A/N: Sorry this took so long!
I didn't want to have long breaks between chapters but there ended up being long breaks between fics. I'm sorry! I just wanted to have more chapters than just the interludes finished and ready to be posted. Now, I have the first three chapters finished, and I'll be working on the rest while I post what I have finished. Even though I have the chapters all named, I'm still debating what episodes to put in. I have a list on a separate document on my computer.
This chapter right here is 4 pages and has 2,152 words! Can't wait for you to see how many words and pages chapter 3 is. It may be my longest chapter yet! Just letting you know, this references something that Sam and Dean talked about in the deleted scene "Matching the Color of God." It's not required to read either of the deleted scenes, but I'd definitely recommend it to read Dean's reaction when it comes to Aline's mark.
Anyway, hope you like it!
Aline wasn't sure how exactly it happened this time. First she and Dean were sitting in a motel room miles from Sam and Cas. Now, here they were, Dean on her left and Sam back on her right shoulder, standing in front of a raised bridge. Aline could practically feel the tension between the three of them.
Two guards (one heavy, the other skinny) were standing on either side of it. The skinny guard was shooting arrows into the cannon on the opposite side of the canyon. On either side of the bridge (close to the guards) were lit Moegami statues.
On the opposite side of the lifted bridge, beside the cannon, was a large fort. However, it looked like no one was inside, from what Aline could see at least.
She walked over to the skinny guard and poked him.
"Hello there!" he stated a few minutes after he turned around. "What's the matter, poochie? Why the sad look? You'll never get anywhere looking like that. It's bad luck! I'm Yoichi, the greatest archer among all the City Guards!"
"Holy smokes! That's some bow ya got there, mister!" Sam said.
Yoichi jumped a few feet. "What's this? You brought a friend along with you, poochie? This is my trusty bow, Goldenfire, the most powerful in all the land! Guarding is rather dull work, so I pass the time practicing archery. I'll show you what I can do. Watch this!" At that, he pulled out an arrow, aimed, and fired. The arrow flew and landed right in the cannon.
"Wow! Bull's-eye!" Sam sounded as amazed as Aline was.
"Pretty good, eh? There's not a target Goldenfire and I can't hit! Now, my friends... Why not have a bite to eat and relax a bit?" He threw an apple at her, and she easily caught it in her hands as he turned back around.
However, she caught his attention again while eating the apple.
"Look! The scared flames of the Phoenix Statues burn once more!" Yoichi pointed at the Moegami statue on his left. "But I don't think you'd know what that meant, poochie. Go talk to that heavy-set partner of mine over there for details. Suffice it to say, the statues' flames should never go out. However, they had been out until recently. Then, on the night when that moon suddenly rose, I heard a roar from Shinshu Field, and the flames suddenly lit up again! Why do they keep going out and back on? Is it some ill omen? At any rate, now I can give the sign by firing a flaming arrow. That's the sign to lower the Big Drawbridge on the far bank. I was guarding this City Checkpoint when suddenly the order was given to close the city. They raised the drawbridge before I even had time to get back in. But I can shoot a flaming arrow to signal them to lower it again, now that the Phoenix Statues' flames are back." He trailed off, crossing his arms and looking at the ground. "Still... I have nothing to look forward to back in the city. I mean, I'm not cut out to be a City Guard. I really want to be an adventurer and do magnificent things!"
Aline backed away from him, rubbing her forearm, and connected fire to Yoichi's released arrow. The now-lit arrow flew across the canyon and landed in the cannon, causing it to explode.
The explosion not only caused the bridge to come loose and drop down into position, it also caused a chain reaction that brought down the entire fort, leaving no remains.
Yoichi jumped in shock and surprise, his eyes wide as the four of them watched the fireworks.
Aline bit her lip during the whole explosion before lifting her hands up in the air in a sign of innocence. "It wasn't me!" she yelled out. "I didn't do it! Blame Yoichi! God, what god? I'm just a dog! Not a god!"
The outburst caused both Dean and Sam to burst out laughing. The moment made her smile. It was like everything that had happened (Kevin's death, Gadreel's betrayal, and the divide between the three of them) had all been a dream. Like they'd come out of this and find Kevin asleep while hunched over the angel tablet.
The moment her fingers brushed that mark, however, caused that feeling to crash and burn, reminding her that Kevin was never coming back and it was all her fault.
And her smile quickly faded.
The moment the bridge was down and the explosion was over, the archer whirled around, sweat dripping down his forehead. "What in the world!? This is terrible! Nothing like this has ever happened before! My arrow suddenly burst into flames!" He trailed off again before jumping for the second time. "Oh no! I just remembered I have business to attend to back in the city! Well, seeing how the bridge is back down and all... I better get back to my guarding job in the city. And I'm not just saying that only to disappear on some adventure... Yoichi, the greatest archer, would never dream of such an act! Well, goodbye and good luck!"And he ran off, leaving behind a trail of apples.
Both brothers were still chuckling even when Yoichi was out of sight. The laughter eventually died down, and the tension returned.
"Look, about what happened...," Sam began, but Aline cut him off.
"Don't worry about it," she said, looking at him with a stiff smile. "Besides, we got a cursed zone to get rid of." And monsters to beat, she mentally added, images of said-monsters appearing in her head. One in particular made her clench her head in pain, but she was able to recover.
"Everything good?" Dean inquired.
"Yeah." What was that about? she wondered as they crossed the drawbridge. And why her?
After lots and lots of praise gaining (from rejuvenating some of the cursed spots), they reached the entrance to the next area.
