Akio stared at the dirty, narrow alleyway suspiciously. It’s opening was half hidden behind a dumpster, and you’d have to duck under the air-conditioner unit that was bolted onto the corner of building.

“Ok...this is the entrance to the Hidden Akuma shrine?”

Hana shook her head.

“No, the entrance is the wooden door covered in old posters at the far end.”

Maaya nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

“That wouldst be sensible. Layered defenses, so even if thy can see through the wards, it would be hard to find.”

“Yes, thank you mother. We had all worked that out.”

Maaya glanced over at her daughter, nettled by her sharp tone. She sighed.. Akio had always been grumpy when tired as a child, and even though she was no longer one, she was still cranky and sharp tongued when sleep deprived.

“Let us proceed, shall we? I for one would like to be abed soon.”

Akio nodded, then looked sidelong at her mother.

“Sorry.. that was uncalled for.”

“Forgiven. Thy was always ill-tempered when tired, as was I.”

“Right… Chiyo, are your wings are going to be a problem?”

Chiyo studied the narrow alley.

“Yeahhh… I am not going to fit down there easily. Want me to do a recon overhead, see what’s beyond?”

Akio nodded, and Chiyo took to the sky without comment. While they waited Akio glanced to the van, where Etsuko lay sleeping in the back.

“Someone will need to stay and guard the van… this is not a good part of town.”

Kage glanced at Hana, and nodded.

“Hana and I should do that. We’re not going ta be much use elsewise. I’ll come with you, jus’ ta introduce you, and then head on back ta keep an eye on Etsuko.”

Akio nodded, then frowned looking between the alleyway and Kage.

“Ok… how did you fit?”

Kage grinned, and his body shifted form. In a blink of an eye the mountain of a man had become a hare… granted it was a rather larger than usual hare, but still considerably smaller than his human form.

“Oh..right. Mountain spirit. You can take on the form of the animals, trees, even the rocks.”

Kage shifted back to human shape, with a broad grin on his face.

“Ayup. Comes in handy in my line of work.”

Chiyo returned at that moment, and shook her head.

“No luck, it’s warded up top as well. I can see there’s an open wedge of space about half the size of a baseball field, but it’s like looking into fog. I can’t make out anything down there.”

Akio glanced over at Maaya.

“More defensive layers huh? Even if you can see though the ward, there’s an obscurantism spell as well?”

Maaya nodded.

“So it seems. Whomever set these wards was cautious. Though, it does make me wonder, why wouldst they seek to conceal what was inside, if their intent was to bind the demon within?”

Akio frowned.

“That’s a very good question… I suppose it could’ve been they didn’t want to risk anyone tampering with the seal, perhaps? But that doesn’t sound quite right. This set up had to have taken quite a bit of work… Kage, did the temple guardian say anything?”

“Naw, only that she would welcome our help.”

Akio’s frown deepened, mirroring Maaya’s look of concern.

“There’s something about this that doesn’t quite add up.”

Dot spoke up.

“Think it’s a trap?”

Akio shrugged, then sighed.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like a set up either. But you’d better bring the heavy stuff just in case.”

“Ok boss..”

Maaya put her hand on Akio’s shoulder.

“Trust your instincts Akio. A witches best guide is her intuition. I misdoubt that has changed for all that thee has learnt this new craft.”

Akio sighed.

“I know, I remember my lessons mother. But you’re right, it still applies.”

Kage lead the way down the alley, hopping ahead in his hare form with Akio following. Chiyo managed to make it through the narrow passage only because Dot was behind her, helping forcefully fold her wings back. Akio could tell from Chiyo’s frozen-faced expression that it was painful, but she bore it in stoic silence. After all, they’d all suffered much worse than this before.

