Sengoku [Chapter 5] RAW (Patreon)

Chapter 5 - Teeth

“There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”

- Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings. 

The rope marking the boundary hung behind, scant protection against whatever lay beyond .

Shimon Ayanokouji stepped over the boundary in a rare display of uncharacteristic bravery. The others crossed after him, muttering complaints softly as they entered the shadow beneath the trees. Behind them, the shrine functionary remained on the village side of the rope with his head bowed and his lips moving soundlessly. Master Hieda stood imperiously near his traveling chair, smiling with the faint patience of a man who had paid other people to be endangered on his behalf.

Two dark-skinned coolies came with the hired men. They were broad-backed fellows with weathered faces, carrying bundles wrapped in oilcloth, extra rope, empty sacks for proof, and several spare spears tied together in a clattering bundle. Neither looked happy about the arrangement. One kept touching the charm at his neck, and the other had the hollow stare of a man who had already begun regretting the decision that had led to this.

Shimon understood and sympathized with them completely.

The forest closed around the little party within thirty paces. It was not the dramatic darkness of night, not yet. There was daylight overhead, filtering through the trees, but it was slowly losing its fight with the ever-thickening canopy. Cedar trunks rose straight and dark, and gnarled oak branches twisted above and through them. Ferns, bamboo grass, brambles, and damp undergrowth pressed close to the narrow path that was treacherous with old roots.

The smell from the boundary had not gone away. Rot, damp earth, animal musk, and that wrong sweetness remained in the air. This place was not quite truly wild, for this forest had until recently been worked and cultivated by men. Shimon could see it now: a half-collapsed stack of cut wood, stones arranged around an old burn pit, a path pressed into the ground by generations of feet.

Mizuno Sōbei cleared his throat with the pleasant delicacy of a man beginning a poem recital rather than a monster hunt. His smile was still present, though smaller now, as if the forest had required him to reduce it for practical reasons.

“Well,” Sōbei began softly, “since Master Hieda has entrusted us with this inquiry, perhaps someone ought to arrange our humble steps. I have led men before. I would be honored to—”

“No,” Kuroda Genzō stated simply.

The other man’s smile did not move. “Master Kuroda?”

The older samurai stopped walking. That was all he had to do, and everyone else stopped. His weathered face turned slowly toward Sōbei, one hand resting loosely on his spear shaft.

“You talk too much,” Genzō grunted as if that was all the explanation that was required.

The Kume brothers exchanged a glance. Jirō looked as if he was about to laugh. Tarō elbowed him in the ribs before he could make that fatal choice.

The man who was too smooth with his words bowed with an almost exquisite courtesy. “A fair criticism. Though sometimes speech clarifies and prevents confusion.”

“You speak too much of unnecessary things,” Genzō replied. “Men who have fought yōma know this. Men who smile at trees and shadows do not.”

That killed the smile by a fraction.

Sakurai Iori watched them both with calm, scholarly interest, though his hand remained near his bow. Shimon said nothing because silence remained his most reliable cultural strategy.

Kuroda Genzō turned his eyes over them one by one. “You want to live?” he asked of them.

No one decided to answer that rhetorical question, and the group’s silence seemed to satisfy him more than any answer would have.

“Then listen. No loud talking. No songs. No jokes. No calling out unless you see something important. Sakurai and Mizuno, bows ready. Do not waste arrows at shadows. Kume brothers, spears front. Keep the points where your eyes are looking, not at the ground like tired farmers. Ayanokouji, spear behind them. If they stop, you stop. If they move, you move. Do not rush ahead to be brave. Do not let inaction take you, or I will deal with you myself,” he ordered before looking at the coolies. “You two stay in the middle until I say otherwise. Drop the bundles only if you prefer meeting your ancestors empty-handed.”

One of the coolies swallowed audibly.

The old veteran looked back at the hired men. “We move at one pace. Slow enough that no man needs to hurry. Fast enough that we do not linger. Watch the front, sides, and rear. Watch everywhere. The yōma crawl, leap, hide, and sometimes wear shapes that make fools step closer.”

Shimon’s hands tightened around his spear. Sometimes wear shapes, he thought. Why did the old man have a gift for almost poetic, terrifying statements?

“Questions?” Genzō asked.

Sōbei’s smile returned, but it was not as warm as before. “None, honored leader.”

The word landed with a faintly sharpened edge, but Genzō ignored it and began walking.

With the matter settled, the group took on a formation. The Kume brothers went first, the pair of them no longer bouncing like enthused children. Their spears were forward now, shoulders stiff with repressed tension. Jirō whispered something to Tarō. Tarō shook his head once, sharply, and the younger brother shut his mouth.

The scholarly man moved behind and to the left with his bow unstrung no longer. The motion by which he had readied it had been smooth and practiced. Hard times, it seemed, had not stolen a certain measure of skill from him. Mizuno Sōbei took the right with his own bow, his expression polite and unreadable. As for Shimon, he walked near the center, his trusty spear held in both hands.

