The Eyes of the Snowstorm
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of Breath of the Rifleman! We've got a duel of sharpshooters in this chapter, so hopefully you'll all enjoy it! And as always a shout out to Noble Eight, LoneTaker and groche9655 for their input and to you, my fellow readers, for your continued support. Now, since we've no guest review questions to answer this week, let's hop aboard and get to the chapter!
Wakkanai Coast: Midday
"Yae," said a seemingly distant voice as the Matagi girl struggled to open her eyes. "Yae," it repeated once more, louder this time as an irritating ringing sound started going off in her head. "YAE!"
"Fuck, what!" exclaimed Yae as she finally managed to open her eyes and get a look around at what was happening. Gyomei and Isosange were nowhere to be found, but when she looked to her right, there was Subaru, popping up to fire a shot off before ducking back down right as a bullet came whizzing over his head. 'Oh right, we're in trouble again,' Yae realized as her memory quickly came back to her.
Someway, somehow the person firing at them had managed to shoot the cap off one of Subaru's larger grenades. Whether it was luck or not was a matter of debate for another time, but the result was clear: Subaru had cut his own rope line and had thrown the grenade backwards before leaping forward to avoid the blast. Yae had tried to follow in the same direction that Gyomei jumped with Isosange, but she was too slow, and the rope length slipped out before she could fully secure it. So she wound up being thrown down a hillside into a mound of snow drifts near the coast along with the Rifleman.
"We're a bit pinned down at the moment," said Subaru as he fired a blind shot over the bank before moving a couple feet right as a bullet ripped through the snowbank he'd just been at. "Judging by the swearing you're doing can I assume you're still in one piece?" Yae's responsed to this was to check her rifle before popping up and firing a quick shot of her own before ducking back down.
"Does that answer your question?" Replied Yae as another bulled went whizzing overhead. "My brain's still pounding in my skull a bit and my ears are ringing, but I'm nowhere near dead. Though the real question is why this shooter wants us dead?"
"This is just a theory on my part," said Subaru as they began crawling around to the left, "but I think our shooter might also be the demon we're looking for."
"What makes you think that?" Questioned Yae as she pulled out an extra mitten and put it on the end of her rifle before slowly inching it around the snowbank that was their cover. It was shot off as soon as it was exposed, giving Subaru the opportunity to leap up and fire a few rounds into the distance. While he didn't hear any impacts at first, on his final shot the bullet glanced off of something that sounded like wood. He didn't have long to ponder what it was before ducking back down again to avoid the bullet that went by his head, the heat trail close enough for him to feel on the back of his neck. What followed after that, was the sudden picking up of the snowy weather once again.
"That's what makes me think this is our demon," said Subaru, "I've been turning it over in my head for a bitt and what I noticed was the weather seemed to calm down before the shooting started."
"What in the world kind of demon uses a rifle at long distance to hunt it's prey?" Yae wondered aloud.
Several Yards from Shore: At the Same Time
"UNBE-FUCKING-LIEVABLE!" exclaimed the demon as she sat in her improvised sniper's nest, a small fishing boat. "How, how after five hundred near perfect headshots did I miss?! Is that fucker one of those demon slayer pricks I've been hearing about?" It was a valid question for the demon whose name was formerly Shirou Yukiko. She'd been practicing with her rifle for years even before becoming a demon and her skills had only become sharper after her transformation.
She adjusted some of her grey hair before peering back through the sights of her Arisaka type 30 rifle in an attempt to spot her quarry, the boy in the traveling cloak with the 1895 Winchester. Her outfit was much the same as it had been while she was human, a dark coat and grey leggings while her short hair was being, mostly, contained by a type of beanie hat on her head. As for the reason to her relocation out in the ocean, it had been the result of those other two female ice demons. Powerful as her shooting skills were, there was just nothing her gun or blood demon art, whiteout, could do to actually hurt them.
So, in order to get back to her shooting she'd commandeered a local fishing boat and had been using it to snipe any passersby for the last day or so. Both demons and human soldiers had been wandering around, so she'd been able to get in the occasional bit of practice until that group showed up and she missed! "Come on you prick, show me your head again so I can put a hole in it. No one breaks my streaks, and you won't get so close to hitting me a second time."
