Crouching Tiger Hidden Yokai

Chapter 2: Helping Hand

When Mumyo opened her eyes it was to the sight of Hiddy crouching over her, her eyes expressing worry and Mumyo could almost imagine the frown under the half-breed's mask; with and without her scarred face. Mumyo went to sit up and get her bearings, they clearly weren't on the mountainside anymore, but the moment she did her traveling companion put a hand on her shoulder and almost effortlessly kept her in place. It was a little embarrassing at how easy Hiddy could keep her pinned with just a single hand, but it was just another fact the yokai hunter was slowly learning to live with.

"Where are we?" Mumyo's voice was harsh, her throat beyond dry, and just speaking that simple question threw her into a fit of body wracking coughs.

Instead of answering right away, Hiddy brought out a water pouch from her own equipment and held it too Mumyo's lips. She was grateful for the water, it was still cold despite having gotten it from the river a day or so ago, and it went a long way to ensure she didn't wind up a mute like Hiddy. It was hard enough to have a one sided conversation with someone that only showed half their face, but Mumyo could imagine trying to communicate with just hand gestures.

"Hiddy, I'm fine now, let me up," Hiddy knew she didn't have to listen, she had enough strength two wrestle a full blooded yokai with her bare hands, but the look in her friend's eyes made her arm jerk away before she could even register what she was doing.

While Hiddy wouldn't say it, let alone anything else for that matter, Tokichiro's betrayal made her hesitate when it came to those she still trusted. She doubted herself, her ability to keep people close to her, and because of it she often acted before thinking things through. It's why she watched Mumyo get to her feet from a distance, backing up to give the human a decent amount of space, and glanced away at the surrounding area before she could be caught staring. That's when she looked up and the world froze around Hiddy, all except for her slit blue eyes that widened to almost impossible levels; Mumyo noticed right away.

"What is it, what do...you...s-see?" about half way through her sentence, Mumyo looked up and soon enough her expression mirrored Hiddy's almost exactly.

The moon was shattered! Where the last time they'd gazed upon its heavenly glory it was whole, constantly chasing the sun through the sky with each passing night, now it was broken beyond all belief. Even with some of it still remaining, the pieces broken away were so large that they could still be clearly seen in the night sky.

"T-That's impossible!" Mumyo all but shouted, wondering what kind of monster could have destroyed the moon god's physical form in just a single night and without making so much as a sound!

As with almost all things that seemed to shock a persona into unresponsiveness, Hiddy was the first of the two to snap out of it and was quick to help Mumyo do the same. It was still the middle of the night, that much clearly hadn't changed from when they were on the mountain, and with no sign of their small camp. Yet it was warmer out than it should have been, with no traces of the early snow that heralded winter's arrival. They'd be able to travel far, which was good because they would need to at least find a village soon with how little supplies they now had.

Silence fell over the two women for the next few hours as they made their way from an open field into a rather thick forest with trees much larger than they'd ever seen before. Hiddy also noticed that she could sense any yokai at all, not even the smallest and most common ones that usually inhabited the forests of Japan. Although make no mistake, even if she couldn't sense any yokai stalking them from the shadows, there was definitely something out there watching them. Mumyo was no different in that regard, not after spending a lifetime hunting down creatures that liked to slink around in the shadows and watch their prey before attacking at the most opportune moment.

Yet, by the time the sun finally rose over the distant mountains, whatever was watching them had still yet to make itself known. Even when Hiddy and Mumyo sat down under a particularly large tree to rest for a while, they were left alone by their apparent stalker. Unfortunately, even if the thing following them had decided not to ruin their morning, something else was about to.

"What was that?" Mumyo asked, her head snapping up at the sound of several large bangs going off in the distance, like a group of soldiers firing off rifles one after another!

Hiddy, ever the one to be drawn to the sounds of distant conflict, was already on her feet and runny towards the sound of battle, completely ignoring the indignant "hey!" from Mumyo. Cursing at how impulsive her white haired companion could be at times, which often got them both into trouble, Mumyo took off after her with slightly less speed. Stupid Hiddy and her yokai enhanced speed!

If there was one thing Hiddy had grown annoyed with, even more so than some yokai, it was human bandits that attacked people just trying to make it through their own lives. She'd cleared entire villages of the rotten excuses for people, after shifting into her yokai form just to install a bit of fear into them before they died; the same fear they gave their victims. Now it was just a natural reflex for the halfbreed to attack them without even thinking twice, as to not give them a chance to gang up on her. So, after running through the forest towards the sound of what appeared to be rifle fire, what Hiddy thought were just a group of bandits that got some military grade weapons turned out to be unarmored people shooting at another group with weapons that clearly weren't rifles. Still, considering the people hiding behind odd looking carriages weren't fighting back, either from a lack of ranged weapons or because they were too scared, Hiddy made up her mind on who was the scum in this situation.

Running towards the closest one with her hand already on her katana's hilt, Hiddy managed to remove his head before he could even turn around to see who was running at him from behind. The sound of the strange weapons going off, far too fast and with no apparent need to reload, masked Hiddy's first kill well enough. So well that she got to two of the others, each of them wielding small blades about the length of a wakizashi but with a blade almost twice as wide.

"What the hell?!" one of them managed to yell when he glanced back and saw Hiddy running her sword through the chest of a woman, ripping the blade free before slit azure eyes bore down on him with a staggering amount of ethnicity, "One of them managed to get behind us!"

Hiddy learned a lot during her travels through Japan, but nothing stuck with her quite like the very first time she'd been shot. Ever since then, Hiddy made it a common practice to get behind something whenever a rifle was aimed at her and this was no exception. It was a good thing too, because seconds later a few bullets tore through the spot she was just in and many more followed right behind her until she managed to get behind one of the larger trees. It was only when the firing died down a bit, the sound of one of them cursing was a big hint that their weapons did have an ammo limit, that Hiddy took her chance.

With speed that no normal human could hope to possess, Hiddy was in their midst once more. What few remained quickly turned their attention towards the larger threat. Hiddy's blade, kept sharp and well maintained, glided through their bodies like a river through the land. It was like watching art in motion, at least for one of the people she was protecting that peaked over the strange vehicles to see why the human's had stopped shooting.

"Hold still and die!" the last one shouted, a scrawny man desperately reloading his weapon as Hiddy approached him like a hungry wolf; her eyes glowing ominously even in the daylight.

"Hiddy, behind you!" Mumyo's voice called out and Hiddy didn't even hesitate, rolling to the side just as an apparent survivor got off his last shot before succumbing to the wounds inflicted upon him.

BANG!

Pain exploded through Hiddy's sword arm, enough for her to drop her weapon, and standing behind her was the man she'd been just about to kill not moments ago. Smoke was coming from the end of his weapon, his eyes were wide and frantic at how everything had gone so wrong so quickly, but his victory was short lived. Mumyo's massive weapon came flying through the air in its spear form, slamming into the man with enough force to send him off his feet before pinning him to a large tree a few feet away. He was dead long before his feet even left the ground.

"Hiddy!" Mumyo called as the half-breed slowly got back to her feet, clutching her now bleeding arm and fighting back the natural instinct to shift, "Hiddy, are you ok?"

Hiddy just gave her usual nod, her body already healing.

Now, hopefully, they could get some answers.