Thirty-Sixth Spell: Uwabami
In the light of the rising moon, Haru partially saw where he was going through the thick foliage of trees and bushes. Though the further he went, the more lost he got.
"What was I thinking?" Haru said to himself. "I don't know where the oni is, or Hikari for that matter. For all I know, they're nowhere near this side of the mountain!"
"Hey, watch where you're going!"
A thin snake slithered past Haru's feet. It was the length of his arm, with white scales that had faint black stripes and ice-blue eyes.
"Did you just talk to me?" Haru asked.
"Sure I did!" The snake then paused and turned its head towards Haru. "Wait, you can understand what I'm saying?"
"Y-Yeah," said Haru, unsure of what was happening.
The snake suddenly got taller and moved closer to Haru with its eyes narrowed. "No human has ever been able to talk to me before. Either they run away or freak out when they see me. So what makes you special?"
"I'm an…Aruku," Haru answered, thinking back to what the tree python Moriko called him at the Kyoto Zoo.
"Aruku?" The snake seemed confused. "What's that?"
"I don't know."
"How many snakes have you talked to before me?"
"Just one other, and that's it!"
"But how can you call yourself an Aruku if you don't know what that means?"
"Okay, let me backtrack! I'm actually a wizard, which I found out only a few months ago."
"A…wizard?"
Realizing the snake didn't seem to know very much, Haru tried to explain, "Basically, they're a human that can use magic."
"Magic? Oh, you mean this?"
The snake then suddenly changed its shape completely, transforming into a young girl wearing white multi-layered robes, with long black hair that had three horizontal white stripes and the same ice-blue eyes.
"Sort of," Haru said, trying not to freak out from what he just witnessed. "Wizards don't necessarily transform like you do and—what are you exactly?"
"I'm an uwabami," the girl said. "A snake yokai that can shape-shift into different forms and even manipulate the elements."
Haru vaguely remembered seeing the name 'uwabami' when he was flipping through Yokai and Other Dangerous Creatures while studying, but he didn't look at the entry. So he took the snake girl's word for it and then an idea came into his head.
"Did you know magic can't be used on this mountain?" Haru said.
"No," the snake girl shook her head. "I can use my magic just fine. So why can't you?"
"Well, I heard this mountain is cursed which prevents me from using magic."
"Huh, I didn't know that. So what are you doing out here?"
"A…friend of mine got lost in the woods, and I'm trying to find her. But since I can't use magic, I'm completely useless."
Pausing, the snake girl said, "You're not tricking me so you can eat me, are you?"
"Eat you?" Haru exclaimed. "Why would I do that?"
"My mom said that's what humans do, which is why I've avoided them up till now."
"I promise I won't eat you! My friend might be in danger because there's an oni roaming around here, and I need your magic to help me get to her before the oni does."
"Oni?" The snake girl shuttered in fear. "Your friend will surely die if she runs into one. They're very territorial, and they eat humans."
"All the more reason why I'm trying to find her. So are you going to help me or not?"
The snake girl hesitated.
"Fine, then I'll just let you be."
Haru walked past the snake girl and found himself walking down a steep slope.
"Wait!"
Looking up, Haru saw the snake girl's legs disappear to be replaced by her lower snake-half. She used her snake-half to wind down the slope and caught up to Haru quickly.
"Since you promised not to eat me, I will help you find your friend," the snake girl said as her legs changed back to human ones. "But if you go back on your word, my ghost will haunt you!"
Upon hearing the word 'ghost,' Haru thought about Daichi and the way she behaved after she appeared in the Byakko Wing.
No! Haru denied. I refuse to believe she's dead! Warumo must be using magic to make me see Daichi when she's not really there. Maybe he's the one who's trying to control me with that kotodama stuff Popuri-Dono was talking about….
"Um, wizard?" the snake girl asked. "Do you still want my help?"
Snapping out of his mind, Haru said, "Oh, yeah! Sorry about that! And you don't have to call me 'wizard'. It's Haru Ryuji."
"Haru…Ryuji," the snake girl repeated. "Which name do I call you?"
"Um, my first name is fine. Do you not know how names work?"
The snake girl looked embarrassed. "Well, I've…never had a name. My mom never gave me or my three twin siblings any."
"Okay. Then I'll give you one after we find my friend," Haru offered.
"A name, for me," the snake girl muttered, smiling at the thought. "I like the sound of that."
Walking ahead of Haru, the snake girl opened her mouth and a forked tongue flickered out. She sniffed the air while moving her head side-to-side.
"I smell a strong odor from that direction," the snake girl said, pointing to the right. "That's where the oni is."
From where the snake girl pointed came a loud scream.
"Hikari!" exclaimed Haru. "She's being attacked by the oni!"
So Haru ran further down the slope and took a right where he ran into a thicket of trees. Meanwhile, the snake girl changed back into her serpent form and followed him along the ground. Eventually, the two of them came to the dirt trail Haru's class used to ascend the mountain and found a humanoid male creature that was ten feet tall with two yellow horns, bright-red skin, and wore a loincloth made from leopard skin. In one hand, he dragged a large metal club while Hikari was slung over his left shoulder.
To be continued…
