Mori versus the Oni Part 1 - Chapter 2
The Protection Wanes and the World's End Begins
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Mori dreamt of dumplings. Steam carrying the scent to his nose and the spring onions catching his taste buds. Kota, his younger brother, complained the fried ones where not ready. While their younger sister, Ano, had finished her bowl of steamed fish and vegetable dumplings. A loud whistle sounded outside. Mori ignored it.
‘Mori,’ Ano turned to him, her face expressionless.
Mori smiled back at her, unable to speak.
‘Wake up, brother! There’s…’ Ano vanished.
Mori snapped awake, his sister shaking him by the shoulders. ‘What? What is it?’ He groggily asked.
‘Someone’s screaming,’ Ano whispered.
Mori rubbed his eyes, ‘Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?’ A woman screamed and Mori’s voice trailed off. ‘Not dreaming then,’ he through his legs from the bed and dressed as fast as he could.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Going to see what’s going on?’
‘And leave me and Kota?’ Ano’s fingers knotted and unknotted.
Mori tied his kimono belt and knelt beside his sister, only eight summers old. ‘Wake Kota and hide where we agreed. I will come back soon,’ he cupped his sister’s cheek.
Ano nodded.
‘Good. Now go,’ Mori kissed her on the forehead before she disappeared into the darkness. Mori slid his uchigatana and wakizashi into his belt. He peered into the darkness cloying around their family home. He reached the front door, a faint orange glow breaking through the edges.
‘I want to go,’ Kota said behind him.
Mori spun around, ‘No. Hide with your sister, she needs your protection.’
‘But-‘
‘Use this if anyone but me finds you,’ Mori handed Kota his wakizashi. The twelve year old knew enough to use it.
Kota reached for the sword with both hands and grasped the sheath and handle, eyes wide in disbelief. He swallowed hard. The blue mark on Mori’s hand itched. The mark was similar to the character for person, 人, but with extra strokes that wrapped around his hand and ended in a spiral below his knuckles.
‘You know how to use it. Like a bokken but sharper,’ Mori winked.
Kota smiled and bowed. The boy ran back into the darkness to hide with his sister. To protect his younger sister.
Mori’s hand ran along his belt and felt a single sword. He felt naked. Grasping the hilt of his sheathed uchigatana he slid open the door and stepped into the night. The scent of smoke hit him first, a slight thing but unmistakable. The hilly horizon pulsed with orange light. If only Hidemitsu was here, Mori closed the door behind him and headed towards the blaze that could only be from one place, Umaji. The nearby town his father had once served as magistrate for. A thankless job, his father always said.
Mori marched up the path between the fields of waist high grasses that led up the hill and down again to Umaji. Screams carried by the wind assailed him as neared the village. The stars shone overhead impassive to the ebb and flow of human affairs. The itch on his right hand spread along the strokes of the mark and spiralled on the top of his hand. He scratched and scratched but with each passing it only grew worse. Nerves, Mori told himself. Nerves of facing bandits in town and being, likely, outnumbered.
He exhaled and began to ascend the last hill before Umaji. The fire from the town roared beyond the hill. Smoke billowed into the night sky creating clouds that blotted out the stars. There were no more screams carried by the wind. Bandits wouldn’t kill everyone. Nor would wandering ashigaru mercenaries. Mori quickened his pace.
The pampas grass swayed in the wind, rustling and masking Mori’s movement. The taller heads of white leaned and swatted at Mori as he passed by. A section of grass had been trampled up ahead. A figure lay slumped half on the path and half in the grass, their feet bare. Mori hurried and rolled them over. A woman’s face stared back, dead. Two sword wounds crossed her body. Something hissed in the grass.
Mori froze and strained his eyes to see to his left and right. Nothing. A grating of bone came from his left. Steel glinted in the star light. Mori rolled to the right and in one fluid motion drew his sword. Steel kissed steel in a flash of action. A man lumbered out of the field, his clothing torn and shredded in parts, his rice hat was full of holes, and he was missing a sandal. The man swung left and right in wild strikes and grunted with the effort. Mori stood and circled the man. The bandit stood, his head hung low and his arms lax by his sides. He swayed side to side.
‘What do you want?’ Mori said keeping his sword raised.
The man swayed and hissed. Fingers flexed around his sword hilt as the man threw his head back and screamed like through a broken reed. Yellow teeth moved side to side in a lipless mouth. His cheek bones split the skin beneath dark and sunken eyes.
Mori staggered back and watched the man’s arm muscle flex as he lifted his sword. A skinless arm rose and fell. Mori deflected the attack and pierced the man’s gut. He twisted the blade on exit and the bandit groaned and fell dead. The mark on his hand began to glow and the man’s body decomposed in seconds. Mori staggered feeling light headed. Not bandits, he told himself. Was this what the disembodied voice had warned him about? Was this what he fought in that strange white place? Mori stumbled backward. Grunts and hissing sounded behind him. He turned and ran.
