The rhythmic sound of wind pushing through the overgrown campsite gave the barest impression of breathing. Junko’s eyes strained to pick out landmarks amongst the scattered junk and abandoned tents and fences. Too much. There was simply too much debris in this part of the camp. So many potential ambush points, so many places to place traps...why had Motonubu routed her through such an awful place, exactly?
Her eyes eventually fell onto a clearing, perhaps a section of the camp that had once been cordoned off for storing wood or equipment. Now only short grass covered its surface; it made for the perfect location to stand her ground, if it came to that.
Waiting for the worst Junko put a foot forward. Both her Sahori and her Hikiboshi gave off a slight glint as the setting sun’s light bounced off their polished metal edges. She kept her breathing steady. In through the nose, out through the teeth. Even in the face of nightmares, stay strong. It was one of many platitudes her dead clan liked to parrot in situations like this. It gave her little comfort.
One step led to two, then a third. Still nothing gave way. The darkness continued its eternal creep as the sun’s final distant rays disappeared. The stars began to softly ease into existence. Without the impending threat the Maeda, the scene might even be pleasant. Even the usual background noise of Camp Monog couldn’t be heard, so distant this camp lay on the outskirts of the settlement. No rowdy drunks, no Annitou patrols barking orders, no yapping animals...
The realization struck Junko right as she moved in front of a small field of weeds. Her weapons both pointed towards the most likely ambush points, most of which lay behind her. The brushy, low to the ground vegetation she moved towards couldn’t possibly hide any enemies. Nobody was small enough to lurk in those tiny bushes.
Expecting human enemies was her first mistake. The nearby weeds that lay behind her rattled with sudden movement. Junko’s instincts snapped her into position.. Sahori spun back to meet whatever might be leaping out from the foliage, the blade aimed precisely where Junko anticipated the center of mass of a man to be. The weapon soared through the air, hitting nothing. As her eyes caught up with her sword, Junko saw clearly why.
A mangy, short-haired dog charged out from the low-growing bushes and lunged at her legs with salivating jaws wide open. Junko pivoted on the opposite heel and drew her exposed leg back right as its fangs snapped shut, catching and tearing some of the fabric of her clothing. The beast wound up for another lunge but was sent sprawling back as Junko shifted her weight and delivered a powerful kick to the animal’s muzzle. The skeletal canine wasn’t exactly prime combat material in the first place and Junko’s blow seemed to completely wind the beast as it collapsed and lay panting several feet away. Junko waited for another attack but nothing came. Was that a test?
That made the conspicuous lack of dog barking all the more worrying now. The Maeda jutsu, as far as Junko was aware, required infecting living hosts and enabled them to control the hosts proportionally to their health. The weaker the host, the most control the Maeda could exert. Even then infection took time- on the order of hours or days usually. Had the Maeda been preparing this ambush all day? How many animals could he have infected in that time frame?
The answer came seconds later as a multitude of dogs scampered into view from all directions, each emerging from the thought to be enemy-free grass. Junko couldn’t see them all but heard their claws clacking on the earth below, and the few she did see emerged from the dirt as if they had been buried. Junko cursed Motonubu as she changed plans, now choosing to run towards the sketchier section of the camp with more places to hide. That damned Motonubu was to blame for this somehow, no doubt!
Her new target was the concrete pad which a crumbling watchtower sat on. If the Maeda buried his little landmines everywhere, then the safest place to fight would be somewhere that zombified animals couldn’t crawl out of. A few of the closest dogs drew near enough to attempt a lunge but even mid-stride Junko rotated her swords to easily repel the creatures away. Too easy, actually, as the tip of her Sahori slid through the animal’s flesh easier than she was used too. One swipe was enough to scatter the first wave of beasts. Their sloppy, wasteful movements posed no real threat in small numbers like this. Yet she could heard the horde growing by the second as more and more creatures seemed to emerging from the earth. Decades of honed swordsmanship meant very little against such a tide of bodies. Not only that but along the steel edge of her weapon, where the blood from her strike still rested, she could see something resembling white worms writhing. Every enemy carried that awful disease with the mas well. What a repulsive bunch, these Maeda were!
One more animal drew close enough to strike but rather than slice it, Junko performed another jerking kick to send it sprawling back towards the dead-eyed pack of infected animals. To do so required her turning completely around- now her back was to the structure she had been running towards. There wasn’t much of a choice as the animals on her tail now moved to surround her. Not only were Junko’s flanks now exposed, the lurching, unanimal-like movements of the beasts made it all the more difficult to anticipate the next attack. The clumsiness of the Maeda’s technique seemed to be to his benefit!
