by ZV Hunter
What had I done wrong?
Why hadn't it worked?
I'd studied for this. Trained for this, and I failed?
How?
The sword's ash stained my hands, and behind me the Mukade let out a dangerous chuckle. "I told you a child couldn't best me."
A knot of dread filled my stomach and my heart fell somewhere between my knees. Terror rushed up my spine. I had to move. Get out of the circle before this thing finished me off.
My knees scraped against the floor and smudged the chalk beneath it. Sharp legs grabbed at me, and I rolled on my back and kicked with all my might. I hit a solid wall of insect armor, and it crinkled sickly under my feet.
The incisors opened over me, dripping next to my face and scorching my hair and the wood beneath. If that poison touched me it'd burn like acid. And if it got into my veins, I'd die.
"Yuki," three voices cried just out of sync with each other.
I scooted back.
What would my mother say if I met her in Yomi-no-kuni so soon after she died? I'd be the biggest disappointment in the Land of the Dead, for one.
Mimi let out a war cry and a flame brushed precariously close to my face. The Mukade skittered backwards, and I did the same.
She held one of the large candle stands we'd placed in the corners of the room. It was at least half as tall as she stood and made of heavy iron—perfect to fight a Calamity like this one. Even if she couldn't see the damn thing.
They hated iron, and it was one of the only non-magical ways to harm them. But, like the sword, prolonged exposure to Makai and Yomi power eroded iron until it was useless.
Still, we had three Shrine Maidens who all utilized Ame power. We might not be able to make my weapon, but at least we could beat this monster.
"Careful not to burn the Shrine down," I said and moved out of the circle. It no longer glowed. No longer had the power to hold the Calamity in place. "It takes up the whole circle. Don't let it get out."
"I know," Mimi said and her hands shook as she swung at the Mukade a second time.
Rika and Aki grabbed the candle stands nearest them, and I charged for the last.
Fire was the perfect way to destroy a Mukade. In the Legend of Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, the God of the Moon, he bested the Mukade that swarmed in Yomi-no-kuni with a sword of fire in order to steal his lover back from Izanami-no-Mikoto, the Goddess of Death.
I grabbed the candle stand and turned.
My friends surrounded the Calamity and they blindly prodded it with flames.
It writhed and screeched, the scent of burning filled the room and I coughed.
"We need a Vessel," Aki cried.
We didn't store extra Spirit Vessels in the main Shrine. Those were kept in one of the storehouses. That meant someone had to leave. Not a good idea. It gave the Mukade a chance to escape, and these never left anything but a trail of poison and death in their wake.
The Mukade turned from each of us snipping and hissing as the flames prodded its shell.
"Do you think human fire can harm me?"
I shrugged. "Seems like it's working."
"Bit tough for someone who's surrounded," Rika sneered.
It turned toward Mimi, and she swung at its head and missed. The flame flickered out, and her eyes widened. She looked around wildly but saw nothing, though it loomed right in front of her.
"Go!" I cried and charged toward it.
The flame cut through several of the legs, and they sizzled and fell on the floor to twitch and crawl of their own volition.
"I'll get the Vessel," Mimi said and turned for the door.
The Mukade swung the back half of its body and slammed into all of us at once.
Though I saw it coming, I couldn't avoid the blow. It knocked the air from my lungs, and the back of my head smashed against the hardwood floor. A sharp stab of pain jolted through me, and I rolled my side and blinked. My vision swam, and my head throbbed.
Mimi curled by the door painted with tigers crouching in the grass. Her hand trembled as she reached for the handle, and the Calamity turned toward her.
Mimi gasped and her face twisted.
It must've decided to become visible. All Calamities can do it, if they choose.
"Are you going to free me, child, or am I going to eat you?"
Mimi crawled to her feet and shook her head. A trail of blood dripped down her cheek, but she didn't seem to notice. "I'd never set you free on the city. I'd die first."
