Pilgrim 4, p.25
Pilgrim 4, page 25
Once again, Danzen wished he had Astra; his boomerang sword would have been able to easily reach Ren and end the fight before it could get out of hand. Now this wasn’t the case, Soko on the retreat as she switched out her weapons.
Danzen got into a stance that would allow him to shoot himself up into the air with a strike, shadow on shadow, the former assassin not certain how that would play out. Even as Soko went back on the offensive with her sword, he got the sense that she needed help.
His attention was diverted when a door opened at the front of the courtyard. A man stepped out wearing a shadow mask, his robes accented by strips of shadow that danced in the orange light of the watchfire, his shoulders, chest, and biceps thick, the older man in a pair of sandals.
It was Jinkai.
.Chapter Four.
Jinkai stepped closer to the center of the courtyard, the shadows around him continuing to swell and twist, some of them resembling vipers. He glanced from Danzen to Soko, the female assassin hovering about a foot above the ground.
Jinkai’s shadow mask rolled down his face and he narrowed his eyes on them, the man clean-shaven, eyebrows thick and gray. “The Diyu Brotherhood has sent both of you after me?”
Danzen didn’t respond and Soko merely brought her sword to the ready with a huff.
“I don’t recognize either of you. Judging by your age and how much you have abused remnants, you must be older. You must have been trained by Birin Yeshe.”
“How much longer does this conversation need to go on?”
“As long as I’d like,” Jinkai bitterly told Soko. “You come here, you disrespect what I have dedicated my life to building, you indiscriminately kill my men. You will listen to the words I have to say.”
“Then hurry and say them.”
“Killing me will not stop the revolution that we have begun. Men,” Jinkai said, his voice growing louder, “I want you to see what someone who has mastered the power of a Sunyata talisman is truly capable of. I also want you to see what happens when you abuse it,” he said, gesturing to Soko. “There is a fine line. Watch and learn.”
“That’s about enough out of you.” Soko zipped forward, Jinkai meeting her with a wave of shadow that nearly cut her arm off.
Danzen tried to block the next incoming shadow with his Blade of Darkness, but Jinkai’s power was stronger, the blast force cutting through Danzen’s attack and forcing the former assassin to dodge the rolling wave of shadow.
An idea came to Danzen as he circled back around, something that may be worth a shot. By this point, both Jinkai and his student, Ren, had formed shadow armor, the two launching into a structured attack that saw them both coming forward with spikes of shadow, some emerging from the ground, others replicating the movement of a pair of scythes.
Going for Nomin’s replica blade, Danzen lunged toward one of the shadowy spikes and sliced straight through it. It was as if he had cut through silk, the shadow ripping like fabric as Danzen cleaved through yet another portion. The sword would break their armor; it would allow him to kill the two men.
He barely avoided being speared by a thick blade of shadow, Danzen watching as Soko whooshed up and came back down, failing again and again to land an attack.
“I will do it!” he bellowed, his Demon Speak power coming to him naturally.
He didn’t bother to try to use it on Jinkai or his student; anyone able to use remnants like that was beyond the influence of his power, nor would it work on Soko. But it did reach her, and for once she took his advice, shifting back as Danzen pressed forward.
He cut through shadow after shadow in his mad charge to reach Jinkai.
Danzen prepared for his demons to be released, to add a touch of Diyu to the fight, the former assassin not at all surprised as a swath of shadow tore past him, slicing into his arms, drawing blood.
He felt the terror.
He felt the power boiling within him, bloodlust setting in, Danzen’s eyes flashing red as portals began to open up.
The hellspawns had a way of scaring any of the Penumbra clansmen who had yet to leave, the monstrous creatures gnashing their teeth as they became cognizant of their surroundings.
“With me!”
Danzen charged forward alongside his demons. He threw himself over a wall of shadow, doing a complete flip as he landed between Ren and Jinkai. Thick bars of shadow continue to twist all around him. As he cut through the strips of blackness, his hellspawns circled around the wall of shadow and reached Jinkai and Ren.
