Mori versus the Oni Part 1- Chapter 8
Mud Between the Toes, Blood Between the Fingers
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Sadatsugu surged forward. He decapitated one oni and impaled a second with his uchigatana. Mori followed through the main gate to Amagiri Castle and charged at a rotten archer nocking an arrow. Its jaw hung from one side, the muscle and skin torn and festering with maggots. With the first slash Mori disarmed the oni and with the second parted the monster at the waist. The bodies shrivelled to ash in the mud. Mori’s hand pulsed with energy, warm and itchy.
The keep towered over the castle grounds separated into three levels. A pathway curved up to their right to the middle level. Thick black smoke rose above the roof of the keep besmirching the clear blue sky above. Watchtowers lay in blackened husks smouldering even after the storm. Buildings reduced to charcoal littered the lower level. Bodies strewn through the mud and debris clutched weapons of sword and scythe. Samurai and farmer, servant and soldier, lay dead in the mud.
A hand grabbed Mori’s shoulder and pulled him back. An arrow bedded itself in the spot where Mori had been, splashing mud over his clothing. Mori glanced upward. An oni on the gate watchtower hissed and fumbled for a second arrow, the bone of its arm visible through the skin.
‘Run,’ Sadatsugu said pointing up the hill path.
The pair bolted up the hill as a second arrow impacted the ground behind them. They rounded the corner and stayed close to the lefthand wall out of sight of the watchtower. Mori reached the middle level first. A stream of whispers pulsed through Mori’s head causing a stabbing pain behind his eyes. He clutched his head unable to make sense of the words but able to feel a great anger from whatever being spoke. The blue mark on his hand squirmed, minuscule skulls bubbled to the top of the pattern and vanished.
‘Are you alright?’ Sadatsugu appeared beside him.
Mori nodded as the whispers abated. ‘Did you not hear that?’
Sadatsugu shook his head.
‘Fortunate.’
A woman’s scream came from the buildings nearby. Her voice crackled and broke as she screamed again and again. Sounds of struggle echoed out from the building. Doors slid open with force and furniture was turned over. The clatter carried throughout the castle grounds. Sadatsugu sprinted across the clearing and threw open the door. It slid and bounced against the wall stops. He charged inside, dragging mud across the tatami floor. He barked orders through the building. Mori followed behind making sure no one surprised them. Sadatsugu slid open a door and inside where women and children with their wrists tied to their ankles and gagged. The stench hit Mori first. Sweat stained their clothing and tears their cheeks.
‘How long have they been in there?’ Mori covered his nose and mouth and backed away.
‘Probably the whole week,’ Sadatsugu said stepping inside. The children attempted to flee into their mother’s arms as Sadatsugu stepped in. Some did not move, their faces pale and stiff.
Mori stayed in the hallway facing the door outside. Another opened behind him to a small garden between two buildings and a man entered. He wore a kimono similar to Sadatsugu and appeared human enough. Strands of silver flowed through his hair.
‘Who are you?’ The Kagawa samurai said.
Sadatsugu stepped out from the room of women and children, ‘Daichi.’
Daichi frowned and reached for his sword, ‘Sadatsugu. You should be dead.’
‘Why?’
‘You fled. Cast aside your honour for your skin,’ Daichi’s eyes narrowed and darted to look behind Mori.
‘I have came to reclaim it,’ Sadatsugu said lifting his sword into a ready stance.
A whispering wind blew through the room. Unintelligible words clawed at Mori’s mind. Sadatsugu winced and clasped the side of his head. Daichi shuddered and cracked his neck. A rash spread up his neck and along his face, shifting and shimmering in the light of day. His teeth grew long and yellowed while his pupils became vertical slits. The rash spread to encompass his entire body. He groaned in pain as his arms shook uncontrollably and grew longer. Muscle swelled and tore through his clothing. His legs elongated and his head ballooned. He rose in height and smashed into the roof splitting beams and cracking tiles.
Sadatsugu stumbled backwards into Mori.
‘Outside,’ Mori said turning around. A second samurai waited for him.
‘No, no, no, no,’ said the second samurai. His nose was hooked and his face thin and bird like. Thin, dry hair clung to his scalp in a wispy topknot. He pointed his sword toward Mori. ‘You will serve Lord Kagawa, like we do.’ He smiled to reveal sharpened red stained teeth.
