Pilgrim 3, p.36
Pilgrim 3, page 36
“Of course we’re hungry,” Jelmay said. “We’ve been starved for the last…” He glanced up at the ceiling, the bakeneko now in his nondescript human form as he licked his lips. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I last ate. A tragedy!”
“It’s late, but we can certainly make something.”
Jelmay got out some money, but Oiwa gestured for him to put it away. “You’ve done so much for us in helping Shimaru, it’s the least that we could do.”
“Fine by me,” Jelmay said, “but I’m paying for breakfast and however many nights we need to stay here which should be…” He looked to Danzen. “One more? Two? We’re going to need to recover, and speaking of which, I am going to need to recoup the kip I left in that gambling den. But first, we feast, and I’ll figure out the money part later.”
Danzen nodded.
“Welp, that settles it. Food it is!”
While Yudono prepared a late meal, Oiwa saw to Kudzu’s and Yato’s wounds, both of them sharing a room. It was only after the meal was served, which consisted of cold meats and bread, that Danzen realized just how tired he was. At least a day had passed, and being confined underground had mixed terribly with the poison that the Witch of Diyu had hit them with, Danzen still experiencing small and sudden bouts of double vision and confusion.
It turned out that rest was indeed the remedy he needed.
By the next morning he was back to his normal self, bending his echo in the early morning using Nomin’s replica sword almost as if nothing happened. As he went through the movements, Danzen thought of the blind assassin, wondering where she was. What did she have to accomplish? And when would he see her again?
About the time he was finishing up, Jelmay stepped into the spare room Danzen was using to practice, the bakeneko still in his cat form.
“What? Don’t judge me,” Jelmay said.
“I wasn’t.”
“Fine, I’ll take my human form,” he told Danzen as he began to morph, his face quickly thinning out, years disappearing, whiskers swirling away. “I still can’t believe my tail is gone. I had a dream about it last night, you know. I was with Usagi and we were running through Asura Forest chasing my tail. I thought it was real at first, but then I realized that I hated Usagi, or more appropriately, that I had a strong dislike for him lately, and I would never be chasing my tail alongside him. After all, why would he care about my tail?”
Danzen returned Nomin’s sword to its scabbard. “We need to make plans for tonight.”
Jelmay smirked. “You mean when Sumi comes? I’m not even worried about that, in fact, I already have it all mapped out. Let me know what you think about this…”
The bakeneko detailed what they would do, and how he would use his morphing ability to their advantage. He also had roles for Kudzu and Yato which would require a few small things from town that he was sure he’d be able to find.
“All in all, we will get Sumi alone, and then you can do what you want with her.”
Danzen thought of the girl whom he had saved years ago after Norwin Dawa had brought forth his demons, the stubborn look on Sumi’s face even as he forced her to do his bidding with his Demon Speak power. He should have known then to add another sentence to his command, telling Sumi never to go after him, never to seek revenge.
But he hadn’t, and here she was, coming to collect.
Sumi had clearly inherited her father’s wealth, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to afford the Diyu Brotherhood. Now an adult, there was no telling the extent she had gone to stop him from using his power, but Soko hadn’t said anything about her doing something to her eardrums, anything like that, so he assumed that she would still be able to hear him. Even if she had plugged her ears up, it wouldn’t take Danzen more than a few seconds to disarm her, if she had a weapon. She could have spent every waking hour of the last two years building her fighting skills and it still wouldn’t be enough, not against someone like him.
But Danzen didn’t know who she was traveling with; he couldn’t imagine her going alone, not to meet someone as deadly as Soko.
There was also the chance that Soko had somehow gotten a message to her, that perhaps they had crossed paths as Soko headed away from Odval. He was going to have to go with his gut here, assuming that Soko was completely in it for herself, that she wouldn’t have warned Sumi, especially now that she had access to the Witch of Diyu’s hermitage. There was no telling what the place contained, and he could only imagine the opponent Soko would become were she able to wield poisons.
That remained to be seen.
Kudzu was around for breakfast, Yato still resting off her injuries. Surprisingly, the fox thought Jelmay’s plan would indeed work, especially because of the unknown aspect of Sumi’s arrival, which Danzen had already thought about. Who was traveling with Sumi? She would clearly have some guards, and there was even a chance she was traveling with assassins of the Brotherhood. This would be where the challenge would lie.
The rest of the morning was spent gathering supplies, and then it was off to the same area Danzen had fought last night. Before they did this, he made sure to go around to the taverns and Odval and tell the bartenders where Soko was, using his Demon Speak ability to make sure they didn’t remember seeing him, only that they would pass the message along if Sumi, or one of her companions, asked.
Predictably, Jelmay was unable to collect the money he left behind, which was certainly an issue of contention. Not as predictably, the Witch of Diyu hadn’t killed all the people that had been around Danzen and his companions during their capture. There were rumors as to what happened, but no one had died, which was a good thing.
The stage was set once the sun started to come down, Yato now with the group as well, her bruises mostly healed due to Oiwa’s unique command over her echo. As the day shifted toward night, Danzen and his companions waited at the mouth of the underground passage while Jelmay stood a hundred or so feet before them, already morphed.
