Careful What You Wish For

Careful What You Wish For follows The Oni's Apprentice. This route covers the shrine investigation, the three missing Stout Pillars and the Rasho-gan fight through the reward handoff. It does not cover every nearby collectible or every boss attack.

Inputs use the displayed PlayStation layout: Cross (×), Square (□), Triangle (△) and Circle (○). Use your own displayed bindings if you have remapped them.

Find the blindfolded woman and enter the garden

Leave Rokudo-chinnoji Temple with Look for anything strange tracked. Follow the marked street route through the bamboo-lined passage. Deal with the Genma between the houses, then look for a blindfolded woman seated beside baskets at a damaged house entrance. Approach her and finish the conversation about Yasui Konpiragu Shrine.

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Continue toward the stone torii she points out. Passing into the shrine grounds changes the surroundings into a bright garden with red flowers and hanging blossoms. Your objective becomes Gather clues — 0/2.

Gather both clues, then investigate Yorimasa's monument

Follow the garden's stone path to the Cheerful Old-Timer, the bent old man with a walking stick. Speak with him until the conversation ends; the clue counter becomes 1/2.

From the old man, look across the flowers toward the long wooden building with a deep overhanging roof. On its raised porch, beside tubs and stacked goods, are two dolls bound together with red rope. Approach and examine them. Finish the scene and Shizuka's explanation to reach 2/2.

The next objective is Investigate Yorimasa's monument. Cross the garden to the narrow stone monument surrounded by candles, beside the main building's lattice wall. A praying child stands nearby. Press Cross — Examine at the monument.

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Finish the explanation. For Investigate Hachidai Rikison Shrine, follow the stone path past the red-pillared building and around its side. Look among the flowering trees for a small raised wooden shrine reached by a short stone stairway. Approach the statues inside.

There are eight Stout Pillars in the group, but only three are missing. The conversation starts Find the stolen Stout Pillars — 0/3.

Find Stout Pillar No. Seven on the scaffold

Leave the bright shrine grounds for the nearby streets and follow the statue marker into the house entrance lit by standing braziers. It opens onto a courtyard with white cloth hanging on rails. Clear the Genma, then take the narrow passage between the house and the tall stone retaining wall.

You will hear the Seventh Stout Pillar calling from above. Continue along the passage to the bamboo ladder attached to the scaffold. Climb it and walk along the narrow platform between the thatched roof and stone wall. No. Seven sits at its fenced end.

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Press Cross to collect Stout Pillar No. Seven. Close the item panel and check that the counter reads 1/3. Return down to the courtyard.

Find Stout Pillar No. One on the collapsed roof

Enter the open house from the cloth-hanging courtyard and deal with the swordsmen blocking the entrance. Inside, climb the ladder to the upper wooden floor. Defeat the enemy upstairs and continue toward the broken opening beyond the jars and boxes.

A low beam blocks this exit. Press Cross — Crawl to pass beneath it, then step out and drop into the next courtyard. Its main landmark is a collapsed roof forming a low slope across the yard.

Clear the enemies around the wreckage. Walk up the sloping roof boards to the small stone figure, then press Cross to collect Stout Pillar No. One. The counter becomes 2/3.

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Open the wooden gate from this courtyard to return to the street. Continue toward the remaining marker, along the houses and through the bamboo-lined lane.

Break the jar hiding Stout Pillar No. Three

Continue through the residential lane to the large open-fronted hall. Inside are scattered papers, shelves, sacks and a small shrine against the far wall. Clear the Genma in the hall, watching for enemies approaching from either side while you fight. Use short Square attacks after defending against a swing; avoid remaining between two attackers.

Leave by the side opening next to the sacks and barrels. Follow the passage between the building's raised wooden walkway and the perimeter wall. It leads to a storage area with pots, bamboo racks and a ladder against a wooden post.

Stay at ground level. Strike the large jars beside the ladder and wooden post to reveal the Third Stout Pillar, then press Cross at the statue to collect Stout Pillar No. Three.

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Check for 3/3. Climb the nearby ladder, cross the roof and drop back to the street. After the statues' dialogue, the objective becomes Head for Hachidai Rikison Shrine.

Return the statues and absorb the dark mass

Follow the street back toward the bamboo passage and then the stone torii into the flower garden. Return around the red-pillared building to the same small shrine. Approach its steps and finish the conversation with all eight Stout Pillars reunited.

For Absorb the dark mass, go back around the main building toward the garden's stone path. The dark mass hangs ahead beside the building, near the boundary wall. Move close and hold L2 to absorb it. Finish the resulting scene to begin Defeat Rasho-gan.

Defeat Rasho-gan, Wish Warper

Keep Rasho-gan in view with R3 and leave room to move around the garden's rocks. His long arms and weapons reach beyond his central body, so watch the attacking limb as well as the distance between you.

For his blade swings, use L1 to guard, or time L1 just before impact for a Parry. Once the swing has finished or he recoils, answer with a short Square or Triangle attack sequence. Stop attacking when he raises the blade again. Against a bodily lunge or grab, use a timed Circle dodge response.

When he swings the large dark ball or leaps toward you, break off your attack and move out of the landing or swinging path. Re-enter after the attack finishes. Remaining beside him through a long attack string can leave you caught by the next limb.

Use L2 to absorb available souls during a gap. Blue souls help fill the Oni Power Gauge; when it has enough power, R1 activates your selected Oni Armament. Yellow souls restore health. Create space before absorbing instead of standing still beneath an incoming attack.

When the fight exposes a red weak-point marker with a Square prompt, press Square to take that opening. Rasho-gan can continue fighting after the resulting strike, so return to defending and counterattacking until the post-battle scene begins.

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Receive Yorimasa's power and complete the story

Finish the scene with Yorimasa and the Eight Stout Pillars. The new power leads to two tutorials:

• Destroying Malice Barriers: stand in front of a barrier and hold Cross to tear it apart with Oni Strength.
• Trading in Red Souls: visit Yorimasa's monument at Yasui Konpiragu Shrine to exchange collected red souls for items.

Close both tutorial panels with Cross. Story Complete — Careful What You Wish For confirms the end of this task. The next objective is The Curse of Kiyomizu-zaka Slope — Rid Kiyomizu-zaka Slope of Malice. Breaking the barriers on the way to that district belongs to the next walkthrough.