‘Hisao,’ Sadatsugu breathed, his sword drooping.
Mori flew at Hisao, before he could respond, chopping and swiping wildly. He forced the Kagawa retainer outside with a relentless barrage of high and low attacks. Hisao’s sword blurred through the air to deflect Mori’s onslaught. Hisao laughed as he stepped down a step and into the mud.
‘Is that the extent to your skill? Lord Kagawa can give you so much more. Swear fealty and you will see,’ Hisao smiled again.
A shiver went up Mori’s spine, ‘Stop smiling.’ He gritted his teeth and swung for Hisao’s mouth. Steel flashed and sparked. Mori’s mark glowed and rippled with strength. Metal cracked and Hisao’s sword snapped. The Kagawa samurai’s expression drooped as Mori’s blade sliced through his upper jaw. It jammed halfway under his nose. Blood sluiced over sagging skin and mangled teeth. Hisao fell limp. Mori kicked the oni off his blade with a wet sucking sound. Hisao fell to the mud and rotted within seconds. Red teeth sat above a pile of damp ash.
Wood splintered from the building showering Mori and Sadatsugu with kindling. Daichi roared, his new demonic form incapable of language. He rose as tall as the building and shattered the roof around him. He stomped towards Mori.
Sadatsugu charged towards the women and children, ‘Distract him!’
Mori drooped and lifted his sword arm, ‘Daichi! Daichi! Over here. I’ve killed your friend!’ Mori waved his arms in the air.
Daichi’s vertical pupils fixated on Mori. The oni snarled at the pile of ash and swung at Sadatsugu. Sadatsugu ducked under the attack and jumped to the side disappearing down the yet destroyed hallway.
Mori picked up a broken roof tile and chucked it at Daichi. The monster flinched as the tile struck its head. Daichi turned to Mori, teeth barred. It charged at Mori. Barging through and reducing another section of the building to ruin. Daichi swung its sword ahead of him in loping arcs. Mori shifted back, the mud gathering around his feet, and timed the swings. Daichi’s sword rose to its left, then right, and held for a second. Mori ran forward. The sword whooshed over head. Mori swung horizontally catching Daichi across the torso. The oni staggered backwards, confusion writ across its face. It scratched at its stomach, the large hand coming away red. The oni lumbered back to the building in the direction of the women and children.
‘Sadatsugu!’ Mori said and chased the monster.
Sadatsugu appeared covered in dust and using his sword as a cane. He worked a hand through his hair, removing a shower of dust, and looked up. His eyes expanded. He rushed forward.
Mori hacked at the back of Daichi. The oni slapped backwards catching Mori across the chest. Air rushed out of his lungs and Mori was flung backwards to land on his back in the mud wheezing. Mori groaned and felt his ribs for breaks. He sat up as Daichi swung at Sadatsugu. The two Kagawa samurai’s danced around each other. Daichi’s larger sword crashed through the building and destroying what it struck. Sadatsugu worked away with small wounds wherever his sword reached. Daichi panted, his body a patchwork of dripping blood. The oni spun with sword extended obliterating a wall but slumped over as Mori drove his sword into the monster’s spine. Daichi murmured and worked its jaw as it expired. Daichi’s vertical eyes closed for the last time and Mori felt his hand vibrate with power as the oni rotted to mulch.
Sadatsugu turned to the ruined building and ran to where the women and children had been. Daichi had caved in the roof and walls. There were no screams from within the rubble. Sadatsugu clawed through the debris, flinging roof tiles and wooden beams away, as quick as he could. A small face stared up at him. A gag in her mouth and a crack across her skull. Sadatsugu pulled the body out of the rubble and lay her down outside. He returned and dug to find others.
Mori sat beside him, ‘We have to carry on.’
‘Someone might be alive,’ Sadatsugu barked as he tossed a brick over his shoulder.
Mori set a hand on the samurai’s shoulder, ‘The dead could change and the living would make a sound.’
Sadatsugu brushed dust and blood from the cheeks of a dead woman. Young and beautiful with piercing eyes and silken hair. ‘I have failed again then. Trapped between life and death,’ he tossed his head back and yelled wordlessly at the sky.
