"The magatama is a spirit of misfortune." The Lady of the Fountain explained, "There will times where its writhing may inflict you with a terrible curse. Be wary of it, and seek me out should such calamity befall you, that I may provide you with relief."
Amala Network
Kagatsuchi: Masked
Location Unknown
The Network dropped Tenchi and Kiyone down a floor, and above them they heard the angry bellow of a bull as the ceiling sealed up before Gozuki could follow after them. Tenchi looked up, watching as a massive, red arm clawed at them through what remained, and shrunk away from it. Cadejo grabbed him. "He won't fit, let's go before finds another way." She pulled him onwards, and with a grunt, he fell in beside her. They came across another fork in the road, and there the two stopped as Cadejo cursed. "Why the fuck does everything look the same!?" She exclaimed and wheeled on him in frustration. "Which way?"
Tenchi flinched. "What?"
The woman's teal eyes glared holes into him. "Which. Way." She repeated. "You're a demon, right? There's gotta be something you can sense that I can't on which direction to go."
"Like hell I do!" Tenchi exclaimed, "Just because I got turned doesn't mean shit! I'm only just figuring out how to use magic, okay? I can't sense anything!"
"What, so Ryoko did everything for you?" Cadejo's attention darted between one side and the left, examining the forked paths with bright, feverish eyes.
"Well…" Tenchi grit his teeth. "Yes?"
The woman grunted, muttering something before dragging him towards the left hallway. "Well, too bad. She ain't here and I'm a weak-ass human. You better figure yourself out before we run into something I can't fix."
"Like this fork?" Tenchi asked and flinched self-consciously, waiting for either a harsh retort or for them to be teleported away.
Neither happened.
Tenchi looked at Kiyone in surprise, finding the woman looking at him with a frown. "The forks are random, but… something is coming from them. I didn't notice it before with all the excitement but…close your eyes and face forward."
With some hesitation, Tenchi did as instructed.
"What do you see?"
"The inside of my eyelids?"
Cadejo sighed. "Turn around. Keep your eyes shut. Do you notice anything different?"
Tenchi peeked at her with a small frown, then once again did as instructed, turning around to face the other way and observing the back of his eyelids for a moment. "…I don't get it. What are you trying to show me?"
"Keep 'em shut and turn around again."
Tenchi sighed, his aggravation growing, but followed her instructions. "It's the same-" He stopped himself.
Did the back of his eyelids seem…brighter?
"Wait." He said, and looked back over his shoulder, watching as the back of his eyelids seemed to darken, like someone had drawn the curtains closed while he was trying to take a nap in the early morning. "Wait. What the…" He turned forward again, and watched it lighten a shade, then opened his eyes, finding Cadejo smiling at him.
"You see it?"
The teen stared at her in bafflement. "How did you figure that out?"
"Several lifetimes of attention to detail and too many weird experiences to write off anything," Cadejo smirked. "Now come on, let's go." She set off at a jog down the hallway, her murder-dog trotting beside her in an easy gate, and glancing back over his shoulder one last time, Tenchi followed after her.
The hallway behind them was empty. If but for a moment, they had escaped their hunter.
Several doors appeared as they moved farther on, and an experimental investigation yielded several items ranging from chakra drops to medicine capsules to even a bead. "You can have it," Tenchi told Cadejo as the woman stared down at the precious item. "You'll…probably need it more than I do."
Cadejo pocketed it without argument.
The final room in the corridor was their one mistake.
Where the others had been empty outside of some cache cubes to resupply themselves, this one had become some kind of daemon nest. The two entered with some wariness, finding at the room center three of the Erthys that had first ambushed Cadejo, followed by two blue, translucent spirits that appeared to be men made of water.
"Well, shit." Cadejo cursed. The woman drew her strange pistol and fired on reflex at one of the aquatic elementals. A laser emerged from the weapon and seared through the being, only for the hole to seal as the creature and its twin focused matching glares on her.
"Wait, I got this!" Tenchi exclaimed, and lept forward as one of the beings began an incantation, inhaling deeply and expelling a cold breath across the entire pack of elementals. The attack caught one of the Erthys in its blast, where blue crystals of ice locked its joints, and consumed the water spirits, the Aquans, entirely.
Yet to Tenchi's surprise, rather than freeze the entities as he'd predicted, the creatures instead absorbed the frost, growing larger as the ice was incorporated into their beings. The two beings blinked as if in surprise at the unexpected meal, and then seemed to smile as they edged closer. "Uh oh," Tenchi said.
"Great. Thanks." Cadejo drawled. "Pascal, try and evaporate them!"
A tongue of flame shot out of the demon hound's mouth, and Tenchi pointed. "Hi P, Paperball, I need your help!" The two emerged in a flash of violet light. "Can you use zio on them?"
