Deep within the forest, I pursue my prey. Stalking a pulchritudinous pair of teenage lovers, who appeared to be in middle school, as they walk down a trail in the dead of night searching for a ghostly fright.
Despite my following them, these two lovebirds were not my target. Rather, they were unwitting bait for my prey—an otherworldly intelligence, not from the stars, which relishes human flesh for various purposes. Sometimes to eat, sometimes for the same reason people have tortured baby monkeys or kittens, and other times for sadistic sexual gratification. Not that these three motivations were mutually exclusive.
I had my attire modeled as a sort of medieval interpretation of a Kamen Rider. A round helmet with oni-like horns and a third eye painted on it. The visor combining elements of a bug’s and human’s eyes, with an ovular concave shape segmented into a pupil and iris without a sclera. Additionally, a pointed strip of metal extended outwards from the edge of the visor.
Covering my face was a menpō (面頬) depicting an open smile with exaggerated mandibular and maxillary fangs, giving me a predatory expression. To protect my neck, albeit at the expense of restricting its movements, I wore a bevor.
The breastplate accentuated my bust with the kanji for “super” (超) painted on the center of the chestplate and below the clavicle. Spaulders, rondels, couters with a weaponized point on the elbows, and vambraces protected my arms. I also wore gauntlets with talon-like tips.
At my hips, I had three overlapping tassets on each side. For my legs, I donned cuisses, genouillères, shin-guards, calf-guards, and segmented sabatons, which provided greater freedom of movement.
The weapon in my hand was Ryūseiseki (流星石), a kanabō made of carbon nanotube reinforced tungsten with meteoric iron studs. The pommel of Ryūseiseki could detach to reveal the spine sheathed within the handle, which I named Tenbatsubari (天罰針).
The meteoric iron (隕鉄) within these studs had been alchemically transmuted into a cold iron (冷鉄) alloy. An alloy that disrupts the flow of magical energies of the beings from Otherworld (異界).
Affixed to my utility belt was a kpinga, a five-bladed weapon meant for melee combat or to be thrown as a shield-circumventing fūma shuriken (風魔手裏剣). A weapon I named Hiraiha (飛来刃).
From the handle projected a main bladed shaft, which split into two counterclockwise carvers. These carvers extended from the stem’s ten and two o’clock positions and were crooked at an almost ninety-degree angle in a counterclockwise fashion. A third counterclockwise curved, but not crooked, blade extended from the base of the main shaft at the weapon’s three o’clock.
Unlike a traditional Azande kpinga, the basic design of which the bladesmith emulated, its form took inspiration from the Chinese hook sword, or gōu (鈎). Hiraiha featured a crescent, single-edged guard to protect the handle, which was wrapped in goat skin leather for a more ergonomic grip. This weapon projected a dagger-like blade at the end of its hilt to facilitate slashing and stabbing.
My shield, Kyūdōmujun (九瞳矛盾), was another weapon of hybrid consideration. Inspired by the spiked pavise of medieval Europe, with a shovel-like blade that allowed it to be planted in the ground or used to augment my punch. Kyūdōmujun also possessed a tungsten spine modeled after those of the Scottish targe. This allowed me to gore my enemies if I gripped the shield with my fist. This weapon’s name drew from the ocular motive painted across its face: eight eyes circumscribing another massive central eye out of which extended the tungsten spine.
I had heard a rumor about something that should not be here. Something like the excoriated corpse of a beheaded, eight-armed giantess grafted, from the hips up, onto a flayed horse as tall as a giraffe at the shoulder. Its eyes were like a blazing fire, its breath a potent miasma, and it wielded a flanged mace in each hand. A devil whose wail could strip the courage from a samurai.
This is what the locals called the Ama-uma (海人馬): a cryptid blamed for the exceedingly cruel deaths of over ten people, not counting the alleged suicides. I suspect that it was also responsible for the astonishingly gruesome deaths of a hane no haeta kappa (羽之生えた河童) and a shirogitsune (白狐).
