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YellowWomanontheBrink is back!
Still bored, so I'm just gonna start the fifth chapter. It's gotten so long—more than 20,000 words and only five chapters. Do you think they are too long?
And so…BEGIN!
#12
Title: continuing from #8, which continued from #7
Features: see previous chapters
The dust from the road was quickly irritating Rikuo.
It had been easier too ignore it when you had more important matter, such as aching feet, starving, and incredible thirst when he had been walking.
Sitting in this hard bench, letting the cattle take them wherever they wanted to go, it was a lot more difficult, as he had absolutely nothing to do.
When the sun had risen again (what the yokai had said about dawn still made no sense to him whatsoever) he had healed them all, exhausting himself n the process. When he had fallen asleep at the reigns, he had realized the cattle were better drivers than he was. And so that led to his current situation, laying with an aching back, listening to the sounds of men groan as they all woke, one by one in the back of the cart. Most were still too weak to get up and bother him, which Rikuo was glad for. The rogue omnyougi annoyed (more like pissed him off) him every time they got out, asking about Yostiba—which Rikuo had found out was braided beard's name—and asking whether he would survive. Rikuo knew he was going to be okay, though he hadn't managed to heal all of Yostiba's wounds—he would killed himself if he tried. The man with the braided beard was still unconscious inside the cart.
As the days wore on of following a cow's sense of direction, Yostiba began yelling and murmuring in delirium, and at this development, their was nearly always at least one of the rowdy men in the cart, the others walking beside. Rikuo couldn't risk completing the healing and expose himself.
And, as if by coincidence, they ended up right back where they started.
Ukiyoe Town.
Rikuo felt like either a) cursing, b)crying, or c) let's just do both!
When he had asked one of the men, San, why they ended up back here, he had merely shrugged.
"This'ere's the only village for weeks travel. The rest be brush and forest."
Rikuo couldn't believe his misfortune. He couldn't help but wonder, as if for the millionth time, when the hell 'dawn' was going to come.
"Okay," he said, calming himself down, "let's find a doctor for Yostiba-san, and then I suppose I'll hitch a ride on the back on a cart or something."
San just shrugged. "Good luck wit' that."
Rikuo ignored the man,, heading straight to where he knew the market place would be. He crouched by an elderly woman selling flowers.
"Excuse me, obaa-san, may you please direct me to perhaps a doctor, or someone professed in the healing arts? I have a friend who is very sick."
The old lady's eyes got wide and she nodded her read furiously.
"Youhime-dono. She is very good."
Rikuo frowned. He knew he absolutely could not go to Youhime, though she probably was the best option.
"Is their anyone else?"
She frowned.
"Just go to Youhime-dono. She don' charge, and she ia a better healer than anyone. Like you were never sick."
Rikuo could see that this woman was going to be very persistent, so he decided to go along with it as a plan bloomed in his mind.
"Thank you."
Rikuo loaded braided-beard onto a makeshift stretcher, dismissed any of the volunteering men, much too many suspicions, and dragged the man up the small hill that led to his future home.
When he rang at the gates, it was opened by a young-looking man—probably a yokai in disguise. He exuded an aura of displeasure.
"May I please call on the services of Nura-sama? I have money and will pay, just please, my friend is very sick, and we've been traveling for a while now."
A frown spread across the nameless doorkeeper's face.
AsfarasIamconcerned, he reckoned,Youhime-samadoesn'tworkformoney.
"No, now go away—"
"Don't be rude."
The yokai was nudged out of the way and the pretty lady Youhime appeared.
"Oh! It's you!" She waved and dismissed the man who had opened the door, ushering Rikuo and Yostiba inside, to one of the more impersonalized guest rooms, where she lay the sick man on the ground and immediately began working on him.
"So," she began, "stranger-san, tell me, how did your friend get injured?"
"We were attacked," he replied truthfully.
Youhime narrowed her eyes and didn't pry, though she did say:
"I thought yo u were by yourself."
Rikuo was surprised she remembered him.
"Well, yes. I met him on the road."
She nodded, her suspicions still thick on him.
Rikuo had been thinking that if there was anyway to find that yokai, it would probably be best to hang around where it had been, and the most reliable source of information, probably on any demon, from a demon itself. Thus making the Nura mansion the perfect place to be, at least at the moment, despite the fact he almost detested Setsura, and how rough the house was, and the lack of control in the place.
"Please wait here," Youhime began," Your friend will be fine."
"Thank you, he replied, still looking at the ground.
The moment Youhime was gone, he leapt up, and began exploring the house, surprised to find it exactly the same as the future, though it smelled more like raw wood and sap ( a surprisingly pleasant scent). He ran a finger along the paneled wood, surprised at how rough it was.
Rikuo tensed. Someone was coming.
He slid into a room, and thankfully, it was empty (more like uninhabited). Pressing his face against the thin door, he listened to their conversation as they passed.