She didn't want to take another glance at the side of the boat where that last bullet had grated off of. Yukiko had reacted instinctively when that happened and used her whiteout ability to hide her location once again with a snowstorm. It was a little annoying, but she could wait until those two attempted to make a run for it, thinking the storm would keep them safe from her vision. Oh how wrong they'd be.
Back in the Snow Mounds
"So where are Isosange and Gyomei?" Questioned Yae as she and Subaru reloaded their rifles, "I haven't seen them since we went rolling down that hill."
"It's likely they've continued on towards the lighthouse," surmised Subaru, "Gyomei may have already sensed it, but out there in that snow cloud is the ocean. Some way, somehow we're being shot at from the water and neither Gyomei's flail nor Iso's arrows can reach that far."
"Shit don't tell me," said Yae as she remembered an important detail about the lighthouse's occupants, "that couple maintaining the lighthouse, they had one or two fishing boats. They aren't the most sturdy things against stormy seas but they work well enough for choppy and calm waters."
"Oh wonderful," remarked Subaru, "trying to hit something on the shifting waves is only one of the most difficult types of shooting out there, so we shouldn't have too much of a problem."
"Then it's a lucky thing we got out here before high tide started to hit," said Yae as she popped up and took a shot out into the storm before ducking back down quickly to avoid the almost immediate retaliation shot.
"It's probably best that we don't just keep shooting blindly," said Subaru as he checked his ammo stores, "I depleted a good number of my rounds back at the military base and it'd be a bad strategy to wait for this demon to run out of ammo with as good as their aim's been so far."
"Well we can't just sit here the whole time either," said Yae, "if that demon gets bored and starts shooting at the big guy or Isosange, they'll probably get hit."
"That's why we'll keep their attention on us," said Subaru as he readjusted his position into a crouch, "there's a clump of trees over that way with enough foliage that I might be able to peer out and not get my head shot off. Problem is, I'll need some cover fire."
"Well thankfully I packed some extra Nagant ammo that was available at the base," said Yae, "but the problem with me trying to cover you, is that I'll still be firing off randomly and that could get one or both of us killed."
"Not necessarily," said Subaru as he took a low running stance, "I got something of a trick here for getting a fair distance quickly. Right after I move, you look and wait for the shots and then start firing yourself."
"That honestly still sounds like a bad idea," said Yae with a sigh, "but I guess it's the only one we have right now, so go for it. I'll be ready."
"Right then," said Subaru as he focused on his Total Concentration Breathing, "Breath of the Rifleman Fourth Form: Mountain Stride!" A good bit of snow was kicked up as he launched himself out of the cover of the snowbank and dashed towards the trees and bushes. Thankfully, his assumption that he'd be the first one shot at was right as he felt a couple of bullets go whizzing by behind him before hearing the retort and cycling bolt of Yae's rifle in response. Despite her cover fire, however, bullets were still being fired at the Matagi.
'What in the world is this demon's problem,' thought Subaru, 'Yae should be homing in on the muzzle flash and firing in that general direction, so why isn't the demon taking cover out of habit? Did I piss it off somehow or am I just that desirable of a target?!' Whatever the case, Subaru decided now was a good time to execute another part of the plan he'd kept in reserve and spun his left leg around, kicking up a thin wall of white powder between him and the shooter before leaping into the bushes.
Thankfully, the demon hadn't tracked him so well as a bullet ripped through the airborne snow just behind him. The Matagi then took up his new position, trying not to shake the branches or leaves too much to prevent giving his spot away. He hoped Yae would figure out that he made it by the lack of a dead body in the snow. 'Now, maybe we can actually start trying to find our sniper,' he thought as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder and began scanning the coast with his eyes.
Yukiko's Location: At the Same Time
"Mother of fucker, just, GAAAAAAAHHHH!" Cursed Yukiko as she punched and broke off part of the fishing boat's seat, "now I know that guy is one of those slayers. No puny ass human I've been shooting at so far has been able to move that fast." She continued to growl at the fact that she'd missed her target yet again before taking a few deep breaths to settle herself. 'Calm down, Yukiko, remember your training,' she thought as she kicked up the wind for the storm a bit to throw off her target's aim while she took a moment to figure some things out.
