by Carly Chase
The barrier was completely dissipated apart from around one corner of the town, and Kiba had seen scores of flying lower yokai heading towards the now undefended human settlement as he had raced here.
Ryokan and the others are not going to be pleased about this… But what is Ikari doing?
He entered the town from the woods, and saw that there were lower yokai everywhere, running amok. They kept their distance from him, aware of the difference between themselves and a powerful higher yokai. The humans all seemed to be hiding, barricaded in their homes, though he could see spells being fired off into the sky above a farm, and guessed that the town’s priest was over there. If he was engaged in fighting these lower yokai, he must not be aware there was anything as dangerous as Kiba and his brother somewhere in the town.
So Ikari arranged this invasion as a distraction so he could get in and investigate what happened to Yuki, it seems. Well, I can’t fault him. It seems to be working.
Kiba had two people to find here – his brother, and the true love he had yet to meet. One would be easier to find than the other, thanks to the glow she was giving off, but what Kiba didn’t know yet was that both of his objectives were currently in the same room.
“Can you hold them off a while by yourself now?” Mamoru shouted over to Reo, who had just successfully purified a swarm of around 20 flapping, batlike yokai with one spell.
The kid is getting good. And none of these yokai seem to be attacking in a way that suggests order, or that they even especially care about hurting us. It feels like a diversion…
“I think so!” Reo shouted back, as he slammed his staff into the ground once more, sending out a burst of purple light that purified an approaching alligator-like creature, making it disappear just as it opened its jaws.
“I want to start putting the barrier back up, if you can handle things for a while while I do it. If I don’t they’ll just keep coming...”
Mamoru didn’t tell Reo that there was somewhere he wanted to go first, because somehow it seemed selfish to be checking on his sister at a time like this. Even though he knew Reo would be just as concerned for Shiori as he was, his assistant was a diligent boy, and it may not be a good lesson to teach him that it is fine to walk away from your duties just because you’re worried about one specific person. He knew his house was the safest place in the town, and that Shiori did have that strange woman he’d summoned – not that she could really be relied upon to do much – but still, this was the heaviest of all of the attacks that had happened in recent weeks and he couldn’t help wanting to just quickly check his sister was OK.
Or at least, as OK as she ever was since that wretched kitsune had done whatever unholy thing it had done to her.
I have told too many lies today. But the circumstances forced my hand.
The priest ran from the farm towards his home, firing off spells from his staff to repel and purify any swooping yokai that attempted to follow him or get in his way. These lower yokai were simple to deal with, and the people of the town should be safe as long as they shut themselves in and used the basic wards they all had on their homes. There could be problems if the yokai damaged things or took away or destroyed their food stores, but he counted himself lucky that nothing had yet appeared that would be able to harm anyone, as long as everybody took the normal precautions.
But there has to be more to this attack than this. None of these things could have taken down the barrier. Something strong was behind this, just like the other times. I just wish I knew what, or why, so I could have some kind of plan…
Truthfully, his plan had been to summon Hime-sama and have her figure it all out, but that hadn’t worked. Whoever Anya was, she looked to have no idea why she was here, and certainly didn’t seem to want to fight the yokai. It had been all he could do to convince her that they were even dangerous. Whatever her world was like, it must be a wonderful place if there were no yokai, and people had the luxury of worrying about things like morality.
Perhaps I should have told her the whole truth about Shiori’s condition. But thinking she’s merely in a coma, well, it seemed to be enough. If only it were that simple.
Ikari looked down at the dark-skinned woman who’d flopped onto the futon in front of him, dropping the bottles of green liquid in the process. She was breathing, he could see.
Just what the hell are the priests in this place up to? This woman reckons she’s from another world, they’ve been keeping Yuki trapped inside this human, they’ve got weird potions… Whatever they’re experimenting with, it is fucked up.
Still, that wasn’t his concern. He just needed to get Yuki away from this nightmarish place, before the priests managed to get the barrier back up. Her weight in his arms didn’t bother him, weak as he was, and he turned to leave.
“Brother? What are you doing here?” he asked in surprise, seeing the powerful figure of Kiba’s human form striding down the hallway. Aside from a trace of strain on his face, he didn’t seem anywhere near as affected by the pain from the wards as Ikari, but then, he was the tiger clan’s alpha for a reason.
“The clan insisted I come and stop you causing trouble… But, what are you doing in this house? I came here because I couldn’t find you, and… Well, I had another objective here,” he said, smiling a little.
“This was where they were keeping Yuki. She’s alive, she’s inside this human girl somehow… I’m taking her back to the kitsune village...”
“How did you find that out?”
“Well, I can see Yuki, now… If you know what I mean.”
His older brother laughed.
“Then fate has definitely conspired to bring us here tonight, brother. I am also able to see someone here...”
Ikari’s face twisted in anguish. How could this be? How could both he and his brother have Yuki as their true loves? He would never be able to beat Kiba in a fight, he knew that, but he loved Yuki so much – what kind of cruelty was this?
