Mori versus the Oni Part 1 - Chapter 6
A Monster Hoped Lost Rises From The Sea
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Mori choked. He shuddered as the taste of salt ran over his lips. He panted for air and coughed into the sand. Needles jabbed his eyes and fire roared in his lungs. He lay back in the sand and stared at the sky. Three faces peered down at him with wide eyes.
‘What happened?’ Sadatsugu grunted.
‘Is he awake? Is he awake?’ Kenji shrieked. He appeared with a bucket of sea water. ‘Does he need another bucket?’ The ferry master lifted the sloshing bucket over Mori’s head. Sadatsugu shook his head side to side. Kenji sighed with disappointment and dropped the bucket to the sand. ‘What are you all looking at? Back to work!’ Kenji barked to his oarsmen and the lost men.
Mori craned his neck back in the sand to see the ferry being repaired.
‘What happened?’ Sadatsugu repeated. ‘I spoke to Ano but she is talking about her grandmother who Kota says is long dead. Where’d she get the drum?’ The Kagawa samurai sat on his haunches and frowned at the forest.
Mori’s throat felt raw, his tongue dry as the beach he lay on.
‘We can’t leave Shikoku,’ Ano said from near Mori’s feet. Kota stood protectively near her, his hand resting on his wakizashi. ‘Grandma said the gate is open and Mori must close it.’
‘What gate?’ Sadatsugu asked what Mori was thinking.
‘The gate the monsters are coming through,’ Ano said with determination.
‘The oni appear from nowhere,’ Sadatsugu said.
Mori lay in the sand remembering the fog the oni walked through near the pagoda. It hadn’t appeared from nowhere and it wasn’t a person transformed. The oni had came from somewhere. But where? Mori stared at the clouds in the sky while Ano and Sadatsugu tossed words around with less and less certainty.
‘It all started six days ago. Lord Kagawa devoured his wife and I fled. The near by town had heard nothing of monsters but I couldn’t stay so close to Amagiri after fleeing. I travelled into the wilds,’ Sadatsugu recounted his journey.
‘Six days?’ Mori said.
Sadatsugu grunted confirmation, ‘Didn’t see another monster for at least two.’
‘Six days is before I received this,’ Mori lifted his blue marked hand. The etching still. ‘Was there anything different about Amagiri Castle when you left?’
Sadatsugu closed his eyes and pondered. Mori watched his eyes shift beneath his eyelids. The samurai opened his eyes, ‘No. No gate for certain.’
Mori sat up. Sand tumbled from his shoulders and hair, ‘We have to go Amagiri.’
Sadatsugu frowned, ‘Unwise. It’s a hive of monsters. Or at least it was.’
‘Exactly,’ Mori jumped to his feet. He patted the sand from himself and marched over to Kenji supervising the repairs on his ferry. ‘I need you to take us back to Shikoku.’
Kenji burst out laughing. He slapped his thigh. The hammering of nails provided a beat to the laughter. ‘You’re insane.’
‘I have to go back and seal the gate. It’s the only way to stop this madness.’
Kenji straightened, ‘You’re serious?’ He turned to look at his oarsmen and the refugees gathered on the beach. ‘No. We’re going to the mainland where it’s safe.’
‘The oni will cross the sea.’
Kenji shook his head for a moment and then paused. His eyes searched the horizon. He clapped, ‘I have just the thing for you.’ He dashed off to his ferry.
‘That slimy rat cares only for his own skin. Those people where pawns to him. Kenji’s the monster,’ Sadatsugu panted between rows.
Mori rested at the front of the rowboat, leaning back and trailing his hands out across the water. Kota and Ano sat at the back facing Sadatsugu. Kota held his hand above the surface. In the distance, off the coast of Takamishima, Kenji’s ferry sailed north for the mainland.
‘Why am I rowing?’ Sadatsugu said over his shoulder. The man grunted with each rep.
‘I fainted and fought an oni. I would like to sleep,’ Mori rested his head against the prow and closed his eyes.