'That boy in the cloak is definitely a slayer, but he's pretty much cornered himself,' the sniper surmised, 'that snow drift and those trees and bushes are about the only cover out there. Once he tries to move any further left, he'll be fully exposed along the coastline. If he realizes this, he'll stay put within that area and if he does move again, it'll be back towards the snow drift. Bad luck for them, rolling into an area with so little cover.'
A smirk formed on her features then as she started thinking on where to begin on probing the brush her target was currently hiding in. Should she poke and prod at it with a few, well-placed shots or fire into it randomly and at different intervals in hopes that he'll believe she's catching onto him and flush him out. 'Oh decisions decisions,' she thought maliciously as she loaded a few new rounds and closed the bolt on her rifle.
Back with Subaru and Yae
If there's one thing that was beaten into Subaru's head multipe times over the years about hunting, it was that one needed to have patience. And now that he had an actual view of the snowshrouded ocean in front of him, he was slowly moving his eyes back and forth in search of any kind of movement he could find. He was also waiting to see if his opponent had the same level of patience as him or if they'd just start shooting randomly into the thicket. For obvious reasons the hunter wasn't terribly keen on the latter as there was always the possibility his foe might get lucky with one of their shots.
Adding on to that was the fact that the longer this contest went on, the lower the sun would get until visibility was practically nonexistant. "Hey, Subaru," said Azakeru in his mind, "you need a hand right now?"
"If you're saying you know where the demon is, I'd love to hear about it," replied Subaru while just barely shifting his rifle in his continued search.
"I can get a general location on it," said Azakeru, "but my blood demon art is at it's most effective when looking at attacks, if you recall."
"So, we're only going to be able to locate this one when they're about to shoot at us," said Subaru.
"More like when they're about to shoot in this direction," said Azakeru, "the problem is we'll probably have to do some baiting in order for it to work."
"Spectacular," said the Matagi, "but it's not like this was going to be an easy fight in the first place. So let's start brainstorming." The sound of a bullet hitting the tree above him halted such a plan as he realized what had just happened. His opponent was now firing at where they believed he was currently at, and as the proceeding rounds at different intervals showed, the sniper was just guessing.
"Congratulations," said Azakeru, "we now know which one of you has more patience."
"That's definitely a start," Subaru thought back as Azakeru began using her blood demon art. He could see the wind path of the bullets now and where they were coming from, but for some reason, the wind hadn't quite died down yet. "The sniper's still using it's blood demon art, it'll be too easy to miss with so much obstruction in the bullet's path."
"Any bright ideas for making this bitch drop the windy part?" Questioned Azakeru.
"If I can signal Yae, I might have one," said Subaru, "this sniper is a damn good shot, but an amateur hunter. If we do this right, they'll let the wind down again the moment they see their target in order to ensure it's a hit."
"And what'll we use for the target?" Questioned Azakeru in his mind.
"Why we'll give this demon the target it wants," replied Subaru with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
A Little While Later: Yukiko's Boat
"Come the fuck on already, move," groaned the sniper demon in annoyance. While she hadn't been able to keep a fair track of time for a while now, she was certain it had been over an hour by this point. An hour of practically no movement whatsoever from either of her targets. She'd even fired a couple of shots into the thicket, purposely aiming a little high in hopes that her target might stumble or lose their nerve and make a break back towards the snowbank.
"Geez, you shit eating pricks are lucky my aim's apparently been a little off today," she continued to grumble, "the last dozen or so folks that've come by here went down easy or panicked and ran in one direction too slowly to reach cover in time. But I guess thats one of the things that sets you slayers apart from even regular soldiers, you don't die as easily." Of course, the thought also occurred to her that if she managed to kill these slayers then that meant she was getting even better than before. "And even if they didn't always like to admit it, I was the most talented in the family."
Yes, if what she still vaguely remembered was correct, she'd been something of a sharpshooting prodigy growing up. She'd discovered her talent one day when her two brothers had been practicing with their own rifles. They were a military family with their sole parent, their father, being a soldier and her siblings being well on the way to becoming soldiers themselves. Being the sole daughter, she'd always been told that she shouldn't touch guns as they'd probably be too heavy and dangerous for her.