Behind him came Kuroda Genzō, which should have been reassuring and was, in a way. It also meant that Shimon could feel the old man’s judgment between his shoulder blades.

The coolies walked between them, bundles swaying.

The forest made sounds, and at first, there were too many of them. Leaves dripped water; distant birds and insects called as branches scraped and rustled together overhead. The spare spears knocked faintly against one another until Genzō glanced back and one porter shoved a cloth between them with trembling fingers.

Shimon tried not to look nervous, but internally, he failed utterly. Thankfully, however, his outward face had seemed to have settled into a numb blankness that some might mistake for cool restraint. Inside, he was a bunch of tightly strung nerves as every root became a snake, and every patch of deeper shadow hid a monster. 

I want to go home. 

The thought came so suddenly that it hurt. Not back to the village. Not back to the cave. Home, his actual home, the small Tokyo apartment. He wanted his bed, his refrigerator, his shower, which had the luxury of hot water that he had always taken for granted.

Mochi.

The image of his cat struck with almost physical force. Her darling white fur and cute yellow eyes that always seemed to look at him with feline disapproval. 

The quarter-final.

Shimon missed a step, and the coolie in front of him flinched at the sudden scuff of his sandal. The young man quickly steadied himself before Genzō could hiss at him.

Today. Today was the quarter-final.

Not tomorrow anymore. Time here had marched on with obscene indifference. Back home, Team Hachiman would be preparing. Hana would have already sent three messages on their server and one private threat. The organizers would be calling and eventually someone would be asking where Kintsugi was and if he was even still alive.

They would need a replacement. But, could they even find one at this stage? If they could not, maybe they would forfeit. Maybe all of it, months of work, sponsor obligations, training, the sacrifice, and the impossible win yesterday, would collapse because Shimon Ayanokouji had touched a stupid magic book.

Misplaced guilt rose hot and useless within. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in English.

The scholar glanced back, but Shimon looked down at the forest floor and pretended that he had said nothing. The chip stirred at the edge of his vision as if summoned by shame.

[PASSIVE MONITORING ACTIVE]Cognitive Load: ElevatedStress Levels: IncreasingMotor Performance: Within Enhanced ParametersRecommendation: Reduce cognitive distraction during hostile search activity.

“Thanks,” the young man breathed. 

Their leader's voice came at him. “Quiet!”

Shimon shut his mouth in reflex, but the thought had already opened a door. He brooded for the next few steps on the life he could not return before he forced his attention forward.

“Analyze displacement event,” he ordered silently in the halls of his own mind. “Review all logs from archive entry to battlefield arrival. Identify mechanism. Identify possible return vectors.”

The blue interface opened.

[ANALYSIS REQUEST RECEIVED]Subject: Displacement EventData Sources: Sensory Logs, Neural Interface State, Environmental Transition Record, Archive Link Metadata, Unknown Carrier Signal ResidueProcessing...

Shimon walked solemnly while the chip in his brain worked at the problem for him.

The forest path dipped through a shallow hollow where old water had collected beneath the leaves. The Kume brothers slowed together, Jirō’s spear lifted and pointed toward a cluster of strange hanging vines, but nothing moved. Tarō glanced back, and Genzō nodded once for them to continue.

The panel updated in his inner vision updated.

[ERROR]Transition Record: DiscontinuousSpatial Data: Non-Euclidean/CorruptedTemporal Reference: UnstableArchive Link Metadata: LostExternal Network: UnavailableKnown Physical Mechanism: None IdentifiedUnknown Carrier Signal: Present During Event / Present NowProtocol Compatibility: NoneCausal Model: Failed

Shimon stared at the words, his gut running cold. “Run deeper analysis,” he ordered silently.

[ERROR]Causal Model: FailedInsufficient Data.

“Then hypothesize.”

[ERROR]Hypothesis Generation Exceeds Current Model Reliability.Known mechanism: None.Possible categories:

Neural hallucination: Rejected by ongoing multisensory physical consistency.

Simulation: Rejected by lack of external feed and unfiltered nociception.

Unknown physical relocation: Insufficient model.

Metaphysical displacement: Insufficient model.

Death/post-biological state: Insufficient model.

Unknown Carrier Signal causation: Unconfirmed. Still present now and at the displacement event. Correlation, unknown.

“Death/post-biological state” was not a conclusion that the young Shimon wished to entertain.

But one line mattered—present now. The signal had been there during the event. The signal was still here. His chip was not dead. It was monitoring him, and it was adapting to the strange context it had found itself.

If I don’t die, he thought, I might still go home, was the pathetic thought he thought, but he held onto it with both hands.

Ahead, the forest seemed to grow thicker and more oppressive. The path narrowed until the Kume brothers had to move almost single file. Genzō adjusted them with small gestures: Tarō ahead, Jirō half a step behind and to the left, weapons angled to cover each other. Mizuno and Iori in tighter formation, bows ready, though branches made the weapons awkward.

