Pilgrim 2, p.6
Pilgrim 2, page 6
“We’re finishing this today,” Danzen said with finality.
.Chapter Four.
The sugawara overcoat they had crafted was much heavier than Danzen Ravja would have liked. He was going to have to limit his movement more than he expected, which was something he noticed once they started their hike into the mountains in search of the crescent-shaped peak.
There was still daylight left, but the three would need to find shelter in a couple hours unless they made it back to Osul in time. It was certainly too far to travel to his monastery.
The belt with Danzen’s scabbard affixed to it wasn’t big enough to go around his waist while wearing the electric-proof overcoat, meaning he had to keep the front open for the time being, just in case he needed to draw his weapon. Once they got closer to the peak, Danzen would button it up and keep his sword at the ready.
It was possible to strap his glaive to his back considering its belt went across his chest, but with the overcoat currently open, this was also something he had avoided, the pole arm of the weapon sticking out of the back collar of his rubbery armor.
“You and your revenge missions,” Jelmay grumbled after they’d climbed for a while, the cat breathless now, his hands on his knees as he bent forward. “I wish my species sweat better.”
“This is to help all of us,” Kudzu said.
“All of us? The sugawara didn’t attack me. I’m perfectly safe in my humblest of humble abodes at the base of your monastery.”
“But it attacked me,” she reminded him. “Don’t you care about my well-being?”
Jelmay looked up at her, his droopy whiskers standing to attention for a moment. “I suppose I shouldn’t, but… Alas, I am a weak bakeneko in my old age and I have found myself fond of you, my dear fox friend, which is why I plan to wine and dine you and our assassin over here once we head west on his next revenge mission.”
“Are you trying to impress me?” she asked.
“Trying? I thought I already impressed you.”
Danzen continued on, and was the first to spot the crescent-shaped rock after thirty more minutes of walking. There was a small gully between their current position and the rock, but they were almost there, and there looked to be a flat space on top of the rock which would serve as a perfect meeting ground.
“I see it,” Jelmay said as he followed Danzen’s gaze. “You’ve got a knack for this, Pilgrim, you really do. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“I’ve hunted people for most of my life.”
“What’s assassin training like anyway? I figured you guys just spar all day.”
Danzen shook his head. “There is some of that, but most fights are defined by their randomness and suddenness. The best way to strike is swiftly, to prevent any prolonged battle. I have failed at this before,” he said, recalling what happened two years ago when he had not put his full effort into killing Palmo Mipham, how Danzen had been forced to jump to the nearby hamlet with the man’s daughter, Sumi, regroup, and then return to the fight.
It was a disaster.
He generally didn’t botch his attempts, but his heart hadn’t been in that last one, and Norwin Dawa’s sudden appearance had only amplified an already-terrible situation.
“But you can train for that kind of stuff,” Jelmay told him. “For randomness.”
Danzen stopped. “No, no you can’t.”
The cat turned back to him, a curious look coming over his face. “What do you mean? If you can’t train for sudden randomness, what’s the point of learning how to kill anyway?”
“When you train, you train for specific scenarios. You practice counter moves, attacks, and even ways to subvert the expected by having some of the trainees act as bodyguards, you as an assassin, or the other way around. You practice stealth, you practice using your environment and taking advantage of an opponent’s weaknesses. But once you are in the field, there are variables. The best training we had was in the field, it was going out with more experienced members of the Brotherhood. Observing, sometimes taking part, hands-on learning. That is the only way.”
Rather than continue his explanation, Danzen pressed on.
Once he reached the bottom of the gully, he prepared for the upcoming battle by removing his overcoat so he could retrieve his Blade of Darkness.
Jelmay reached him, offering to hold Astra while Danzen affixed his Blade of Darkness to his back, over his additional armor. Danzen obliged, and once he was ready, he took the unsheathed sword from Jelmay, leaving his satchel and Astra’s sheath on the ground for now. He could grab them on their way back.
