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...
A man awakes on a bed of thousands of tiny white petals, drifting aimlessly across a vast body of water.
Well. Perhaps not a man. Something more than a mere man, just as he is something more than a mere sea creature. But regardless of what he is - man, monster, or somewhere between - he finds himself resting upon this bed all the same.
Cherry blossoms.
The petals come from cherry blossoms. They have a fairly distinctive shape as is, but their appearance is practically ingrained into his memory after...
Hm.
Come to think of it. What is he doing here, exactly?
It's nowhere he recognises, so he certainly isn't anywhere near his home turf. But at the same time, the sky looks nothing like the way it should in the human realm.
And yet, he's certain that the last place he remembers is the human realm. So, what happened for him to come back down here?
It was supposed to be the final stretch of the plan, wasn't it? He stayed back down below to entertain that human kid's challenge, and the others went ahead to the human realm to break the seals on his behalf.
That part worked. He remembers that much. Took a bit of a beating in the process, but that was a small price to pay for what should have come next.
And it did come next, somewhat. The seals were broken by the time he got up there, no problem. But of course that misguided 'butler' had some convenient little cure-all to patch them up good as new. And of course the snake went ahead and called all their other compliant, peace-loving little friends to help. Brought a full team to make one of those stupid little binding circles and hold him on the mountain.
Still. He did what he could to stall for time, even with the forced distance between him and his allies.
He's gone on record to say several times that he's no support guy. For all his strength and magical prowess, he's just never gotten the hang of any of that healing stuff.
But he knows how to rally the troops, and he knows how to do it damn well.
Every Yōkai up there to aid him fought their hardest battle yet that day. And it was just enough.
The seals were fixed eventually, obviously. He didn't have infinite energy to work with, as he might have hoped. But he had enough.
Enough to break that flimsy little binding spell, and break one final seal.
There's a tree on that mountain. An ancient thing, looming over some little shrine nearby. It might just be the seal that holds back the most raw energy in the entire miserable city his people reside under.
And yet, it's so often forgotten about. Because of how it's weakened over time, and because of the entrance to the Yōkai realm that sleeps inside it.
But the tags tied around it with rope are a dead giveaway to anyone who knows where to look for these things. So the most obvious plan of action was to tear the lot of them off the moment he was freed.
Perhaps a rash decision, in hindsight.
Sure, he's one of the most powerful spirits currently attached to this mortal plane. It's a known and respected fact, even by the most skeptical of Yōkai.
"McKraken's as strong as they come. Best of luck to you if you're planning to tussle with him, kid."
But virtually nobody, when faced with that much power, would be able to withstand it without cracking even a little.
Much less attempt to absorb it right off the bat.
It's not like him to jump straight for the bait like that. Certainly not these days.
What changed?
...No.
Surely not.
He hadn't taken it into account at the time, because he simply didn't think it would change anything.
But that machine. That infernal machine. It sits right in front of the tree.
With that Thing so close, could It have...
Damn.
The lost Chairman suddenly sits up with a start, almost falling into the water as he moves to check himself over.
...
Something feels wrong. As though he's not entirely as he was when he was last in the Yōkai realm. But there's no sign that It's currently in his possession.
And now that he thinks on it a little longer, rather than acting in the spur of the moment, there's still that unpleasant, yet familiar sense of disconnect.
Still. He needs to check. He almost meditates on it for a moment, imagining every part that makes up what he has become and reaching out for that one vital piece in the center of it all...
Only to be met with nothing. A faint sensation of something pulling in his chest, and a profound sense of hollowness compared to when he used to be able to summon It, but nothing appears.
He's in the clear. But no doubt, its presence so close to him during that pivotal moment was his downfall.
Try as he might, he cannot remember what exactly he did after that point.
But if it had brought him victory, he would still be up there right now. Laying waste to that sleepy little mortal city, and rebuilding a new world over the ashes. A god in his own right.
But he's not. He's down here, in the middle of nowhere.
Perhaps they really did have no choice but to seal off the Yōkai realm, keeping the living and dead separate for the forseeable future. If they did, that's better than nothing.
But ir's not enough to just not interact with them.
Centuries of conflict. Centuries of sealings, and exorcisms, and banishments.
Countless spirits locked into that infernal machine without a second thought.
Just for Yōkai to lie down and quietly tuck themselves away out of mortal sight.
That's not how it should have ended.
That's not how he promised that it would end.
And yet, that seems to be how it's destined to end now. He's surely been ousted by now, replaced with some spineless little sea cucumber, and gods only know what happened to his followers.
All because of one lousy little trinket, and the lapse in judgement it caused.
...That can't be it.
That won't be it.
Some of them will have waited for him. No matter how many have given in and accepted that times are changing, he knows who his closest allies are. If they aren't waiting for him, they'll be planning to act in his stead.
It's a setback. Undeniably, it's a setback. But he's not down and out yet.
He just needs to find his way back to familiar ground, and so help every living thing that still lingers on the surface when he does.
Humanity is going to rue the day they decided to tangle with McKraken.
He'll see to that yet.