What I would find today, however, was not some misplaced Indo-European chimera, but something native to the folklore of this country. I could feel its presence through the tactile hairs across my skin as its evil presence filled this space.
The chill of the air forebodes something truly monstrous. The electricity coursing from my shoulders to my brain, tempting me to a shudder that I successfully suppressed. There was a magical power flowing through the ever-thickening air as it approached.
I heard, with bat-like hearing, the violent chattering of teeth and rattling of bone against bone in the distance, which strangely grew less intense as it approached. Owl-like night vision allowed me to see into the darkness, in search of the evil spirit, as the pair grew more and more disturbed by the approaching aura they could only indirectly sense.
A smell of rotting human flesh in the distance detectable through my canine olfaction.
It accidentally made a sound as it stepped on an unnoticed branch, so they turned to see it. From a distance, it bore the appearance of a defleshed human skeleton held together only by tendons, except it was far too big to have ever belonged to a man. Ever-hateful bones animated by a ghost with insatiable hunger and unquenchable thirst.
Though, upon closer inspection, one could see an ancient magic carved into every bone of that fifteen-meter-tall monster, with a script I could not read.
The boy, as would be proper of a man, stepped between the monster and his girlfriend, who froze in supernatural terror. Curdled blood stained its hands and jaws, with bits of putrid maggot-infested flesh clinging to its hideous, triangular, and chiseled incisors.
That’s when it made its move, and I sprang into action. Leaping with the force of a bomb detonating below my feet, I launched 30 m into the air. I threw Ryūseiseki, which exploded through the monster’s wrist like a bullet through glass, and punched straight through into the ground. This violently forced the carpal bones apart and forced the monster to drop them.
I grabbed the humans, using a seminal power to fly and dampen the inertial forces experienced as I landed. A landing that started in a run and ended in a slide across the ground. I place the two on their feet, and they saw my mask.
I stepped between them and the gashadokuro (餓者髑髏), which emanated an overwhelming and penetrating psychic field to immobilize its prey. So, I expanded my psychic influence to oppose that of the gashadokuro and release the youths from its paralyzing presence.
Having freed them from its telepathic oppression, I told them simply, “Run!” as I grabbed Hiraiha. The boy thanked me as they took off, but the man-eater, ignoring me, reached for them.
“Oh, no you don’t, you bastard!” I told this malevolent intelligence.
“You won’t be gnawing on the bones of children today!”
I once more leaped with explosive force into the air. This time, aiming at the base of the giant’s skull from under and through the space between the mandible. I punched a hole into its skull with my shield’s spine, pushing those loathly bones away from the naïve lovers.
As they ran, the young woman looked back and saw that I decomposed my body into a superheated smoke. I caused it to rapidly seep into the cranium through the foramen magnum of the staggered titan. This forced the air within out through its many lesser foramen and fissures, as well as the puncture wound I had just made.
I reconstituted myself inside the braincase in the fetal position since its skull was only 122 cm tall. So, I summoned my metal shearing strength. Pressing on all sides with my limbs and body until the cranium lost structural integrity on all sides, killing it instantly.
I rotated like a cat in freefall, then landed on all fours like a monkey, having avoided injuring myself upon these criminal bones. Quickly, I moved to recover Ryūseiseki from its burial place, gathered the rest of my equipment.
Then, I made my way over to the femur—the strongest bone in the gashadokuro’s body—and cut away its tendons with Hiraiha. I thought I could carve an excellent weapon, fit for an oni, from this material.
