Pilgrim 4, p.26
Pilgrim 4, page 26
“Soko isn’t dead.”
Jelmay’s whiskers drooped as he looked back at Danzen. “Why the hell not?”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Then did she kill you? Well, no, that’s not possible. Unless your father brought you back to life like he did Blind Pilgrim here. You aren’t dead… are you?”
“Shut up, cat,” Kudzu hissed.
“What? It’s a reasonable question, don’t you think?”
Danzen explained how he had investigated the Penumbra outpost outside of Bahlingar, and his hopes to infiltrate it alongside Nomin and Yato on his way to meet Ginza. When Soko had sprung her surprise, she had in her possession a contract to deal with Penumbra.
“So you teamed up?” Kudzu asked, jumping ahead.
“We did.”
Jelmay started to laugh. “I would have never expected that, not after how she left the last time.”
“There’s nothing funny about this. What happened?” asked Kudzu.
“We attacked Penumbra, and I killed one of their leaders, a man named Ren. Soko pursued the founder, Jinkai.”
“So Jinkai is alive,” said Nomin.
“I don’t know if he is any longer, nor do I know if Soko survived the encounter. He was quite strong.” Danzen recalled how the man had been able to summon and utilize shadows. “He was also a coward, sending his minions to fight for him.”
“Do you think she got away?” Kudzu asked.
Danzen nodded.
“And she didn’t betray you?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Are you sure she didn’t follow you?”
Sansar answered this question for Danzen. “I’m certain that we weren’t followed.”
“I wish I had made a bet with one of you about this,” Jelmay told the group, his whiskers twitching. “If I had bet that Pilgrim here would join up with crazy lady Soko to take on Penumbra, I would be one rich kitty now. Bah, I should have seen that coming. Curses!”
“A rich kitty?” Kudzu slowly shook her head.
“And what now?”
Danzen shifted his attention to Yato. “Now, we return to Verba, seek out this hermit and the Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds. I need a new weapon.” It pained him to say this, but it was true. A new weapon was in order.
“But what about Soko? She’s just going to be out there? Possibly coming after you again.”
Danzen’s jaw set.
“Well?” Kudzu asked.
“She wants to help me kill Ginza, and is planning to meet me in a week, outside of Arsi.”
“She… what?” The kitsune turned away in a huff, Jelmay quickly motioning toward her, and giving Danzen a comical look.
“This does create somewhat of a dilemma,” Nomin said in an even voice. “If you meet her, she may simply be in it for the hunt and then betray you after, or ambush you at the meeting ground, before the two of you can address Ginza. If you do not meet her…”
“—I would create an even larger enemy in Soko. As for now, she has called a truce.”
Kudzu trotted away, clearly upset. Danzen watched her flit up the stone steps and into the main building of the nunnery.
Jelmay snorted. “Pfft! A truce? I don’t believe that one bit.”
“I suppose it is something that we can discuss over the coming days. For now, I would like to eat. And rest. I have questions for you,” Danzen said as he looked at Abbot Monpo, who had yet to say anything. “And I would like to have my echo tested.”
Abbot Monpo nodded in agreement. “Yes, we can figure out the finer details later. For now, there is much to discuss.”
****
Once Danzen placed his things in the room provided to him, he met Abbot Monpo and Menya in the nunnery’s library. He spotted a table now covered in scrolls, which he assumed were of importance. Another assumption came to him in seeing his more studious companions—Danzen was going to be the type of person who did the heavy lifting in this endeavor, while the others built the structure beneath. Both were equally important roles.
“I have questions about my echo.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Abbot Monpo, “and we can get to those later. You can have your power tested tomorrow morning.”
“I can do it today.”
“It’s best to rest.”
Danzen reached into his robes and withdrew the necklaces he had stripped from Ren.
“Wonderful,” Menya said as she took them from him. She had that familiar glow about her, a softness to her eyes that made her seem instantly inviting. This shifted to some degree as she examined the necklaces. “There is a dark aspect of these.”
Danzen nodded. “They were taken from a young but powerful shadow user, a leader of the Penumbra clansmen.”
Menya offered the necklace to Abbot Monpo, who hovered his hand over the piece, his brow furrowing. “It still amazes me what people can do when they abuse remnants.”
Danzen thought of Soko, and how she could fly, yet she no longer had any legs. He didn’t say anything.
“There are some finer details here, but what we have discussed before is theoretically possible.” Abbot Monpo sent his hands behind his back, and offered Danzen a tight grin, the jewel on his forehead gleaming in the dusty library. “But we are going to need more than we have right now, including the ones you’ve already gathered, and the few that I brought.”
“You brought some as well?”
“Do you recall that necklace I once gave you when you had made the decision to go to Diyu in search of the villagers that your brother took? That was among the pieces.”
Danzen remembered the necklace, and how it had amplified his power to some degree.
“Now that you are faced with this new enemy, perhaps that necklace would help you again.”
“I need…” Danzen gritted his teeth for a moment, recalling Ginza, and how powerful the man was. “The Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds. I need a weapon. Has Jelmay mentioned the blade to you yet?”