Looking at the bows, Shimon’s mind, being determined to make a full meal of terror, supplied a new concern—arrows. He could dodge an arrow. That was not bragging. His enhanced reflexes meant that at times he could react faster than conscious thought. If he saw the archer release, then perhaps he could move. Perhaps, even slice it out of the air. But even he could not react to an arrow loosed from a blind spot. And then there were, of course, guns.

A memory surfaced from social media, because, of course, his brain chose now to remember short-form video content. Some enthusiast channel had fired an old musket into ballistic gel. A brown cloud of smoke, a flame at the muzzle, then the heavy lead ball tearing a channel through clear gel.

Shimon felt cold under the armor. He could not dodge that if he did not see it coming. Maybe not even if he did. His reflexes were miraculous only by the standards of nature, and sometimes there was no arguing with physics. But maybe, just maybe, if his chip could analyze intent and probability, he might just be able to deflect one bullet if he was lucky… 

“Environmental audio analysis,” he instructed the chip silently. “Use my actual auditory input.”

[REQUEST RECEIVED]Audio Pattern Analysis Active.Warning: Hardware does not increase biological hearing acuity.Warning: Dense vegetation, humidity, and soundscape reduce reliability.Monitoring for: Human locomotion / metal-on-metal / large organism movement / vocalization.

“No kidding,” Shimon thought.

[UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL DETECTED]Signal Strength: Low-ModerateConnection Status: IntermittentProtocol Compatibility: NoneWarning: Interfacing with the ambient unknown signal has increased.

The words slid down his spine like cold rain: “has increased.”

A little later, when the path widened enough for two men to walk abreast, Shimon found himself near Sakurai. The cultured young samurai moved quietly, his once fine and faded clothing brushing against the leaves. His face remained composed, but his eyes were working, looking everywhere for enemies.

He was a man that Shimon could not quite explain. Everything in this strange new land felt off to him, but something felt even more off about Sakurai. Even more so when compared to the slimy Mizuno, and especially now that they were in these accursed woods.

Shimon hesitated, but then decided that if anyone could answer his question with some form of clarity, it would be Iori.

“Sakurai-dono,” the lost young man said softly, almost whispering.

Iori looked at him. “Do you think the men we are chasing might have firearms?”

The word came out wrong, and the phrase landed like a dropped cup.

Iori’s brow moved by the smallest amount. “Fire arrows?” he asked.

“No. Guns,” Shimone tried to explain. “They are a weapon that makes a very large noise.

Iori’s confusion deepened. “Some mountain men use fire tubes during festivals. I have heard of crude weapons from the western provinces that frighten horses and little else. Bandits would not carry such useless weight here.”

“Not those,” Shimon whispered. “Tanegashima.”

He felt rather than saw Kuroda Genzō’s attention shift behind him.

Iori looked genuinely puzzled now. “The island?”

“Yes. From the island. Matchlocks. Hinawajū. Arquebuses. Long barrels, fired with a slow match. They release a sort of smoke and thunder. The Portuguese brought them.”

Iori stared at him. “Poru… what?” the man asked.

Shimon felt the inside of his skull go quiet.

“The southern barbarians,” he tried. “Europeans. Men from across the western sea. Traders? Priests? Ships? And, they brought with them guns.”

Iori’s face had changed. Not much, for ee was too well-mannered for the crude thing that was open disbelief, but disbelief clouded his features nonetheless.

“I have heard tales of men from beyond Morokoshi and Tenjiku,” Iori said carefully. “Large-nosed people in old stories. I have heard of strange islanders and sea folk. But I do not know these Porutogarujin. Nor this weapon you speak of. If a lord possessed some device that killed at spear range through smoke and thunder, every household in the east would speak of it.”

Shimon swallowed. “No, Francis Xavier,” he whispered in English.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

No Portuguese, no Tanegashima, and matchlocks. No Saint Francis Xavier arriving in Kagoshima. No southern barbarian trade reshaping warfare. No mass adoption of firearms. No Oda volley fire…

This was not the Sengoku period as he could predict it. It was a strange Japan where Europeans had never arrived.

Plus dinosaurs, Shimon thought weakly. No guns, no Portuguese, no Jesuits. But with dinosaurs.

He almost laughed. The urge was so inappropriate that it became dangerous. It pressed against his throat and threatened to become something hysterical.

Sakurai Iori kept watching him, and in the other man’s eyes, Shimon saw a calculation forming. Not the suspicious greed of Mizuno Sōbei, nor the blunt hostility of Kuroda Genzō. Not, was that of a cultured man reclassifying a stranger from unusual to impossible.

Freak, Shimon thought. Or fraud.

A man with an old name who did not know simple things. A man who talked about island guns that did not exist, brought by strange foreigners. A man whose speech sometimes slipped into true nonsense.

Sakurai Iori could not make trouble over it here. Not now, but he had noticed.