Maaya and Hana remained behind, guarding the van and the sleeping Etsuko. Maaya had protested at that, but Akio had argued that it made sense to keep her in reserve in case of trouble. She’d also quietly told Maaya out of earshot, that she didn’t entirely trust Hana yet. Maaya had readily agreed after that. What Akio hadn’t said was that she didn’t entirely trust Maaya either. She was concerned that Maaya had been drinking on duty, even if she didn’t seem impaired by it, Akio still thought it indicated a lack of judgement.

There had been other concerning incidents as well. Akio had put it down to the fact she and the other two had formed a tight bond, forged from shared experiences that Maaya didn’t or couldn’t understand. Then she’d written it off as the results of prolonged stress, Maaya after all had been their village’s head woman and spokeswoman for the five families, thus she’d borne the brunt of Division Three’s ire and tried to temper their demands on her people.

But now Akio wasn’t so sure…

Maaya seemed at times to be lost, uncertain and hesitant as to what to do. Akio wasn’t sure, but she reasoned that the sheer amount of change had unsettled her, rattling Maaya’s confidence in herself. In short, Maaya was second guessing herself all the time, her confidence undermined by the fact that she was well and truly outside of her field of knowledge.

Maaya was hiding it for now, acting more confident than she felt. Akio hoped her mother would eventually find her feet, but for now she couldn’t be trusted in a situation where split second decisions had to be made correctly, as there was a risk Maaya would hesitate or make the wrong choice.

Akio sighed inwardly, she should be focused on the mission in hand, but her mother had always been her fixed point growing up. Even in the dark days after Division three enslaved her, she’d relied upon her mother’s wisdom to guide her, asking herself what Maaya would say or do.

So realising now, that her mother didn’t know what to do at times, had shaken her own confidence somewhat. Akio found it unsettling to measure Maaya against her own memory of her, and find the reality lacking.

There was also the niggling concern that it had been five years since she’d been enslaved, and had last seen her mother. Five long and stressful years that they’d both been changed by, and Akio was acutely conscious that her mother was no longer as young as she’d once been, that stress aged a body prematurely and that although she looked well, infirmities of the mind were one of the few things even the strongest magic couldn’t heal or hold at bay. Maaya after all, was well over a century old, and although by the standards of their home village she wasn’t that old, Akio couldn’t help thinking that stress aged a person prematurely.

Ahead of her Kage stopped at what was barely recognisable as a wooden door, and Akio firmly shoved her worries into the metaphorical locker at the back of her head, and slammed the lid shut. Giving her head a shake slightly, she focused on the here and now.

“Alright Kage, you go first, let them know we’re here and then make introductions.”

Kage, the hare, nodded, and slipped though the open crack of the door. Akio waited a few moments, idly studying the weathered poster announcing the opening of the kabuki theatre that had given the district it’s name. After a few moments she gestured for the others to follow her in silence, and pushed the door open, letting them in. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Kage, but if it was a trap she wanted to catch them off guard.

Beyond the door was like stepping back in time. A weathered, moss-covered wooden bridge-like walkway stretched out over dark scummy water and beds of black reeds, springing from the scant foot wide muddy shore out into the dark fog. As soon as her foot touched the slimy half-rotten boards, ghostly blue foxfire sprang to life in the lanterns on top of alternating posts.

Akio smiled ruefully to herself, so much for the element of surprise then.

The flickering uncertain light didn’t so much as relieve the darkness, as just contrast it more sharply.

She knew how wide the space they were in was, not much bigger than a parking lot at a small mall, but it seemed to stretch out forever in all directions. Glancing back over her shoulder, Akio couldn’t even see the end of the wooden walkway, even though it should only be a few strides away. She suppressed a shudder, and wondered if perhaps the wards had somehow folded space making the interior bigger. She hoped not, the last time she’d run into that, their team had spent a week going around in circles, trapped in a space not much bigger than a cheap four tatami mat apartment on the outside, and of course the whole time the ‘special agents’ had blamed her for being unable to get out. She’d had to firmly repress the urge to leave them behind to die and rot there when she had finally found the exit.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Worryingly there was also no sign of Kage anywhere. The plan had been to meet the guardian spirit at the entrance, where Kage would introduce them.

