by Julie Kagawa
A field of gravestones, surrounded by a simple bamboo fence, sprawled in haphazard rows in the grass at the bottom of the hill. Crudely hewn headstones jutted out of the dirt, interspersed with stone lanterns and bibbed statues of Jinkei, the Kami of Mercy and the Lost. Many of the structures, from the markers to the lanterns to the statues themselves, were covered in moss, their faces worn by erosion and time. But there were several headstones, particularly the ones closest to the hut, that looked much newer.
Yumeko appeared beside me, also gazing down into the cemetery. Strange that I could feel her presence, another body close to mine, and not want to step away and put distance between us. “Well,” the girl stated after a moment. “That’s...interesting. Is it common to put your honored guests a stone’s throw from your graveyard?”
“Not usually,” I muttered.
Yumeko continued to observe the field of stones. “Do you think there could be yurei?” she asked. She didn’t sound terribly concerned about this, as if the idea of meeting a ghost was more curious than frightening. I was less intrigued. Most yurei were harmless, content to haunt the place they had died, mournful and tragic, but not dangerous. There were others, however—onryo and goryo being the most feared—who had died with hatred or jealousy in their hearts, and would return to wreak vengeance upon those who had wronged them. Sometimes their grudges would last for years, centuries, as the curse affected not only the people who betrayed them, but their descendants, as well.
“It depends,” I told Yumeko, not wanting to explain all this.
“On what?”
“If they were buried appropriately. If they received the proper funeral rites so they could pass on. If they died with no strong emotions or unfinished business that would cause them to linger in the mortal realm.” I gazed over the cemetery, “So...yes, it’s entirely possible we will see yurei tonight.”
“At least there’s a monk in town,” Yumeko said. “He would’ve performed the proper burial rights, wouldn’t he?”
I frowned slightly and glanced at her. “What monk?”
“The monk,” Yumeko repeated, gesturing back toward the village. “He was at the headman’s house when we first arrived, and then again on the path here. You didn’t see him?”
“No.” Not that I doubted her statement. Like the kodama and the kamaitachi, it seemed Yumeko was adept at seeing the spirit world. Better than me, it appeared. I knew how to spot demons and yokai, but that was usually due to Kamigoroshi’s influence, Hakaimono’s insatiable bloodlust rearing up, alerting me when they were close. Because the demon didn’t care much about yurei, I was less sensitive to the presence of ghosts unless they were very powerful or meant me harm.
“There was a monk,” Yumeko insisted. “He wore black robes, a straw hat and he carried a staff with metal rings that chimed as he walked.” She paused a moment, looking thoughtful, then asked, “Oh, do you think he could be a yurei who haunts this village, and that’s why everyone is acting so strange?”
“Maybe.” Ghosts were harder to figure out than demons. Usually they were problems for a priest or onmyoji to take care of, to exorcise or placate the spirit into moving on. The clan never sent me after yurei; no one was certain what happened to the creatures that Kamigoroshi slew: if they were banished to be reborn, or erased from existence entirely. The thought that a human soul could be snuffed out without passing on, to simply cease to exist, was a horrifying and blasphemous idea that even the Kage would not risk. I could kill demons and yokai in waves, but I was forbidden from slaying a ghost unless it was a matter of life or death.
Yumeko sighed. “I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight.”
We turned and walked back into the hut, loud snores greeting us as we stepped through the doorframe. The ronin had already fallen asleep on the rough planks by the fire, the jug of sake clasped loosely in one hand. Yumeko shook her head, stepped over his body and moved to one of the straw mattresses in the corner. I settled in the doorway, pulling my sword sheath from my belt and laying it across my lap. I could feel Yumeko’s eyes on me as she curled up on the mattress and drew a threadbare quilt over her head.
“Tatsumi-san?” she asked after a few minutes of listening to the ronin snore. Near the fire, the body on the floor coughed and shifted to his back, falling silent for the moment.
“Hn,” I grunted.