"Well since you asked so nicely." Hi P sounded uneasy. "Papes, you take one, I've got the other, as soon as the flames recede. Keep up the heat!"
"You got it Babes," There was a level of careful concentration in Paperball's words that was atypical of him; his normal carefree attitude was absent in the presence of the elementals.
The flames abated as one of the Erthys moved close, taking a swing at Cadejo only for Pascal to block it. The sound of rock bouncing off bone surged through the room, and the demon rammed his shoulder plates into his opponent as Hi P and Paperball each released an electrical torrent down on either Aquans.
"Tsuki-Tsuki!" Tenchi pointed toward the two remaining Erthys, and the spirit appeared behind them both. "Can you help out Cadejo and her dog?"
Tsuki-Tsuki barked his agreement, releasing a howl that released a strange, almost transparent green energy that surrounded the demons present and left them slow and lethargic as it receded. Tenchi smiled. We got this. He thought. Between all of us, we can beat them. He grabbed his back, unshouldered it and reached inside, withdrawing the tenchi-ken from where it rested tightly wound for his protection. Wrapping his hand around the end of the rope twice, he dropped it, letting it unwind, and looked back to his own daemon allies just in time to watch Paperball drop as it took the brunt impact from one of the Erthys elemental attacks.
"Papes!" Distracted, Hi P missed the other Erthys as it slipped behind her, ramming into her with all its might and sending the tiny pixie to the ground with a cry.
Tenchi felt his heart leap in his throat, his fear mounting as he began to swing the tenchi-ken. "Don't touch them!" He yelled, drawing both the earth elementals' attention to him. "Yeah, that's right, stay on me." He growled.
Two more gunshots echoed through the room, startling Tenchi as he lept forward on instinct and narrowly avoided a surge of ice exploding where he'd once stood.
"Cool your head!" Cadejo called. "Send your friends back if you don't want them dead! They're a liability at this point!"
Gritting his teeth, Tenchi nodded and swung the tenchi-ken at one of the Erthys while pointing at first Hi P, then Paperball with his free hand. The two vanished in a plume of violet, and to Tenchi's shock and growing horror, the Erthys caught the tenchi-ken in one hand. Bolts of electricity fizzled and died around its yellow knuckles, and it observed the Hitoshura with an unamused look.
"What the-"
The earth elemental tossed the active Juraian key back at Tenchi - return to sender - and with an almost comical scream, Tenchi lept out of its path, missing how it sailed past him and into one of the shrinking Aquans. The creature exploded in a fine red mist as soon as it was struck, and the tenchi-ken clattered to the ground harmlessly.
A howl from Tsuki-Tsuki enveloped two of the Erthys and one of the Aquans, sending all three into the air where they collided with each other before the gale passed, leaving them to hit the ground hard. The Aquans seemed unharmed, their malleable body absorbing the blows; however, both Erthys held large and deep fissures in their bodies, drooping as they righted themselves.
The sight rose Tenchi's spirit. We got this. He thought. If we can hold out a little more, we can take them out. Gathering tenchi-ken's rope, he slipped away from the Erthys, leaving them for the inugami as he squared off against the remaining Aquans. The creature glared at him then eyed the Juraian Key with a wary gaze, before taking a swing at him. Tenchi lept back and missed the follow-up magic that came with it.
Before his feet even touched the ground cold daggers of ice embedded themselves in his chest, and the teen fell hard as the air left his throat. Why is it so cold? He wondered, I thought Wadatsumi was strong against magic. He hit the ground hard, the horn impacting the floor hard enough that his vision grayed to black.
"…chi!" He heard Cadejo and wondered when she'd grown so far away, straining to hear her over the high ringing in his ears. The youth rolled onto his side with a ragged gasp as he tried to bring the world back into color. He saw the Aquans, draw close with a sinister smile, an ice dagger in its hands, saw the tenchi-ken next to his hand, and forgot himself.
He reached for the Juraian Key.
The ice dagger came down, and branded fingers wrapped around the hilt of a weapon which no longer recognized its kin.
Pain surged through Tenchi's body as vehement bolts of blue-white electricity coursed across his body, and a dying man's howl escaped his throat, one so wild, so depraved, so tortured that it could scarcely be called human.
Tenchi had just enough awareness to witness the aquans above him disintegrate, caught in the same wild throes of pain and seizure as the Hitoshura, and Cadejo's horrified gaze before his consciousness surrendered to the abyss, seeking shelter in oblivion.
A high whine emerged from Tsuki-Tsuki as the beast retreated to his master, only to pause several feet from the fallen demi-fiend. The creature barked in distress, as it squirmed in the air, making no attempt to move closer. Kiyone, dodging an eruption of stalagmites from the ground, watched it with half an eye, her hand slipping back into a pocket as it fingered the bead Tenchi had given her earlier. She grimaced. "Pascal, is the kid still alive?" She called, watching the massive hound bombarded both beings in a bought of flame. One of the erthys collapsed with a low, fading moan, the other drooped with growing exhaustion.