“In the north, right? A remnant weapon that the Elder of Verba told you about, correct?”
“That’s right.”
Abbot Monpo brought his hands forward and smoothed them against the front of his robes. “Yes, he did mention this. And that’s what you intend to find?”
“It is. And I’m hoping it has other properties,” Danzen said, referring to the boomerang nature of Astra.
“You will have to find the sword first before you are able to understand any of its other properties. I am assuming you would retrieve it, and then bring it back here before you leave, correct?”
“Are you sure it is a good idea to leave?” asked Menya, following up on Abbot Monpo’s question. “These enemies that your brother has unleashed, perhaps it would be best to have them come to you.”
“And risk the sanctity of this nunnery? Or the remnants that are already stored here? No, that would be… it would turn out poorly.”
“It seems to me like you would do best to trust the abilities of your companions,” Abbot Monpo said carefully. “Do you think that we would step aside and let the evils of Diyu act out of line at a holy place like this? I would fight them until the bitter end. Their bitter end.”
“You don’t want them coming here,” Danzen told the two, almost shocked that they would suggest such a thing. “It is better that we find and hunt them, or go to them when summoned. Even if we are walking into a trap. You mentioned the sanctity of this place and I agree, it is a place of refuge, one that…” He remembered his fight against Nomin there. “One that has seen enough bloodshed in my time.”
“The nunnery has been through a lot, yes and it will go through much more with or without us. But I do see your point, and perhaps it is best that we understand what this remnant sort is capable of before we open ourselves to enemies,” said Menya.
“And they may already be coming. My brother can appear when he wants, as can my father, and I’m sure if Nomtoi wanted to, he could transport one of these demons here now.”
“We’ll be ready,” Abbot Monpo assured him.
“I’m sorry, I…” Danzen relaxed his shoulders to some degree, realizing how tense he was at that moment. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“But you may have no say in that,” Abbot Monpo reminded him. “For now, let’s see what the sword is capable of and we can go from there. Perhaps all of us will join you in your journey south to confront Ginza.”
Danzen almost asked about Soko, but then he remembered that neither Abbot Monpo or Menya had met her before. This would likely be something he would need to discuss with some of the others, Danzen already knowing Kudzu’s opinion of the matter based on how she had stormed off earlier.
That would be another thing he would need to see to at some point.
“The manuscripts and scrolls on this table are the ones that we think are most pertinent to what we hope to do,” Abbot Monpo said, moving the conversation along, “but there is still a lot of research to be done. What worries me is that many of these texts mention ultimate sacrifice.”
“The person?”
“I’m afraid that may be the case, but one thing I have learned in my years of bending and studying my own echo is that there is always another way. Maybe you should think of this as you contemplate how to not only deal with your brother, but the enemies he has presented to you. Is there another way?”
“Speaking of which… I want to know more about how I can use my echo for combat.”
Abbot Monpo and Menya exchanged glances, the nun slowly starting to nod. “You felt the power, right?”
“In combat, yes, and also when bending my echo with Yato. I feel like there is something more to it.”
Abbot Monpo brought his hand to his chin as he considered what Danzen had said. “I’ll admit, it is a curious way that you have devised to bend your echo, but it works for you, and I see no real problem with it, especially with your current classification as a Stone Wielder. How about this? Tonight, you rest and catch up with your companions. There may be some difficult conversations you need to have, or perhaps it is best for you to leave those for later. Tomorrow, when you bend your echo with Yato in the morning, I will join you and introduce the next step.”
“The next step? So there is a way.”
“There is, and you already knew that. There is always a next step, Danzen Ravja. You have yet to utilize it, though, aside from the control that you have obtained over your demons. Yes, we’ll begin tomorrow, and once we’re done, you can test your echo. The weather is looking like it will be nice for a journey north, and after lunch, you, and whoever is going with you, can head to Verba and see about this remnant weapon. You’ve come a long way since the first time you showed up at the shrine and refused to unlock your true potential. But I sense troubled waters ahead. It is best to be prepared.”
****
A meal with the others lightened Danzen’s spirit to some degree. It helped that he was hungry, the former assassin enjoying flatbread and a hearty stew, steamed carrots and fried dough dashed with sugar for dessert.
As always, Jelmay was the most talkative during the meal, Danzen glad to listen to his hyperbolic stories, the bakeneko always seeming to come up with a new tale, either one he experienced personally or something that happened to an acquaintance. Now in her human form, Kudzu made no indication that she was upset by what Danzen had said earlier about Soko potentially joining them, but he knew that this was something that they would get to after the meal.
This was why he stepped out once they had finished, Danzen now in the new ogama leather belt that Jelmay had given him, which fit perfectly, the former assassin clean after the bath he’d had before supper. He walked out onto a stone balcony overlooking the valley, where he had once joined his mother, not far from the place where they had held Nomin’s funeral pyre.
A cold breeze trickled past, the night sky clear of clouds, the moon a vibrant shade of orange for the time being.
“Beautiful night, isn’t it?”