None of them knew how long they would have to wait, which was something Jelmay had prepared for, the bakeneko eating enough food that afternoon to keep him satiated through the evening. And at some point, as the night pressed onward, it seemed that Sumi wasn’t going to come, Danzen second-guessing his earlier notion that Soko had warned Sumi in some way.
But eventually, they saw the lights of a carriage heading in their direction.
As they planned, Danzen got into position on his knees, his head bent forward, arms behind his back. To further sell the lie, Kudzu held Danzen’s Blade of Darkness, the woman now in dark robes with a white mask similar to the one that Soko wore. Yato was clad in the exact same outfit, and she had Nomin’s sword at her waist, both of them standing on either side of Danzen to make it appear as if they were guarding him.
It was easy enough to obscure Astra between his legs, his robes covering the grip, Danzen’s gauntlets adding to the illusion that his arms were cuffed behind his back. Looking ahead, he saw just how convincing Jelmay’s rendition of Soko was, the bakeneko going with long robes to make up for the fact that he couldn’t naturally float. It was almost disturbing how good he was at taking other people’s forms, his posture matching hers as well, shoulders back, head drawn down, sheer intimidation.
Sumi’s carriage came to a stop. The carriage driver hopped down, Yato noticing something almost immediately.
“Penumbra,” she said quietly, her voice partially muffled by the mask on her face.
“How many?” Danzen asked, his head still bowed forward.
“Carriage driver, and…” Yato waited a moment before answering. “Two others. Three in total, all Penumbra based on their appearance, their headbands.”
“We may have to take them out first,” Danzen whispered. “Is there any indication that Sumi can’t hear?”
Kudzu was quiet for a moment. “She is speaking to Jelmay, and he’s responding. No, she can hear,” she finally answered, her keen sense of hearing helping her out.
“The plan remains. She will want to examine me,” Danzen whispered. “I will force her to stay back here, and we will deal with Penumbra.”
“You don’t want to try to work with their minds?” Yato asked quickly.
“For them to be able to command shadows the way they do means they may be beyond my influence. It’s best to proceed with this in mind.”
“That’s right…”
As Danzen had predicted, Sumi soon made her way toward him, Jelmay-as-Soko moving alongside her, perfectly mirroring the female assassin’s ghoul-like movements.
The three Penumbra clan members came forward as well, but they kept some distance from Sumi, which was likely the result of a direct order. He could imagine himself as her bodyguard in that moment, and how it went against his years of training to let a subject he was supposed to guard get as close to someone like Danzen, especially one who could control people with their voice. It had all been her order, and unfortunately for Sumi, it would be her undoing.
As she approached, Danzen slowly started to look up at her, his hood casting a shadow over his face. Sumi was taller now, more filled out, a woman whereas before she was still a girl. Her hair, which had been braided and swept back into two long strands, added a fierceness to her face by making her eyes seem larger, something tiger-like about them that Danzen hadn’t noticed before. Then again, it’d been a frenzy when he first met her.
Danzen spoke before she could reach him. “You will step behind me, and stay back while I handle your guards.”
Rather than obey his command, Sumi looked at him with an upturned face, her large, onyx eyes filling with a twisted glee. “Your power isn’t going to work on me, not now.” She lifted a single finger into the air and her guards dispersed, heading in their direction with their shadow weapons drawn.
Danzen was on his feet and loosing his boomerang sword before the first clansman could reach him. Astra took the clansman down and returned to his grip, Kudzu throwing his Blade of Darkness into the air just as she had been instructed to do.
Danzen grabbed his glaive with his free hand and sent a swath of darkness forward, just over Sumi’s head, the woman immediately going to the ground to avoid his attack. She wouldn’t get far; she tried to scramble away, and Jelmay struck her in the back of the head with the grip of his sword, Sumi out cold by the time Danzen’s next attack reached its target.
Combating shadows made no sound, but it was clear that he had prevented their strike, both men trying again with the shadowy arm tassels not unlike the bindings that Norwin Dawa once wielded.
They were too focused on Danzen to see Yato sneak away to the side, and appear behind one of them. She drove both her gauntleted blades into a clansman’s back and used her momentum to take him to the ground, where she followed up with her movement by cutting his throat. Her sudden savagery threw the other Penumbra clansman off guard, Danzen able to finish him off with his boomerang sword in his moment’s hesitation.
Like many fights Danzen had been in before, it was over almost before it started.
He turned his attention to Sumi, who was just pressing off the ground. Why hadn’t his power worked? She could clearly hear him, and he assumed that she hadn’t been strong enough to bend her echo to the point that she could resist what he was able to do.
Unless it was something related to…
“The remnant I gave you,” Danzen said just as Sumi’s eyes settled on him.
He recalled giving her his father’s talisman before departing, which would explain how she was able to resist his power, even though it had worked on her father. With no jewelry visible, Danzen realized that Sumi must have consumed it, which meant that she wouldn’t have been able to give it to Soko. This would have certainly created a scene if the female assassin had actually accomplished her mission in taking Danzen down.
“You figured it out,” Sumi said she slowly pressed herself off the ground, her hand on the back of her head. Yato came to her, both blades drawn.