Shimon looked away first as the party continued deeper, the forest becoming quieter and more forbidding by the moment.

At first Shimon did not notice, because he was too busy being afraid of everything. Then the biochip marked the change.

[ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIO SHIFT]Natural Ambient Sounds: ReducedCaution advised.

Understatement much, Shimon thought raising his spear by half an inch.

Kuroda Genzō noticed something too and the old samurai’s eyes narrowed, not at Shimon now, but at the forest ahead. He smelled it next.

Iron, and freshly spilt. Blood in the air, carried by what little wind wove through the trees.

Mizuno Sōbei’s smile vanished entirely. The Kume brothers stopped joking in even the smallest ways. Jirō’s breathing became audible. Tarō’s jaw worked once, as if he had bitten down on words.

The coolies behind Shimon were nearly silent now, which meant they were terrified.

The chip pulsed with fresh information.

[MOVEMENT DETECTED]Direction: Forward / Slight leftDistance estimate: 41-53 metersPattern: Irregular dragging. probable human-sized.

Genzō raised one fist and everyone stopped. For several heartbeats, Shimon heard nothing but his pulse and the small sounds of men trying to be still in their armor.

Then came the scraping sound, then a pause. The sound of something dragging itself across the forest floor.

A voice followed it, thin and torn raw. “He… lp…”

The Kume brothers looked at each other, a flash of fear in their eyes..

Again. “Help…”

A shape emerged slowly between the trees and at first Shimon thought it was a crawling animal. Then it lifted its head, and the animal became a man.

He was filthy, hair matted to his face, eyes wide enough to show white all around. His armor was gone except for torn cords and a stained underlayer. One sleeve had been ripped away. The cloth across his chest bore a mark, dark against paler fabric, though mud and blood had nearly erased it.

He dragged himself with both hands and behind him, where his feet should have been, there was nothing. Not wounded feet, not crushed feet, but a distinct lack of the appendages altogether. Both legs ended below the calf in ragged, dark messes wrapped in leaves, mud, and blood that had already begun to clot badly. He had left a broad dragging smear along the forest floor.

The man saw them and his face changed with a hope so terrible that it looked like another kind of suffering.

“Help!” the thing on the floor rasped. “Kill me…! Kill me…!”

No one moved for a second.

Then the veteran Kuroda Genzō stepped forward, spear held low. “Watch the trees.”

That broke them to action. Tarō and Jirō moved to either side, spears out. Mizuno and Iori lifted their bows and scanned the undergrowth. Shimon followed their examples..

The crawling man reached toward them. His fingers were black with mud. His mouth worked twice, perhaps trying to say more. Then his arms failed and he collapsed face-first into the leaves with a wet, gurgling sigh.

Kuroda waited before kneeling. He did not touch the man’s shoulders until he had used the butt of his spear to turn the head slightly.

The eyes were open and dead.

“He bled out,” Sōbei said, stating the rather obvious quietly.

It was an unnecessary observation, but perhaps everyone needed it to ground the current reality.

Jirō swallowed, looking very young. “Who cuts off a man’s feet?”

“Something that takes pleasure and sustenance in suffering as much as it does in death,” Genzō replied.

Tarō crouched near the corpse’s shoulder and tugged carefully at the torn cloth. He revealed a clearer patch of marking beneath the mud.

“Hojo,” he breathed in a shaky voice.

The word moved through them.

“From the fleeing army?” Mizuno asked.

Tarō shrugged a little calmly. “Or someone who robbed one.”

Kuroda Genzō looked at the blood trail vanishing deeper into the trees. The man had crawled from whatever had happened ahead.

“The head,” Sōbei decided to add, causing everyone to look at him.

The too-friendly man’s face had settled into a practical blankness. “If he is Hojo and from the routed host, proof is proof. He has no more use for his head, and a bounty is a bounty.”

Shimon felt something twist in his stomach.

Of course. Of course that was how this world worked. A man crawled legless through a forest begging to be killed, died in front of them, and the next step was to profit from it.

“Quickly,” the old samurai ordered. “Then we follow.”

Mizuno Sōbei drew his short blade and did the work with efficient hands. Shimon looked away before the first cut and hated himself for looking away. Then he hated himself for looking back to show that he was not weak.

One of the coolies opened an empty sack with shaking hands and a few moments later, the sack had a new weight.

Jirō’s face had gone pale. Tarō put a hand briefly on the younger man’s shoulder, then removed it before it could be an admission of humanity.

“They must have fought amongst themselves,” Sōbei explained casually. Though the friendliness in his smile had not yet quite returned, his tone was certainly trying to. “Starving routed men. Panic. Madness. A quarrel over food, perhaps?”

Kuroda Genzō looked at him with unveiled contempt. “Fool,” he accused and the word cracked like a thrown stone.

Sōbei’s eyes sharpened. “Master Kuroda?”

“Men fighting over food do not eat both feet and let him crawl away,” Genzō said. “Yōma.”