‘Seem fine to me.’
The sea rolled beneath the rowboat. Kenji had said he used it to reach difficult coves and coasts for important passengers. The ferry master refused to give names. Sadatsugu had ideas though he chewed on them and simply referred to unnamed smugglers. The oars glided over the surface of the water and plunged into the crystalline depths. The boat surged forward carving through the sea and churning a path of white froth.
‘I can see whales down there,’ Kota said leaning over the edge.
‘Too shallow for whales here,’ Sadatsugu said. ‘Those giant beasts live out in the open sea.’
Kota turned to Sadatsugu beaming with excitement, ‘Have you seen a whale?’
‘Once. As a child. My father bought our family passage from Mutsu, far north, all the way around the coast to Shikoku. A better climate for my mother. The first day, maybe second, I remember looking out to where the sea meets the sky and a tail split open the ocean and reached into the sky. My father said it was the tail of a great beast.’
Kota stared full of amazement. ‘I hope to see a whale one day.’
‘You should. Full of majesty. Though for now you should be content with the carp,’ Sadatsugu panted. He stopped rowing, ‘Mori. Your turn.’
‘I’m sleeping,’ Mori murmured on the edge of sleep. His calf screamed in pain and he slipped in the boat. ‘What was that for?’
Kota stood over him readying his foot for another kick.
‘Fine. Fine,’ Mori shifted down the boat and onto the rowers bench. He took the oars and began rowing feeling his shoulders burn from the effort.
Kota leaned over the edge while Ano slept, curled up hugging her drum, in the stern of the boat. ‘Definitely a whale down there, it’s huge!’
‘I can see the town,’ Sadatsugu said. ‘Can’t see any people though,’ he peered over the edge of the rowboat. The sea churned around them. Waves rocked the boat and grey clouds swirled overhead blown in from the south. ‘Better row faster, storm coming in.’
‘Oh had I now?’ Mori cursed the Kagawa samurai under his breath and quickened his pace. The waves grew around them and the deep blue rushed beneath the boat and carried it closer to the harbour. Mori felt the boat rise and his oars leave the water.
Kota fell back from the edge of the boat screaming. ‘Monster! Monster!’
Sadatsugu stood and was thrown to the deck as the rowboat was pushed over the surface of the water. The boat spun sideways. Mori abandoned the oars and grabbed Kota and pressed him into the corner of the boat with their sleeping sister. ‘We’re going to hit the sea wall,’ Sadatsugu said without emotion.
The surface of the ocean bulged behind them and a thunderous roar broke the tension spraying them all with salt water. A bloated oni gripped the side of the boat. Large fingers made larger by bloat weeped pus. Seaweed wrapped like rings over its fingers. A boar head stared down with six eyes, one home to a barnacle which had latched itself to the black orb.
Mori swore and drew his uchigatana, ‘The one from the ferry!’ He hacked at the monsters bloated hand, the skin split and turning green. Claws scraped the wood above Ano’s head. ‘Wake your sister!’
‘How is she sleeping?’ Sadatsugu growled and slashed at the oni’s head. Flesh parted near its right eyes weeping pus and maggots. The monster shrieked. Salt laden spittle flecked Mori. Spots of rain fell from black clouds.
Mori rushed to the rear of the boat and plunged his sword into the sea oni’s arm. He stood over Ano and Kota. The monster roared and slammed a fist into the boat. The rowboat lurched through the water the stern lifted up and flipped over throwing the four of them into the water. The waves surged and carried them to the edge of the seawall of Niocho Nio. Mori rolled onto the massive stones at the base of the wall that held the sea at bay to protect the harbour. He spat out a mouthful for seawater and panicked. ‘Ano! Kota!’ He screamed out to the sea. The boat floated upside down hitting the wall. A shadow moved beneath the surface of the water.