“This is all my fault,” Danzen said under his breath.
“It is, my father, and my sister’s deaths. Your fault.”
“Your sister?”
She nodded, and in that moment Danzen recalled her father’s estate, the young girl in one of the rooms who had already been killed by one of his demons by the time he arrived on the scene.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and as he did Nomin’s power came over him, Danzen able to see without looking at Sumi that her veins were glowing light purple, which he took to mean that she had not only consumed the remnant, but she had done so recently. Was her plan to attack Soko once she confirmed Danzen’s kill? Was she actually that crazy?
“What have you done to Soko?” Sumi asked once Danzen opened his eyes again.
“She’s no longer of your concern.”
“You know you’re going to have to kill me, right? You can’t use your power on me ever again. And I won’t stop,” she said, her voice never wavering. “I won’t stop.”
Danzen lifted his Blade of Darkness, and waited just a moment for the shadows to gather at its tip. In the end, Sumi didn’t suffer. She died fast enough not to really feel much pain, her head hitting the ground, her body following suit, her muscles spasming for just a moment.
Danzen knew in this act that he had created an enemy with enough conviction to do something from Diyu, that was inevitable, and if and when she did come, he would do his best to be prepared at that time. But on this plane of existence, the one in which he currently lived, it would be hard for Sumi to meddle with his life any longer, which was sadly what all this had come to.
Danzen had simply put off the inevitable.
There would come a day when he would die, and when that happened, a reckoning. To some, it would make sense for him to follow in his father’s footsteps, to seek the throne, especially with the enemies he had waiting for him in Diyu. But Danzen had other plans, and to accomplish those plans, he needed to go home.
“Not what I expected,” Jelmay said as he slowly shook his head, “but at least she’s dead. Check one more off the list, am I right?”
Danzen didn’t respond.
“Welp, I don’t know about the three of you, but I could use a good night’s rest and perhaps a little gambling before I lay my head down. Anyone care to join me?”
“I will need to stay here to deal with the bodies,” Danzen said.
“Sky burial like the others?” Kudzu asked, referring to Tensei and the Witch of Diyu.
“Yes.”
“I’ll stay and help,” she said. “Don’t be out too late, Jelmay. I am guessing we have plans for tomorrow.”
“I know, I know. Lady Pilgrim?” The bakeneko turned to the younger assassin. “What do you say? I’ll buy you a drink or three. You were my good luck charm last time, if you recall…”
“Are you insane? Last time, we had to…” Yato motioned toward the entrance to the underground passage. “Need I remind you?”
“Heh, I guess you’re right,” Jelmay said. “Fine, I’ll stay with the three of you. But we are drinking something after this, all four of us, even if it’s back in our rooms at the inn like a bunch of losers. I’m not going to lie: intoxication is about the only way I can think of to put whatever the hell happened here behind us.”
Part Eight
.Chapter One.
It was several days later that Danzen and his companions reached the sprawling riverside city of Arsi, where they headed straight to the wharf. They had ended up staying in Odval a day longer than expected, mostly to catch their breath, but also to allow Jelmay a little time to recoup their funds, which he had certainly done, the bakeneko on a winning streak that had even surprised Kudzu.
As always, it became time to move on, and while Danzen was certain that Jelmay could find something to get into gambling-wise in Arsi, they had arrived just an hour or so before the last ship aimed at Genshin Valley was set to sail, and they needed to move on.
Once again, Jelmay negotiated them into the biggest room available, Kudzu immediately opting for herbal sleeping aids as soon as they were led to their room. “I’ll see you all in two days,” she said after taking some of the medicine and claiming a bed.
“Suit yourself,” Jelmay told her, “but you’re going to be missing out. We have earned the feast that we’re going to have tonight. Or at least I have, considering I did all the winning of the kip. Maybe the smell will wake you up.”
“Maybe.”
“And you did so without cheating,” Yato chimed in. “I’m proud of you, Jelmay.”
“What can I say? A little bit of Sunyata’s glorious grace seemed to find its way onto my dice, especially with you nearby, Lady Pilgrim. I told her she was a good luck charm,” he said to anyone that was still listening to him. Jelmay plopped down onto his chair and stopped morphing into his cat form once he heard a knock at the door. “I probably should have ordered food first.”
While Danzen unpacked some of his gear, Jelmay briefly conversed with the crewmember, the bakeneko more than satisfied by the time he returned to the table, where he motioned for Yato to join him.
“And just like that, things are looking up for our little team. All it takes is a little bit of luck, and I suppose, not being hunted by your ex-girlfriend or some lady whose father you killed a couple years back, or for that matter, some poisonous psycho witch. I know you said something about this earlier, but with Sumi dead, does that mean the contract on your head is also nullified? If not, what’s the point in all this?”
“There may be a contingency in the contract that puts more funds toward my capture or death if she goes missing. I don’t know. I haven’t seen the contract.”
“Bah! That’s how they get you, you know, in the fine print. Everyone knows that. I’m guessing the Brotherhood has a team of scribes that excel in making sure they reap the maximum benefits from these contracts. Sound about right?”