The forest seemed to lean closer around the word.

Jirō wet his lips. “How many?”

Genzō looked down the blood trail. “If it is old, we leave,” he declared. “If it has nested, we leave. If it is young and feeding on fresh death, we have a chance.”

That was not comforting. A chance was not good odds, but still they followed the blood.

The path gave way to a thinner track of crushed ferns and broken grass, the blood trail wandering, as if the dying man had not crawled in a straight line but had veered whenever roots, stones, or pain forced him aside. 

Shimon imagined dragging himself through leaves with no feet, feeling his own warmth empty into the ground. Shaking his head he forced the thought away as a caw from a murder of crows brought him back to here and now.

Their cries were almost eager and the smell of something vile grew thicker. The nature of the forest began to change. There were more broken branches now, scattered arrows, and a sandal without its owner next to a torn strip of armor cord. A little further on there was a shallow cut in the earth as if something heavy had been dragged.

Then the first body appeared, lying on its back with both arms gone. The corpse’s face had been opened from jaw to cheek. Looking at his trunk, Shimon saw that the mark on his clothing was too damaged to identify. Crows hopped away from him as the living approached, indignant rather than afraid.

The coolies stopped and they both whispered something like a prayer.

Another body lay beyond the first. Then two more. One missing a leg. One with his stomach opened. One folded around the shaft of a broken spear, the weapon still clutched in hands that had stiffened around it.

The Kume brothers had gone rigid. Mizuno Sōbei’s breath came slower now, deliberately controlled. Sakurai Iori’s knuckles were pale around his bow.

Kuroda Genzō moved through the dead with a terrible familiarity, reading the ground. “Not men,” he said, poking at a dead body. “Well, not only men did this.”

One of the coolies dropped his bundle. The sound was not loud, but in that forest it felt like a bell. The man just stared at the body without arms, his mouth working silently. His partner looked at him, then at the dark trees, then at the way ahead where the crows were gathered and both men made the same decision at almost the same time.

They ran.

“Stop, you fools!” Genzō hissed at them, but they did not stop.

The first coolie crashed back through the undergrowth toward the boundary. The second followed, leaving rope, sacks, spare spears, food, and whatever else they had been carrying scattered among dead leaves and loam. The forest swallowed them quickly.

For a moment, everyone listened, but no scream came.

“Let them go,” Sōbei said softly. “Their courage has been eaten.”

“They will bring word,” Iori murmured. “If they survive this forest… but even if they live that long, I do not see them surviving Hieda’s wrath.

Kuroda Genzō looked at the abandoned bundle of spare spears. Then he looked ahead toward the gathering of crows.

“We press on a little farther,” he announced grimly. “Only enough to see. If it is more than we can kill, we mark the place and leave.”

Nobody argued, but Shimon wanted to argue. He wanted to deliver a clear, modern, rational presentation on why walking deeper into the site of a supernatural mass-casualty event was a poor strategic choice. The young man wanted to propose a timely withdrawal, to maybe come back with a few more reinforcements.

But, instead, he simply walked because everyone else did. Because looking cowardly in front of men with swords remained, somehow, part of the danger calculation. And because the quest promised something greater if he survived it.

They came to a low place in the forest where the ground dipped between old trees and saw the remains of a camp that had been in the hollow. It had not been much for routed, desperate men did not often build proper camps. They had scraped together a low fire pit, broken branches for cover, and a few poor lean-tos made from scrounged up banners and cut saplings. A cracked iron pot lay overturned near the ashes, rice grains scattered in mud. At one end, a banner pole had been snapped and tossed aside. 

And the dead lay everywhere, perhaps fifteen, perhaps more. Some were still in armor. Some had stripped down to rest. Some had died reaching for weapons. Others had died curled around wounds that no one could have survived. Limbs were missing from several, and a head sat beneath a fern as if placed there thoughtfully and then forgotten.

Over them stooped three yōma which Shimon’s brain refused to categorize at first. Large grey men, it tried, but the details failed his modern sensibilities.

They were man-shaped in the way a mockery of a man might be man-shaped. Too tall, too long in the arms, and too smooth across the face. Their skin was grey, not the grey of ash or stone, but the grey of meat left without blood. They had no hair, and no ears that Shimon could make out. They seemed to his senses, almost blurred.

And not because they moved quickly. They were slow in their movement, hunched over the dead, feeding. But the edges of them refused focus. Looking at one was like trying to watch something that was, and at the same time, simply was not.

Then one opened its mouth and that drew reality into sharp focus. Its mouth split wider than a human jaw should allow, and inside were teeth arranged in three rows, triangular and wet and horribly real. The kind of teeth designed to rend and turn.

One yōma pulled an arm from a corpse with a wet, fibrous sound and fed on it.

Shimon felt his body go cold from the inside out.

Do not vomit, he instructed himself. Do not make sound. 

