Snippet #2694096

Seijuro waited as Hanzo-san - Hanzo Suki, as she had introduced herself - thought a while before responding to his words. They both sipped their tea in silence for a moment before Suki replied with a question of her own. Did he believe yokai really existed? An odd one to start with, but it certainly piqued his interest. “Yes, I do,” he said with some certainty, “although, I’m inclined to think much that is attributed to yokai is more human in origin.” Humans, after all, liked to blame yokai for anything from supposedly accidental deaths to losing their socks. If he hadn’t seen things himself that had no real explanation … maybe he would have answered differently. Although his experiences with yokai had been rare, they had certainly been memorable. “As to what I know about them – no more or less than anyone else, I suppose,” he hedged politely, hoping the meaning behind her questions would become clear.

“Only four?” he laughed, amused rather than mocking. The number was so low, it had the ring of truth about it. “We’ve heard rumours. Oni that can take a hundred men with one swing of a tetsubo. The usual kind of whispers that spring up around the reputation of powerful warriors. If you have intelligence that Tadatsugu literally has an army of demons under his command then that puts things in quite a different light.”

He nodded as she talked about the movements of Tadatsugu’s troops, his mind racing through the possibilities. They were nearer than anyone in the Mizutani had thought, then, if the Adachi were already under attack. Sugahara held a strategic position. To get through the mountain ranges that stretched nearly from sea to sea, and have access to the lands beyond, they would have to pass through Sugahara and through the mountains where the Hanzo, unofficially, kept their bases. Tadatsugu was right, Lord Mizutani would never agree to an alliance with him, to be kept as a vassal daimyo under the yoke of a stronger, more powerful lord. He would fight no matter what. But as for those clans behind the mountain range, allies and enemies at various times and in various combinations, if the Mizutani could hold off Tadatsugu’s advance, then it might give time for those clans to muster a collective force and catch Tadatsugu’s army off guard once they finally broke through. It wasn’t ideal. The best thing would be to destroy Tadatsugu’s forces before then, but how? Her reasoning made sense, to a point, although … what would the Hanzo have to lose by pledging themselves to Ono Tadatsugu in exchange for being allowed to keep their homeland?

He saw Suki tense suddenly, completely alert, listening. He looked towards the door, though he heard nothing. He gave her a questioning look, but kept silent. Instantly she was back in character as the courtesan, moving towards him and putting her hand on his chest as she spoke honeyed words. She was very close to him, as she lifted her gaze to his and he looked into beautiful, startling eyes the colour of silver. He became acutely aware of the warmth of her hand on his chest, her closeness, her physical presence, and felt a wave of desire wash over him. He could barely concentrate on the words she was whispering to him as she moved closer still, practically on top of him. He forced himself to look away from those silver eyes. She’s not a courtesan, she’s a ninja, this is a negotiation, he told himself firmly, and she’s acting. It’s just an act.

Somehow her words sunk in, a man outside listening, instantly he thought of Ganzaemon, and the wider world pulled itself back into sharp focus. If that were him outside then… “Wait—“ he hissed, but the tiny blade had already left her hand with an astonishing speed and embedded itself into something that gave a yelp. She wasn’t to know he had a man outside, but she hadn’t exactly made sure to check either – and people told him he acted too impulsively. He was on his feet and at the door at the moment she slid it open, half expecting to see Ganzaemon dead in the corridor outside. Luckily the man pulling himself along the ground was someone entirely different and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Her suggestion was more than reasonable and he didn’t even hesitate leaving the room to retrieve the man that Suki had somehow heard listening at the door. The man was face down on the floor a few steps from the room. Stocky, thick limbed, and hairy, he seemed to be wearing rather nondescript clothes that many men wore in the yukaku district so as not to draw attention to themselves. The kunai seemed to not have hit the man in a vital point, he noticed, and yet it had brought him down in only a second or two. The door of the next room clattered open, and Ganzaemon appeared in the entrance, his sword in his hand. A way behind him, Seijuro caught a glimpse of a slightly unwrapped courtesan. Ganzaemon was looking about him for trouble, but seemed to relax seeing Seijuro was right there and unharmed. They spoke furtively. “What happened?” Ganzaemon asked. “A spy,” Seijuro replied calmly, and crouched next to the body. He was still breathing, his eyes were open, but apparently he couldn’t move. He leaned down to gather the inert man from the floor, heaving him over his shoulder. He was as heavy as he looked. “Too much to drink again, eh, Gorobei?” he said in cheerful voice as he hefted the man to his feet. “Ganzaemon, check around for any others,” Seijuro ordered and Ganzaemon sheathed his sword, and went off to comply.

