Disclaimer: I do not own Shadow Hearts.
SHADOW HEARTS: A NOVELIZATION
Chapter Three
(Alice's POV)
IT WAS MANY, many years ago when I was a child, and my father began warning me of my powers. I was full aware of them, for why else would I accompany Father and his exorcisms – I had been hearing supernatural voices ever since I was little. One night, my father kneeled down next to me, his warm hand holding mine for safe comfort. "Listen, Alice," he spoke softly, and yet so firmly at the same time. His smell of old ginger tickled my nose. "You have a unique power that very rare people possess. That is why others will try to take advantage of you and use it for their own destruction…" For a second, his hand tightened.
And I knew then, that even if we had stayed like that forever, I would never be truly safe.
It was only three months ago when my father died.
The newspapers were extremely productive the few weeks after. Articles spread like wildfire. Reprints and copies were constantly ordered.
"PRIEST BRUTALLY MURDERED BEFORE SUNRISE!" Big block letters would scream to any passerby walking near the paper stands. "His body lay scattered, as if savaged by a beast…"
Murmurs and gossip increased reader after reader. Others remained silent, for the goose bumps on their necks was enough to tell their reaction. And yet, every single one of them, whether they chose to discuss the topics or pretend such a gruesome incident never happened, stared at the morbid gray-toned picture in disbelief.
The nearby lantern shone a dim light upon my father's corpse. His blood dripped from the broken splinters of wood. His blood dripped from the broken splinters of bones. He was everywhere behind that alley in the church – every single part of him.
And I was there. Not in the picture… there.
I saw Roger Bacon kill my father. I could remember the scene so vividly, it haunted me whenever I closed my eyes.
A month passed and still no leads. The case was dropped and became old news, old news that people would only pick back up again and shake their heads somberly before throwing the paper away in the garbage. Then the obscurity of the cause of death was forgotten. But I still remember it.
My father said I had extraordinary powers, one that could bring world domination. Father would never lie to me, but I could not help but consider the possibility of him mistaken. Because that night, in Rouen, France, behind the church—when Roger Bacon appeared and tried to abduct me, succeeded in killing my father, and so many other horrible things—
"His daughter, believed to have been traveling with him, is missing…"
I couldn't do anything…
"Hey, wait up! Don't leave me here!"
A man ran up to the front of the wooden gates of the village until he caught up next to me. He panted a bit and regained his breath as I stared up at the colossal door. It was eerily silent behind.
"What's up? Something wrong?" he asked. I snapped my head back at him.
The man's name was Yuri.
It was a strange name, one unfamiliar to my English tongue. Yuri, a Japanese name, but I had never seen eyes that shade of red before. He must be a mixed, I thought. Neither had I seen anyone's skin as toned as his in a long time, having mostly traveled through the pure white in Europe and only seeing a glimpse of pale yellow in Asia when I was escorted to Japan.
(That was when he saved me on the train…)
"That voice…" I murmured. "It tried to warn us about danger in this village, something waiting to devour us. That's what it started to say, anyway. I think we should be extra careful."
I tried my best to act calm, but Yuri laughed instead. "Ha ha, how cool'n'collected you are! You talk as if it's happening to someone else."
I gazed at the beckoning gates. The loftiness could almost plummet down on the two of us from this point of view. Whatever awaited us, whether it was misery, suffering, or despair… seemed like it had happened to other people before. Hundreds of others. I could not explain how, but the village breathed a dry air of malevolence.
"But not to worry. Nothin' can surprise me at this point."
Perhaps I had been very palpable with my expressions, but Yuri gave off the impression of a mind-reader. Every time I was just a little bit scared, he'd notice. Then he would say something reassuringly casual, like we were talking about the weather or going out for a stroll in the night.
He spoke with chapped lips. He was dirty and uncouth, and his hair was in such a big furry mess that it looked to be a nightmare for anyone to detangle the brown roots out. I wondered where he came from, and why "the voice" wanted him to meet me…
"Hey, look!!" a voice cried. Both our heads turned to the strangest sight fathomed: two Chinese children, one with yellow eyes, the other with red.
Yuri withdrew words from before and was completely startled. "Wh-Wha?!" He ran up to the gates. "D-Damn brats!! Don't freak me out like that or I'll kick your scrawny little asses!"
