Chapter V:
Escape
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One night, almost two months after Hiromitsu had been brought captive to Sounga's mountain citadel, the door to the cell opened at the usual time. Hiromitsu was currently sporting an extensive assortment of bruises and cuts; Sounga had sent Onigumo in that afternoon to pummel him again. Though Sounga himself never came down to the dungeon, Hiro knew that the Great Demon enjoyed his suffering vicariously through his minions. Had his wrists and ankles not been chained to the wall by enchanted iron manacles, he would have given Onigumo a good shellacking; as it was, he had only been able to spit a bit of blood in the chief enforcer's eye, which had only served to encourage Sounga's undead butcher and make this day's beating even worse than usual.
Saeko entered, with little Myoga perched on her shoulder, carrying the usual plate of Sounga's leftovers and a pair of chopsticks. For some reason, there was a strange sense of uneasiness radiating from her, and her sightless eyes darted about more than usual. "Is something wrong, Saeko?" he asked as she held out the chopsticks to feed him a morsel of stir-fried pork.
The pale girl gave him her best forced smile, but Hiromitsu sensed her nervousness; he could smell it like a whiff of smoke from some burning dread inside her. "I'm fine, Hiro," she said, still trying to smile, "but you've got to finish eating quickly tonight. There's something I want to show you both."
"If it's what's under that pretty red kimono of yours, girl, you can forget it," Totosai quipped from his spot to Hiromitsu's right. "I make it a point of pride that I've never slept with one of the living dead, and I'm never going to."
Everyone had to laugh at that, though Saeko's cheeks went an almost normal-looking shade of pink and she said something about Totosai being a dirty lecher. Then she went over to Totosai and began feeding him the rest of the food, even though Hiromitsu hadn't even finished his half!
"Hey!" Hiro called over, "I wasn't done yet!"
"Sorry, Hiro, but it's Totosai who's really going to need his strength tonight."
Totosai shifted uncomfortably in his chains. "Look, if this is about that joke I made, I apologize. Fair enough? Just don't do anything ... odd. I'm afraid cold flesh doesn't do anything for me."
"Oh, pipe down, you old coot. No offense, but wrinkly old demons a dozen times my age don't do anything for me."
Totosai sighed with relief, and gratefully accepted the food Saeko began feeding him. Hiromitsu just looked on, wondering why Saeko had just shortchanged him in favor of Totosai.
Several moments later, Saeko placed the empty bowl and chopsticks on the floor, then reached inside her robe and pulled out a long, heavy iron nail. She held the object out and placed it in one of Totosai's shackled hands. "Now, Totosai, I want you to listen to me very carefully. If you can melt that nail down onto the writing on your chains, it should cover the runes written on them and let you melt the chains themselves."
Totosai's eyes lit up, even as Hiromitsu's brow furrowed in confusion. "How's he supposed to do that?" he asked Saeko. "It's almost as though you expect the poor old guy to breathe fi--"
Suddenly, Totosai drew in a deep breath, then shot a jet of flame through his lips, instantly turning the nail into a dripping red piece of molten metal. "WHOA!" Hiro yelled, jumping in his shackles, startled by the burst of light and heat in their normally cold, dim cell. In moments, the liquefied iron that had been the nail had dripped from Totosai's fingers - which seemed immune to his bizarre natural flame - and onto one of his shackles. There was an electric crackling sound, and blue sparks jumped from Totosai's chains as whatever enchantments Sounga had placed upon them were rendered null and void. Grinning from ear to ear, Totosai turned and let loose another blast, this time melting the manacle on his right wrist like candle wax. Then he craned his neck and melted each of his ankle cuffs in turn, and finally, Totosai was standing under his own power, bits of semi-molten metal still clinging harmlessly to his wrists and ankles, his wizened features positively radiant with joy, free at last!
Hiromitsu goggled at him. "Totosai, I ... I didn't know you could do that!"
"'Course I can!" the emaciated old demon exclaimed, putting his hands on his hips. "I am a fire demon, you know!"
Saeko, meanwhile, walked up beside Totosai and guided him over to Hiromitsu. At first, the older demon had trouble walking; long years of immobility and poor circulation had not been kind to his muscles, and Saeko had to work to keep the stick-thin fellow upright. Finally, the pair managed to stumble over to Hiromitsu, who was still chained to the wall, an expression of shock on his wide-eyed young face. "All right, young man," Totosai said, "just hold out your hand and try not to move. I'm just going to melt the chains, not your cuffs."
