Ushio & Tora: The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch
By Ysabet
Chapter 5 of 6 ***** See the end of this chapter for an update*****
"No" said Ushio firmly for what seemed like the hundredth time. "We're not doing THAT either." He was losing patience fast. In exasperation he crossed his black-furred arms and glared up at Tora from where he sat leaning against a steel girder. The former temple boy could feel a growl rumbling in the back of his throat; beside him, Mayuko breathed a sigh of relief.
Bakemonotachi and human girl sat on a rusty steel beam in the dark, echoing space below the bridge. Overhead, cars rumbled and thudded their noisy passages over the steel-and-asphalt arch; the stench of their exhaust was nearly overwhelming to the two monsters' sensitive noses.
Tora grumbled. "When you hunt for fish, you use bait to bring them to you. What the hell is wrong with my idea?" Clearly he wasn't ready to let go of what seemed to him a good solution to their problems. "We just tie a rope around the Hamburger Girl and dangle her over the water; when the water-youkai grabs her, we yank them both up and….." He licked his chops and grinned. It was easy to see that Tora was quite enamored of his own cleverness, and that, to him, there was nothing wrong with using poor Mayuko as a sort of glorified worm on a hook.
Sometimes he made Ushio's head hurt without even hitting it. This was one of those times.
The day was wearing away towards the afternoon; already the sun cast pooled shadows of late mid-day on the water below them. Water-birds wheeled past, curving their wings to the wind that blew Ushio's black mane across his face in a curtain of darkness; he pushed it aside, taking a deep breath. The scents of the river were sweet in his throat for a moment; then a gust of fumes from a passing truck made his lips draw back in distaste.
The three of them had been up and down this stretch of the river several times already, following the faintest of scents (which, to his delight, Tora had located; to Ushio it was merely a rather repulsive lizardish-fishy-rot smell, with unpleasant overtones of old blood. He had shuddered, wondering if it might be his). So far they had had no luck, but it was a fairly large area, not even counting the water itself.
Tora reached down from where he perched on a convenient beam and rapped his knuckles against Ushio's head; "Pay attention, Stupid. Do you want to catch this thing or not? *I* do; I owe it pain…." he trailed off. "I wonder what it tastes like? Fish? I like fish." The bakemono drew a single claw delicately across the rusty metal beside him, making a thin skrrreeeeek!; he had been carefully drawing something quite scatological on the flat surface. After a single glance, Mayuko and Ushio had both avoided looking again on general principals. Ancient monsters had such…. unusual ideas of what was funny.
Beside him, Mayuko shifted sideways on the beam as she tried to find a comfortable position. She sighed and leaned back against the cold metal; the young woman was damp, tired and chilled but still determined to see this through. Mayuko glanced sidelong at her friend; Aotsuki's profile was stark against the blue sky, fierce and terrible. The eyes, though, while shaped very differently, were somehow still her friend Ushio-kun's….. They reflected the sunlight back threefold there in the darkness below the bridge, molten gold.
In the relative silence of the moment, she picked off a flaking bit of rust the size of her palm and tossed it down into the waves below. Three pairs of eyes watched the splash: Silver, golden, blue-gray. She tossed another; before it could hit the water, a flick of Ushio's wrist brought the point of the Spear flashing down to intercept it. With a tiny 'plink!' it scattered into shards of rust, floating down to dust the waves below. Another flake, tossed down a moment later, was shattered into red dust by the controlled flick of a burnt-orange tail.
Time was dragging; the longer they waited, the greater chance that some other kid would be dragged to a terrible death in the river. Ushio sat thinking hard, unconsciously braiding and unbraiding a handful of his mane; he noticed absently that the strands were a little thicker and stiffer than human hair, almost like an animal's whiskers in breadth. "So we've covered the docks, boathouses, waterfront parks, bridges, rich people's gardens and just about everything else along where you caught the scent, right?" He ticked each item off on a silver-clawed finger. Tora just grunted. Mayuko sighed. "Well, what's left? We can't exactly go searching in the river itself….." The very thought made him shiver--- Ushio found that he was developing an absolute aversion to water. *Go figure,* he thought wryly.
Tora yawned widely, stretching his length across the beam; afternoon sunlight reflected off of each white tooth. "Hhrrrrrrrmm. We've looked with our eyes, ears and noses--- what about you, Hamburger Girl? What can you do?" There was a pause as Mayuko looked off into the distance, frowning. "I….. I'm not sure. I've tried to feel if there's any difference along the shore, any place that feels, well, *bad*, and there isn't. Or I can't feel it. Maybe the youkai lives somewhere else and just hunts here?" She leaned back against the beam and grimaced as she rubbed a bruise on her knee. Keeping up with the two bakemonotachi had taken a toll on her skin.
There was silence for a moment while all three considered. Ushio scowled down at the gentle waves below; he could see his entire body's reflection there for the first time since his change, and he wasn't pleased. His gaze traveled across the black expanse of fur, from the shock of black, black mane to the clawed hind feet and lazily twitching tail.
For the first time, he allowed himself to think about the fact that he was sitting there *naked* as the day he was born. Right in front of Mayuko and everything.
Ushio's face burned beneath his fur; he hastily crossed his legs and pulled some of his mane across his lap. Neither of his two companions seemed to notice. He wondered for a moment if he should be insulted, then shifted his thoughts back to the subject of the water-youkai with a nearly-audible snap.
"You know, I wonder if we're going about this the wrong way……" said Mayuko slowly. Both bakemonotachi looked at her inquiringly. "I mean, this monster-woman, you said that she eats kids?" Tora grunted an affirmative and flicked a piece of rust out into the air to ping off a passing gull; it squawked, recovered, and flew away a little faster. "If I was a water-monster, I wouldn't hunt in public places; I'd look in places where kids liked to play away from adults. You know, the kinds of spots you find when you're a child- bits of land that get fenced off and forgotten, the sort that gets overgrown and is too small or inconvenient to be built on, alleyways, scraps of woods, that kind of thing. Ushio, you said that you were attacked down by the escarpment, and that fits, doesn't it?"
The former temple boy nodded. "Yeah-I've been going there to think since I was pretty little. It's not very big, and it's sort of a little pocket that just got left alone; I see what you mean." He turned to Tora, who was looking puzzled. "When you're a kid, you tend to want some place to play where the grownups won't bug you, so you find places that other people sort of threw away: vacant lots, the back-ends of property, tiny little places that can become a kid's kingdom." Tora shrugged; to him, property was a difficult concept at best. It wasn't important in his world at all.
But the amber monster fixed his silver eyes on Ushio's. "Interesting. Young bakemono do much the same thing, in practice of defining their territories. I wonder if human children ever meet with bakemono young in such cases? I wonder what happens?" He laughed softly to himself, eyes half-closed. Ushio grimaced; he could imagine the outcome pretty easily. *Human Child du Jour* he thought unhappily. What if he had met up with a monster-child in any of the places where he used to play, by the escarpment or behind his school or at the canals-----!!!
