Kayo stared at the jewelry in the medicine seller's hand. It was definitely the same that Ama had been wearing earlier. She seemed to be the reasonable of the two, but if traveling with the medicine seller had told her anything, looks could be very deceiving.
"We believed it was a murder too," the tanuki samurai confirmed. "But it wasn't just one. There were two."
"Two?" the medicine seller questioned. "Please tell me everything you know. It may tell us the truth of the mononoke."
"Mononoke?" the samurai tanuki looked concerned. "Oh dear. That must be what happened."
"My dear Ran-Ran," the lady tanuki sobbed.
"A week ago, those two humans fell from the building above," the tanuki in the green scarf explained. "A man and a woman. They fell together and they were definitely dead. The girl was green, and I'm pretty sure humans don't normally turn green."
"They do not," the medicine seller confirmed. "A poison of some kind, perhaps a topical cream that marred the skin."
"The man was stabbed in the back," the tanuki in the green scarf continued. "They landed here after a tumble. Ranmaru went to check it out first, to see if he could help, then he started acting strange, consuming everything in sight then leaping up to the onsen as he transformed into a human."
The taima sword chattered a confirmation.
"I see, that is the mononoke's truth," the medicine seller reasoned. "A double murder that possessed a tanuki who simply wished to help."
"That's a taima sword, isn't it?" the samurai tanuko observed.
"It is," the medicine seller confirmed.
"You can stop the mononoke with it, right? You can free Ran-Ran, right?" the lady tanuki begged him.
"He will not return to you," the medicine seller replied, "yet I intend on relieving him of the regret and anger he now possesses."
"I know he won't return now that I know he's become a mononoke," the lady tanuki sniffled. "But I don't want to see my dear Ran-Ran suffer!"
"But we still don't know the reason," Kayo frowned.
"We do not." The medicine seller stood back up to full height, peering through the trees at the onsen at the top of the hill. Learning the reason would require some cunning skills to get either the mononoke or Lady Ama to speak, but they had clues and information that may lead them to the true reason for the mononoke's anger. A double murder wasn't enough for the reason alone, but it was a powerful truth.
"Miss Kayo, it would be best if you wait here," the medicine seller suggested.
"But I want to help Ranmaru!" Kayo fussed.
"I do not wish for you to become possessed again," he replied.
She pursed her lips. She understood that. "I want to know why it left me with the feeling of betrayal."
The medicine seller peered at her for a moment. "I see." She had the advantage of being freed from tanuki-tsuki and was left with the mononoke's true feelings. Her words from their conversation before when they'd left the mahjong parlor still stuck to the back of his mind. In their travels together, she had developed a desire to help the mononoke as well.
He quickly grasped her wrist, wrapping an ofuda around it. "Then let us find the reason."
She stared at the ofuda as it activated then quickly went back to sleep, turning completely white.
He knelt down, handing the tanuki the hair ornaments for their collections, before standing back up again and moving to a less dense section of the forest. Drawing his hands in towards himself, he flung ofuda out wards between the trees. He threw more and more ofuda papers, joining them together in floating white stairs that lead up the balcony of the onsen above.
Ignoring the pain in his right ankle, he scaled the stairs with Kayo behind him. As their feet left the stairs, the ofuda folded up, returning to him. Kayo kept close behind him, careful not to fall. She could barely believe she was scaling a steep hillside on a bunch of paper stairs, but the medicine seller's abilities never ceased to impress him. And soon enough, they were both on the balcony.
He peered in through the open door. Many of the visitors had collapsed, likely from eating terrible things. The mononoke did proclaim it would cause its victims to eat until they died, but the people collapsed seemed to still be alive. He beckoned for Kayo to follow him, creeping over the fallen people.
Crying and whimpering carried out from the men's baths. He slipped into the door, their entrance concealed by water and steam. Kayo nearly covered her eyes to keep from looking, but the bath had been empty. She focused on the back of his kimono instead.
Peering out into the springs, he spotted a form of a woman with a tanuki tail peeking out from beneath her yukata. The mononoke had finally stopped hiding, now threatening both Ama and Tsurumatsu near the water's edge. Ama had blood pouring down her face from a gash across the forehead. Tsurumatsu held his shoulder, blood seeping through the yukata fabric.
The mononoke woman turned, hissing when she spotted the medicine seller standing at the doorway. "How are you not dead? I threw you off the balcony! What are you?!"
"I wonder," he replied.
The mononoke man leapt forward. The medicine seller responded, spanning a wall of ofuda to block the attacks. "Miss Ama, Mr. Tsurumatsu," he called out to them. "The bodies by the river. Who were they?"
Ama sucked in a terrified breath. "I thought you said there'd be no evidence!"
"There wasn't supposed to be! The wolves should've eaten them!" Tsurumatsu insisted.
"Who were they?" the medicine seller demanded sharply.
"My wife!" Tsurumatsu shouted. "Fuji, my wife! But we were poor, and I didn't want to live that way. Then I met Ama, the beautiful owner of this hot springs. There was no way my wife or her husband would divorce. It just wasn't possible!"
"We killed Fuji and my husband, Eijiro!" Ama confessed. "Eijiro was just a deadbeat. He did nothing but laze about and consume all our hard-earned money. But Tsurumatsu! He knew the meaning of hard work! What was I supposed to do?"
The taima hadn't yet responded in confirmation. "There's more to this," the medicine seller sharply urged her to continue.