A ball of pure Ame light formed in her palm. It shone as warm as the sun.
The Mukade lunged, and Mimi sent the blast at it.
The power blew past the armor and knocked off a handful of the creature's legs. They burned to ash, but the Mukade didn't stop. It crashed into her, and the door shook at the impact. The incisors snapped at her neck.
Mimi leaned back, and Rika and Aki struggled to their feet.
"Mimi!" I managed, though my tongue felt thick in my mouth. The Makai power swirled around me, and I tried to pull it inside—to do something useful—but it slid out of my grip.
She needed to throw another blast at that monster before it—
Snap!
The incisors sliced through the air, and Mimi tumbled to the ground in a pile of limbs.
"Finish it!" Aki said.
Rika nodded.
It happened in slow motion. They drew those bright orbs of Ame infused light into their hands. The Calamity turned to them, a number of legs missing and the armor cracked. We still had no Vessel, but if they bombarded it with enough of their Spiritual power, they could destroy it.
That seemed like the farthest thing from my mind because Mimi had yet to move.
I crawled toward her.
A thin line of blood ran across her throat, and the black inky poison leaked from it. Her head lolled when I grabbed it and her eyes stared at nothing.
"Mimi?" I choked and swiped at the blood with the hem of her hakama. The white stained red and black. It disintegrated under the poison.
A moment later, the room filled with light and the Mukade screeched and sizzled.
They hit it with blast after blast until nothing but a great puff of black smoke filled the room, then it sucked in on itself and went out like a light. I didn't do anything but hold Mimi's head in my lap and watch them do what I couldn't.
What kind of Priestess could I be when I couldn't even help my friends?
"How is she?" Aki cried and appeared at my side.
I shook my head, and Rika's hands dug into my shoulders. "She's dead."
Aki's eyes met mine, and she nodded.
My fingers dug into Mimi's shoulders. "She can't be dead. That's not how this was supposed to happen. We almost had it. This wasn't—"
"I know," Aki said in her voice tinged with tears." I know, but she's not waking up. You know what that poison is like. Once it gets in the bloodstream . . . ."
She didn't have to finish that sentence for me to understand. That Calamity's poison was far too deadly for anyone to survive. But how could this have happened to Mimi? She'd saved me, and this is what it got her.
The flames from the discarded candles had puffed out. The ash from the sword and the Calamity mixed together on the floor in a large stinking pile. The candle iron holders rusted alongside it.
And Mimi.
Mimi. . . .
"I—I can get her back. It hasn't been that long. Not like my mother," I said and turned to the door she'd been about to open.
Aki's hand snapped around my wrist. "You only went there once, and you managed to drag yourself out. That doesn't mean you can get her. And where would we keep her? Her body is dead, Yuki." Her voice cracked at the last word and tears welled in her eyes.
Rika crouched next to Mimi and bit her lip, her eyes dry.
If I couldn't do this, I wasn't cut out to be what my mother wanted. It meant everyone was right about my power—it was dangerous. I had one last chance to prove them wrong.
I tore away from Aki
, shoved open the door, and ran.
Footsteps charged after me. No matter that I was barefoot, wearing nothing but a bra, a tank top and my underwear, I pelted into the pouring rain. Not the best idea since it was the middle of winter.
The chill numbed my skin, and the pain clawed at my insides—and I ran past the outbuildings and the house I'd called home my entire life.
The great towering wooden Torii Gate stood at the far end of the grounds. Beyond it was a line of ancient cedar trees enshrined with Kodama that protected Meiji from attack. Well, they hadn't protected us from this. They hadn't protected Mimi.
I darted toward the Torii Gate.
Aki and Rika called my name, but I didn't heed them.
The ward bells dangled between the trees and tingled in the wind.
As I passed under the gate, everything I knew slipped sideways. Instead of coming out unto a long gravel lined path, I fell into a mossy green forest. Roots tangled at my feet and the trees towered above my head, their branches twisted. The broad green leaves blocked the sky above the canopy. I sat on the ground in the rich black dirt and stared around me.