Pascal retreated to Kiyone's side, placing himself squarely between the ex-detective and the remaining demon, then looked over his shoulder to regard the fallen hitoshura. To Kiyone's surprise, the hound bristled, his coat standing on end as his lips pulled up in a snarl. "DANGER." He growled. "DON'T APPROACH."
"Danger how?" Kiyone looked between Pascal and Tenchi in confusion. "The kid's knocked out, right? Right? And I thought we were allies! Why would that change now?"
"MAGATAMA." The hound's nostrils flared as the beast scented the air. "I SMELL MALIGN ENERGY." He growled, and his lips peeled up, revealing a line of fangs. "DANGER." He pressed himself hard into Kiyone, herding her backward and towards the door. "STRONG. MUST GO."
"What about-"
"GO!" For the first time since fusing with a demon, Pascal snapped at Kiyone, making the woman jump. She stared at the beast, opened her mouth, closed it, then turned and ran for the door, the hound close on her heels.
Behind her, enveloped in a strange, ethereal energy, the Hitoshura's body began to twitch. Fingers jerked and stuttered, arms and legs trembled, and the Demi-fiend's body seized as if still under shock. A strange, odd hiss left the demon's lips, fogging the air and filling the room with a black-violet miasma.
The remaining demons turned to face the fallen demi-fiend.
And as Kiyone rushed off, guided by a far-off light behind her eyelids and her pulse racing in her ears, she missed their death peals as Something Wicked Woke Once More.
The Prisoner and the Warden stared in tense silence as the Torturer inhaled, nares flaring as Mezuki inhaled their scents. Sharp, pointed ears flicked, twisting with plastic elasticity towards Ryoko and Yosho. The creature's lips peeled back in a horse's smile, and a high, sharp whinny escaped the demon's throat. "You gonna move or what?" He demanded, and a large, thick, spiked club-a Japanese kanabo-materialized in the beast's left hand. "I like a fight. Or a chase. Best choose one, cause I won't be kind when I catch you." He slapped the weapon in his right palm, and the meaty sound seemed to reverberate off the yellow honeycomb walls. "And don't think you two can off each other before I get a hold of you…I'll bring you back and make your next death thrice as painful as it needs to be." Another meaty slap echoed through the corridor, and Yosho felt his heart seize as the creature's eyes seemed to focus on him.
The beast took a step forward. "I'll crush you." He said. "I'll bust your head in and see what karma you're made of, then stitch you back together and do it again, just to watch it all bleed out like a waterfall. Over and over and over again, until there's nothing left but to reincarnate." Mezuki laughed. "Girly, you look like you bearing quite the load. You'll burst like a plump watermelon." The creature stuck his tongue out, then licked his lips. "You taste weird though. Not quite a full mortal but…not a demon or divinity either. But that trauma…damned if I didn't find a truffle growing in shit."
Ryoko flinched with a long grimace.
Mezuki took another step. "And you boy? Oooh, you ain't got that same sweetness as the spice girl there, but you ain't no saint yourself, are you. Not as ripe, a bit sour but…you hoarding your load from your past lives, ain't ya?" The demon laughed uproariously, and Yosho felt a trickle of ice slide down his spine, finding himself too cold to even remember the beam of plasma near his face.
"Ooooh, my luck! The karma of several past lives and the eternal karma of a long-lived daemon. You two are a five-star feast." The demon took another step, slapping his weapon in his palm once more. "Well? What'll it be? You running or fighting?"
Neither Yosho or Ryoko moved.
Mezuki snorted. "A countdown then. I'll give you a few seconds head start, how 'bout that?" The smile turned into something too unnatural to be called a snarl. "Five…." He took a step. "Four…" Yosho's gaze darted to Ryoko, finding her examining Mezuki carefully. "Three…" Her gaze darted back to him, wild and frantic. He mouthed a word to her, and saw her hesitate. "Two…!" Mezuki's voice rose in pitch, and the plasma sword vanished. "ONE!" Mezuki roared, and with a shriek thundered down the hallway towards them. Yosho forgot the Ruger, and instead felt his stomach lurch into his throat as Ryoko grabbed him, Koneko hopping on her shoulder, before the three of them vanished as their bodies were disassembled at the atomic level.
It was over in less than a second, as suddenly demon, youkai, and prince were behind the infernal spirit, who continued his charge down the hallway, momentum pushing him past where they once occupied and farther still. A wave of nausea overwhelmed Yosho, and the man fell to one knee, a hand rising to cover his mouth as Ryoko released him. Terror rose with the bile, and the ex-prince swallowed against it, feeling saliva pool in his mouth. He swallowed again, willing it away, his anxiety for the moment overcoming the aftereffects of the teleportation.
