Pilgrim 4, p.35
Pilgrim 4, page 35
They crossed the bridge over the Sakai River, Danzen and his companions finally parting ways.
“I’ll get us a room, and then I’m off to find the fence to get rid of these nue claws. Or the local yokai seller. Either will do. We need kip, and once we have it, I’ll find the swankiest hotel this side of Diyu,” said Jelmay, Kudzu and Nomin reluctantly joining him. Sansar, who now watched them from a rooftop, would follow the three and then report back to Danzen.
Meanwhile, Danzen and Yato would visit Kunta the blacksmith.
“He may be a little surprised to see me,” was all that Danzen told Yato as they approached the man’s home and business, that familiar smell of burning wood in the air, the neighbor’s goats running wild as they had been the last time he had visited.
Once again he found Kunta’s son in the main room, the young redheaded boy looking up at Danzen and simply nodding. He returned a minute or so later with his father.
“You’re… you’re back,” said Kunta, the man in a fresh apron with leather stitched around one of the straps.
“I would like you to do what you can with her blades,” Danzen told him.
“Your… apprentice?”
“Something like that.” Yato removed her gauntleted weapons, matching Danzen’s demeanor in the way she moved and spoke.
Kunta waited for her to place them on the counter before he spoke again. “Please, summon the blades as well. I am unable to do so.”
Yato did as instructed, Kunta’s son once again wide-eyed as he witnessed the unique mechanism.
“That’s not the only thing.” Danzen removed his Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds from his belt, keeping it sheathed.
The blacksmith gasped, immediately recognizing something different about the weapon. Danzen respectfully handed Kunta the blade. “By Sunyata…” The burly man drew the sword from its sheath, the weapon radiating in a way that was unlike anything currently displayed at his shop. “It can’t be.”
“What is it, Pa?”
“It wasn’t forged… No, it wasn’t forged by a remnant. This is a remnant. Impossible!”
“You can tell that just by holding it?” Yato asked.
Kunta didn’t take his eyes off the sword. “I’ve been doing this since long before you were born. About the only thing I haven’t done is use a remnant to forge a weapon, but only because this is rarely practiced these days, much of the technique lost. I have worked on other remnant-based weapons, though. Speaking of which, where’s your other sword?”
“That doesn’t matter now. I have this one.”
“And what would you like me to do with it?” Kunta finally shifted his gaze up to Danzen. “I don’t know if the tools I have could even sharpen something like this. I’ve never tried before.”
“I need a scabbard for it, a porous one.” Danzen had yet to get the Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds to return to him, but he could feel he was close, and once he was able to do something like this, having a porous scabbard made things easier to clean up afterward. After all, one didn’t want to sheathe a bloodied blade.
“Yes, like your other one. I believe I could do that.”
“We are leaving in the morning.”
“It will take me longer than that, especially with her blades,” said the blacksmith.
“That’s fine. Take all the measurements you need for my weapon, and we will pick it up on our return two days from now.” Danzen reached into his new leather satchel and retrieved a thick wad of kip. “Let me know what I owe you.”
“And my blades will be ready tonight, right?” Yato asked.
“I can certainly make that happen, especially if I have a few more days to work on this.” Kunta offered the two of them a grim smile as he saw the wad of kip Danzen now held. “I don’t suppose you will be interested in telling me what it is that you are planning to do that will take a few days, would you?”
“Take your measurements now; we will leave the gauntleted blades with you and return tonight.”
“Yes, I see. Are… are you needing a room?” he asked Danzen.
“No, we have somewhere else to stay. But we appreciate the hospitality.”
****
Danzen could sense that he was being observed as he followed Sansar to the hotel they would be staying in for the night. It was useless to try to hide from the watchful eye of Soko’s spies, and he knew this. If she didn’t already know that he was in the city, she would soon enough, which was something he was fine with.
There was going to be no hiding from her, especially on her turf.
Something about Arsi had always drawn Soko in. The Diyu Brotherhood had taken her from an orphanage in the city, and when Danzen needed to find her, it would generally be the first place he looked. Because of the size of the city, she was able to get what she needed, Soko operating solely at night so people wouldn’t see the way she looked. This would have been harder in a place like Odval, which practically shut down at night aside from the taverns.
He only hoped that she hadn’t already had a change of heart, Danzen recalling what it had been like when she had ambushed him at the hotel last time he was in the city with Yato.
“The bakeneko has outdone himself.” Sansar swooped over Danzen and Yato and then lifted up to the high roof of a four-story building, one with a manicured entryway featuring everything from small ponds to quiet areas reached by miniature bridges.
The serene nature of the entrance caused Yato to pause for a moment, the female assassin admiring the landscaping. “You have all day to enjoy it,” Danzen said as he moved past her, and eventually up a flight of stairs into a grand entryway, where he was greeted by a man in black robes, a custom mask over the top half of his face.
Danzen had been to a place like this before, where they masked the attendants in an effort to make them seem less human, simply part of the furniture. “Right this way,” the masked man said as he led Danzen and Yato up the spiral staircase, one made of marble and decorated by a clean red rug covered with intricate stitching. “Your companions await you in the suite.”