Sadatsugu appeared beside Mori coughing water. He straightened his soaked kimono. Kota screamed from the sea a few metres out caught in the churn of the tide thrashing waves towards the coast. The shadow moved behind him. Bubbles popped on the surface. ‘Kota! Swim faster!’ Mori yelled. Kota was only using one arm to swim, the other held a pale Ano. Mori threw his sword to Sadatsugu and dove into the water. A shock of cold and the tug of the tide spun him around. A wave crashed over his head, forcing salt water up his nose and down his throat. He swam to Kota grabbed him by the collar and yanked him towards the sea wall. The three rolled onto shore. The sharp rocks cutting into cold, wet flesh.
Sadatsugu pulled Ano from the worst of it and set her on a higher stone near the flat brick top of the sea wall. ‘Mori!’ The Kagawa samurai shoved Mori’s uchigatana into his hand and pointed out to the tide.
‘Get with Ano,’ Mori pushed Kota up the rocks. Waves crashed over them threatening to drag them out to sea. Seaweed and jellyfish wrapped around their legs. The boar headed oni rose from the ocean. Drenched and cladded in seaweed and shellfish. Shredding robes clung to sodden fur and pale red skin. Where the monster had once been muscular in its size now it appeared bloated and warped. It climbed up the rocks beneath the surface of the sea with pained strides. Blood ran thin from the wound in its arm and fresh wounds had split its once fiery skin. Maggots and worse squirmed beneath its skin. ‘Pincer it between us,’ Mori said to Sadatsugu.
The samurai nodded and tensed his whole body to strike while his feet searched for secure ground. Mori moved left and the pair arced around the oni. The boar head turned from left to right and back and chose Sadatsugu as its target. It grinned and bared its tusks and flexed its arms. Pale red skin tore like silk. Blood and pus oozed from the fresh wound.
‘I think it remembers you driving it into the sea,’ Mori shouted to Sadatsugu. The crash of the waves drowned his words as the samurai stared into the monsters six eyes. He surged forth like lightning and carved two quick wounds into the oni. Mori charged and slashed a long deep wound across the furry back of the oni. The monster roared and spread its arms as the sting of Mori’s sword made muscle spasm and flex. Sadatsugu arced his sword high catching the monsters neck. The steel parted skin and bone. The boar oni grimaced and its head slid from its shoulders. The great weight of its body crashed and rocked the earth. The tide washed around it, gnawing and tugging it back into the ocean. Mori felt his hand tingle and glow. The oni’s body slipped beneath the waves and vanished into nought but sand.
Sea spray slapped Mori across the face. Heavy eyelids wanted nothing more than sleep but rest was far off. He clambered up the side of the sea wall to Kota and Ano shivering and soaked through. He rubbed Ano’s arms as much as he could but all his strength was in the sea. Ano clung to her drum and curled up around her knees.
‘We can’t stay here,’ Sadatsugu said climbing up to the top of the sea wall. A flat road that led into the town, a bulwark against the sea. He stood atop it and cursed heaven.
‘What?’
‘Get up here,’ Sadatsugu frowned down at him. Kota was up and reached the top like a squirrel up a tree. Mori lifted Ano up so she could sit on the edge and climbed up after. He looked over to the town. Bodies littered the harbour, swollen and floating in the calmer waters of the harbour. Others wandered the town aimless and rotting.
‘Monsters,’ Kota whispered.
‘Too many.’
‘I’m tired,’ Ano whimpered.
‘Why did I not go with Kenji,’ Sadatsugu said.
‘I need a guide when we get to Amagiri Castle and you are a man between life and death,’ Mori said patting his ally on the shoulder.
Sadatsugu grumbled, ‘Sure. All out of the goodness of my heart. I think I have earned my honour back and more since meeting you.’ He tried to laugh but barely smiled.
‘I think there is far more to be earned still,’ Mori said setting out along the top of the sea wall towards Niocho Nio.
‘I want to sleep,’ Ano cried. The girl rocked and scrunched her eyes but no tears came. Lightning rippled out across the sky, thunder clapped, and a downpour began.
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