The Spearbearer nearly lost his balance; Mayuko grabbed at his arm in a rather futile attempt to keep Ushio from falling ignominiously into the river. "The canals! I used to play there when I was a kid, and I'll bet kids still do." Excited, he turned to Mayuko. "You remember, those little canals that run back of the airport? They're all tall water-reeds and bushes, totally deserted- nobody even fishes back there since the water's brackish and there aren't many fish." She nodded, pushing her hair back from her eyes. "Perfect!" she exclaimed, her tired face lighting up. "It's got all the elements: water….. solitude….. good hiding places….."
"….. food…." interjected Tora calmly. There was an uneasy pause.
"Uhhhrrrm. Right. Let's get going." Ushio rose to all fours on the beam, reaching down a hand to help Mayuko up. It was good to be doing something other than just searching aimlessly; he could almost forget his current state….. unless he looked down at his reflection in the water again.
"Wait. Ushio-Brat. There is something you need to learn."
The black bakemono looked back over his shoulder as he carefully began to climb down the rusty metal. Tora was simply crouching there, feet tucked beneath him, watching him. "What?"
"THIS!" A striped hand grabbed him swiftly by one shoulder, whipped him around and yanked him off into the air; Ushio yelped in surprise and flailed about as they both plummeted the few feet towards the water…….
….. only to be borne upwards in a long, smooth arc as Tora passed from falling into flight. They drifted to a halt a little further along beneath the bridge; still struggling, Ushio snarled loudly and resisted an urge to bite Tora's hand. "What the FUCK do you think you're doing?!?" he shouted, gripping the Spear tightly in one hand and a fistful of Tora's mane in the other.
"Teaching you to fly, idiot. I'm tired of walking. Pay attention." The ancient bakemono began a long, slow glide above the water, keeping between the pilings of the bridge.
"Uhhhhhhh….." Ushio's jaw dropped; he was more than a little stunned. "….. I- Tora, I'm not sure about this….. I'm not sure I can learn this one……" Learning how to move in his new body: fine. Learning how to fly? He couldn't even tell how *Tora* managed it!
But the orange monster only snorted, still holding Ushio by the shoulder. "You had *better* learn. I'm not carrying you back to the shore. It's time you learned flight if you are to be bakemono. You'll fight better." He chuckled nastily. "Besides, it scares the shit out of your enemy when you swoop down on them!" Ushio swallowed and looked down at the wet, wet river. Maybe he *could* learn this…..
"Now. Try to feel what I am doing. I reach out--- so--- "……. And Tora did *something* indescribable, something that Ushio could not see, but could …..perceive….. It was rather like feeling the sunlight on your skin, or the change of pressure in your ears when you traveled upwards in elevation, or the weight of a breath of fog: there, definitely there, but difficult to pin down. Tora was grasping and manipulating some mechanism, some element of natural (or supernatural) law that took his weight from his mass, allowing him to move freely and at will.
And Ushio *could* feel it.
Could he….. do it too? Tentatively he reached out with something, some part of him that he hadn't been aware of before (no, that wasn't quite right; there had been many times when the Spear had borne its bearer through space in the heat of battle, and Ushio had felt this then…..) Ushio could actually FEEL it, an invisible, shapeless something, could just touch it--- like brushing your hand over a cobweb, or the edges of a flame (*careful, careful, you'll break it/burn yourself* he thought). It had….. structure; as they drifted above the water, he could almost grasp it, could almost catch it and----- and what??? Panicked, he realized that he had no idea.
The black bakemono wavered in his partner's grasp; for a moment there, Tora had almost let him go. Ushio gripped his handful of mane tighter.
Tora growled, but the sound was more of exasperation than anger. "Listen. Don't *ask* the power….. eat it, drink it in. Make it yours. It will bear you up if you consume it." He waved one hand expansively; Ushio would swear that he was enjoying this.
*'Eat it, drink it in'…. just the kind of advice you'd expect from a bakemono.* thought the Spearbearer with a certain exasperation. Well, why the hell not? It couldn't hurt to try---
Taking a deep breath, Ushio closed his eyes and reached out again for that intangible something, like a man grasping at smoke, like a bakemono reaching for magic….. He found it; handling it was like carrying a soap bubble in your fingers. Carefully he drew it to himself, into his Self, drank it in-----
----- felt it inside him, like a muscle he had never noticed before; gingerly he adjusted it, tensed this and relaxed that, stretched inside to allow the strange new part of himself room.
*And found himself hovering six feet or so above the water.* Even a flailing handful of panicked claws didn't keep him from splashing half-under the river's surface this time, before a cursing Tora yanked an equally-swearing Ushio back airborne.
Drenched and dripping, he tried again. And again. And again. And again….. The day shaded into afternoon, but the Spearbearer never noticed.
And each time he tried, Ushio could feel the strange new part of him becoming a little more at home, a little more at ease. A little more natural. Later, when he had time to think about it, this would scare him more than nearly anything else.
But slowly, falteringly, he learned to fly.
*********************************************
The two bakemono coasted to a halt and hovered like twin ghosts beneath the bridge a few feet from where Mayuko stood watching, her eyes as big as saucers. "Ushio-kun……" she breathed; the Spearbearer dropped his jaw in a silent laugh that displayed every sharp tooth. The young woman sank down to sit against a beam with a thud. "You're--- flying."
"Yeah….. I know. It's great, it's....just *great*….." He couldn't stop grinning anymore than she could stop staring. Ushio felt a little dizzy from elation and the rush of adrenaline; beside him, Tora rumbled softly, very pleased with himself.
"Not bad, Brat. You learned that quickly enough. Now we can travel faster." The orange monster poked Ushio in the shoulder with a sharp claw. "Ready to hunt?" His silver eyes flashed in anticipation and he smiled like a whole ocean full of sharks.
Ushio drew a deep breath and looked down at the waves moving below him. Their reflections hung like night and day in the calm wavelets, amber-gold and onyx. He looked up; Mayuko was watching him intently. "Ready?"
She took a deep breath. "Yes…… Uhmm, Ushio-kun? I've seen you riding on Tora's back before---" (Tora curled a lip back and muttered "…he doesn't ride me, I just don't throw him off. I *allow* him to hold on!")
"----- uhm, sorry, Tora----- and I was wondering: Should I, ah, ride on your back? Or on Tora's?" She tilted her head to one side inquiringly.
