Yokai Calling

15. Masanori

10

Masanori

The fire spread fast.

Streams of frantic townsfolk flooded from the streets and into the fields. Aihi rode straight for the swell of panic and smoke, leaving the twins behind. The kan’thir might be back, and yet Aihi ran off on her own.

“Aihi, slow down!” Masanori said, but she either didn’t hear him or didn’t care.

Masanori steered Einu with equal distress toward the city, swerving through the flow of people, but another villager always cut in their path. At Tsukiko’s gate, Aihi jumped from Hyoku’s back and bolted into the city, disappearing into the billowing darkness. The twins were quick behind her, landing hard on their feet as they dismounted.

Their planning had failed. Anyone could be the next target.

Smoke blurred Masanori’s vision as he advanced. From behind, a soft blue light disrupted the black clouds, ballooning outward from the tip of Hidekazu’s staff. Oxygen poured into Masanori’s lungs as the bubble of air filtered the ash away, and he gulped in a massive breath.

“Thanks. Without you, we wouldn’t make it any farther.” Masanori wiped the moisture from his brow, but oppressive heat pressed down on them from all sides, confusing his sense of direction. “I can’t see Aihi. What’s she thinking, running ahead all alone? What if the kan’thir is here?”

Hidekazu waved his glowing staff, but the smoke was too thick. “I imagine she’s looking for an opportunity to confront him. But she doesn’t understand what she’s up against.”

As they progressed onward in the direction of the central market, Masanori grabbed Hidekazu’s haori with shaky fingers, using him as a guide. Their surroundings twisted together, smoke and stone and glimpses of splintered wood. Dark ki wove into the unnatural shadows, dense enough to choke the life from unsuspecting victims.

Even if Aihi hadn’t faced the kan’thir herself, she wouldn’t dismiss a threat. She only took calculated risks or made gambles when she had adequate support to see a plan through.

Unless she had a reason to dismiss logic.

Unless someone important to her was still in danger.

“Torra. She’s still in the city.” Masanori tugged Hidekazu's arm, dragging him forward. “Come on, she was supposed to be at the guard barracks.”

Around them, smoke shifted. Deepened. Flecks of violet and amber fire shimmered in the distance.

“Over there—” Hidekazu pointed into the shadows.

A scream pierced the darkness.

“Aihi!” they shouted in unison.

The soreness in Masanori’s muscles sharpened with a sudden wave of adrenaline, ebbing with each pump of his legs. An image of the kan’thir trapping Aihi with corrupted ki seared his mind, propelling him forward. He wouldn’t let that happen to her

Through the murkiness appeared a ring of black, floating cherry blossoms. Masanori and Hidekazu slowed as they approached, recognizing the flowers as signs of the kan’thir’s presence Smoke leaked from each flower and obscured everything inside the circle. When they reached the line, neither hesitated to jump through the wispy clouds and into the fray.

Masanori stopped short of running into Aihi. Her hair and silver kimono were smeared with ash, and she pointed her katana at the centre of the square.

They were in the marketplace, but the plaza was a ghost of its former self: street stalls and stores had been obliterated or were ablaze. Strings of the decorative paper lanterns leftover from the Midsummer Festival smouldered on the ground, with discarded food and folding fans scattered throughout the debris.

Where the central dragon fountain had existed only hours before was the crumbled remnants of blue stone. Atop the mound stood the kan’thir.

A cloak of twisting shadows descended from his back, and a ram skull with one chipped horn hid his face. The eyeball staff rested in his hand, dripping blood whenever it moved. Another black blossom sprouted at the kan’thir’s feet with each drop, dark mist rising from their petals.

A low cackle reverberated from the kan’thir. “All here now, yes. Waiting long, but soon, the fun begins. Ready to join the game?” He jerked his staff, and a rope of twined grey and violet energy yanked a woman from the shadows behind him.

Vines of corruption curled around her throat. Her cherry kimono hung in tatters, but the Benri lotus crest was still visible on her back. A naginata glinted in her hand, but the corruption seized the weapon, tossing it into the piles of stone beneath her writhing form. Flashes of orange ki flared from fingertips as she clawed at her prison, but the vines only thickened around her.

She turned over in the air, hair floating around her. Her fierce eyes bore into Masanori’s.

The world slowed.

No, this wasn’t happening.

“Torra!” he screamed, unsheathing his mother’s katana.

