War priest the complete.., p.85
War Priest: The Complete Series, page 85
“I’ll just take your word for it.”
“Good,” she told him as she guided Arik back to the shore, where the other itako had gathered. They all seemed quite interested in the gem she had retrieved, the group passing it around and commenting on its size. Once they returned it to her, the lead itako approached Arik, the disciple now standing on the shoreline, his legs and feet dripping wet. “Are you ready to learn how to use this?”
Arik nodded.
“What the kami said was right—anyone can find a soul gem in the lake here. But to activate it, and for it to actually work, are two very different things. First, the timing must be right. Not now,” she said, sweeping her hand to the sky, “just before dawn. The sun can’t be up yet, but it should have started to cast a rim of light on the horizon. Are you aware of the time I’m talking about? There is a very short window just before dawn.”
“I believe so, yes.”
“You are a disciple, and you are familiar with Revivaura. A Hidden Warrior took you as his student, meaning you’d be familiar with Chimaura and Thunderaura. Are you aware of Yokaura?”
“I am.”
“Are you aware of what it is?”
“I think.”
“Explain.”
Arik cleared his throat. “All three of the aspects of chi that humans have divided and learned to cultivate are, in fact, Yokaura. They are merely interpretations that focus on different, um, properties of how the chi is presented, Revivaura being water-like, Chimaura being smoke-like, and Thunderaura similar to lightning, electric-like.”
“Correct. Humans such as ourselves have figured out ways to specialize rather than seeing chi as a whole, for what it is, Yokaura. But Yokaura itself has a physical aspect that you may have missed. It is one of a heatless flame, and this is how kami, such as the one that has joined you, and the demonic one that you have fought here tonight, cultivate their power. It is not your Revivaura that the kami is feeding from when he is around you; it is your Yokaura, which your water-like Revivaura disguises. To activate the soul gem,” she said, handing Arik the piece, “all you need to do is summon the Yokaura within. It won’t take much, but it will still be hard, and it will still be something you can only do occasionally. That is the secret.”
“And if I’m able to do it?” Arik asked as he examined the stone.
“Your teacher will appear. He won’t be there long, but he will be there long enough for you to converse or even train with him. This is how itako pass on their tradition and powers to one another, through soul gems. But it takes the right kind of person to actually use Yokaura in the first place, and it may be something you aren’t able to do considering how long you have focused on just one aspect of chi. Yet it is worth a try, and once you are able to do so, you will be rewarded.”
****
Since Meosa was going to fly him around, as they had done earlier that day, it was best to travel at night. It was only after Meosa began to hover Arik that the disciple realized he hadn’t slept in quite a while. The Revivaura coursing through him had a rejuvenating aspect to it, but he also knew that if he pushed it too hard, he’d hit a wall and would need to rest.
Perhaps after they found Basha.
“Shouldn’t be difficult,” Meosa said, his voice all around Arik, the kami reading his mind as he often did. “The bag of bones will be visible if he’s in the region. I don’t know about you, my boy, but I’m glad to be done with the itako. Never did like them.”
“They aren’t that bad,” Arik said as he looked back to see the itako’s encampment. By this point, he was used to floating far above the ground. It no longer turned his stomach as it had in some of their earlier flights.
“I suppose not, but that’s no reason not to not like someone!” Meosa laughed at his own attempt at a joke. “Now, let’s find a giant skeleton.”
The kami raced ahead, Arik’s body naturally tilting forward. He traveled with his hands across his chest, which allowed him to use his elbows to secure his two swords as well as the Mask of the Fallen. His bag was securely on his back. And if he did happen to lose anything, he knew Meosa would be able to recover it.
The forests that sprouted around Mount Osore were too dark for Arik to really make out anything. Even so, Meosa seemed to have no problem scanning the area, Arik assuming that he could use an extension of his own watery power to literally comb the area. They traveled for some time, Meosa commenting occasionally as he came across large animals or a yokai. “Not Basha,” he’d say before they moved on.
Strange as it was, there was something relaxing about traveling this way. Soon, Arik found himself drifting off, his head dropping, his breaths growing deeper and deeper. He felt a buzz around him as they continued, everything murky for what felt like a few seconds. Once he awoke, he noticed a line of light on the horizon signaling that it was nearly morning.
“Awake again, I see. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“How long—?”
“About two hours.”
“And you still haven’t found him?”
“You’re in luck, my boy,” Meosa said as the two began to shift toward the mountain. “Basha is near, at the mouth of a cave that is mostly covered by the foliage. I just found him, actually, and was in the process of telling him that you were sleeping when you decided to join us. Hold on, disciple!”
This was the only warning Meosa gave Arik as he spiraled toward the ground. The two exploded through the tops of the trees and came to the opening of a rock shelter.
Arik only spotted Basha once he was on solid ground, the disciple’s head spinning for a moment as he got his bearings. The gashadokuro was seated with his bony knees up to his chest. He seemed to be contemplating something, but there was no way to tell due to his lack of facial features. Not only that, it was dark, just barely enough light coming through to allow Arik to see the skeletal yokai in the first place.
“Good to see you, disciple,” Basha said, his friendly voice booming as always.