"I knew it!" the red-eyed child exclaimed. The yellow-eyed child nodded eagerly and said, "You're right! It's true!"
Yuri kicked the gate, rattling a hollow noise from the door. "Huh? Look, you brats live here, right? Here in town? Great. Open the gate." He finished his sentence abruptly and kicked another time. Then again, more impatient. Kick kick kick kick.
I forgot to mention that Yuri also had the tendency to be rude and foul-mouthed. He liked to fling curse words around without a single care of another person's feelings. I sighed.
But even so, I believe there must be a reason why God, through this special chance of fate, has put the two of us together.
There was. I would not realize this until I walked into the graveyard of Yuri's mind many months from now.
But that story will be told much, much later.
I straightened myself, holding my Bible closer to my chest as I took a few steps closer to the gate. "Sorry to trouble you so late, but we're lost. Would you allow us to stay here for the night?"
The two children took immediate notice of me. Their eyes widened, perhaps even glimmered a little, as they squeezed their noses through the portly bars of the gates.
"Hey… That's a woman, right?!" The red-eyed child forgot to close his mouth, letting his jaw hang wide open.
"Yeah, she's TOTALLY a girl, right?! Nice and soft!"
Their odd comments concerned me and aggravated Yuri. "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" he asked, but had to jump back when the children suddenly opened the gates for us.
They ran up to me, their arms swinging joyfully by their sides, and stopped to smile a toothy grin. I felt uneasy with the two of them so close.
"Eh heh heh! It's okay, you can come in!"
"Thank you."
"Our house is at the very end of the square. We'll be waiting! Bye!"
They raced off into the village, shouting and yipping in elation. Normally, children would run around yelling to play tag or hide and seek. But these two had disappeared farther away, and Yuri and I could listen to their echoes across the village of "whee, whee, we have a girl!" and "gotta go tell Granny Mayor right away!"…
It faded into nothing but silence. I glanced over at Yuri. He looked at me back.
If only briefly. He shrugged and walked into the town. The back of his trench coat swaying back and forth was the only sign of movement in the otherwise motionless village.
(It was motionless, but did not have any air of tranquility.)
Every step I took past the gates, my shoes would sink just a little bit in the heavy soil. Huts from far away beseeched us to move closer, but the outside world warned us to run.
I hesitated.
But I followed Yuri anyway.
(Because where else would I be able to go…?)
There were people in the Zhaoyang village, but very few. Some wandered around the dirt road, quietly keeping to themselves but eyeing the two of us as we walked by. Others would sell food behind the wooden shacks that lined each side of the road. Battered meat hung from thin ropes, and shopkeepers stared passerbys down with such lifeless eyes.
They shared tired tales to anyone who would listen.
"It's no point, really," one of the shopkeepers said. He had beady eyes and a tiny nose. He shook his head sadly. "There's never enough food for anybody. They're all hoggers, that's what they are."
We bumped into another woman along the dirt road. Her face was red and bloated. She had large breasts that hung low over her stomach.
The woman wheezed as she asked if we had seen any of her children. We said no, only the two red and yellow eyed boys. She wiped her forehead tiredly, sweat dripping from the back of her hand.
"After all the pain and trouble of even having kids…. They're all gone the next day anyway…"
She stopped searching and trudged back to a small hut.
The shacks lessened by the end of the square. The children's house with Granny Mayor was the only cottage in the area, as they had promised. Orange lights appeared through the window and muffled talking took place inside.
But what had caught my attention was the clearing beyond the house. A shrine sat clear ahead, weeds and rotten plants growing beside. The temple was dark and poorly constructed, but an ominous wickedness lurked beneath…
"Ya think we should check that out?"
Yuri was suspicious as well. We decided to take a detour into the shrine.
My shoes made soft crunching sounds when I stepped in the darkness. Yuri's was louder. It took a few seconds of squinting underneath the lantern to recognize what was going on inside.
There were rows and rows of…
"Th-those are all…"I gasped and moved back, staring horridly at the filthy skeletons piled. Their legs were crushed and their arms dangled over each other. "Bones! Human bones! The bones of people… killed here! What's happening in this village…?!"
Yuri leaned down and inspected some bones on the ground. His gloves brushed cross the rigid organs and cracked some of the dry blood.
