by Dave Ferraro
From behind the throne, a figure stepped out to gaze upon them, hands behind his back, body outfitted with gold and silver plates of armor. His arms were covered in chainmail, but were otherwise bare, allowing a glimpse of the muscle they boasted, and his head was free of adornment, allowing a clear look at his visage. Yumiko was hesitant to peer into his face, but once she did, she found it hard to look away. She saw Brian’s face there, but it was so clearly not Brian’s that it nearly took her aback. It was like looking into The Picture of Dorian Gray. Shuten-Doji wore every diabolical sin he’d ever committed on his face. His eyes were vacant and dead, humorless. His lips were cruel and twisted. His jaw clenched with rage and jealousy. Murder was in the gleam of his eyes. Cruelty, in the way he held his head. His glance was like a snake slithering over Yumiko’s skin. His words were delivered icily, with a promise behind them of how terribly he wanted to slowly torture her and everyone she loved. And while he boasted the same beautiful features as Brian, how he wore them was so ugly that Yumiko could only describe his appearance as monstrous. He was just as ugly, features distorted with cruelty, as the oni he commanded.
“On your knees,” Shuten-Doji said, eyes meeting each of the prisoners in turn before stopping on Yumiko. “All of you. Your new master waits.”
If Shuten-Doji expected resistance, he was disappointed. Yumiko indulged him, because she knew that he would find a sick delight in refusal. She knelt and lowered her head, eyes flickering backward to make sure that the others followed her lead. They did, even though Shou did so with a scowl on his face, refusing to bow his head.
“You’ve already tamed them for me,” Shuten-Doji told Oni-Baba, who climbed the stairs to meet him. He kissed her on the lips and she wrapped an arm around his broad shoulders, squeezing lightly.
“There was hardly any resistance at all,” Oni-Baba told him as she pulled back, running her fingers over his lips intimately. “I think that without your doppelganger, they’ve lost their strength.”
Shuten-Doji considered her words for a moment, then nodded, turning toward Yumiko. “Hardly any surprise. Even a copy of me must be formidable. And why should they try when the battle is so very obviously at an end, and defeat is assured?” He grunted, then gestured at the prisoners. “Somebody kill that kappa. Disgusting creatures. I can’t stand the sight of it.”
Oni-Baba threw up a hand in the direction of the kappa, and the yokai was suddenly engulfed in flames. A small cry of pain escaped it before it fell to the ground. Then the room was filled with smoke.
“How tedious,” Shuten-Doji said, then waved a hand in front of him. The smoke seemed to grow thicker with every passing second, until it was so dense that it began to burn Yumiko’s eyes and she coughed.
“Clear the air, woman,” Shuten-Doji commanded. “You don’t know your own power.”
“I’m…” Oni-Baba squinted into the room, eyes suddenly narrowing.
Yumiko turned her head to see a shape taking form in the smoke. In a flash, five oni fell forward, dead, their armor slashed open, intestines falling to the floor. Shou, Ame-Onna and Reina were suddenly armed with swords from the fallen yokai, and were crossing steel with the remaining monsters. Yumiko tried to follow the movements of the figure in the smoke, but found it to be a blur of speed. In another moment, Yumiko found her mirror sword sailing through the air in her direction, and she caught it easily. A second later, the sound of metal shattering by the throne told Yumiko that Brian had been freed. And then she saw Enenra. The smoke cleared and his body became solid, his chest heaving. She could have kissed him, she’d never been so happy to see somebody in her life. The momentary confusion of the smoke filling the room in concurrence with the fire had given him the opportunity to surprise their adversaries, and suddenly they had a fighting chance.
Tanuki had taken it upon himself to close the doors, and with Reina watching his back, he was able to secure it with various swords and scarabs, although reinforcements rocked the huge doors. Reina wasn’t that adept with a sword however, and only really managed to distract the oni. She was able to dodge their attacks easily, given that she was quick and nimble, while they were slow and bulky, but Yumiko was relieved when Tanuki was able to focus on helping her.