"Hey, did'ja hear about that bag lady everyone's been calling crazy?"
"What about her?"
"Well, she was going on about big roaring metal monsters commanded by humans, and relics to the gods that touched the air and trapped yokai. She was also blabbing on about the demon that showed her horrifying visions for three weeks."
"Sure ain't one of ours! Think we should alert boss?"
"Nah, it's probably nothing. "
Rikuo frowned. Whoever this yokai was, she was wreaking havoc all around. And the gossip proved absolutely useless, as he still had no idea what the hell "dawn" meant. Sighing, he crossed the hall again into the opposite room, where he was immediately met with a short blade.
"Who are you, boy? Why are we in a demon house?"
Rikuo hastily pushed the blade from his face.
"Listen, I brought you to a healer's house. You were sickly and delirious for days, and I brought you back the way we came. Be nice so you can get out of here."
Braided Beard looked at him warily.
"Did you kill it?"
Rikuo looked away. "No, I didn't. He was quite powerful, it killed many of your troupe, and it almost killed you."
"huh. Guess you're not so good as your fancy swords suggested."
Rikuo ground his teeth and stoutfully ignored the man.
"I hope you can get us out of this mess," Yostiba hissed, "because I can sense so many yokai and demons here, I feel like you've managed to drag us into hell itself. We've got ourselves quite an extermination to do tonight."
He curled his lip in distaste. "It's unwise. You're going to get yourself and the others killed."
Yostiba simply drew closer. "Don't matter as long as a coupla demons, particularly that one that injured me, goes down with them."
Rikuo grasped Yostiba's shoulders firmly. "That's suicide. The man you are trying to kilkl is the Lord of Pandemonium. Just give up, take your leave, don't try and hurt him, or his wife or any sort of shit like that."
Braided-beard bared his teeth. "What's the point of living if I can't take out a yokai and pull myself a girl in the bargain. Come if you want, but I've never felt better in my life, and we attack full force tonight." Shrugging the short teen off rudely, he stormed confidently through the yokai house.
Even though Rikuo barely knew this man, he wasn't so cold, nor so cruel as to be reckless enough to let a man walk to his death. He breathed out. Finding the yokai that had cursed him to the past would have to be put on hold.
Afterwards, he was requested,-more along the lines fiercely ordered by Lady Youhime to guest in the main house, something he followed with an uncertain air. He ended up being stuck helping with women's work, something he did not particularly mind, had it not been for Setsura, the sort of second in command in the housework and keeping, who made sure to make his stay a living hell. It was, and he made deepest efforts to stay close to the Youhime, who shared the work more evenly, though he insisted on taking the brute of it.
Most of the yokai in the house had a deep distrust of him, as did the Nurarihyon, because even though he had stayed with them for several days, he refused to tell anyone his name.
If this really is the past, I'm not going to risk the future by giving a name that my father might end up calling me.
Youhime had just taken to calling him Stranger-san, and Setsura mocked him for it.
"So, Stranger-san, what do you want here? It's obvious your presence isn't needed here. What real man knows how to do housework anyway?"
Rikuo had merely shrugged, further pissing off the already irritated yuuki-onna.
Besides the animosity he was dealing with from Setsura, he was also thinking about what had happened to Yostiba's threat. On the first night of the coerced stay, he had been tense and armed and shaky, prepared for any sort of attack on the main house. He had gotten awkward stares from almost everyone, and completely ignored them. When the night had come and go, he had slightly relaxed, and as days passed with no word from the unorthodox omnyougi, he had simply fallen into routine and avoided almost all the yokai but the women of the house. It was if he was an invisible servant that didn't exist, but for the work he did.
As he deftly scrubbed down the clothing quickly and harshly—blood didn't come out easily—his current working partner of the day gazed over at him.
"Why don't you just leave? You aren't much use to anyone here."
You'remuchusetomehere, he thought, thinking over all the overheard conversations and useful information that would bring him closer to his intended target.
"I'm going to leave soon," was his polite response, "I have no intention of burdening the house with my overstay. The truth is, I got completely lost last time, and I don't want to have to do that again. So now I've got the gist of things, I'm not going to stay much longer." He kept his head and eyes down, focused at his current task.
The yokai looked over at him curiously, then just shook her head and ssqueezed the clothes he had finished scrubbing.
That night, a primal roar rang through the quiet air. The house was empty, after all, yokai were creatures of the night and often left along to their own business. The Nura clan at this time was not the large famed place it was of the future, and you had to go out and spread your clan name to be known.
Rikuo rose sharply from his bed, eyes flicking between the Night red and the chocolate brown they had been forced to be for days. He threw off his blankets and ran through the house on silent feet, ready to attack. Hastily looking left and right, he rushed to the front courtyard and lazily turned around, spotting various men hiding in the trees surrounding the estate, just as tense as he was.
