The medicine seller stared at the doll. It didn't move. He crouched down, wrapping his free hand around the doll and picking it up. Its lifeless limbs hung down around his hand.
"D-don't pick that up!" Kayo yelped.
"It's just a doll." It had no life within it, but it looked like a typical vessel for a hinnagami. He found it strange that the mononoke possessed a regular doll instead of a vessel like this, but mononoke didn't always work the same way as the human world often did.
She kept her distance, watching the doll cautiously as the medicine seller held it in his hand. "What's a hinnagami anyway?"
"A doll spirit, in essence," he replied, turning the doll a bit in his hand. The vessel was well made but still very much empty. "It is created deliberately through intensive rituals, the result is a hinnagami spirit that can grant the owner any wish they desire."
"Any wish, huh," Kayo frowned at the doll.
"There is a catch," the medicine seller added. "A hinnagami will continue to demand wishes after one is granted. It's a double-edged sword."
"That sounds like it could get bad fast," Kayo reasoned. She still hadn't dared to approach while he was holding the doll, but she also didn't keep her distance as there could be a mononoke lurking in the shadows. "But how could this hinnagami thing become a mononoke? Doesn't someone have to die or something?"
"The ritual failed," he replied. "This doll is empty. Perhaps they sought to create one by other means."
She continued to stare at the doll with uncertainty. But she also knew that he understood supernatural things a lot better than she did. If he said it was empty, it was empty, but that didn't mean she would like the doll. "Black magics?"
"I wonder." He set the doll on the table next to the bonsai tree. He moved the light back and forth across the hallway, looking at each paper door before opening them. Bedroom. Storeroom. Another bedroom.
Kayo watched him curiously. "What are you doing?"
"Something left this doll here in the hallway," he replied.
"That doesn't really answer much," she huffed.
He paused with his hand on the door, peering back at her. He opened his mouth a moment to say something but quickly gritted his teeth, a fanged tooth visible for a moment before he turned back towards the dark hallway. His free hand drawn backwards with spell papers peeking out from between his fingers, he held the light orb in front of them. Something was there, but even with the lantern's light, nothing had shown up.
What's next?
He heard the whispers again. Had they made another wish downstairs? They had to oblige, to satiate the constant demands of a hinnagami. There was a chance it would backfire and create an odd, possibly deadly situation. It depended on how angry the mononoke was and how it would react. It was possible it didn't want revenge, but it was equally possible it did.
He took a few steps forward, the floorboards creaking beneath his socked feet. At the end of the hallway was a peculiar shoji door partially boarded up. Unlike the other doors, this one wasn't well kept, seemingly falling into disrepair from neglect. "How peculiar."
"You would say that," Kayo commented, clinging to his shoulder.
"Hold this but don't drop it," the medicine seller offered her the glowing orb.
Kayo took it, cradling it in both hands, staring it at him, then the orb, then back at him. "Wait, you're not going to open that door, are you?!"
"Of course," he replied as if nothing were strange about this. He glanced at her with ofuda peeking through his fingers. "Do you not find it strange that a door is in such disrepair in such a prominent tea house?"
"Well of course, but I'm not going to just open some raggedy door where something could be lurking behind it!" She paused with her mouth hanging open. That was exactly why he was opening it.
He offered her a slight grin as she realized what he was intending. "Stay behind me." With a flick of his wrist, he plastered the boards with the paper ofuda, using the spell scrolls to help pry the boards off and open the door. The room was surprisingly not occupied by a mononoke, but it was unsettling enough without one.
He stepped into the room, Kayo nervously following him with the light orb. The room was incredibly neglected. A small decaying futon lay in the corner. The tatami mats had been scratched apart, some chicken scratch of characters scrawled into them. The door frame had been damaged, seemingly kicked and scratched at relentlessly to no avail.
"W-what happened here?" Kayo gasped. "What is that smell? It smells like rotting food."
"Flesh," he corrected her.
"F-flesh?!" Kayo yelped. "Don't tease me like that!" She stared at him, then quickly yelped again when she realized he wasn't teasing her.
The medicine seller stepped towards the futon, despite Kayo clawing at his sleeve to keep him from approaching. He shook his sleeve free, kneeling down to pull the futon covers back.
