Pilgrim 3, p.4
Pilgrim 3, page 4
The only thing that Danzen didn’t notice was the three-legged raven perched on a mangled tree branch above them. It hopped to a different branch and took to the sky soon after, ready to report back.
“Here we go again,” Jelmay said with a grunt that was meant to swallow his pride. “Just follow my lead.”
Kudzu couldn’t help but laugh at the statement.
“What? I’m a leader.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Danzen and his companions didn’t take more than two or three steps to the village when the shear-headed yokai named Monobake hopped down from one of the rocks, his arms crossed over his chest, a defiant look in his eyes. Danzen recalled when he’d been instructed by Usagi to collect the yokai’s shears, and how this had led to an encounter with a giant eight-headed water serpent named Idzuma, and how they later befriended her.
The salmon-colored yokai snapped his beak at the three of them. “Leave.”
“You’re not seriously trying to intimidate us, are you?” Jelmay asked.
“You took advantage of me!”
“Everyone takes advantage of you; you’re an idiot.” The bakeneko took a step forward, his claws pressing out of his paws. “I hate to say this, but anyone in their right mind would go out of their way to take advantage of you,” he said, referring to a time in which he had conned Monobake and Usagi. “And I mean that in the nicest way possible. It’s just common sense.”
Monobake tensed his shoulders. “Usagi told me what you did!”
“Did he tell you that he’s the one who told us to ‘handle’ the demon bear? How would you interpret that?”
“I would have handled it by being polite. Ever thought of that tactic? She was a friend of mine!”
“Pfft! Some friend. She attacked us, and we had to fight back. I’m not going to say that I had any part in the fighting,” Jelmay said, his tone of voice changing, “I would point that finger squarely at Pilgrim over here. After all, he’s the one that used to be an assassin.”
“Don’t blame him for this,” Kudzu said.
“Is it true? You’re the one that killed her?” Monobake asked Danzen, the scissors on his head slowly pressing away from one another.
“Yes.”
“That’s it? A one-word answer!? Not even an apology? You… you skinned her!”
“As bad as all that sounds, it’s really not our fault,” Jelmay started to say. “And I only skinned her because—”
“—They’re never going to apologize!” Usagi appeared a few feet above them, the jade rabbit perched on a rock and glaring down at the group, his ears flitted back.
“Ah, just who we were looking to see,” Jelmay told him, a big smile on his face.
“You may think you’re so strong,” Monobake told Danzen, “but there are dozens upon dozens of yokai watching you right now. We could all attack at once, you know. Let’s see if you could hold all of us off at the same time, demon.”
Rather than respond, Danzen slowly withdrew his Blade of Darkness, shadows pooling at the tip.
“So you told him everything that happened in Diyu?” Jelmay asked Usagi, referring to Monobake’s ‘demon’ comment. “You sure like to blab a lot.”
“Of course I told him!” Usagi shouted down at him. “Monobake is a friend of mine. Sure, we may have had a few minor falling outs in the past, but we are cordial now.”
“That’s right,” Monobake said with a nod. This caused the shears on his forehead to snip together. “We’ve settled our differences. You better not be threatening me with that weapon, Pilgrim!”
“You’re on thin ice,” Usagi called down to them. “All of you are. All it takes is for me to sound the alarm and the entire forest will be against you, just think about that. So even if you make it out of here alive, you’ll have to fight your way back.”
Danzen put his glaive away and looked up at the rabbit. “We are merely here to talk to you,” he said after a long pause, one in which Kudzu had started to growl. “Something has come up.”
“Something has come up…” Usagi shook his head, agitation filling his eyes. “You only come to me when you need something!”
“This affects all of us,” Jelmay said, his voice more serious than it was just moments ago.
Usagi scoffed at this remark. “I highly doubt that is the case.”
“Don’t believe me?” Jelmay stuck his hand into the front pocket of his vest and procured the piece of fabric that he had used to mop up some of the residue back at Pancha and Suren’s home.