Ushio hesitated; bobbing up and down in the air was one thing. Carrying a passenger, though----- he looked at Tora. The other bakemono had alighted next to the 'monster graffiti' that he had been drawing earlier and was carefully signing his name in elegantly-drawn kanji clawmarks (interestingly enough, he was writing 'Tora', not 'Nagatobimaru'). Huh. Ushio hadn't even known he could write. The ancient monster glanced up from his 'art' with a sly grin. "Think you can do it, whelp? Just don't go too high….." Ushio blanched, picturing a combined splash of Mayuko and black bakemono decorating the landscape. *Maybe if we keep low…..*
He landed gently next to his friend on the rusty beam, feeling weight return to his limbs the moment he touched solid metal. How strange, to suddenly feel *heavy* and to recall that weight and mass were usually part of the same thing--- not to have control over your position in space! For a moment, the Spearbearer's thoughts ran along this line; then he laughed softly and shook off his distraction, grinning up at the young woman. "You ready, Mayuko-kun?" He slipped the Spear back into its place in his mane.
Mayuko looked down into her friend's face; she wondered if he had any idea how fierce he looked in that moment, golden pupil-less eyes shining with elation and anticipation, all the fire of the sun gathered there. Black as night, the tiny white slashes crossing his limbs like threads of silk; the lightning-mark on his forehead gleamed palely against his darkness. Smiling up at her. Mayuko was certain that he was trying to look reassuring, but the tips of the many, many sharp teeth that she could just barely see were not all that reassuring.
But this was Ushio-kun….. The young woman tucked her tawny hair back behind her ears and glanced over towards Tora. The *other* bakemono----- she had to remember that. There was more than one here now. He was watching with interest as she eased herself down onto Ushio's broad back, gripping the black mane tightly. Ushio grunted as she positioned herself a little below his shoulders. "…. Hang on….. don't pull so hard….. here, move up a little….. don't try to sit, lay forward….. Ow! Don't dig your heels in, Mayuko, I'm not a horse!"
She shifted a little to one side, her hands sunk deep into Ushio's black mane. How strange…… "Sorry; I've never ridden anything but a bicycle. Ahh, are you SURE you can….. fly….. with me on your back?"
He grinned over his shoulder at her. "No. But let's try it anyway!" An odd exhilaration was filling him; he felt better than he had since his change….. elated for no real reason. Everything around Ushio was sharply in focus, bright and clear, and it was all interesting: scents, sounds, the light, the water, his companions. Still looking back at an apprehensive Mayuko, he wondered: did Tora ever feel like this, his heart pounding to the moment?
Ushio reached out into that moment, grasping at the new thing that had borne him up; heart in his throat, he stepped off the beam.
For a moment, the two fell in a curving drop towards the water; then (*dammit Ushio, concentrate! concentrate! do-it-do-it-do-it-DO-IT-DO-IT-DO-IT-NOW!*) they swung across the water towards the shore in a fast, wave-tipping sweep of black fur and wind. Laughing inwardly, Ushio could hear Mayuko's squeak of terror and feel her grip his mane like her life depended on it. A little behind him, he could also hear Tora yelling something--- but it was too hard to make it out. Pulse pounding in his ears, mane whipping all over the place, he could see his shadow shooting across the broken, watery mirror below him, keeping pace with his flight. On his back his passenger flattened herself against his body; Ushio could feel Mayuko's heart beating, beating, even faster than his own. Was she yelling something? And what was it that Tora was shouting? They were still scorching across the waves, heading down the river towards the shoreline where he recalled the old canals beginning; what was the problem? His inner laughter bubbled over, became a low rumble deep in his chest.
WHAT was Tora yelling? His voice was closer now; never mind, Ushio could ask him later...... this was too much fun.
Fun?
Ushio looked down at his shadow again…… Black beast, golden-eyed, claws outstretched and mane streaming behind like a shadowy comet…….
***Reality splashed over him like ice-cold water; he was a monster, and he was having *fun* being a monster?!?*** Humans don't fly! Humans don't wear fur and fangs and claws! How could he be ENJOYING this?!? Ushio staggered in his flight, stumbling over thin air; only the terrified grip at his shoulders kept him from crashing into the water below-----
….. and Tora passed overhead like a hurricane, the rush of his passage whipping black mane and tawny human hair into a storm. "GO UNSEEN, YOU IDIOTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!" he howled, teeth bared.
Uh-oh…………….
**********************************************
By the time Ushio touched gently down onto the grassy shore, he was no longer visible (an oddly easy thing to do, if you didn't forget about it; no-one really wanted to *see* anything like a bakemono, so turning human sight aside was almost second nature). Embarrassed, shaken, but no longer visible. Tora was waiting on the bank, cursing under his breath in a stream of invective that withered the grass off the banks. Ushio hung his head; the excitement and exhilaration of his first real flight had driven pretty much all intelligent thought from his mind, and he knew it. Doubtless the sight of a flying black creature near the bridge had caused a few car wrecks among its burden of vehicles; he just hoped that no-one had been hurt.
Mayuko started to slide off, but a wave of Tora's huge hand kept her where she was. The amber bakemono caught Ushio by a fistful of black mane and pulled him face to face. "Ass!!" he shouted, silver eyes burning furiously; "Do that again and we'll have humans all over the place!!! Do you want to know what it's like to be hunted?!?" He yanked sideways; Ushio snarled loudly and swatted his hand away. "I've BEEN hunted before, remember?!? By bakemonotachi, by youkai, by all sorts of things! I just--- got carried away!........" The Spearbearer glared at his partner, who only stared back coolly, eyes slitted. But after a few moments, the great striped face began to twitch suspiciously; gradually Tora began to grin, and then to laugh deeply, roughly. Still chuckling, he turned to leap back into low flight; "Follow…." was all the ancient bakemono said. As Ushio sprang carefully up into the air, he glanced over his shoulder at Mayuko. "You OK? Sorry about that….." He took a deep breath. "It was.... I don't know." The Spearbearer glanced down at himself. "Sometimes this new body, the things it can do, they just kind of--- take over, you know?"
His friend brushed her tangled hair back and tried to smile. "I'm fine; I just didn't expect you to go so fast. It was like riding a wild animal….. Sort of fun, though." She looked off towards the passing landscape; the ground below was growing marshy and wet. They had landed beside a deep, swift-running channel that split from the main river and (as Ushio recalled) eventually wandered into the series of brackish canals that were their goal.
As they drifted above the weeds and underbrush, Ushio could see Tora questing ahead for a scent. He sighed; Mayuko's words began to hit home........"like riding a wild animal." Shit, yeah; that was *exactly* what he had been doing since he had changed: riding a wild animal. Only the animal was himself..... Aotsuki Ushio, melted down and poured into a different mold, one with all the attributes of a beast.
And he WAS enjoying it..... now, anyway.
Wasn't that wrong?
