maze until they finally were able to find a room around the same time Enya had. From outside, they could feel the temperature drop around them and their hearts beating from their chest. Yoshitsune took caution as everyone behind him held onto their weapons and opens the door. Inside was a large room with an altar at the far end of the room in the center. The room looked like it was made from ice and far different than the layout of the house. There were pillars engraved with some sort of scaly pattern and on the floor looked like it was made from thin ice with the water glowing as their source of light. Stepping on it, it was able to hold all of them at once but they still split up and slowly move to be cautious.
They reached the end of the room where the altar is, and laying on it was a familiar sheet of cloth wrapping a large human-size figure. Like a body bag.
"Is this...?" Noritsune eyes went wide as he then opens the bag. All eyes were on it as he unveils the person inside it to be Lady Rui.
"Why is she here!?" Goyo exclaims as they all stared at her. She was pale and cold but her body hasn't decayed yet due to the temperature of the room.
"Why would Hirosawa bring her here...?" Noritsune mutters as he inspects her further. A small 'excuse me' as he moved a bit more of the cloth.
As he did, everyone else looked around the room to see if there was anything else. Or the reason why the temperature of this room is so cold. As they did, Benkei could see something underneath the ice under his feet. Some sort of shadow was swimming around. Meanwhile, Goyo fully opened Lady Rui's body bag to find a horrific surprise. Her legs were gone and all there was is a snake's body and tail that went up to her torso. Goyo was speechless and thought this was some sort of costume but the moment he touched her green shiny scales, his hand froze.
"GAH!" the ice beneath Benkei broke and fell into the water but Noritsune managed to hold on to him tightly in time but he was struggling to pull him up.
"I-I need help! Something is pulling him down!" Noritsune calls. Yoshitsune tried to make his way to him but even the ice cracked underneath him and he fell into the water.
"Yoshitsune!" Shizuka quickly dived him and pulled his arm out. They were both freezing but she was more than determined to get him out.
Goyo quickly snapped backed to reality once he realizes his friends are in danger. But the ice was already cracking underneath his feet and this time he was pulled in underwater. When he was underneath, he could see feminine figures wearing masks Noh masks. He could see that they were all pulling at Benkei and Yoshitsune's feet while they were trying to drown him. Goyo closed his eyes and focused as serpent-like energy came out from his body and attacked the figures that attacked him, Benkei and Yoshitsune until they were finally able to be brought back up.
"Yoshitsune!" Shizuka finally manages to pull him up as well as Noritsune was able to pull Benkei up. They were all gasping for air and freezing so Goyo had to hurry.
"Shizuka, help me out," Goyo asks her. Shizuka looked at Yoshitsune but then went to him. She cast some sort of spell on his hands and once she was done, Goyo put his hand into the water.
"Dragon Soul..." he mutters as more of the serpents went out of his hand and swim around the water. It chased those feminine figures at attacked them like snakes biting onto their flesh. They scream and struggled to get away but since they were in a confined room, they were already trapped. Soon the splashing and the screaming stopped and the masks were only left behind. Most of them fall into the water below as one floats up. Goyo picked it up and as soon as he did, the room became warmer.
"Let's get out of here," Noritsune says as he drags Benkei away.
"What about Lady Rui?" Shizuka asks feeling slightly worried about the woman.
"I'll carry her, just get everyone else out," Goyo said.
A few moments later, they were all outside of the room warming up with a wrapped up body bag of Lady Rui. Her large snake tail was sticking out the entire time which ruins the tense mood and just creeps everyone out.
"So (Y/n)'s auntie... is a snake...." Benkei was the first to speak.
"Speaking of (Y/n), we better find her and Hyuga quickly. Who knows what they could be going through now," Goyo thought about it.
"Hello? Are you guys there!?" the familiar sound of Enya could be heard and they turn their heads to see the rest of the group coming towards them.
They've discussed what happened to each side of their story and what they had found.
"So this place is crawling with spirits and yokai..." Kazemasa thought.
"And Lady Rui.... is one?" Hyosuke looks at the tail of hers.
"We felt kinda bad so we brought her along. We eventually decided to bury her outside later," Yoshitsune says.
After burying her outside, which took a while, they decided to explore the rest of the mansion in the center. On the way, it was extremely quiet with the rest of them keeping their silence to not draw any more attention as well to detect anyone following them.
