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'The web dances with sparkling drops of dew, stained crimson with blood.'
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"Wh-what was that? What on earth was that?"
"That..thing killed Higashi! It tore him right in half!"
The remaining three monks had shoved their way into the shrine, and stood in a semi-circle before the hearth. They were busily arguing about what the creature outside had been, and why it would be there. The medicine seller had pasted more protective charms on and around the doors, which had started to glow a reddish color. The room was loud, filled with the shouts of the three monks, and though they had seen the medicine seller, they were far too busy accusing each other to focus on him.
The only one who was completely silent was Okuni. Silent and motionless, she stood hugging herself, studying the pattern of autumn leaves at the bottom of her kimono. She couldn't differentiate the red of the leaves from the red of the blood that seemed burned into her vision. Okuni still had not quite recovered from the shock of what she'd witnessed, though at least she'd moved away from the door. In fact, she was as far as possible from it, backed against the heiden's lattice door as if the creature would return for her. She stared in horror at the entrance, wincing every time she heard the creature slam against the doors.
She only looked up when the three monks had come to stand before her, blocking her way.
"Okuni!" one of the monks demanded. "What was that? Your doing? Was that some sort of sickening guard dog? That desperate to keep us out, are you?"
"I? I had nothing to do with it! I had never had any sort of problem before you decided to return early!"
"Don't lie! You must have had something to do with it! If not for you, Higashi would still be alive!"
"I did nothing!" she screamed in fury.
"She is speaking the truth," the medicine seller spoke up from his position near the shrine entrance. He'd been placing more scales on the floor, the glimmering pieces almost covering the walkable space, and had drawn a line of salt around that.
"The mononoke showed little signs of activity until the four of you—ah, your pardon, the three of you—arrived."
Despite the man's words, Okuni could not help but feel a bit guilty. Had she opened the doors a moment sooner, no one would have died. As much as she disliked the men, she had no desire to see anyone die.
"Mononoke? What the hell are you talking about? Oh, I get it, you've been listening to her stupid little superstitions, haven't you?" the short, fat monk pointed rudely at the girl.
"They're not just stupid superstitions! They have a root in reality, you great greedy pig!" the girl retorted. She wasn't normally so angry, but the disturbing sight of the mangled body still haunted her, and yelling was helping her feel better...at least a little bit.
"Respecting the land, respecting sacred ground, staying out of things that aren't your business; they're all meant to keep things like this from happening!" she continued.
"How dare you speak to me like that? A man your superior? I ought to punish you for that, girl. I ought to-"
"That is quite enough," The medicine seller said calmly. He had stepped between the monks and the girl, and now Okuni found herself staring at the back of his attire, a strange eye-shaped design meeting her gaze. The monks backed away, though they continued to glare at Okuni.
"Okuni-san has informed me of the mononoke's Katachi. For now, we must discern the Makoto."
"Th-then that spider was...?" Okuni asked softly.
"Jorōgumo."
"Jorōgumo? That thing out there? That's impossible! Things like that can't exist! A wolf, or a-" the handsome monk protested.
"If it were a wolf, there would be many more. You may believe it or not, but what killed that man was...not of this world." the medicine man stated, very calm despite the monk's angry protests. He clasped the golden sword in one hand, holding it outstretched in the air. "Now tell me...why were you so hasty to return to this shrine?"
"Heh, like we'd tell you anything." the third monk, who had done most of the earlier yelling, spoke.
"If you do not, then I am afraid that I will be unable to deal with the mononoke," spoke the medicine seller.
"B-but can't you just kill it with that sword of yours?" the fat monk sputtered.
"The sword cannot be drawn until I learn of the mononoke's Katachi, Makoto, and Kotowari." he explained. "The Katachi is known. Now, we must discover the Makoto."
"What...exactly does that mean?" asked Okuni.
"The Katachi is what the mononoke looks like, the form which it takes. In essence, the first step to defeating a mononoke is to identify it. You have already informed me that it was a spider. Unless there was some mistake?"
"No." Okuni shook her head. "There was no way it could be anything else. It was an enormous spider, the size of a cow, at least. I think...I think it was headed towards the lake."