“I’m...glad you’re here.” Her eyes, dark and luminous, watched me from under the blanket. “I know the road is dangerous, but I feel safer knowing you’re close. I would never be able to sleep in a haunted village by myself. So, thank you...for staying.”
For some reason, that made my stomach contract a little, and I had no idea why. “We both made a promise,” I reminded her. “You would guide me to the Steel Feather temple, and I would protect you on the way. I’m here for the scroll, nothing else.”
“I know.” Her voice was very soft in the darkness of the room. “But I’m still happy that you chose to stay. I...” A yawn interrupted her, and she covered it with a hand. “I might even be able to fall asleep tonight. Because I know you’re there.” She wrinkled her nose as a snore came from the slumbering ronin near the fire pit. “If baka-Okame doesn’t keep me awake, that is. Good night, Tatsumi-san.”
I didn’t answer. After a while, her breaths became slow and deep as she drifted into unconsciousness.
For a moment, unseen by condemning human eyes, I gave in to my fascination and let myself look at her. Her pale skin seemed to glow in the moonlight slanting through the latticed windows, her hair an inky curtain across her back and shoulders. She breathed calmly, her face unguarded in sleep, as it was when she was awake. A jet-black strand of hair came loose to fall into her eyes, and I was filled with an incomprehensible urge to brush it back.
Disgust set in, and I turned away, clenching a fist on my leg. Why was I finding myself so distracted lately? I knew my mission—retrieve the scroll at any cost, and return to Lady Hanshou. But here I was, with this girl and now an uncouth ronin, having promised not to leave.
For just a moment, I wavered. For a heartbeat, my guard was down, and disgust flared into a burning, instant rage. I was suddenly filled with the overwhelming desire to leap up and slay my useless companions, to strike them down while they slept and watch their blood gush over the floor and sizzle in the fire pit.
Soundlessly, I rose and stepped into the room, my hand on the hilt of my sword. My shadow fell over the girl, slumbering peacefully on her mattress. It would be easy, I thought, gazing down at the back of her neck, so exposed and vulnerable in the moonlight. Neither of them would realize they were dead until they woke up as yurei, or in the next land, and then I would be free to seek the scroll on my own. I didn’t need the girl to find what I was looking for, nor did I need to keep my promises. I was the Kage demonslayer and the Shadow Clan’s best shinobi. Honor and human lives meant nothing to me.
My hand tightened on the hilt of the blade, and I began drawing it from its sheath.
No, Hakaimono! Enough!
Wrenching control from the demon, I shoved Kamigoroshi back in its sheath and lurched away from the sleeping girl. Staggering outside, I pressed a palm to my face, breathing hard as I struggled to clear the rage and bloodlust from my mind. Hakaimono fought me, unwilling to give up, fury and violence still singing through my veins. Closing my eyes, I recalled the mantra my sensei taught me, chanting it like a sutra in my head.
Be nothing. You are not a person; you are a weapon. A weapon does not feel. A weapon has no emotions to hinder or slow it down. Feel nothing. Regret nothing. You are but a shadow, empty and soulless. You are nothing.
“I am nothing,” I whispered, and sensed Hakaimono’s presence fading from my mind. “I am a weapon in the hands of the Kage. I will not betray them or fail my mission.”
When I opened my eyes, I was fully in control. The anger, confusion and doubt had been purged fro
m my body, leaving me with a cold realization. I could not afford to lower my guard, to allow anything, or anyone, to distract me. Hakaimono had relinquished the fight for now, but this had been a chilling reminder of what was at stake. I’d stopped myself in time, but if the sword had tasted blood, I might have slaughtered the entire village before the demon was satisfied, starting with the very girl I was supposed to protect.
Yumeko. I narrowed my eyes. Yumeko was a distraction: intriguing, confusing and dangerous. I didn’t know why she affected me so much, but it couldn’t go on. Hakaimono had been biding its time, luring me into a false sense of security, before attempting to seize control. It had almost worked. I could not let that happen again.
A soft chime cut through the silence.