"Shoot the motherfucker!" Ryoko roared, both hands rising to blast the behemoth to bits as the prior priest followed a moment later, a tight grimace on his face as he fired the Ruger blindly at the beast.
Farther down the hallway, Mezuki slid to a halt, turning and angling his body to one side as he raised a large slab of an arm to protect his face. The demon's ears went back, and his eyes flashed in rage. "You think your mosquito bites do anything to me?" He demanded, "Outside of piss me off?"
Ryoko gathered a mass of Magatsuhi in her palm, forming it into a small plasma dagger. She glanced at Yosho. "I thought you said your rounds were magicked?!"
"I bluffed!" The man exclaimed in turn.
"You asshat! I fucking knew it!" Ryoko snarled, yet rather than turn on him instead turned her focus back to the encroaching demon. "I'm going to shove my foot so far up your ass once I'm done here-"
"Forget that, focus on the demon in front of us!" The ex-prince snapped.
"Fuck you!" Ryoko retorted and turned back to the Yomi denizen. Yosho fired off the final round in his clip, cursed, and looked back toward his bag. Mezuki raced past it with a roar, and with a grimace, the man realized he wouldn't be reloading the pistol any time soon. In his arrogance he'd left the spare clips Kiyone had given him in the front pockets of the pack, certain he'd have little to no use for the weapon in their travels.
"Damn it." He hissed, and pocketed the Ruger in the concealed carry pouch inside the leather jacket, retreating as he reaffirmed his hold on Myrkur. Ol' Koneko raced after him, scaling his leg before he had a chance to react and perching precariously on his shoulder.
"I cannot use my magic against Mezuki." The nekomata warned. "He is of Yomi and resistant to flame. I wish you had been serious about the magical properties of those bullets."
"Me too." Yosho muttered, jogging backward down the hallway while keeping himself facing both Ryoko and Mezuki. "If the ground would like to open up and swallow me at any time, I'd be mighty appreciative right about now."
His request was ignored.
Instead, Ryoko launched the small rod of plasma at Mezuki. Her hand was steady and aim true; the plasma struck Mezuki in the left eye, and the demon recoiled with a howl, dropping his weapon as he favored the injury with both hands, back arching painfully backward as his cries echoed through the corridor. With the demon preoccupied, the space pirate turned back to Yosho. "What are you doing, Bastard? Let's go!" She raced towards him, yet as the former prince turned to run as well, he caught something in his vision.
A flash.
A form.
It happened too fast for his mind to process all at once, and it was over as soon as his brain caught up with the event.
Mezuki, his right eye hot with fury, his left little more but a burnt and hollow hole of gore, appeared right behind Ryoko with a frightening speed that mirrored her teleportation. She turned, and he saw (you didn't, his mind cautioned, you saw nothing) the massive kanabo-as long as a spear and as thick as a tree trunk-collide with the space pirate's head. He heard (no you didn't) the crack of the impact, saw the pirate's head cave in, saw her body fly into the wall as something wet splashed upon him. He tasted iron on his lips.
"Ryoko-sama!" Ol' Koneko shrieked in his ear, yet before Yosho or even the nekomata could check the woman's state Mezuki was before them, the kanabo raised and lips peeled back in rage. Blood dripped from several of the spikes. Cloth, once a rich blue-violet, clung wet and brown to the wood. The demon screamed as it brought the massive spiked club down on Yosho, and it was by luck and instinct that he just-just-avoided a strike.
Mezuki thrashed, however, bringing the weapon back up in a swing and leaving Yosho little time to recover, forcing him backward upon recognizing that he had no chance of even deflecting the massive weapon, let alone finding an opening in the demon's wild flailing.
I need an opening. Just one. Something to get at least one attack in. Yet the corridor was too narrow for him to slip past the demon, and the doorway was fast approaching. Would I have enough time to open it with Mezuki so close? Or would I be opening myself for attack as soon as I turned my back?
What other option did he have? Mezuki was herding him towards the door anyway, each strike already a just-miss, and soon enough he'd lose his ability to maneuver around the blows.
Yet a moment of fortune struck as Mezuki's strikes began to slow, the demon's breathing labored with the fury of his attacks. Yosho turned and ran, racing to the door he'd come through once a lifetime ago and grasping for the handle that would open it for him.
The handle was gone.
"What?" Yosho's stomach dropped into his groin, and his fingers scrambled across the door's frame, searching, groping, clawing for anything-purchase, a bit of roughness, a hidden cubby, anything-that might hint to the door's handle.
Nothing.
A growl rose from behind him, and once more he heard Ol' Koneko's voice in his ear. "We can't turn back! We need to get past Mezuki!"