Kudzu approached in her nun’s robes, her gait nearly that of a human but always slightly off, her ears with a point to them, the woman’s white hair swept back and pinned in the two buns that almost resembled fox ears.
“About earlier…” Danzen turned to her, glad to finally have a moment alone with the kitsune. In that moment, he wondered deeply about Kudzu, how her life had been before they had met, the things that she had done over the last several hundred years. She was much older than Danzen, yet she looked younger than him in her human form, and sometimes her behavior mirrored that of someone younger as well, Kudzu always quick to show emotion.
“I feel foolish. I didn’t intend to run off the way I did earlier. I just can’t fathom with what we’ve been through that we would even consider joining Soko.”
“That may be the problem in the future. If I don’t allow her to join us, she will become harder to manage. Mark my words.” Danzen knew this much to be true. Throughout his entire life, Soko had been competitive, her behavior sometimes shifting into vengefulness.
“I just don’t understand the sudden change of heart. She has no honor, nor does she respect the struggle you’re going through. It just seems…”
“Soko likes a challenge. If someone is able to easily bring me down, as Ginza proved he was able to do, this would excite her to some degree. I wouldn’t call it a change of heart, merely another challenge.”
“Then why even test the waters? Why play with fire? By Sunyata, we have enough going on.”
Danzen nodded.
“Do… do you still have feelings for her?”
“No,” he said, which was true.
Danzen felt for Soko in ways he couldn’t explain, mostly due to the bond between them, their shared past. He knew who she was, and what she had become, and while she had played a heavy hand in her own destiny, the way the Diyu Brotherhood had raised them up led Soko to become what she was today. What he felt for her was one of shared history, of a past that only someone who had suffered through it could truly understand.
A dark look traced over Kudzu’s face. “We could always ambush her, you know. If you think that she is going to attack us, even if she decides to help for now, perhaps it is best if we cut the lesion off before it spreads.”
“I’ve thought about that. But it presents another problem.”
“Oh?”
“My brother or my father will either exploit Soko’s power, or figure out a different way to use her against me, once she gets to Diyu. Honestly, as strange as it may sound, it is in our best interest for her to be alive here.”
“Where she is more manageable.”
Danzen placed his hands on the metal railing, admiring the sheer expanse, a slight glow in the distance from the village of Odval. Looking south, he knew that if he continued traveling he would eventually reach Ginza’s mountain. This reminded him of something his father had offered, which was one of the details Danzen hadn’t really delved into with the group when he had told them of Tengir Gantulga’s appearance.
“There’s another thing.”
“What now?”
“In the northern passage, when my father came to me, he offered to unlock something in my blood but I declined. He said it would level the playing field.”
“You don’t want to be indebted to him.”
“No, I do not.”
“Then I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“But what if it would give me the edge I need?”
“We have a growing collection of remnants here,” Kudzu reminded him as she stepped up next to him. “Any one of them could give you the edge that you need, yet you aren’t seeking to exploit their powers. So I wouldn’t let your father’s offer worry you.”
Kudzu was close enough to him now that their arms touched, the two staring out of the valley. They were quiet for a spell, Danzen more relaxed now than he had been in days.
“I wish I’d been there,” Kudzu finally said. “I would have done something.”
Danzen didn’t respond. He knew this wasn’t the case, that Ginza would have used her presence to his advantage.
“Do you wish I’d come with you?”
“I…”
“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to.”
“I do. It was frightening,” Danzen admitted.
It was a strange confession to make, and at first, before the words left his lips, he didn’t know if he actually meant it. But now that he’d said it, Danzen knew this to be the case. It wasn’t often that someone challenged him to the degree that Ginza did. He had been beaten before, most recently by Nomtoi, but he never felt as helpless as he did pinned up in Ginza’s cave, Danzen unable to free himself.
“I would have done something,” she told him.
“I know you would have.”
.Chapter Two.
Nomin’s replica blade would do for a morning echo bending session, but it wasn’t Astra, and the length was off. Now in front of him, Yato stood poised with her eyes closed, doing as she had learned in his absence. The two were in one of the far courtyards of the nunnery, amidst the mist, the slick stone beneath them wet with dew. Abbot Monpo and Menya huddled along the periphery, watching. Nomin was there as well, the blind assassin seated on a stone bench. Danzen didn’t like having an audience, but for what he had been instructed to do next, it made sense.
Back-and-forth, Danzen moved from the aggressor to putting up a defense as Yato zipped forward with her gauntleted blades drawn. The two went through the motions that they had developed, Yato with rapidfire movement amplified by her remnant, Danzen’s movement one of sheer power.
“Now, now it is time. Continue doing what you are doing, and float the stone.”
It wasn’t at all surprising that this would be a way to utilize his echo. Danzen only wished he had put the pieces together earlier on. His eyes closed, he focused on the purple outline that traced around Yato, Danzen settling on one of the rocks that Abbot Monpo had procured. There was nothing special about the rock, the leader of the fox shrine simply grabbing a large stone from one of the gardens and placing it along the perimeter of their session.