I looked up. A monk stood in the road that snaked past the house, his form hazy and blurred in the moonlight. He wore black robes, a wide-brimmed straw hat and carried a staff with four metal rings dangling from the top. Exactly as Yumeko had said. Without taking his eyes from me, he raised his staff, pointing it down the path...and disappeared.
Wary, but knowing omens from the dead could not be ignored, I crept around the house, peering down the slope into the graveyard.
It was no longer empty.
The entire cemetery glowed with a strange, sickly green light that illuminated the dozens of bodies shambling between graves. They were naked, emaciated creatures, with sticklike limbs and bloated, distended bellies. Vaguely human, they walked hunched over or crawled through the dirt like animals, their gaping mouths showing rows of jagged, broken teeth.
Gaki.
I crouched in the shadows of the hut, realizing my mistake. This village was haunted, but not by a single yurei. Gaki were the spirits of greedy or wicked humans who had died and returned cursed with eternal hunger. No matter how much they ate, they were always starving, and nothing could satisfy them. They were creatures to be pitied, and a single gaki wasn’t normally considered dangerous, but if no food could be found, they were known to turn violent, seeking anything, living or dead, to quell their agonizing hunger.
Watching the gaki shuffle between gravestones, a cold fury began creeping through my veins at the realization, fed by Hakaimono. The villagers had known about this. Now I understood the fear and anticipation. We weren’t “honored guests” as the headman would have us believe: we were sacrifices to the gaki.
Carefully, I drew back, and suddenly realized I was not alone. The monk stood beside me, also gazing down at the roaming gaki, his face hidden in the shadows of his hat. Before I could do anything, he raised his staff, the metal rings glimmering in the darkness, and brought it down with a thump in the dirt. The rings chimed, a metallic jangle that echoed like a gong in the silence, and as one, the gaki whirled, their hollow, burning eyes fixed on me.
I leaped away as, with howls and piercing shrieks, the gaki rushed forward, scuttling over the bamboo fence and swarming up the rise. Darting into the hut, I ignored the snoring ronin and hurried to Yumeko, grabbing her by an arm.
“Yumeko!” She blinked as I hauled her upright, her eyes wide with astonishment as I set her on her feet. “Get up!”
“Tatsumi? What are you—”
A shriek interrupted her, as a twisted, lanky form appeared in the open doorway. Mouth gaping the gaki screamed and lunged at us, curved nails grasping like bird talons. Yumeko gasped, and I leaped between them, Kamigoroshi flashing from its sheath. The blade sliced through the gaki’s bony chest, and the tortured spirit wailed as it shivered into tendrils of black-green mist and writhed away.
“Get the ronin on his feet!” I called, as more gaki appeared through the frame, eyes blazing with madness and hunger. Planting myself in the doorway, I met them with my sword drawn, blocking the way in. Hakaimono, its rage forgotten, flared with excitement at the prospect of killing, bathing the mob in purple light.
Howling, the gaki lunged, teeth bared, claws snatching at me. I cut them down as they surged forward, slicing through limbs and heads alike, splitting sticklike bodies in two. The gaki showed no fear or self-preservation as they came forward, throwing themselves on my blade with mindless fury, their consuming hunger driving them mad. Even if I cut off a limb, the owner would still press forward, raking with the other, or trying to bite me if both were gone. They dissolved into ethereal mist as they were destroyed, but there were always more, a seemingly endless horde crowding the tiny entrance of the hut. A talon got through my defenses and ripped a gash across my neck, and the smell of blood seemed to drive the mob into an even greater frenzy.
Something buzzed by my ear, inches from the side of my face, and an arrow thumped into a gaki’s forehead, sending it writhing into mist. As I slashed through another, a second arrow flashed between my arms, and a gaki howled as it disappeared. Through the chaos and fury of battle, I vaguely realized that the ronin either had perfect aim and timing to shoot through a doorway with me still in front of it, or he was getting insanely lucky.
“What are these things?” I heard Yumeko cry, somewhere behind me. “What do they want?”
“Gaki!” the ronin called back, as another arrow buzzed along my ribs and hit one in its bloated stomach. “Hungry ghosts! You can’t reason with them. Poor bastards are starving and will try to eat anything, including us.”
