Pilgrim 6, p.10
Pilgrim 6, page 10
Soko floated just a bit closer to him. “Please. I have money.”
“I’m not going to spend the rest of the day, and our future interactions, reminding you how much older I am than you, but I have noticed something over the years, something that applies to humans and yokai. Those who already have money generally only want one thing, and that’s more. Even if they have enough.”
Kudzu glanced at Danzen, the look on her face asking him if she should tell Jelmay that she had taken his money. Danzen nodded.
While he knew that his companions didn’t trust Soko, it wasn’t right to give them more reasons to hate her.
“I took the money,” the kitsune admitted.
Jelmay slapped his human hand onto the table, nearly sloshing porridge out of one of the bowls. “I knew it! I knew it was you all along, Fox, ha! I just wanted to see if you would admit it or not.”
“What in the name of Diyu is wrong with you?” Soko hissed.
Jelmay scooped up some of the porridge in a different bowl with his finger. He brought the finger to his masked face, looked at it for a moment, and finally changed back into his own form, some of the porridge dripping onto his lap as he did so. He stuck his finger in his mouth. “I hope you at least used the money for something interesting, Fox, like some fancy silk, or perhaps a little morning date with Pilgrim over here.”
The kitsune skipped over the riverside meal she had shared with Danzen in her reply: “I used it to pay Kunta.”
“You did what!? You used it to pay the blacksmith? Why? Why do we even pay for anything, with Pilgrim’s powers?” Jelmay finished licking his fingers. “Bah! Humans make no sense.”
****
At Soko’s request, Danzen handled the hotel staff, stripping them of any memory they may have had of watching the ghoul of an assassin float by. Once they reached the entrance, Danzen took control of the carriage driver while the others filed in the back. Like the staff, once all this was over, the man wouldn’t remember anything about Danzen and his companions.
They departed Arsi, and as the carriage neared the city limits, Sansar landed on top, the raven now perched next to the driver.
“We have got to see that show,” Jelmay said, yet again referring to the Butterflies of Arsi’s upcoming performance. “I told you I went half a dozen times, right? I did, honest, and each time I found something more interesting about their performance. They only tried to kill me once; if they hadn’t done that, I might have gone another half dozen times. I was actually a patron, believe it or not. Well, not me exactly. I had a human at the time running my business affairs.”
No one said anything. Even if the carriage was large, it was still crowded, Danzen, Nomin, Soko, Jelmay, and Kudzu all seated inside, not to mention Danzen’s arsenal, the Blade of Darkness always an awkward weapon to travel with. Currently, Danzen had it pressed into the floorboard between his feet, not the most comfortable riding position. But it didn’t bother him; Danzen had learned to endure much in his years as an assassin, and now, in the years beyond, he had learned to do so in a different way, through scenarios that he would have never imagined even three years prior.
All because of the nature of his blood.
It no longer weighed on his mind like it used to, especially now that Danzen had control over his demons. Yet there was the other aspect to his blood that brought a complication that couldn’t be solved as easily as unleashing his hellspawns. His father, and his half-brother, not to mention his mother. A family united in deceit.
They had been traveling for about an hour and a half when Soko sat up and yawned. With her mask on it was hard to tell that she had been sleeping the whole time, yet the female assassin was suddenly alert as she peered out the window. She ran her hand through her black hair, her head tilted to the side. “We should stop here.”
Jelmay peered out his own window. “Just as I suspected, the middle of nowhere. How far to the mansion?”
“We already passed it twenty minutes ago.”
“Why are we stopping so far away from it then?”
“Why? So that it isn’t obvious what we are doing. Danzen, you will tell the driver to make it look like he is having an issue with one of the wheels. The two of you,” Soko said, nodding her chin to Jelmay and Kudzu, “will head south. The bird will be able to help you from there. We need an approximation of how many have gathered. I don’t expect you can gather any information on traps that may be set, but if you could, that would be helpful.”
“You do realize I can morph into anyone, right?” Jelmay asked her. “She’s a fox. If there’s a hole, something to crawl through, she will do just fine.”
“A white fox,” Soko reminded Jelmay. “People will take notice if a yokai is suddenly spotted. It isn’t often that one sees a white fox.”
Jelmay drummed his claws across his bag. “Actually, now that you mention it, I have a solution for that. She’s not going to like it.”
“You speak as if I’m not here,” said Kudzu, who had yet to change back into her fox form.
“It’s out of respect,” Jelmay said as he waddled out of his seat and opened the door of the carriage. He hopped down to the ground and waited for the others to join him.
Kudzu remained inside, where she changed into her fox form.
She scratched at the door and Danzen opened it, the white fox hopping down just as Jelmay was digging for something in his satchel.
“There,” he said. “Found it.”
“What is that exactly?” asked Kudzu, her ears flitted back. Soko was the first to see what Jelmay had procured, the female assassin laughing immediately.
“Just hear me out,” Jelmay said as he showed Kudzu a jar of black ink.
Her ears went flat. “You aren’t serious.”