Harionago was a force of nature. She whipped her hair into the wall of oni around them and tore them to shreds with her hair. She ripped one oni in two with a loud triumphant howl, and tore the head clean off of another with a terrible ripping sound. But she seemed to be more partial to shooting out tendrils of hair and hooking her barbs into the oni’s skin, ripping their flesh off in patches that made them cry out in agony. A little bloody and brutal for Yumiko’s tastes, but thankfully, Harionago was on their side, so she was going to overlook it.
Shou and Ame-Onna made a good team, fighting with their backs together mostly, with Shou making short work of the oni, second only to Harionago’s bloody display. Only when the battle seemed to be going south for Shuten-Doji did Ame-Onna leave Shou’s side. A glance at the throne informed Yumiko the reason for her departure, as Oni-Baba was making for a door at the back of the room. Before the witch could slip away in the chaos, Ame-Onna engaged her, the witch cursing as she deflected Ame-Onna’s sword with her hand fans, twirling around in a dance of death, robes flowing beautifully as the bladed tips flashed.
Yumiko, meanwhile, made her way for Shuten-Doji, as did Brian. She expertly wielded her sword, trading blows with one oni, and then another. Brian was of a similar skill set to Yumiko, and was on pace to reaching Shuten-Doji at the same time.
Enenra was a graceful fighter. He slashed at oni quickly, darting in and out between their bodies as he dealt damage. Yumiko paused in her own battle once, startled as an oni swung a sword at his unprotected midsection. But Enenra hardly even registered the attack, and the oni’s sword sliced through his body easily, but as it was only smoke, it dispersed for a moment before recollecting. He noted Yumiko’s distress, however, and offered her a mischievous wink before returning to the fight.
Shuten-Doji watched the bloody battle going on in his throne room with a detached amusement. He seemed to enjoy the blood as it bathed the floor and walls, but that enjoyment didn’t seem to reach his eyes. It was as if he’d truly seen it all, and as brutal as this fight was, it was only of passing interest. A slight entertainment. But he seemed to make his own fun, and found satisfaction in forcing the harp player to watch as dozens died before their eyes. She cringed and tried to look away, but he would shake her and force her eyes on some new atrocity.
When Yumiko killed a final oni standing in her way of Shuten-Doji, she took steady steps in his direction and raised her sword threateningly. “Tell your oni to stand down,” she ordered.
Shuten-Doji sent her a patronizing smile. “Really, girl? I can hardly believe the fuss over a little human child such as yourself. It’s hardly good sport at all when I know how fragile you are firsthand.” He glanced down at the girl in front of him. “Like this.” With a quick hand, he broke the harp player’s neck and she fell to the floor with a loud thump. He kicked her down the stairs, and cocked his head, as if intrigued by how her dead body rolled.
“Damn you,” Yumiko gritted her teeth and took a step toward him.
“Nuh-uh-uh,” Shuten-Doji wagged a finger at her. “Don’t you know what’s at stake here, girl? None of this matters. Your friends, my oni – they’re all collateral damage. Cannon fodder. What matters is the prophecy, and making sure that it never comes to pass.”
Brian stepped up next to Yumiko and she sent him a sideways glance. He met her eyes, a small grin appearing on his face. He looked out of breath, and despite his injuries, the sweat covering his face, the wild hair and tired eyes, he was spectacularly handsome in that moment.
She wanted to kiss him badly. But first things first.
She glared up at Shuten-Doji. “Well, you can bet I’m marrying this man,” she declared. “He’s the most selfless, caring man that I know. And I kind of love him for it.”
; Brian’s eyes widened. “Wh – really?”
“Really,” Yumiko told him, voice lowering. “It just took me a while to figure that out.”
Brian looked so pleased that his smile threatened to split his face in two. But in a moment, his face hardened and his jaw was set with determination as he faced Shuten-Doji. “Only one thing stands in our way.”
Shuten-Doji seemed amused, then shook his head, a soft chuckle escaping his cruel lips. “Oh, fools. You never even had a chance.”
