Pilgrim 5, p.30
Pilgrim 5, page 30
“By Sunyata…” Kudzu approached Yato. Nomin remained crouching over her, still gripping the young assassin in the modified
sleeping maneuver. The kitsune turned to Danzen. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nor do I,” said Sansar, who had now transferred to the back of Jelmay’s reindeer. “But Sotgonn may have seen something like it before. Perhaps it is something known to these parts.”
“How do you not know what this is?” Jelmay asked the three-legged raven.
“Just because I hail from Sunyata doesn’t mean that I understand the intricacies of possession. I wasn’t there when she killed the yuki-onna. I was outside the wall of ice. But Yato has been acting strangely as of late, occasionally eyeing me in a way that made me feel like she was tracking my movement. Not that I don’t expect this from an assassin, but there was something else about it.”
“So that’s why we need to head back to the camp.” Jelmay sighed audibly. “We never get a day of rest, do we?”
“What are you talking about?” Kudzu shot the bakeneko a dirty look. “You’ve been resting all afternoon!”
“Yes, I have, but not all of us. Not only that, you’ve been on edge the entire time while the bird and the assassins were on a mission to slay, causing me emotional stress.”
“Enough,” said Nomin as she finally released Yato and lowered her to the ground. Naturally, Danzen approached the young assassin and scooped her up in his arms, careful not to bang the end of his Blade of Darkness against the rock-hard soil. “That should keep her out for a while.”
One of the Dukha warriors got off his reindeer and motioned toward it. They secured Yato to the reindeer, Danzen walking alongside it and making sure she didn’t fall off.
It wouldn’t be long before they reached the camp, and hopefully, Sotgonn would be able to diagnose Yato.
****
Word of their arrival reached the camp long before Danzen and his companions arrived, Sansar flying ahead as always. They were greeted by the sage himself, the man instantly motioning for Danzen to follow him. “We can discuss the Akabori later. If something is wrong with one of yours, I want to make sure she has a proper examination. Retrieve your student.” He gestured to the reindeer that Yato was mounted upon, the young assassin still with her head tipped forward.
Rather than go to the ritual yurt at the center of the camp, the group moved toward the closed-off section where the Dukha worked on their ancient remnants. Sotgonn went ahead, leaving Danzen and his company at the gate for a moment as he readied things with the remnant masters inside. Soon, he popped his head out of the yurt and gestured for them to follow him in.
The space looked the same in the morning light as it did during the evening, the light-purple glow of the remnants still strong, Danzen once again experiencing discomfort in his core. He set Yato on a table that had been cleared; Sotgonn motioned for his people to stay back as he examined the young assassin. “Is she asleep?”
“Not by choice,” said Jelmay. Even though he was trying to maintain his demeanor, Danzen could tell that the bakeneko was distressed about what was happening. Jelmay and Yato got along quite well, and she always seemed to humor him. He could tell in the bakeneko’s silence over the last few hours that he truly was worried about the young woman.
“It can’t be a yokai,” said Sansar, who was now perched on a plank of wood that had been hammered to the center stake of the yurt, clearly designed to hang items. “I’ve never heard of one that can do something like this, not this strong of a possession.”
“And it is definitely not something like me,” said Jelmay. “If so, it would have lost its shape by now.”
“Perhaps it was something unique to this region…”
“No, it is something else,” said Sotgonn in a soft voice. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t like being in here.”
Yato had already started to twitch, yet she remained asleep, her lips parting, her teeth pressed together in a feral way.
The oldest remnant master approached with the Sunyata dagger that Danzen had once held, the one that belonged to Goyo, their tribal founder. The remnant master took a few steps closer to Sotgonn and handed it to him.
“We will see what it is…”
After saying a quick prayer, the sage brought the dagger to his forehead and held it there for a moment, Danzen noticing a swirl of purple energy twisting down his form. It was by no means subtle, true evidence of the man’s power. Sotgonn flipped the blade over so that he now held it upside down. “Prepare yourselves,” was all he said as he stepped in front of the table.
Danzen quickly removed his Blade of Darkness and set it against the wall. He drew his Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds, Nomin preparing her weapon as well.
“Is he going to attack her?” Kudzu asked as a savageness came over Sotgonn, the older man lowering his head as he tightly gripped the weapon, the fringe of his cap now hanging in his eyes as his hands shook. The sage quickly brought the blade down, directly into the table, mere centimeters away from the side of Yato’s neck.
That was all it took.
A ghastly face pressed out of Yato, seemingly attached at the neck as it cried out in anger and fear. Its movement caused Yato to sit up. The young assassin gasped as she her body was slammed back down onto the table.
“Release her!” Sotgonn said in a voice that was so deep, so guttural, that Danzen wondered for a moment if it was a Sunyata-based form of Demon Speak. The sage jabbed the remnant dagger at the demon’s nearly transparent form, stirring into a frenzy as it separated from Yato’s body.
She stopped moving, her skin going pale as veins traced over her and filtered away.
“Release her, I say!”
The transparent form completely separated from Yato’s body, revealing a floating entity with a cloak draped over its shoulders, one covered in moving human faces, everything from a child to a demon.