To avoid them, Jinkai jumped into the air, leaping over one of the demons and landing on his feet behind the hellspawn. He sent a shadowy spike through its body and took off running, leaving Danzen and Soko to deal with Ren.
The shadow user bristled, and as he did the dark energy swelled around him. It formed into the mouth of a tiger and collapsed down onto Ren’s form, strengthening his armor.
By this point, Danzen and Soko had started to fan out, the female assassin floating to the left, Danzen pacing from foot to foot in front of Ren, the two ready to pounce.
Ren bolted forward with a scythe of shadow, one that left a crater in the ground once it finally landed, dust kicking up into the air. Danzen cut Ren’s shadowy attack in half, the energy dissipating around him.
Flames on the periphery caught his attention as some of the watch fires were dumped out, the final Penumbra clansmen fleeing.
Soko went in for another attack, Ren able to completely block her strike, which left Danzen an opening behind the younger shadow user. He lunged toward him, Danzen slamming into one of his own demons in the process and quickly killing it.
That was another thing he would have to contend with soon. There were still five or six left, all gathered around Ren, preparing to strike. They hadn’t left yet, but Danzen knew once he killed the man that it would be a free-for-all for his hellspawns.
A remarkable occurrence prevented Danzen’s demons from immediately dogpiling on top of Ren.
Whoosh!
The former assassin glanced up as a pillar of shadow lifted from beneath Ren’s feet, giving him an instant height advantage.
Spools of shadows began to press out of the pillar, Ren with his head bent forward, his necklaces outside of his robes now glowing brightly. The spools formed into spears, the ground berated with quick stabs, what was left of Danzen’s demons skewered in a matter of seconds.
Now on the ground, looking up at Ren, Danzen knew that he would need to get up to the top of the pillar, but there was also Jinkai, the former assassin well aware of the power in cutting off the head of the snake.
He glanced at Soko; the female assassin spun her way around some of Ren’s attacks as she joined Danzen, the two of them pressing back as the shadow platform continued to rise.
“What do you want to do?” she asked him.
“Do you want Jinkai?”
The fires along the periphery were already starting to grow closer to them, Danzen feeling the heat as Soko spoke again: “Yes, but I can take his apprentice as well.”
“You follow Jinkai, I will finish up here. I’ll leave the remnants.”
“And his necklaces?”
“I think I will take those.”
Soko slipped aside as a spear of shadow cut into the ground between them. “I suppose collectively they are fist-sized. One more thing.”
“Yes?”
He all but expected her to attack, to betray Danzen in that moment as Soko turned to him, her head lowering. The words that came out of her mouth took him entirely off guard: “I want to help you with Ginza.”
Danzen slipped around a shadowy spear as it punctured the ground, which dug in deep enough to reach the bedrock beneath. “Wh-what?”
“I want to continue our truce for now. Until we defeat Ginza. Together. You can’t do it alone.”
“I can,” said Danzen.
“You can’t. When do you think you’ll be able to meet me?” Soko asked, the female assassin dodging another shadowy attack. “Tell me!”
“Perhaps a week. Maybe longer.”
“I will wait for you at the shrine outside of Arsi. Take your time. I will be there nightly.”
Danzen dove over a shadow, ending up right next to Soko.
“I’m serious. Agree with me so I can go,” she hissed. “If you don’t…”
As much as Danzen didn’t want to, he nodded. “So be it. I will see you there.”
****
With Soko’s exit, Danzen was finally able to focus on the task before him.
He knew just how to handle Jinkai’s student, and it was with relative ease that Danzen shot to the air and landed on the shadow platform that Ren had created, one that was about twelve feet high.
A look of horror spread across Ren’s face as Danzen flung himself at the shadow-armored man, the former assassin looking to end things quickly. He didn’t have long to capitalize on the surprise of his sudden appearance; once Ren came to understand that Danzen was standing on the platform that he had created, the tables would quickly turn.
But he would never get that chance.