"Hey hey! The big city! You'll probably find the pace of city life pretty shocking, Ammy, considering how you were stuck out in the boonies for 100 years! As for me, I can't wait to check out all the cute babes! Heh heh..." Sam chuckled, and she could've sworn she heard him rub his hands together in excitement. The thought that Issun's personality must've been rubbing off on him made her laugh.
However, that laugh died off the moment Ryoshima Coast came into view. Most of the area was a cursed zone.
"Hey! What the heck's going on? Orochi's stupid cursed zone spread all the way here? I mean, this is even past the City Checkpoint! And besides, we already did away with that sneaky serpent. I can't believe the cursed zone hasn't gone away here! It must've been one strong curse for this wasteland to survive even after its maker croaked! Still, I wonder..."
As she practically threw Dean onto her back and ran over to where the guardian sapling was, Aline knew what the cause of the curse was, and her head started to ache even more at the thought of it.
Why does this keep happening? Why does the mere thought of her hurt my head?
Aline was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't notice that both Dean and Sam were staring at her shadow.
"You should know something about that mark."
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"That mark comes with a price."
"...What kind of price?"
A half hour after blooming the guardian sapling (and running into two new enemies, the Headless Guardian and the Bell Guardian, and heard about the Water Dragon, making Aline go all misty eyed. Sam and Dean, however, were confused by her reaction), Aline had practically dragged Dean and Sam (even though the younger Winchester was about the same size as a pistachio) all over Ryoshima Coast, from Ankoku Temple to the high platform (she told them it was called the Moon Turret) to Onigiri Sensei's dojo out in the sea (she, of course, spent her hard-earned money on the technique he called Holy Eagle, which was a double jump) before going up onto the stone dock leading to the entrance to Sei-an City. However, a new monster popped up.
"Seriously? More enemies?" Dean asked.
"We're in a new area, Dean," Aline pointed out. She had switched to her anthro form after coming back onto the main land. Her outfit was the same as it usually was, except it had turned a few shades darker. "What did you expect?"
The new demon was holding a dark red oil-paper umbrella with a gray line lining its edge. The umbrella lifted to reveal a bird woman with long loose black hair, wearing a long elaborate robe with the primary shades of crimson, gray and dark blue that trailed behind it and large sleeves to fit with its bird wings for arms. At the collar of the robe was a ring braided from leaves of some kind of plant. On its back were a pair of paper fans, with decorations of flowers on it. Its neck was very long, like that of a crane, and, as it moved, Aline could see a beak peaking out from behind its hair. A red hat was on top of its head.
"Ubume," she whispered as she slipped into a fighting stance.
The fight lasted for ten minutes, with Aline dodging dive bombs and using Galestorm to render it vulnerable to Tsumugari and power slashes. Two more appeared after she beat the first one, and Aline beat them just as easily as the first, jumping up into the air and stabbing the last Ubume before it disappeared.
She felt both of the brothers' eyes on her as she stood up, pulling Tsumugari out of the ground and placing it back on her back.
"What did you say that was?" Sam asked. He was standing on her shoulder.
"An Ubume. I thought you'd know that, all things considered."
He let out an uneasy chuckle. "Usually, yeah. Like the imps and Orochi. This time...it feels like something's blocking me from knowing things."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Dean interrupted, making Aline turn toward him, "that we don't know what's going on."
"You mean, you guys don't know about what's going on with the Water Dragon? Or what's going on here period?"
"Pretty much," Sam answered. "Like I knew the story of Nagi, Shiranui, and Orochi, I knew that Amaterasu is Shiranui's reincarnation. Weeks ago, I could remember the bosses, but I couldn't say their names. Now? I don't remember their names or what they look like."
"Same here," Dean added. "Some prophet I am, huh?" It was a clear rib at himself, but none of them laughed.
"That...doesn't make any sense," Aline said as she began pacing. "I mean...Sam, you watched me play the game. But it makes sense that you don't know the names of each and every monster. I only know them because I looked them up just to learn their weaknesses and Floral Finishers. You have no excuse to not know the bosses. They have a speech bubble that tells you their names. Dean, you have every excuse in the book because you only watched me play when you weren't going to the bar or hooking up with some random girl. Wait...scratch that. You're Waka in my version of Mom's story. So you'd at least know the bosses..." And she trailed off, stopping in her tracks and looked at her forearm.
"That mark comes with a price."
Was this the price?
Aline clutched her forearm and tried to think of her. Her head began to ache, but she tried to ignore it, instead focusing on her face, and that headache began to fade as she pictured her. Aline knew her name, who she was, and she looked back toward the temple, specifically the cemetery. She looked back at the brothers (Sam had moved over to Dean's shoulder while Aline had paced) and began pulling them through the wooden gate and down the hill to the capital city.
"Do you know what's gonna happen, Lin?" Sam asked, making Aline freeze in her tracks.
She'd half-hoped dragging them to where they needed to go would close the book on that topic. She guessed she was wrong to hope. "Yeah," she replied without looking at the younger Winchester. "Want me to tell you guys?"
"Nope," Dean answered before Sam could. "No spoilers, remember?"
Aline chuckled. "Okay. Whatever you guys want."
Right before Aline could pick up her foot to keep going, the world around her began to morph back to her's and Dean's motel room.
"A bird possessed by the soul of a woman slain by a samurai's blade. It has no trouble deflecting and sword attacks with its umbrella. Then, it wastes no time using its dark essense to launch a counter. A great monk advises that this pattern can be taken advantage of. When the umbrella comes up to block, blow it back with wind. The creature will recall its life as a woman and cease attacking." - Ubume's beastiary entry