“And it always comes back to you?”
He nodded.
“Unless it gets stuck in something,” Kudzu said, the white fox sitting on a stone, her tail slightly curled.
“How do you stop your boomerang sword from cutting you when it comes back?”
“Astra knows better.”
They were at the point now that they needed to be quiet, Danzen crouching just a bit as he moved to the side of the gully that had some shadow cutting across it. His hood over his head, the former assassin made his way up the incline and found a rocky path, which looked like it would lead up to the flat surface on top of the crescent rock.
He expected anything now, and he was hardly surprised to see a cloud darkening above them, the demonic yokai surely aware of their presence.
A lightning bolt struck the ground in front of Danzen, one of the sugawara’s henchmen appearing. He drove his blade through the being’s stomach before it could engage him, the creature with its charred face and crude mask letting out a gasp as Danzen tossed it aside.
He withdrew his Blade of Darkness just as another one appeared.
Danzen sent an arc of shadow forward, which cut through the sugawara’s armor, blood spewing out of the yokai’s shoulder. Danzen kicked it to the side and continued.
He currently fought on an incline, which was certainly to his disadvantage. To improve his odds, Danzen simply shot into the air, sending his power into his legs and landing on the flat space on top of the crescent-shaped rock.
It was there he found his true opponent, the original sugawara two heads taller than its numerous offspring.
The creature wore close-fitting armor made from the same material as Danzen’s, yet with spikes jutting off its forearms and its shoulders. Red eyes glowed beneath the demonic yokai’s helmet, which was forged from a metal that carried a dark sheen to it.
It didn’t say anything, and neither did Danzen.
The sugawara simply stretched its arm out, a bolt of lightning striking its hand, forming a staff with bright energy swirling up and down its shaft. Danzen recognized the energy almost immediately; he could feel it, it called to him in a way that he had noticed before once his hellspawns were unleashed.
There was something demonic about the power the sugawara had summoned.
Everything grew darker, the former assassin no longer paying any attention to his periphery as he prepared for the inevitable battle.
The bolt of lightning that hit him next nearly tossed him over the ledge, Danzen able to get his footing and shoot forward, where he met the sugawara’s staff with his Blade of Darkness. The lightning had caused his weapon’s shadow enhancements to dissipate. While he knew he had added force with his glaive, not being able to enhance the power or the augmented trajectory of his strike made the weapon less useful to him.
With this in mind, he sheathed his Blade of Darkness, both hands coming onto his famed sword as another bolt of lightning struck the rock platform, bolts crackling all around him.
Danzen took to the air again, hoping to send Astra down from the high ground. A searing bolt of lightning hit him just as he left the surface of the rock, the jolt slamming him down, Danzen worried for a moment that he had cut his arm.
He let out a deep breath when he saw otherwise.
Not only had the overcoat protected him from most of the effects of the lightning, but it also had acted as a second skin, preventing any abrasions. Almost out of desperation, and from a prone position, he sent Astra forward, his blade cast aside by the sugawara’s quick movement.
Danzen had fought plenty of his own demons before, but he had never gone against one that he hadn’t conjured himself, the sugawara much stronger than he had anticipated.
Gritting his teeth now, he realized that he had not only lost any element of surprise, but he was actually losing the fight. This point solidified when another bolt of lightning struck him, slamming Danzen back to the ground.
The former assassin rolled to the side and pressed back to his feet, charging forward now, hoping to bring the sugawara down at close range. His sword met the sugawara’s staff, Danzen swinging it with both hands, focused entirely on overpowering the demonic yokai, on creating an opening for him to exploit.
He parried the sugawara’s next attack, and feigned a strike that caused the sugawara to step to his left, Danzen coming around from the right and cutting his blade into the creature’s side.