"I can see that, but how!?" Yosho snarled at the beast.
"Call upon the Heavenly Demon!" Ol' Koneko retorted.
"Who?!" Yosho stared at the nekomata in disbelief. "Ryoko!? Did you forget already she was struck down?"
"Not Ryoko-sama!" The cat yowled, gold eyes bright and feverish with fear. "The Heavenly Demon of the Masaki Shrine!"
"Forgive me if I admit I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Die!" Mezuki roared, the kanabo raised so high it scraped the top of the ceiling.
"You first!" Yosho howled, wheeling and thrusting Myrkur up into the soft, exposed muscle of the demon's armpit. "Isa!" His left arm pulsed, his brow pulsed, and Myrkur pulsed, all with a rhythm all their own, distinct and in tune and yet separate from the racing tempo of his heart. He felt the raw tingle of magic in his left arm, and with a war cry pushed, feeding it into Myrkur's hilt and up into its blade. The steel took on a blue-white hue, and wafts of frost began to rise from the weapon, chilling the air surrounding it.
Mezuki shrieked in pain, his hand releasing the massive war club, and seeing his opening Yosho pried the weapon out of the pit, ripping flesh and tissue off with it. Blood of a bright red hue squirted from the injury in small, fast spurts as a deeper, richer black-red seeped down his torso and onto the ground. Red flowed down Myrkur, only to freeze upon the blade in intricate, delicate red patterns. Wasting no time, Yosho slashed upwards at the beast, slicing through the creature's chest and leaving a shallow, diagonal gouge in its wake. The demon's flesh was so hard and thick it felt as if the man were trying to carve his initials into concrete with a stick, and his arms hummed with the vibrations it left behind. Another shriek rose from Mezuki, and he swung at Yosho with a right hook. Yosho ducked down into the demon's guard and thrust up, feeling pain blossom in his head as something sliced across his scalp, and grunted as Myrkur bit bone and did not go any farther.
"Yosho, get away from him!" At some point Ol' Koneko had hopped off his shoulder and was now somewhere behind Mezuki. "He'll tear you to pieces this close!"
The man grimaced. "I need a distraction!" He cried, and knew his feline companion would be unable to help him. The prince had already been warned that the nekomata's magic was neigh-useless on Mezuki, and when he tried to pull Myrkur from its spot found it rooted in place, frozen inside the right arm muscle in a horrid rendition of Excalibur.
A croak, loud and corvid, rose behind Mezuki, and Yosho had just enough time to register Ol' Koneko's warning- "Duck!" before dropping to his knees, covering himself as something propelled the massive demon off its feed and into the wall behind him. Grimacing, the man rolled to his feet and bolted down the hallway, back towards his gear and Ryoko, finding Ol' Koneko once more in a two-legged, humanoid form, this time accompanied by a winged man dressed in black who tickled the back of the ex-priest's memories. The winged man knelt before Ryoko, cradling the woman with his right arm as one wing blocked her upper torso from his sight. In his left hand was wrapped around a bronze shakujou Buddhist staff, and the rings sang with sharp notes as the man drew near.
"Hiji-san! Wait, he can help!"Ol Koneko raced ahead of Yosho, who leaned down to grab the seventy-two hour bag in one fluid gesture in passing, never pausing in his stride. "Grab Ryoko-sama and lets go! We cannot stay here with Mezuki as he is now. He'll kill us all!"
The wings bristled as Hiji tilted his head to observe Yosho. The man could see no eyes beneath the man's mask. "It is dangerous to move Ryoko-sama as she is now."
"It's dangerous for us to stay here with Mezuki in a fury!" Ol' Koneko snapped. "We need to call upon the Heavenly Demon of the Masaki Shrine!"
Yosho glanced between the two youkai, pausing only briefly to look over his shoulder and missing the staff shifting to bar him from moving closer to the fallen woman. "You speak as if the devil is still alive." He turned back, then eyed the shakujou in confusion. "I am not your enemy here. Mezuki is" He raised his hands in front of his chest, one arm shouldering the seventy-two hour bag. "And I do not believe now is the time to discuss alliances."
"You are Masaki Yosho." The winged man in black stated.
"So I am." Yosho agreed.
The winged man grunted. "Another worm raises his head. You should have died with the rest of your kin. Only your mikos are any use to Ryoko-sama and her servants."
For a moment Yosho stared at the man, taken aback by his words. "I'm sorry?" He exclaimed. "And you are…?"
The being scoffed and turned away in disinterest. "Go and do the tengu a favor and die an honorable death at Mezuki's hands. It is the least you could do for us."
The ex-priest gaped at the being, then looked at Ol' Koneko in a silent confoundment.