"Something's coming our way," Enya warns making everyone stop their tracks before moving again slowly.
They turn around the corner and...
"YAH!" all of them drew their weapons but the figure in front of them was a protective Hyuga holding (Y/n) closely.
"You guys..?" Hyuga looks at them as (Y/n) let go.
"You guys are okay!!!" half of them tackled them in a hug out of worry.
"Alrightalright get off," Hyuga coughed.
"How did you find us?" (Y/n) asks.
"Shizuka sensed a something strange back home and... somehow led us here," Noritsune says sounding slightly hesitant.
"A spirit energy to be exact," she says.
"Ah! So you've sense Noka's brother energy," (Y/n) said.
"Brother? You found Noka's brother!?!" Hyosuke raises his voice.
"Somewhat..." (Y/n) went on to explain how they were led here by Noka's brother appearing in the mirror. After she was done, everyone went silent.
"I... never believed in the supernatural... but after what we experienced..." Kazemasa was still in disbelief.
"We tried to talk to him again but he vanished," a sad look appeared on her face. Could his time be up?
"Wait so- you had a spirit following you the entire time and you never told us!?" Enya shouts at Hyuga.
"Well even if we did, would you believe us!" Hyuga argued back.
"Wait so what about Noka?" Sohma asks.
"We couldn't find her since we were trapped somewhere for awhile with spirits. Hyuga managed to fend them off," (Y/n) says until her eyes lit up.
"Ah! But I manage to see Lord Hirosawa before then!"
"So he's here too..." Yoshitsune thought as everyone furrowed their eyebrows.
"By the way, (Y/n) we managed to find Rui's body," Goyo said.
"What?"
"We buried her outside of course," he assures her but a blank look was all that was on her face.
"Is something wrong?" Hyuga notices of course.
"I'm not sure but I... don't have memories of Lady Rui," she says. "It's like I've never met her before..."
"I see..." everyone continued to figure out what's going on until Hyosuke spoke again.
"Hey... can we focus on finding Noka?" he says.
"Hirosawa must have her here now, right? I want to get her outta here as soon as possible,"
"Right, we should," Shizuka agrees.
"But we already searched the rest of the building. Where else to search?" Hyuga says.
"We found this, its some sort of magic mask that kept making us go around the hallways in circles," Sohma showed them.
"How about this?" Yoshitsune showed them a scale. The same scale from Rui's body.
"You actually took that?" Benkei looked at him.
"Sorry, but I wanted to know who Lady Rui really is and who Lord Hirosawa is as well," Yoshitsune explains.
"Hm... oh! Follow me!" (Y/n) led them to the center of the building where there was another altar. (Y/n) decided to put the mask and the scale on the table. Enya lights it up with the fire he had also gotten from the fox mask room.
Nothing happened of course but (Y/n) then pulled out the mirror.
"Kai please... just a bit more. Help us find Noka..." she calls, peering her face into the mirror.
Then a light appeared in front of the altar, forming into a shape of a star and spinning to unlock a room behind the wall as the altar moves aside.
"Thank you..." she whispered under her breath and then turns to look at the others.
"You guys ready?" she asks them.
"Give me a minute," Mizuki spoke as everyone looked at him.
"Okay I am," he finally recollects himself and they entered the room.
They went inside the room to find a room large than all the rooms they went into aligned with all sorts of trinkets and treasures inside, snakeskin, mask belonging to different animals and yokais, weapons with specific designs but unfamiliar, many pieces of jewelry and so much more.
"Is this.. a trophy room?" Enya guessed as they all looked around.
When they stepped further in, they realized they were stepping on some sort of thick fuzzy mat and looked down to see some sort of animal fur that was in a dark greyish colour. It nearly covered the entire floor of the room without ending. One of them to gulped but they kept looking around.
"Wait," Yoshitsune raises his hand to make them stop in the tracks. The animal fur was moving!
They all quickly move out of the way as the fur rises bigger and bigger.
GROOOWL.
It was a giant wild dog that was at least 3 time the size of a man. Its eyes were red with evil and teeth made from green fire.
Mizuki and Hyosuke got together and tried to put the flames out but the creature was quicker for its size and slammed the two of them into the walls.
Yoshitsune and Shizuka stepped in. Yoshitsune quickly distracts it by encircling close to it as it tries to knaw or swipe at him. Giving the chance for Shizuka to take out her talismans and stick some onto its back, body, and head. The flames of its teeth grew weaker but still burning bright red. The creature then whips its entire body, sending Shizuka flying.