"Can you do that without another nail?" asked Hiro. "My chains have spells on them, too."
Saeko shook her head. "Your chains just drain your strength so that you can't break them. They weren't meant to be fireproof like Totosai's," she said.
"How do you know all of this?" Hiro asked, amazed.
Saeko gave him a mischievious smile. "Do you think I'm just sitting up there sipping sake with Sounga all day while you two suffer? I ask him a question, and he spends an hour gloating about how well he knows the answer."
Hiromitsu nodded, then held his right hand as far from his body as he could, pulling the chain tight. Totosai shot another burst of flame, and the chain melted and snapped, sparking like a cut electrical wire. In moments, Hiromitsu was free as well, the cuffs on his ankles and wrists separated from their chains and stripped of their enchantments. Curious, Hiro grabbed one of his wrist cuffs, pulled, and discovered that he could now break the cuffs easily. It took Hiro just a few more seconds to remove the last of his bonds, and when he was finished, he, Totosai and Saeko were all standing in the middle of the cell, without a single link of chain among them.
Before Hiro or Totosai had time to celebrate, however, Saeko grabbed their arms and pulled them out of the cell. Beyond the cell door was a narrow corridor, and they took a left, climbing up a flight of stairs, with Hiro and Saeko supporting the elderly Totosai. When they reached the top, they left the stairwell and went along another corridor with a cherry-wood floor and ceiling and rice-paper walls, all of it overgrown with those strange, red, fleshy tendrils Hiromitsu remembered from Sounga's throne room. It was as though Sounga had somehow made the entire citadel into a living, pulsing part of himself, with the throbbing red tendrils acting as sinews or nerve tissue. Once again, Hiromitsu's nostrils were assaulted by the stench of the Great Demon's rage and evil.
At the end of the corridor, they all turned right ... straight into a pair of Sounga's undead soldiers, clad from head to toe in red armor, their glowing crimson eyes visible through their masks. Both corpses drew their swords in perfect tandem, preparing to slice the intruders to bits, but Totosai was faster, and spat a stream of red-hot fire at the living dead. Instantly, both of the soldiers burst into flames, as though their inhuman flesh was nothing more than a mass of oil-soaked rags. Without so much as a scream, they dropped to the floor, spasming wildly as their bodies were burned to ash.
Saeko pulled hard on his arm. "Quickly! You have to go now! Every one of those monsters is controlled by Sounga's will. He's probably already sensed their deaths, and it won't be long before we're caught!" So saying, she stepped gingerly over the soldiers' remains, in such a way that Hiromitsu realized that, being one of the living dead, Saeko herself was probably just as flammable. He and Totosai would have to be careful about torching any more of Sounga's troops around her ...
As a Great Demon, Sounga had little need for sleep as humans knew it. Still, after his evening meal, he often chose to spend time in meditation, keeping his mind and body in prime condition and checking on the status of his various endeavors.
Through the eyes of his soldiers, he could be in hundreds of places at once. He was a company of troops rampaging through a small coastal fishing village, burning houses and slaughtering every adult in the area, leaving the terrified children to scatter and spread word of the Great Demon's ferocity to the neighboring villages. He was a squad of reanimated corpses excavating the ruins of a shrine where, according to rumor, an ancient artifact of great power had been kept for generations. He watched through Onigumo's eyes as his chief enforcer advanced upon a buxom young woman his troops had kidnapped that morning, experiencing the undead killer's lust.
And he was every soldier in his citadel complex, monitoring the goings-on, aware of every sound and movement...
Suddenly, Sounga felt intense pain from two of his troops. Even as their eyes melted in their sockets, Sounga peered through them and saw the boy demon, that decrepit old fire-demon Totosai ... and the blind girl Saeko, whom he had resurrected! His eyes snapped open, and Sounga's crimson face twisted into a grimace of hate. Somehow, that little wench had managed to hide her thoughts from him, and now she had freed both of his prisoners!
ONIGUMO! Sounga gave a mental shout.
"Huh?" Onigumo said aloud, looking about his spacious suite within Sounga's citadel. "Boss? What's up?" To the terrified young girl lying half-naked on the tatami floor, it seemed that the undead warrior was talking to himself.
Stop mucking about with that human and get moving! My prisoners are escaping, and you will pursue them!