The nekomata winced. "Perhaps we can save this conversation for another time?" His words held a sharp edge to them. "Ryoko-sama is gravely injured, Mezuki will slay all of us if we don't do something, and Yosho has been blessed by a divinity-"
"Yes, 'Tsunami', I'm sure," Hiji said snidely.
"Another divinity!" The feline snapped. "And we could really use his help in summoning the kami of the Masaki shrine right now!"
Hiji huffed, and his entire body seemed to grow larger, like a bird with ruffled feathers.
A bellow rose from farther behind them.
"Can we save this discussion for later?" Yosho demanded. "As much as I appreciate you coming to my defense, Koneko, I think none of it will matter if all of us are dead. Let's—" His sixth sense screamed at him, and without thought he lept forward, tackling not only the nekomata but also the winged man down to the ground. This close, the mask was obscured, and Yosho caught sight of a pair of pure, red avian eyes glaring at him from within a face framed with oily-black feathers and a massive black beak.
Something sailed over their heads, splitting the air with such intensity that the air sang with a metallic ring.
"….That was Myrkur, wasn't it." Yosho grumbled.
"Indeed." Koneko wheezed beneath him.
A bellow rose behind them, and together man and youkai scrambled to their feet. "TIme to go!" Without pausing to see if the crow-man would follow, Yosho grabbed Koneko by one clawed hand and pulled him after him, half-dragging, half-guiding his companion down the hallway after Myrkur.
He sensed rather than saw the tengu fall in step behind him, the soft slap of the youkai's slippers a pace outside his own footsteps.
"We need to summon the Heavenly Demon of the Masaki Shrine!" Koneko screamed between breaths, panting as the group came across Myrukr, buried at least a foot in the adjoining wall that split into a T-intersection. Yosho released his companion to grasp the sword, and when the weapon didn't budge planted a foot against the wall and heaved. The blade remained lodged in the wall, and the vibrations from Mezuki's pounding feet grew more intense, the man felt his heart ramming so hard he could feel his pulse in his neck, a pounding jackrabbit sighting a bobcat. In desperation he pulled again, shouting without thought, "taka ór veggr!"
Myrkur slid free as if it was doused in oil, and Yosho had to hop on one foot as he fought to maintain his balance with the freed fifty-pound weapon.
"What did you tell it?" The crow-man, Hiji, asked.
"Release the wall," Yosho said, breathless. "Was it not obvious?"
"It was not Japanese," Koneko exclaimed, and then raced down the left hallway, grabbing both Yosho and Hiji in the process. "Let us go. And you!" The youkai turned a glare back at Yosho. "Summon the Heavenly Demon of the Masaki Shrine!" He repeated.
"Would you stop?" Yosho snarked "I'm not wasting time summoning Ryoko; she's here with us right now and she's dead! There's nothing to summon!"
"You think death stopped her before?" Hiji croaked, and the mortal cast the tengu a reproachful look.
"You aren't summoning Ryoko-sama." Koneko looked over one brown-furred shoulder at the man. "The Demon Lord's body is too injured to assist us. I am telling you to summon the kami she represents, the concept of what she became, the Godform, not your enemy!"
Behind them Mezuki's shrieks grew louder, the ground rumbling beneath their feet as the yellow honeycomb tile raced by in a blur. The thundering grew louder, Mezuki's screams became laughter, wicked, cruel, and mad, and Yosho sensed the encroaching kanabo racing towards him.
The floor opened up beneath Koneko, and the cat-man vanished, pulling the mortal, tengu, and fallen demon-lord with him into oblivion.
Yosho screamed, and the ground appeared, rushing to meet him in a painful reunion , and between his gear and Myrkur, the prince was unable to maneuver into a good landing position. He hit the ground at a hard and awkward angle, and by luck did not skewer himself on his sword. Before him, Koneko landed on graceful feet, and a moment later came the soft sigh of wings as Hiji landed, cradling Ryoko's body in his arms.
Rolling onto his back with a moan, Yosho looked up to the ceiling, seeing Mezuki's face, one-eyed and contorted into a hideous mask of rage. The horse-head snorted, and a billow of white steam formed around his nostrils. The hole above them began to close, and he watched the demon's lips peel back as he bellowed his rage. The hole vanished, and the trio heard muffled pounding from above as the demon unleashed his rage on the floor which had so gracelessly stolen his prey.
Sucking in a deep, shuddering breath, Yosho closed his eyes, feeling the coolness of the ground sink into his fingers, his head, his neck. Like a lifeline he grabbed onto it, grounding himself as much as possible before finally sitting up, grimacing as his right shoulder flared with a new and unusual pain.
Beside him knelt Hiij. The tengu had removed his black cloth mask and had lied it over Ryoko's face, hiding the grievous injury to her person as he cradled the woman against his chest. Now, Yosho could see the tengu in all his glory, and a part of him was taken aback at the level of sheer emotion that rested on the creature's inhuman face.