"I got you!" Noritsune quickly caught her in time.
As the dog was weak now, Goyo holds it down with his whip as Yoshitsune went for its eyes, blinding it before heading for its neck. Inflicting at least dozens of slashes that went deep inside. But nothing spilled out.
"No blood..." he quickly backs off as the dog was randomly biting everywhere now from being blinded.
Hyuga was firing arrows at it as the arrows stuck into the body. It didn't seem to do anything of course but then Enya form some signs with his hand and breathed out fire. The arrows seem explosive as the whole creature caught on fire. It seems to be in pain as it was howling loudly. Benkei quickly gets Yoshitsune out of the way along with (Y/n) and Shizuka. To quickly put out the fire, Kazemasa creates a tornado to keep the fire surrounding the dog as Sohma throws his boomerang to create an opening through the roof. Fire went up into the sky along with wind as the dog collapsed.
They were wondering how else they could be able to put it down since it was still moving but there was moonlight pouring into the room. The dogs' eyes opened as it seems to be able to see again, its whole body was recovering because of the moonlight. Blue flaming wisps appeared all over the place as it rained down on them all. Noritsune, Benkei, Goyo and Yoshitsune quickly shield the girls as Kazemasa and Sohma quickly helped Hyosuke and Mizuki take cover. Enya and Hyuga were able to endure the heat of the flames but they took a lot of injuries than they thought.
"Hyuga!" (Y/n) calls out to him but Benkei continued to pull her to safety with his own body.
Enya shield Hyuga as one final wisp came flying towards him and took the final shot for his friend before collapsing on one knee.
"Haa.. you... able to keep going...?" Enya looked Hyuga, exhausted and burn wounds all over his body.
Hyuga quickly brings him back up while he was down as the dog was looking at them now. It was then slowly making its way to them with a deep growl. Hyuga backed up against the wall thinking hard what to do, until his back touch, something ice cold behind him. He looked back to see one sword glowing. It was a large sword, the biggest, and most well-kept sword out of all the trinkets in this room. A silver sword branched-toothed sword. At that moment as the dog was charging, Hyuga drops Enya to the ground and grabs the sword and swings it at the dog.
An arch of white light followed the very tip of the blade and suddenly Hyuga was in an entirely different area. He was outside at the forest except it was raining and much more visible. But the dog was still in front of him after being able to swing at its nose. It was in pain and Hyuga could see actual blood dripping from its nose and down onto the ground. The dog looked at him and Hyuga could see that instead of glowing eyes and flaming teeth. It looked like an actual creature with teeth and ocean blue eyes. Blue eyes that looked familiar...
But he had no control over his body as he goes for the ears. The multiple blades of the sword tore at its ear like fangs ripping flesh. The dog goes and bites his entire body and throws him into a tree, it charges at him but it didn't bare its teeth. It was about to slam his head into him, but Hyuga's body moved on his own once again and the dog slammed its head against the tree. His body felt lighter and the weight of the sword felt like a perfect fit in his hand that he stabs at the legs of the creature. He didn't stop even if he wanted to but continue to tear at the leg and even the others so that it wouldn't move.
Stop it. That's enough.
But he didn't. He continued to torture the poor creature. He wanted to tear its fur and have it for his own.
And then he stops.
The creature's eyes stared at him. It wasn't in pain. But looking at him with a blank look. It held no menace when looking at him. It just stared.
It was time to finish the job anyway, his arm was getting tired of being in the air for too long.
ENOUGH.
Hyuga forced himself to keep his arm in the air longer but he couldn't drop the sword no matter what he tried. He wanted to move but his entire mind was overshadowed of the thought of tearing the neck of the creature.
Finally, he was snapped back to reality when he felt a sharp pain at his cheek. He was back inside the mansion and (Y/n) was right in front of his face. Apparently, she had slapped him to bring his senses back as everyone stared at him in complete disbelief. The dog that the others and he was fighting was a pile of torn fur now.
"Are you okay!?" she shouts at him to make sure her voice reaches his ears.
Hyuga looked at his hands to see he was still holding the sword that he used to fight this dog and the one he had witnessed.
"I..." he wanted to speak but his head was spinning and all the energy he had in his body was completely drained. He then blacked out.