Cursing loudly, Onigumo dropped the knife which he had planned to use for cutting the wench's remaining clothes off and grabbed his pants from the floor. He fumbled with his belt and sheath, finally just yanking his sword out in frustration, then charged out of the room, leaving a very confused young woman behind to try and find her own way out of the citadel.
Sounga settled back on his throne, focusing his perceptions on one particular being, probing her thoughts, boring through her mental barriers, searching her puny human mind ...
As they rounded the corner, Saeko fell to the floor, clutching her head. Suddenly lacking her support, Totosai stumbled, and Hiromitsu had to grab hold of the older demon's waist to keep him upright. "Miss Saeko?" asked Myoga, "What's wrong?"
The pale young girl was trembling all over, her eyes shut. "It's Sounga!" she said. "He's trying to enter my thoughts! I can't hold out against him much longer!" Fighting the pain, Saeko pointed ahead. "Hiro, Totosai, just go straight! There should be a stable through those double doors. Just take the fastest horse there, then run as far as you can! Just get away from this place!"
"No way!" Hiromitsu said, taking hold of Saeko's shoulder. "You're coming with us!"
"You don't understand! If I go with you, Sounga will still be able to see my thoughts. He'll use me to track you both down and kill you! You have to leave me here!" Turning to Myoga, she said, "Go with them. You'll only get in trouble if you stay here with me."
Hiromitsu wanted to say that Saeko was wrong, that somehow they would be able to take her someplace Sounga could never reach them, but knew that he was just lying to himself. Though she still posessed her own soul, Saeko was one of the undead, resurrected by Sounga's power, and no matter how far the three of them ran, she would never really be free of him. While his and Totosai's bonds had been merely physical, Saeko was bound to Sounga by her very nature.
Hiromitsu let Totosai lean against a wall while he knealt down beside her. "I promise, Saeko, someday I'll come back for you. You saved our necks, and I'm not leaving you in the hands of that maniac Sounga!"
Saeko looked up at him, tears and raw pain in her sightless eyes. "Don't you see, Hiromitsu? I knew from the beginning that you would have to leave me behind." As Hiro's eyes went wide, she went on. "You got in trouble because I tried to use you to defeat Sounga, and I have to pay for that. You're a good person, Hiromitsu, and you deserve to be happy."
Hiro stood frozen to the spot, speechless. It was Totosai who finally snapped him out of his stupor, saying "She's right, boy! If we don't get going now, we'll all be killed! Saeko knew what she was doing when she sprung us from the dungeon. Now, let's take to our heels and get out of this place!"
"As much as it pains me to say so," added Myoga, now riding behind Hiro's right ear, "I have to agree with Totosai and Miss Saeko. Even if you did manage to take her away from this castle, she will never truly be free from Sounga's power. Our only chance now is to save ourselves!"
Taking one last look back at Saeko - crouched on the floor, clutching her head with her blind eyes squeezed tight - Hiromitsu wrapped an arm around Totosai's shoulders and helped the old man make his way toward the stable doors. Inside, the scent of animals was almost strong enough to overpower Sounga's pervasive miasma, but not quite. Strange, giant carrion crows fluttered about amongst the rafters, and Hiromitsu could sense their triple eyes watching them as he and Totosai made their way to the stalls. Several housed only the skeletal remains of horses, and one held the very same undead steed that Onigumo had ridden when he first captured Hiromitsu. Hiro, however, decided to pass up the giant warhorse - it, like Saeko, was tied to Sounga's will, and would probably cause more problems than even its lightning-fast hooves could solve. In the end, the only animal they could find that wasn't tainted by the Great Demon's evil was a strange, three-eyed cow in the pen closest to the outer doors. "Damn!" Hiro snarled, "How are we supposed to escape on this old cow!"
"I agree with Hiromitsu," Myoga chimed in. "We might as well just climb down the mountain ourselves, rather than waste time with that sorry excuse for a quadruped."
"Don't be fooled, Myoga," Totosai said, smiling for some mysterious reason, "not everything is just what it seems to be..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" snapped Hiro. "All I see is a broken-down old cow that looks like it's been starved half to death."
"That's what I mean," Totosai said, "It's not what you think."
Hiromitsu shook his head, sighing. He didn't like it, but this old thing was their only shot, and right now they needed all the help they could get. When he lifted Totosai up onto the creature's back, the cow didn't seem to mind, so Hiromitsu went and opened the outer doors. Outside the stable was a long, narrow path that spiraled down around the steep mountain on which Sounga's citadel was perched. Since Hiro's arrival, winter had set in, and there was a thick layer of snow on the ground. When the doors were open, Hiro climbed up and put a hand around the old man's waist.