There is a deep relationship here, Yosho's mind whispered, which you never thought possible from a creature like Ryoko. It was a revealing insight, one which was there and gone again as Hiji sensed his gaze and looked up. The expression vanished beneath a corvid's stoic gaze, and as Koneko moved to Hiji's side, nose twitching as the tengu angled himself and Ryoko towards the nekomata, Yosho became aware of something else.
I am the outsider here. Not Ryoko.
A look of distress overcame Koneko's chimeric human and feline face, and his ears, human for the most part if somewhat more pointed, folded back against his head with feline elasticity. He shared an anguished look with the tengu, before turning his attention back to Yosho.
The man felt himself under the scrutiny of the youkai present, and braced himself, suddenly tense despite the presence of his long-time feline friend.
Koneko took a deep breath. "Yosho." He said and knelt in front of the mortal. "You have raised me since I was but a kitten, abandoned and lost in the rain outside of the small shrine which you constructed decades…centuries ago." His words were soft and considerate. "The family you built became my family as well. I was with you when you married Kasumi and sought vengeance against her murderer. I slept beside Achika when she was but a babe and watched beside you as she grew from the wild child she was to tempered, loving mother she became, revealing myself as a youkai when she became apprenticed to the Demon Lord. I guarded Tenchi and Achika both from malicious youkai whenever he visited us as a child and watched him grow under both your mentorship and that of the Demon Lord's. My love for them remains as strong as my love for you, but you remain my closest family, my last family, and you must realize this: everything I have done, everything I do, is out of my love for you and our family. Including the choice to remain by your side as a nekomata.
"Yet that decision-to stay by you through the good times and the bad-came at a cost. I became a youkai so that I could stay with you, to protect you and your family as you had me throughout my simple life as a cat. But in doing so, I was required to swear fealty to Ryoko-sama—the same creature you had imprisoned upon your first arrival on Earth all those years ago." He paused, observing Yosho with earnest golden eyes before continuing. "Ryoko-sama is the true lord of the Masaki mountain which you live upon. For every spectral entity that dwells there, the Demon Lord is master, and that is something we did to her; she did not choose that title; we granted it to her freely. And she has acted well. She was educated by the tengu and taught compassion by kitsune, and though her reputation and her power remained frightening, we came to her not out of fear but in confidence. Though you and Ryoko-sama view each other in hatred, she has been diligent in directing her anger toward you and you only. She loved Achika with all her heart, she loved Tenchi with all her heart, and she remained just and fair with me despite my closeness to you."
Yosho stared at the youkai with a quiet, imploring gaze.
"She is a kami, Yosho." The nekomata continued. "One of the essence of the mountain and all its brutality. One of the stars and all its savage unknowingness. You know this, by the gods, you've experienced this: when you defeated Ryoko-sama, you killed her physical body, and yet even with such a mortal injury, you witnessed her recovery. So you buried her beneath the earth and chained her within the roots of your tree, where she would be forever drained and unable to muster the strength to recover and escape. This," he gestured to Hiji, still cradling Ryoko against him, a protective shield with bristled at the sudden attention to him and his master. "Is no different. Her body is broken, her spirit remains trapped within, and even as we speak is directing it—on an unconscious level or not—towards recovery. But that takes time Yosho. Time we may not have. We are hunted by one of the guardians of Yomi itself, and like it or not, we need a kami." The youkai's golden eyes were desperate, pleading, begging. "Please. Help me. Help us. Revive the Heavenly Demon of the Masaki Mountain, and grant us all a chance at survival."
Yosho stared at the demon in silence. A terrible disquiet had befallen the area, where only the soft, gentle chime of rings, the soft rustle of feathers, met his ears. The youkai were tense. Yosho moreso.
Hiji rose to his feet, his movements the gentle, careful step of a parent cradling a sleeping newborn rather than the body of the Scourge of the Known Galaxy. "We cannot stay here." He murmured, voice soft and quiet. "Though I hate moving Ryoko-sama as she recovers, we must keep moving before Mezuki finds us." He looked at Koneko. "The man will not assist us. He never has, you know this; whether it was in providing us offerings or protecting the sanctity of the mountain, he cares only for his bloodline and his tree." He scoffed and slipped past nekomata and mortal in feet that clicked against the ground. "He is a waste of time. If only it had been Achika who has survived rather than the Prince or even the boy, we'd have a better chance."
Yosho flinched, a well of old, sleeping anger rousing unbidden. "What does that mean?!" He snapped.
"Only as I said before: That the males of your line are useless." The tengu didn't bother looking back at him. "Your women were the only ones of value, and their lives were cut too short. Better you'd have taken any of their places."