“You can’t… Please, Kiba, Yuki and I… You don’t know her like I do… I can make her happier than you can. Please...”
“What? No, brother. Not Yuki. It’s been my hope for years that you and she would belong together. I just meant that my own true love is here too. Behind you. So, if you could, you know, get out of the way so I can see her, that’d be great.”
“But there’s only this human here...” Ikari said, relieved and confused in equal measure.
He stepped aside, though only to show Kiba that he must be mistaken. There were no other yokai here – surely there hadn’t been someone hiding in this room the whole time, not with these powerful wards…
Ikari’s jaw dropped in surprise as he saw his brother pounce down and immediately scoop the dark-skinned human woman into his arms, his eyes filled with loving concern as he looked into her face.
“What happened to her, why is she unconscious?”
“She drank a potion, but wait – you mean to say there is another yokai inside this human woman, just like Yuki is trapped inside this girl?”
“No… This is just one person. And, well, I guess that means my fated love is a human!” Kiba’s voice suggested wonder, more than distaste at this.
“But… that never happens...”
“Well, just because we’ve never heard of it happening, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. All I know is how I feel, and destiny has never made a bad match yet. Look at her, brother, she’s not just any human. She’s not from this town, that’s for sure. And the light I see from her, it appeared suddenly, while I was traveling to the town to find you.”
“Yeah, she said some weird stuff about the priest summoning her from another world...”
“Did you not ask her more about that?”
“No,” Ikari shrugged, causing Shiro to bob up and down in his arms, “I didn’t think whatever weird stuff the priests are doing here was wise to be looking into. And besides, I didn’t know she was going to be anybody important to us.”
“So why did she drink a
potion and pass out?”
“Oh, ummm… I may have told her to. She told me it was food for this unconscious girl, and to take it if I was taking her with me. I didn’t trust her, since she was here living with the priests, so I said if it was just food she should have some of it, to prove it was safe. She did, and then she collapsed. I don’t think she knew it was going to do that. Maybe it’s also why this other girl is unconscious with Yuki inside her. Maybe the priests are keeping her like that with the potion.”
Kiba was hugging the unconscious woman tightly against him, and Ikari could tell it was true – she really was the one his brother, the clan’s leader, was destined to be with. He’d never seen Kiba look so protective and resolute before.
This is going to get very interesting when Ryokan and the others find out… Still, I suppose me wanting to leave the clan and live with the kitsune will look like nothing compared to this!
“Look, we need to get out of this house, it’s weakening us both. If both of these women are under the effects of the same potion, it’s better if we keep them together – it might wear off on its own, or we might need to find a healer. Either way, we should probably take them both to Yuki’s village,” Kiba said.
Ikari didn’t argue with his brother, not that he was usually brave enough to in any case. He’d been planning to go to the kitsune village anyway, and he was sure Yuki’s people would be happy enough about him having brought her back – even in this state – to welcome Kiba and his woman too. Even if she was human.
Each tiger-man carrying the unconscious form of a woman their destiny was tied to, they made their way down the stairs and out of the priest’s house. The pain and pressure inside them diminished with every step away from the property and its wards, and the barrier was as weak as it had been when they’d entered the town.
“This is the quickest way out and into the woods,” Ikari said, nodding his head in the direction he wanted his brother to follow in. He’d been staking out this town for weeks, and knew its geography well.
“Get down!” Kiba yelled suddenly from behind him, however, and both brothers ducked to the ground, carefully putting Shiro and Anya down on the dewy grass underneath them and covering them with their bodies.
A fraction of an instant later, a beam of purple light whooshed over them, firing off harmlessly into the trees.
“The priest.”
Ikari and Kiba both looked in the direction the light had come from, but it was too dark to see the man who’d fired it. If their superior eyes couldn’t see him, it was certain he couldn’t see them yet, and was shooting spells out blindly.
“I don’t think he has the power to purify us, but still, this could be a big problem,” Ikari said.
“Why so? I’ll just intimidate him a bit and I’m sure he’ll rethink how much he cares about whether we take these two women...”
“Well, this one… She’s his sister. Yeah, I kinda forgot to mention that.”
“And so, the vendetta Ryokan was afraid of begins…” Kiba said grimly. “Well, here’s the plan then. You transform and I’ll do the talking. We stay in front of the women and protect them at all costs – he won’t be able to hurt them since they’re human, and he won’t want to anyway, but we have to make sure he doesn’t stop us from being able to escape with them after… Whatever happens here.”
“We could just kill him.”
“That’s only going to make matters worse – our clan will be distressed enough as it is that we’ve caused trouble here and brought attention to ourselves, let alone if we actually murder their priest. Also, well, it’s not going to endear the woman you’re basically kidnapping to us, is it? Yuki is still in that girl’s body, we’ll presumably need her to be on our side, so maybe killing her brother isn’t going to help with that.”
“All good points,” Ikari sighed, removing his clothes as quickly as he could while crouching on the grass, and putting the leather bag containing them under the blanket that was still swaddled around Shiro.
