If you’ve faced a member of the Seven Ashina Spears in FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, then you’re aware of how utterly punishing they can be. Encountered right after the Ashina Reservoir Sculptor’s Idol as the castle preps for the final attack, Seven Ashina Spears – Shume Masaji Oniwa is a similar kind of headache. It can seem even more annoying because of his bodyguard. Fortunately, there’s a way to easily dispose of Shume Masaji Oniwa with little stress.
First off, take down the bodyguard. He’ll fall to a single shinobi deathblow from stealth. You’ll need to use Gachiin’s Sugar to increase your stealth and effectively shuffle right up next to him. Killing the bodyguard will immediately alert Oniwa though. There’s a branch immediately to the left of both enemies – run to it and grapple across the gap after Oniwa goes aggressive.
Keep running away until Oniwa’s health bar disappears. This indicates that you’re back in stealth mode. The Gachiin’s Sugar from earlier should still be active. Return to Oniwa, sneak up behind him and deal a shinobi deathblow to immediately remove one bar of health. Now comes the somewhat tougher part.
Move back to the same branch as before, staying out of reach of Oniwa’s attack. He can’t follow you on to the branch, so you’re fairly safe. Activate a Yashiriku’s Sugar for increased damage and proceed to use the Shadow Rush Combat Art. It’s best to use this after Oniwa executes an unblockable attack since the window will be fairly large.
Along with dealing damage to Oniwa, the move will launch you into the air, allowing you to attack him before landing. This causes Oniwa to block, and lets you safely retreat backwards on to the branch with backward dodge. Rinse and repeat as necessary until Oniwa is dead.
It’s possible that you’ll run out of Spirit Emblems from using Shadow Rush. The Ceremonial Tanto is useful in this case. It adds five Supplemental Spirit Emblems in exchange for 50 percent of your Vitality. You gain the item from defeating the Shichimen Warrior in the Abandoned Dungeon so make sure to double back and defeat him if you haven’t already. Head here to find out the best way to kill the Shichimen Warrior.