"A mononoke." Seijiro looked less than impressed. "This sounds as preposterous as the mountain god growing angry."
"They're real and very dangerous!" Kayo insisted. "They're creatures born of negative human emotions and if he doesn't put them to rest, they'll keep making things worse!" She jabbed a finger at the medicine seller who busied himself with staring up the mountain. He seemed to be intently at different locations since they had arrived at the town. "What are you looking at?"
He didn't reply at first, causing Kayo's skin to crawl. They were outside on a mountain sandwiched between mudslides and a ravine with mists and an oncoming rainstorm threatening to make things worse. None of this really felt like an ideal situation.
"The tremors have quieted," he said, extending his hand. The taima sword heeded his silent call, flying from the house to his hand. He rested it on his shoulder, turning back to the collection of farmers. Someone had caused a mononoke to be brought into this small farming town. It wasn't that big and nearly the entire town was now taking shelter behind the cliffside. Someone had to talk, though it was likely that they'd all start screaming at each other again like they had in the forest.
Seijiro eyed the medicine seller suspiciously. This strange man was coming into town claiming that a mono-whatever was causing mudslides. He certainly didn't look like a shrine priest or a monk. This was about as believable as angering a mountain god. "Well if anything is causing them, it's Masa, not some personified emotion!"
"This again!" Masa huffed. "First, you blame Tokubei and now it's my fault?"
"You're the only one whose farm hasn't been affected!" one of the townsmen accused.
"You're cursed!" another one claimed. "Ever since you started tending to the shrine!"
The medicine seller stood calmly with the taima sword, listening to the farmers argue amongst themselves fueled by strong emotions. Any one of them could've been the source of the mononoke, particularly given the damage the town had taken due to the mudslides.
The town was rather high up the mountain, one of the larger and steeper ones in the area. It took him and Kayo a great deal of effort to scale the mountain paths. It was the best route across to the next region unless they wanted to walk around the mountain. That just seemed ridiculous, especially with small towns along the way that were good for supplies and business. And sometimes mononoke.
Many of the small communities they had passed through were doing reasonably well until they reached this one. Mud had buried half the town and damaged farms on the other. Masa's farm was indeed one of two which hadn't been touched, though that was a benefit of the terrain. The two farms were situated close to the cliffside that protected them from the mudslide in the forest.
"Everything went wrong after the bridge went out!" Masa shot back.
The medicine seller glanced between the pair of arguing farmers. The bridge went out a week ago. The earthquakes began a week ago. The timing matched up far too well to be coincidence. Whatever happened on that bridge seemed to be the triggering effect. While the original mudslide was likely a natural occurrence due to recent rains, the subsequent ones didn't appear to be so.
"What happened when the bridge went out?" the medicine seller interrupted their bickering. "Did anyone…" he glanced at all the farmers who had gathered, wondering if he'd get a straight answer at this point, "...die?"
That garnered their attention.
"No one would've been at the bridge that night," one of the farmers assured him. "The winds were too bad with the storm!"
"Didn't Tokubei cross the bridge?" another one questioned.
"He left that afternoon," Masa said. "He would've been long gone before the bridge snapped and no one else is missing at the moment."
"Good riddance," Seijiro scoffed. "Pity he didn't take that mudslide curse with him."
"How dare you!" Masa seethed. "He didn't cause the mudslides at all!"
"Maybe you did," Seijiro insisted.
"I'm not a mountain god!" she hissed. "I only want to honor ours to bring a large harvest again! Surely you don't want to starve, do you, Seijiro?!"
Seijiro scoffed. "You have the only working farm now! You and that sister of yours!"
And there they went again. Kayo clamped her hands over her ears for a moment. They were bickering over something ridiculous when a mononoke was here somewhere. She glanced at the medicine seller. He didn't seem worried but he was often the epitome of calm when a battle wasn't ensuing. Arguments didn't seem to faze him at all.
"We're really not getting anywhere," Kayo frowned.
"Troublesome, isn't it?" the medicine seller agreed.
His attention shifted to a flock of birds screaming angrily as they flew out of the forest further up the mountains. Another flock flitted off in a hurry. It was just like before when they were in the bamboo forest. Something was up there and disturbing the normal forest creatures.