“A suite?” asked Yato.
Danzen would have said something along the lines of she should be used to Jelmay wasting money by now, but he didn’t. It was clear that the change in environment from first the northern passage then to the nunnery was something that may be a little jarring. They truly had stepped from a remote region into sheer luxury.
What followed was a morning and afternoon of leisure, their room big enough for Danzen to bend his echo in one of the guest suites after furniture had been moved around. Jelmay had already arranged for Kudzu, Yato, and Nomin to visit a spa, the blind assassin declining. Yato and Kudzu enjoyed themselves, however, and once the day stretched into night, they all met over dinner. It was the most elaborate dinner they’d had in a while, their meal served over several courses, the food given out in small portions that added up to be quite the experience in the end.
Afterward, Danzen and Yato walked back to the blacksmith’s home.
“What a day,” she said, the lights in some of the windows now coming on, the street still slightly illuminated even though the sun had already set. Danzen didn’t want to remind her that things were going to take a turn for the worse sooner rather than later. He hoped that Nomin and him would be able to subdue Ginza, that Yato could stay on the periphery. Danzen would do whatever he could to prevent Ginza from hurting those he cared for.
He remembered the three-eye demon as he wound through the streets, hulking as Ginza was, his sickly pallor, the way he had so easily manhandled Danzen. Back in the marshlands, he had briefly discussed a strategy with Nomin, something that they would elaborate on soon.
There was no telling if it would work or not.
Danzen never relaxed his guard as he approached Kunta’s home that night, aware that it would be a perfect time to attack. Rather than go inside, he stood watch at the front of the door, his hand on the grip of the sword while Yato retrieved her weapons. He heard the sounds of her summoning her blades, his nerves jumping, Danzen instantly calming himself when he realized that she was simply testing them out.
“How are they?” he asked when she had joined him.
Yato admired the gauntleted blades once again. “Better than before.”
“Kunta is the best in the business, at least that I know of.”
Once they reached the hotel, they took a quick scout around the perimeter and the gardens, the two splitting up at one point, making sure that there weren’t any indications that they were being stalked. He already knew they were being watched, but as long as there wasn’t someone trying to infiltrate the hotel while they were there, he was fine with this minor detail.
He entered their room to find Jelmay already asleep, an empty jug of wine across his stomach. Sansar came in through an open balcony door, and as he did Danzen spotted Nomin standing on the balcony outside. After putting away most of his weapons aside from his new sword, he found Kudzu in one of the rooms, already asleep, the kitsune having consumed a little wine with Jelmay over dinner. She was in between forms, her human body still present, yet a pair of fox ears half lifting from her head.
Danzen tucked Kudzu in and stepped back out of the room.
He went straight to the balcony. Nomin acknowledged his presence with a nod, Danzen doing the same. He didn’t know if Yato would join them or not, and it soon became apparent that she was also planning to rest for the night, the young assassin never coming outside.
Wooden windchimes in the distance added a touch of sound to an otherwise quiet night. Danzen saw a bit of smoke coming out of one of the chimneys on a house outside the estate, and even though it wasn’t that cool of a night, it did feel as if the temperature was going to drop. He truly enjoyed the fall in Kishu Kingdom. It hadn’t officially come yet, but it was close, monsoon season over, the leaves starting to turn, a world in constant rebirth.
“Do you think she will come?” Nomin asked at some point, Danzen knowing exactly who she was referring to.
“That’s why I’m out here.”
“Me, too.”
“She will be surprised to see you.”
“I don’t know her very well. Not as well as I know you.”
“As I’ve said before, she…” Danzen thought of how Soko looked now. “You may not fully recognize her. I don’t know when the last time the two of you met was.”
“Before you retired.”
“She looks more like a ghoul now than she did then.”
Nomin turned to Danzen, her pearl-like eyes fixated on him. “Does it bother you to see her that way?”
“It does.”
“Have you thought more about what needs to happen next? If we should bring her into this or not?”
Danzen was slow to answer this. “We will make a camp tomorrow night, before we attempt to lure Ginza out. I will make my decision by then. But as you know, having Soko as an enemy is not ideal, whether it be in our world, or gunning for us from Diyu.”
“True. Have you ever considered how strange all this is, the way assassins operate around one another? There is a secretive nature of the profession, of course, but I’m speaking more about how quickly we can go from being at each other’s throats to fighting side-by-side. It is almost as if this is an inherited trait. The yokai, and other humans won’t understand it.”
“Still, something must be done.”
“And after we kill Ginza? The northern passage is open. Have you thought about what comes next?”
“We will head back to Suja Village, to my monastery. Or, I will and likely most of the others. I’m assuming you may want to head back to the nunnery.”
“Maybe. I find the company of your companions mildly interesting, even if they bicker too much.” She motioned toward the balcony doors. “But I like it there at the nunnery, where it is peaceful. That said, your brother has others for you to deal with once you address Ginza, and maybe it would be good for me to be around for that. But we can discuss that after we’ve dealt with Ginza. Try to get some sleep, Danzen. If Soko comes, I’ll wake you.”