"Looks like the voice was right. These people're cannibals."
A small altar was in the middle, kept safe and unharmed. A turquoise statue with six arms and a staff sat above a dim light. It was then I realized that the carcasses' arms were not just strewn randomly on top of the others – they were all reaching towards the same direction, their hands wide open, their fingers longing to seize. The altar.
I, too, pointed towards the statue. "Look over there, that shrine… It's as if it holds all the anger of people that died here."
My low whisper faded and Yuri did not speak. We did not know what to say, or what to do… We were frozen for that single moment, just staring in dreadfulness at the dead and murder.
"Hee hee… good travelers, you like the shrine?"
The two of us jumped and spun around. A vacant-eyed old man smiled, his hands humbly tucked behind his back. The emptiness of his eye sockets seemed to stare at us down in amusement.
"What is it, pops?!" Yuri shouted.
"Hee hee… Looking for the Black Tortoise God that was enshrined here? He's been gone for six months!"
I looked back at the altar. The dim light beneath had shut out. He turned from a marble turquoise to an iron black. There was nothing holy about him – instead, his aura was more filled with vengeance.
That's not the Black Tortoise God, is it…?
"Yes, to pacify the Earth Spirits, humans deified him, and built this shrine." The old man had noticed my eyes watching the statue. "It's all such nonsense! But now with the troublesome Black Tortoise God gone, we're free to do as we please! We can even take the form of humans! We couldn't ask for more!"
He smiled smugly. But his smile was not human.
No one in this village was human. The mouse-faced shopkeeper, the cow-breasted mother, they were all—
"The only problem is now we get hungry… It's all thanks to the new protector of our town, Yamaraja!"
Who would be such a cruel 'protector' to let the people of this town starve and resort to cannibalism? This was no god. This was a monster.
"Yamaraja? What kind of a name for a demon is that?" Yuri raised an eyebrow and glanced over at the shrine. "I suppose I'd find him in that shrine there?"
The vacant-eyed man was taken aback by the twenty-four-year-old's bluntness. "How—how insolent! But, no matter. You won't last long. Tonight there'll be a special feast, for our rare guests." He licked his lips and eyed us up and down, but particularly… me. "Now, you just run along and say hello to Granny Mayor. Hee hee…"
He chuckled quietly to himself as he left the two of us alone. Or… alone with all the other dead bodies.
My heartbeats ran so fast, I thought my own heart would burst out of my chest. I swiveled over to Yuri in panic.
"Don't tell me we're going to be eaten…?" I barely managed to voice the end of my sentence.
He contemplated the possibility for a moment. Eyeing the skulls at his feet, Yuri then looked back up and stroked his chin in deep thought. Finally, he answered, "Hmm, well, I don't know about you, but I'm not too fond of that idea."
I stamped my foot angrily. "I'm not happy about it either, I can tell you!"
He pulled his head back and started laughing. "Ha ha ha! It's all right, I'll protect you."
I blinked, confused for a moment until I realized what he was doing.
He was teasing me.
"Heh, well, it's fine to get a little riled up once every now and then," he said, before treading back out the shrine. "Good to know you do have a little fire under there."
I huffed. Of course I'd be angry, we're about to be eaten!
No, no... I shook my head to clear of such unpleasant thoughts. It wouldn't do any good. Right now we had to focus on what to do next. Rational thinking.
I followed Yuri out, gazing at the swaying movement of the back of his trench coat. Though I really should have been planning our next actions for this new dilemma, I couldn't help but puzzle over his words.
"It's all right, I'll protect you."
"Ooh, it's the girl from before! Thank goodness!!" We glanced up at the two children from before. They stood on the front porch of their house, the door open behind them as they waved to us. "You really came!! We're so glad!! C'mon, c'mon, come inside!!"
They raced back inside, giggling and whispering. Yuri muttered something incoherent under his breath and walked towards the doorstep.
(Protection…)
"Listen, Alice... You have a unique power that very rare people possess...."
My fingers wrapped tightly around the binding of my book, and I trailed after him into the house.
(Father, I want to believe you, but...)
… Being protected seems like the only thing I can do...