A loud rumbling noise soon followed, interrupting the argument between the farmers. Kayo leapt, clinging to the medicine seller as the noise grew louder and began shaking the ground, rattling doors and windows that somehow remained standing.
"That's not an earthquake!" Kayo yelped, burying her face into his back.
"It is not," the medicine seller agreed.
Kayo peered cautiously out from behind his shoulder as he turned to face the mountain slope. "What could be that large? A fallen kami? Can they turn into mononoke?"
"It is possible. However, there are few creatures who could grow large enough to cause such noise," he reasoned calmly. Extending his arm, he used the taima sword to point upward. "The birds. They are flying away angrily as if suddenly disturbed. While there are earthquakes, they are not common in this region. Something is causing them."
Kayo watched as another flock of birds flew away and settled on the opposite side of the ravine. She didn't like the idea of a fallen kami mononoke. She also didn't like the idea that a mononoke could grow large enough to cause mudslides and disturb flocks of birds. She gripped the shoulders of his kimono tightly.
Masa watched the birds, staring at them in concern. They flew across the ravine, settling on the trees on the other side. "There's nothing bothering them over there. Whatever it is, it's only on this side of the ravine."
"Great, now we have a giant thing up there? What next?! This is ridiculous!" Seijiro scoffed. "All just fabrications to cover up your curse!"
The medicine seller turned quickly, jabbing the taima sword at the gathered group. There weren't many people in this village. Someone was linked to this mononoke's truth and reason. "What truly happened a week ago when the bridge went out?"
"How should I know?" Seijiro folded his arms. "It was an old bridge anyway."
The medicine seller glanced over the gathered farmers. They had grown silent despite the looming threat of something large in the forest uphill. How quick they were to accuse yet when the questions were turned, they had little to say.
Which naturally indicated they had plenty.
Kayo loosened her grip on his kimono, setting her feet back down on the ground. She didn't like this waiting business outside, though he was an absolute master at it.
Inside was one thing. He could board up the place with an excessive amount of ofuda, they could set up scales to track the mononoke, and they could wait for someone to speak. He used the technique a few times before, patiently waiting with the taima sword between his hands. And they always did. This was outside with the threat of drowning in mud and now everyone wanted to clam up. She didn't like the idea of waiting with mud and something big looming above them in the forest.
Kayo shuddered as another flock of birds flew from the forest above. They didn't need the scales. They had birds act as the bells, and that unsettled her. Something that big was disturbing them. "M-miss Masa, do you know what might've happened that day when the bridge fell?"
"I was trying to get Tokubei to stay home," the farmer replied. "There were dark clouds approaching and I was worried about a storm. He left that afternoon while I tended to protecting the crops from the rain. He wanted to sell as much as he could for repairs for the town."
"What has he done for this town lately other than drink too much sake?" Seijiro scoffed.
"You're the drunk, Seijiro!" Masa seethed. She drew her hand back to slap him but quickly turned as the rumbling and screaming birds echoed across the town once again. Something was up there on the hillside, something large and brown careening down towards them. "What the- is that mud?! Take cover!"
The townspeople didn't question the notion, diving for the cliffside along with Masa, Kayo, and the medicine seller, the last one more stepping over than diving like the rest. While they didn't want to talk, none of them particularly wanted to be buried alive in mud. The rumbling increased, growing louder and louder and sounding more like a thousand feet beating the ground instead of an earthquake.
"That's... not a normal earthquake," Kayo clung to the medicine seller's sleeve.
"It is not." He watched the cliff above. To get buried under a mudslide here would be rather unfortunate yet the movement of the brown mass on the hillside looked like anything but mud.
The beating sound grew louder and louder until something passed over them, blacking out the overcast sky. A massive brown body with a thousand equally massive feet poured down from the cliffside above, trampling several of the houses before ducking into the ravine.
"That….." Kayo stared. "That…. Looked like a giant centipede!"
"Close," the medicine seller listened as the rumbling continued in the ravine, growing quiet as if the creature simply stood still instead of disappearing into the darkness below. "It is an oomukade."
The taima sword chattered in confirmation.
This could prove difficult.
...
Author's musings
An oomukade is indeed a giant centipede yokai that lives on top of mountains! It's a vicious bastard normally, and as a mononoke? It could only get worse. How is the medicine seller going to handle a giant centipede mononoke when he learns its truth and reason? This is indeed going to be troublesome.