Ifrit lowered.

Her flame wave didn't appear to have done any visible damage, and yet...

Arisa could sense something had changed with the death of the onna-bushi phantom.

The ghostly samurai had stopped, staring at the black ooze that her body had collapsed into, silently. He no longer fought. He no longer moved.

Flames still danced over Ifrit's edge, but Arisa didn't take another step closer.

The samurai's bow fell to the ground at his side.

"... I... I remember now," he said, half-murmuring to himself as he placed a hand to his face, "This happened before. All of it... I already failed."

It had already been her guess that he was acting out events that had occurred in the past, but now it had been confirmed. Not only that, but the samurai seemed aware of if.

"This village and everyone in it have been dead for hundreds of years, have they not?"

He raised his head, now, addressing the assembled agents.

"I died in failure, surrounded by corpses of my fellows and those I had sworn to protect, and so that is how I spend eternity."

While no physical damage had occurred to him it seemed as if the death of the last phantom and the flame wave had penetrated his mind and reawakened him to full mental clarity.

But there was no telling how long this would last.

The samurai sank to his knees. He no longer seemed to have any intention of fighting, his unfocused gaze still lingering on the spot where the onna-bushi fell.

"If you have the ability, people of the current era, then end me," he said, simply, his tone lacking much inflection, "I am a failure who can only reenact his failure again and again. Nothing I do will bring the slaughtered people of this village back, and I cannot perish by my own hand after death, therefore I place it in your hands."

As opposed to a vengeful spirit, was the samurai more akin to a guardian spirit who had lost his mind? Arisa wasn't certain how to proceed. He had most certainly been responsible for the deaths of civilians, but conventional measures against wicked or mindless spirits were unlikely to have a permanent affect unless they could figure out exactly what was binding him here.

Which meant, perhaps, containment was the more effective option, but that still required being able to move him.