Rather than stand there and stare up at the giant skeleton, Arik took a seat, a yawn naturally coming to him. “Sorry. It’s good to see you too.”
“The disciple just woke up.”
“Did he now?”
“He sure did, but I let him sleep. It’s been a pretty long day. Now, before we catch you up on what has happened since our well-orchestrated attack on Nobunaga’s camp, why are you here on the mountain? Why aren’t you back watching Sukitoma’s lake? We were attacked there, you know.”
“You were?” Basha asked Meosa.
“False shinobi. We’ve had to deal with them a few times now. But that’s beside the point. If you were there, we wouldn’t have been ambushed in the first place, not that I’m blaming you.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“I’m not,” Meosa assured the yokai. “We handled it. My question is why, Basha, why are you here? Weren’t you going to return to Sukitoma’s place? I thought that was the plan.”
“I’m here because they’re here.”
Arik took a look around, not quite sure of what the skeletal yokai was referring to.
“He’s going to make me ask who, isn’t he?” Meosa said under his breath. “Fine, I’ll bite. Who? Because who is here? And these better not be voices in your head. We’ve already dealt with that tonight.”
“Nobunaga’s men are that way,” Basha said as he nodded his bone chin to the south. “I spotted them just a few days ago. A large group of them too. Normally, I wouldn’t do anything, but they have prisoners.”
“And?”
“Prisoners?” Arik asked Basha before Meosa could continue. “Do you know where they’re from?”
“Not really. I can’t get that close to them without being discovered. I’ve been here tracking them though, deciding what I should do in the meantime.”
“What you should do?” asked Meosa. “You weren’t thinking of freeing those Crimsonian prisoners, were you?”
Basha shifted forward, and as he did Arik heard his bones crack. “Actually, I was planning to do something just like that. Now that you are here, freeing the prisoners will be even easier. I don’t think it would be too much trouble for me to attack the camp. What I’m worried about is scaring the prisoners once I have freed them. Humans don’t normally like seeing a skeleton such as myself. But with you,” he told Arik, “they’d probably understand that we were there to help them. What do you say, disciple? Will you join me?”
.Chapter Eight.
“Brace yourself. If the rumors were true, they wouldn’t be rumors.”
–Prince Tenzin of the Jade Realm upon meeting his fourth wife, Saranah, Year 792. Their marriage lasted for the rest of her life.
Arik wanted to get a good look at the Crimsonian prisoner caravan before they acted. To do so, he moved ahead, through the wooded pines, where he came to a natural embankment. He paused, and once Meosa, who was always present, gave him the go-ahead, Arik continued. Not far from them, Basha walked as quietly as he could, the trees high enough to provide coverage for the giant skeletal yokai.
“Just ahead, disciple,” Meosa told him. “I counted five prisoners and fifteen Crimsonian blades. I don’t know why they’ve decided to take what appears to be a small family and a useless old man prisoner, but that seems to be the case.”
Arik nodded.
“Blades, my boy. These aren’t false shinobi. They are the double-sworded kind, even wearing the red robes. The kind that cut your arm off not too long ago. Very bold, if you ask me, coming into the Jade Realm so brazenly. Nobunaga continues to laugh in the face of the laws of Taomoni.”
“Relay the message to Basha. I’ll attack first, you come in second, Basha third.”
“Taking all the glory for yourself again, huh? Let’s see how many blades you can take down before I come roaring in. It’s not as humid here as I would like, but it will take little to drown Nobunaga’s men. Good luck, disciple.”
With their conversation finished, Arik crawled over the embankment, keeping as low as possible to the ground now as he neared the camp. Not wanting his things to get in the way, he placed Hojo’s sword and his bags beneath a tree with vines that trailed down it, the vines covered in soft red flowers. In leaving his weapon behind, he was reminded of one of the last things Istvan said before departing, that Arik needed to train more.
I’ll just have to count this as training, he thought as he mentally prepared himself to assault the prisoner camp. It was a move that even a month ago he wouldn’t have fathomed doing, yet now, as he zeroed in on his breath, Arik concluded that the best element for what he planned to do—as was often the case—would be surprise. This was clearly the illusionist side of him. He’d let the Mask of the Fallen and the Whispering Sword, not to mention Meosa and Basha, handle the rest.
Arik drew his blade, yet he didn’t activate its whip-like power just yet. He approached a tree and crouched behind it, the camp now visible as Meosa came to him.
“Yes, yes, I know you said you’re going in first, but I’m going to help,” the kami whispered. “I’ll cause a distraction with their tents; at least a few of the Crimsonians will investigate. That’s when you come in. Wait for my signal.”
Arik did as instructed, his focus so strong now that he could sense the chi around him. It felt heavy in the air, Arik wondering if it had something to do with the proximity to Mount Osore. Meosa’s signal came a few minutes later accompanied by a loud rattling sound on the opposite side of the encampment, followed by the collapse of one of the tents.
It was time to act.