"Oh kami, I think I'm gonna be sick," Kayo slapped a hand over her mouth.
The medicine seller knelt down. The body that lay within the futon bed had decayed for some time, laying there in neglect, forgotten. "What blatant disrespect." Holding the covers in his hand, he noticed some writing near the bed. "Miss Kayo, the light please."
Nervously she held it out for him, not wanting to get closer to a dead body than she had to. The Sakai house was gruesome. This was getting close to that level. She was beginning to see why he referred to people as just 'humans' sometimes. He was distancing himself from them.
"'Help'," he read the script. "'I don't want to die. I just wanted our family to be together. Ichi.'"
"Ichi," Kayo stared, gaping. "That's the eldest sister's name, isn't it?"
The medicine seller pulled the covers back over the body respectfully, standing up. Humans could be so cruel, even to their own family. "The truth that created this mononoke... Ichi was neglected purposefully, locked in here and forgotten until she died. She didn't simply die. She was killed, perhaps to make the hinnagashi in a different manner."
The taima sword chattered.
Kayo furrowed her brow. "That's so cruel."
"The darker side of humanity," the medicine seller agreed. He took a step forward, pausing momentarily. In the distance, he could hear the bells of the scales jingling one at a time.
Kayo fumbled with the glowing orb. The mononoke had left the tea room. Or perhaps it was the second one. She wasn't really sure and she wasn't completely sure she wanted to know. But this was part of what the medicine seller did. She knew this. She'd have to try to put on a brave face and not crush the glowing orb in the process.
He turned on his socked feet, exiting the room. "Come, Miss Kayo."
"W-wait, isn't it safer in….." she stared at the futon with uncertainty. Staying in a room with a neglected dead body was the last place she wanted to be right now. "No no, you're right." Kayo nearly clung to him as he headed deeper down the hallway and away from the stairs. The bells rang out in the distance one by one. The mononoke behind them was approaching slowly, but the medicine seller's words before that there could be two stuck to her mind like glue. Everything about this place was just creepy.
She gasped as she bumped into the medicine seller. Cautiously she peered around him, quickly regretting the choice. In front of him stood some life-size creepy doll that looked like a giant version of the dolls that sat on the top shelf of the bookshelf.
"You don't belong!" the doll hissed, its voice garbled and almost mechanical.
"Is that what angers you?" he questioned.
"You don't belong!" it repeated.
"Tell me your reason!" he demanded. "What makes you so angry?" Feeling Kayo grasp his kimono tightly, he glanced over his shoulder. A second doll had approached from the stairway. There were two, much to his dismay. Hopefully they were one and the same mononoke. Determining two truths and reasons would prove difficult if they weren't.
"Creatures like you!" the pair of dolls lashed out with their hair.
Fighting was normally straightforward for him. He simply fought, only caring to stop the mononoke. Humans sometimes died. He always remained unfazed by this. But now he had a companion, a human apprentice with him. Something about this woman made him actually care about a human.
He outstretched his arms, blocking the attacks with a wall of spell papers. He could feel the strain on his arms. These dolls were more powerful than he expected, their ire strong and unyielding. They did not want anyone else here.
The hair broke through the barrier. Thinking quickly, the medicine seller used his body to shove Kayo out of the way, taking the brunt of the attack himself. He was capable of withstanding the supernatural, while she was not.
She tumbled to the floor, clinging to the orb so she wouldn't drop it. With the light in her hands, she gasped, seeing the medicine seller now wrapped in doll hair like a bunch of black, spindly ropes. He'd protected her from the attack.
"You don't belong!" the dolls repeated in unison, using their hair to forcefully toss him through the paper doors and into the next room with a resounding crash followed by the sound of something breaking and giving way, then the sound seemed to continue below her.
Kayo stared in horror. That sounded bad, and even as non-human as he seemed, part of her doubted he would survive this in one piece. She didn't want to see him die. "Mr. Medicine Seller!"
...
Author's musings
The idea of having a dual mononoke amuses me. It can attack from both sides and creep Kayo out. Because what wouldn't be creepy about a pair of doll mononoke that seem to want to kill you? Not that a dead body behind a boarded up shoji door isn't creepy enough.