Its armor was malleable like a thickened leather, but Astra was sharp enough to break through the second skin. Unfortunately, it wasn’t sharp enough to cut any deeper than that, the sugawara slamming his palm into Danzen’s chest, a crack of lightning flinging him backward.
Danzen went over the ledge this time and landed on the rocky path below, the wind knocked out of him.
He blinked a few times and looked up at the sky, once again mentally scanning his body for any abrasions. The overcoat had protected him, Danzen able to eventually get back to his feet, only to be struck by yet another bolt of lightning.
He started to slip and fell backward into the gully.
Angered at his own clumsiness, Danzen pressed himself up to his feet just as the sugawara appeared before him, lightning lifting up from the ground all around the demonic yokai.
Danzen was seconds from sending his sword forward again when a rock struck the sugawara in the side of the head.
This caused the demonic yokai to stumble to the right, the sugawara glancing to see Jelmay and Kudzu. The bakeneko stood at the top of the gully in front of the white fox, a defiant look in his eyes.
Knowing that a lightning bolt could potentially kill one of them instilled a sense of urgency within Danzen. He loosed Astra in the direction of the sugawara, also withdrawing his Blade of Darkness again.
Astra hit its mark this time, the sword going through the demonic yokai’s neck, the creature coughing on its own blood for a moment as Danzen spun twice, using all his strength to swing his Blade of Darkness at the yokai.
His glaive struck the demonic yokai in the chest, the lightning all around the yokai fizzling away.
Astra back in his hand now, Danzen approached the sugawara, who was lying on its back, trying to push itself up as dark blood gushed from its throat. Its glowing red eyes locked on Danzen, even as another bolt of lightning struck the former assassin.
“He will come for you,” the sugawara gasped, blood spraying from its mouth. “He will come for you…”
With those words, and the encouragement of a final strike by the former assassin, the sugawara turned its head to the side and died.
****
Not much was said on their way back to Osul.
It was starting to get darker, and Kudzu desperately wanted to reach the village before nightfall. This left her running ahead, Danzen keeping up with her, Jelmay making up the rear and forced to move to all fours, his sword and shield clanking against his body.
They reached the village, Kudzu and Danzen waiting a good ten minutes for Jelmay to finally catch up with them.
“We should have just stayed in the mountains,” said Jelmay, breathless now. “I’m sure that the sugawara had a hut or something he was sleeping in and a bed.”
“That sounds like a terrible idea.”
“It’s not so bad,” Jelmay told Kudzu. “Just because he was our enemy doesn’t mean that he didn’t have a nice home. Some of the best places I’ve ever slept were in the homes of my enemies. Of course, I killed them first. Whew. That was quite the run. Hold on.” He exhaled deeply and wiped his whiskers. “Better. Anyway, as I was saying, nothing worse than getting caught in your enemy’s home asleep. I’ve had that happen as well. While they were alive, if that wasn’t clear.”
“I’m prepared to stay here tonight,” said Danzen, still wearing the armor he had crafted because it was too big to fit in his bag alongside the sugawara’s helmet and the hihi’s horns.
“We can always go bother your friend, Kakikiki or whatever her name is.”
“Kikikaki,” Kudzu said.
“What a name, almost as bad as ‘hihi.’ But first, before we do anything like that, and even before we get dinner because I’ve eaten all the meat I had earlier, we need to go talk to Usagi. We got the horns, and now the little rabbit bastard owes us.”
As it had been every time he’d visited, the village of Osul was quiet, eerily so, Danzen following Kudzu and Jelmay up the rock path, where they came to Usagi’s home.
“Come on out, rabbit, we have your damn hihi.”
“Must you announce yourself like that?” Usagi asked Jelmay as he hopped out of his place, the small jade rabbit glowering up at the bakeneko.
“You should have been waiting for us. We told you that we would come back.”
“Your promises haven’t meant anything to me for quite some time.”
