Disclaimer: Twelve Kingdoms world, plot, and characters legally belongs to Ono Fuyumi.
Note: Toukis have abilities to harm and kill youmas, youjyuus, and immortals, I read, and this seems to imply that regular weapons wouldn't be able to harm aforementioned three, as if an arrow would just bounce off a youma or a sage. For fanfic convenience, I'll purposefully pretend I didn't understand the implication. Meaning, immortals are still immortals that only die from internal injuries and decapitation, but youmas and youjyuus would be slayable by regular weapons like regular animals, just with extra difficulties.Also, my thanks to Verna-S for pointing out my typo. I don't have other prove- readers than myself, so feel welcomed to tell me if I have grammatical and/or spelling mistakes. Also, if something isn't clear in the story, let me know as well. My gratitude in advance to you.
They watched the carriage snail toward them, toward the forest, and counted the number of guards from the top of a giant rock. Before them, vegetation was low, with scattered trees that made up the frontier of the dense forest behind them. One particularly old and bent pine was enthroned over that giant rock. Under it was a dark figure dressed in kyuuki skin caftan. His head was hooded under a kyuuki head. The caftan opened in the front and exposed his pale, bare chest. The man wore one leather glove on his left hand strengthened with arm protector. The tail of that unfortunate kyuuki wrapped around his waist as a belt. Under that he wore a pair of dusty white pants and leather boots as in custom of those who often ride on horse back. He carried a long bow, and two quivers. Some distance behind him hid partially one of his henchmen. More are distributed unseen in areas around him.
Some rustling above the pair, and an azure figure with long, white bandana landed in front of him. "It's a little mouse," she said, dusting herself. "A mouse hanjyuu." The man didn't speak. She looked again as if double checking her observation. The young woman dressed similarly to him. She had on fading black boots and an indigo sleeve-less over caftan with red cloud marks that looked like seeping lines of blood. The bandits called her Rinchu, clever colt, for the lack of a name.
"A mouse on a suugu, guarding a carriage," Rinchu stated. Her voice was ripe without sex, and her eyes restless and intense. "Karyuu, you think he could be a military official?"
"The laws forbid hanjyous to hold military ranks higher than lieutenant in Kei," Karyuu replied. He had slight, exotic accent. "Besides, that would look rediculous on a battle field." Rinchu imagined the mouse in a battle field, and chuckled.
A flicker in the sun above them drew Karyuu's attention. "There's a pair of kouchos," he said, and pointed upward with his long bow. The kouchos circled once, as if inspecting their prey for quality, and contracted their wings. Their croaks echoed lazily back from the mountains behind them.
When the kouchos scrapped off the top of the carriage, Karyuu snorted, "Lucky guy."
"This isn't a cricket fight we're watching, y'know?" Rinchu joked.
"Look!" Rinchu said, "The suugu has one of... one of them has the mouse!" From their distance, the picture looked perfectly natural – a bird of prey flying off with a mouse in its claws. Except that it was not. "They're heading our way. What should we do?"
Karyuu pondered briefly before taking up his bow and let fly an arrow. An elongated shriek soared over their heads, diminishing steadily until it marked its target. As soon as the koucho cried, a group of arrows raced out of the woods around them, pinning the koucho by its head. It let go of the mouse, who fell from the sky with its limbs and tail sticking out stiffly.
They went in the direction to which they saw the mouse fall. A dusty and slender goat hanjyuu, You Shiki, came to meet them and showed them to it. He had removed his upper garments in hope of a cooler body temperature, and was wearing ripped shorts. The mouse was bleeding, scratched by the koucho, and apparently had lost conscious due to impact.
Rinchu took off her bandana and wrapped up the mouse's back wounds. "He might need a doctor," she commented. Before she could pick up the mouse, however, the suugu they had all forgotten about had not forgotten its master. She barely missed its claws when it came pouncing off the sky. It stood protectively over the mouse on the ground, and showed no intension of letting them go near.
"Doesn't look like it wants the mouse to live," Shiki said, "Why don't we just leave them? That suugu's looking at me like dinner."
Other hiding bandits were gathering in from their posts. "Charity time's over," Karyuu said to them, "Three scouts stay out here and the rest will go back with me."
Tama the suugu was worried about his little rider. The hanjyuu had several large scratches on both his sides from the claws of the koucho. It heard something approaching, and stood up in guard position. It was the bandana girl, with her hands raised showing her palms. "Shhh, be a good boy, okay?" she whispered, "I know someone that can help."
Rakushun felt hot, like he was the sun itself, burning himself out from his inside. It's my fur, the explanation snail across his mind. He also noticed how exhausted he felt, so exhausted he found himself blanking between thoughts. From there his sensory organs began to regain their functions and territories they were supposed to detect, and a dumb pain on his back grew like a poisoned spider bite. He sighed quietly when he felt something wet and cool applied onto that pain. There was a strangely aged and strong odor. He opened his eyes tiredly and saw a phantom of a bandana-ed figure disappearing into a screen of undergrowths. The soothing coolness was still being applied and rubbed gently on his back, so he raised his head slightly to see the person. "You woke at a good time." A whiskered man stood up with a wet clothe in his hand, and Rakushun was surprised to find that that man was probably shorter than he was. A midget. The odor was coming from him. He put the wet clothe in a bowl of water, picked up a dry clothe, and proceeded to wrap up his back wound.
"Pardon me... but you are...?" Rakushun asked.
"Chu, Jiryou," the little man answered, "I was looking for medical herbs in these mountains when I saw your suugu and you on the ground, bleeding buckets. So I did some emergency treatment." Jiryou raised a hand with a large needle in his fingers.
"Are you a doctor from town?" Rakushun asked, while absent-mindedly tried to feel his back. He gave up when he remembered how short his arms were.
"I'm an apprentice to the doctor of Kokin town. Don't move 'round too much. That wound might open up," the dwarf warned him, "Kouchos are foul creatures, and so are wounds inflicted by them. I've put on you some medicines that'd slow the infection, but you should get treated as soon as possible by the best doctor you can afford. With your suugu, you can probably go to Gyouten." Jiryou dump the water in his bowl, and wrung the clothe dry. He put both away in a large pouch, and tied it across his torso. "This is 'bout all I can do for you."
Rakushun sat up, and his suugu went over to sniff him, as if making sure Jiryou didn't do anything funny. "How long will this take to cure?" he asked.
"It's just neutralizing the poison and disinfection. I say no more than two days," Jiryou answered. Rakushun gave his thanks, and the midget medicine man made his way back down the slope.
Rakushun sighed, "Two days...it takes almost a day from here to Gyouten." He climbed on top of the suugu and held on with all fours. He patted the kijyuu[1] gently, "Tama, can you take me back to Gyouten again?" The suugu purred, and took off extra carefully.
[1] kijyuu: a tamed youjyuu.