Note: this case involves dismemberment. Nothing worse than the rest of my writing, I assure you. If this bothers you, skip chapters 9 and 10.
It was a severed head, tendrils of the neck muscles still partially attached but torn as if ripped apart by teeth. Part of the skull was missing with the ear still dangling as the river water lapped against it.
The people of this town weren't paranoid about outsiders. They were paranoid about this. There were some yokai that did feed on humans, but this one had crossed the line into mononoke status. If someone or something had created this mononoke, they certainly weren't talking. The entire town was shuttered.
Kayo had buried herself in the medicine seller's back. "This is as bad as that tatarimokke smearing samurai across a balcony!"
Genyosai hid his concern behind his fan, though his eyes staring at the severed head deceived his seemingly calm demeanor. He could only fathom what the pair had witnessed, only seeing some of it himself with the Ayakashi Sea. But that one trip was enough to tell him there was a lot more to the supernatural world than just stories and proclaiming that he could take down things that went bump in the night.
"It is the middle of the day, Miss Kayo," the medicine seller said. "Tatarimokke are nocturnal." Though he couldn't disagree that someone had been dismembered this time as well. Just in a river in broad daylight.
She gripped his kimono. That meant they had something mysterious on their hands. They often did, but this one ate people.
The medicine seller peered upstream. The blood had flown down the river, so whatever the source was, was located upstream. The river crossed through the entire town. The mononoke could be in town, hiding under a bridge perhaps, or further beyond that. He opened the top compartment, removing the taima sword and tucking it into his obi. "Our answers will lie upstream. Miss Kayo, I cannot carry both you and the medicine chest."
He had a point. Kayo cautiously released his kimono, trying not to look at the head or the bones that got stuck on the shoreline. "I-i'll get the chest." Sure it was heavy, but at least she was able to grip onto something to calm her nerves. She had to get used to carrying something as she wanted her own stash of wares, though now wasn't the time to think about that. Nor was now the time to think about that head staring back at her from the shoreline with only one eye and half an ear.
The medicine seller peered at the head, considering if this was an attack or a feeding. "Mr. Genyosai, do you know of any protection chants?"
The ascetic was somewhat surprised by the question. "But of course! Though why not use all the things in that box?"
"If this thing is indeed aquatic as I suspect, ofuda will only have so much use," the medicine seller replied. That naturally didn't mean he wouldn't have some other trick in one of those drawers. "And if a concoction is required, it may take time."
"Ah, like the light bomb!" Genyosai realized.
The medicine seller grinned. He was catching on. "Exactly."
He hooked a finger, and a single scale floated out one of the drawers, landing on his fingers. While he could observe quite a bit, that only went so far. If this mononoke were aquatic as he suspected or hiding within the shadows of a bridge, he'd need the scales to be an extra set of eyes. He glanced at Genyosai who didn't question the scale, but the ascetic had seen the medicine seller work before.
Yet the distance between the two bridges along the river proved rather uneventful. So did the next bridge and the next until they had reached the edge of town.
"Well that was rather unsuccessful," Genyosai frowned.
"Do you think it's hiding?" Kayo questioned.
"Perhaps," the medicine seller said, peering at the river. Something was stuck in the grass on the shoreline, something that did not belong. Carefully he stepped down the riverbank, plucking something from the grass.
Kayo shrieked. "Is that a finger?!"
"It is," he confirmed, pinching it between his own fingers. It looked like it had been chewed off by particularly sharp teeth. It was hard to tell if it had been removed when the person was alive or not at the time. Though only the finger had survived, just like the head. Perhaps it was the body that was the feast, not the extremities.
He dropped the finger back down into the grass, washing his hand off in the river before standing back up. He peered upstream a bit more, finding two more fingers further up. He peered up at the sky, frowning a bit as the evening hues began to set in. "How troublesome. We'll need a lantern. Miss Kayo, if you would."