“What… what’s that supposed to be? A flag of defeat?” Usagi sneered. “Because if so, you’ve chosen the wrong color.”
“Take this up to your master,” Jelmay told Monobake. “I’m pretty sure he’ll know what it is.”
“He’s not my master…”
“Bring it here now!” Usagi snapped down to him. Monobake came forward and took the swath of fabric from Jelmay. He then circled around to the natural stone steps and took them to the top, where he crouched in front of the jade rabbit.
“I wanted to be sure,” Jelmay said as Usagi’s ears twitched with alarm.
“It… it can’t be…” Usagi disappeared from the ledge he had been perched on and made his way down the stone steps.
“Was I right?” Jelmay asked as Usagi approached them. “Is it what I feared?”
A grave look came over the jade rabbit’s face. “Alas, it appears as if the yamachichi are back.”
Jelmay bit his lip. “I really was hoping I was wrong.”
****
There wasn’t any information on the yamachichi in Danzen’s field diary, meaning that the former abbot of the monastery either had never encountered it, or he had never written the details down. Danzen did possess two volumes dedicated to yokai, The Night Parade of Genshin Valley Yokai, and The Hour of Meeting, but he didn’t have them on his person, which meant he was going to have to rely on whatever Jelmay or Usagi had to say about the yokai. And they certainly had a lot on their minds about the yamachichi.
It was as if the two hadn’t been at each other’s throats just moments ago, Usagi weighing an idea, while Jelmay paced back and forth. Monobake seemed to know what the yamachichi was as well, the scissored yokai still with his arms crossed over his chest as he listened to them talk. Kudzu sat on her haunches next to Danzen, watching the three of them discuss the yamachichi with an annoyed look on her face. They still hadn’t explained what the yokai was exactly, which was something that she had reminded them twice now, the white fox mumbling to herself that they were ignoring her.
“We will need to find its nest,” Usagi surmised, “and destroy it. We will have to kill all of them as well.”
“Handle them, or kill them?” Jelmay asked.
“You know damn well what I mean,” Usagi spat. “The yamachichi pose a threat to humans and yokai. It has been hundreds of years since they have made their presence known.”
“I have never heard of them,” Kudzu said, even louder this time. “Would someone mind telling me what they are?”
“Deal with her,” Usagi said, motioning Monobake toward the white fox, a gesture which caused Kudzu to growl.
As Jelmay and the jade rabbit discussed strategy, Monobake approached Kudzu and Danzen. “Yamachichi are bats that once transformed into what’s known as a nobusuma, and after many years, have changed forms again into yamachichi. Normally, they die during this process, but there have been occasions where two of them have met and been able to procreate, to start a hive. For six people to be dead in one night, we believe that there is a hive of yamachichi around.”
“So they are bats?”
“They look more like monkeys with long lips, bat faces. They feed on sleeping victims by sucking their breath out of their mouths and killing them in the process. They procreate rapidly, so if there is a hive, that means they are able to spawn more. They will stick to their hive, however, which is what those two are currently discussing, how to deal with it.”
“Do you know where this hive is?” Kudzu asked.
Monobake looked at her as if she were crazy. “Why would I know something like that?”
“You seem to know a lot about them.”
“I can’t keep track of all the yokai in these woods! I try to stick to just the ones that would harm me.”
“It sounds like the yamachichi would harm you,” Kudzu reminded Monobake.
“Not if we kill them first.”
“All right, everyone,” Jelmay said as he turned to Danzen and Kudzu, the pudgy cat rubbing his paws together. “We have a plan, and I think it’s going to work. Although I don’t like certain aspects of it.”
“Don’t be a dandelion,” Usagi moaned.
“I’m not a dandelion; I’m more of a…” Jelmay thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know what flower I am, but it’s not a dandelion. And who would like your plan, anyway? Who wants to become the bait?”
“You will be the perfect bait with your morphing capabilities,” Usagi assured him.
“Kudzu can morph as well.”