Their leader raised one hand and everyone froze at the edge of the hollow.

The old samurai spoke softly without turning his head. “Quiet. Do not let them notice us.”

The yōma continued feeding.

“If they come, keep them at spear’s length. Do not cut close unless you have no choice. We keep them from closing.”

He swallowed, and for the first time Shimon heard the age in the man.

Kuroda shook his head. “I thought I would never have to fight these again.”

No one laughed, and Shimon looked at Sōbei who was definitely not smiling. The young man from a different time noticed that the absence transformed his face. Without the expression, he looked older, harder, and more dangerous, and also more afraid. His eyes had fixed on the yōma’s mouths and did not leave them.

The Kume brothers stood side by side. Tarō’s lips were pressed into a flat line and Jirō’s face had lost all color. The younger brother’s spear trembled very slightly at the point. 

Shimon did not blame either of them for their fear for he was quite petrified himself.

His fear had gone beyond shaking and into a strange purity. He could see everything too clearly now as his body started to make a decision. A black beetle crawling over moss, a strip of intestine looped around a dead man’s belt, and the way one yōma’s shoulder seemed to stretch farther than it should each time it leaned down to bite. All noted with a quality that only the biochip in his brain could provide.

[HOSTILE PRESENCE DETECTED]Count: 3Classification: UnknownMovement Pattern: Non-human / Partially humanThreat Level: Potentially SevereWarning: Interfacing with the ambient unknown signal has increased further.

Shimon did not need his advanced biochip to see that the threat posed was decidedly severe.

The scholarly man lowered his bow. Shimon saw it because he happened to be beside him, and to him the motion was small, and also quite wrong for some odd reason. Iori set the tip against the ground, and shifted his hand toward the sword at his hip.

Kuroda Genzō saw it too. “No,” the old samurai whispered sharply. “We need spears better to deal with the likes of these and a bow useless at this range after the first arrow. Go back. Take one from the coolies’ bundle. Quietly.”

The veteran pointed back without fully turning, his left arm extending toward the path behind them.

Iori drew his sword and for a fraction of a second, Shimon thought the elegant young samurai was simply disobeying out of pride. Then his blade came down on Kuroda Genzō’s arm, at the soft point near elbow where the armor did not quite cover. And, it cut deep. Not cleanly through, but deep enough to open him, causing blood to splash across Iori’s face.

Kuroda screamed, but it was not loud for long. The old man bit it back through sheer will, but the first part of it had already been loosed.

The three yōma stopped feeding, turning their heads toward the group

Sakurai Iori turned his face toward them. Blood ran down his cheek and across his mouth as he smiled. His tongue came out too far as he licked at the vitae. It slid over his lips, long and dark and glistening, not the tongue of a human man at all. It curled at the end as if tasting the air. It turned him into a monster.

“Come,” Sakurai Iori cried, and his voice too was raspy. “Come and feed, my brothers!”

The forest exploded as the yōma roared. They dropped whatever they were eating in their hands. One unfolded to its full height, taller than any man, its blurry outline dragging up through the air. Another slammed both hands into the ground and launched forward with impossible force. The third opened its mouth and the teeth flashed white in the gloom.

The party shattered into motion.

Kuroda Genzō fell back, one hand clamped over his opened arm, his spear still in the other. Blood poured between his fingers. The Kume brothers swung their spear points toward the charging yōma. Mizuno Sōbei drew his sword with a curse that contained no friendliness at all.

Three yōma and whatever Sakurai Iori had become against the Kume brothers, Mizuno Sōbei, wounded Kuroda Genzō, and himself.

The scholar thing was smiling.

Mizuno Sōbei moved first, his sword coming out smoothly. Fear and adrenaline had stripped away the courtly coating and left the killer beneath it, clean and ready.

“You two hold them!” Sōbei snapped at the brothers. “Spears! Buy us time. Ayanokouji, with me. We kill this thing!”

Sakurai Iori laughed as the yōma crashed toward them even as the chip decided at that moment to distract.

[SCANNING]3 Unknown Entities advancing.[SCANNING]Unknown Carrier Signal spike detected.[SCANNING]Connection attempt—Connection failed.Connection attempt—Connection established.

Something touched Shimon’s mind. Something older and the sensation was like an eye opening in the dark behind his thoughts. It was not a light thing, and it caused the young man to grab his head with pain, dropping his spear.

Mizuno Sōbei met Sakurai Iori with steel.

Their swords clashed once, twice. The sound rang through the hollow, bright and human amid the wet animal thunder of the yōma. Iori moved beautifully, but not like a human warrior. There was an impossible looseness to him, as though his joints had received permission to forget their limits.

The young man thought to pick up the spear from the ground, but there simply was not enough time. So, he drew his own sword, the motion but a pale echo of a true warrior. But even then, even without true grace, that did not mean it was not fast. The blade came free from its rest and the Ronin class, the stolen memories, took over.