Yosho rose heavily to his feet, brushing Koneko aside when the nekomata rose with him, one hand, still with a feline's claws, resting on the mortal's shoulder. "And what do you know of them, demon?"
"I watched Kasumi-chan fight and fail to keep the last Kurama Tengu on the mountain." Hiji kept walking. "He was an old one, and tired; too tired to depart with the rest of our kin. Too withered and dying to even meet Ryoko-sama, who sat in her prison day after day looking to the West from whence the Kurama departed. I watched her care for him until he was no more and watched her mourn alone and away from the shrine with no one but tiny Koppa tengu to comfort her, only to then dry her tears and return to your abode with a smile on her face as she welcomed you home. I watched as she left offering after offering in a futile attempt to bring them back, to placate them, to protect you, who did not believe, who would not believe, and how the entire mountainside suffered from it until they found new hope with Ryoko-sama. I watched Achika take her place with Kasumi-chan's murder, braving the unknown of Ryoko-sama and defying you where Kasumi-chan did not, and how she succeeded where poor Kasumi-chan failed." Now he looked over his shoulder, one wing drooping so he could stare at Yosho. His eyes were hard red gems, bright and vibrant like those stolen from Ryoko once so long ago. "I watched them both live for the mountain and die for the mountain and the youkai which dwelt there. They knew us. Cared for us. Loved us." The tengu scoffed. "You gave nothing. Your grandson gave less." He turned away, walking once more. "It is disheartening to see how little has changed with the world's end."
Yosho ground his teeth together, his jaw popping beneath the tension as the muscles in his neck and shoulder began to bulge from stress. His hands clenched, and the man sucked in a low, deep breath. "The mountain was never my responsibility." He said, voice a hair above a whisper as Hiji paused. "My sole responsibility was to my ship and Ryoko's prison. Everything I did, everything word, every action, every decision, was at the behest of ensuring Ryoko did not escape and bring upon another dark age in the universe." He walked after Hiji. "I had seen planets-worlds-razed by her hands, had experienced it first hand, and had known entire races across the greater universe that had been exterminated by her actions. It took everything I had to bring her down upon falling to Nippon, dragging her in tow, and all of my dedication to ensure she could not bring similar tragedy to the land, the world, you called home." His voice was tight. "So no, I did not care for the mountain; the mountain and her plants and animals were the responsibility of the trees, who watched over all and whose roots informed them of any issues. I did not care for you youkai; that was the responsibility of the priests and monks who took me in and sheltered me when I was too injured to care for myself following Ryoko's defeat." He glared at Hiji in challenge. "I could not sense what Kasumi sensed, or Achika, or Tenchi, though they all told me grand stories of you and other youkai. I could not see, could not feel, could not hear; my senses were robbed of the plane of existence you dwelt upon, and I knew you no more than I could sense or hear or see anything dealing with the god of my planet, Tsunami."
Hiji stopped and turned to him. Yosho stopped as well, facing the youkai with livid eyes. "So tell me, as I fail to understand: If a man is deaf and blind, robbed of senses and told to care for a world of spirits which he cannot interact with, cannot experience, cannot comprehend, how is he to know it? Who would place such a responsibility on him in the first place?"
Hiji said nothing.
Yosho sucked in another deep breath through his nose. His brow tingled. His chest tingled. His arm tingled. "I am a fledgling in the world of spirits. Kiyone has more experience in working with you than I, and I am old: I am slow, and I find this world and all its denizens difficult to understand. I need time and patience and tolerance if I am to become better than what I was- someone who can see, can hear, can sense the full reality of this world and all its creatures and how they interact with everyone." He grit his teeth. "So trust in your 'Heavenly Demon'. She is obviously the better candidate than I if you are so trusting of her." The mortal's lips peeled back in a snarl, and for a moment he paused, wanting to say more, wanting to attack, and recognizing his emotions fighting for dominance within him.
The man took several long, soothing breaths, regaining his baring and control of his emotions.
Finally, he spoke, and with it came an ultimatum.
"What…must I do…to help."
A long and terrible silence befell the corridor.
A furry arm wrapped around Yosho's shoulders, and the man looked to his side, finding Koneko at his side as the youkai drew him close. His eyes were bright, and to the man's shock found the nekomata beaming at him with pride. "You have grown." He said and pulled the mortal into a one-arm hug, the youkai's nails digging into his leather jacket in reflex. "Good." The arm fell away, and the demon gripped Yosho's left arm. "Take Ryoko-sama's hand with your left," Koneko said and glanced at Hiji. "We pray."
Comments of a Madwoman: A new stage of existance, the openness to revelation, and the persistance to change in the face of rage. Blood shall be spilt, and with it comes a higher elevation to divinity. The Dark Night of the Soul approaches, not yet bound on the cusps of the waking mind.