Unlike the lovers under my aegis, I’ve always known of the existence of monsters simply because I am one. My name is Setagaya Momo (世田谷 桃), and what I am goes by many names across the world: Yāo (妖), Goemul (괴물), Wenkamuy (ウェンカムィ), and Faerie, but here in Japan most people would rightly call me a Yōkai (妖怪). I am not a metahuman. In fact, I am not human at all. My biological father was half-succubus and half-vampire, whereas my biological mother was a half-oni and half-djinn. They died when I was only a few months old, and that’s what resulted in my adoption by a kindhearted couple who found me abandoned in the woods. My adoptive father was a foreign-born Yamato man, and my adoptive mother an Ainu from Hokkaido. From my adoptive metahuman parents, I inherited the siddhis of Earthly metahumans, with my unique power allowing me to unite the powers of my parents while assimilating none of their weaknesses, and that included the seminal powers of humanity: my adoptive heritage.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
To protect the human nature that loved me when I was weak and powerless, I took on the guise of their archetypal superheroes, such as Ultraman, to fight against the unspeakable evils that come from Otherworld. Though, I also dabbled in vigilantism.
I thought that something had to have happened in Otherworld, as I had never seen something of this scale pass through the veil into the Human World (人間界). Considering that I had never been to Otherworld myself, I did not know what it might be.
As I walked around the corpse, contemplating how to conceal the bones, I heard something behind me in the distance. I turned around and noticed a massive, hideous thing with gray skin, knee-length wavy locks, a long, broad, drooping nose, piercing eyes, long, pointed, drooping ears, and disproportionately small head compared to their muscularly rotund body, legs, and arms appeared from within the woods. I had never seen this manner of yōkai before, so I grabbed Hiraiha and prepared for a fight.
But the monster calmly pleaded, “Easy, demon slayer! I mean no harm.”
Another, higher-pitched voice confirmed this, “It’s true, he saved me from slavers!”
A human girl, only nine years old, stepped out from behind him. A Koropokguru (コㇿポックㇽ), which resembles a bearded Ainu man, except that he was small enough to effortlessly hide underneath the leaf of a butterbur, stood on the child’s left shoulder.
The Koropokguru petitioned, “All we ask is that you hear us out.”
This child was clearly not a native to this location. Evidenced by her red hair, green eyes, and fair skin. I could smell the humanity coming from her, and the way she clung to the troll’s robes told me that the child felt safe with this stranger, so I deigned to trust this foreigner.
I holstered my weapons and asked it, “What manner of yōkai are you?”
The thing explained with a bow, “I am but a humble troll (トロール), but you can call me Hallvarðr (ハルヴァーズル).”
A strange name that I could not hope to pronounce, so I avoided using it. That said, he was astonishingly proficient in Japanese.
The Koropokguru introduced themselves with a bow. “My name is Atuy (アト゚イ).”
I could speak and understand Ainu, so his name was easy for me to pronounce and remember.
The child did not deign to speak, but she emulated her guardians.
I warned him, “A troll? By earth or Otherworld, you have traveled far. But make no mistake. I am protector of this island, and if I have any inkling that you mean harm to men, I will waste no time in swiftly ending your life.”
The child seemed to understand the general threat, as she clung even tighter to the troll, who reached into his shirt and revealed a crucifix necklace, explaining, “I commend your love of humanity, but as you can see, my God is a man, so I mean men no harm.”
This took me aback. I had heard stories of yōkai being converted to Catholicism in Medieval Europe, not dissimilar to the stories of yōkai converting to Islam and Buddhism throughout Africa and Asia, but I had so few interactions with my race that I had never seen this myself.
His voice was as deep and powerful as you might expect from a 350 cm tall humanoid who looked as if he could wrestle a bear into submission, even without magic, but it was soft enough as to not frighten the girl, whom he comforted with a gentle head pat.
The monstrous thing said, “I apologize for the fright, but we had heard the rumor of a monster slayer with tremendous power, so we seek your aid.”
Atuy explained, “Several man-eaters have escaped Otherworld and entered Earth through a doorway on this island.”
The Troll explained, “It is not just here. Portals have appeared across the Human World.”
Atuy asked, “Have you noticed something unusual about the anthropophagi recently?”
My thoughts turned to the alien description of the Ama-uma and the unexpected state of the gashadokuro’s teeth, which are not traditionally reported to be filed, as well as its joints, which I would not have expected to possess tendons.
I honestly answered, “Yes, there are reports of a monster wondering about this country, which does not match the description of any native to the local mythology.”
