Sengoku [Chapter 6] RAW (Patreon)

Chapter 6 - The Favor

“A warrior’s duty is not to die. It is to live long enough for death to become useful.”

- An old soldier’s saying.

Shimon Ayanokouji woke to a face above him. For one magnificent, merciful moment, his mind refused to understand the face. It was only a shape against a sky of grey branches, a human outline blotting out the trees. The face was dirty, scratched, and too close. There was dried blood across one cheek, and leaves tangled in the man’s hair.

Then the face spoke. “You alive?”

Shimon opened his mouth. Nothing came out except a sound that might have meant yes, no, or please allow me to return to unconsciousness.

Kume Tarō stared down at him with one swollen eye and the uncertain expression of a man looking at a pot and trying to decide whether the thing inside was food or poison. His armor was askew. One cord of his shoulder guard had snapped. There was blood at the side of his head where he had struck the tree. But, he was alive, which was more than could be said for the rest...

“Good,” Tarō simply said after a moment. “This is good.”

Shimon blinked, but the forest remained where it had been, which was a disappointment. The hollow remained with its dead, old and new. The severed halves of greying bodies lay among the routed like butchered nightmares while crows watched from the trees. The air smelled of blood, smoke, rot, old leaves, and the sour stink of fear that had dried into cloth and skin.

Everything was very real. 

He tried to sit up, but his body protested. His shoulders burned, his back hurt, and his right hand had locked so tightly around the sword hilt that his fingers resisted opening. Dried black fluid had crusted along the blade and splashed across his sleeves. His armor rattled when he moved, and beneath it his undershirt clung cold and wet to his skin.

For half a second, he remembered lines in the air, thin and bright, the sword vanishing and returning, the world sliced into geometry. Yae Ikazuchi, the glorious eightfold lightning draw. Then he remembered the eye. A single enormous eye, dark at the center and ringed in pale gold.  He remembered the voice like a hand closing around his soul.

You are ours now.

It all came back, and Shimon bent forward and vomited as his stomach decided to disagree with him. Not much came up, only bile, bitterness, and the thin acidic proof at the back of his throat. Tarō gave him a brief look that might almost have been amusement. Then the expression cracked and fell away as his gaze went past Shimon, toward the body lying near the tree roots.

The younger Kume brother, Jirō, lay on his side with one arm folded beneath him and his mouth slightly open. His spear was gone. It remained buried in one of the yōma, the shaft angled absurdly from the monster’s ruined torso. Blood had soaked the ground around him and blackened the leaves.

Tarō’s face emptied, but Shimon did not know what to say. The lost young man knew there were words for this in every language: condolences, apologies, and other small verbal offerings laid at the altar of grief because human beings could not sometimes stomach the silence of loss. All of it seemed trite, not enough for this moment.

“I’m sorry,” he decided at last.

Tarō’s jaw moved once, but he did not look at Shimon. He looked at a place of memories.

“He was always too quick,” he said. “Quick to laugh. Quick to eat. Quick to speak. Quick to run at things that should have been run from.”

The older brother swallowed and looked down at his hands. They were shaking now. “Mother said he would die that way if I did not watch him.”

Shimon had no answer for that either, but the forest offered one. A crow dropped from a higher branch to a lower one with a black rustle of wings. Its head tilted toward the dead.

Tarō’s grief hardened in an instant. “No,” he said softly.

Then, louder, to the forest, to the birds, to the corpses, to everything that had survived and everything that had not, “No.”

He stood too quickly, swayed, and caught himself on the tree. Shimon reached out by instinct, but Tarō waved him off.

“We work,” Tarō said. “We grieve after. If there is an after.”

That was sensible, horribly sensible, and the kind of hard wisdom that had been lost in the modern world.

Shimon slowly forced his fingers open and stupidly sheathed his sword. Then he remembered something from his given memories, so he pulled it out again, wiped it as best he could on the rags of a dead Hojo soldier, hated himself for how natural that felt, and this time slid home properly to rest.

An intrusive blue panel opened at the edge of his vision.

[PASSIVE MONITORING ACTIVE]

Cognitive Load: SevereStress Response: ExtremeHydration: LowMuscular Strain: ElevatedMinor Contusions: MultipleUnknown Carrier Signal: Background / Irregular

Recommendation: Rest, hydration, and medical attention.

Shimon almost laughed. “Medical attention,” he whispered to himself. “Brilliant. I’ll just call an ambulance.”

Tarō glanced at him curiously. “What?”

“Nothing,” he replied, realizing that it was becoming his most useful answer.

The pair of them took stock of the living first, because that was quick. There were only two of them now, Tarō and Shimon, for everyone else from the hired party was very dead.

The veteran Kuroda Genzō had died on his side with one hand still near the charm tied inside his armor. The old samurai’s wounded arm had bled itself empty into the soil. His face, even in death, looked disappointed in the performance of everyone around him.

Mizuno Sōbei was worse. The man who had smiled too much had died without a smile, one hand pressed uselessly to the ruin of his belly. His ruined eye was crusted shut. His sword lay nearby, point sunk into mud. Shimon remembered the way he had fought half-blind, reduced to survival and steel. He had disliked the man, guiltily suspecting that the rogue would have robbed him eventually if a good opportunity had arrived. But that did not make looking at his body easier.

Sakurai Iori lay apart from them. Or rather, the thing that had been Sakurai Iori lay there. His elegant face had not fully held its shape. In death, the skin had slackened strangely around the jaw and cheeks, and the mouth had remained too wide. His tongue, long and dark and inhuman, lolled partly between his teeth. The cut across his neck had nearly taken the head, leaving it attached by strips of flesh.