Akio silently gestured to the other two, sending Chiyo aloft as Dot moved to stand alongside Akio, giving her a clear field of fire. Both Dot and Akio readied warding talismans, creating a circle around themselves that was no more substantial than a soap bubble, but would activate the instant the level of magic increased, snapping to adamantine hardness.

Dot tossed a handful of tiny paper airplanes up into the air, activating them with a murmured keyword. The folded paper talismans sprung to life, spreading out beyond their sight. She closed her eyes briefly as drones fed her information, then muttered another keywords to place them in autonomous mode. Opening her eyes she glanced at Akio.

“Nothing living detected. There’s something lurking in the murky waters but it’s hard to make out. I don’t sense any hostile intent from it however. The shrine is up ahead about 100ft, on what I think was an island once upon a time. I can’t get a reading on it’s insides, there’s a separate set of wards.”

“No sign of Kage?”

“Naw, his tracks just stop about three feet in front of us. No blood or signs of struggle though. He’s small enough as a hare, maybe someone just picked him up?”

Akio nodded. Kage either went willingly, or had been knocked out. If she had to bet, probably the latter. Which again, made no sense.

There was subtle disturbance in the fog, and Chiyo descended, Akio looked at her enquiringly, and Chiyo shook her head.

“No way out from the inside either. No other doors. There’s a group of something around the shrine. You can’t sense them, but you can see the tracks they’re leaving in the grass. There’s also a single lone something about midway along the bridge. Again it’s hidden, but it’s leaving a hole in the fog.”

Dot grinned.

“Good catch Chiyo, my drones missed that!”

Akio nodded in acknowledgement, then sighed.

“None of this makes sense… unless we assume there’s two or more factions working at odds here. One is the temple guardian who wants our help and let us in. The other I would guess doesn’t, and that’s the one waiting for us up ahead. Shall we go meet them?”

Dot and Chiyo both nodded, Dot adding.

“It’d be impolite not to, since they’ve gone ta so much trouble.”

Chiyo shook herself, settling her wings.

“Want me to go rain death from above on them?”

Akio slowly shook her head.

“No, we’ve no idea of their power or intent. Better not split the party. But be ready to take off asap.”

“Roger that! I’ll keep them hot.”

Akio nodded. They’d practiced similar situations. Chiyo’s wings drew their power from mana batteries in her flight harness. Under most circumstances she had enough power to keep aloft for hours, but keeping a combat level ward of protection up also drew from the same mana batteries, limiting her flight time to just minutes at minimum. If they were severely taxed as a team, Akio would throw her reserves into keeping them all warded, while Dot would handle offensive and Chiyo went airborne and acted as spotter, or as a channel for Dot.

The trio carefully advanced, Dot taking point partly because she had the heaviest fire power, and partly because she was the shortest, the other two could see over her. They were almost at the midpoint when Akio could see a figure in white robes in the mist.

As one the trio stopped, Akio straining to make out details. The figure was, she thought, a woman. Dressed in a white burial kimono or kyōkatabira, she could see a flicker of pallid blue flame above her head, which threw her face into shadow. Tied around her head was the traditional nuno or white headband with one corner pointing up in a triangle above her brow. However, breaking with tradition, the ghostly figure had a red scarf tied around her neck.

The ghost was standing in the 1st defensive posture with her hand on her katana, waiting. Akio studied her for a moment, it seemed a reasonable bet that they weren’t about to get pass without a fight, but something about this was familiar, as if she’d seen all this before. Frowning she called out.

“May we pass please? We mean no harm and are expected.”

The figure shook her head slowly, silently.

“Then might we talk in peace, perhaps?”

Again the figure made no reply other to shake her head.

“I see. You are resolute. Then may we know the name of our opponent?”

The figure hesitated, and then removing her hand from her sword held it up, palm outwards, and slowly took a few strides forward.

Dot gasped as the ghostly figure came close enough them could make out her facial features.

“Ellie!”