Sōbei cut toward Iori’s neck, but the monster-thing leaned back too far, spine bending like a bow. Iori’s tongue lashed out, striking at his opponent’s face.

The gross appendage scratched down from forehead to cheek. Sōbei stumbled back, screaming, one hand flying to his right eye as blood poured between his fingers.

Miraculously, from beside him, Kuroda Genzō’s spear shot forward. The old samurai had fallen to one knee, his wounded arm hanging useless and red, but the other still remembered war. The spear point drove into Sakurai Iori’s midriff with a brutal, perfect thrust.

Iori’s laugh broke into a gasp as Kuroda shoved with his whole body, teeth bared, pinning the changed man for half a second. Then the strength went out of him and he collapsed sideways into the leaves below, blood spreading beneath him.

Seeing a chance, Shimon charged, his body moving before cowardice could awaken in full. He stepped in and slashed with a strength and speed that was not of modern age. The blade caught Sakurai Iori from shoulder to ribs, opening him up like a rotten fruit.

Something orange flashed across his vision telling him had gained in something… Spirit?

It should have been the end of him, but instead, dark fluid spilled out. In the liquid were pulsing threads, pale wormlike strands that recoiled from the air. The once-scholar’s human face turned toward Shimon with an expression of almost offended wonder.

Then the voice entered his skull. You are not meant to be here!?

Shimon froze and the changed thing impaled on the spear smiled wider.

Behind him, he heard the Kume brothers meet the yōma. He turned around slightly to see Jirō thrust first straight and true and the spear went into the lead yōma’s chest. The point vanished deep and for half a heartbeat Shimon thought the younger brother had killed it as Jirō even made a sharp, triumphant sound.

Then the yōma’s long grey hand closed around the spear shaft and pulled itself forward along the wood. Jirō tried to let go, but it was too late. The second yōma came from the side, one arm blurring into a long hooked sweep. It struck him across the body, striking somewhere where the armor was not. More blood was sprayed onto the hungry forest floor.

“Jirō!” Tarō screamed as his brother fell without answering.

He threw his spear at the monster, missing it an arm’s length, then drew his sword. Tarō charged with his sharp steel raised high, face twisted into something beyond fear. For one breath he looked like every brave fool in every old story. The brother avenging the brother. The shape of a song before the last verse.

A long arm came from below, hitting him in the ribs with a sound like a war club striking wood. The blow lifted him off his feet and Tarō flew sideways into a tree. His head hit the trunk. He dropped to the roots and did not rise.

The yōma turned toward the remaining living.

What are you? the voice asked inside Shimon’s skull, painful enough to make him drop his spear as he clutched at his head.

Sakurai Iori was still impaled, still smiling even now.

You are not human.

The changed man’s hand reached toward Shimon’s face.

You are not yōma.

Shimon hacked with all of his might and his sword flew on wings of desperation, cutting deep into the Iori thing’s neck. They both screamed. Shimon wrenched it free, and cut again and this time the monstrous head dropped sideways, hanging by strands that were not all flesh, and Kuroda’s spear tore free from its trunk as the creature collapsed.

You will suffice.

You have defeated a hostile combatant [yōma].

47 experience gained.

You have gained 1 attribute point in Body.

You have learned Sword [3]

You have learned Analysis [12]

However, the voice did not stop with its death. Wrong thing. Wrong door. Wrong soul. But, you will suffice.

“Shut up,” Shimon gasped.

Mizuno Sōbei, half-blind and bleeding, grabbed his shoulder and dragged him back. “Move!” he cried.

The yōma came at them. Two still fully on their feet, but the third still had Jirō’s spear lodged in it and moved with a hitching drag. Its bent forward, its mouth opening and closing as it gnawed around the shaft, teeth scraping the hard wood.

Mizuno Sōbei set himself on Shimon’s right, sword in both hands. His right eye was ruined, or nearly so. Blood had painted half his face and he no longer looked the part of the too friendly man.Now, he looked like a man with every layer burned away except survival.

“Die well,” he rasped.

“I don’t think I can follow that advice,” Shimon breathed.

The first yōma struck and the young man simply moved. The world slowed in the way it did when the chip provided him with clarity. But it did more than slow, for something in this world had empowered him. Before, the world slowed, but always Shimon had moved at a pace within its sluggish time. But now he moved faster within those stretched moments.

The grey arm came toward him, long and blurred at the edges, but the line of attack was as clear as day. He lazily stepped back and to the side. The hand passed where his head had been and struck a sapling behind him hard enough to break it.

He cut the arm with a light, double handed strike. The blow itself was testing almost, and his blade bit into grey flesh. Not deep enough, but deeper than he had expected. The yōma made a sound like stones grinding and recoiled from him. 

And in the here and now, Shimon found within himself a moment of confidence. He could win. He had to win.

Sōbei attacked the second yōma before it could flank them. His sword cut a vicious line across its shoulder. A shallow line opened, dark fluid welling. The yōma turned toward him, mouth widening, and Sōbei retreated quickly, keeping his blade between them.