Arik blazed forward, the Mask of the Fallen now synced with his Whispering Sword. Using the red beam as a guide, Arik struck his first opponent in the back, taking the man off guard. The blades around him, two men and a woman, all drew their swords upon seeing the masked, conical-hat-wearing almost-shinobi slip out of the woods, Arik not skipping a beat as he launched into his opening attack. He wielded the Whispering Sword over his head, the whip blades skirting along the ground, more commotion now as other Crimsonians who’d been in the vicinity appeared on the periphery. Arik struck another would-be opponent through two fatal slashes across the front of the man’s chest. It wasn’t much longer before he was completely surrounded.
“Drop your weapon!” a woman screamed to him, the markings along the collar of her crimson robes telling Arik she was either the leader or one of the leaders of the group of guards.
“Ready for me yet?” Meosa asked so only Arik could hear him.
He nodded, and as he did a funnel of water exploded from beneath Arik’s feet, sending him to the other side of the group of blades at the same time as it began drowning several of them. Whipping his sword around again, Arik found that his strikes were now twice as strong, water rippling off the sharpened tip of his weapon as blood spritzed the air. His mask drew targets and Arik delivered strikes, yet even with Meosa’s help, fifteen Crimson blades was still a lot to handle.
All of this changed once Basha exploded from the forest, the skeletal yokai wielding a giant femur as if it were a bat. He smacked the first Crimsonian, the man dead from the impact before he could slam into a tree beyond. Basha struck another, and as a Crimsonian tried to flee between Basha’s legs, Arik got him in the back with the Whispering Sword.
Both hands on his weapon, Arik moved to address another blade who charged at him, the man flourishing both of his swords, as if he were drawing power from them. The electric shock that followed blew Arik backward. He recovered just as Meosa struck the man, swooped him up into the air, and deposited him on the ground several times, killing him.
That had to be a Thunderaura attack, Arik thought as the next blade moved to address him.
Arik blocked the man’s first attempt, his sword now in its base form. The Whispering Sword came alive again, and following his mask’s guidance, Arik twisted it through the side of the man’s body and out from a space beneath his clavicle. Yet again, his next strikes were augmented by Meosa as he moved in to address the final Crimsonian blades.
There was a hint of confidence in the relief Arik felt as soon as he brought down the last Crimsonian, but he knew not to give it too much power. They had gotten lucky; it had been an ambush, and not only that, Basha was on their side. In a future fight, one without a giant skeleton, things could get dicier, especially with Arik tasked with healing his companions if they were injured in any way.
He lowered his weapon, and as he did, Arik looked ahead to the prisoners, all of whom were tied to one another. As Meosa had confirmed, there was what appeared to be a family all huddled together as well as an older man in a large cloak with a hood over it, his face obscured. “Let’s free them,” he told Meosa, Arik just on the verge of catching his breath.
“Lead the way, disciple.”
****
Arik approached the prisoners. The red line that connected his mask to the man closest to him reminded the disciple to remove it, to offer care if need be. Hojo wasn’t here, and while he wasn’t supposed to go around parading his powers, he highly doubted that anyone would seriously believe that a healing illusionist came out of the woods wielding a watery whip sword with assistance from a giant made of bones and had taken on a group of Crimsonian blades.
“Are any of you injured?” Arik asked the prisoners as he slipped the mask into the inner pocket of his robes. “I can heal you.”
“Heal us?” asked a man standing before his children, a boy and a girl. His wife was at the back of the group and looking the worst out of all four of them, her face bruised, hair matted to her forehead. Arik yet again spotted the older man beyond, who leaned against a cart that was attached to a pack mule, his face still shielded by his hood.
“Please, let me help,” Arik said again. “We aren’t going to hurt you. Not even him.” He motioned to Basha, who had since taken a knee. The young boy looked up at the skeletal yokai and started to cry.
“I can leave,” Basha said as Meosa’s form materialized into existence.
“No crying when I’m around,” the kami told the young boy. “I can’t stand the sound of humans crying. Yes, you are in the presence of a powerful kami, yes, this shinobi-looking fellow is asking you if you’d like to be healed, and yes, that is an enormous skeleton. It’s a yokai. One known as a gashadokuro. I’m sure you’re surprised, but now isn’t the time for any of that.”
“We’re here to help,” Arik told the man yet again. “I know that sounds strange, maybe even naive, but—”
“What he is trying to say is that not only are we here to help, we actually can help. But you don’t necessarily need to know why we’re here to help,” Meosa said. “I think that sums it up.” The little girl smiled at him. “See? She gets it. Watch this.” Meosa’s form began to morph until he looked like a giant cat. He approached the girl, who reached her hand out to it. She pressed her fingers through the water and looked back to her mother, who was bound, same as her father and the older man.
“Let’s deal with the ropes, then I can heal whoever needs healing,” Arik said as he produced a kunai from his boot. He approached the man and cut his ropes away. The man lifted his daughter as soon as he was able, and kept her at arm’s distance from Meosa as Arik freed the woman. The woman had bruises running across her neck and scrape marks under her eyes. Upon further examination, Arik saw that the rope used to tie her wrists had turned her skin almost black. “I’ll be right back,” Arik told her as he turned to the older man, who finally shifted his head up to reveal the bottom of his face as he spoke.