The Troll asked me, “I thought so. Could you please describe this criminal?”
I complied. “A yōkai, called Ama-uma, which is implicated in multiple murders. It has the form of a woman, from the hips up, grafted onto a horse…”
I could see that the Troll immediately recognized this description, and I asked, “So you know what this is?”
He told me, “It sounds like a Nuckelavee (ナックラヴィー). An unusual devil for this part of the world…”
I interrupted, “That’s what I would have assumed if it wasn’t headless with additional arms.”
The Troll seemed troubled by this revelation, turning to Atuy. They seemed to be on the same page, so the troll explained, “I am unfamiliar with this criminal, but we will help however we can.”
I asked him, “I assume you are in pursuit of a specific monster?”
The Troll admitted, “Yes. We have tracked many devils who have tried to enter the human world: manticores (マンティコア), yara-ma-yha-who (ヤラマヤフー), even asuras (阿修羅), but we’re currently looking for a hanyō (半妖) who was born and raised in Otherworld.”
My left hand could not help but flinch when he said that their target was half-human. Because of my assortment of powers, I had never had to kill humans in my vigilante work. Even the yakuza were of little concern to me, given I could simply transmute my body into and from various amorphous states.
That, coupled with the power to enter people’s dreams, to shapeshift into animals, become invisible, and to hypnotize the weak willed with eye-contact, among other powers, meant that I’ve never had to take a human life.
I’ve only met one other hanyō in my life, a sweet little girl only twelve-years-old who was half-Sotonarukami (半外なる神) and I could not imagine seeing her as anything other than a metahuman, like my parents.
Atuy admitted, “We know next to nothing about our target, except that they are an astonishingly powerful necromancer and follower of the Devil Path (魔道).”
Without moving my feet, I turned to look at the aberrant gashadokuro, and the Troll asked me, “Do you think that this necromancer might have something to do with this devil?”
I turned to face them and admitted, “It’s possible…”
But before I could finish my thought, a flash of light illuminated the distant north behind me. I turned to look toward the flash, which left the others in confusion.
A few moments passed before the troll observed, “I am not familiar with how the weather in the Human World works, but I thought a particular cloud was necessary for lightning. Yet the skies are clear.”
I chimed in, “That is my understanding as well…”
We waited for a little before I rhetorically asked, “Where’s the thunder?”
Atuy agreed, “It is oddly silent.”
I pointed out, “From what little I understand about the matter, I remember humans can only hear thunder up to about sixteen kilometers from the lightning strike. That means the young girl should have heard the clap of thunder within 47 seconds.”
There was a foreboding feeling that overcame me, something that the others felt through my aura and saw through my body language.
The troll revealed, “I feel an intense psychic disturbance, the likes of which I have never felt before.”
I felt it as well, coming from that direction, but aside from an intense sense of forewarning, I had no intuition what this might have been.
I asked them, “What was the most powerful devil that you know has crossed the veil into the Human world?”
The troll told me, “That would probably be an asura, but we believe she arrived in Patagonia, not Japan.”
I asked them, “What other devils do you suspect have made it here?”
The troll confessed, “I believe that a manananggal (マナナンガル), mapinguari (マピングヮリ), and nue (鵺) have made their way into this country.”
I did not recognize the term mapinguari, but the others I have heard of, and while they were incredibly dangerous and sadistic creatures, none could explain what it was we observed.
After about four minutes, we all heard a crack of thunder succeeding it. Loud enough that we could feel a wall of pressure pass over us, jostling our hair, the troll’s clothes, and throwing poor Atuy off his feet. He held onto the child by her hair, who didn’t mind while she clung to the troll, not out of a need for stability, but for a sense of protection. As Atuy climbed back up to his shoulder, we all spotted the cloud rising in the distance.
A cloud that soon took on a familiar shape, clear to the nocturnal eyes of the troll and me: a mushroom filled with rain and thunder. I dropped the gashadokuro’s thigh bone as the gravity of the apparent situation washed over me. I bolted north, in the direction of the cloud, before I could come back to my senses.