The black bakemono blinked his eyes against the late sun as he slowely soared over a thread of a stream. *After all,* he reflected, *who doesn't want to be a beast sometimes? Who hasn't ever wanted to throw away the rules, civilization, just be as wild as impulse wants us to be? We tame our selves; we rule ourselves.* Ushio's heart twisted in pain; it was hard to admit (even to himself) how attractive the idea of losing control really was. *I get to be a lot, well, fiercer than most people ever have the chance to be--- I fight, I even kill; the Spear..... requires it. But this, this..... Why can't I hate it like I did when I first changed?!?*
He stretched his foreclaws out before him; the ground had grown more sodden and marshier below them, tall weeds bending in the afternoon breeze. That same breeze caressed his face, sending tendrils of black hair across his vision. A single silver talon combed them back. *Animals, now--- they have an excuse for their actions: no conscience, no morals, no worries. But I'm like that guy Hyou said, the 'animal that is not an animal.' Bakemonotachi can choose what they do, or at least ones like.... we..... can. We. I'm going to be like this the rest of my life.* It finally hit home.
*The rest of my life.*
On his back Mayuko shifted; she slid one hand down onto his forehead, a little beyond where the lightning-mark ended just above his eyes. "Ushio-kun, what's wrong? You feel..... unhappy. Are you worrying about the river-youkai?" He could smell the faint tang of fear in her scent. It was--- disturbing. Oddly attractive.
"No..... about myself. Mayuko..... It's harder and harder to stay my old self now, to keep remembering that this--- is *wrong*, that I shouldn't be a bakemono. If it felt bad to be this way, it would be easier." Ushio looked down at his own hands, extending and retracting his silver talons; he could feel a faint trembling beginning in his limbs. "But it doesn't feel bad; it feels..... good. This body feels good, flying feels, hell, just amazing!" He took a deep breath and blurted it out: "I keep worrying that I'm going to forget what it was like to be human. How long will I remember when everything about being a, a bakemono, feels so overwhelming? Mayuko, if you only knew....." He stopped and took another deep breath. "If you could only feel things like I do now; all the scents, all the sounds..... When the Spear takes over, I feel something like this, I'm a predator then too; but that stops sooner or later. Now, though..... If I forget how it was to be human, how will I remember to how to stay Ushio?" His question was a cry of pain.
Her hand reached down to gently touch him at the termination of the lightning slash; she smoothed the fur there. "You will remember because your friends will remind you. We will always remind you, and *we* will always remember who you really are..... no matter what shape you wear, or what you become."
The Spearbearer sighed again. "Yeah. I know..... Thanks." They were both silent for a few moments; then Ushio growled low in his throat. "Man, I *really* don't look forward to telling Asako about this." He shuddered at the thought.
Mayuko started to answer, then stopped abruptly; he could feel both her fists clench hard in the fur at his neck. "Mayuko? What's wrong?"
She began to shiver. "I don't, I don't know--- do we have to go any further? This place feels..... sick."
They were still gliding along the channel; it had begun to separate off into the small canals Ushio remembered from his childhood. Here and there he could see faint tracks worn into the grasslands by animals and, possibly, human children. He sniffed; yeah, definitely human scents here. Tora had stopped a little ways ahead and was hanging in the air, head thrown back as he drank in the breeze. His partner also slowed, drawing a deep breath.
*Let's see..... Dead fish... crushed plants of some sort... more fish or something fishy... mud, more plants... salt... salt? No, that's sweat or something else, something rank... sort of sweet, and familiar... where did I smell that, sometime today?*
*Oh yeah, behind the park, when Mayuko pricked her finger on my claw: blood...........*
Blood. Human blood. But not new; no, this was old-smelling, sour. Ushio could tell that much; it had a carrion quality to it. And there was something more, a reek of--- what? Decay? *Mayuko was right, there's something sick about this place.....* The Spearbearer alighted gently on a fairly solid-looking bit of ground; the mud squished between his toes and fingers. Mayuko started to slip off, but he gestured silently for her to stay where she was. "Tora? What do you smell? I'm too new at this to really tell....." He could feel his passenger's heart beating hard against his back; she crouched down as if to hide in his shock of black mane, pulling it close about her for comfort.
Tora shook his head until his ears flapped. "Hrrrhhrrrr. It's here, somewhere. I smell it, but it's *very* good at hiding its scent. I think maybe it rubs itself with some plant or something." He stepped from the air to the ground as if descending a staircase. "Somewhere near.......... and I think perhaps it has a larder here, too." His claws clenched in the mud and wiry grass. "Ssssssss. It stinks..... This is an eater of dead meat as well as of live." He began to pace up the bank towards a copse of willows, his lips drawn back in distaste.
"Near...... Ah. Here's the larder. Feh!" The striped face grimaced in disgust.
Ushio slowly moved up to peer around Tora's body----- and jerked back, revolted at the stench. Decay, horrible and unmistakable; even Mayuko coughed and covered her nose and mouth with a hand. But the scent wasn't the worst of it; beyond the other bakemono he could see.... what? It was like a nest, sort of. Bleached branches lay in a jumble, with tags and rags of color threaded through; and from the trees around, other strips of color. What in the world.....?
And then the Spearbearer's eyes made sense of what he was seeing, and the full horror of it hit him. Those weren't branches. They were bones. And the bits of color were shredded cloth..... shredded clothing. They were tied onto the trees and bones like ribbons, a monster's insane artwork. A faint buzzing sounded from the ground around the nest as marsh flies arose disturbed from dark stains on the damp soil.
Ushio staggered back a step, sickened and unwilling to see anymore. One foot stepped on something other than marshy ground; he looked down. Apparently the water-youkai wasn't the best of housekeepers--- it had missed a piece of cloth. *You know,* he thought, staring down, *that almost looks like the sleeve of a kid's shirt, only it's not flat, it's got something inside it-----*
-----Ushio jerked back blindly, a hissing growl that he had never made before rising from deep within his throat. On his back, Mayuko was muttering something to herself that sounded rather like a prayer. She hung on tightly, and he welcomed her warmth across his back.
Only Tora seemed unmoved. He had turned in his steps to watch his two companions, silver eyes impassive. Now he sat stone-still on the stained ground, staring at Ushio.....
No, staring *past* Ushio..... And on the Spearbearer's back, the Kemono No Yari began to ring softly, softly.....
************************************
End of Chapter 5 of 6
(So it'll be 6 chapters instead of 5; so sue me, already!!!..... Ysabet)
****************** UPDATE, AS OF 6/26/01----- If you'd like to see a truely BEAUTIFUL piece of fanart based on this story by Suzanna Gertruida (I hope I spelled that right!), please go to this link (provided by my very, very generous friend Becky Tailweaver, who writes INCREDIBLE STUFF): http://tailweaver.faithweb.com/utfanart.jpg
Gotta tell ya, I was blown away by this picture; the detail is incredible.....