“I don’t even know what your plan is yet,” she told the two of them.
“It’s not very complicated, but it is going to get dirty very quickly.” Usagi hopped over to Danzen and Kudzu and sized the two of them up, the tiny rabbit puffing his chest out as he looked them over. “You’re going to have to kill all the yamachichi that are alive, and destroy their hive. It’s going to require a lot of bloodshed and some explosions to finish them off for good.”
“…Explosions?” Kudzu asked.
“Don’t you worry about that part. I’ve already given Jelmay the instructions. Stick with him, and he will get our little problem sorted out, at least I hope you will,” Usagi said, turning to glare at Jelmay.
“I don’t like your look.”
“I don’t like your look either, but do this for me, and we can talk about forgiveness for what you did to the onikuma.”
“If this demon bear was such a good friend of yours, why don’t you call her by her name?” Jelmay asked the rabbit. “Oh yeah? Is it because she wasn’t a good friend of yours and you just wanted to humiliate me? You told us to handle it, and we—”
“Her name was Madah, and she was a dear friend of mine,” Monobake cried, the shears on his forehead snapping together again.
“I still fail to see how a little guy like you could be friends with something that large. She could finish you off as a pre-hibernation meal,” Jelmay said, “easy.”
“She would do no such thing!”
“What do you want to do next?” Danzen asked, growing tired of hearing the yokai bicker. It seemed as if the last twenty-four hours of his life had been fueled by arguing yokai.
“Right, I’ll leave the two of you to it,” Usagi said as he turned away from Danzen and Kudzu, the jade rabbit purposefully kicking up some dust, his puffy white tail suddenly erect. He headed up the stone steps to his hovel, Monobake joining him, the shear-headed yokai giving Jelmay one final dirty look before he departed.
“I don’t know why…” Kudzu shook her head as she looked up to the top of the rocks. “I really don’t know why we keep associating ourselves with him.”
“I say we eat them after this,” Jelmay told her in a low voice. “There are other yokai in these woods that are knowledgeable. Some of them may not be as accessible as Usagi, but we would certainly have to deal with less drama. Let’s go.” He motioned for them to follow him. They reached the outskirts of Osul, and once they did, the bakeneko began scanning the trees. Danzen could hear the water from a nearby brook growing in strength with all the monsoon rains, the snowmelt from the mountains feeding it as well.
It was shaping up to be a nice afternoon.
“The first thing we need…” Jelmay spotted a thorned bush and quickly went over to it. He pulled out of the ground, and showed Danzen and Kudzu its roots. “This is it, and it should be plenty. Satorikai root and the leaves of a tobikura tree.” The bakeneko looked up at the canopy. “We have the root now, but that second one’s going to be a bit harder to get. Those particular leaves only grow above the tops of the trees, but I’m guessing that’s something we can handle. You wouldn’t mind doing a little jumping for us, would you?” he asked Danzen.
To make things easier, Danzen set his satchel on the ground, as well as his Blade of Darkness. “What should I be looking for?” he asked once he was ready.
“Luckily for us, we don’t have to go very far to get the next ingredient.” Jelmay broke a section off the satorikai root. “But it’s still going to be a little challenging to get the exact leaves we need. I’ve seen them before. They are almost a neon green, much brighter than any of the other leaves around. It may take you several trips up to the top, but the trees are all around,” he said, motioning toward a few of the trunks, “so it shouldn’t be very hard. We will need a lot of the leaves. It’s probably best for you just to cut some of the branches down and bring them with you.”
Danzen placed Astra on the ground as well, next to his sheathed Blade of Darkness. This left him with Nomin’s short sword. He withdrew it from its scabbard and looked up at the sky.
“Bright-green leaves?” he asked again.
“You can’t miss them,” Jelmay assured him.
Danzen sent all his power into his feet and soon, he was moving vertically, the former assassin springboarding off an enormous branch and breaking through to the top of the canopy. He landed on a thick branch and placed his free hand on its trunk, where he began scanning the area for the bright-green leaves.