Shimon stared at him and felt cold enter his stomach again.

You are not meant to be here. You are not human. You are not yōma. You will suffice.

Tarō followed his gaze. “That one,” he fumed, and there was hatred in the words as he drew his short blade. “We take his head. We have to.”

The work that followed was butchery performed by exhausted men with poor tools and trembling hands. They took Sakurai’s head.

Tarō did most of it. Shimon helped because not helping would have been worse, pulling at it by the hair while the blade sawed through what remained of the neck. When the thing’s head finally came free, Shimon expected something born from horror to happen, but instead it was just heavy. That was all. Simply, heavy, wet, and obscenely real.

Tarō wrapped it in torn cloth taken from the thing’s own garments and tied it with cord.

“The castle will want to see him,” Tarō said. “A man-shaped yōma wearing a samurai’s face. A man who entered a paid party under the witness of the Adventurer’s Za. A thing like that is more than just teeth and claws. And the other yōma. Proof.”

He moved to one of the grey bodies. The creature had been split apart by the impossible draw, its upper half lying twisted among wet leaves. Even dead, its edges seemed wrong. Shimon’s eyes slid away from it unless he forced them to stay. The mouth, however, remained clear. Three rows of triangular teeth, wet and serrated.

Tarō crouched, swallowed once, then used his short blade to hook back the lip.

“Teeth from the second row, if you can take them. Claws if the teeth break. The priests say flesh may rot to nothing, and some yōma leave only ash by moonrise. But the teeth last. They keep the stain.”

“Stain,” Shimon repeated, unsure.

“Spiritual stain. Curse. Proof. Whatever word keeps officials paying coin.” Tarō’s mouth twisted. “A big jaw like this? They use the teeth for something in the temples. Maybe medicine… I don’t know. And three yōma? Gods.” He stopped, and for a moment, his face became that of the young man from the road again, the elder brother of a cheerful idiot. Then, he continued, “This would have made us rich,” Tarō said quietly. “Me and Jirō. Not lord-rich. Not fine silk-rich. But enough, perhaps. Debts paid, the roof fixed, and Mother with enough rice to last many winters. Maybe even enough for Jirō to marry that girl he kept pretending not to like.”

The forest was silent around them. Tarō pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes, hard enough to leave a smear of blood across his brow.

“He would have laughed,” he rambled. “He would have said we should hunt another three.”

Then he lowered his hand and began cutting teeth from the yōma’s jaw. Again, Shimon helped. The first tooth came free with a wet crack that made his skin tighten. It was longer than his thumb, triangular, slightly curved, and not smooth. Its edge looked as if it had grown with tiny saw points. Dark fluid clung to the root. When Shimon held it, the chip pulsed.

[UNKNOWN MATERIAL DETECTED]

Biological origin: UnclassifiedDensity: AbnormalTrace energy residue: PresentUnknown Carrier Signal Interaction: Weak

Recommended: Avoid prolonged dermal contact.

“Now you tell me,” Shimon muttered in complaint.

They wrapped the teeth in paper and cloth. Tarō had a small pouch for charms and coins. He emptied it of everything except one old wooden amulet, then used it for the proof. Shimon tore strips from a dead soldier’s sleeve and made smaller bundles.

They took heads from the human enemies too. Several corpses still wore identifiable marks. Tarō explained that the castle had offered coin for routed enemies, but that enemy heads mattered less than the yōma proof now. They wrapped Sakurai’s head separately.

The work transformed the hollow into something even worse than a massacre site. It became a harvest for death, and Shimon’s modern mind recoiled. However, another part of him watched and learned. That was the part that frightened him the most, how easily he was adapting to all of this nonsense.

When they were finished, Tarō stood and looked at the armor. “Weapons too,” he grunted absently.

“You want to carry all this back?”

“The best we carry. Some we leave for retrieval. But we do not leave blades scattered for bandits, dead men, or things that wear dead men.”

Shimon did not ask whether that last part was metaphorical. He suspected the answer would not comfort him.

First, they made three piles. The first was weapons: spears, swords, bows, knives, arrowheads worth the trouble, and anything not too broken.. Mizuno’s sword went there after Tarō bowed once to the body. Kuroda’s spear went there too, though Tarō hesitated before laying it down.

“The old man should keep something,” Shimon supposed, causing the other man to look at him.

The young man wished immediately that he had not spoken. He did not know the custom. He did not know whether this was sentimental nonsense, an insult, or a costly mistake. However, Tarō only nodded, taking Kuroda Genzō’s short blade and placed it across the old samurai’s chest.

“He can explain the rest to Emma-Ō if the judge asks,” he explained with a grunt.

That was either religious confidence or dark humor. Shimon was too tired to know.

The second pile was armor, such as it was. Plates, helmets, bits of kote, torn cuirasses, anything that could be repaired or sold. For himself, Shimon found pieces closer to his size and a good helmet. Still, much of it had been stripped from dead Hojo men before the yōma had arrived, and some had been chewed or bent in ways that made it useless.

The third pile was for burning, and that pile was the largest. Dead Hojo soldiers, dead bandits, if there were bandits among them. The yōma pieces went among them too, though Tarō salted them first from a small packet he had somehow kept tied inside his armor.

“Salt stops them?” Shimon asked, genuinely curious.

Tarō shrugged. “People say it helps.”

“Does it?”

The other survivor looked down at the grey pieces of flesh. “Then again, people also said three yōma would not come this close to a village.”