He had barely taken a step back towards the room, when all of a sudden the inert man began to move. One hairy arm shot up and grabbed Seijuro around the throat, shoving him against the wall as the spy regained his footing. He was as strong as he looked, and more. Seijuro, taken by surprise at the sudden speed of the man’s recovery, found he couldn’t breathe as both of the spy’s hands took purchase on his throat. By the look in the man’s eyes, he didn’t intend him to take another breath at all. “You can’t poison that which is poison, fool,” the spy hissed cryptically. This was no time for deciphering riddles though. Seijuro’s right hand went for the tanto at his belt, while his left instinctively tried to grab at the man’s arm and release his iron grip. It had no effect, he could barely get any purchase, and the spy was so strong that even if his hand would still work properly, it wouldn’t have made a difference. His body tried desperately to gasp in air that wasn’t there, as he looked directly into the spy’s unreadable black eyes. He drew back the tanto as far as he could, and plunged the blade into the man’s body, up under the sternum towards the heart. It should have killed him, but he didn’t even give a grunt of pain, and his grip didn’t waver. Seijuro stabbed him again, and a third time – he felt the blade go in, why didn’t he die? His vision started to darken at the edges.

Ganzaemon hadn’t got far, heard the thump as Seijuro was thrown against the wall, and turned back, sliding his sword out of the scabbard as he ran, and drawing it downwards in an executioner’s arc. His sword sliced through the man’s forearms, severing them both cleanly and releasing Seijuro from the death grip he had around his neck. As he watched, the severed hands turned to a black ashy, oily liquid, and the wounds on his torso appeared to be leaking the same black stuff, rather than anything normal, like blood. He took one look down at his missing hands, and then ran. Bolting down the corridor and barrelling over a serving girl as went. Seijuro sank to his knees, coughing and gasping for air. “Seijuro-san!” Ganzaemon was at his side. They exchanged a glance that told them they had both seen the same inhumanity in the spy. “After him,” Seijuro gasped out, “Don’t let him get away!” Ganzaemon ran, and after a moment Seijuro got to his feet, still coughing and ran after him. Seijuro was fast, and it was easy enough to catch up to Ganzaemon, following the trail of destruction as the spy had bulldozed his way through the brothel. Ganzaemon was outside the back of the building, where an alleyway ran past the courtyard gardens, his sword was still in his hand, and he was pacing back and forth, looking up at the neighbouring rooftops. A large black shadowy form was galloping away across the roofs, its gait not like a human run, but unmistakeably, it was the spy. Seijuro came to a halt, as Ganzaemon had discovered, there was no way up, no way of following him, and yet, there was no way Seijuro was going to let him get away.

Acting purely by instinct, he focused on the retreating back of the spy, drew back the tanto in his hand and threw it at the dark figure. As the blade sailed through the still night air, it seemed to catch some ambient light and glow briefly blue, before it thudded into the back of the spy’s neck. The spy fell, stumbling from the edge of the rooftop. Not only had he hit, but actually taken the man down. No one was as surprised as he was. He and Ganzaemon ran down the alley to find where the man had fallen. Should he still be alive, it was going to be down to Ganzaemon to finish him off, since Seijuro had thrown away his only weapon. He saw the tanto glinting, standing upright on the ground, but as they came closer, it became clear that it was not sticking out of a man’s body but that of a huge, black, hairy spider, the size of a small dog. It lay dead, six legs curled upward and inward, the front pair of limbs cut off halfway, sticking out sadly.

Hanzo Suki's words seemed to echo around in Seijuro's head. ”Let me ask you Akizawa-san, what do you know about yokai? Do you believe that they really exist?”