By Ysabet
Chapter 5 of 6 ***** See the end of this chapter for an update*****
"No" said Ushio firmly for what seemed like the hundredth time. "We're not doing THAT either." He was losing patience fast. In exasperation he crossed his black-furred arms and glared up at Tora from where he sat leaning against a steel girder. The former temple boy could feel a growl rumbling in the back of his throat; beside him, Mayuko breathed a sigh of relief.
Bakemonotachi and human girl sat on a rusty steel beam in the dark, echoing space below the bridge. Overhead, cars rumbled and thudded their noisy passages over the steel-and-asphalt arch; the stench of their exhaust was nearly overwhelming to the two monsters' sensitive noses.
Tora grumbled. "When you hunt for fish, you use bait to bring them to you. What the hell is wrong with my idea?" Clearly he wasn't ready to let go of what seemed to him a good solution to their problems. "We just tie a rope around the Hamburger Girl and dangle her over the water; when the water-youkai grabs her, we yank them both up and….." He licked his chops and grinned. It was easy to see that Tora was quite enamored of his own cleverness, and that, to him, there was nothing wrong with using poor Mayuko as a sort of glorified worm on a hook.
Sometimes he made Ushio's head hurt without even hitting it. This was one of those times.
The day was wearing away towards the afternoon; already the sun cast pooled shadows of late mid-day on the water below them. Water-birds wheeled past, curving their wings to the wind that blew Ushio's black mane across his face in a curtain of darkness; he pushed it aside, taking a deep breath. The scents of the river were sweet in his throat for a moment; then a gust of fumes from a passing truck made his lips draw back in distaste.
The three of them had been up and down this stretch of the river several times already, following the faintest of scents (which, to his delight, Tora had located; to Ushio it was merely a rather repulsive lizardish-fishy-rot smell, with unpleasant overtones of old blood. He had shuddered, wondering if it might be his). So far they had had no luck, but it was a fairly large area, not even counting the water itself.
Tora reached down from where he perched on a convenient beam and rapped his knuckles against Ushio's head; "Pay attention, Stupid. Do you want to catch this thing or not? *I* do; I owe it pain…." he trailed off. "I wonder what it tastes like? Fish? I like fish." The bakemono drew a single claw delicately across the rusty metal beside him, making a thin skrrreeeeek!; he had been carefully drawing something quite scatological on the flat surface. After a single glance, Mayuko and Ushio had both avoided looking again on general principals. Ancient monsters had such…. unusual ideas of what was funny.
Beside him, Mayuko shifted sideways on the beam as she tried to find a comfortable position. She sighed and leaned back against the cold metal; the young woman was damp, tired and chilled but still determined to see this through. Mayuko glanced sidelong at her friend; Aotsuki's profile was stark against the blue sky, fierce and terrible. The eyes, though, while shaped very differently, were somehow still her friend Ushio-kun's….. They reflected the sunlight back threefold there in the darkness below the bridge, molten gold.
In the relative silence of the moment, she picked off a flaking bit of rust the size of her palm and tossed it down into the waves below. Three pairs of eyes watched the splash: Silver, golden, blue-gray. She tossed another; before it could hit the water, a flick of Ushio's wrist brought the point of the Spear flashing down to intercept it. With a tiny 'plink!' it scattered into shards of rust, floating down to dust the waves below. Another flake, tossed down a moment later, was shattered into red dust by the controlled flick of a burnt-orange tail.
Time was dragging; the longer they waited, the greater chance that some other kid would be dragged to a terrible death in the river. Ushio sat thinking hard, unconsciously braiding and unbraiding a handful of his mane; he noticed absently that the strands were a little thicker and stiffer than human hair, almost like an animal's whiskers in breadth. "So we've covered the docks, boathouses, waterfront parks, bridges, rich people's gardens and just about everything else along where you caught the scent, right?" He ticked each item off on a silver-clawed finger. Tora just grunted. Mayuko sighed. "Well, what's left? We can't exactly go searching in the river itself….." The very thought made him shiver--- Ushio found that he was developing an absolute aversion to water. *Go figure,* he thought wryly.
Tora yawned widely, stretching his length across the beam; afternoon sunlight reflected off of each white tooth. "Hhrrrrrrrmm. We've looked with our eyes, ears and noses--- what about you, Hamburger Girl? What can you do?" There was a pause as Mayuko looked off into the distance, frowning. "I….. I'm not sure. I've tried to feel if there's any difference along the shore, any place that feels, well, *bad*, and there isn't. Or I can't feel it. Maybe the youkai lives somewhere else and just hunts here?" She leaned back against the beam and grimaced as she rubbed a bruise on her knee. Keeping up with the two bakemonotachi had taken a toll on her skin.
There was silence for a moment while all three considered. Ushio scowled down at the gentle waves below; he could see his entire body's reflection there for the first time since his change, and he wasn't pleased. His gaze traveled across the black expanse of fur, from the shock of black, black mane to the clawed hind feet and lazily twitching tail.
For the first time, he allowed himself to think about the fact that he was sitting there *naked* as the day he was born. Right in front of Mayuko and everything.
Ushio's face burned beneath his fur; he hastily crossed his legs and pulled some of his mane across his lap. Neither of his two companions seemed to notice. He wondered for a moment if he should be insulted, then shifted his thoughts back to the subject of the water-youkai with a nearly-audible snap.
"You know, I wonder if we're going about this the wrong way……" said Mayuko slowly. Both bakemonotachi looked at her inquiringly. "I mean, this monster-woman, you said that she eats kids?" Tora grunted an affirmative and flicked a piece of rust out into the air to ping off a passing gull; it squawked, recovered, and flew away a little faster. "If I was a water-monster, I wouldn't hunt in public places; I'd look in places where kids liked to play away from adults. You know, the kinds of spots you find when you're a child- bits of land that get fenced off and forgotten, the sort that gets overgrown and is too small or inconvenient to be built on, alleyways, scraps of woods, that kind of thing. Ushio, you said that you were attacked down by the escarpment, and that fits, doesn't it?"
The former temple boy nodded. "Yeah-I've been going there to think since I was pretty little. It's not very big, and it's sort of a little pocket that just got left alone; I see what you mean." He turned to Tora, who was looking puzzled. "When you're a kid, you tend to want some place to play where the grownups won't bug you, so you find places that other people sort of threw away: vacant lots, the back-ends of property, tiny little places that can become a kid's kingdom." Tora shrugged; to him, property was a difficult concept at best. It wasn't important in his world at all.
But the amber monster fixed his silver eyes on Ushio's. "Interesting. Young bakemono do much the same thing, in practice of defining their territories. I wonder if human children ever meet with bakemono young in such cases? I wonder what happens?" He laughed softly to himself, eyes half-closed. Ushio grimaced; he could imagine the outcome pretty easily. *Human Child du Jour* he thought unhappily. What if he had met up with a monster-child in any of the places where he used to play, by the escarpment or behind his school or at the canals-----!!!