They then dragged the rest of the bodies. There was no dignity in it because there was no strength left for dignity. Feet slipped in mud, and hands lost their grip in the name of speed. Once, Shimon dropped a severed arm and had to pick it up again.

The scattered yōma pieces were the worst. They were heavier than they looked and strangely cold. When Shimon touched one, the blue interface fluttered.

[UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL REACTION]

Signal Strength: Brief IncreaseConnection Status: None…

Shuddering, he let go quickly and decided to leave this to Tarō.

They made a separate place for their comrades: Kuroda Genzō, Mizuno Sōbei, and Kume Jirō.

Tarō insisted on it with a flatness that invited no discussion. They cleared a smaller patch near the edge of the hollow, away from the yōma and the routed dead. They laid the three men side by side, comrades now in death.

Tarō knelt beside Jirō for a long time while the lost young man pretended to busy himself by gathering branches. Still, there was not enough wood for proper pyres. Not for all of them, and most certainly not with two exhausted men and no tools beyond blades. But, they built what they could with deadfall, broken lean-tos, ruined banners, and scraps of the routed camp. The wood was damp, smoking angrily as it burned and stinging Shimon’s eyes. Soon enough, the unwelcome smell of cooking pork added to the fragrance. Shimon turned away and breathed through his sleeve, but it did not help much.

The remaining Kume lit the pile of enemies, but it took several attempts. The flames were first low and reluctant, then grew brighter as cloth and dry reeds caught. The smoke rose through the trees in a dirty column.

“It is good that we burn them,” Tarō declared, voice rough. “If they lie like this, more yōma come. Dead old and new draw hungry things. Blood calls to blood.”

Shimon was never one for superstition, having never believed in ghosts or goblins. Now he felt like a child. 

“Is that true?” he managed to ask, his voice almost squeaking.

Tarō glanced at him. “Do you want to test it?”

“No.”

“Then it is true enough.”

They lit the smaller pyres after, and Tarō bowed low before it. Shimon copied him because copying was his only reliable survival skill when it came to social matters. The flames crawled slowly along the branches beneath the three bodies. For a while, nothing seemed to happen, then smoke covered them, mercifully thick.

Tarō spoke words under his breath. Names, perhaps. Apologies, perhaps. Promises, perhaps. Even with the chip’s help, Shimon caught only pieces.

“Mother… forgive… foolish brother… road together… wait for me… a warrior’s end.”

Shimon looked away, not wanting to intrude. While he did so, he spared a thought for Mochi waiting by the apartment door. Of Daigo asking if he was alive. Of his grandmother, whom he had never quite understood, and now it all felt like something that had happened to another person in another universe.

He could have lost himself in self-pity, but instead, he checked his status.

It was cowardice, in a way. Numbers were easier than grief..

“Status,” he ordered silently and the orange screen opened.

Ayanokouji Shimon [Human]

Class: RoninLevel: 2Health: 13/19Mana: 1/16Stamina: 8/18

Exp: 137/144

Main Attributes: Body 19, Mind 15, Spirit 14

Sub Attributes: Dexterity 116 [Enhanced], Fortune 25, Charisma 15

Skills: Lightning Reflexes 15/20, Analysis 12/20, Spears 3/20, Pain Tolerance 2/20, Swords 4/20, Ranged [Bows] 1/20, Hammers 1/20, Axes 1/20, Unarmed 2/20, Spirit Boost 1/20, Mind Boost 1/20, Body Boost 2/20, Heavy Armor 2/20, Medium Armor 2/20, Light Armor 1/20, Iai Style 4/20.

Spirit Break: Yae Ikazuchi.

Condition: Spiritually Marked.

Somehow, unnoticed, he had gained skill levels in Medium and Heavy Armor, not to mention four levels in Iai Style. He rubbed the back of his head absent mindedly, the notifications must have come when he had been out of it.

But that was not what worried him as Shimon stared at the final two lines. It was worrying on an existential level.

Spiritually Marked.

“No,” he whispered. “Absolutely not. Remove that,” he demanded, but the screen did not remove anything.

He focused on the blue chip overlay instead, as if the familiar corporate interface could protect him from the metaphysical mark. For years mankind had searched for answers on the nature of the spirit, if it existed at all. Regretfully, he had just been given a clear and concise answer

He glanced at Tarō, seeing that he was busy with something and distracted. “Search for recorded voice. Last hostile encounter. Source analysis. Frequency, carrier, localization.”

[REQUEST RECEIVED]

Searching auditory log...

[RESULT]

No external auditory waveform matching perceived voice.

“Neural input, then. Internal audio?” he hissed.

[ANALYSIS]

Perceived speech event detected in cognitive record.No matching cochlear input.No external radio-frequency transmission detected.No local network source.Unknown Carrier Signal: Elevated during event.Direct neural stimulation: Possible.Metaphysical interface: Undefined/Unknown

Shimon closed his eyes and breathed through his nose. “Find the frequency of the carrier signal.”

[SCAN INITIATED]

Spectrum sweep: No conventional frequency detected.Electromagnetic correlation: None.Acoustic correlation: None.Thermal correlation: None.Quantum-noise model: Inconclusive.Unknown Carrier Signal present as non-local structured interference.

Connection Status: None.

“It spoke to me,” Shimon thought.

[NO EXTERNAL AUDIO CONFIRMED]

“It spoke to me inside my head,” the young man complained.

[EVENT CLASSIFICATION: UNDEFINED]

[RECOMMENDATION: Avoid further interaction with unknown signal.]

Shimon almost laughed again, but he was beginning to understand that laughter in this world was one step away from a mad scream.