Slowly the ghostly figure of their former comrade and fellow witch nodded. Akio wasn’t sure, but she seemed as surprised to see them as they were.

Akio swallowed, then steeling herself stood a little straighter.

“Eleanor Beck, explain yourself. Do you mean to deny us entry?”

Eleanor or Ellie, opened her mouth, then closed it again. Without a word she unwrapped the scarlet cloth around her neck. Dot took a involuntary step back, treading on Akio’s toes, as Akio tasted bile in her mouth. Off to one side Chiyo was being vilely sick.

Eleanor’s throat was gone, torn out, almost severing her neck entirely, leaving a ragged edged gaping wound through which Akio could see her spine, the bones gleaming moistly.

Hastily Eleanor wrapped the blood soaked scarf back around her neck, hiding her wound. Akio wondered dizzily what had happened to her. Then frowned slightly… the figure in front of her didn’t feel like a ghost or spirit presence, not exactly, despite appearances. Subterfuge seemed likely. Ghosts were usually fairly weak physically, it would make sense to dress as one if Eleanor wanted people to underestimate her.

Akio held up her hands, and started to sign to Eleanor.

{Ellie, what happened?}

Eleanor carefully signed back.

{I was betrayed, murdered by my own team. There was a Guhin. My team leader threw me at it. I don’t know why, fear perhaps, or maybe he had orders to dispose of me.}

Akio nodded, the terrible gaping wound was consistent with the actions of the half-man half-wolf like Guhin. They were similar to what westerners called werewolves, although they were a form of tengu in fact. Eleanor had been the oldest of the five witches and it had been long rumored that the Division Three monster hunters ‘disposed’ of their enslaved witches as they got older, replacing them with younger and more malleable children.

Akio sighed, and signed in return.

{Division three has fallen. The bastards are in prison or dead.}

{Then what is your purpose here? Do you still hunt Yokai?}

Akio shook her head.

{No. We work for Inari. Our purpose is to protect both humans and yokai… that’s why we are here, checking on the demon that’s bound in the shrine, to make sure it’s still secure. Can you read the motto we have on our new uniforms?}

Eleanor leaned forward, peering at the patch over Akio’s heart. While she did, Akio snatched a sense of her aura.

{Do no Harm, but Take no Shit? You came up with that didn’t you Akio?!}

Eleanor couldn’t laugh, obviously, but the smile on her lips and the gleam in her eyes was enough to give that impression. Akio grinned.

“I did that… and you are no ghost Eleanor Beck! What are you? Your aura reeks of demon.”

Eleanor stepped back, simultaneously taking a defensive stance as her hand flew to her sword.

Akio shook her head.

“Peace… we are not yet your enemies. I just want to understand what’s going on here, before we do anything.”

Eleanor looked at her doubtfully, but her hand moved away from the sword at her hip as she signed.

{You have matured then… the Akio I knew would rush in without a thought.}

Akio laughed, shaking her head.

“It’s been two years Ellie, since we lost you… I’ve done some growing since then, and had enough painful experiences to learn some caution. Now, how about you explain all this?”

The lift and fall of Eleanor’s shoulders suggested she had sighed, but no sound came.

{It’s complicated. Like you, I think, we were told there is a demon bound in the shrine. That is.. not entirely true. There is the corpse of a demon king there, one of the Four Great Demons. He is not entirely dead, nor is he bound… not exactly. There is a doorway in the shrine, a door to the Land of the Dead. The demon is… well the best I can describe it is that he’s the cork in the bottle. Neither dead nor alive, holding the door shut.}

Akio blinked, then frowned.

“Why would one of the Four Demon Kings be holding shut such a door?”

Eleanor shrugged, shaking her head.