My chest heaved, and the cries I wanted to free caught in my throat.
Dread knotted in my gut.
Not Yomi-no-kuni. Though I had few memories of it, I knew this wasn't the same place. The Land of the Dead was all mist and shadow and the deep dark of a world with little light. Like being so far underground the idea of the sky doesn't exist anymore.
But I'd passed through here in my escape.
It was part of the Spirit World, a place that was far-reaching and had many different forms. This was one of them.
And coming here was a terrible mistake. Because Calamities came from the Spirit World, and if I couldn't best one on my own turf, no way in hell could I best one here. Especially since I knew what sort of things lived in this forest. I'd run into them last time, and the only one I remembered well was a huge lumbering giant with gray skin and yellow eyes. It dragged an axe behind it.
I hardly made it back to the human world in one piece.
That meant I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself now. Or spill all the emotions, the failure, churning inside. Not if I wanted to get out of here.
Mimi.
How could I save her now?
A breeze rustled through the trees, and they moved aside to reveal the sky. It was a deep blue black and millions of stars winked at me, though the moon was much too large and close. It shone with a cool silvery light and goosebumps peppered across my skin.
I'd been stupid to end up here, but that didn't mean I had to continue to be stupid.
With a heavy sigh, I heaved myself up and ignored the throbbing pain in the back of my head and the sensation on my back that felt like a mixture between a burn and an itch. I could curl into a ball and cry myself to sleep later—if I didn't bring Mimi back, that was.
Now, I had to find a way to Yomi-no-kuni.
And I had to do it all while dressed like the first girl to get killed off in a horror film.
Not fun.
There's a primal urge that surges into humans when we're alone in an unfamiliar place. I felt it surge inside me then, and bit my lip to keep from calling out and rousing any of the Calamities that called this place home.
That would be the same as advertising myself as a meal. I smelled far too tasty for their kind. Calamities are infamous cannibals who devour each other to become more powerful. Though they only absorb each other's power not the flesh. I'd never eaten a Calamity, and I never plan on it.
Now, I needed to decide which way to go. Choosing the path of least resistance didn't work since they were all equally tangled with roots and branches. The air smelled fresh, like clean leaves and dirt, not something typical in Neo-Tokyo. A bright green moss decorated the trees and carpeted the ground, and it sparkled with dew.
It looked like a place out of a fairytale, but something about it was wrong. Despite that one breeze, the air didn't move at all. It hung still and heavy, like a damp shirt that stuck to your skin in the rainy season. Though nothing so much as twitched, the weight of attention clung to me. My bones felt as brittle as ice. The Calamities that kept this forest would soon learn I was here.
With one final glance, I swallowed the pain that welled in my chest and moved forward. I didn't know how long I traveled through that forest, but I heard no signs of any life—Calamity or otherwise. Maybe I was wrong and this wasn't the same forest I'd entered before.
Perhaps it was Takama-ga-hara, the Realm of the Gods, and they would grant me one wish. It sounded like a story from legend. I'd be expected to be selfish and ask for my own access to Ame power back when instead all I really wanted was Mimi.
Something moved out of the corner of my eye, and I started and slipped. My feet flew out from under me, and I hit the ground with a thud and scraped my thigh on a black rock tangled in roots. Blood welled from the slash.
I hissed and touched the rough surface.
Volcanic.
Then my eyes darted for the thing I'd seen.
There.
It perched on a branch near my head. Its wings were as large as my palm and slightly iridescent, like light shining on spilled ink. They flapped slowly, and its spiked antenna twitched.
A black butterfly.
An omen.
I'd seen those in Neo-Tokyo on occasion, though never as large, and they were always connected to a God of some kind. Though I had no clue which one. Japan has so many I can't name any of them beyond the most famous, and I doubted Bishamon (the God of War) or Amaterasu (the Goddess of the Sun) employed them.