Fire. Fire engulfed the roof of his home. Tendrils of flame dripped down the walls and doors. Mori yelled, ‘Ano! Kota!’ as he charged into the burning home. He leapt over the door that had been reduced to splinters and choked on the smoke inside. He shouted his siblings name’s again and again but the roar of the fire drowned out his voice. He ran to the hiding place, beneath the floor in the west room, a small cooking area with underfloor storage space. He ran down the short hallway and heard the hiss of an oni. He rounded the corner, sword out front, and saw Kota waving the wakizashi from his spot in the floor. Ano cowered behind her brother coughing into her sleeve, her cheeks black with smoke. An oni screeched at them, baring its yellow teeth and pink tongue. Its clothing had long rotted and its body was a husk of sinewy muscle and pale bone. Small horns marked its head where hair once grew. One eye glowed red.
‘Kota!’ Mori shouted and charged at the oni. He swung and buried his uchigatana in the oni’s brittle flesh. The demon cried and tore itself away, ripping a chunk of gore from itself. ‘Get down,’ Mori gestured to his siblings and stepped in front of them. His hand began to glow.
The oni stepped from side to side watching Mori’s hand. Could it be that easy? Mori thought and held his right hand out to reveal the character on his palm. The oni shrieked and backed itself into a corner. One red eye swivelled between long thin fingers. It lunged out for Mori’s hand. Mori recoiled and struck with his sword jabbing the oni through the jaw and into the skull. The demon fell limp on the steel and perished to dust within moments. Mori felt a wave of strength flow from his marked hand through his body. ‘Woah,’ he sighed.
‘Brother!’ Ano said climbing out of the storage space. She ran into Mori’s leg and clung on, ‘Don’t leave us again!’
Mori stroked her hair, ‘I won’t. I won’t. We need to leave. Sheathe that,’ he pointed to Kota as he absent-mindedly waved the wakizashi around. ‘It’s not a bokken.’
Kota stood up straight and sheathed the blade. He went to hand it back to Mori.
‘In your belt,’ Mori tapped his own.
Kota nodded.
‘Out the back door. Stay close,’ Mori said. The trio headed through the west room and outside again. Flaming arrows continued to sail through the air and strike the house. ‘Stay low,’ Mori whispered and led them across the open ground around their home and into the tall grass. The sounds of oni reached them on the breeze. Bones crunched. Wordless screams and shrieks echoed through the night. These oni where nothing like the one Mori had faced in the white place. Speechless and barbaric. Mori wondered if there were tiers of these demons, a hierarchy that he could find the head of. The spirits who had marked him had warned these beasts would destroy the world, and they had happened to start with Mori’s home.
Armour clattered beyond the grass. A willowy oni lumbered by, an arm too long for its body dragged a sword along the ground behind it. It grunted from beneath a black and cracked helmet. With a long sniff it turned to face the grass where Mori, Ano, and Kota hid. One half of its face was ravaged and showed teeth, bone, and eye. The other was vaguely human, apart from the long teeth splitting its lips. With a hunched back it started towards Mori.
Mori gripped his sword and jumped out from the grass. His uchigatana cut across the oni’s middle, carving through rotten armour and into rotten skin. The demon grunted and staggered to one side but remained upright. It lumbered towards him. Mori swiped at the demon’s neck. The oni rose its sword in a flash and blocked while its other arm shot out and grabbed Mori by the throat. Long decaying fingers tightened around Mori’s throat and lifted him off the ground choking him.
‘Mori!’ Kota screamed and charged out with his wakizashi. He hacked at the oni’s leg. A swift kick sent Kota back into the grass in an unconscious heap.
Mori lost feeling in his hands. His uchigatana clattered to the ground and he felt his vision blur. The oni drew his sword back and aimed a thrust at Mori’s gut.
‘Mori!’ Ano cried out. ‘Kota won’t wake up.’
‘I…’ Mori croaked. He felt the mark on his hand burn. He lifted his right hand, his muscles tingled from a lack of air, and grabbed the oni’s exposed arm.
The demon shrieked and dropped Mori, its arm crumbling into dust. Mori coughed, tears streamed from his eyes. He struggled for his sword on the ground as he coughed and cried through smoke and recovery.
‘Mori, look out!’ Ano said.
Mori snapped his attention up to see the, now, one armed oni lumbering towards him. Mori swung wildly out at the demon’s legs and jumped up with his right palm forward. He pressed his hand into the oni’s face, feeling the clotted blood and pus squelch between his fingers. The demon roared. It crumbled to dust and vanished. Mori stood over a pile of dust that disappeared in the breeze, his hand pulsating.
‘I want to see ma and da,’ Kota said clutching his chest.
Mori nodded, ‘We will go there first. Then.’ Mori shook his head, ‘I don’t know. East. Find a ferry to take us to the mainland, maybe it is safe there.’ He helped Kota to his feet and took Ano by her hand. He led them into the grass and headed for their parent’s grave where this had began barely more than a day ago.
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