Another talon got through and latched on to my sleeve, ripping through cloth and taking a bit of skin along with it. Hakaimono snarled in rage and surged up, urging me to let it go, to release its power and slaughter the pathetic crowd before us. I ignored it, pushing the demon’s influence down, not trusting myself or the blade right now.
Something larger than an arrow flew past my head and hit a gaki in the face. It staggered back as a large daikon radish dropped to the ground in front of it. With a snarl, the gaki ignored the vegetable and flew at me again, and Hakaimono hissed with pleasure as the sword cut through the skinny neck. The head fell, bounced once beside the radish, and dissolved into mist.
Several more food offerings sailed past my shoulders and swinging arms, into the crowd of gaki, who ignored or even batted them away. “I don’t think they’re interested in regular food,” Yumeko observed, as I gritted my teeth and wished my companions would stop hurling things past my head. “I think they just want to eat us.”
There was a loud rustle above me, and Yumeko let out a yelp. “Okame, they’re coming in through the roof!”
“Dammit!” There was a hiss of a bowstring, a thump and a screech above me as a gaki met its end. “More incoming,” the ronin shouted, as the sound of thatch tearing echoed overhead, and bits of straw began drifting around me. “Hey, Kage, how’s the mob looking on your end?”
I sliced down two gaki that had rushed forward, catching a split-second glance of the numbers beyond. “About a dozen left,” I panted, jerking back to avoid gaki claws tearing open my face. “Just keep them off me for a few more seconds. And protect Yumeko.”
More hisses and shrieks rang out behind me, but I couldn’t turn from the mob at the door. I heard scuttling feet, the ronin swearing and then a cry from Yumeko that sent a chill through my stomach. Beheading the last gaki, I whirled, ready to rush to her defense, hoping I wouldn’t see her lifeless body on the floor, a pair of monsters ripping it to pieces.
The ronin lay sprawled on his back near the firepit, his bow held in front of him as if to ward something away. Yumeko stood beside him with her tanto outstretched, the remnants of green mist coiling around her as it vanished on the breeze. Her sleeve was torn, ripped by grasping claws, but there didn’t seem to be any blood.
“Is that...the last of them?” she panted, looking at me.
I nodded once and sheathed Kamigoroshi, feeling a strange flicker of emotion in my chest. Seeing her alive and unharmed...was this relief I felt?
“Tatsumi.” Yumeko stepped forward, her eyes gazing worriedly at the side of my neck where the gaki had clawed it. I could feel
blood from the torn flesh beginning to seep into my collar. My arm, too, was starting to drip blood on the wooden planks. “Before we do anything, we should take care of those. Do you have any medicine left?”
She took another step toward me, and I remembered her touch, cool and soft, sliding over my skin. So unlike the healers of the Shadow Clan; they took care of my wounds with quick and brutal efficiency, sparing me no discomfort. As with everything in my life, I had come to see the pain that came from their ministrations as normal. As Ichiro-sensei often said: pain was a good thing; it meant I was still alive. But with Yumeko...that had been the first time in recent memory that another person had touched me...without hurting me.
I stiffened and drew away from her. No distractions, I reminded myself. No emotion, no weaknesses. If I let myself fall under this girl’s spell, craving a touch that wasn’t painful, Hakaimono would latch on to that flaw and turn me into a demon.
“Don’t,” I warned in a cold voice, and she halted, blinking in confusion. “Don’t come near me,” I told her, backing away. “I don’t need your help. I’ll take care of it myself.”
Her brow furrowed, puzzlement and something else going through her eyes. Ignoring that look, and the vague squeezing sensation in my chest, I brushed past her, toward the full water bucket in the corner of the hut. I had my mission, and I would not falter. Nothing mattered except retrieving the scroll and returning to Lady Hanshou. A weapon did not question the demands of its owners, or the purpose for which it was created. A weapon existed only to obey...and to kill.
“Oi,” the ronin demanded as I walked away, pointing to his face and the shallow cuts across his skin. “What about me? This isn’t Kabuki makeup, you know.”