But she'd watched those rifles being cleaned, maintained, reloaded and fired for years. She knew the movements and managed to convince one of her brothers to let her take a shot on a bet. She honestly forgot at this point what they'd put up as part of the bet as the moment she shouldered the rifle, taken aim and fired, everything had changed for her. Target after target was more or less hit in the middle with varying distances and conditions proving only a minor problem at first.
They thought they were in big trouble when Father revealed he'd been watching the whole time, having gotten home earlier than expected that day. Instead, he'd praised her ability and told her two brothers they'd best improve or Yukiko would catch up to them in no time. The implication hadn't escaped Yukiko at the time that he was saying that to motivate her brothers to practice harder, but he'd given her permission that day to practice with a rifle of her own. It was the day after that she received her prized Arisaka rifle.
Her drive to master sharpshooting also took off that day as she tried to find time to practice at least once or twice a week. It would become her favorite past time as she shot with her brothers, her Father, and even by herself eventually once everyone was certain she wouldn't shoot herself on accident. In just a matter of weeks, she was easily shooting as well as her brothers and before long she surpassed them. Soon enough, even Father couldn't outshoot her and was forced to admit that perhaps her talent might be wasted if she stayed at home.
'What I wouldn't give to see the looks on their faces now,' thought Yukiko as she suddenly spotted movement from the thicket. She refocused her aim down the sights and readied to take the shot when a thought suddenly occurred to her. 'One of them used a baiting tactic before, probably the guy in the cloak. If I just shoot now and it turns out to be another decoy trick, I'll be giving away my position. Damn, it sucks but I think I'll wait and see just a little bit longer.'
And waited she did, for at least a few minutes anyway as the thicket moved just a bit more and a cap became visible. Yukiko could feel her trigger finger itching at the sight, knowing her prey had to be close to there if so much movement was occurring. What finally sealed the deal and made her decide to shoot, was the sudden appearance of a rifle barrel through the thicket, something the Hunter would most definitely not use for a baiting tactic as he needed it to actually get her. So the sniper slowed her breathing and heartbeat like she'd been taught while looking down the sights of her Arisaka, the snowy winds stopping for the briefest of moments before she pulled the trigger.
The crack of the rifle could be heard over the coastline as the bullet impacted right beneath the area where the hat was, causing both it and a cloak to fall as the rifle slipped down as well. "Got you motherfu-HUH!" Her elation was quickly squelched by the sudden emergence of the other shooter from their snowbank hiding spot, rifle bared and at the ready as the bandana on their head flew off with the force of them breaking through the snow. Yukiko was quick to reaim her rifle at the other target, but her finger froze over the trigger when she caught a glimpse of long, black hair flowing in the icy wind. "You're a girl shooter, too," she thought aloud as the barrel of the Matagi girl's rifle flashed.
The next thing Yukiko knew, a rifle round had buried itself in her left arm, eliciting a cry of more surprise than pain as the sniper demon took aim again. But no sooner had she reshouldered her rifle than the hiding spot of the 'dead' slayer burst open to reveal that the Rifleman hadn't been hit at all. 'No way,' thought Yukiko in shock, 'he used sticks and branches to hold up both his outfit and his rifle while hiding right underneath it all! He risked getting hit just so the both of them could get a shot off at me!'
And shoot the slayer did with almost dead-on accuracy as the round buried itself in Yukiko's collar bone and caused her to fall back in the boat. "AH FUUUUUUUCK!" Swore the Sniper as she instinctively activated her whiteout ability again and covered her position with a small snowstorm. "That's such bullshit," she said as she tried working to get the bullet out of her wound, "how did that dipshit know I'd hesitate to shoot a girl with a gun?! Even I didn't know I'd hesitate! And why do these damn bullets burn so much?!"
It was a good question too. Unlike a lot of demons, she hadn't really been gorging herself on human flesh, preferring to grab the occasional snack when she actually felt hungry. This meant her regeneration was actually much slower in comparison to some demons but given her method of attacking from a distance she hardly suffered any real damage at all. But there was something different about these bullets, she could feel as well as smell it. 'Don't tell me,' she thought when she finally figured it out, 'they actually coated bullets with wisteria! I thought slayers only carried swords!'