The three-eyed cow didn't move.
"Come on!" Hiro yelled, "Move! Let's go!"
"That's no way to talk to a cow, boy," Totosai scolded him. Then he tapped the animal's sides gently with his heels. The cow plodded out of her stall and looked around. "Good girl, Momo!" Totosai said cheerfully, patting the back of the cow's head. "Now, let's head outside. I'll bet you there are whole fields of green grass once you come down off this mountain." As if she could understand him, "Momo" turned and walked purposefully through the stable doors. After another moment of looking around and sniffing the air, the old cow began trotting forward.
Straight off the edge of the narrow path.
"Hey, watch out!" Hiro exclaimed, "We're gonna fall off!"
"AAAHHH!" wailed Myoga. "Totosai, watch where you're going!"
"Don't worry, you two" Totosai said, laughing, "This is just where the fun begins!"
And then Momo walked right off the edge of the path.
As Myoga let out a tiny, high-pitched scream, Hiromitsu shut his eyes tight, waiting for the stomach-churning feeling of vertigo and the final agony as he, Totosai, Myoga and the stupid, stupid old cow they were riding hit the jagged rocks. When none of that happened, he opened his eyes slowly, blinking in confusion.
They were standing on thin air, just a few feet from the edge of the spiral path that wound around the mountain. Momo was flying!
As the initial shock wore off, Hiro found himself smiling. However Totosai had known this would happen, the old man had just found them the perfect way down off the mountain. Now they wouldn't have to worry about mucking around with the long, winding path; Momo could fly straight down, then take them wherever they wanted!
"Wahoo!" Hiro shouted. "Totosai, you're a genius!"
"I try," the old demon said, smiling modestly.
"Genius!" Myoga snapped. "We could have all been smushed! Next time, warn us before you pull a stunt like that!"
"Oh, pipe down, Myoga. We didn't fall, did we?"
"Well ... no. But we could have!"
Totosai shook his head, then turned to Hiromitsu. "You see what I've had to put up with for fifty years?"
It was sheer luck that Hiromitsu heard the wind whistling off to their left. As Momo turned north and started descending, Hiro turned back towards the citadel ...
Just as a huge black shape came sailing out through the stable doors, bounding into the air and knocking Hiromitsu right off the cow's back.
Hiro and the smelly, strangely slippery creature that had wrapped itself around him tumbled down roughly thirty feet. Hiromitsu managed to roll in such a way that the creature hit the rocky, snow-covered mountainside first, then they rolled down the steep slope, separating as the creature's grip loosened, weakened by the shock of their fall. Finally, Hiro stopped his rolling and brought himself up into a standing position, facing the "creature" as it did the same - and revealed itself to be Onigumo, clad only in long, baggy white pants, with his huge black iron scimitar clutched tightly in his right hand, a deranged grin on his bruised-looking undead face. "Well, well, well!" Sounga's chief enforcer exclaimed, "Lookee what I've got here! The little doggie-demon, still too stupid to know when he's beat!"
Hiro bared his teeth as Onigumo twirled his sword menacingly, showing off his skill and strength before moving in for the kill. Hiromitsu, however, had no intention of giving the living dead man the first move. Roaring with a pent-up rage born of months of beatings and humiliation, he charged Onigumo, his claws hooked into flesh-ripping talons, all his senses sharpened to a knife-edge. The undead warrior brought his sword up in a defensive blocking slash, but Hiro was faster than any rotting corpse, and sidestepped the ebon blade as he gave Onigumo a solid punch in the face.
Which knocked the dead man's head right off! Onigumo's shaggy, bearded head went spinning away, landing in the snow and staining it blue-black with his inhuman ichor. His decapitated torso jerked once, then dropped like a stone right in front of Hiromitsu, still clutching his sword in a death-grip.
Hiro stopped cold, his mouth slack, staring in disbelief. Could that really have been it? That had been way too easy...