After what felt like an age the butterfly rose and fluttered deeper into the forest.
Well, it was a good way to go if a God sent it, I thought and followed the butterfly.
It moved slowly, from branch to branch and seemed to wait for me to catch up.
I cleared my throat, which felt raw and rough, as if I hadn't used it for a long time. "I'm looking for an entrance to Yomi-no-kuni if you have any clue where that is."
The butterfly didn't let on it heard me, and no wonder. It was a butterfly.
Just because it could be a messenger didn't mean it would have any sort of supernatural intelligence.
Not like the Mukade we fought at the Shrine. The one that—
No.
Don't go there now.
The reason that Mukade spoke and was so large either meant it had been in the Spirit World long enough to gain a huge amount of power. Or, and this was more likely, it was a Calamity that took that shape. Probably a low level God that no one in the modern day remembered.
And I hadn't been able to do anything to stop it. To help Mimi.
Dread twisted my gut, and I force myself forward.
The butterfly fluttered faster, and I scraped my shins and palms in an effort to keep up. My heart pounded, and my lungs ached. Blood trickled from gashes in my flesh, and I was smudged with that rich black dirt from my cheeks to my toes.
The butterfly flew between two trees that grew so close together I had to turn sideways to squeeze between them. As I came out on the other side the roots tangled in a mess of knots. The moss squelched under my feet, and I slipped on its slick surface and snatched at a branch. I held on as the ground below me fell away.
A black hole gaped between the roots, and my feet hung right over it.
My palms, slick with sweat, slid down the branch, and I kicked—tried to get solid footing on the moss.
No good!
Panicked huffs of white fog escaped my lips, and I squeezed my eyes shut. The faint flutter of wings brushed my cheek.
The branch snapped.
I hung, suspended for a mere moment, before I plunged into the underground. I expected to hit the ground hard as I'd done several times already. Feel the snap of a bone or the cut of a branch, but I fell long enough to realize it was happening. To ponder if this was a trick of the Spirit World no human survived.
Suddenly—
Splash.
Ice cold water surrounded me, and I plunged deeper into the pitch darkness.
I kicked against it, fought to stay upright. Without any light I could be swimming deeper. My lungs burned, and I silently cursed that stupid butterfly and myself for walking right into this trap.
I sprung out of the water and sucked in great lungfuls of air. Coughs racked my body and my limbs felt as weak and wet as a pile of cooked ramen. I blinked madly, looking for a source of light.
A place to go.
I'm not sure how I found the shore, but I stumbled upon a rocky ledge and pulled myself out of the water. Shivering and sputtering, I curled in a soaking pile and stayed that way for an age. When I finally found the strength to move it wasn't because I wanted to.
No.
A familiar sound caught my attention.
Pricked at a recent memory.
The distinct tapping of far too many feet against a hard surface.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Followed by the hum of voices, hundreds of them, muttering all at once.
"It's her. Her. Her. The one. Killed him. Killed our father."
My eyes snapped open, and I struggled to my feet. The icy coldness of the cave clung to my skin and bones. The soaking wet underwear and tank top didn't help. But I wasn't about to strip nude. I didn't even have time to take off the tank top and wring the water from it. Not with a group of Mukade lurking somewhere close by.
Nothing but darkness surrounded me, which meant I'd have to stumble wherever I was going. I crawled. The floor of the cave was more rock than dirt and I pinched back a whimper at every new cut and scrape. The damp soil worked under my nails and clogged my lungs.
The tapping click-clack of the legs quickened, but I realized they were behind me and not in front.
At least something was going my way today. Small favors.
It was just my luck to fall into the one part of the Spirit World infested with those type of Calamities. And they knew who I was—what I tried to do. What kind of terrible coincidence was that? My heart throbbed in my throat, but I couldn't move any faster. If I got up and ran, I'd probably brain myself on a rock. Pass out. Then they'd eat me for sure.