Danzen made quick work of any of the protective maneuvers that Ren attempted, the former assassin twisting through ribbons of shadow, and finally coming up with Nomin’s sword, which punctured through the bottom of Ren’s chin and out the back of his head.
The platform began to collapse, and as it did he leaped with Ren off the shadow construct as it came crashing down. Danzen landed on a tiled roof top, where he lowered the body and withdrew his sword from the bottom of Ren’s skull.
Ren tried to speak, but he couldn’t, the man’s eyes rolling into the back of his head as he quickly expired.
Danzen crouched before his body, well aware of the flames that now surrounded the courtyard. He removed the bloodied necklaces from Ren’s neck and placed them in an inner pocket of his robes. Sansar approached, Danzen looking to the sky and naturally sheathing his sword and holding his arm out, giving the three-legged raven a place to land.
“Such gratuitous murder. Alas, I suppose this was how this was destined to end.”
“There has been a development,” he told Sansar, not wanting to comment on what happened. It was one of the things Danzen had learned over the years—accept it and move on.
“Oh?”
“Soko plans to help me kill Ginza.”
“She does, does she?” Sansar bobbed his head left and right. “What do you think about this?”
“At the time the agreement was made, I sort of had no other choice. She hopes to meet in a week. If I leave her waiting too long, it could spell trouble for… all of us.”
“Then I suppose that is a bridge we will have to cross once we return to the others. Would you like me to carry you to the rest of your supplies?”
“No. But I will meet you there.”
“Very well.” Sansar rose into the air and headed toward the south.
Once he was no longer visible in the night’s sky, Danzen took a running jump off the rooftop, jumping over flames as he landed on the nearest parapet. He dashed toward the opposite end of the wall, where a young Penumbra clansman sprung up from a crouched position with a spear, Danzen narrowly avoiding his attack.
He shot his hand out and grabbed the young man by the throat. Danzen lifted him, the youth instantly dropping his spear.
“Leave Penumbra and never look back. Learn to bend your echo. Never forget your life was spared this night.”
Once Danzen let him go, the youth scrambled away. From there, it was a running leap to the front of the outpost, the former assassin once again returning to the sanctity of the dark woods, the violence behind him now, the light from the fire dissipating the deeper he traveled into the forest.
He arrived at the items he’d left behind, grabbed the satchel and looked up to the trees, spotting Sansar. “Lead the way,” he told the three-legged raven, Danzen finally ready to return to his companions.
Part Six
.Chapter One.
Danzen Ravja finally reached Odval. While he would have preferred to remain anonymous as he slipped through town, simply hoping for a hot meal before he continued on, his earlier actions in the village against Onuma and Mayji preceded him.
It was late afternoon and the villagers that spotted him all greeted him in some way, the men with stoic nods, some of the women actually approaching him, holding the hands of their children as they thanked Danzen for what he had done. Danzen hadn’t used his power against everyone in the village, and he could only imagine now that there was some confusion, the group that gathered to celebrate him at the inn saying it was more than one man, others claiming the opposite.
A part of him wanted to gather the entire town and use his power to force them to forget him, Danzen conscious of the fact that anonymity came at a premium for someone like him. But he also knew that the confusion around who had actually dealt with Onuma and Mayji would aid in this anonymity, perhaps preventing widespread discussion of the event.
The attention did have a way of making him want to move through the village quickly, Danzen with the sense to skip a meal and press on.
Once he was outside of town, back along the trail that led to the nunnery in the mountains, Sansar returned to the former assassin, landing on his shoulder before speaking: “You are more popular than I thought you would be.”
“Not by choice.”
“If you continue doing what you plan to do, more people will start recognizing you. Have you given this any thought?”
Danzen shook his head, the hood of his robes casting a deep shadow onto his face.
“If I were you, I would prepare for this, as it may take some time. Once word spreads, you will likely have even more enemies.”
“They never seem to stop, do they?”
Sansar offered Danzen a sad laugh. “No, no, they never do.”