A hood over its head, Danzen was able to make out a pair of blazing red eyes and a skeletal nose, the rest of its face obscured.
“State your purpose, demon,” Sotgonn said, confidence in his voice as he pointed the dagger at the entity.
“She is mine, you know,” the demon hissed, “she has been since Ginza. Poor Ginza, such a brute, so easy to kill.”
The demon’s arms lowered from its robes, long and thin, its hands large and defined by a set of wicked-looking claws. It tilted its chin up; Danzen noticed that it truly didn’t have a lower portion of its jaw. The demon’s tongue slipped out of what was left of its mouth hole, a third red eye on its forehead blinking open. Danzen remembered that Ginza had the same red eye. Were they related in some way? Was the entity floating before them half-blooded?
Danzen regained his composure. “My brother freed you. I will
send you back.”
“Is that so? You’re confident enough to take on something that you cannot physically strike?” The demon lifted his claw, showing Danzen its translucent nature.
“You won’t be the first,” he said, referring to Onuma and Mayji, the seemingly related evils that he had combated in Odval. They had
a similar nature as well, their physical forms not always tangible. If anything, this would be a perfect opportunity for Danzen to utilize his command over his echo.
It was clear that the demon didn’t like Sunyatic power, at least in a concentrated form like it had been in the dagger. Danzen briefly wondered if being trapped in ice back at the Akabori village with the remnant had been what triggered it to fully possess Yato. This thought spawned yet another thought, something based on what he’d already heard: had the demon really been with them since their fight with Ginza? This would explain Yato’s strange behavior since that time, as well as the sickness following the injury she had sustained.
“Put it down,” the demon said once Sotgonn lifted the remnant dagger into the air. “Put it down, or I will leave this tent and ravage everyone in your tribe. Do you know how many I could cut down before you or the half-blood could reach me?”
Sotgonn hesitated, and as he did Danzen stepped beside him, letting the sage know that he would handle it from here.
After all, he too had a blade made from an ancient remnant.
The floating demon and its cloak of a multitude of faces had a very clear weakness, one Danzen meant to exploit as he sent his Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds flying through the air.
The demon moved in a way that made Kitazawa look slow, stepping out of the line of fire as if Danzen had walked the blade over to him. His sword struck the wall of the yurt, cutting through it and quickly returning to his hand.
“I’m going to make you suffer,” the demon said, the three eyes on its face blazing to the point that it seemed as if they were sucking the rest of the light out of the room, including the glow from the remnants. Darkness swelled on the periphery, Danzen prepared for anything, regretting that he hadn’t told Kudzu and Jelmay to step behind him.
It was his duty to protect them. It was his duty to protect everyone.
****
It was as if Danzen had been portaled away, the former assassin completely alone in a windowless room.
He closed his eyes, and as he did he saw the purple outline of the demon, of the others in the yurt and various objects like benches and remnants. Somehow, the ghost-like entity had distorted his perception, yet he was still in the same place he had been moments ago, and more importantly, he could see his target.
While the entity was semitransparent, Danzen was nearly certain that his Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds would be able to reach it. All he needed to do was move fast enough to make that happen.
With this in mind, he cut toward the demon, clearing nearly six feet in the span of a second, Danzen of the mindset to end this now.
He didn’t know what would become of Yato after possession, but the sooner this demon was back in Diyu, the better.
Whoosh!
The demon avoided his attack by sweeping up. It quickly circled around Danzen, almost as if it were toying with him.
“You will never be fast enough, half-blood.”
He expected the demonic being to try for a counterattack, yet it never did as it continued to avoid Danzen’s rapid-fire strikes.
“We could do this all day, but I think…” The demon floated to the back wall of the yurt. “Yes… yes. This can wait. There is always a new vessel.”
The demon started to float backward, and as it did, Danzen sent a sword after it one last time. His weapon struck the inner wall of the yurt, but by this point, the entity had vanished entirely.
Danzen burst outside once his weapon returned to him, but everything in the encampment was seemingly normal, with absolutely no sign of the evil spirit. He rushed around anyway, Sansar joining him, panic seizing Danzen’s heart as he tried to locate the demon. Danzen shouldered past a couple of Dukha warriors who had their backs turned to him.
The demon was nowhere to be found.
Danzen returned to the others, huffing, not sure of what he should do next. For a moment, part of him wanted to call upon his father, aware that Tengir Gantulga would be glad to provide Danzen with information, but if he did so, he was certain that Tengir would push for some sort of exchange. Not only that, he didn’t want to summon his father around the others.
He buried this thought and turned back to Yato, who lay on the table, semi-lifeless, her breaths ultra shallow.
“What do we do?”
Danzen didn’t answer Kudzu.
He didn’t know what to do, and he didn’t know what the multi-faced demon would try next. He placed his hand on his head and let out a deep, troubled breath.
Sotgonn cleared his throat, instantly becoming a voice of reason.
