Chapter 3, Destiny by Design
The visitors came back after a full day.
Emma wasn't really sure they would—one way or another, but apparently they were really stuck in this realm. The reason for that was actually pretty clear on the object involved, but not quite on the subjects.
Those little thoughts came across her elderly mind, that previously berated itself for forgetting to bring the rice balls she had prepared. She was halfway to the dilapidated temple then, so now she was heading back to her chamber in the castle that had mostly been demolished. She was following the scent it should make when she didn't find the items in her room—which was not supposed to be this strong.
What she found instead was Hideyoshi and Kamado, done with their exploration and traced their way back to the temple.
"Oh? Still lingering around, young ones?" Emma asked.
She was not keen on sharing her knowledge just yet with them. They have yet to prove themselves worthy of the insight—the shiftling still needing guidance about the newly acquired tool, and Kamado hiding something.
Emma only stopped walking for the briefest moment to greet them, then continued her search for the forgotten item.
The other two came after her in curiosity. Barely any soul left in the land of Ashina, so seeing her wandering inside of the desolated place would change their mind on thinking this place as just another ruin.
The truth was, some mysterious figures still wandered around Ashina. From the look of it, they had yet found the less hostile ones.
Emma turned her head sideways, and addressed Hideyoshi who was walking right behind her in this hallway, "How do you find the replacement for your arm, samurai?"
Kamado was the one to reply, on account of Hideyoshi not speaking a single word for some reason.
"It had to be working brilliantly! Hideyoshi held off a giant bull that attacked us. And her thrust charge to finish it off stroke true."
Emma used what little left of her imagination to get a mental image out of that description. What came up in her mind was that the ronin was only using her prosthetic mostly for swordsmanship. She had yet realised to use even the first and easiest to use of its built-in tools.
She hummed, unimpressed. "You're a long way from getting the most out of it, Hideyoshi. Remember that it functions as a shinobi tool as well."
Emma knew, from those times Hideyoshi spent in her recovering days to make some things out of the ordinary, that the samurai woman had advanced shinobi training. And then some. She was also meddling with omnyo magic.
Anyway, the shiftling seemed to be having some issues with mobility.
The way she carried herself with a display of strength and confidence implied that she would charge into a battle at every given opportunity. While a good initiation would still require subtlety, her options seemed to be limited by the availability of ladder or ramps to get high ground advantage.
She was no shinobi, but her apparent training seemed to suggest that the samurai was expected to kill shinobis. Or perhaps she was to be victorious by any means necessary—in which case she can get better.
Again, as Emma was musing, her feet had been wandering—this time down the corridor, and in a circle. Emma was a little confused when she finally realised that the sweet scent seemed to actually come from Kamado's box.
"Kamado, did you pick up some rice balls a moment ago?"
They stopped on an indoor balcony, overlooking the base floor of the structure some stories below. The wooden design had deteriorated over years of disrepair, she just remembered. As she saw the young man being conflicted over the simple question, Emma was considering the possibility of the foundation unable to hold the three's combined weight when they stood still.
Her intuition proved to be correct as where Hide was, closest to the railings, had her part of the floor collapsed to make a steep incline.
"Hideyoshi!"
Kamado was too late in his attempt to get a hold onto the samurai. The blond was knocked off her feet and tumbled down to hit the barrier that snapped on impact. She was now on a free fall for quite a long way down.
Emma moved to drag the boy off the balcony as the entirety of it was crumbling. As she grabbed Kamado's hand, she saw Hideyoshi struggling to control her body so that she would survive the landing.
Emma mumbled as she got herself and Kamado into a safe position, "You either live to do a great thing with it, or die in vain."
Opening a sliding door to a dusty room that had no sign of going to get them killed, both people managed not to get caught in the destruction by getting inside. The next thing that happened was them seeing the rubbles destroyed upon meeting the structures below. There was quite a bit of dust—and weirdly enough, a plume of black smoke—but when it settled down, they could see that the samurai had survived the ordeal.
There Hideyoshi was, hanging onto a rope that came out of the prosthetic arm and hooked to what was left of a wooden bar that was meant to support the balcony. She seemed to be contemplating on whether she should climb back up or rappelling down. The moment of hesitation gave time for the bar to snap yet again.
This time the samurai fall was only half of the height it previously had, but with the debris she could get impaled. Hideyoshi got the rope rolled back into the tool, then had the fake arm to get the brunt of the impact with a particularly sharp and big splinter she got right onto. The heavy craftsmanship broke the pointy end and had the crash with it to reduce the blonde's falling momentum that her land was not fatal.