Tarō rose from the small pyre. “We go,” he uttered, a new hardness in his words.

“Now?”

His was a simple answer to a simple question, “Now.”

The ronin looked at the smoke climbing through the trees. “This fire will tell everything in the forest where we are. Maybe the yōma fear it. Maybe they love it, but I do not care to learn which before sunset.”

The young man agreed with passionate sincerity.

So, they gathered what they could carry, making a litter to drag behind with the proof pouches, Sakurai’s wrapped head, the earlier Hojo head in its sack along with a few of his comrades. A few serviceable weapons and bits of armor. Tarō took his brother’s short blade and tied it to his own belt with mechanical care. Shimon did not comment.

They left the rest stacked under a torn banner tied to a branch, visible enough that men could find it later if men returned later and not something else.

Then they climbed out of the hollow, but every step away from the dead felt both too slow and too fast. Shimon kept expecting the voice to return. He kept expecting an eye to open between the branches. He kept expecting one of the bodies to stand up behind them despite being in pieces and on fire.

Instead, the forest watched them go. The forest let them go, and for a long while, neither man spoke.

The ronin walked like someone whose body intended to keep moving even if the person inside had been hollowed out. Shimon followed with the spear in one hand, dragging the litter behind him, the swords at his hip feeling heavier than they had that morning. The blue route line from his chip flickered uncertainly across the ground, adapting from his memory and glimpsed landmarks.

His body wanted water. His stomach wanted food. His mind wanted to be turned off and stored somewhere safe until the world became less insane.

The other man broke the silence first. “Thank you.”

At first Shimon could not understand, and just simply nodded. Then a few paces later it dawned on him that without his “heroics” they would both have been dead. A bitter part of him wished that the other man had paid the price of their survival instead of him.

As they neared the boundary path, the trees began to thin. The air changed first, becoming less wet, less close. Birdsong returned in fragments. A distant human shout carried through the branches. Shimon almost wept at the sound.

Then the shouting multiplied. “Who goes there?”

Tarō stopped and Shimon stopped beside him half a heartbeat later.

Ahead, shapes moved between the trees. Not yōma, men. Too many men with spears, swords, and bows. They had the air about them of people very ready to stab anything that looked unusual.

“Answer!” someone screamed in shrill warning.

“Living men!” he shouted. His voice cracked. “Kume Tarō! Hired under Master Hieda and witness of the Adventurer’s Za! Do not shoot!”

Several bowstrings drew in answer.

“Do not shoot!” Tarō shouted again, louder. “We bring proof! We bring heads! We are survivors!”

“Survivors?” another man yelled, and the word broke apart into disbelief and alarm.

“Name the leader of your party!” came a harsher voice.

“Kuroda Genzō!” Tarō shouted. “Dead!”

“Name the client!” came another.

“Master Hieda!” the ronin pleaded.

Men emerged fully from the trees and path beyond, but they did not lower their weapons. And, there were far more than Shimon expected. Fifteen, perhaps twenty armed men. Some were Hieda’s guards, their dark coats marked with the stepped-triangle symbol. Others wore castle livery that Shimon did not recognize. Behind them stood the two coolies who had run, both alive, both pale with terror and shame. One pointed at Tarō, then at Shimon, babbling something. Master Hieda was there too.

But most interesting of all was the creature perched upon his shoulder. At first glance, Shimon almost mistook it for some strange bird, no larger than a hunting hawk, with a narrow, sharp-snouted head and eyes like polished black beads. Then it shifted, and the illusion failed. Its forelimbs were not wings, not exactly, though long feathers fanned from them in dark iridescent layers. More feathers streamed from its legs and tail, forming a four-winged silhouette that made it seem half-bird, half-lizard. Tiny hooked claws gripped the samurai’s shoulder guard without scratching the lacquer. Its head tilted as it studied Shimon, and when it opened its mouth, he saw a neat row of needle teeth. A microraptor, his memories from his early childhood informed him.

He tore his eyes away, knowing that to focus on one thing, was to lose focus on everything. There were priests as well. One wore shrine robes, white and faded red, with a tall black cap and an ōnusa in his hand, a purification wand hung with folded paper streamers. The paper shook faintly though there was little wind. The other was Buddhist, or what passed for Buddhist in this version of Japan. His head was shaved, his robe dark and of a practical practical cut, and prayer beads were wrapped around one wrist. A young acolyte stood behind him.

The high-ranking samurai looked at the bundles in the litter. “Open them,” he ordered, as the pet on his shoulder chittered.

Tarō obeyed and a guard stepped forward first, keeping his spear ready as if the sack might bite. He loosened the cord and pulled the cloth aside. Sakurai Iori’s head stared out at them, prompting a collective intake of breath. Even smeared with dark fluid and distorted by the rictus of death, the face was recognizable enough. Master Hieda took one involuntary step backward and the shrine priest’s face went white.

The high-ranking samurai’s hand tightened around his sword hilt. “Sakurai Iori.”

Tarō bowed once, short and sharp. “He cut Kuroda Genzō and called the yōma brothers.”

The words moved through the men like wind through dry grass.

“Impossible,” someone muttered and grumbled.

The samurai’s eyes lifted from the head to Shimon as the microraptor scrabbled to his other shoulder. “And this one? I do not know him.”

“Ayanokouji Shimon,” Tarō said. “Hired under the same witness. He killed Sakurai. He killed the grey yōma too.”

“Not alone,” Shimon replied quickly. “Mizuno fought. Kuroda fought. The Kume brothers fought. I was alive at the end.”