The troll called out to me, but I could not hear what he said. Blind panic filled my mind. I could not fathom that any state was mad enough to start a nuclear war, but there were no signs of this being a meteor strike, which only left the possibility that this was the work of a Jihōhōsha (持法宝者): a magician given the power to wield the weapon of a deva, as described in the Mahābhārata.
I took on the appearance of an ethnic Yamato middle school girl underneath the armor and continued to run through the woods. Until I came across abject ruin, beyond the thresholds of broken glass. Running until I encountered toppled buildings. I removed my helmet and affixed it to a holster on my armor, then offered my help in excavating the trapped.
With my radically superhuman strength, I moved massive slabs of wall, floor, and ceiling. Using my psychokinetic powers in tandem, I helped maintain the structural integrity of what we moved.
I could use my inhuman senses, and latent telepathic powers to locate people trapped under the rubble. But the dead and comatose were invisible to my psychic powers. I considered transforming into smoke to help locate those we couldn’t otherwise find. Something I immediately realized could unintentionally displace the air that the people trapped in the rubble needed to breathe, which might kill someone in a critical need of medical aid. So I deigned to rely on my strength and fallible psychic senses.
We worked ceaselessly until time seemed to lose all meaning, and it became impossible to remember what happened at night, dawn, and day. Although, during dawn twilight, after I delivered a young boy, only ten years old, to the triage, I saw a giant woman with black skin and hair dressed in a kuro Lolita fashion.
She effortlessly spotted people concealed under the rubble and excavated passageways for emergency medical technicians to carry off both the living and the dead. This out-of-place fashionista could clearly find and rescue people and recover bodies I missed. She was also much faster at moving between patients. It was astonishing, even to me.
I could smell her humanity, and I knew she was neither yōkai, deva, nor the product of admixture with these two. She was 100% human.
She came across a father, who I would later learn had been digging with shredded hands for twelve hours straight in desperate search for his wife and son. The monstrous woman found a mass of survivors through some unknown power and quickly opened a passageway for the escape and rescue of the children in need. She yelled something in English, and the emergency medical technicians raced to her.
The woman saw the man, on the verge of complete muscle failure, stumble towards them, so she darted to him, picked him up, and brought him to the opening. He called for his son, and a child called back. They rescued his sons and his son’s friends, but his pregnant wife died when the structure crushed her skull like a grape in the collapse. Something they both learned when she excavated the body from the wreckage, with a towel provided by an EMT covering the decedent’s face.
The giant woman made the sign of the cross and prayed over her body, all the while scanning for others in need, as the EMTs moved the body, which the two immediately recognized by her clothing and a scar on her right arm.
Before the day ended, I had heard tales of that foreigner working at superhuman speed, with supernatural proficiency, impossible strength, and seemingly limitless stamina. With eyes that displayed clear compassion and heartbreak, bounded by compassion.
Considering how utterly exhausted I was, I couldn’t fathom how a foreigner, with no connection to this country, could bear such a weight and commitment. Not only saving as many people as she could, but also faithfully recovering as many bodies as she could. It was like she could hear sounds I could not and see through the rubble.
I couldn’t forget the look in her eyes: behind the stoic mask, they betrayed her childlike heart. A heart that earnestly cared for the well-being of the surrounding strangers.
We never interacted, as I was called to help elsewhere when she appeared. And as quickly as she arrived, she was gone. I never helped within the inferno, as by the time I needed to rest, the firefighters and metahuman volunteers had put out the blaze.
By the end of it all, covered in dirt, dusk, ash, sweat, and dried blood, I was too exhausted to cry or scream. I entered into a state of autopilot.
Good Samaritans offered anyone involved with the rescue efforts free transportation to a distant hotel, which offered to open itself up so that the rescuers and volunteers, too exhausted to make it home, could have somewhere to sleep. It was an offer I did not refuse, and so I slept on a couch in a room shared with two or four other women. By the time I woke up, I had been asleep for twelve hours.
This was the worst day of my life so far.