She'd heard tell that demons could be poisoned with wisteria back when she was still human but given the rockhard skin some of her kind possessed, she'd figured bullets would be considered less effective against demons as they'd need to be shot in the eyes or other vulnerable body parts to do the most damage. But this Hunter must've figured out that there are also a lot of demons with less tough skin and had been taking advantage of that fact. "Alrigth then, now I'm pissed," said Yukiko as she managed to shift around, keeping a prone position on the boat as she tried to reorient herself. She didn't know how much wisteria was in those bullets or how much it would take to kill her, but she wasn't about to die without taking one of them with her.
At least, that had been her plan when something happened that even the two shooters on the beach didn't seem to expect. A rotating, bright light suddenly shone several feet in the air and a short distance away. "Heh, do they really think they can spot me more easily with that piece of-what the fuck?!" Her boat suddenly rocked as something seemed to run into it. At first, she thought it was another ice chunk she'd accidentally formed in the course of using her blood demon arts.
Thanks to the wind her ability generated and the distance she was at, she hadn't been too worried about any noise that might come from her little fishing boat hitting an ice chunk. Except when she looked over the side of the boat, she wasn't greeted with ice chunks but several pairs of eyes surrounding her on either side. "Are you fucking kidding me, what is th-AAAAAAAHHHH!" She didn't have time to raise her rifle as her small fishing boat was assaulted by the marine life and quickly broke apart under the sudden onset of massive weight. All Yukiko felt after that, was pain from being torn to shreds, unable to breath from the water filling her lungs and the extreme cold of the ocean.
It wasn't fair, this whole situation was just utter unfairness like the rest of her life had been up to that point. Sure, she'd been blessed with great talent with a rifle but got stuck with the misfortune of being born as a girl. No matter how good her shooting had been at the time, she'd been turned down by the Japanese military repeatedly while her brothers went on to join her Father as soldiers. It took several demonstrations of her shooting skill before she was finally allowed to take a test that would allow her to join the military.
But it wasn't just a shooting test, in fact shooting was only a small part of it. The rest of the tests required a good degree of physical ability like rope climbing, carrying heavy loads and running with full equipment on. In all that time she hadn't even considered building up her strength and endurance much beyond what she needed to do her chores and basic manual labor. As a result, her test just wound up being one miserable, nearly complete failure. What was worse, word of her failure to get into the military got back to her home village.
Everyone acted like she should've known better, that war was for men and not little girls. But what was wrong with her wanting to help her family?! With all of them in the military she'd be home by herself for days or even weeks at a time. No one would help her train or get stronger because they said she'd probably blown her one and only chance with that test and that she could probably better serve her family by marrying a strong man. The last straw was when a visiting, drunk soldier stopped by her house saying that he'd help her get into the military if she did a few 'special favors' for him.
She'd responded by picking up the nearest heavy rock she could find and beating his brains out in a fit of rage before taking his equipment and her Arisaka rifle then fleeing the village. She'd spend the next several weeks shooting criminals, undesirables, and drunk bastards while moving North to avoid any possible pursuit. The small workings of a plan had formed in her mind by that point and it was simply this: kill as many bastards, invaders and annoying pricks she could find until her kill count reached up to 1,000. The military would have to accept someone with an accomplishment like that as her talent would be undeniable then.
What she hadn't known at the time of starting that plan, was that her talent was already of interest to someone. One night while she was looking for potential targets, a man with oni horns had appeared and offered her a blue flower with the words: 'would you like to be a little stronger?' Obviously, she'd tried shooting him and was shocked to see that it failed to kill the stranger. But it did accomplish one thing, she had actual proof that what he was offering was genuine and took it with little hesitation.
She'd become a demon then, one of three Yukki Onna's or 'snow women' that were now terrorizing the land of Hokkaido. For her part, she'd succeeded in carving five hundred notches in her rifle, each one for another target she'd dispatched. It wasn't until that damn rifle-toting slayer and girl Matagi that she'd actually missed. And now, here she was, lying on the freezing beach as the snowstorm cleared away with sea lions of all things chowing down on her limbs.