AN OLD WOMAN gazed deeply into the fire of an open pit when we entered. She kneeled down in front of an altar with lit candles burned around her. She sat still, her expression of deep concentration never changing even when the two children barged in yelling and shouting.
Yuri also joined in, striding across the wooden floors, as I treaded softly behind. The boards creaked and scattered traces of bones lied beside the entrance.
"So you're the mayor's wife? Great!" Yuri quickly began. "As you can see, I have a lady with me. We sure could use a bed for the night."
His lewd grin and flitting of eyes towards me was suspicious, but I chose not to correct him and say separate beds. The woman did not look up anyway.
"Yes, yes! I heard all about you from the children. You just make yourselves at home." The mayor lady feigned her voice as warm as the fire from the pit she was warming her hands with. "We rarely get visitors here. We don't have much for you, but please wear your weary bones."
I eyed the dirty fillets draped across the soil where the wooden boards stopped stretching. I was sure many others had rested their bones for far too long.
"Hey, thanks, ma'am. We'll be out of your way by early morning," Yuri assured.
"Hee hee…" The woman chuckled. "Now, now, no need to rush. You just stay as long as you like!"
I stepped forward. "Thanks, ma'am. It's kind of you to let us stay, having just shown up in the middle of the night like this."
A smile played on her lips. The flames flickered higher in joy, reaching towards loose strands of gray from her tied hair.
"What a nice-mannered young lady. But you don't have to worry about your manners so much here." The fire almost stood still for a second.
"… For, it won't change the taste of their meat."
I swallowed hard, and my muscles tensed. I wondered if Father could see me from up above now. What would he want me to do? Stay and see what happens? Or run away and escape from the villagers?
Yuri was not as hesitant as I was and roared laughter instead. "Kind woman!" he said. "You all talk as if you're going to have us for supper!"
The mayor lady laughed along with him. All the expressions of amusement did not calm my nerves at all, but made my throat run dry instead. Granny Mayor knew what she was going to do… but what about us?
"Hee hee hee… Well, at least one of you has brains! Eat you both, we will!" She stood up as the fire weakened into a dim flame. "I've got to tell Yamaraja we have an offering for her. Hmph, let me go through here…"
We watched her leave the house, her hunched back then covered by the close of a door. She was going to the shrine again to meet the new god of the village. But a true god would never want their own villager, or an innocent traveler, to be involved in such a meaningless sacrifice…
I was so deep in troubled thoughts that I did not realize the two children were still in the room. The red-eyed child skipped to the door with a cheery wave of a hand.
"C'mon you two, here, take a load off!" he said, followed by the yellow-eyed child, who added, "Don't worry, we'll be right outside so you can't get away!"
Yuri did not seem to mind them running off, and instead paced around the room. He inspected a scroll on the wall that displayed a cannibal god, and then fiddled with tinkering ornaments on a table.
I spoke during his investigation. "We're in trouble now. Looks like they've got us trapped."
I was surprised by how calm I was able to sound, and hoped I could keep up the tone for a little while longer through this situation.
Yuri remained unusually composed as well. He pursed his lips and stroked his jaw for the second time this night.
"It appears so," he finally concluded.
Once again I stamped my foot in impatience. "How can you be so calm at a time like this?!"
First he did it at the shrine full of corpses, and now it was after the mayor lady confirmed our impending deaths. Did he really enjoy teasing me that much? And above all else, he just had to pick such a dire time to do so.
It was true that he was not all that stressed about our problem, though. With a careless toss of a hand, Yuri said, "Aw, c'mon, if you get too anxious, it'll just make you hungry."
And who exactly is making things even more anxious here?
"Let's take a rest, and see what their next move is," he decided.
I gave an exasperated sigh, but could not argue any further. A rest was something I could really use now. We had been wandering all night, and the only thing that kept my eyes open was unwarranted scares.
The fire had burned into nothing but ashes in the open pit. Yuri was respectful enough to lie down on the other side of the pit, while I slept facing the ash-filled hole. My eyelids sank Yuri's nest of brown hair from behind into darkness.
Darkness, and no sound. There would be a small creak from the floorboards every time one of us shifted, but that was it. Yuri uttered no light snores. He was controlling his breathing, fully conscious and ready for anything waiting to devour us. And I was as well.