The Spearbearer nearly lost his balance; Mayuko grabbed at his arm in a rather futile attempt to keep Ushio from falling ignominiously into the river. "The canals! I used to play there when I was a kid, and I'll bet kids still do." Excited, he turned to Mayuko. "You remember, those little canals that run back of the airport? They're all tall water-reeds and bushes, totally deserted- nobody even fishes back there since the water's brackish and there aren't many fish." She nodded, pushing her hair back from her eyes. "Perfect!" she exclaimed, her tired face lighting up. "It's got all the elements: water….. solitude….. good hiding places….."
"….. food…." interjected Tora calmly. There was an uneasy pause.
"Uhhhrrrm. Right. Let's get going." Ushio rose to all fours on the beam, reaching down a hand to help Mayuko up. It was good to be doing something other than just searching aimlessly; he could almost forget his current state….. unless he looked down at his reflection in the water again.
"Wait. Ushio-Brat. There is something you need to learn."
The black bakemono looked back over his shoulder as he carefully began to climb down the rusty metal. Tora was simply crouching there, feet tucked beneath him, watching him. "What?"
"THIS!" A striped hand grabbed him swiftly by one shoulder, whipped him around and yanked him off into the air; Ushio yelped in surprise and flailed about as they both plummeted the few feet towards the water…….
….. only to be borne upwards in a long, smooth arc as Tora passed from falling into flight. They drifted to a halt a little further along beneath the bridge; still struggling, Ushio snarled loudly and resisted an urge to bite Tora's hand. "What the FUCK do you think you're doing?!?" he shouted, gripping the Spear tightly in one hand and a fistful of Tora's mane in the other.
"Teaching you to fly, idiot. I'm tired of walking. Pay attention." The ancient bakemono began a long, slow glide above the water, keeping between the pilings of the bridge.
"Uhhhhhhh….." Ushio's jaw dropped; he was more than a little stunned. "….. I- Tora, I'm not sure about this….. I'm not sure I can learn this one……" Learning how to move in his new body: fine. Learning how to fly? He couldn't even tell how *Tora* managed it!
But the orange monster only snorted, still holding Ushio by the shoulder. "You had *better* learn. I'm not carrying you back to the shore. It's time you learned flight if you are to be bakemono. You'll fight better." He chuckled nastily. "Besides, it scares the shit out of your enemy when you swoop down on them!" Ushio swallowed and looked down at the wet, wet river. Maybe he *could* learn this…..
"Now. Try to feel what I am doing. I reach out--- so--- "……. And Tora did *something* indescribable, something that Ushio could not see, but could …..perceive….. It was rather like feeling the sunlight on your skin, or the change of pressure in your ears when you traveled upwards in elevation, or the weight of a breath of fog: there, definitely there, but difficult to pin down. Tora was grasping and manipulating some mechanism, some element of natural (or supernatural) law that took his weight from his mass, allowing him to move freely and at will.
And Ushio *could* feel it.
Could he….. do it too? Tentatively he reached out with something, some part of him that he hadn't been aware of before (no, that wasn't quite right; there had been many times when the Spear had borne its bearer through space in the heat of battle, and Ushio had felt this then…..) Ushio could actually FEEL it, an invisible, shapeless something, could just touch it--- like brushing your hand over a cobweb, or the edges of a flame (*careful, careful, you'll break it/burn yourself* he thought). It had….. structure; as they drifted above the water, he could almost grasp it, could almost catch it and----- and what??? Panicked, he realized that he had no idea.
The black bakemono wavered in his partner's grasp; for a moment there, Tora had almost let him go. Ushio gripped his handful of mane tighter.
Tora growled, but the sound was more of exasperation than anger. "Listen. Don't *ask* the power….. eat it, drink it in. Make it yours. It will bear you up if you consume it." He waved one hand expansively; Ushio would swear that he was enjoying this.
*'Eat it, drink it in'…. just the kind of advice you'd expect from a bakemono.* thought the Spearbearer with a certain exasperation. Well, why the hell not? It couldn't hurt to try---
Taking a deep breath, Ushio closed his eyes and reached out again for that intangible something, like a man grasping at smoke, like a bakemono reaching for magic….. He found it; handling it was like carrying a soap bubble in your fingers. Carefully he drew it to himself, into his Self, drank it in-----
----- felt it inside him, like a muscle he had never noticed before; gingerly he adjusted it, tensed this and relaxed that, stretched inside to allow the strange new part of himself room.
*And found himself hovering six feet or so above the water.* Even a flailing handful of panicked claws didn't keep him from splashing half-under the river's surface this time, before a cursing Tora yanked an equally-swearing Ushio back airborne.
Drenched and dripping, he tried again. And again. And again. And again….. The day shaded into afternoon, but the Spearbearer never noticed.
And each time he tried, Ushio could feel the strange new part of him becoming a little more at home, a little more at ease. A little more natural. Later, when he had time to think about it, this would scare him more than nearly anything else.
But slowly, falteringly, he learned to fly.
*********************************************
The two bakemono coasted to a halt and hovered like twin ghosts beneath the bridge a few feet from where Mayuko stood watching, her eyes as big as saucers. "Ushio-kun……" she breathed; the Spearbearer dropped his jaw in a silent laugh that displayed every sharp tooth. The young woman sank down to sit against a beam with a thud. "You're--- flying."
"Yeah….. I know. It's great, it's....just *great*….." He couldn't stop grinning anymore than she could stop staring. Ushio felt a little dizzy from elation and the rush of adrenaline; beside him, Tora rumbled softly, very pleased with himself.
"Not bad, Brat. You learned that quickly enough. Now we can travel faster." The orange monster poked Ushio in the shoulder with a sharp claw. "Ready to hunt?" His silver eyes flashed in anticipation and he smiled like a whole ocean full of sharks.
Ushio drew a deep breath and looked down at the waves moving below him. Their reflections hung like night and day in the calm wavelets, amber-gold and onyx. He looked up; Mayuko was watching him intently. "Ready?"
She took a deep breath. "Yes…… Uhmm, Ushio-kun? I've seen you riding on Tora's back before---" (Tora curled a lip back and muttered "…he doesn't ride me, I just don't throw him off. I *allow* him to hold on!")
"----- uhm, sorry, Tora----- and I was wondering: Should I, ah, ride on your back? Or on Tora's?" She tilted her head to one side inquiringly.