‘Let’s make it to the keep. Maybe someone is alive in there,’ Mori said readying to leave.
Sadatsugu rolled his head on his shoulders, ‘Perhaps.’ He stared into the pile of rubble that near the centre went to his neck. He shook his head and joined Mori.
The pair climbed the hill up to the keep. Off to the right where barracks, burned and crumbling. Behind the keep flames coursed along the countryside coughing black smoke into the sky.
‘Tadotsu has been destroyed,’ Sadatsugu said.
‘Tadotsu?’
‘The Kagawa clan’s home. They’re all dead,’ Sadatsugu said.
‘You don’t know that.’
The Kagawa samurai looked up. ‘No I don’t,’ he stared at something above them. Mori followed his gaze to a man standing on a balcony in full armour, stamped with the same mon as on Sadatsugu’s kimono. Lord Kagawa. Two golden metal horns rose from his helm. He clapped once and a figured jumped from the balcony in a blur. Sadatsugu shoved Mori to the side as two swords cut the air where they had stood.
Mori caught two blue eyes staring at him. The figure spun around twirling its two uchigatana in the air. Tall and horribly thin the monster rose, chitin bone clung to the outside of its body. Long arms coiled around its lithe body as it readied to pounce again. Mori felt his hand quiver and his eyes warmed. The world appeared slower. He felt nauseous. The monster leapt forth. Mori parried one sword while Sadatsugu cried out in pain and fell to the ground, blood sheeting down his arm. Mori stepped towards the oni as it rose to its full eight foot of willowy height. The oni cocked its head to one side and glared at Mori with two blue eyes set in a face devoid of mouth or nose that ended in a pointed chin. The monster shimmered as it moved as if it where too fast for Mori to see without the power offered by the Stolen Power around his hand and arm.
The monster blazed forward and slashed both swords in front of itself. Mori braced his uchigatana in two hands and caught the two blades as they crossed. He slipped backwards in the mud face to face with the oni staring at him with solid blue eyes. Sadatsugu rose from the mud with his uchigatana in his left hand and right arm hanging limp at his side. The Kagawa samurai swiped at the oni. His blade skittered along its carapace like a pickaxe striking stone. The oni peered behind itself and kicked. Its bony foot caught Sadatsugu in the thigh with an audible crunch and sent him sprawling into the mud.
Mori punched the oni across the chin. A thread of pain shot up from his knuckles and into his arm along the bone. The oni turned back to face Mori, its eyes narrowed. Mori broke the engagement and hurried backwards out from the bite of the uchigatana as they sliced the air.
‘Mori!’ Sadatsugu said tossing his sword into the air. The blade spun and buried itself in the mud, the steel singing. Mori dashed around the oni and armed himself with the second blade. The oni watched and made an chitinous sound from somewhere unseen. It crouched and leapt into the air. Mori followed it in the air and blinded by the sun stepped backwards. The oni blurred against the bright sky and plunged downward near to Mori. The ronin hacked at the monster’s exposed back and shoulders. The chitin turned away every strike of his blades. The oni freed its swords and attacked, the blades striking in rhythmic sequence.
Mori retreated under the assault, deflecting the attacks he could and dodging the rest. He fell under the shadow of the balcony and felt the wall behind him. A sword plunged at his head. Mori ducked. The steel jammed in the mortar between the stones of the wall. A second sword swiped down. Mori blocked with Sadatsugu’s sword and drove his own into the oni’s eye. The pupil-less eye paled and burst. The sword sank deep into the soft eye and cracked through thin bone and into the monster’s brain. Blood and gore bubbled out across the steel. The monster flailed and sank into the mud clawing at Mori’s sword. It pulled itself free of the weapon and squealed. Mori kept his back to the keep wall and stepped backward joining Sadatsugu near the double doors. The oni flailed in the mud holding its weeping eye.
‘Your arm?’ Mori said.
Sadatsugu claimed his sword and twirled it around wincing a little, ‘I’ll manage.’ Mori was not convinced by the pained expression the Kagawa samurai tried to hide. Sadatsugu opened the door to the keep. Mori expected it to be locked but to his surprise the doors creaked open. A foot of thick wood meant to withstand a siege parted to reveal chaos.
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