His breath warmed his throat, coming out of his mouth in the form of confused and suffocated verses. Right in front of him, a square ceiling was made of thousands of rhombic red tiles.

The dim morning light entered the room from a tall, narrow rectangular window to the right of the bed he was lying on. As a first reaction after his awakening, Yoichi tried to detach his head from the soft pillow, shifting his gaze towards the rest of his body.

​​

Deprived of clothes at both the top and the bottom, he was wearing only a kind of small mawashi, the classic clothing of sumo wrestlers. Its soft cotton wrapped his intimate parts.

However, it was not the unusual underwear that caught the young tamer's attention: large needles were tucked into his knees, ankles, hips, wrists, shoulders and even in the centre of his chest.

After that vision, Yoichi held back a scream, trying to control his breath. A thin, fragrant smoke touched the tip of his nose, which followed his direction.

A bedside table was next to the bed, and above it, from the holes on a small gold-plated metal jar, incense floated free in the air. When Yoichi's gaze shifted with difficulty in the direction of his feet, he was able to notice the other details of the room.

There was a kind of dark stone sink in the middle of the black wooden floor, inlaid and adorned with many small golden objects. Being taller than his field of view, Yoichi could not look at the inside of the weird sink resting at the top of a thin column.

That piece of great artistic, antique-looking workmanship seemed to lie there meaninglessly, in the middle of that small, perfectly square room.

Smoke from the incense continued to dance in the air, crossing the light beam coming from the window and leading Yoichi's gaze towards the wall beyond the stone sink.

The wall on the other side of the room was similar to the floor, and its empty, clean appearance emphasized the minimal decor of the room. Devoid of shelves or furniture of any kind, it housed two ancient memorabilia.

A long katana was hanging in the centre of the wall, along with its scabbard. Its chrome and shiny blade reflected the surroundings, and its guard, round and regular, balanced its weight.

Orange laces were braided over the dark red handle, giving that ancient weapon an eye-catching look. Its scabbard remembered those colours, depicting magnificent drawings on its glossy surface.

Next to the katana, where the wall bent over to make way for the window, a samurai armor was carefully resting on a metal pedestal.

Painted almost entirely red with small orange details, it was complemented by a showy horned kabuto. The corrugated expression of that old helmet looked like an angry face.

Just as Yoichi began putting together the pieces of that intricate puzzle to understand where he was, a familiar voice broke the silence.

"You're awake," it affirmed, making the young warrior jump. Unable to move due to the needles stuck in his body, Yoichi closed his eyes for effort.

After the rounded sink in the centre of the room, someone was sitting in front of the entrance door. When Yoichi noticed the long cylindrical hair popping up beyond the surface of that stone object, he began to churn.

Ruytaro's meditation had been interrupted by his awakening. Next to the gatekeeper, two small jars released the same incense that intoxicated Yoichi's smelling from the nightstand.

His large wrinkled hands were resting on his legs, crossed in the seat. His straight back expressed the rigour of that sacred ritual.

Right in front of him, next to the door, his stick was resting on the wall.

Oh, shit! What the heck am I doing in here? Where's everybody else?! the young tamer frantically thought, waving on the bed without being able to move.

"Well, I guess so" Ryutaro sighed, responding to his own statement. After speaking, the gatekeeper's slender and unsettling body raised from the ground, continuing to face the door.

"I... I shouldn't be here! What... what happened?" Yoichi inquired, visibly upset. His eyes traced every slow movement of the tall guardian, who gently turned in his direction.

As during their last meeting, Ryutaro's face was covered with a cloth veil, making it impossible to distinguish his facial features.

"The more you keep moving, the more the needles hold you still, boy" the old man added, stopping by the bed leaning against the wall on one side.

Realizing little by little that if Ryutaro wanted to kill him, he would have done so during his sleep, Yoichi managed to calm his nerves. He controlled his breath and stretched out every fibre of his muscles, decreasing the pressure of needles on the skin.

"Supreme Ryutaro... I... I remember I lost the duel against Kato and... and then..."

"Then you passed out. You lost your senses, and you slept for three days", the gatekeeper interrupted, concluding his interlocutor's sentence.

"For three days?! Fuck, I have to keep training and... ouch!" Yoichi gasped, trying to move his arms stuck by needles.

"Don't worry, Yoichi. Takamori and your merchant friend are aware of your location. If I hadn't brought you here, you'd probably be dead," Ryutaro acknowledged, standing by the bed. "Your wounds were very serious. Without my help, no one could have saved you in time," he added.

"Ichiro? Where's Ichiro's Demon Tooth? And the rest of my stuff?" Yoichi asked again, increasing the frequency of his breaths.

"I put all your equipment in that corner. You can rest easy. Your Inoshuma is safe. When you can calm down, I'll give you back your movements," the old man replied.

After about a minute spent in silence, Yoichi took courage and looked Ryutaro in the face, trying to communicate his inner calm beyond that veil.

Without adding anything else, the old Dojo guardian approached the young tamer's chest, making him close his eyes. With extreme accuracy, Ryutaro began to extract the needles from Yoichi's body, one by one.

Every time the tip of a needle was extracted from his skin, an incredible feeling of muscle relaxation pervaded the area subject to the acupuncture.