.Chapter Two.
The next morning was peaceful, a slight breeze coming into the window as Danzen bent his echo, the former assassin remembering everything he had learned to that point, what he was now able to do, the power of the sword, the companionship of his teammates. All would play their role in killing Ginza. All had equal weight.
Soko never came to visit him the previous night, the woman mysterious as always.
Danzen assumed that she knew he was around, especially with all her spies across the city of Arsi. This told him that she had either lost interest, which likely wasn’t the case, that she was waiting for him to come to her, or she was planning something else entirely.
He had made a decision on what he wanted to do regarding her role in this, but for now, they needed to leave Arsi, and find a place to lay low until later that night and the following morning, when they planned to spring their trap.
An elegant breakfast was delivered to them by several hotel attendants, Jelmay giving out orders, the bakeneko somewhat in his element as platters of pastries and eggs and various cured meats came. “It is a shame, really,” he said once they had all fashioned a plate, the bakeneko already with half a bread roll sticking out of his mouth, “we’re going to go from this to nearly getting killed in a matter of twenty-four hours.”
“Don’t remind me,” said Kudzu, who was in her human form, seated on a plush chair with one leg crossed over the other. She had gotten better at doing this after watching Yato, and every time she sat as a human now, she did so with one leg crossed over the other, to the point that it sometimes looked unnatural.
“Notice I said ‘nearly,’” Jelmay told her as he shoveled an egg into his mouth. “None of us are dying, I’ll say that again. You know I get these visions sometimes, right? Well, we are going to succeed. We will overcome anything that Nomtoi throws at us—you hear that, you half-witted monobake?” Jelmay squinted as he looked around the room, as if Nomtoi was floating somewhere in the corner. “Anyway, notice I didn’t say that we won’t be injured, or that we won’t come close to dying, but none of us are dying. I can guarantee that.”
“You should be careful with prophecies,” said Sansar, who now picked at some meat that Nomin had placed on a plate for him.
“Bah, without prophecies, what is there to really live for? Ask yourself that, bird. You are from Suynata, after all.”
“The raven is right,” Nomin told the bakeneko. “The only way that we are going to do this is with precision and timing, prophecies be damned.”
“Prophecy covers both those things.”
“Just be ready to play your role when the time comes.”
Jelmay grumbled a response to Nomin, the conversation dipping into a lull as the group finished their fancy breakfast.
After their meal, the group set out, heading west in the direction of the Tudan outpost, with the goal of eventually shifting back to the south, toward the mountains far outside of Arsi, the desert sea beyond.
Danzen felt constantly on guard, aware that Soko or Ginza could spring out at any moment.
He traveled with his hand on the grip of his new sword, Nomin doing the same, Yato at the back, and also ready to summon her gauntleted blades. While it was tense for the three assassins, Jelmay didn’t seem to notice any of the anxiety that they were experiencing, the bakeneko garrulous as always, whistling at times, discussing how much kip he’d been able to obtain from a local seller who dealt in yokai parts.
“You should have seen him, Lady Pilgrim,” he said when nobody responded to his previous statement. “Not only does he think that these useless claws were an aphrodisiac, I had him utterly convinced that they would be a sleep aid as well, and that because they were from a demonic yokai, that they had a negative cancellation aspect to them that allowed their consumption to eliminate any bad luck that may be in someone’s future. What kind of moron believes that? You can’t stop bad luck with a yokai claw. Ha!”
“You are despicable.”
“No, I’m just me,” Jelmay told Kudzu.
Their group transitioned to a dirt road, a smattering of buildings to the left, the Sakai River now further and further behind them. The riverside city of Arsi was directly in the center of a fertile valley, lush green plants covering rolling hills as far as the eye could see. The farms here were well-managed, men and women working in the fields, oxen transporting farm equipment. It was the breadbasket of Kishu Kingdom in that regard. Now that it was approaching fall, Danzen noticed fields of pumpkin and squash, a variety of colors resembling the autumn leaves that were to come.
A few were already floating in the air, twirling around them as his party continued on, Sansar circling above. With the three-legged raven, they would know if Ginza suddenly appeared, that was, unless he could turn invisible, which Danzen didn’t think to be the case.
In terms of location, they were well over a mile away from the shrine, in the area where Ginza had ambushed him before the mountains. They would keep their distance before setting their trap. This would give the group plenty of time to rest, and go over their strategy once again, and to prepare for what was to come the following morning.
Danzen and his companions found a campsite later that afternoon, one that had been used by merchants before in a cove near a small stream. There were fish swimming down the stream, Kudzu instantly noticing this after she had morphed back to her kitsune form.
She looked up at Danzen.
“It’s still not returning to me,” he said, referring to his sword.
“But you can still throw it.”
Jelmay started laughing at this. “Listen to how hungry she is, the hungry little fox. Heh! We actually have food for once, yet she wants fresh fish? And you say the money isn’t going to her head? Spoiled!”