Ushio hesitated; bobbing up and down in the air was one thing. Carrying a passenger, though----- he looked at Tora. The other bakemono had alighted next to the 'monster graffiti' that he had been drawing earlier and was carefully signing his name in elegantly-drawn kanji clawmarks (interestingly enough, he was writing 'Tora', not 'Nagatobimaru'). Huh. Ushio hadn't even known he could write. The ancient monster glanced up from his 'art' with a sly grin. "Think you can do it, whelp? Just don't go too high….." Ushio blanched, picturing a combined splash of Mayuko and black bakemono decorating the landscape. *Maybe if we keep low…..*
He landed gently next to his friend on the rusty beam, feeling weight return to his limbs the moment he touched solid metal. How strange, to suddenly feel *heavy* and to recall that weight and mass were usually part of the same thing--- not to have control over your position in space! For a moment, the Spearbearer's thoughts ran along this line; then he laughed softly and shook off his distraction, grinning up at the young woman. "You ready, Mayuko-kun?" He slipped the Spear back into its place in his mane.
Mayuko looked down into her friend's face; she wondered if he had any idea how fierce he looked in that moment, golden pupil-less eyes shining with elation and anticipation, all the fire of the sun gathered there. Black as night, the tiny white slashes crossing his limbs like threads of silk; the lightning-mark on his forehead gleamed palely against his darkness. Smiling up at her. Mayuko was certain that he was trying to look reassuring, but the tips of the many, many sharp teeth that she could just barely see were not all that reassuring.
But this was Ushio-kun….. The young woman tucked her tawny hair back behind her ears and glanced over towards Tora. The *other* bakemono----- she had to remember that. There was more than one here now. He was watching with interest as she eased herself down onto Ushio's broad back, gripping the black mane tightly. Ushio grunted as she positioned herself a little below his shoulders. "…. Hang on….. don't pull so hard….. here, move up a little….. don't try to sit, lay forward….. Ow! Don't dig your heels in, Mayuko, I'm not a horse!"
She shifted a little to one side, her hands sunk deep into Ushio's black mane. How strange…… "Sorry; I've never ridden anything but a bicycle. Ahh, are you SURE you can….. fly….. with me on your back?"
He grinned over his shoulder at her. "No. But let's try it anyway!" An odd exhilaration was filling him; he felt better than he had since his change….. elated for no real reason. Everything around Ushio was sharply in focus, bright and clear, and it was all interesting: scents, sounds, the light, the water, his companions. Still looking back at an apprehensive Mayuko, he wondered: did Tora ever feel like this, his heart pounding to the moment?
Ushio reached out into that moment, grasping at the new thing that had borne him up; heart in his throat, he stepped off the beam.
For a moment, the two fell in a curving drop towards the water; then (*dammit Ushio, concentrate! concentrate! do-it-do-it-do-it-DO-IT-DO-IT-DO-IT-NOW!*) they swung across the water towards the shore in a fast, wave-tipping sweep of black fur and wind. Laughing inwardly, Ushio could hear Mayuko's squeak of terror and feel her grip his mane like her life depended on it. A little behind him, he could also hear Tora yelling something--- but it was too hard to make it out. Pulse pounding in his ears, mane whipping all over the place, he could see his shadow shooting across the broken, watery mirror below him, keeping pace with his flight. On his back his passenger flattened herself against his body; Ushio could feel Mayuko's heart beating, beating, even faster than his own. Was she yelling something? And what was it that Tora was shouting? They were still scorching across the waves, heading down the river towards the shoreline where he recalled the old canals beginning; what was the problem? His inner laughter bubbled over, became a low rumble deep in his chest.
WHAT was Tora yelling? His voice was closer now; never mind, Ushio could ask him later...... this was too much fun.
Fun?
Ushio looked down at his shadow again…… Black beast, golden-eyed, claws outstretched and mane streaming behind like a shadowy comet…….
***Reality splashed over him like ice-cold water; he was a monster, and he was having *fun* being a monster?!?*** Humans don't fly! Humans don't wear fur and fangs and claws! How could he be ENJOYING this?!? Ushio staggered in his flight, stumbling over thin air; only the terrified grip at his shoulders kept him from crashing into the water below-----
….. and Tora passed overhead like a hurricane, the rush of his passage whipping black mane and tawny human hair into a storm. "GO UNSEEN, YOU IDIOTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!" he howled, teeth bared.
Uh-oh…………….
**********************************************
By the time Ushio touched gently down onto the grassy shore, he was no longer visible (an oddly easy thing to do, if you didn't forget about it; no-one really wanted to *see* anything like a bakemono, so turning human sight aside was almost second nature). Embarrassed, shaken, but no longer visible. Tora was waiting on the bank, cursing under his breath in a stream of invective that withered the grass off the banks. Ushio hung his head; the excitement and exhilaration of his first real flight had driven pretty much all intelligent thought from his mind, and he knew it. Doubtless the sight of a flying black creature near the bridge had caused a few car wrecks among its burden of vehicles; he just hoped that no-one had been hurt.
Mayuko started to slide off, but a wave of Tora's huge hand kept her where she was. The amber bakemono caught Ushio by a fistful of black mane and pulled him face to face. "Ass!!" he shouted, silver eyes burning furiously; "Do that again and we'll have humans all over the place!!! Do you want to know what it's like to be hunted?!?" He yanked sideways; Ushio snarled loudly and swatted his hand away. "I've BEEN hunted before, remember?!? By bakemonotachi, by youkai, by all sorts of things! I just--- got carried away!........" The Spearbearer glared at his partner, who only stared back coolly, eyes slitted. But after a few moments, the great striped face began to twitch suspiciously; gradually Tora began to grin, and then to laugh deeply, roughly. Still chuckling, he turned to leap back into low flight; "Follow…." was all the ancient bakemono said. As Ushio sprang carefully up into the air, he glanced over his shoulder at Mayuko. "You OK? Sorry about that….." He took a deep breath. "It was.... I don't know." The Spearbearer glanced down at himself. "Sometimes this new body, the things it can do, they just kind of--- take over, you know?"
His friend brushed her tangled hair back and tried to smile. "I'm fine; I just didn't expect you to go so fast. It was like riding a wild animal….. Sort of fun, though." She looked off towards the passing landscape; the ground below was growing marshy and wet. They had landed beside a deep, swift-running channel that split from the main river and (as Ushio recalled) eventually wandered into the series of brackish canals that were their goal.
As they drifted above the weeds and underbrush, Ushio could see Tora questing ahead for a scent. He sighed; Mayuko's words began to hit home........"like riding a wild animal." Shit, yeah; that was *exactly* what he had been doing since he had changed: riding a wild animal. Only the animal was himself..... Aotsuki Ushio, melted down and poured into a different mold, one with all the attributes of a beast.
And he WAS enjoying it..... now, anyway.
Wasn't that wrong?