I was not sure how much time had passed. I could only squint for faint shadows across the floor when the door creaked open. The shadows grew larger as one of them spoke.
"Hooray! Let's just have a tiny little taste!" an excited whisper came from up above.
"Quietly, now, or Granny Mayor's gonna kill us!"
As if we had both mentally agreed on the same plan, Yuri and I shot our eyes open and stood up in unison. The two children from before jumped back at the abrupt waken.
"Yikes! They're NOT asleep!" The yellow-eyed child hid behind the red-eyed one, as he pointed a trembling finger and stuttered, "Y-You tricked us!!"
Yuri cracked his back and neck and then made a satisfied sigh from his nap. He raised an eyebrow at the children.
"Well then, don't sneak up on us! And if you do, at least do a good job of it…" he muttered, and then raised his head and said threateningly, "You're finally ready to show yourselves for who you really are? Huh? Little goblin brats!"
They cowered, eyes darting back and forth in deliberation. The child with yellow eyes scowled.
"Darn! If we let you get away, everyone'll get mad and then they'll eat us up! And if we DON'T let you get away, they'll know we tried to sneak a taste, so they'll eat us anyway!"
"If we're gonna get eaten no matter what," the other one declared, "I at least wanna taste the girl! Lemme have the girl!"
The red-eyed child sprinted up towards me, but before I could hold my book up and defend myself, Yuri already jumped ahead and knocked him off. The child fell backwards and was sprawled onto the floor, his head thudding across the loose boards. Yuri gave a pompous laugh.
"Hah! Tough luck, kids!" He grinned. "If anyone's going to eat her, it's me!"
He pointed a thumb at himself and wagged his eyebrows up and down. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Perhaps it was better not to comment.
One of the children's eyes flared a brighter yellow. "Ooh, you're so bad," he hissed. The red-eyed child's fingernails grew inches longer into claws as he threatened, "We'll kill you!"
Together they charged, with Yuri always one step ahead. He dodged their slow scratches and prolonged kicks. Of course, with an experienced fighter like him, and only two inept children, it was easy to tell the little fight was going to be short.
They were no longer children, but rather like cat demons instead. Their eyes had grown wider, their pupils shortened into thin flits instead. Tails flung back and forth, and paws thrashed around to try to attack the man above them. Yuri seemed confident of his abilities over theirs though. My book hung loosely from my arms as I watched the two struggle underneath his knees, their heads being knocked over with his fists.
They howled and screeched and bucked their knees up to try to kick him off. Yuri smirked at their resistance and locked them to the ground for a while, until one of them opened their mouth wide and took a deep chomp into his arm.
Yuri yelled and pulled back the arm. The red-eyed child grinned and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, then turned towards me. In the blink of an eye I soon realized he was suddenly dashing in my direction. With a quick jump, he was able to elevate high enough and wave his claws at me. The blood on his fangs scattered in the air as sharp teeth bore closer and closer to my face.
The sound of Yuri shouting my name seemed distant now. With a shriek I immediately held my book up and whacked the demon as hard as I could. The leather smashed into his face and knocked him down. He lurched backwards and into Yuri, who beat him up all over until the red-eyed demon could no longer move. He was thrown on top of his brother, and the two lay sprawled over the floor, groaning.
"Oh noooo, Granny Mayooor!!" the yellow-eyed child called. The other slowly rolled over, clutching his stomach.
"He's not human…!" he could only moan out.
Those were their last words.
My breathing finally slowed to a regular pace, but the last sentence confused me. I looked over to Yuri, who was clasping his arm tightly as he huffed. He was different, yes, but there was nothing demonic about him.
"You'd just get the runs if you ate us, anyway!" he spat, buffing out his chest like a proud champion. He wiped the bottom of his lip with his thumb. "Got it, fools?"
They did not respond. I silently prayed they would go to a happier place in the afterlife, a place where there was enough food that they'd never have to starve and be forced to murder others to survive…
Maybe it was better for their lives to be shortened like this. They had become evil demons, and at least they would no longer suffer that way.
Yuri was staring at me. I blinked. "Yes?"
"I never knew you had it in you," he noted, his lips curling into a sly grin. "So the next time we battle, you can always just whack their heads off with a book! That's your special power!"