“If I may, I believe that we should take a step back and reassemble this piece by piece. I do not believe the demon is still here, and I do not sense him in our vicinity. I had a vision over the course of my fasting that I didn’t tell you about, namely because I didn’t want to breathe life into it. It relates to this very scenario, a demonic being that can possess others. In my vision, it fully possessed me and the two of us battled inside what was essentially a void.” He brought his hand up to his head. “I don’t know how to describe it other than that.”
“A void…” Danzen recalled the space he had just been in with the demon, how it had done something to his perception.
“So the next Evil reveals itself. Great, great,” Jelmay said with despair. He approached Yato and frowned, his whiskers drooping.
“What about Lady Pilgrim? What can we do for her? Is there an herb? Is there a spring or someplace where we can take her? She looks dead. She’s too young to die!”
“She won’t die, but her recovery may take some time. I really don’t know.”
“It said it had been with us since Ginza.”
“What do you mean?” Sotgonn asked Sansar as he glanced back to Danzen. “We can go somewhere else. I know that the remnants can be overpowering.”
This much was certainly true. Danzen still felt this magnetic force all around him, as if he were being pulled in different directions. “I’ll be fine,” he finally told Sotgonn. He began explaining what happened after they had faced off against Ginza, and how several of them had noticed Yato acting strangely. He also detailed the flash theory he had had about the ancient remnant and the ice yokai leading the demon to reveal itself.
“Yes, that all makes sense. This is a parasitic demon, and it has been using the young woman as a host for some time.” The sage said something to one of the younger remnant masters, and soon the man returned with a bucket of water and a clean rag. He also had a few herbs. “I keep these ready to go at all times. They help with healing. Massage them into the skin on her wrists.”
Danzen approached Yato and did as the sage instructed, Nomin joining him on the other side and doing the same while Sotgonn placed a cool cloth over her forehead. As Danzen applied the herb, she began moaning softly.
“Do not worry. We can treat her.” The sage now stood behind Yato, each hand an inch or so away from her temples. Briefly closing
his eyes showed Danzen that the sage was lightly pushing Sunyatic energy into her. “She is young and healthy, and I’m certain that she will recover. But it may take several days. I suppose in that time you could focus on finding other remnants, or any other task you may have. You’re welcome to simply relax in the village as well.”
“How do we know Yato won’t become possessed again?”
“We will keep her in here,” Sotgonn told Danzen. “That demon won’t return to this space, and we will be sure to protect the village with remnant fetishes. In fact…” He quickly spoke in his strange tongue with the remnant masters. Two of them left the yurt, taking Sunyata pieces with them. “That should do it until we can form a stronger perimeter.”
“We need to meet Soko,” Nomin reminded Danzen.
“Pfft!”
Nomin turned to the bakeneko. “Yes?”
“Let me get this straight, you are really suggesting leaving Lady Pilgrim here while we go and meet your insane killer of an ex-girlfriend? Ludicrous. That’s ludicrous!” Jelmay pointed a finger at Danzen. “Ludicrous!”
“I didn’t make that suggestion,” Danzen reminded him.
“But you’re going to agree to it. I know you’re going to agree to it.
It’s what I would do if I were you. Of course we’re not going to stay here and simply relax and eat these people’s food and have a great time while Lady Pilgrim gets better. No, we’re going to go back to the real world, try not to get killed by any number of enemies that would love to see us dead, and in the meantime, hope to deal with Uchi.
Bah!”
“Jelmay is…”
“Say it, fox…”
Kudzu rolled her eyes. “Jelmay is right.”
“See!?”
“We will go back tomorrow,” Danzen told them with finality. “We will join Soko in Chutham and press on. Once we have dealt with Uchi, and perhaps seen to some other things, we will return here.”
“What about the remnant?” Nomin asked, referring to the piece that they had taken from the jubokko tree.
“I can send two of my people to the nunnery now,” said Sotgonn.
“I can join them to make sure it gets there…”
“No, we will need you,” Danzen told Sansar. “For now, we can leave this remnant here, if that is fine by you.”
Sotgonn nodded. “If the Akabori have been worshiping it, then it must be one of the ancient ones, the kind we are used to caring for.”
The sage relaxed his shoulders. “I know what we have all witnessed here was troubling, but… but we have to remember why we have joined, and what we will do in the future working together. I will finish treatment here, and then we can discuss the Akabori and what to expect next. If any are alive, they may retaliate. Or they may be so broken that we need to take them in. It all remains to be seen.”
“Well, I don’t know about anyone else here, but I’m hungry. I get hungry when I’m stressed.” Jelmay turned to the exit of the yurt.
“There had better be something for me to eat around here.”
.Chapter Two.
As the day passed, it dawned on Danzen how much the possessing demon may have learned about what they were doing. Even if his father was able to see everything, it didn’t mean he was actively listening, but in taking Yato’s body, this demon had done everything from infiltrating a Penumbra fortress, to physically training with Danzen.
How much did it leech off its host? Yato knew about Danzen’s powers’ advancements, personally witnessing some of his recent improvements, meaning that this parasitic demon had as well. It truly would be a leg up whenever the demon decided to strike again, and since there had been no indications of its presence aside from the aggression he’d experienced from Yato, it could reappear in his life at any time.