And then Onigumo's severed head opened its eyes, smiling crazily once again. "Whoo! That was one hell of a punch, kid ... but you'll have to do better than that if you wanna beat me!" Hiromitsu just barely avoided a quick sweep by Onigumo's right leg, which had suddenly gone from rigor mortis to hideous, inhumanly swift life. As he backpedaled, feeling as though his heart had just jumped up into his throat, Hiro watched the undead warrior's body get to its feet and walk over to its disembodied head, then lift that head up by the hair and plop it back onto its neck with a horrible sucking sound. Instantly, any trace of a wound disappeared as head and neck seemed to melt back together, leaving a single warrior standing on the snow once again, sword in hand, grinning from ear to ear as though nothing had happened.
Damn! Hiromitsu thought, How do you kill somebody who's already dead?
Onigumo advanced on him, bringing that enormous scimitar up over his head in preparation for a killing stroke. Before he could bring it down, however, Hiro charged him again, aiming to rip a healthy chunk from his chest, but this time, Onigumo compensated for having his hands full by attacking with his feet; as Hiromitsu came within range, Onigumo brought his left foot up, hitting the young demon in the gut and knocking him sideways, landing on his back. Onigumo gave a guttural laugh of triumph and jumped right on top of the boy, holding him in place with one foot on his chest, raising his black iron sword again to deliver the final blow. "Sayonara, kid!" he said gleefully ...
Just as Totosai hit the giant warrior in the back with a jet of red-hot fire, instantly igniting his undead flesh. Onigumo's expression shifted from one of mad, triumphant joy to one of shock and pain. He dropped his sword, slapping frantically at his back in an attempt to smother the flames, but the fire moved across his greasy skin like a living thing, searching and hungry for more. Screaming, Onigumo fell to the ground and started rolling himself in the snow, but the meltwater only made the grease-fire blaze more fiercely. As Hiro watched in spellbound silence, Onigumo, the most fearsome warrior the world had ever seen, was reduced to a pile of bones and seared, rotten-smelling flesh, still screaming and flailing as his soul - forever chained to his body by his master's power - continued to feel an agony that should have killed a living man in seconds.
After more than a century of rampaging across the countryside, torturing and killing thousands of innocent people, Onigumo had finally found his own personal Hell.
"Come on, boy!" shouted Totosai, and Hiromitsu leaped up onto Momo's back as the four of them sailed off into the morning, leaving Sounga's citadel far behind.
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Author's Notes/ "Bonus Material"
-Character Design
Technically, the only new "character" in this chapter is Momo, Totosai's beloved three-eyed flying cow. We also encounter a few mutated carrion crows in the stable, one of whose brethren might cause Kagome some trouble four hundred years from now...
-Plot Development
This chapter is mostly meant to kick-start the action after the info-packed but slow-going fourth chapter, and to get the plot moving again. There's a dramatic escape, some pyrotechnics courtesy of Totosai, and a brief fight.
Most importantly, though, there's the sentimental scene in which Saeko tells Hiro to leave her behind. It elevates Hiro's quest from a simple desire for vengeance into a commitment to help someone else, making him more selfless and, thus, heroic.
Also in this chapter, Onigumo's perverted practices finally catch up with him. Because he's busy trying to rape a kidnapped woman, he doesn't have time to put on his armor, and is thus unprotected when Totosai finally gives him his long-overdue "reward" for more than a hundred years of service to Sounga. We also learn that Sounga's undead troopers are vulnerable to fire - as Onigumo discovers the hard way - and that losing his soldiers does hurt Sounga mentally, two key facts that will show up later in the story.
Finally, as those of you who read the first draft may recall, I completely forgot about Myoga when I first posted this chapter, so he didn't actually escape with Hiro and Totosai. I considered having him simply pop up at the end of Chapter X, having hidden himself on Hiro's person during the jailbreak, but since it seemed ridiculously convenient for me and out of character for Myoga - especially since he would be "reappearing" after five chapters and months of story time - I wound up rewriting chapters V through IX to fit him back into the story. For a little guy, he sure caused me a lot of trouble!
-Fight Choreography
Hiro and Onigumo's second fight is pretty similar to their first one. Hiro is still inexperienced and dependent on his natural abilities. However, he's also been beat up on a more-or-less daily basis by Onigumo, so his pent-up rage allows him to do significantly more damage this time around. Unfortunately, Onigumo still has overwhelming advantages in strength, skill and toughness, and very nearly kills Hiromitsu anyway. It again reinforces the fact that Hiro isn't perfect, and that he'll need to show some major improvement before he tries taking on Sounga himself.
Of course, Totosai's approach to fighting is obvious: Deep-fry your enemies!
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