But was it intentional? As she pushed back another set of advancing dogs the odds of that being the case became more and more likely. The bum rush appeared to be the best the dogs could do, and their maggot-ridden bodies didn’t possess any greater strength than a dog would normally have. The Maeda must just throwing trash at her to see what would stick.
Inhaling deeply Junko met each animal with clean blows. Sahori cleaved through another set with ease and Hikoboshi tossed a few of the luckier animals aside as they slipped past. The splatter of falling corpses joined the frantic shuffling of feet and paws as the frenzy grew in pace. Junko kept edging slowly back towards the tower even as the ground beneath her grew wet with viscera. At that moment the flow favored Junko- but that was of little comfort. No matter how much martial skill she might possess, Junko could not match the supernatural. This was a battle of attrition, one which she was very ill-equipped to overcome.
Another round of dogs, these more pathetic than the last, broke towards her from behind. These met the same fate as the last as Junko scattered their body parts on the increasingly spongey earth. Alongside each movement of her blades Junko efficiently flung any remnants of the Maeda’s disease from her weapons. None of their infected blood landed on her either, due in part to the speed and dexterity with which she dispatched each plague-bearing animal. Was this truly the Maeda’s plan? To just fling dogs at her to no effect? He must have spent the entire day preparing for this, and it all just amounted to a literal slaughterhouse? The reason the Fenshingiri had failed for decades to rout the insurgent population fighting against them was precisely because the combatants like the Maeda couldn’t fight out in the open. They preferred ambush tactics. Each passing moment that Junko delayed her escape meant the odds of falling into the Maeda’s true plan grew. She needed to act now before her odds got any worse.
Instinct kicked in again as she spun in place to take out another wave of infected beasts, this time both in front and behind her simultaneously. Her feet shuffled again and repositioned her to both take out another pair of animals while moving her under the wooden tower structure in one efficient sweep. The movements came naturally as Junko adapted to dropping the animals one after the other without wasting a movement. The path of least resistance, her mother used to say. Too much thinking caused its own problems. All Junko needed to do was to...
Go with the flow. As she slid the soles of her sandals back against the hard concrete Junko came to that conclusion. Even as she realized it Junko couldn’t stop her body from taking those natural, instinctual reactions. Muscle memory from years of experience couldn’t be overridden at the drop of a dime. As her blades bit into another chunk of dogs her position shifted to accommodate the force of the blow, placing her directly under the tower she ran to for protection.
The Maeda forced her here. Like a shepherd herding his livestock, each movement of his dog puppets led Junko to end up in this exact spot. A new sound hit her attuned ears and joined the cacophony of battle.
Plip-plip-plip. Something warm and liquid fell from above. It began to rain.
Junko didn’t look up because that would have been asking for an eyeful. She didn’t need to. All around the periphery of the tower a shower of dark liquid sprayed, as if some hidden sprinkler system just kicked on. The low light of the night prevented her from identifying it by sight but Junko knew the smell all too well. It was raining blood.
The Maeda baited the tower. A crowd of dogs now circled the tower, staying their distance like wolves trying to exhaust their prey. A gross warmth spread across her clothes where the thick blood, disease laden blood landed. As the gore soaked into her hair Junko’s attunement to her senses let her feel the writhing Maeda worms squirming along her skin. As a mercenary Junko was no stranger to getting disgusting bits of people on her but this was an entirely different level of repulsion. She didn’t have any open wounds for the maggots to get into so her infection wouldn’t be immediate, but at this point it now felt inevitable. To think of that grotesque Maeda puppeting her like a toy...stomach churning didn’t even describe it.
Yet as her brain rapidly searched for a way out, Junko knew she only need to focus on what mattered: stopping the rain.
The muscles along both arms tightened and she planted both feet firmly onto the now slick concrete. Junko smoothly sheathed Hikoboshi and held Sahori to her side, in a stance reminiscent of those drawing styles so popular among those who called themselves samurai. She gave her head one twitchy shake to dislodge any vermin and closed her eyes as the falling blood threatened to drip into them. A proper Kiku-ichimonji could part the clouds with their killing intent, or her more arrogant uncles used to claim. If there was any time to test that, it was now!
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With lips pursed and teeth clenched, Junko released her tightened muscles. Sahori smashed out horizontally with enough force to split the skin of her palms when the blade made contact. So much for no open wounds.
Like an axe the blade of the sword sunk into the wooden support of the watch tower. She winced as shredded material cracked and pelted her face. In, in, in her weapon went...until it stopped. While grimacing she opened her eyes. Sahori only made it a third of the way through the wooden post.