The high-ranking samurai studied him for one long breath and shook his head in stubborn disbelief. 

Master Hieda finally found his voice. “Bring the teeth.”

Tarō opened the smaller pouch and the shrine priest flinched before the teeth were fully exposed.

Shimon’s chip pulsed him new information.

[UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL DETECTED]

Signal Strength: Low-ModeratePattern: Structured / IntermittentSource Direction: Unclear

The high-ranking samurai looked at the priest. “Well?”

The shrine priest swallowed. “Yōma. Freshly taken. Strongly stained.”

The Buddhist priest closed his eyes and murmured a short prayer, and only then did the bows lower. Master Hieda exhaled through his nose.

“The coolies said there were monsters,” Hieda remarked softly. “We had hoped they were spooked by rusting branches and startled animals. We had hoped cowardice had given imagined teeth to shadows. ”

“They had teeth enough already,” Tarō added laconically.

The high-ranking samurai stepped forward. “I am Nagai Morichika, senior retainer to the lord of this castle. You will take us to the site.”

Tarō bowed. “Yes, Nagai-sama.”

Shimon bowed half a beat later, copying the angle and hoping it was not too wrong.

Nagai’s gaze lingered on him again. “Can you walk?”

Shimon considered the question. The practical answer was yes. The answer least likely to cause new trouble was also yes.

So he simple said, “Yes.” 

“Good. Then walk,” the important samurai declared.

So they walked back into the forest with twenty armed men, two priests, Master Hieda, and the surviving coolies. And for Shimon, the return to the hollow felt much longer than their escape from it as men muttered prayers as they passed the first signs of death. One of them began to shake so badly that his comrade had to grip his shoulder and push him onward. When they finally reached the camp, the men stopped at the edge and stared.

The fires Shimon and Tarō had made still smoked. The enemy pile had burned badly and incompletely, leaving blackened shapes curled among the ash. The smaller pyre for the comrades had fared little better. Kuroda, Mizuno, and Jirō were hidden under smoke-blackened branches, not burned so much as touched by fire and left behind.

Tarō made a sound. It was not a word, not quite a sob, and it was something smaller and worse for it.

The Buddhist priest stepped past him gently. “You did what two men could do,” he offered in comfort. “Now we will do what we must.”

This time, the pyres were built properly, or as properly as the circumstance allowed. Soldiers cut branches while others dragged drier timber from the ruined lean-tos. The coolies, now under the eyes of armed men, carried wood until their legs shook. Oil was brought from Master Hieda’s supplies and purifying salt was scattered. The yōma remains were separated and burned in a pit of their own, surrounded by paper charms pinned to branches.

The Buddhist priest took charge of the human dead. He asked for names where names existed: Kuroda Genzō, Mizuno Sōbei, and Kume Jirō. Sakurai Iori’s body was not placed with them. The retainer gave one look at it and ordered it burned with the yōma flesh after the head had been shown and wrapped again.

“The face he wore may have had ancestors, but the thing beneath does not,” Nagai declared and no one dared argue.

The Buddhist priest stood before the larger pyre when it was ready. Incense smoke coiled upward, gentler than the corpse smoke and somehow sadder for it. He rang the small bell once. The sound passed through the hollow, clear and fragile. Then he began to chant. Shimon did not understand all of it, but he understood enough. Pass beyond suffering. Release attachment. Water for the thirsty. Light for the lost. Tarō knelt with his head bowed and Shimon knelt beside him because standing felt wrong.

As the sutra continued, the shrine priest moved around the hollow with the ōnusa. He waved the wand in measured strokes, paper streamers whispering through the air. More salt scattered from his fingers. He touched marked paper to trees, stones, the ground where blood had soaked deepest. His mouth moved in older words.

The chip reacted to it.

[UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL DETECTED]

Signal Strength: ModeratePattern: StructuredConnection Status: NoneProtocol Compatibility: None

More gibberish, the young man thought even as the shrine priest passed near Shimon and the paper streamers lifted toward him. Not with the wind, but toward him nonetheless, and the priest stopped. For a moment, the man’s eyes met his. They were dark, old with fear, and not unkind. Then the priest slowly moved the ōnusa once over Shimon’s bowed head.

[WARNING]

Unknown Carrier Signal Strength: HighConnection Attempt: DetectedConnection Status: Failed

Shimon felt pressure behind his eyes, like a storm beyond a locked door. Then it faded and it was then that he noticed that the priest’s hands were trembling. The holy man said nothing and continued walking.

The young man decided he hated priests. Not personally, and not even in the way that some atheists come to hate religion. Not that way, but because they seemed to make the invisible things, the things he wanted hidden, more visible, and Shimon had a strong preference for keeping his secrets private.

At last the pyres were relit and the flames rose properly this time. Heat pushed men back, the smoke climbing thicker above the forest above the forest, thick and dark.

Nagai Morichika stood beside Master Hieda at the edge of the firelight. Tarō and Shimon were called forward. The ronin rose slowly and Shimon followed him a pace behind.

Master Hieda looked at them both, then at the burning dead. “You went in as a group,” he stated. “Yet, only two return.”

They both said nothing, letting the silence serve them better than words ever could.

“The coolies brought warning,” Hieda continued. “They spoke of screams, monsters, and dark things. We came with what men could be gathered quickly. I expected to find bones. Perhaps less than bones.”

He paused for a moment as his eyes moved to the wrapped proof. “Instead, you bring proof of yōma slain, proof of routed enemies, and proof that a man known by name entered under witness while wearing a false soul.”