Jelmay was right. They really were hard to miss now that he knew what to look for. Figuring he would try to stay as high as he could rather than move up and down, which would potentially prevent him from getting scraped by a stray branch, Danzen moved as carefully as he could to the first grouping of the neon-green leaves. He used Nomin’s blade to cut them from a branch and dropped it through to the forest floor.
“Got it!” Jelmay called up to him.
Scanning the area once again, Danzen saw another bunch of the bright leaves and cut them as well. He dropped these to the ground and waited for confirmation before moving on.
Once Danzen was finished collecting leaves, he hopped back down to the forest floor to find Jelmay holding several bunches of leaves in his paws and fluttering them at his sides as if he were a bird, Kudzu laughing at him.
Danzen smiled. It was nice to see the two getting along for once. “What now?” he asked.
“Now we go back to Pancha’s place,” Jelmay said. “We need to make the mixture, and prepare for the night. I hope they taught you how to track your prey back at your assassin school, because that’s the plan. But before we do any of that, we are going to Sarnai’s for dinner. I’m serious here, Kudzu. Don’t you dare get between a bakeneko and his future meal. Not this time, dammit.”
****
A fierce wind did little to stop Danzen and his two yokai companions from reaching Suja Village in record time. For once, Jelmay kept up with their pace, the bakeneko clearly motivated by the forthcoming meal. Rather than go to Pancha’s place directly, they went to the home that Khamdo and Sarnai shared with their baby, Leegan. Danzen could smell food from outside the front door, and he realized at that point that he too was hungry, that he hadn’t eaten all day. With a quick knock, Sarnai came and let them in, her face red from cooking, her hair swept back and held to her head by a bandanna that had been tied around her skull.
“Please, come in,” she said.
They entered to find Khamdo seated at the table with his child in his arms, the carpenter looking up at them as they entered. Having stopped by Jelmay’s roadside home on the way to the village, Kudzu was in her human form, and Jelmay had once again taken the disguise of Dalan the hermit.
“What’s all that stuff?” the carpenter asked as he motioned to the burlap sack full of leaves and roots Jelmay had slung over his shoulder.
“We have to do a little bit of tracking tonight,” Kudzu explained as she sat. She looked over to Sarnai in the kitchen and immediately stood again, going to help her and quickly being shooed away, Sarnai traditional to the point that she didn’t want guests helping her serve other guests.
“So it is a yokai that killed those poor people?” Khamdo asked.
“It sure is,” said Jelmay in Dalan’s voice. “One called a yamachichi, believe it or not. Parasite, really.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s probably better that you don’t. Lock your doors tight tonight, and make sure all the window shutters are latched as well.”
Sarnai let out a frightened yelp at this statement.
“So there’s no way I can help?” Khamdo’s baby made a cooing sound and lifted her hands toward Danzen, as if she wanted him to hold her. He offered his child to the former assassin.
“Isn’t that sweet,” Jelmay teased as Danzen took the baby from the carpenter.
Danzen gazed at the child, a smile on her face, a bit of spittle on her lips, and got a glimpse of his reflection in her eyes. This troubled him, such an innocent creature staring into the soul of a stone-cold killer, one who wore the weight of his past as if it were a mask. He quickly handed the child back to Khamdo and sat next to Kudzu.
“It’s going to be quite a night,” Jelmay said, steering the conversation back to him.
“What do you have planned?” Khamdo asked.
“An old hermit never tells his secret,” said Jelmay. After wiping her hands on her apron, Sarnai came from the kitchen with enough food to feed a militia. She made several more trips, Jelmay practically drooling by the time she had finished placing the food on the table.
“And it goes without saying that I will be covering all of this,” Jelmay told her as he procured some kip.
“Not necessary.”
“I insist,” Jelmay placed a stack of cash on the table. “Your hospitality shows no bounds, and I’m a very hungry… man, I mean, hermit. Don’t worry, I have plenty of funds stashed away in the mountains.”