"The Kotowari is the mononoke's reason, or what it desires. The Makoto is the mononoke's truth, or rather, the circumstances that spurred it to act. Without knowing these three things, I cannot draw the sword of exorcism."
"So then...the next step is to find out what it wants?" Okuni asked, receiving a slight nod in answer.
"Yes, that will be met with an overwhelming success. Why don't you just step outside and ask it then, girl?" the handsome monk snapped.
"I've had enough of this! All we can do is work towards finding out why it's here! Stop blaming me for something you know nothing about!" she yelled in retort.
The creature was still pounding on the outside of the shrine, desperate to get in. As they watched, some of the charms holding the doors shut started to bleed out their ink, as if some invisible force were draining them.
"I suggest that one of you say something, because that thing isn't going to take long to get in here," Okuni said, now feeling little but anger.
No one heeded her advice. As she and the medicine seller both looked to the men for answers, the spider's pounding on the doors continued, and the ink continued to bleed from the charms. Any moment now, the barrier would be broken, and the monster would breach the shrine. It would breach the shrine, and someone else would die...
"Someone say something!" Okuni pleaded.
A cracking noise sounded across the space, the beams of the shrine beginning to split under the force of the mononoke's blows.
"I don't know what it was!" the fat monk burst out.
At long last. Everyone looked to him for an explanation.
"We were...going to bring back another girl, you know? Same as always. There was this real pretty one, with this necklace with crystal beads. She kept smiling at us, so I thought Mitami should invite her back..." at this, the man paused, taking several quick gasps of air as if speaking had somehow winded him.
"I see. And why were you bringing the women here?" the medicine seller asked, holding the sword up as if it too could hear.
"We...they were for our own pleasure, okay? Sometimes they didn't want to come along, so we'd have to do a little...convincing."
"Convincing? You mean you..." Okuni shook her head in disbelief.
"Kidnapped them," finished the medicine seller.
"But that wouldn't have anything to do with that thing out there!" the monk protested. "It's not got a thing to do with spiders!"
At that, the medicine seller merely shook his head.
"Jorōgumo are born the same way any other mononoke is. The lingering regrets and malice of a spirit...they bind themselves to a source of human anguish. The shape the creature takes depends on what is available to the mononoke's use."
"What could it have possibly used?" the angry monk yelled.
"Obviously...spiders." answered Okuni. At that, she glanced up at the webs above the door. Kureha was absent.
"Those damn bugs? Then it's your fault it happened! If you'd just kill the damn things, this never would have-"
"No," the medicine seller cut in. "They were here a long time before you five came to this place. They were the only residents of the shrine. None of you have anything to do with them being here."
"The form of the mononoke...it was just...a coincidence?" said Okuni.
"Yes," the man replied, looking to the sword. It had not made any reply. The medicine seller frowned. "However...that story is not the Makoto. There must be something more. What brought you back to the shrine in this tempest? What is it?"
Okuni would have almost said that the medicine seller sounded impatient. Though, when dealing with those four...one could easily understand his frustrations. They were hiding something, something she didn't even know about. Now was the time to lay hidden emotions and secrets bare.
"That woman...she just kept smiling, it was almost creepy, you know? We were going to turn in for the night, and so we went to pay, but then she turns to us and smiles again. Then she says 'I know what you did' and opens her mouth and then..." the fat monk continued.
"And then?" the medicine man urged.
"Kita said that her teeth were sharp, and her mouth was crawling with spiders," Mitami offered for him. "We all thought he was drunk. But then we felt them crawling on us and we just knew we had to get as far away from there as we could."
"So you came back here?" Okuni was livid. There was something more to the story, something they were hiding.
"I didn't mean to do it," Kita said quietly, his already cherry-colored face somehow seeming redder. "I never meant to...hurt her."
"H-hurt her? What did you do?" the girl seemed horrified.
"Tell me what happened," the medicine seller urged calmly.
"She wouldn't stay away from me, so I...shoved her down. She..hit her head, and then she wouldn't move. I swear I didn't mean to! I didn't even care if I got a woman or not, I just wanted to get away from her!"
So absorbed in his tale was Okuni that she did not see the barrier of salt slowly shifting. The charms had all bled out. Abruptly, the pounding stopped.
"You killed her," she said in disbelief.