The trembling edge of the golden blade shimmered in the firelight. The dragons engraved on the surface shifted alongside the energy embedded in the enchanted weapon.

This monster wouldn’t escape. Not this time.

Aihi carved tsuchi with her katana and the earth beneath her cracked. “You will feel the wrath of my blade for daring to touch her.”

Fragmented rocks rose to create sharp, spinning spheres of debris. The orbs shuddered with crimson energy and shot toward the kan’thir, each with the potential to kill.

Inches from his face, the ki collided with an invisible barrier. Violet flashed on impact with enough force to eviscerate the shadows around the goat-man, but not enough to hurt him. Shattered stone and wood sprayed back toward Aihi. She lifted her hands in panic, trying to shield her face from shrapnel. Hidekazu jumped beside her in an instant, manipulating smoke and wind into a barrier. The shards hit the smoke and disintegrated.

“Oh, hohoho, so quick to attack before my introduction.” Without the shadows to hide him, the kan’thir appeared scrawny beneath a thin black cloak. Brown, matted fur peeked from the kan’thir’s sleeves and neck, his hooved feet not hidden at all.

“I care not who you are,” Aihi said. “You will die nameless for your crimes.”

“Die? Oh, death, no, not today.” The kan’thir waved his staff, and two more strands of dark ki swelled forth from the eye, snapping at Torra’s legs. Her struggling ceased. “We shall play the game, then I will go, and then she will die, but oh no, not me, death will not come, not for me.”

Masanori searched around the ring of flowers for more support. Several bodies lay in the dust, some with the distinct silver, half-moon emblem of the Tsukiko Guard, others with the pink lotus of the Benri clan. They must have been there when the fight began but failed to stop the kan’thir on their own.

If they couldn’t beat him, how would Aihi, Masanori, and Hidekazu fare better?

He tightened his grip on his katana. They didn’t have a choice. Backing down meant losing Torra, and Masanori would fight to his last breath to keep their friend from falling here.

Aihi raised her sword again. “This is not a game, wretch. I will kill you for your crimes against Seiryuu.”

The kan’thir cackled. “So naïve, little princess, oh-so-small in a world so big. Soon, yes, soon you will see, all life, all just a game.”

“You’re insane,” Hidekazu said. “All those women...”

“Indeed, indeed, thank you, little Genshu, so kind.” The kan’thir gave a mock bow, tapping his skull mask with his staff. “Lacotl, Companion of the Black Flower, at your disservice. Now, time to play, yes?”

The kan’thir raised his staff, and violet spikes manifested around him and plunged toward Aihi. Golden light emanated from her katana as she sliced the quills midair.

She lifted her chin. “Save Torra; I’ll keep him busy.”

The reality of Masanori’s inexperience burned his insides. He was no warrior. But, Great Warlock, he couldn’t leave Torra at that monster’s mercy.

He clutched Jouten and rushed to free her. Beneath his robes, the leather pouch holding his tapper thrummed as if with a heartbeat. Energy seethed within, reacting to the ki in the air, not just in his body. He could do this. He had to do this.

Inky lines of brown and black swirled into kigou around Hidekazu as he ran toward Torra. He planted his staff in the ground, propelling himself into a front kick alongside thin needles of splintered stone, aiming at the tendrils keeping Torra prisoner. The rock daggers exploded on the vines, ineffective.

To his right, stormy blue currents swarmed around Aihi in ribbons, crackling with electricity as they streamed forward, commanded by her scream of rage. The water, too, only made the kan’thir’s protections flicker.

The corrupted strands were as thick as Masanori’s arms, wriggling with dark energy. His katana buzzed beneath his grip as he drew closer, the latent ki within the blade awakening in the presence of the kan’thir’s corruption.

Now was Masanori’s only chance. Warmth spread across his collarbone as he pulled at the tapper’s power, ki thundering through his arms and katana for one sweet moment to empower his strike. In that instant, Masanori felt like the majyu he always dreamed of becoming.

A ripple of purple energy smashed into Masanori’s ribs before he could bring the humming blade down.

The ki upended his world and sent him flying from the battlefield and from Hidekazu and Aihi. The world twisted, and it was all Masanori could do to keep his grip on his sword.

“No!”

He watched Torra’s helpless form shrinking in the distance as he sailed through the barrier of smoke and black flowers. Wood cracked beneath him when he struck a burning building, crushing him beneath the weight of his second failure.

His vision went spotty, and he grabbed for this throat before collapsing, fire blazing around him.