The phrase made Shimon’s skin prickle.

Nagai Morichika spoke next. “Yōma appearances have worsened these past seasons,” he said, his pet lizard-bird squawking in agreement. “Travelers missing, livestock missing, and graves disturbed. Villages working with fear in their shadow. Men call everything a curse when they are afraid, but not all fear, it seems, is foolish.” He looked toward the separate fire where the yōma remains burned. “Yet nothing this brazen has been seen near this castle in twenty years.”

The shrine priest, standing nearby, whispered something to Hieda. The fat man nodded grimly.

“We suspected human hands,” Hieda added. “Too much disorder follows the routed armies. Or perhaps traitors, for there were too many storehouses opened where no beast should know to look. And, too many fires laid for the wind to fan into chaos.”

Nagai’s expression hardened. “We thought at first that it was the Hojo remnants who might be driving trouble toward us. Poisoning roads arteries. Stirring villages. Feeding tales of yōma so that the farmers flee who give succour to our armies.”

Unfortunately for Shimon, it seemed that the chip combined with his brain was still having difficulty parsing the words spoken, making it poetic in parts. Meaningless in others.

Tarō looked up. “Those were Hojo men.”

“Some,” Nagai returned curtly. “But Hojo dogs do not butcher their own wounded and feed them to yōma while one of their agents hides among our hired blades.”

Hieda’s smile returned, but only as a ghost of itself. “Which leaves a third party.”

The words settled over the hollow, and the young man did not like the phrase “third party.” It sounded like too much complication in a life that was difficult enough when it was simple. 

Nagai turned fully towards the pair. “You survived what killed veteran men. You brought proof. You returned instead of just vanishing. This is courage, whether born from discipline, vengeance, or just lack of better choices.”

Shimon somehow felt personally attacked by the last one.

The retainer continued. “My lord rewards useful courage. I recommend brave men to him.”

Tarō bowed low. “You honor us.”

Shimon hastily bowed, too just as the orange screen opened.

[QUEST UPDATE]

Hunt the YōmaObjective: Join a hunting party clearing routed soldiers and yōma drawn to the Konodai battlefield. Investigate reported activity and bring proof of yōma slain [Completed]Optional Objective 1: Identify source of yōma activity. [Partial]Optional Objective 2: Rescue surviving non-hostiles. [Failed]Optional Objective 3: Acquire proof of guild recognition. [Pending]

Local Reputation Increased.

Reward pending.

Shimon stared at “partial” and hated it with the particular hatred of a player who knows a quest chain has not ended. However, a part of him really, really wanted to keep it at “partial.”

They remained at the hollow until the flames had done enough that the priests were satisfied. The dead would not be buried there. Instead, some ash and bone would be gathered later, the Buddhist priest explained. But for now, the fire and rites was all the dead had to help them on their next journey on samsara.

As they left, Shimon looked back once and for a second, he could almost believe that the fire had erased what happened there. Then a crow landed on a branch above the camp and reminded him that nothing was ever fully erased. Only processed by something else.

The journey back to the village and then toward the castle town passed in fragments. Villagers stared as the party emerged from the forest. Some bowed, some made signs with their hands, and one woman began crying when she saw the proof sacks upon the litter now dragged by the coolies. Shimon did not know whether from fear, relief, or simply at the sight of men returning where others had not.

Master Hieda spoke with the headman, Nagai sent riders ahead, and the shrine priest tied fresh paper charms to the boundary rope. The Buddhist priest remained a little apart, washing his hands again and again with water poured by his acolyte.

Shimon was given water. He drank too quickly, nearly choked, and then drank more slowly under Tarō’s warning look.

They did not stop here long. The rat catcher once the rats were gone was never welcome. So, the larger party moved westward along the road toward the castle town. The sky had begun to change as evening came closer, clouds gathering in the colorless way that promised cold rain. Master Hieda was now seated upon his fine traveling chair, borne upon the backs of strong men. Nagai walked part of the way rather than ride, which the lost young man suspected was part of the performance officers had engaged in since the dawn of time. Solidarity with the common rank and file.

Tarō walked beside Shimon and for a while, the two survivors said nothing.

Then Tarō spoke. “When they ask, speak little.”

“That is growing to be my specialty,” Ayanokouji scoffed.

Tarō glanced at him, not understanding the weak joke for what it was, but recognizing the attempt at something. “Say what happened. Do not make it bigger. Do not make it smaller. Great men dislike both. And do not say strange things,” he offered, hissing at the last part.

After a moment, Shimon said, “I will try.”

The ronin grunted, his ration of words used for now. The rest would be taken up by his grief, or by the thoughts in his head.

The castle town was louder than Shimon remembered from that morning. Market stalls were being shut. Dogs barked and children were pulled indoors as the armed party passed. A pair of monks near a roadside shrine bowed to the Buddhist priest and then looked sharply at Shimon, as if some smell of spiritual clung to him.

Perhaps I do smell, the former pro e-sports game thought to himself.

Instead of being taken directly to the castle, Shimon and Tarō were escorted to a ryokan within the castle town, an inn finer than anything Shimon had expected. It had a wooden gate, paper lanterns, a narrow courtyard with stones arranged in deliberate simplicity. There were also servants who looked alarmed when they saw the condition of the guests, but trained well enough to hide it quickly.

“Bath,” Master Hieda demanded, as if issuing a military command. “Clothes. Food. Then sleep. You will be presented when summoned.”

“To the lord?” Tarō asked.

“To the lord,” came the fat man’s curt reply.

Tarō bowed and Shimon bowed too, a fraction slightly late.