“If this is about your brother again, we’ve already had this conversation. It was, at the very most, twenty-percent my fault that he died. And I’m being gracious with that estimate. Now, I’m getting hungry, and you're starting to look more and more edible,” Jelmay told him. “Pilgrim, the horns.”
Danzen reached into his bag and retrieved the horns that they had cut off the hihi.
“You even get a bonus,” Jelmay informed the jade rabbit. “We brought you a little bit of hihi skull as well. Just in case you are wondering, we also got the helmet of a sugawara, but that’s for someone else.”
The jade rabbit looked at Danzen with wonder. “You killed both of them?”
“One was for you, the other was personal,” Danzen told him.
“We will need a place to stay for the night,” Kudzu said. “I don’t believe it’s safe to travel in the forest any later than now, and…”
“You’ll be safe with me,” Usagi told her assuredly.
“That’s right,” Jelmay said. “Your power. How could I forget about that? I swear I’m suffering from memory loss over here.”
“Your power?” Kudzu asked Usagi.
“It’s why no one can ever find him and the reason he’s so rare, at least to humans,” Jelmay said. “He can turn himself invisible, and he has a sphere of influence as well, which he can cast on us. Isn’t that right, Usagi?”
“It isn’t wrong.”
“Then we could reach the village tonight?” Danzen asked.
“We certainly could,” the jade rabbit told him.
“But before we do any of that,” Jelmay said, “we need to eat. We haven’t eaten all day. I’m simply famished.”
“You said yourself you’ve been eating all day.”
“That may be true, Kudzu, but that doesn’t really count as a meal now does it?”
“I think you’ll be fine,” the jade rabbit said with a sneer. “You’re overweight as it is.”
“Don’t test me, Usagi. There must be some food around here.”
“I have some fruit.”
“I’m craving meat.”
“If we get back to the village now, we can get food there,” Danzen suggested.
“Or, you can drop me off at the monastery, because I’m not going to the village,” said Kudzu, “and you can get your meat at your home,” she told Jelmay.
“I do have a lot of meat there. Not quite jerky yet, but it’ll do…” As if on command, Jelmay’s stomach grumbled. “Do you hear that? Would you really let someone like me suffer?”
“You’ll be fine,” Usagi told him. “We leave now.”
The rabbit hopped ahead, leaving the horns and bit of skull on the ground in front of his home.
“After all that trouble, you’re just going to leave it there?” Jelmay asked him.
“It’s for a friend. They know that it’s there now, and they can get it after we leave. I’m not going to be able to hop all the way to the village and keep up with the three of you.”
“Rabbits can move quite fast,” Kudzu told him.
“I’d rather be carried.” The rabbit looked up at Danzen. “Put me in your bag, Pilgrim.”
“I never thought of you as a dirty little bag rabbit, but sure, get carried back to the village for all I care,” Jelmay told Usagi. “As long as we get some food.”
Danzen did as instructed, positioning his satchel so that the rabbit could see out of its flap. “Good. The two of you stay close to him. If you go too far, I won’t be able to make you invisible.”
“I’ll lead the way,” Kudzu said, trotting just a few paces ahead.
Danzen began following her, Kudzu moving much slower than she normally did, Jelmay at the rear.
They left the village and headed straight into the woods, Danzen relying completely on Kudzu’s white form to guide him.
He didn’t say anything as he walked, now used to the heavy overcoat he was wearing, and the additional warmth that it was providing as the temperature dropped. Preparing for something he knew was to come, Danzen tested his own power of inner cognition again, the former assassin closing his eyes and seeing Kudzu’s outline, as well as the outline of parts of the forest.
Occasionally, he made a mistake and got his foot caught in a root, or stepped incorrectly on a rock, but he got better at it, Danzen glad that all of them were quiet for once.
Movement to his right caused him to pause, his hand going to the hilt of his boomerang sword.
“We are not here to engage anything,” Usagi said softly, his voice causing Danzen to relax to some degree. “Let’s just get to the village.”