{I don’t know for sure. It’s not like we talk. But I think it’s so he doesn’t die completely. If that was to open, his spirit would be pulled inside. So he holds it shut, barring the way. But you can’t bind him, otherwise he’d have no reason to hold the door shut and if it opened… well, it would be very bad. There are things on the other side, I can hear them sometimes, whispering, begging, pleading and threatening. They are hungry.}

Akio shuddered, she’d heard old, old stories about what existed in the Lands of the Dead, and it was nothing that belonged this side of any such door. The Demon’s motives might be very far from altruistic, but she wasn’t about to interfere with it either, not if that was the case.

“Ok, you convinced me… messing with that sounds like a bad idea. But that doesn’t explain you. What happened to you after you died?”

Eleanor relaxed fractionally.

{I managed to kill the Guhin by stopping it’s heart with a spell as I stumbled forward. But it didn’t die quickly enough. It tore open my throat in it’s death throes. However we had been wrong about it’s purpose. It wasn’t trying to free the demon, it was guarding it’s corpse. Almost all of the Demon Kings power is focused on keeping that door shut. It has none left to revive itself, not even enough to protect itself. So, what little it has, it used to create a guardian, filling a tengu with it’s strength and turning it into a Guhin.}

“And when you killed the Guhin, that power passed to you?”

Eleanor nodded.

{Yes, in part. I was dying. As good as dead already when the demon’s power filled me. It wasn’t enough to fully revive me, but it changed me, I became like it. Not alive nor yet entirely dead. Bound to protect the demon, but not enslaved by it. I cannot leave this place, but I am free to do as I will. My magic is demon tainted though, so I try not to use it any more. I fear what it might do to me over time.}

Akio slowly nodded.

“So, you’re a sort of revenant, not a zombie like in the movies, but nothing like any other yokai either.”

Dot interjected.

“There are stories of demons bringing corpses back to life, but they’re more like puppets. The demon’s not controlling you, is it Ellie?”

Eleanor shook her head.

{No, I can hear it’s thoughts sometimes, well they’re more like dreams or nightmares, but I think it’s got so little concentration left it can’t pay me attention much. Either that or it’s because I wasn’t entirely dead when it took me. Only when it feels threatened does it communicate clearly, and even then it’s more like a strong suggestion than an order. Sort of ‘do this’ without telling me how or why, and leaving the details up to me.}

Akio chuckled bitterly.

“So, like the monster hunters when they wanted something done using magic. They’d tell us do that, without any idea of how, or any details as to why, and we had to figure it out.”

{Yes, not much has changed really.}

All four girls laughed briefly, without much mirth to it. Akio sighed once the sound had died away in weird echoes among the fog.

“Ok, well… no point standing around here. Would you mind if we go and check things out? I promise we won’t interfere unless we have to, but we have to be able to say we verified what you said was true. No offence meant, but you are demon touched, you might be lying to us without even knowing it.”

{No offence taken, if I was in your shoes, I’d do the same. By all means, enter freely and of your own will.}

Eleanor’s smile was genuine, albeit a bit twisted. Akio chuckled.

“Yeah… dying hasn’t changed your sense of humour has it?! I’d almost forgotten you liked those creaky old horror movies. No wonder this place looks the way it does if you’re in charge here.”

{They’re classics! You know, I really miss that, sneaking into each others rooms and watching them together. It’s boring here by myself.}

“Right… speaking of, what did you do to Kage?”

{The mountain spirit? He’s ok, just fast asleep, tucked into a drawer in my hut, back with the others.}

“Others?”

{Other spirit creatures. This place is a sort of sanctuary for things that straddle the border between the spirit realm and the mundane world. I keep them safe from more predatory sorts of yokai and ayakashi.}

Akio could feel Chiyo rolling her eyes behind her almost as she said.

“Yup, that’s our Ellie… you always were a softy.”

Eleanor smiled ruefully as she signed.

{And you always said that would get me killed someday. Looks like you were right.}

Chiyo huffed, a sound somewhere between a sigh and laughter.

“Yeah… Although trust you to take all the fun out of saying I told you so, dummy!”

The weird bubbling gurgling sound that came from Eleanor was hair raising, until Akio realised she was laughing.