Emma could hear the shiftling grunted quite loudly that it reverberated.
It appeared that the samurai performed well under pressure. It meant in order for her to master the shinobi prosthetic, challenges she would face were going to be her greatest mentor. The second would be the sculptor, who would be the one to be able to make repair of the apparent damage the tool just had.
"I'm afraid going down there would be tedious, Kamado. We should go our separate way. She had to use the other way to get back to the temple." Emma beckoned the boy to follow after she noted that the samurai was fine.
"I must say it is uncalled for that you took those rice balls and got me searching around when you had them on your person all along."
Tanjiro was speechless, baffled. Between being accused of playing tricks on the elderly and leaving a friend who almost got killed, he decided not to overcomplicate the situation by heeding the previous point made.
"I would like to help but apparently there's nothing I can do from here! We'll meet you again later in the temple!" Kamado shouted to the unfortunate woman who gave a thumb up her right hand.
Hide's landing did not leave her unscathed, she got bruises on her back. Since underneath her left bosom felt like it was killing her, she probably broke a rib. Nothing she wouldn't recover, nor would it slow her down. She just had to withstand the pain.
She moved to clear some of the rabbles that blocked one of the doors out of the seemingly armoury. It took her some time since the arm replacement was broken so she had to hurt her good one. The irony of the situation did not escape her mind.
Another hallway and she finally got out of the main building by going through its great gate. She was greeted with a huge outdoor stairway that clearly had experienced quite a battle. A lot of firearms were involved with all the bullet holes, scorched marks, and damage from cannonballs.
After a bit of previous exploration, it came to her mind that the castle was invaded prior to the assault. She reckoned the particular approach was typical to her partner, Tokichiro. This was one of the man's ruses when she wasn't around for a bit.
Those poor bastards. They probably did not know what they were in for.
That brought her to the next point. What made this land worth fighting over was rumour of the source of divinity being here in this mountain range.
She did find traces of that divinity, but it struck her that it was corrupted. Something supernatural was behind it, likely a guardian spirit. Knowing Tokichiro, the twisted man had a chance to make use of it.
Hide shivered at the thought.
Luckily there was an intervention as it turned out. She would like to know the details, because it felt like the source of evil was lingering still.
Might have to do something about it too.
The path past the main gate led the shiftling to a site of major battles. In this case, more than the typical. A yokai was involved, one that manipulates fire. It had to be such a terrible sight, as it seemed to catch a lot of people in its rampage. The conclusion of that eluded her, as her inspection of the burnt remains of the deceased underneath a patch of snow and a bit of dirt only got her so far.
The plain was not quite a level field, and there were buildings surrounding the place but a small patch that went for the cliff. A battle in this open field, with minimum cover and little exploit from the slightly uneven ground, hugely benefitting the demon—which was by her approximation about three times taller than herself.
Her not being attacked by such a thing meant that it had been vanquished. Whoever did it, they had overcome such disadvantages and were able to deliver a mighty blow that ended its misery.
"Nyan? We were not done with that future and now we're in yet another future?"
A phantom in the shape of a twin tailed cat with an eye patch appeared by her side, floating in the air and circling over her form for a bit.
Hide brightened up at its coming into existence. It had been some time since she was graced by Nekomata's audience. The spirit preferred to observe from a conspicuous location. That was why they said that he was revered by ninjas.
"Wow this place saw its fair share of combat, didn't it? You're correct that its last involved an aratama, but you should know that the one stood triumph that night was a shinobi!"
She supposed despite him not being the one to be capable of foretelling, he would be able to pick up that particular detail if that was to be the case.
"I'd like to meet this person! Disposing that demon by himself was truly masterful!"
Was that so? That had had to be the one to break the chain of events that would have been a disaster.
With that, Nekotama disappeared again. Just when she was getting comfy with the familiar presence.
Then she got why the subtle spirit did not entertain itself before her for a little longer
A figure came into view as the person moved to get down the ladder from the higher elevation where it held a tower that would overlook the entirety of this area. The man clearly had not been coming from the building with the way he stopped on his track upon noticing her form standing in the middle of the field.
His choice of attire suggested that he too was a samurai, but it was a mess. His clothes were torn all over and the armour plating for his torso was in such terrible condition that it might as well be a dead weight.
The man decided to proceed after a bit of staring her way—which was reciprocated. It was clear that now he was to approach. His intention was somewhat unclear, that was until the moment he was within engagement distance and drew his rusting sword.
Hide did not immediately draw her uchigatana in response, but had her left hand hold the hilt in a reverse grip in anticipation.
