Mori versus the Oni Part 1 - Chapter 10
A Gateway Closes and a New Life Begins
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‘Sadatsugu!’ Mori shouted again.
No response.
Lord Kagawa stepped inside his dead wife’s bedchamber refusing her even a sideways glance. His serpent green armour coiled around his arms and legs edged with gold around the plates of iron.
Mori steeled himself and demanded, ‘Where is the gateway? How are the monsters getting here?’
Kagawa laughed, ‘Wielding such power but having to ask such a simple question.’ He tutted. ‘You are not prepared.’ He launched into a series of savage attacks. Triple patterns followed by quadruple and a then a single awful blow.
Mori’s sword rang with deflections and blocks. His hands throbbed. The blue mark pulsed around his arm in rhythmic undulation. He felt his strength increase and committed to an attack of his own. Aiming low and high he forced Lord Kagawa back and out onto the balcony. The possessed man moved with preternatural speed in his one-handed defensive swings. With each strike Mori felt his sword not just stopped but repelled forcing his attacks out of cadence.
‘You fight for something you do not understand,’ Kagawa’s downturned lips moved little in speech. ‘To wield that Stolen Power and know nothing of those that gave it to you,’ he clicked his tongue. ‘They are using you.’
‘I know they didn’t burn down my home, attack innocents in the streets, or cause mothers and fathers to devour their children,’ Mori pressed Kagawa along the balcony with quick succession of swings.
‘Oni do what they must. Like humans. We can serve the oni and they will provide us with power. Serve me and you will have peace, your siblings will be safe, and you can live out your dreams,’ Kagawa hissed.
Enraged Mori forced Lord Kagawa to retreat into his own bedchamber, where Sadatsugu should have been. The room was empty, the bed made and appeared never slept in, the chests and draws tidy and clean. Nothing had happened in there. ‘How do you know about them?’
‘What the oni see, I see,’ Kagawa flashed a grin and parried Mori’s two handed swipe. Kagawa’s uchigatana flew right, turned, and slashed across Mori’s midriff. Mori leapt backwards feeling the blade graze his skin, his kimono torn. Lord Kagawa grunted and thrust at Mori’s neck. The ronin jumped to the side and skirted around the room in a crouched run. He leapt into the hallway feeling the floor quake as Kagawa chased him. He spun around beside Lady Kagawa’s portrait and watched the armoured oni pace back and forth.
‘Up here!’ Sadatsugu shouted from the stairs. He stood halfway up to the next floor gesturing for Mori to follow. Mori feinted a lunge and darted back to Sadatsugu. Swords clashed noisily.
Lord Kagawa grunted and pursued, ‘Nothing up there. Surrender and you survive. Run and you live a few seconds more!’
‘Where is the gate?’ Mori shouted behind him as he ascended the stairs two at a time. They curled around to a large open room with cushions positioned either side of a dais. A map of the nearby area hung on the back wall and a larger, ornate cushion sat on the dais in front of the map. Armour sat on stands along the wall, ancient and worn.
No answer.
Sadatsugu stood in the centre of the room. Two oni peons behind him. The monsters rushed forth, around Sadatsugu, and assaulted Mori. Mori parried one, impaled the other, and pressed the back of his marked hand on the others forehead. The pair withered to ash. ‘Why didn’t they attack you?’ Mori said.
Sadatsugu bellowed a wordless war cry and charged at Mori. The pair crossed swords a dozen times before Sadatsugu grabbed one of Mori’s wrists, their swords clashed together. Sadatsugu winked.
Lord Kagawa climbed the stairs laughing, ‘My former samurai has seen the error of his ways and returns to the fold. Reward awaits.’
Sadatsugu spun him and Mori around so Sadatsugu’s back was to Kagawa.
‘Be done with it. Kill him,’ Lord Kagawa growled.