I wasn't sure if he was mocking me or not. "I don't whack people with books, and that's not my special power," I said. "My power is…"
I stopped and realized Yuri's arm was still bleeding.
I slowly reached a hand out towards him, but a shrill sound came from outside the house. Scuffling and even more moaning ambled behind the windows. I peered out the glass, but it was fogged by darkness and a faint shade of red.
"Yuri, it sounds like something's happening outside!"
"Oh? So the whole town's decided to show their true selves, have they?"
We ran out the porch of the house, and the sight was roughly the same as it was from inside. A dark mist filled the air and the ground was dampened by red. Having explored the village for a while, I knew all too well what the red was…
I gasped. "It's like a sea of blood! Is this what the village really looks like?"
Yuri watched the rest of the mist fade into the distance. His eyes were clearer and straightforward.
"Yes, this is what was left after the demons devoured the humans. Be careful. I think they mean business this time."
He was not serious in the teasing way as he was before. His tone was deeper and quieter, and when he spoke his words remained instead of fading off into the breeze.
And if Yuri was serious, it meant the situation was all the more dangerous.
The first thing on my mind was Granny Mayor. I remembered she said she had to tell Yamaraja about us.
The village was no longer different from inside the shrine. Each step we took crunched against the ground. Skulls were crushed and broken, but the shrines visibly displayed the corpses rather than smear the bones with dirt.
I waved the lingering mist out of my face as we walked further into the temple. The woman who was crouching in front of the turquoise statue stood up and turned to us.
"Eh?! How did you get here?! What have you done to my beloved children?"
Yuri's overconfident chortling calmed my nerves a bit from what was about to happen. "Hey, lady, I put the kiddies to sleep. Permanently."
Granny Mayor's eyes glowered down at us.
He took a step forward, his eyes never breaking contact. "Why don't you show us your true form, too? We're tired of this endless procession of fiends. We figured if we came here, and took care of you… Well, you know how it always works!"
It was her turn to act confident. She laughed and her dull eyes started glimmering at his challenge.
"Ha! Fools! Even if I die, the monsters will remain and you'll still be imprisoned in this town." Granny Mayor pointed to the statue behind her proudly. "Because all of this is the will of the great Yamaraja, protector of our village!"
No… this god wasn't protecting their village, this god was…
Yuri scoffed. "Yamaraja?" he spoke the name like it was a weird type of food. "C'mon, I could take care of him just by destroying the shrine back there."
The mayor lady shook her head, chuckling. Then she snapped her face up and stretched her arms wide.
"Take a good look!" she declared. "These are all the bones I've sacrificed to her! I used the malice of the townspeople, and made this fence to keep one and all away from her. As long as I'm alive, this fence will protect Yamaraja. Because without killing me, you can't get near the shrine!"
She waved her arms wildly, and I realized the bruises and scratches on her hands from all the work she had put herself through. The coarse scrapes from building barriers around the shrine, the wrinkled skin of her fingers through the labor, and the dry blood underneath her nails in all the sacrifices…
I was not sure who was the one more tortured – the people who were killed, or the person who had to kill her own villagers herself.
Yuri smirked. "So I was right after all! You ARE the one to get!"
When the mayor lady started cackling, her teeth grew sharper and her eyes became bloodshot. She took a few steps back, still laughing, as she said, "Hyah hyah hyah! First, you'll have to catch me! POOF! And I'm gone!"
A flash of light and a strong breeze surrounded her, and when the dirt of the wind descended, she had disappeared.
Confused, Yuri ran to the spot where she was standing and looked around.
"Where'd the demon-cat go?"
A familiar laughter echoed off the bloodstained walls, but she was still nowhere in sight. "Hyah hyah hyah! You're going to wander aimlessly through this village forever! Wither and die in the village where morning never comes! Hyah hyah hyah!!"
Yuri quickly became frustrated and clouted his arm in the air, as if to somehow catch the invisible demon before she could escape. "Damn it!! I'll skin your hide!!"
I studied the statue not so far away, surrounded by the old wooden fence. Yamaraja, as evil as she was, was still highly worshipped by Granny Mayor and the other villagers. Surely they would not just simply desert their god they put so much faith in, especially when they sacrificed more than enough for her.
"I don't think that cat-demon can escape this place any more than we can," I spoke.