The landscape slowly changed, the terrain growing rockier as Danzen thought of Ginza, how easily the three-eyed half demon had tossed him around. His fists naturally clenched shut as he remembered how Ginza had broken Astra over his knee, Danzen’s prized possession now destroyed. Would the Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds allow him to kill the monster? Would he truly need to team up with Soko or Nomin, any of the others, in the end?
That was going to be another issue Danzen was forced to face in the near future. Soko could double-cross him at any time, and while she had seemed cordial enough, he didn’t know how the others would react to her presence. He suspected they wouldn’t like it, especially Kudzu and Jelmay.
And who could blame them? All of them knew what Soko was capable of, and each had dealt with her in some way in the past. For her to change sides, to simply join Danzen in his pursuit of Ginza, was something he would have a hard time selling.
Danzen spotted the nunnery long before he reached it, the stone buildings built along the mountainside with the trail spiraling up to the entrance. Sansar lifted off his shoulder, the three-legged raven flying ahead to announce his arrival.
As expected, Kudzu raced down the mountain pass to greet him, Danzen feeling his heart shift as he saw her shimmering white form. The kitsune stopped in front of him, concern filling her eyes as she greeted him with a question: “What happened?”
“Let’s meet with the others and I will tell everyone at once,” Danzen said. Even though he was in a wide open space, a valley beyond, mountains stretching to the north, he felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of a room upon hearing her question.
“Yes…” she said after a long pause. “I… suppose that would be best. Are you well?”
A rare smirk formed on Danzen’s face, one that she couldn’t see because of the way his head hung at the moment, the shadow from his hood extending past his chin. “Well enough.”
Sansar had interpreted that Danzen would prefer to speak to everyone at once, Jelmay, Nomin, Yato, Abbot Monpo, Galzo, Bawa, and the raven all waiting for him by the time he passed through the gates.
“I was wondering when you would return,” said Jelmay, who had a leather strap tossed over his shoulder. He also had a recently crafted leather satchel with him. “Here’s the birthday gift I never got you.” The bakeneko removed the strap from his shoulder, revealing it to be a belt with intricate leather embroidery. “It’s from the ogama, that demented frog. Look at Lady Pilgrim here,” he said, motioning his paw toward Yato. “Beautiful, right? Prettiest assassin in Kishu Kingdom, if you ask me.”
A huge smile on her face, Yato motioned to a set of leather greaves which were also highly detailed. She then touched her own belt, and tapped the straps that now held her gauntleted blades to her arms, finally gesturing toward her boots.
“And all of you thought that the frog leather wouldn’t hold up. Har! I proved you wrong again. Had a satchel made for me as well,” Jelmay said, showing Danzen the bag on his arm. “Perfect place to put all the jewelry I plan to loot in the northern passage.”
“Danzen,” Abbot Monpo said with a nod, the leader of the fox shrine currently in his human form. Galzo also greeted Danzen, Bawa as well. Naturally, it was Nomin who was the first to notice the absence of his weapon, which made sense, considering she could see echo lines.
The blind assassin took a step forward, and lowered her head toward Danzen’s waistline. “What happened to your sword?”
Danzen looked to the nearest courtyard and motioned toward it. He could see some of the other nuns as well gathering on their balconies as they normally did. “My sword was destroyed by Ginza,” Danzen finally said, eliciting a gasp from both Kudzu and Yato. Nomin merely puffed her cheeks out and looked away. “He would have killed me as well had it not been for Sansar.”
“I knew we should have gone with you.”
Danzen didn’t respond to Kudzu’s comment as he continued: “Along my escape, I stopped to retrieve the weapons I’d left behind to reduce my weight. Soko ambushed me. But then…”
“You killed her?” Jelmay asked. He began to clap his paws together. “Yes! It’s about damn time. I’m not going to lie, and it is bad to hate someone, so I’m not going to say I hated Soko but I definitely am not a fan, especially after she ordered that other assassin to take my tail. Wait, why are you shaking your head? What are you trying to tell me here?”