"I loved him!" the mononoke hissed. "I loved him with all my heart! I was betrayed. How could he put poison in my hand cream? Hoooow?!"
The taima sword still hadn't chattered, so he continued to listen to her story.
"I gave him everything! That lecherous Tsurumatsu!" the mononoke continued. "He slept around. Wherever he went, he visited whores. He thought I didn't know! But I still loved him. He worked hard for our family. I stayed by his side. Then he betrayed me! Betrayed!"
Kayo could feel her heart bleed for the mononoke. Perhaps she was still clinging to the residual feeling in her heart left from the possession. Perhaps it was her own worry that she'd never be wed. She had wanted to find a husband before, but now that she was a traveling merchant trying to help those who had become mononoke, perhaps marriage wasn't the only thing in life.
"I thought he loved me for me, but he only wants what is beautiful!" the mononoke hissed. "Ama was so much more beautiful! If he had asked for a divorce, I would've said yes, but he didn't! He never asked. He poisoned me! They both did this together! I hate them both and I want them to suffer the same!"
The sword chattered in confirmation. "Release!" It was a reason of hatred and betrayal. She was killed by the one she had stayed with for so long to care for her family, abandoned for something more beautiful and richer. A tragedy, truly.
The medicine seller leapt forward, plunging both himself and the mononoke into the cover of steam and water. He closed his eyes as his other self took over, shifting the runes covering his darker arms down to the water as he walked upon its surface.
"Why did he do this?!" the mononoke hissed, lashing out with a flurry of leaves. "Why did he betray me?!
He was unfazed as the leaves pushed past him, fluttering his long hair. "Humans are capable of terrible things, but you do not need to suffer for their atrocities."
He stepped forward on the water, the steam extending the world around them so that nothing was near but the two of them, standing upon the water. They would be uninterrupted this way. The mononoke was consumed with rage. Reasoning with her would prove fruitless.
The springs now felt like the size of a lake covered in steam as he dashed forward, the runes keeping him above the surface as he moved.
The mononoke twisted in the air, attempting to avoid the attack. She was crying. The pain she felt was overwhelming as she stumbled backwards on the water's surface. "Why?" she sobbed. "Why do I need to feel like this?" She leapt backwards, avoiding his strikes as the tears clouded her eyes.
"You do not," he replied. "I shall relieve you of this pain."
She finally stopped moving, landing on the water's surface. She leaned over, practically prostrating herself in front of him. "Make it stop. Make it stop! I've hurt so many people because of this, and somehow I couldn't finish off the ones at fault! What is wrong with me?!"
"Do not worry so. I shall care for the fallen," he informed her as he drew the blade backwards, ending her suffering and freeing Fuji and Ranmaru from their pain. "They will live because you showed them mercy."
….
"We cannot thank you enough for freeing Ranmaru from that pain," the samurai commented. The tanuki had taken human form, soaking himself deep in the hot springs with the other disguised tanuki.
The medicine seller sat on the edge in a yukata, only his bruised right foot dipped in the springs. "It is what I do."
"I'm glad that you could help the fallen humans too," the man with the scarf added. "Even if they were so frightened, they immediately left. I doubt they'll ever return. Not even the human owners wanted to stay."
"The spring is ours now," the samurai smiled proudly. "I still can't believe how you worked out that deal with the human owners to benefit all of us."
The medicine seller grinned just slightly. It wasn't hard to get Ama and Tsurumatsu to agree to a simple deal. They had paid quite a bit of money to the medicine seller to ensure no one else died due to the tanuki-tsuki and to keep quiet about the double murder. They also quickly abandoned the hot springs knowing full well the rumors about the mass sickness would kill business. They had plans to start up a new business elsewhere, even with Ama now permanently scarred across her face.
The man with the scarf nodded. "We had always thought it strange that humans would build an onsen in a forest filled with yokai, even if the natural hot spring ran through the area."
"Humans have strange desires," the medicine seller commented.
"They sure do," the samurai agreed. "But now with the springs abandoned by humans, we can make it a place for all shapeshifters and even other yokai to stay. You and your human companion are always welcome to visit."
"Perhaps we shall," the medicine seller mused.
"You could even dip into the waters," the man with the scarf suggested. "It's just us. You'd have nothing to worry about."
"I am fine," the medicine seller protested, preferring to stay above the water's surface.
"Perhaps next time," the samurai laughed.
"For now, enjoy yourself!" the man with the scarf insisted. "My wife should be done with the repairs to your kimono soon, but you should at least heal that ankle a bit more, you know."
"I am a medicine seller," he pointed out. "Healing is what I do."
"You have an answer to everything, don't you!" the samurai laughed.
The medicine seller smirked, amused. "Uh oh. You caught me."
...
Author's musings
The medicine seller's creative uses of ofuda in the show always fascinated me, so for this tale, I really wanted to do something really out there. I think a stairway of ofuda up the cliffside qualifies, right?
There are multiple references to yokai in this chapter. I had fun researching all the details
Tanuki are associated with leaves! Mononoke-Fuji's attacks are referencing this
There is a legend that a kitsune lost its disguise when it dipped into hot water. The fan theory that the medicine seller is kitsune (at least in part) plays on his aversion to getting into the hotsprings
Some name meanings:
Ama, the headmistress, means indulgent
Fuji, the mononoke, means wisteria which is a symbol of eternal fidelity.