“I am serious. It was this or soot. Which would you have preferred?”
Kudzu growled with disdain. “And who is going to put it on me?
You?”
“Well, yes, and Pilgrim, and Blind Pilgrim if she wants to help.
Don’t worry, the other one won’t touch you.”
“I didn’t volunteer,” Soko said.
“I will help.” They turned to Nomin, who, as always, was the most serious of the group. “But you should have brought some soot as well. It would have made disguising her easier.”
“Actually, I did bring some,” Jelmay said, lifting his satchel yet again. “Heh. I had one of the clerks at the hotel gather it all for me this morning while you were out, Fox. You should have seen the look on his face. He really wondered what us rich folk were up to, and good on him. Let him wonder about that for a few days.”
Sansar, who up until this point had been perched atop the carriage, called down to them. “In that case, I can fly ahead and begin. I will be back shortly.”
****
Soko chuckled to herself several times as they waited inside the carriage for Jelmay and Kudzu to return. “Honestly, I know I keep saying this, but I’ve never seen an animal look so angry,” she said in reference to the kitsune in her blackened disguise. “And when she is finally through with today’s little quest, when she has to take her human form again, what then? You don’t find this funny?”
Danzen didn’t respond. Kudzu certainly was able to blend in better now that she had changed the color of her fur, yet it was clear from how tense her body had been that she didn’t like the transformation that had taken place.
“Well, I don’t mind being the only one that’s laughing,” Soko said when neither Danzen nor Nomin spoke. “The two of you are always so serious.” She placed her hand on her chest and tilted her head, Danzen recognizing the look that she was giving him even though she wore a mask. He’d seen it before, a look of mocking pity. “I wonder how much longer it will take them.”
“Did you have somewhere else to be?” Nomin asked.
“Not necessarily. That said, I’d rather be sleeping right now than stuck in a carriage with the two of you. Not that I mind your company.
It’s just tight quarters. Especially with Danzen’s weapons. Have you
ever thought about leaving some of your stuff behind? You are at the point where you are starting to look like a traveling weapons merchant with your bags and blades.”
“They are all necessary.”
“Are they?” Soko asked him. “I seem to recall a time where you just had Astra, and that was it. One blade to rule them all.”
“I still have Astra.” Danzen tapped one of the kunai sheathed across his chest.
“That’s Astra now?” Soko glanced at Nomin, who made no indication that she knew that Kunta had crafted new weapons for Danzen.
“The sword was broken, yet its power remains in these Astra kunai.”
“And you’re going to keep all three? I could use one of those, you know. Good kunai are hard to come by.”
“These weapons are special to me.”
“I know, I know, your precious sword. I swear you love that sword more than you have ever loved any person.”
Once again, Danzen didn’t respond, which caused Soko to huff and cross her arms over her chest. She leaned back, and as she did her chin tilted forward as if she were squinting at something out the window.
“What is it?” Nomin asked.
“Oh, oh, this is going to be good. Those poor fools.”
Panic came to Danzen as he sat up, prepared to burst out the door of the carriage. He had assumed the worst. He had assumed that something had happened to Kudzu, and Jelmay or Sansar had carried her back. Soko’s next question took his thoughts in a different direction: “Since when did bandits scare you?”
Danzen felt the concern filter away. “That’s who is approaching?”
“These ones picked the wrong carriage. How should we go about handling this?” asked Soko.
Nomin placed her hand on the hilt of her short sword.
“Do we have to do it like that?” Danzen asked, yet again with the words leaving his lips before he could fully process them.
Throughout his entire life, he had acted without hesitation. But now,
he was starting to wonder if there wasn’t a less violent solution using his Demon Speak.
Soko turned back to him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why immediately kill them? I could just make it so they never do something like this again.”
“That isn’t in your nature, and it isn’t in theirs. They have brought themselves to this situation through a series of choices, poverty, and setbacks. I know that you have been deepening your practice, Danzen, but it isn’t in your nature to forgive. Your nature, and our nature, is one of swift justice.”
“For what it’s worth, I agree with Soko,” Nomin said as she opened the carriage door.
“Come on, this will be fun.” Soko floated out after the blind assassin.
The bandits that had approached, a trio of men, had been just about to harass the driver when they spotted Nomin and Soko, which must have been startling in itself. Hovering, with black robes draped over her thin form and her hand holding a blackened sword, Soko was the exact opposite of Nomin, who wore all white, her head
shaved, a paleness to her eyes as she stood there with utter defiance. Danzen, who stepped out after the three, could see this in the way that the men all bristled, their hands going to the hilts of their swords.
“Were they bothering you?” Soko asked the carriage driver in a coy voice. The man’s throat quivered. While he was partially under Danzen’s control, he still had the wherewithal to recognize the tenseness of the situation. “Were they?” Soko asked once he didn’t answer.
“What are you?” asked one of the bandits, the youngest of the three. They were brothers by the looks of it, the men all with the same curly black hair and hooked noses.
“I want to see your new weapons in action.”
“No,” Danzen told Soko. “Are you brothers?” he asked the men.
