Oni Strength

Oni Strength is one of the named Oni powers Musashi draws from the Oni Gauntlet in Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Capcom describes it as the power that breaks through any stalemate with brute force, and it is the ability that physically opens up Edo-Era Kyoto.

How Musashi Gains It

Oni Strength is not available from the start. It is granted by the shrine guardians as a reward, after Musashi survives the fight against Rasho-gan, the multi-armed Genma that had been posing as a deity at Yasui Konpiragu Shrine. Escaping that encounter alive is what earns the power, and Musashi accepts it despite still hoping to be rid of the gauntlet altogether.

The encounter that earns it is built out of the shrine's real reputation. Yasui Konpiragu is known in Kyoto for severing bad ties and binding good ones, and the director has said the team started from the idea that wish-fulfilments of that kind might really be the work of the Genma. Rasho-gan is what that premise produced: a Genma posing as the granter of those wishes. Japanese material gives the boss's name the reading Rasetsugan while Capcom's English-language material uses Rasho-gan; this wiki follows the English spelling.

Opening Up Kyoto

The power's headline use is structural rather than combat-facing. Once Musashi has it, he can tear down the demonic barriers ringing Kyoto. Those barriers are one half of what has been keeping the city closed: hellish structures erupt from the earth and a toxic fog sweeps through the streets, and between them they wall off districts and trap the locals who have not fled.

Oni Strength answers the structures. The fog is dealt with separately, by cutting down the eerie plants it seeps from, a mission gated by the Genma Byakue. Together those two beats are how the game moves from tightly scoped missions into a wider, more explorable Kyoto.

The Shrine's Eight Guardians

The guardians who hand Oni Strength over are the Hachidairikison, the eight stone figures that stand at the real Yasui Konpiragu. The game reproduces them and gives them a function: in-game they govern how Musashi's abilities grow, which places them at the centre of progression rather than in the scenery. The development team also writes the eight as brothers, which they are not in reality, and the shrine reviewed and approved that fictional addition. The approval sits inside a wider arrangement, since this is the first game granted permission by the city of Kyoto to depict these particular shrines and temples in-game.

That connection is worth holding on to when reading the power's place in the game. Oni Strength is not bought from a menu or unlocked on a tree; it is granted, at a specific shrine, by figures the game also uses to gate ability growth. See the combat system for how granted powers sit alongside the moves Musashi trains into.

In Combat

Alongside its role clearing barriers, Oni Strength is described as an Oni power that forces a way through a stalemate with raw force, which places it in the same family as the other gauntlet abilities rather than among the Oni Armaments. Where the armaments are distinct weapon forms gated behind the Oni Power Gauge, Oni Strength is a granted power tied to progress through the story.

On Nintendo Switch 2, the ability has its own motion input: shaking both Joy-Con 2 controllers at the same time performs Oni Strength: Destroy. Capcom has confirmed the same action remains available on standard button input.

Status

Oni Strength is confirmed by Capcom in official material and in pre-launch gameplay coverage. Whether it consumes a resource, whether it can be upgraded through the Souls economy, and the full list of things it can break have not been detailed.