Yuri nodded. "Yeah, she must be somewhere in this village. Let's find her."
We started a hunt throughout the village for the mayor lady. At first I thought it would prove difficult to locate someone who was invisible, but the town was small and I was always very sensitive to evil presences.
Her presence was different from the other monsters that roamed the village and tried to attack us during our search. It possessed a different kind of darkness, a different kind of pain… and I was able to quickly spot it near the well.
Yuri pumped his fists up. "Found you!"
The cat lady immediately jumped back. "Hyuk hyuk hyuk! You mean you didn't get eaten by my underlings yet. You're a tough cookie. Poof!"
Traces of dust scattered on our shoes as she disappeared again.
I was not very afraid of the others that would eat us. Yuri was strong enough to handle them off in a matter of seconds. He always used his right arm to strike against them. I was more worried about how we would be able to catch her.
The second time she was founded was near a closed store.
"Dammit! Yer not gonna get anyway this time!" Yuri used a swift punch with his right hand, but the demon quickly dodged him. She took amusement in his frustrations and my growing apprehension.
"Hyuk hyuk hyuk! Don't you think it'd be easier to just give up and let us eat you? Poof!"
Yuri glared at the nothingness. He tapped his foot impatiently as he finally had to think over our situation for the first time.
"At this rate, it's just the same thing over and over," he muttered. "I'm not getting anywhere…"
I did not want to agree, but he was right. It seemed like an endless chase for a monster that was too fast for us.
The dark clouds fully covered the moon. It was much past midnight, but it did not seem the day would come any time soon. Monsters still roamed throughout the town, and though they were easy enough for Yuri, I knew eventually he would grow tired.
But still, I envied him, for his resilience and his vitality this night. He wasn't too careless or overconfident, I realized. He was brave. He had strength, not in his physical brutality, but in his spirit. And that was something I did not have.
Then I remembered why he had been using his right arm ever since we left the mayor lady's house.
"Yuri," I called out suddenly. He broke from his train of thought and looked at me. "Your arm."
"Huh? What about it?" Yuri pulled it up and waved the body part around droopily.
"No, your other one…" I walked over to him, and he seemed surprised when I held his hand and pulled up his sleeve. With the coat sleeve all wrinkled and bunched up on his shoulder, his bare arm revealed the sight I had expected.
Blood was trailing down from above his elbow.
"Ahh, that," Yuri scratched his head with his other hand, "yeah, I guess when brats bite ya, it hurts, but when demon brats bite you, it's somethin' else. Don't worry about it though, I always get bloody—what're you doing?"
He gawked at my hand hovering over the bitten mark. The blood that was gushing out started diffusing away. My palms emanated a small orange light that warmed the both of us, and soon the wound became paler until it looked like nothing had ever happened.
Yuri's eyes were widened by the time I let go and he brushed a finger against the spot. He felt nothing.
"You can heal," he came to the conclusion.
I nodded.
He stared at the arm for a while until finally he rolled his sleeve back down after a cool breeze. He looked up at me, his eyebrows lowering and his mouth curving up.
"That's your power, eh? Thanks. I can take care of anyone who bothers us with both hands now."
I watched Yuri thrust a fist out with his right arm, and then his left. He seemed eager to beat up any monster now rather than be forced to.
The night was still dark, the demon villagers were still wandering, but the smile he gave me seemed as if it would not allow me a single moment to be afraid. I wondered if he did this on purpose. As we continued on, I moved closer to his side, and he willingly, though maybe unconsciously, obliged.
I was not sure how long I would go on this journey with Yuri, but I hoped that throughout it all I would be able to aid him in any hardships we might face. And, perhaps along the way, I could find my own strength, just like his.
And maybe one day, it'll be my turn to save you, Yuri.
"Well, beating up monsters is fine, but we're still gonna be stuck in this rut," he grumbled. "What're we gonna do?"
At this point, it didn't look like there was anything to do. But we couldn't just stay in this village forever. I thought over this carefully and stared off at the empty shacks of the village.
Yuri would probably never admit it, but we needed help. Two travelers who just landed in the middle of China could not do this by themselves.
Only a helping hand could get us out of this village.
Someone, anyone, please help… I prayed.
… But who?
To be continued.
Author's Note: Final chapter will be posted next week.