Good enough for her! Junko whipped out her Hikoboshi in the same style as before, slamming the shorter sword down at an angle into the support beam. The blow cleanly sliced out a chunk from the wood as if cutting out a piece of cake. The sudden release of pressure first caused the stuck Sahori (along with the wedge of wood she just cut) to fall, but Junko immediately snatched both her blades up by the handle before they could tumble into the nasty blood soup building up at her feet. The already worn watchtower let out a frightening groan of instability. The whole structure threatened collapse under its weakened leg. It was wounded, but not yet defeated. The next blow would seal its fate.
One more draw and Sahori severed what was left of the support. The dilapidated tower finally yielded. A chorus of cracking wood and rumbling planks rumbled out into the night air as the structure lurched precariously. As it did so several animals came crashing down from above, smashing into the ground just before the tower caved sideways. The Maeda must have positioned them there specifically to bleed on her...yet he wasn’t anywhere to be seen still. Junko had really hoped to have seen the skinny body of the Maeda falling from the structure as well. Where could he be hiding?
Like a fallen tree the tower toppled right on top of a group of the waiting animals, who seemed completely unprepared for the sudden shift in scenery. Their jerking gaits and imprecise movements were not good at coping with rapid changes and a sizable bulk of the Maeda’s infected army was crushed under the splintering wood as it slammed into the earth. A plume of dust and debris engulfed the battlefield, finally granting Junko the cover she needed to move.
Yet rather than retreat, Junko took measured and careful steps into the chaos. The only way forward, was forward! In the night’s darkness even the meager amount of obscuring smoke provided more than an effective cloak. Yet even when her form should have been impossible to detect, she heard the scampering claws of distant beasts hurrying towards her new position. So the Maeda wasn’t using sight to hunt at all? Where could that monster be hiding, then? Undoing a flask at her belt she dumped the entire contents across her face without any hesitation. The bitter and strong alcohol within seared her flesh but more importantly, washed off and outright eradicated the vulnerable maggots still writhing towards whatever host they could find. Who said being a heavy drinker didn’t have health benefits?
As she stepped out of the dust that infuriating, whispery voice once again spoke to her. This time Junko’s face hardened with targeted aggression rather than disgust.
“Nice try.” The whispers flowed directly into her ear. A small but definite hand place itself on her shoulder. Overwhelming instinct kicked in without a moment's hesitation and Junko spun around, bringing both of her swords to bear directly behind her. They caught nothing but air. More alarmingly, the hand was still on her shoulder even after moving. No, rather, the hand had moved with her as she spun. The Maeda was on her back.
“Selfish, selfish.” The voice on her back let out another breathy chuckle. Each word came out in an unpleasant blend of the Maeda’s own voice, and that of the host. Junko could have forgotten that nasal whine of the Maeda easily but there was no mistaking who made up the other half of that equation. Gekko’s own vocal chords rattled as the Maeda’s infection forced him to speak yet again.
“Didn’t even think to protect the kid, did you? You were all too happy to use him like an umbrella. You are a lousy bodyguard.” The hand on her shoulder tightened. Junko kept her head facing forward. The boy must have wormed his way out of his bindings during all the previous excitement. The child wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to pose a threat but that really didn’t matter at that moment. A different cold chill swirled in Junko’s stomach. There was no way Gekko was dead, he was only weakened from being sedated. The Maeda’s infection could be reversed...but to do that, she would need to put an end to the puppetmaster for good. Another hiss escaped from the possessed boy’s lips. “But I suppose that is to be expected of a human trafficker. Just another product to deliver, am I right?”
The first onslaught of disgust and horror gave way to a rising anger. She spat her words out like bullets. “Hypocrite.”
Now an earnest chuckle came from the manipulated Gekko. “Please, let’s dispense with the whining. I understand being bitter, getting cornered so easily due to your carelessness.” Junko’s grip stayed firm on her swords and her eyes strained to stay focused on the distant but still approaching group of remaining dogs. “Drop your weapons, or I kill the child.”
“A hypocrite and a murderer. You would involve a mere boy in our fight out of spite?”
“You involved him. I merely exploited the opportunity you gave me. Drop your weapons.”
A second hand placed itself on Junko from behind, now on her neck. The fingers felt weak and slender yet indescribably threatening. No amount of previous experience could be drawn on for an answer here. On every front Junko appeared absolutely surrounded. Of course, of course, there was that option, the unthinkable one. Let the child die and make an otherwise unhindered escape. This was just another job, right? Nothing was worth dying for, even that cursed hourglass that the nation of Garion promised to her. There would be other chances, other ways to atone for her past mistakes. One boy from a far flung island nation wouldn’t be missed. He might even be assumed to be dead already!
“There.” Junko spoke incredibly softly, such that nobody but Gekko might hear. “I’ve disarmed.” She waited a moment.