The bath nearly broke him. It was not modern. There were no white tiles, no plastic bottles, no temperature controls, no shower head delivering endless hot water. There was a washing area, wooden buckets, steam, and a very large tub that could have drowned a large family that smelled faintly of cedar. Servants brought hot water, and others took away their ruined outer garments.

Shimon washed blood from his hands and discovered that some of it had entered the lines of his skin so deeply that it seemed reluctant to leave. He scrubbed until his fingers hurt.

The water in the tub was hot. Actually hot, and for one irrational second, he nearly cried. Tarō slowly lowered himself into the water with a hiss and closed his eyes. Bruises had begun to darken across his ribs and shoulder. The wound at his scalp had been cleaned and bound. Without armor, he looked younger and smaller than he had in the forest. Shimon let himself sink into the heat and felt his body remember that being alive could include sensations not immediately connected to fear and pain.

Shimon closed his eyes. “Mochi,” he whispered.

Tarō did not open his eyes. “You speak to yourself a lot. Or, perhaps the spirits.”

The young man cricked his neck, feeling the stress from between his shoulder blades loosen a fraction. “Yes,” he supplied.

“Do they answer, the spirits?” the other man inquired.

Shimon thought of the eye. “Unfortunately, sometimes they do,” he replied, causing Tarō to open one eye.

Shimon looked away. “Joke.”

“Bad joke.”

“Yes,” the gamer shrugged indifferently.

After the bath came clothing. Nothing grand, but clean and functional for their purpose. A dark kosode, a plain hakama, an underlayer that did not smell of death, and a belt suitable for his swords. His armor was taken away to be cleaned, inspected, and repaired. Shimon had a brief moment of panic at being separated from it before realizing that wanting to keep stinking armor in the bath were not the thoughts of a sane man. The swords, however, were returned to him cleaned and polished.

Food came next. Rice, soup, pickled vegetables, grilled fish, and something sweet made from beans. And, after that, the payment arrived after dark.

Master Hieda came with the Za official from the market, the same broad man who had stood on the barrel and shouted men toward death. He looked much less cheerful indoors. With them came Nagai Morichika and a clerk carrying a box.

The proof had been accepted. The heads of routed enemies, the yōma teeth, and the monstrous head of Sakurai Iori, which had all caused quite a stir. Coins were counted before them. More than Shimon had yet held in this world. Strings of them, small and large, copper and silver-colored, some stamped differently. To Shimon, it looked like an amount of money large enough to set him up nicely. To Tarō, judging by his expression, it looked like a future that had arrived missing half its owner.

“Bounty for three yōma,” the clerk said. “Bounty for enemy heads, hazard addition by order of Nagai-sama, and a discretionary commendation by Master Hieda. Less contract witness fee, but inn and clothing advance, waived by order of Nagai-sama.”

“Waived?” Shimon repeated before he could stop himself.

The clerk looked at him as if he had asked why rain was wet.

Nagai said, “You will not be charged for washing yōma blood from your hair before meeting our lord.”

“Thank you,” Shimon said gratefully, choosing the safest answer.

The money was divided. Tarō received Jirō’s share as next of kin after the clerk asked about family. Kuroda and Mizuno’s shares would be held for claimants or by the Za if none came forward. Shimon received his portion in a weight of coin that made his sleeve sag.

[REWARD RECEIVED]

Coin acquired.Experience awarded: 35.Local Reputation Increased.Adventurer’s Za Recognition (Acquire proof of guild recognition): Pending formal entry.

Exp: 28/172

Congratulations, you have advanced to the next level.

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

Bonus points awarded for completing all quest objectives: 1 Attribute Point and 1 Skill Point.

[All advancement and bonus points must be spent within 20 minutes or they will be randomly assigned.]

Another level up, another strengthening of his personal power. What was of note was that with him having objectives on partial, or failed, his rewards upon going up a level had been reduced. The system was basically telling him to do better, so he could do better.

Pretending to count the coins, he instead assigned his points. He slammed two points into Body, because that was always the safest bet. Then he put a single point both in Mind and Spirit on a whim and because it felt balanced. The two skill points were not for balance, and put both points into Swords because specialization was a thing.

Their next visitor was the shrine priest.

He had changed into fresh robes but still looked uneasy, still carrying the memories of the forest on him. In his hands were two small charms wrapped in paper and tied with red and white cord. He gave one to Tarō and one to Shimon.

“Wear this close,” he said. “Do not open it. Do not boast of what you killed. Do not speak their number after midnight. If you dream of teeth, wake and wash your hands with salt water.”

Shimon went as still as a mouse, and the priest's mouth tightened as he looked at him. “Yōma have siblings. Not always by blood. Not as men understand it. Hunger recognizes hunger. The dead may leave echoes.”

Ayanokouji thought of the strange eye again and now the paper charm felt warm in his palm. “Will this stop them?” he asked.

The priest hesitated for the smallest possible moment. “No,” he explained. “But it may make them look elsewhere first.”

Shimon appreciated the honesty even as he hated the content of the holy man’s words. He tied the charm inside his clothing, close to his chest, because every superstition in this world he suspected was practical advice.

At last, after that, they were left alone.

The room was simple but clean. Tatami under them. Sliding doors on one side leading to a narrow veranda. A painted screen in one corner and two futons laid out in the center.

Tarō lay down first. He did not undress fully, and neither did Shimon. Both kept their swords within reach, that was not discussed. It did not need to be. Nor was the slight tremor in Tarō’s hands.