"No! No! I didn't mean to!" the man all but sobbed. "I didn't mean to!"
The medicine seller, however, had not failed to notice his barriers steadily being broken down. As the last of the salt cleared away, breaking the line, his eyes widened a fraction. A few of the scales on the floor tilted to the left.
"It's here. Get away from the doors!"
Okuni, still pressed against the door to the heiden, did not know if he was referring to those or the other doors. However, she wasn't willing to find out, and so retreated so that she stood next to him in the center of the room. The other two monks did the same, expressions of terror on their faces.
"Kita!" Mitami called. "Come over here!"
"I didn't mean to!" Kita continued to cry. "I didn't mean to!"
"The...the roof!" Okuni gasped, pointing up towards the spider webs.
Indeed, it seemed to be peeling away, the wood splintering as something from the outside pulled apart the wood. A sudden loud, piercing shriek filled the air, the unearthly noise stopping Kita's whimpering as he stared up above him in terror. Before their eyes, the wood cracked away the rest of the way, and a torrent of rain poured into the shrine as the roof was torn away. A long string of silk pulled Kita up into the darkness, not even leaving him time to scream. The only indication that he had even been there was the stream of blood that sprayed down with the rain.
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They had to retreat into the heiden. As much as Okuni hated to defile the sanctity of the shrine for fear of what would happen, they had little choice. The storm roared even louder than before with the roof of the haiden gone. Okuni was shockingly calm this time, seemingly unaffected by the death as she watched the medicine seller paste more charms over the doors.
She had only been in the hall once, to clean. It was close to the honden, so she didn't really want to get too close. There was another set of doors separating them from the innermost part of the shrine, but at the rate they were going, they'd have to retreat even deeper within.
"Stranger, I don't suppose that was it, was it?" she asked.
"No," he replied. "That was not the Makoto. There is something else. And those two have yet to speak." he said, glancing at the remaining two monks.
By then, Mitami had broken down into near hysteria. He alternated between horrified muttering and laughter. Cautiously, Okuni approached him, and heard him murmuring.
"I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have done it. My fault...I brought this down upon us."
"Mitami-san," Okuni began carefully. "What shouldn't you have done?"
"H-haha...we defiled them, you know. We sold some of them, too!" he cackled. "They were so easy to con. Just a few sweet words and they crawled after me."
"Wh-what?"
"All of them. They never went home." Mitami smiled.
"No...no it can't be..." Okuni whispered. "You...you told me they left. That they...oh great kami..."
"Hmm," the medicine seller looked at the sword's figure-head. "There's more to it, is there not?"
At that, he looked to Nishi, who had so far been rather silent. Quite a change from earlier, when he'd been doing little but throwing around accusatory phrases. He glared at the medicine seller, though the latter seemed completely unaffected by it.
"Nishi-san...?" Okuni spoke.
"Please tell us all that you know," the medicine seller asked of him.
The corrupt monk stared back at him, not budging at all. But then the banging started up again. The jorōgumo had returned. Mitami was no use to them, having broken down into hysteria. Over and over again, he muttered that he should have died, that he shouldn't have done 'it,' that he should die. At the rate things were going, that wasn't too far off from happening. Okuni marveled at how quickly things had gone to hell. And how strange it was that it all seemed to be linked to the medicine seller's arrival. She felt a bit sickened at her own calmness, staring at the two monks through her dark bangs. She felt somehow that she should be a bit more frightened, but some small part of her was glad they were getting what they deserved. She tried desperately to shake her own wicked thoughts.
The pounding was louder now, and like before, the charms had started to bleed their ink. Okuni grew panicked. If it got in again...
"Please," she pleaded. "Please, you must know something."
At long last, Nishi closed his eyes, releasing a breath.
"Very well..." he said reluctantly. "I will tell you..."
The lady shrinekeeper prayed that this would reveal something, anything that would help the medicine seller rid them of the mononoke.
"It longs for revenge," the monk said.
The teeth on the sword's figure-head clicked together.
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Only one note this chapter:
The monks; Higashi was the "prideful" monk who was killed last time. Nishi is the "angry" monk, Mitami is the "handsome" monk, and the fat monk is Kita. So, with that, let's keep on goin'!