Sadatsugu released Mori’s hand and pushed away. He spun and buried his blade in Kagawa’s neck. The Lord gurgled, eyes wide in shock, skin pallid. Kagawa’s hand grabbed for the blade and pulled Sadatsugu closer. He gurgled unintelligible words as his lips curled back, his teeth grew sharp, and his body fused with his armour. Large blades slid out from the armour on his lower arms. His skin paled to yellow marked with a green swirl of pulsating ink. His two lips split into four lined with razor sharp teeth. Long pointed fingers wrapped around Sadatsugu’s throat and squeezed.
Mori ran across the room. Lord Kagawa’s reptilian eyes flashed to Mori and back to Sadatsugu. The long sword on his arm drew back and up into Sadatsugu’s gut and bursting through his shoulder blade. Sadatsugu coughed blood over Kagawa’s face as he was lifted into the air and thrown off the oni Lord’s weapon. The samurai lay slumped against the wall, curled around his wound, unmoving.
Kagawa paced towards Mori in slow and measured steps. There was no break of skin and armour, his flesh had fused with the iron suit. Straight swords jutted out over his knuckles reaching down to his knees. The gold spikes on the front of the helmet had become horns and the mon had welded itself to his forehead and scalp. ‘You can still swear fealty to me. To the oni. We will make this land, this world, ours!’
‘You are the one being used! The oni will devour us all and you would help them do it!’ Mori felt a ripple of power flow up his arm and gather in his chest. He could feel it but he could not mould it. The Stolen Power had a will of its own.
‘Why would they devour their own?’ Kagawa shrugged. ‘I am both. A hybrid. Others are out there. We are the future. Man is weak on his own. Look at how the whispers affect so many. You heard my whispers out there,’ the Lord’s insectoid mouth twisted into a smile.
Mori shifted back across the polished floor. His head pounded with the Lord’s voice. ‘Do you hear them now?’ Pain flared through Mori’s head and down his neck.
Lord Kagawa rushed forward and slashed Mori across the leg, ‘Join me. With that mark the oni are sure to win and the world will know peace and power.’
Mori screamed and fell to one knee as blood bloomed from his leg. The whispers receded as the ripple of power spread to his head. He tried to grasp it, to shape it, but each time it resisted his will.
‘Why do you not use that power?’ Kagawa said.
Mori lashed out in a horizontal slash. Swords clashed and sparked. ‘I will not join you!’ Mori yelled and sent strike after strike at the Lord.
‘You don’t know how… I can help you,’ Lord Kagawa deflected Mori’s attacks and smiled. The green rivers across his neck and face illuminating with the faces of mournful souls.
Repulsed Mori pulled away. ‘What? Who?’
‘Do you not see the same in your mark? The faces of those you have slain? They are within you and they must be tamed. Join me and I will teach you how,’ Kagawa extended his right hand, the straight sword slithering into his arm.
Mori felt the power inside him bubble and rage. It spread to his limbs and the character for person itched. Faces swam through it like koi bunched in a too small pond. He refused to answer Lord Kagawa and swiped at the outstretched hand.
The blade shot out from Kagawa’s arm and blocked the attack. ‘You can only be foolish so many times.’ The Lord leapt at Mori, swords outstretched, and spun. Mori ducked and shielded himself from the onslaught. The Lord landed behind him thrusting one sword at Mori’s injured leg which Mori blocked as the second sword sliced into his cheek. Mori pulled away as the blade touched bone. ‘Last chance, Mori. Will you protect your brother and sister and side with me? Or let them be the kibble upon which I build my empire?’
The taste of warm iron filled Mori’s mouth. Biting on his cheek he resisted the urge for words and answered with three swift swings of his uchigatana. A more succinct answer than mere conversation. He felt the power within him coalesce in his chest once again and this time he invited it in. A surge of strength filled his body. The mark on his hand pulsed with energy and his hands emitted an aura that appeared as a fine blue mist. The mist clung to his sword and swarmed up the blade. His vision cleared and crystallised.