For a few heartbeats, they fought bravely with some semblance of teamwork, covering for each other when they could. Shimon cut when openings appeared. He gave ground one step at a time, sword held forward, every breath burning. His enhanced reflexes did not make him a master. He saw death arriving and stepped away from it just in time.

Mizuno did worse, but not badly by any measure, giving a good account of himself. Half-blind, face torn, he still fought with horrifying discipline. He cut at wrists. He shifted away from bites. He used short, efficient movements of a warrior trained from a young age.

Then the third yōma moved on his blind side—the one with a dead man’s spear still buried in its flesh.

Shimon saw it, of course, he saw it. But seeing was not the same as being able to stop it, and seeing the shape of the future does not always give you power over it. Two monsters were already pressing him hard, their claws and fangs forcing his attention from one killing angle to the next. Fighting more than one opponent was not merely twice as difficult, but exponentially more difficult.

Still, he opened his mouth to warn him.

Too late as a monstrous arm swept in from Mizuno’s ruined side and punched through his abdomen through a section of damaged or poorly maintained armor. A grey hand emerged from his back holding red ropes of him. Mizuno Sōbei’s mouth opened soundlessly as his sword dropped point-first into the mud.

Shimon did not mean to scream, but the sound tore out of him, high and ragged nonetheless.

The yōma turned toward the sound, three pair of monstrous eyes fixing on him with animal hunger.

Now, his sword shook in his hands, his earlier confidence wiped away as he lost focus. He unconsciously retreated, his foot slipping on something. He recovered, barely. Just. The yōma advanced, the wounded third one dragging Jirō’s spear through the mud.

Where was Kuroda? he thought as he risked the smallest glance at what he had tripped over.

He saw the old samurai lay on his side, eyes half-open, one hand near the charm at his armor and vital blood had soaked the ground beneath him. He was dead, or close enough that no command or salvation would come.

Shimon was very much alone now.

The yōma lunged and the young man backed away, sword held out with both hands. The point wavered but remained between them as new focus found him. One monster swiped, and he jerked back barely far enough for the claws to pass in front of his armored chest. The other came low. He slashed at it and felt the blade shatter teeth as its mouth snapped shut around empty air.

His heel struck something. He tripped and a dead body rolled slightly under him. Shimon almost fell backward over the dead man, but one again, his reflexes and enhanced coordination saved him.

The yōma loomed before him, their mouths opening wide as two of them pounced within the circle of his sword, the third following behind.

“HELP ME!” he screamed at the universe.

It was then that the eye behind his thoughts opened fully.

Do you wish for power?

What?

Do you wish for power?

YES!

Then we shall give it to you. 

Stupidly, he found his hands returning his sword to its sheathe in surrender. And surrender it did, but not in the way that he thought. For a moment, he felt a great buildup of power in the scabbard before the world became a line.

No, not one line. Several as he felt his body repeat the motion faster than it had any right to. Seven more times the thing in his brain noted and registered.

Thin, bright, impossible cuts appeared in the air before him. For an instant, the yōma were still looming, mouths open, arms raised.

Then both came apart. They split cleanly from shoulder to hip, each half sliding away from the other with a wet delay. Their bodies fell in four heavy pieces around Shimon, striking the leaves and dead men with dull, final sounds as dark fluid spilled across the forest floor.

The third yōma, the one dragging the spear, lifted its head and the final seventh and eighth lines passed through it. Its head came free first. Then the rest of it collapsed around the spear shaft like wet cloth dropped from a pole.

The voice whispered into his ear, Yae Ikazuchi—the eightfold lightning draw.  

Silence rushed back into the hollow. Not the natural silence. The silence after a scream stops. Shimon just lay on his back, unable to move. The forest above him blurred. Branches. Grey sky. Crows wheeling, startled from their feast. His breath came in small, broken pieces. His body had begun shaking so violently that his armor rattled against itself.

You have defeated hostile combatants [yōma].

167 experience gained.

Congratulations, You have advanced to the next level.

You have been assigned advancement points: 3 Attribute Points and 1 Skill point.

You have gained 1 attribute point in Body.

You have gained 1 attribute point in Mind.

His vision smeared with tears of relief as he placed all of the attribute points into Body and the skill point into Swords.

Then, something moved above him. Stupidly, at first he thought it was a mask, perhaps hanging from the branches. Then it lowered into view and became an eye.

A single enormous eye, dark at the center and ringed in pale gold, watched him from above the world. Around it, the air bent like heat over summer asphalt. The eye blinked and the voice entered him without sound.

We hold the debt for the thread of your life. The favor that binds the soul.

The eye lowered closer.

You are ours now.

Shimon’s last thought before the dark took him was not noble. It was not about vengeance, power, destiny, or the strange horror that had just saved him. It was of Mochi sitting by the apartment door, waiting for a key that might never turn.

Then the forest vanished.