The black bakemono blinked his eyes against the late sun as he slowely soared over a thread of a stream. *After all,* he reflected, *who doesn't want to be a beast sometimes? Who hasn't ever wanted to throw away the rules, civilization, just be as wild as impulse wants us to be? We tame our selves; we rule ourselves.* Ushio's heart twisted in pain; it was hard to admit (even to himself) how attractive the idea of losing control really was. *I get to be a lot, well, fiercer than most people ever have the chance to be--- I fight, I even kill; the Spear..... requires it. But this, this..... Why can't I hate it like I did when I first changed?!?*
He stretched his foreclaws out before him; the ground had grown more sodden and marshier below them, tall weeds bending in the afternoon breeze. That same breeze caressed his face, sending tendrils of black hair across his vision. A single silver talon combed them back. *Animals, now--- they have an excuse for their actions: no conscience, no morals, no worries. But I'm like that guy Hyou said, the 'animal that is not an animal.' Bakemonotachi can choose what they do, or at least ones like.... we..... can. We. I'm going to be like this the rest of my life.* It finally hit home.
*The rest of my life.*
On his back Mayuko shifted; she slid one hand down onto his forehead, a little beyond where the lightning-mark ended just above his eyes. "Ushio-kun, what's wrong? You feel..... unhappy. Are you worrying about the river-youkai?" He could smell the faint tang of fear in her scent. It was--- disturbing. Oddly attractive.
"No..... about myself. Mayuko..... It's harder and harder to stay my old self now, to keep remembering that this--- is *wrong*, that I shouldn't be a bakemono. If it felt bad to be this way, it would be easier." Ushio looked down at his own hands, extending and retracting his silver talons; he could feel a faint trembling beginning in his limbs. "But it doesn't feel bad; it feels..... good. This body feels good, flying feels, hell, just amazing!" He took a deep breath and blurted it out: "I keep worrying that I'm going to forget what it was like to be human. How long will I remember when everything about being a, a bakemono, feels so overwhelming? Mayuko, if you only knew....." He stopped and took another deep breath. "If you could only feel things like I do now; all the scents, all the sounds..... When the Spear takes over, I feel something like this, I'm a predator then too; but that stops sooner or later. Now, though..... If I forget how it was to be human, how will I remember to how to stay Ushio?" His question was a cry of pain.
Her hand reached down to gently touch him at the termination of the lightning slash; she smoothed the fur there. "You will remember because your friends will remind you. We will always remind you, and *we* will always remember who you really are..... no matter what shape you wear, or what you become."
The Spearbearer sighed again. "Yeah. I know..... Thanks." They were both silent for a few moments; then Ushio growled low in his throat. "Man, I *really* don't look forward to telling Asako about this." He shuddered at the thought.
Mayuko started to answer, then stopped abruptly; he could feel both her fists clench hard in the fur at his neck. "Mayuko? What's wrong?"
She began to shiver. "I don't, I don't know--- do we have to go any further? This place feels..... sick."
They were still gliding along the channel; it had begun to separate off into the small canals Ushio remembered from his childhood. Here and there he could see faint tracks worn into the grasslands by animals and, possibly, human children. He sniffed; yeah, definitely human scents here. Tora had stopped a little ways ahead and was hanging in the air, head thrown back as he drank in the breeze. His partner also slowed, drawing a deep breath.
*Let's see..... Dead fish... crushed plants of some sort... more fish or something fishy... mud, more plants... salt... salt? No, that's sweat or something else, something rank... sort of sweet, and familiar... where did I smell that, sometime today?*
*Oh yeah, behind the park, when Mayuko pricked her finger on my claw: blood...........*
Blood. Human blood. But not new; no, this was old-smelling, sour. Ushio could tell that much; it had a carrion quality to it. And there was something more, a reek of--- what? Decay? *Mayuko was right, there's something sick about this place.....* The Spearbearer alighted gently on a fairly solid-looking bit of ground; the mud squished between his toes and fingers. Mayuko started to slip off, but he gestured silently for her to stay where she was. "Tora? What do you smell? I'm too new at this to really tell....." He could feel his passenger's heart beating hard against his back; she crouched down as if to hide in his shock of black mane, pulling it close about her for comfort.
Tora shook his head until his ears flapped. "Hrrrhhrrrr. It's here, somewhere. I smell it, but it's *very* good at hiding its scent. I think maybe it rubs itself with some plant or something." He stepped from the air to the ground as if descending a staircase. "Somewhere near.......... and I think perhaps it has a larder here, too." His claws clenched in the mud and wiry grass. "Ssssssss. It stinks..... This is an eater of dead meat as well as of live." He began to pace up the bank towards a copse of willows, his lips drawn back in distaste.
"Near...... Ah. Here's the larder. Feh!" The striped face grimaced in disgust.
Ushio slowly moved up to peer around Tora's body----- and jerked back, revolted at the stench. Decay, horrible and unmistakable; even Mayuko coughed and covered her nose and mouth with a hand. But the scent wasn't the worst of it; beyond the other bakemono he could see.... what? It was like a nest, sort of. Bleached branches lay in a jumble, with tags and rags of color threaded through; and from the trees around, other strips of color. What in the world.....?
And then the Spearbearer's eyes made sense of what he was seeing, and the full horror of it hit him. Those weren't branches. They were bones. And the bits of color were shredded cloth..... shredded clothing. They were tied onto the trees and bones like ribbons, a monster's insane artwork. A faint buzzing sounded from the ground around the nest as marsh flies arose disturbed from dark stains on the damp soil.
Ushio staggered back a step, sickened and unwilling to see anymore. One foot stepped on something other than marshy ground; he looked down. Apparently the water-youkai wasn't the best of housekeepers--- it had missed a piece of cloth. *You know,* he thought, staring down, *that almost looks like the sleeve of a kid's shirt, only it's not flat, it's got something inside it-----*
-----Ushio jerked back blindly, a hissing growl that he had never made before rising from deep within his throat. On his back, Mayuko was muttering something to herself that sounded rather like a prayer. She hung on tightly, and he welcomed her warmth across his back.
Only Tora seemed unmoved. He had turned in his steps to watch his two companions, silver eyes impassive. Now he sat stone-still on the stained ground, staring at Ushio.....
No, staring *past* Ushio..... And on the Spearbearer's back, the Kemono No Yari began to ring softly, softly.....
************************************
End of Chapter 5 of 6
(So it'll be 6 chapters instead of 5; so sue me, already!!!..... Ysabet)
****************** UPDATE, AS OF 6/26/01----- If you'd like to see a truely BEAUTIFUL piece of fanart based on this story by Suzanna Gertruida (I hope I spelled that right!), please go to this link (provided by my very, very generous friend Becky Tailweaver, who writes INCREDIBLE STUFF): http://tailweaver.faithweb.com/utfanart.jpg
Gotta tell ya, I was blown away by this picture; the detail is incredible.....