The youngest did his best to exhibit courage as he stepped forward and puffed his chest out. “You don’t know what you are getting into.”
“Are the three of you brothers?” Danzen asked again, now using his power.
“We are.”
“Is your mother alive?”
The three nodded.
“Are any of you married?”
“No,” said the oldest, “but I have a child on the way.”
“The three of you will return to your home. You will find a
way to be useful to your community, and you will join a trade so
you can support your family. You will change your lives from
this point forward. And if that means moving far away, even as
far as the outskirts of Genshin Valley, you will do so. You will
forget ever meeting us; you will take care of your mother and
make her proud.”
Something snapped in the older brother’s expression. “As you wish.” He lowered his weapon and returned it to its scabbard, his siblings doing the same.
The three men turned south, each moving in a dazed way for a moment.
“Sometimes I hate the new you,” Soko told Danzen, the female assassin sulking as she floated back into the carriage. “That would
have been fun.”
.Chapter Four.
After she realized that she wasn’t going to get a rise out of him, Soko stopped picking at Danzen. For well over an hour the three assassins remained inside the carriage, Soko eventually dozing off, her hand still on the hilt of her blade. Ready for some movement, Danzen stepped out and found a place hidden from sight where he could bend his echo.
Now completely alone, Danzen felt the power stir within him as he drew his sword, his Sunyatic blade heavy in his hands. He went through the motions that had slowly become ingrained within him, going for a trailing cross slash, followed by a particular strike he had learned long ago which called for him to utilize the sword as if the blade was attached to him, an extension of his arm in a way. He could feel the power of the strike, and as he returned the Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds to its scabbard, Danzen sensed the sheer force radiating all around him.
The power of a fallen heaven.
Rather than float stones, he decided to use his three newest blades, the Astra kunai now hovering in the air around him. Danzen began to rotate the trio of blades until they were spinning quickly. He fired them off one at a time at a mangled oak tree. The kunai returning instantly to his hand and he slipped them back into their sheaths, a practice run. He had come out here to bend his echo, yet now that he was by himself, the desire to test his new weapons was overpowering. Soon Danzen was practicing full-heartedly, the trees his targets, woodchips filling the air as he grew accustomed to using his new weapons.
Just as one of his Astra kunai returned to his palm, Danzen spotted something slip out of the woods.
“Where’s Jelmay?” he asked Kudzu, the kitsune now black from the ink and soot they had used to dye her fur.
“He stayed behind.”
“Why?”
“The cat thought he would be more helpful to us on the inside.”
Kudzu sat, and as she did she looked down at the black on her legs with a hint of disgust.
“Jelmay is still at the manor?”
“Yes, although I wouldn’t describe the place as a manor. It’s more of a fortress disguised to look like a manor. There’s a home there, but they have surrounded it with a pretty high wall. It wasn’t very hard to get inside and take a look around.”
“It’s not well-guarded?”
Kudzu shook her head. “There are a few dozen guards, but there is also a lot of activity there, goods moving in and out, people coming to join Penumbra. I don’t know what to make of it, to be honest with you. Argh. I wish Jelmay were here. He has more experience with humans and could probably describe it better. But he insisted on staying.”
Just about the moment Danzen looked up into the sky, Sansar came spiraling down. The three-legged raven landed next to Kudzu.
“He can tell you better. But, from what I saw, there are plenty of entrances, and I personally didn’t notice anything that could be construed as a trap, if that makes sense.”
Sansar spoke: “No traps from what I could see, Pilgrim. This former instructor of yours… you would think there would be more
order to something he was putting together. The grounds around the manor were very loose knit, like a traveling group of performers had decided to take residence there. I was able to pick up some of the conversations, and none of them had anything to do with what was being planned, or anything of the sort. But I couldn’t get as close as I would have liked.”
“Same,” said Kudzu. “The only thing I picked up on was that Penumbra had changed leaders to White, which is still a topic of discussion.”
Danzen recalled one of the first times he had run into the group of bandits, outside of Verba at the direction of Elder Bahjee, the bakeneko who was now staying in his mother’s nunnery. Some of the Penumbra Clansmen were remnant users, and they had been able to turn themselves invisible. He had wondered ever since why they hadn’t run into these individuals. “And their defenses?”
Sansar bobbed his head up and down. “There are guards at every entrance and around the wall walk. They are armed, as you would expect. But I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary aside from a few Sunyata talismans.”
“If they had used a talisman to turn themselves invisible, would you be able to see it?”
Sansar considered this. “It depends on the strength of the talisman and how this compares to the overall practice of the user.
Are you suggesting that was what may have happened?”
“Invisible Penumbra clansmen. We have encountered something like that before, if you recall.”
The bird shifted his head to the side. “Yes, I remember now.
Maybe they were there, but I saw no indication of this.”
“Jelmay staying behind is going to create a complication,”
Danzen surmised.
Kudzu growled. “That damn cat. I tried to tell him that, but it wasn’t easy communicating with him considering my current form.