The sound of voices, and definitely the shape of humans. Mamoru was sure of it. This could mean one of two things, both of them bad. Either there were townspeople out tonight in this mess, or, more likely and more terrifying, there were higher yokai involved in the invasion. Any yokai who could take a human form was of at least human intelligence, and yet far more powerful than a human in other ways. Most higher yokai also had an animal form, though it was larger and stronger than true animals of the same kind. Big cats, wolves, foxes, bears… even dragons. Then there were the humanoid yokai who didn’t change shape, the horned oni, and they were just as fearsome with their brute strength and powerful magic. Mamoru wasn’t convinced his own abilities could destroy higher yokai – he’d only even seen one for certain, and that encounter had resulted in his sister’s current condition. This was exactly why he’d wanted Hime-sama’s help.
Mamoru fired spells off in the direction the voices had come from, but it was dark over there, a small patch of grass and trees between two sets of houses.
They could be heading out of the town, that way… But if higher yokai caused this, wouldn’t they only be leaving if they’d achieved what they wanted to? No real damage has been done here, that I’ve seen, and what could we have that higher yokai would want to steal enough to arrange something like this?
He felt an awkward guilt in his heart.
They’d only attack if they had a personal grudge against us. That damn kitsune. Is this the retribution of its people for what I did?
He steeled himself, leaning on his staff, his free hand nervously touching the beads around his neck. Were there really higher yokai here? And would they really just leave without taking anything?
That’s when, through the darkness, he saw them. The eyes of the giant tiger, gleaming amber in the light of his own magic staff, were the first to become apparent. Then there was the sight of a man, though not dressed like one of the townspeople, striding calmly beside the beast. His hair was long and his muscles cast shadows over his body, clad only in pieces of leather where it mattered. His eyes matched those of the yokai-tiger.
Mamoru’s heartbeat hammered rapid in his chest, like a rodent’s, and it was all he could do to stand his ground. Tiger yokai, not kitsune. He knew little of their ways, and hadn’t even known they were active in this region, but there was no mistaking that the yokai in human form standing so confidently beside the big cat was of the same kind. There was no ward he knew that could do anything more than anger a yokai of that level, let alone two of them – he already knew from his failure at purifying that kitsune properly that he wasn’t up to the task of destroying stronger yokai, and there were few stronger than tigers – at least according to the documents from Hime-sama’s time. He stood firm and tried to look powerful with his staff, but inside he felt the current of understanding between himself and the man facing him. He would die here if he tried to fight.
“Priest. What crimes have you committed in this place?” the man asked.
“Crimes? I know not what you speak of. But please, if your quarrel is with me, don’t bring the people of this town into it, or my poor sister...”
Mamoru’s legs shook, and he knew that begging, perhaps even giving himself up, might be the only way to defend both the town and Shiori.
“Your sister is better off away from you, if you are so perverse as to use her in your experiments. We know that you have a kitsune spirit trapped inside of her body, and a woman who claims you dragged her here from another world. We will take these women with us, and we will heal them. You can tell us what you did and make our work easier. You can refuse to tell us, and we will still succeed. But what you cannot do is prevent us. You know that, I think, priest.”
“It wasn’t an experiment! No, I just tried to stop my sister being attacked by the wretched – by the kitsune. What happened afterwards, I couldn’t have known. I have been trying to cure her, but that meant...”
“Meant you were trying to destroy the yokai inside
her. And were using unseemly magic to bring people from other worlds here to do your bidding. I should destroy you right now. We would certainly feel better if I did.”
The tiger beside the man snarled menacingly and adopted a low, stalking pose, as if just waiting for the signal to pounce and tear Mamoru apart. The trembling in his body grew more intense, and he fought to retain coherence as he spoke. He was fighting even to retain control of his bowels.
“Please… Please don’t take Shiro. The other woman, I don’t know what you want with her but you can take her, just please, leave my sister with me...”
The yokai-man’s eyes flared.
“Coward.”
The tiger beside him growled again, a low rumble that Mamoru felt reverberate in his ribcage.
“Would you really refuse to stand up and protect a person of your own kind who you yourself brought here, if it would spare the sister you are afraid to see awake? You are truly the worst kind of man.”
Mamoru gaped despairingly. He had just been trying to be pragmatic. Sure, he had promised to take responsibility for Anya and let her stay with him, but not at any cost.
“You will not impede us leaving this town. We will judge what your fate should be when we have found a way to awaken these women. Do what you will with your barrier and your wards, priest. We will be back.”
Chapter 8
A soft bed. Anya reached up and rubbed her eyes. How much did she drink last night? She felt terrible. The smell of leaves and flowers was a new one though. She dragged her eyelids apart, ready to face the day, and look for some water, when she was suddenly faced with the fact someone was sitting crossed-legged next to the bed and watching her. That someone was an exceptionally handsome Japanese looking guy in what appeared to be some kind of leather combat gear, his long black hair hanging over a concerned face that was looking at her attentively.
So, I guess those memories weren’t a dream. I am still in some strange pseudo-Japanese place. This guy wasn’t here before though, I’d definitely remember him.