He lifted something from out of his pocket, the size of his fist, and flashed it at Brian. Yumiko had to squint at the sudden flicker of light it sent into her eyes. But when he held it up, she could see clearly that it was a square mirror, like one that would be fastened to the inside of a locker by a magnet.
Yumiko blinked at it stupidly for a moment before realization dawned on her. Kagami, Brian, was created by a mirror. Shuten-Doji’s mirror. This mirror. This totem. And once it was destroyed, so was he.
She glanced over at Brian, and the confirmation was written all over his face. He paled, his eyes wide with disbelief. He turned to Yumiko with something like an apology filling them. “I’m sorry,” he told her. Then, “I love you.”
And then Shuten-Doji tossed the mirror to the ground at his feet, almost casually, like the life it supported was of little consequence.
But the life attached to that mirror meant everything to Yumiko, and she launched herself at the floor in a desperate bid to preserve the life of the one she loved.
It seemed to fall in slow motion and it seemed like years before she reached it, though only seconds could have passed. And she knew the entire time she watched the mirror that she would never be able to reach it in time. She hoped for a miracle, prayed for one. Wished that it wouldn’t shatter, that she could save it.
But it hit the ground out of her reach, an edge soundlessly touching against the red carpeting before the rest of its bulk slammed into the floor.
And her heart stopped.
The mirror broke into several pieces, and the sound that reached her ears was like her own heart shattering.
When she looked up at Brian, his body was cracked like the mirror, like he was a mirror himself. And the pieces fell away like empty husks and rained over the ground, before disappearing, like he had been nothing but a dream the entire time.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Life is fragile, Yumiko thought as she stared at the mirror on the ground in front of her. Too fragile. She reached out and touched the broken glass, and grabbed the biggest piece, lifting it to her face, not caring that it cut her, not feeling the pain, she was so overwhelmed by the pain her heart was causing her. She felt shattered herself, and even with Shuten-Doji a foot away from her, she couldn’t find it in herself to care. She felt broken. She felt lost. She felt like nothing mattered at all.
Tears came, and while something tore through her body, something she didn’t recognize, twisting her insides, she felt the tears slide down her cheeks.
Am I like this too? She wondered, staring at the shards of the mirror. Am I as fragile as a mirror?
Of course, since she had come into being in the same way as Brian, it would stand to reason that she had a similar totem out there. Where the original mirror was that created her, she couldn’t have guessed. But when it cracked and fell away in a rain of glass, she would surely follow.
She hardly cared however. She had just seen Brian fall to pieces in front of her eyes. And she wanted to kill Shuten-Doji very badly for it.
“Master!” Ame-Onna screamed.
Yumiko wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Brian had been killed, but it seemed that the whole room suddenly froze. Yumiko looked up to see all eyes on her. Reina had her hands to her mouth. Shou looked angry. Tanuki looked sad. Harionago frowned. Enenra only stared. And Ame-Onna was crushed. She fell to her knees and crumpled into a heap, body wracked with sobs.
Shouldn’t Yumiko be doing the same? Shouldn’t she be paralyzed with loss and pain? She’d been through enough loss in her life that she was intimately acquainted with the feeling. She knew the sensations that normally followed such loss. She had attempted to close herself off to everyone around her so that she would never feel it again. So, why did it feel so different this time? Why did she feel only numbness? Why did nothing matter suddenly? Had she better prepared herself for it this time? Had the time since her aunt’s death allowed her to adapt to the inevitable crippling pain? Oh, she felt pain. She felt a hole where her heart had been only a moment ago. She felt something in her break, releasing tears and dread that roiled in her stomach like a living thing. But she also felt something else. Something that was building from out of that numbness, out of the years of loneliness she’d endured. Strength. Revenge wrapped around her chest and gave her strength. Nothing would fill that hole in her heart better than killing Shuten-Doji with her bare hands.
“You,” was all she could manage as she leapt to her feet. She lifted her sword and Shuten-Doji watched her with a knowing smile.
“What a pathetic end,” Shuten-Doji said with a sigh. “Don’t worry, child. I’m sure the love of your life is making new friends as we speak. I hear Hell is quite wonderful this time of year.”