The man had a protection piece for the lower portion of his face in the shape of a demon's. He walked with the blade right in front of his torso, pointing towards her head.
The tall figure was going for a sudden thrust once in range.
Her intuition was correct as her good hand caught the handle sword after she dodged. She yanked the weapon off of his grip and wielded it to impale him through the chest.
Hide did not know what was his deal, but those eyes he had longed for death.
With a wet cough, the warrior took the deathblow. He then fell on his side, dying with a long sigh.
Hide gave the man a once over before leaving, but before she had gone too far, she heard the alarming sound of a blade pulled out of the wound it made. She turned to face the samurai coming back alive, this time she had her sword out.
The man with combover hair tied into a topknot got his katana ready for another round. His body sustained the lethal injury without being impaired by it as displayed by his charge with sword raised high above his head. His war cry, which was raspy and had a deep tone, did not sound like anything but a proper samurai in his prime.
Hide blocked his downwards swing, and she had to use her partially broken prosthetic to support the blunt side of her uchigatana to match the strength of her foe as she failed to divert the offending blade and had both their swords locked in a clash.
Hide managed a strong forward step to push her opponent away, but he recovered quickly for a defensive stance. Hide decided to put more distance between, out his blade's reach, so that she could get a time to think on how to put this encounter to a close.
"You," he spoke menacingly, but otherwise ceased the combat. "You will be the one to put my soul to rest."
The man then charged again. This time he came with consecutive strikes, which was halted when Hide came with a well placed parry that left him open for a counter-attack.
The woman slashed him on the neck, nearly decapitating the man. She would like to know the extent of his capability to get revived, as it appeared to be the case instead of being unkillable.
What she found instead was that apparently, something was infesting his body, with what appeared to be antennae of an enormous bug popping out along with the gush of blood.
He was hosting a demon of some sort.
Hide sheathed her sword before she snatched the bug's appendages to pull it out—got blood all over her right sleeve as consequence. She only managed to get the front half of what turned out to be shaped like a centipede out from the male. She tried to kill it with her blade once she got a good hold of it with her left foot, but the thing proved to be impervious to her steel.
She tried to get its entirety off of the man but the parasite got a very strong hold over his insides. After a bit of struggling, she lost her grasp on it and the thing crawled back into the body that came back to life once more soon after.
If only she had her dagger,
Now she considered disengaging instead, knowing she had no way to put this to a conclusive end as the man was also beyond reasoning. She could after the next interlude post deathblow.
"Fight me again," he said.
She went and did the first move this time around, with a horizontal slash in a reverse grip that meant to fully cut off his neck. It was parried with quite a force that made her momentum go the opposite direction. She followed up with a roundhouse kick with her left leg, but that too was redirected.
The taller samurai got much fiercer than he did previously. When it was his turn to attack, it was with much more fervour and grace that he previously did. He purposefully made it easy the previous two times, and decided to stop doing that after she discovered the source of his immortality.
Hide got her guard broken by two consecutive overhead strikes that came with such force. Her foe then sheathed his sword for an iai stance where she couldn't do anything but to anticipate what came as a double lightning quick slash that almost took her out if the second one did not catch her prosthetic in its way.
The blond had worse injury than the ruptured skin from her right abdomen to between her breasts. She quickly went back into fighting stance, this time going for the one that would enable faster attacks with the blade tilted downwards and her holding onto the handle to the side of her hips.
Her next advances included going into the air, where the other samurai couldn't follow. He managed pretty well against this style of fighting, but eventually his defence faltered when she kicked him on his shoulder in her attempt to jump over his head for a plunging slash.
The way she got him this time around, the male torso was cut open from the base of his neck to the right as her blade managed to get in as far as below the ribs. As she pulled her sword out, she gave a twist to get the centipede demon out in the air again.
She pulled on the thing again to the conclusion that the rest of its length was fused with the innards. She decided to drag the accursed thing along with the body it attached to so she could get them off the cliff. It wouldn't kill them but should get the immortal samurai out of her neck for a while.
She was quite a bit surprised that the parasite was capable of delivering a mean attack when its head escaped her grip for the mandibles to almost get her in the neck.
Since they were just a little bit away from the edge, she decided to let the body get revived as the centipede retreated into the wound. Just as it did previously, the injury closed shut after a few seconds, but left ugly mark on the skin.
Before the reviving man could properly be back on his feet, Hide pulled on his exposed shirt around his left shoulder. She made it so now he was between her and the drop. With a shoving kick that her foe was not ready for, he stumbled and fell down towards the valley below.
Hide peeked over to see him gone through a layer of cloud. This land was at a higher altitude that it happened that way.