Kayo set the chest down, rummaging for the phosphorus and a paper lantern. She was trying to remember the full recipe for the lantern, a specific type of lantern that could illuminate that which could not be seen. If something was in that forest, she didn't want to be caught unaware. She popped the lantern open, rubbing the mixture in and feeling proud as it lit up.
She peered at the medicine seller as he observed some other dismembered something or other on the shore further up. She didn't like the idea of going into a forest with a potential man-eating mononoke somewhere in the darkness. She wasn't sure which was worse: that or the town they left behind. They were hiding something. She was certain of it.
She grasped the lantern as he slung the medicine chest over his shoulders. She stuck close to him as the sunlight over the forest began to dim.
The medicine seller placed a hand on the tree as they passed, dropping an ofuda on the trunk. He doubted it would help catch the mononoke, but at least it might delay it. They hadn't yet come across the mononoke but they had followed the trail of human breadcrumbs. It started out with just a few bones here and there, then a head bobbed up and down in the river, floating past them. Another head and a few fingers floated by.
"I have heard a story about places like this before," Genyosai said. "They say once there was a mysterious forest much like this. And in that forest existed a powerful yokai that could control the weather! Some say that she was a fallen rain goddess who simply wished to be left alone! But anyone who lurked into her domain,-"
"-Are you trying to scare me?!" Kayo hissed at him.
"Well I'm pretty sure we're not encountering a fallen weather yokai," Genyosai pointed out. "Besides, an ame-onna is said to carry children away, not consume fully-grown people."
Kayo jabbed a finger at him. "Now's really not the time!"
"It's also not raining," Genyosai added.
"Sh," the medicine seller hushed them both before Kayo had a chance to shout at him again.
"It wasn't that bad of a story," Genyosai frowned.
"Sh," he repeated. "I hear something." He could hear it a bit more clearly now that they had stopped their chatter. It sounded like something was blocking the river up ahead.
Kayo would've clung to him had it not been for the lantern and the medicine chest. "Y-you're not going towards it are you? No wait, of course you are."
He held out his hand for the lantern.
"Oh no no no, I'm not standing in this dark forest alone with Mr. Genyosai, the inappropriately timed story-teller!" Kayo grasped the lantern tightly in her hands.
Genyosai huffed. "Well I'm coming too!"
They traveled silently further upstream, Kayo quickly clamping a hand over her mouth. "What is that smell? It smells rotten…. No… don't tell me…."
The medicine seller pushed some brush aside, finding the source of the smell. Strewn across the stream was a pile of bodies, some freshly dead but others appeared to have been there for some time. Many of them had ropes bound around their wrists and ankles. The river water lapped against the bodies, wedging through and continuing downstream towards the town.
Kayo clung to the medicine seller, careful not to crush the lantern or look. It was like Ichi in the teahouse, abandoned and dead but this time a lot of Ichis in a river.
Genyosai attempted to hide his disgust behind a fan. "Could this be the source of the heads and fingers?"
"Not directly. These do not appear to be chewed," the medicine seller replied.
"A feeding ground?" Genyosai covered his nose, confused at how the medicine seller wasn't about to wretch from the smell.
"No. The mononoke's truth," the medicine seller reasoned. "These bodies were purposely abandoned here, bound and left for dead. Beaten, battered, discarded. One of them passed the grudge and became a mononoke." He peered back at the town no longer visible between the trees. "The secret of this town. They are the cause, the truth of the mononoke's birth."
The sword chattered in confirmation.
...
Author's musings
Well this is certainly a fun time, isn't it?
For a reminder, Ichi was the eldest sister at the tea house in the first fic, "Black Magic Horror Tales". She was killed and left rotting in a back room to make the hinnagami.
Also the tale about the ame-onna that Genyosai tells is the legend of the fallen rain goddess. I considered having an ame-onna as a mononoke in this story but I didn't include her, so Genyosai talks about her instead!