She lashed out with her sword and surprised him, cutting through his breast plate with the razor edge of her weapon. She jerked the sword up and the chest plate flew from him, skittering across the floor, then toppling down the steps with muffled clangs, racing to follow the path of the girl who’d played the harp.
Shuten-Doji sneered, holding a hand over his chest, where Yumiko caught a glimpse of a brown leather bag, drawstrings closing it tightly, hanging from around his neck like a secret. His totem. The object that would bring his death as surely as it had brought Brian’s.
But Shuten-Doji wasn’t going to be caught off-guard twice. With lightning speed, he shoved Yumiko’s blade aside roughly and grabbed her throat. He lifted her up into the air, his fingers digging into her skin painfully. His other hand held her sword arm at bay.
Shuten-Doji’s eyes twinkled then, the first sign of genuine pleasure she’d seen in them. His lips quirked into a smile as he watched her struggle for air. “So fragile,” he said softly. “Almost like you were made to break.”
Yumiko saw black and red dots angrily swirling before her eyes. She heard Reina screaming, someone shouting. But she knew something that Shuten-Doji didn’t. She had the upper hand, even if he didn’t know it. Because he thought that she was human. He thought that he could kill her without hunting down a totem.
And he was wrong.
A plan formulated in her mind. One last shard of hope that would allow her friends to walk away from this. If only she could pull it off.
And then she heard the snap of her neck breaking.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Her neck breaking hurt. That was for damn sure. It was a hot, sharp pain. It was almost intolerable, nearly making her black out. But she couldn’t allow herself to give in to unconsciousness. If this was going to work, she had to take him by surprise for a second time.
Her body fell to the floor like a sack of garbage, already forgotten by her would-be murderer. She forced herself to relax, go limp. She loosened her grip on her mirror sword, and felt it tumble out of her hand. But she didn’t relax the other hand, the hand that no one would be watching.
Her vision faded for a moment as oxygen stopped being carried to her brain, but then it resumed again as she felt something knitting together. Something fixing itself with a burst of warmth and a strange tingling sensation.
She had to swallow a sob of relief that it had actually worked. But it also confirmed what she had yet to believe for herself. She was a yokai. There was no denying that now. But that meant that human laws no longer applied to her.
“Can you use her blood?” Shuten-Doji asked. By the sound of his voice, she imagined that he had turned away from her.
“Not after she’s dead,” came Oni-Baba’s reply, growin
g closer.
“A shame,” Shuten-Doji said, his voice clearer again as he faced her.
This might be her last chance, and she seized it for all it was worth.
Gripping the mirror shard in her hand painfully tight, she leapt to her feet, earning a gasp from Oni-Baba. Shuten-Doji merely blinked at her in shock as she thrust the mirror into the tender flesh between his neck and shoulder blade with enough force to drive it deep into his body. She felt some of the mirror splinter upon contact, but it was solid and sharp enough to finish the job. She grunted as she yanked the mirror downward, slicing through his flesh, spurting hot blood over her face. She tugged on the mirror as it sliced the soft flesh of her hands to ribbons, ignoring the pain, determined to see this through. And then she watched with satisfaction as she dragged the mirror through the leather bag that dangled over his heart, tearing it in half.
The color drained from Shuten-Doji’s face as he stared at her, eyes wide with disbelief. She shoved the mirror deep into his chest with the palm of her hand and stood back, watching as his body seemed to split, ripped like torn paper. He gasped and stumbled toward Oni-Baba, but the witch turned and backed up against the back wall, staring at the scene in horror. More of his skin ripped open, as if by some unseen sword, and blood ran down the length of his body in rivulets. In the moment of his death, his features relaxed and he seemed almost at peace. Yumiko stared into his face and saw Brian there, a flicker of pity coursing through her veins. Then he collapsed, shattering like ash as he hit the ground.
And Shuten-Doji was no more.
All was silent in the room for a minute, before Reina ran to Yumiko and threw her arms around her, gripping her hard, as if to make sure that she was real.