Kagawa’s eyes narrowed and he roared, his four part mouth quivering. He threw himself upon Mori who sidestepped in a blur and cut into the Lord’s arm. Kagawa screeched. Blood spurted out from the stub of a sword that remained jutting out of his arm. The severed blade-arm shrivelled on the floor. Mori surged forward and impaled the oni through the heart. Lord Kagawa slumped on Mori’s blade, the oni form fading and the human returning. Mori lowered him to the floor. A gasp of air escaped Kagawa’s lips when Mori removed his uchigatana. Laughing the oni Lord said, ‘There are others. Many where offered power. Many accepted.’ He coughed blood. ‘I was only one.’ Blood pooled in his mouth and Kagawa shuddered into the next world. Mori released the power and his mark ceased to shift and glow. Kagawa’s body crumpled to dust and bone.
Mori ran to Sadatsugu and cradled the dying man in his arms. ‘You idiot.’
Sadatsugu tried to laugh but spat blood instead, ‘It worked didn’t it. I have my honour and I am no longer trapped between life and death.’ He gave a bloodied smile. ‘I wouldn’t trust him on their being others. He was a terrible Lord, always lying,’ he laughed.
‘Easy to say when he’s dead.’
Sadatsugu smiled, ‘Do you think hell will take me?’
‘I hope you end up somewhere better than hell.’
‘Mmm, wish Ano and Kota well for me. Sorry I couldn’t join in the revelry,’ Sadatsugu coughed one last time.
Mori pushed the cart up the final stretch of hill to Unpen Temple. Naomi climbed beside him complaining of the mud on her shoes and the bugs in her hair. Sadatsugu lay in the cart wrapped in burial clothes fastened with rope. The cart wheels groaned over the uneven ground of pebbles and tree roots. ‘Open up!’ Mori shouted.
Murmurs inside drifted over the walls and soon the round door creaked open. Two warrior monks hurried to help Mori with the cart and the three of them drove it inside. Naomi followed hands clasped at her waist and staring at the ground.
‘Who’s that?’ one of the monks asked as he closed the door to Unpen Temple. The massive beam crashed down onto the iron fingers sealing them inside.
‘Naomi. A servant of Lord Kagawa’s who somehow survived.’
The monks shared a look of concern.
‘No need to worry. The woman has stepped through our protections. She is human and only human,’ Enki approached using a naginata as a walking stick. ‘Could you not find a horse?’ His cheeks plump with smiling.
‘All dead.’
Enki made a sound of understanding and turned to Sadatsugu’s corpse. Enki placed his hand on the samurai’s forehead. His head was covered in white cloth like the rest of him. Enki closed his eyes and muttered a prayer to heaven. ‘A funeral will be held immediately,’ the Elder Monk said.
‘Mori!’ Ano shouted across the garden that occupied the bulk of the temple grounds. She ran over, drum in hand, and jumped in Mori’s open arms.
He picked her up and swung her round, ‘How I’ve missed you!’
‘Where is Sadatsugu?’ She leaned back, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes slightly higher than his.
‘He,’ Mori paused. ‘Didn’t make it,’ his eyes drifted to the cart.
Ano twisted in his arms. ‘Oh. Like ma and da.’
‘Yes. He fought well and died with honour,’ Mori said more to Sadatsugu than anyone else. He forced a smile, ‘But the threat is over. The gate is closed. The oni will disappear.’ Mori wasn’t certain of this and he had heard nothing from those who had given him the mark on his hand. The Stolen Power that allowed him to seal the oni’s spirits away.
‘Does that mean we’re leaving?’ Ano glanced over to Naomi. ‘I’m Ano, who are you?’
‘Naomi.’
‘Pleased to meet you. Are we leaving?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Good,’ Ano’s face beamed. ‘You should come and play with Kota and I and Yuna. Don’t worry Yuna’s sister Rei is old like you. I know you don’t like out kid games.’ Mori set Ano down and she ran off to play, ‘Come on! You too, Naomi.’
‘Duty calls,’ Mori said to the monks. He lay a hand on Sadatsugu’s chest. ‘I hope your next life is calmer.’ Mori and Naomi joined Ano and her games.
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