For a while, Shimon lay on his back and listened, letting the sounds of the inn breathe around him. Wood creaked, somewhere distant, water was poured, and somewhere else a servant walked softly along a corridor. Outside, civilization settled into the night, the occasional bark of a dog the only real disturbance.

Despite his recent trauma, Tarō’s breathing eventually deepened, but Shimon remained fast awake. He checked the chip again: no network, no company channel, and no convenient emergency protocols, unknown carrier signal intermittent, and the spiritual mark still undefined. 

He checked his status again, closed it, and thought about the mechanics of the system, his mind mulling over it.  “What do you want?” he whispered silently into the dark behind his own thoughts.

Nothing answered, and nothing continued to answer as exhaustion eventually took him. But, it was a restless sleep and he woke in the middle of the night with the chip screaming silently across his vision.

[WARNING]

Hostile Presence Approaching.

Shimon’s eyes opened. And, for a moment he did not move. The room was dark, lit only by weak moonlight leaking through the paper doors. Tarō slept on the next futon, one arm thrown across his chest, mouth slightly open as his sword lay beside him.

[WARNING]

Hostile Presence: Close.Direction: East / Veranda side.Movement: Rapid.Auditory detection confirmed.

The side door slid open and wind entered the room, cold and sudden. Before Shimon could sit up, something landed on his chest and a weight pressed him into the futon with awful intimacy. Knees, perhaps, or hands, or something shaped like them. His ribs compressed and his breath stopped. He could see only the ceiling beams above him and the pale rectangle of the opened door beyond the edge of his vision.

There was nothing on top of him, at least nothing he could see at least. And his treacherous body refused to move.

This was not the paralytic of fear. He knew fear now, and had become unpleasantly familiar with its many textures. This was, he knew, quite different. His arms lay beside him, useless. His legs would not answer. His jaw was locked and his tongue was thick and dead in his mouth.

He tried to scream. “Mmmmmm!” was all the sound that barely escaped his sealed lips.

Tarō slept on.

“Mmmmmm!”

The invisible weight leaned closer as if annoyed by the attempt. The air above his face bent slightly, as if heat shimmered there, though the room had gone cold. A smell came with it, something like the inside of a sealed box opened after a hundred years.

Then the voice spoke. Do not be afraid.

Shimon’s eyes strained so wide they hurt. That instruction, he thought wildly, had never worked in the history of fear.

The weight increased a fraction, pinning him more firmly as if in gentle correction. You are difficult to visit. The little thing in your skull bites at shadows it cannot understand.

The chip flickered temperamentally.

[UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL]

Signal Strength: ExtremeSource: Non-local / OverlappingConnection Status: ForcedWarning: Unauthorized neural interaction detected.Countermeasure failure.

Thank you… glad that the company had not cut corners, he thought cynically as he tried to move again.

The voice was warm now. Almost fond. Be still. I did not save you to waste you by taking your life in an inn.

“Mmmmmm!”

Soft amusement brushed his mind. Yes. That is the spirit. There is fire in you, though it hides beneath fear and clever little thoughts. Good. Fire is useful.

The invisible thing shifted. Shimon felt pressure at his throat, not choking, merely reminding. His heart hammered so hard he thought his ribs might crack beneath the weight.

Listen well, Shimon Ayanokouji.

Hearing his full name inside that voice was worse than pain.

I am your friend.

No, Shimon thought with every remaining piece of himself. No, you are most certainly not.

The thing ignored the thought or enjoyed it. I take care of those I choose. I raise them. I polish them. I place them where they may grow sharper still.

Those I choose, Ayanokouji focused on, the words landing like a collar around his neck.

You will go before the lord of this castle. You will enter his service. You will let them name you brave, useful, strange, blessed, cursed—whatever small words men require.

Shimon tried to shake his head, but his head did not move.

You will become a hunter of yōma. A fine role. A necessary role. Men will fear you and praise you. Priests will mutter. Lords will reward. Enemies will reveal themselves. You will gain renown, strength,  and wealth.

The orange screen opened in his vision.

[QUEST RECEIVED]

Go Into Service With The Local Lord

Issuer: Unknown PatronObjective: Enter the service of the castle lord.Objective: Become recognized as a yōma hunter.Reward: Patronage, Reputation, Advancement PathFailure: Displeasure of Unknown Patron

Accept?

Shimon stared at the final line, “Failure: Displeasure of Unknown Patron,” and shuddered. That was not a failure condition. That was a threat.

The voice lowered, intimate as a whisper against his ear. And when I ask a favor, little lightning blade, you will do it.

Suddenly, the invisible weight lifted.

[CONNECTION LOST]

Unknown Carrier Signal: LowHostile Presence: No longer detectedMotor control returning...

Shimon sucked in air through his teeth. Then, he sat bolt upright, gasping, his hands flying to his throat, chest, face. His lips worked, his tongue moved, and his body was his again.

Just a bad dream, he rationalized to himself, but the side doors to the room stood open.

Cold night wind poured in, stirring the paper charm tied inside his clothing. Moonlight lay across the tatami in pale strips.

Tarō woke with a strangled sound and rolled toward his sword.

“What—?”

Wind snapped through the room as Tarō stared at the open doors, then at Shimon, who sat drenched in sweat and shaking so hard his teeth clicked.

“What happened?” Tarō demanded.

Shimon tried to answer, but for a moment, all he could hear was the voice.

When I ask a favor, you will do it.

The orange screen waited in the corner of his vision with a simple demand for him to “Accept.” Shimon looked at the open doors and the darkness beyond them. He was not merely lost anymore. He had been recruited.