Damn, he thought, a string of curses running through his head simultaneously,they'llblowmycover,andgetthemselveskilled. The only one in the house was himself and Youhime, and Nurarihyon didn't take kindly to those attacking his wife.
He waved his arms seriously, and mouthed,they'renothere. In the cover of the trees, he could see bright eys widen and whispering wisp through the trees as the message went on. Rikuo snuck into the shrubbery, looking solely for Yostiba.
Unknowing in the darkness, he slammed full front into a wall of abdomen and beard. Braided thickly, stood Yostiba.
"What's this about," the much older man hissed.
"They aren't there, yokai are never there at night," Rikuo hissed just as maliciously.
Yostiba glared and quickly called off his men until none were left there but for himself and Rikuo.
"I'll be back tomorrow."
Rikuo wanted to roll his eyes at the mans stubbornness when he felt a little sliver of uneasiness slip by him. As the older man walked away, Rikuo tried to focus on the fear he had just felt—but then again, he had never been particularly good at sensing fear. He watched the broad retreating back and headed back into the house.
The next day was uneasy and tense, as there had been news Rikuo had eagerly been awaiting—news of disappearing humans and the returning completely insane, and uncurable too. Whatever had happened, she had not began to pray on yokai from the clan yet.
Rikuo took on all of the out-of-house assignments, like groceries and news and the like, often going out with Youhime, who he noticed was very quiet and reserved. More often people approached her than her them. Frequently, hanging around the bar that a stooped old man ran with his raucous son was the unorthodox band of omnyougi, from which he received many unfriendly glances. Every time he passed it, he could could now tell something was definitely off with Yostiba, who still had yet to follow up on his threat of attacking, successfully at least. Often the burly man had done nothing but stare every time Rikuo passed. No interesting information was often derived from the group of men about the yokai he had yet to find.
The day Rikuo finally came to the conclusion that the child yokai that had transported him here was not in Ukiyoe, he packed his bags and left, graciously thanking the household, which, with them all gathered around him, noticed was much smaller than the size it was in the future. It was much quieter, but for his voice.
Of course, it just his luck that Yostiba decided o attack that day.
Wild roars rang through the air as shikigami burst through the gate, immediately devouring and destroying several of the demons around him. This was immediately followed by the even wilder cries of burly men, who chased in after the magical creatures. He backed close to the wall of the house. He would never win in a fight if more than three yokai took him on, at least without tapping into his Night Form's power, which would immediately give himself away as a hybrid.
Blood flew into the air as each side beat each other down, and through the red mist, he saw someone slip into the gates. Someone very young. The yokai he had been aspiring to find. He hissed angrily through his teeth and set out through the carnage to find her.
But just as he approached… she grinned and skipped over to him.
"Rikuo! Guess what?" she smiled even wider. "Daybreak has yet to come. Let's see if you can endure thispast, my past, long enough… and live!"
She dissipated into a dark gray mist and vanished into the body of a burly onmyougi, whose eyes immediately darkened and turned on Rikuo, with a low moan coming from his mouth.
Rikuo cut him down and thought on what the yokai had just told him. And it finally hit him.
Allofthis,he thought, anger increasing with every thought,allofthisisn'treal.Thisissomefuckedupworldshecreated.Thisisn'tthepastatall!
It was as if the moment he realized this, the battle simultaneously warped. Rather than fighting each other, the onmyougi and the fake Nura clan turned on him. Sheathing his katana, he drew his two favorite weapons—the short spirit blade that was beautiful crafted, and the other human blade he normally layered his fear on.
The gray mist that had been the yokai that had transported him here solidified into the form of the little girl.
"It's taken you much longer to break," she said boredly. "I wonder if this will do the trick."
Rikuo tensed and waited for the coming attack as the enormous crowd roared loudly and bore upon him, hardly even distinguishable anymore.
And now I end the chapter. **
Right, well this chapter contain none of my random other little ficlets and one-shots, only because io want to put this out there, and for some strange reason, they all relly like story #8. I don't understand you people.
Right, so I was reading my all my stories over (yes, I am that conceited that I would sit down and read over 200 pages [ I write a lot—not only fanfiction] of my own writing just for the hell of it) and I noticed an inconsistencies. I'm surprised no one pointed it out to me.
1) yokai lady says daybreak, not dawn. Technically, those are the same things, right?
Anyway, I'm sorry for cutting this off like this, and I'm sorry for the shortness of it, and I also deeply apologize for how long this has taken me! I will accept my punishment.
YellowWoman is currently on the Brink of:
I'm very pissed. I just read a book called Human.4 (anyone read it here?) and I hate the author so much. When I was done, al I could think was WTF?AndIblewoffmymathhomeworkforthispieceofshit? Of course, it was very interesting, well written, and intriguing. Now reading Anna Dressed in Blood, and doing my Algebra homework simultaneously. Curse slope intercept and functions to the seventh ring of Hell, where it may rest for all eternity. How the hell can you call formulas geometry?