Then she spoke just a bit louder when no response came. “I’ve disarmed.” The grip on her neck didn’t change and no response came from Gekko. Again, just a fraction louder than before. “I’ve disarmed.”
“Don’t lie to me so blatantly.” Gekko’s infected voice chortled. “Do you think I can’t observe everything you do? I have eyes and ears on every side. I will give you three seconds to comply or-”
Her leg muscles tightened and she shifted the entirety of her mass onto the very tips of the toes in order to minimize the surface area making contact. Throw yourself before the gods in silence, the saying went, for nothing you say can influence the heavens. This Maeda wasn’t quite a god and no doubt if Junko had any surviving relatives they would be appalled at her blasphemy. She could live with that.
Junko arced her back, then pushed off from her position while the Maeda was mid-sentence. The giant pack she wore transporting Gekko shifted uncomfortably but Junko was used to moving in armor as well, giving her a deceptive amount of speed. She launched forward in one snapping movement and held both her blades to her side, like an eagle splaying its wings prior to landing. It was hardly a graceful flight despite all that effort. With her center of gravity at such an odd place Junko began to topple midleap and felt her balance shift even prior to landing. It would be a sloppy finish.
The voice of Maeda managed to squeeze out one word while the two soared through the air. Not a ‘what’ or a ‘how’, but a “Why?” was all he managed to squeeze out. If he was going to kill Gekko there would be some delay, given how poorly the dogs seemed to respond to rapid changes in their surroundings. A single moment was all Junko needed. Her bare feet landed onto the rough earth just a short distance away from where her sandals lay and the full force of her weight laid hard into her soles. The softest thump announced her arrival but she had every reason to anticipate that being more than enough for the Maeda to hear. Gekko’s fingers seemed to strain at her skin, the boy’s strength unable to truly pose a threat but more than expressing the Maeda’s displeasure at having been disobeyed. But there was a hidden desperation in that grip as well, all but confirming Junko’s deduction. Let him seethe, then!
She fell forward as her balance finally gave way. With that same effortless motion Junko was so accustomed to her body moved on instinct to keep her upright. She brought both of her weapons forward and plunged them into the ground in front of her for support. The dirt and soil gave way much easier than the wood from before. Even easier than normal, actually, because this soil here was soft and loose, as if freshly churned only hours ago. Junko couldn’t believe she had missed it before.
Weeds grew everywhere in that abandoned camp, except where they had been pulled out to bury something. To hide small dogs was one thing- to hide an entire body...well, the Maeda certainly showed his lack of familiarity with proper funeral rites, given how obvious his hiding spot was now in hindsight. Quite fitting for someone who saw fit to manipulate corpses, rather than giving them proper burials.
The earth beneath Junko’s swords let out a blood-chilling scream. It was the kind of sound Junko was ashamed to admit she enjoyed hearing after a long struggle.
Twisting her wrists and planting her aching feet she let out her own guttural howl. As her whole weight bore down on her weapons they slipped deeper into the earth. When the hilts hit the ground she pivoted on her heels and pulled both weapons up in an arc, just as if she were flipping a giant pancake. The loose soil gave way to Junko’s incredible force and from that spot she pulled out her target. It was a bit difficult to see exactly in the darkness but the human-shaped body that emerged certainly looked the same size as the Maeda, and from its pained shouting, sounded like him too! After popping the body she speared out with such force her swords simply couldn’t stay embedded in the man. Sahori and Hikoboshi flung the skeletal form of the Maeda and he tumbled a short distance through the air before collapsing just a short distance away. Junko needed a moment to reorient herself as her pouncing attack still left her incredibly unbalanced. Even one of those dogs might have knocked her down at that point.
But no such ally came to the Maeda’s aid. His own survival instinct, far different from Junko’s, tried to use the child he infected as leverage instead. The boy began thrashing and throwing his limited weight around to try and slow her. A wasted effort, he realized, as the stars above him disappeared. In their place stood the looming shadow of Junko. Two shredded straps hung over her shoulders. The woman must have ditched the kid to more quickly deal with him. He was out of tools.
Both of the stab wounds Junko inflicted on the Maeda were fatal, but despite that his arms reached out to try and pull himself up and put up a futile defense. The blood-soaked Junko swung her blades and removed both limbs so easily it was as if she was popping the arms off a doll. He screamed again and rolled sideways in another desperate attempt to buy time. Why? Why had she come this way? What had given him away so easily? The guerilla warfare he engaged in his whole life with the Fenshingiri government gave him an unbeatable edge in ambushes like this. All that time spent preparing! Well, he would just have to do better the next time. The next time!
Even as Junko made a final swing and separated Maeda's head from the rest of his body, he raged. Tonight had been an unfortunate learning experience for the young Maeda, to be sure.