She could now proceed to go for the small temple.
Still she was sure that it wouldn't be the last encounter with that disturbing individual.
Kibutsuji Muzan had lived for a long time.
He was aware of quite a few shenanigans that happened over the centuries he had been around, although very few were as interesting as the appearance of real yokai.
He was quite fascinated by the work of one Shouten Douji, but the ogre king succumbed to human trickery in the end. It was laughable that such an immortal being outmatched by lower beings, but from that one tale he learned not to give any form of opening for anything that would exploit them.
While he hadn't had the opportunity to meet that particular one, he encountered many forms of yokai. Between the lot of them he battled with, only two left significant impressions.
One was Otakemaru, or what was left of him. He came as this entity that manipulated people's hearts, leading them to tragedies. The trail of blood he left behind was very noticeable.
He sought to bring down mankind, so that there would be a world without it. That was what the weakings were telling tales about. Muzan was rather sceptical about it being his motivation, but that form of a man with a staff showed him what true hatred was capable of.
The other worth talking about was that one halfling that dared to oppose him. Obviously it did not end well for the woman.
It was alarming to see her had the blade that slayed the true Otakemaru amongst her belongings. He was curious why he never heard of that individual, since her appearance hinted she had been living the Sengoku Era. Perhaps she was better known as a human more than yokai, and since he put little interest in the feat of their kind, he might have overlooked this one.
Muzan saw the sort of power she possessed, and her transformation was only but a fraction of it. The shiftling had also the ability to call forth other yokai to assist her in battle, although he sensed that those souls had been purified from their previous state of aratama.
She was by all means, capable of doing serious damage to himself.
Such a shame that she was to be put down like an animal.
He was not holding back when he was to put her down, but he did expect her not to die from that. He knew the shadow of Otekemaru survived his assault, so if she were to be the one who ended that 'walking nightmare', she had to be a lot tougher.
She did not disappoint.
He longed to taste her blood that moment he got her to spill it, but there was a problem on her essence being not of the powerful yokai she was but that of a mere human.
There was so much power to be gained, but not in her current state of humanity.
There was also a matter of him wanting to test himself against one of the greatest yokai. She would be if it was truly the case that she was actually the one to slay Otakemaru by pretending to be the human as the tale had it.
It would also be best that she stop doing that though, so he could absorb her true power when he wins.
He could tell she was playing as a demon slayer in her disguise, which meant she was not being her real self at the moment.
He had been pondering lately on how to tease out the real yokai side of the shiftling.
It was by his design that Kukushibo and Akaza were to preserve the seemingly dead, even though only one of them realised the ploy. They were not familiar with yokai, hence they came to think of her surviving her injury.
Released from mortal coil would be the correct term for her state. Should her soul cling onto this realm, she would come back to life. That was the case for Shouten Douji, Tamamo no Mae, and Otakemaru: although theirs were held back by being sealed in a Buddhist temple.
It was just a week and a half after the shiftling's death.
Resurrection did not come easy, even for those immortals. It could be a very long time before they get themselves together—quite literally in this case—before they become their real self again.
He did not mind waiting since time was inconsequential to him, as well as for the strongest of yokai. Unfortunately, the display of power he and the shiftling did the other night definitely put them in the spotlight of attention.
Those meddling humans—the Kisatsutai—would do anything to gain the upper hand against him. Their effort was expected to be for naught, although it would be uncalled for if they got their hands on the nigitama that had proven to be sympathetic to humanity.
He had his own plan on how to approach the demoness for the contest of proving superiority.
It wouldn't be like anything he ever did before, since the stake was high. The reward would be worth all the effort, he knew it.
He would need to manipulate a lot of factors prior to the event for it to go in his best interest.
For the short notice, he needed that yokai to be up and about as soon as possible. The next part would be more flexible as the subject of his current entertainment would then not be as static for the demon slayers to do anything about her.
He perceived the progression of the shiftling through the senses of the two most trusted underlings.
There was an oddity regarding her revival, hastened with the help of a method he and Kokushiobo devised utilising local legend. It had her body renewed in just ten days, but that did not include the left arm that withered still. That was the part of her that sustained the worst injury.
Apparently he could do enough damage for her to permanently lose a limb, but then again the woman was not fully yokai.
The fact that the revitalised body was unmoving still, meant that the soul had yet to establish herself. This would be another waiting.
Muzan had another project to keep himself busy in the meantime, one that he was more desperate for and would remove the only weakness of his immortality.
The two schemes would benefit one another as he came to a realisation, so he would go all in from now on.
End of chapter