At least that's what they were doing until the shot of a revolver caused them all to scatter and flee back into the ocean. "Was that some of the local wildlife just now?" Questioned Subaru as he and Yae walked up to their broken opponent.
"Sea lions," explained Yae, "possibly Steller's Sea Lions or even that extra rare species thought to roam this part of the world."
"Do they usually attack people in packs?" Questioned Subaru as he kept his revolver trained on their foe while kicking away her rifle and grabbing the kodachi that had washed up next to the body. Her arms and legs had been torn up pretty badly and numerous teeth marks were in her side. But what was odd, was the shockingly slow rate of her regeneration. Perhaps it was the wisteria or perhaps she hadn't properly fed herself. Stranger still, her blood was blue as opposed to the usual red of other living creatures.
"I've never seen it happen," said Yae, "but this time of year is when they're supposed to be mating and they tend to use up a lot of energy on the journey here. It's quite likely that with the sudden and unnatural shift in the weather, their normal food sources became so scarce that they finally decided to eat the meatiest thing they could find."
"This is probably what our people mean when they say it's unwise to disturb the natural order of nature created by the spirits," mused Subaru.
"Such….bullshit," said the demon sniper suddenly and somewhat weakly, "you're a…girl hunter."
"You have some kind of a problem with that?" Questioned Yae, "you're a girl sniper."
"I just wanted…..to be a soldier," she said, "but I wasn't….strong enough. All I had….was my aim. And it wasn't enough…all because I….was a girl. Just so much…bullshit."
"Well you can't really join the military as a demon either," Subaru pointed out, "you'd be useless during the daytime and even if you succeeded at nighttime operations, they'd still shun you for eating human flesh."
"But I'd be with…..my father and brothers," said Yukiko, "that's all…..I really wanted. Everyone I've killed up to this point…was so I could prove I was…good enough."
"You'd have been the death of them," said Yae, "when the hunger got to be too great, you'd probably kill them like my father killed our family when he became a demon. Tell me, how many have you killed since becoming a demon?"
"The demon slayer here…would've been…..the five hundred and first," replied Yukiko. Subaru merely shook his head at hearing the number before speaking.
"Then you already crossed the line," he said, "you put more value on your own selfish desires than you did on the lives of people. Did you at least try to resist eating any of them?"
"I took a few bites of human….when I felt like it," replied Yukiko before coughing up a little blood as her body began to dissolve from the wisteria in her system, "I killed criminals, drunks, jackasses…and people that annoyed me in order to hone my skills. Its not like….I was gonna check every one…of them. I was just going for….difficult shots."
"And your assumption was that the military was gonna let you in once you got a high enough kill count," said Yae, "we're not at war right now, even if they're trying to start one on the mainland. My father may have praised my own hunting ability from time to time when he was alive, but he would've been appalled if I took more than I needed or killed simply to kill. Perhaps if you'd acted like a proper soldier in the first place, you'd be in the military now. And even failing that, you still might have found a place for your talent."
"Well isn't that…the usual shit," said Yukiko as she directed her gaze up towards the still cloudy sky, "you actually get what you want….then lose your whole family some time after becoming a hunter. And me….I still had my family and my talent…but it wasn't enough for me. I guess life had been fairer…than I realized. In the end…us boys and girls…should always remember…what we do have."
She closed her eyes then as her body dissolved completely and blew away with the Northern breeze. The hunter and slayer both let out a long sigh then before offering a quick prayer to the departed soul. The exhausted rifle beares then turned and headed towards the lighthouse, the way now clear of snow and wind as the light served as a guide in the coming darkness. There, they found Gyomei and Isosange, the ones who'd lit the rotating light, in one piece and patiently waiting for them. The rest of that day and night, not a flake of snow would be seen in that area. But the dreadful cold, still remained.
And so, the second of the three Yukki Onna's has fallen. All that remains, is the source of the cold. But first, our heroes need to take a moment and warm up again before heading back out into that mess. So, in the meantime, feel free to leave a comment or review about what you liked/disliked or if you've got any neat ideas for future chapters. Be sure to stop in next time as our heroes set out to locate the final source of Hokkaido's mysterious weather. 'Til then.
