Find the merchant’s horses. Find the merchant’s horses. Find the merchant’s horses.
Sorcha repeated and repeated her current task in her mind, given to her by a merchant she’d encountered.
Dried grass tickled the bottom of bare feet as she zipped aimlessly past shrubs, bushes, and trees that blended into a browny, leafy blur. Sorcha yawned loudly and she covered her mouth with a hand. Woah, she felt super winded for some reason. Did she unintentionally expend way too much energy earlier? Mm, she recalled she fought demons earlier, so that could be the reason. Plus, it still nagged at her that she’d forgotten what she wanted to tell the merchant.
Sorcha shrugged to herself.
“Meh, no biggie! All I’ve gotta do is to find his horses and bring them back to him. Shouldn’t be tough.”
And to psych herself up, she also rubbed her cheeks with her palms and gave herself a couple of light self-slaps.
But where could these horses have gone? If they’d fled into the forest in fear, they couldn’t have gone too far. They’d likely have run in a straight line too. If that was the case, she could cover more search area by turning left at this point to cut across their paths.
Her sight, sound, and smell were on alert for any signs of her targets, unimpeded by her speed. Like a perceptive owl, her eyes were peeled for hooveprints on the soil, her ears for panic whinnying, her nose for the mistakable rooty odor of equine excretion. Back at home, she was responsible for herding the farm horses from time to time, so she’d gleaned an aptitude to track them whenever they galloped off.
So when she espied upon a curious trail of U-shaped prints embossed in muddy soil, like a sprouting leaf, her ahoge straightened upward. An idea flickered in her mind. Interestingly, the tracks weren’t spread out from one another, which meant the horses had been walking at this point.
Could they be lost and wandering in the forest?
“But finding them is gonna be easier at this rate. That way, then!”
Believing that the animals should be nearby, Sorcha followed the tracks on foot. The mud squishing beneath her was toasty and cozy in the chillier air, having retained its warmth from the late summer heat. Gradually, the trail grew sparser and fainter as the horse’s hooves left the mud and stepped on leaves.
Sorcha turned at a tree, glimpsed a pair of bestial ears, and—
“HAAAAAAAUUU!”
A reverberating cry slammed into her eardrums with the force of a hundred stampeding wooly oxen and swatted her against the tree. The furrowed bark gnawed into her back, and its ragged texture collided with the back of her head. The strident noise startled even the high-hanging branches, sending a downpour of cedar leaves, a flock of bulbuls to screech off in fear, and horses to gallop and flee.
White bled into Sorcha’s world. Numbness addled her brain. Incessant ringing persisted inside her ears. She couldn’t tell up from down, far or near, whether she was still standing or square on her butt.
Although standing directly before her, teetering left and right like a malfunctioning water well lever, was a girl about a child’s height.
As shapes and colors sorted themselves out, Sorcha witnessed the strange girl frantically darting glances toward and away from her. Two fuzzy ears that looked like flabby strawberry breadsticks on her short strawberry hair flapped in panic whenever the girl turned. And whenever she swung her body in one direction, her twin pink part-dog part-fox tails that were as large as half of herself fluffed the other. Her lips were moving too, but it took a moment before Sorcha’s hearing returned that she heard the girl stammer, “—do? Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!”
This girl was no human, was Sorcha’s immediate thought. But she was also certain that she was not a kamuy either, or any kamuy she recognized at the very least. The girl lacked the spiritual essence she sensed among them. Then, a yokai?
Yet, despite that, the peculiar girl was dressed just like a human. Maybe even… from the capital?
She donned an oversized snowy pink kimono, paired harmoniously with an equally oversized orchid hakama. An ivory cord secured her outfit in an unconventional manner, over her breasts instead of above the waist, likely to adapt to her diminutive stature. The ends of her hakama had also been crudely and unevenly ripped shorter by hand. Perched atop her head between her ears was a bowler hat, with a (real?) ripened peach nestling on its rim. And inked between her eyes was a simple bindi of small and large dots arranged to form a flower. A plum haori flowed over her shoulders and down to her thighs, its charming silky material capturing sunlight in a mesmerizing sheen. And in a moment of confusion when the girl showed her back, Sorcha caught a glimpse of a lotus emblem emblazoned between the collarbones on the haori.
The stabbing pain came next. Sorcha rubbed the back of her neck, wincing.
“Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!”
Having not noticed Sorcha regaining her senses, the strange girl jumped in fright at her sudden yelps. Though her quivering short legs were ready to flee, she instead approached Sorcha in small, timid steps. Her voice was soft, panicked, and twinged with worry. She bowed in apology.
“B-Biko is really sorry, human. When you suddenly appeared from behind the tree from nowhere, she assumed you were a scary monster and she shouted in defense without thinking…”
Her hands hugged her chest while her head weaved around to investigate the archer without approaching closer.
Did she say shouting? A shout was that powerful?
Regardless, Sorcha now was completely sure there were no kamuy possessing any essence related to shouting, let alone one who was notable for their bizarre ears and twin tails. The girl calling herself Biko had to be a yokai!
Sorcha laughed, still rubbing her injury.
“A knock on the head is nothing! I had worse trying to milk a moody wooly cattle during mating season, I think. Yoohoo, a hand?”
The archer interrupted the yokai girl as she was darting around frantically and mumbling to herself over hurting a human. She held out an outstretched hand, waiting.
“Oh, Biko is so sorry!”
And with another apology, the yokai girl lifted herself to Sorcha’s position with exasperated little steps. One tiny hand clasped Sorcha’s, and when the archer was ready to pull herself up with the yokai’s help, she instead found herself being yanked up to her feet as if she were weightless. With one hand, too! Sorcha blinked, trying to register what had just happened.
“Woah… You’re way stronger than you look.”
“Umm… thanks for the compliment.”
Numbness continued to buzz behind Sorcha’s skull, but she ignored it. If she didn’t think about it, it’d subside.
The yokai plucked the peach from her hat and offered it up to Sorcha. Her timid leafy eyes drooped to the corners like a lovable puppy’s. Kindness colored her voice as sweet as an actual one.
“Fresh fruit helps Biko to heal, and it’s healthy for humans and yokai alike. Have hers, she insists.”
So it was a real peach! Wow!
Sorcha thanked her and snacked on the fruit. She was feeling a little peckish thanks to her draining her energy. She took a bite of its pink flesh and watery sweetness exploded inside her mouth. As she bit and chewed, coolness wrapped around her tongue and inner cheeks, tickling her with its enervating flavor, before flushing down her throat where its sugary taste lingered. Oh, kamuy of peaches, how could it taste like the sweetest pot of honey ever? Somehow, the colors of the forest suddenly sharpened and she could hear and smell better.
Watching her munch away heartily, the yokai smiled in a mix of relief and sincere joy.
A yokai genuinely worried for the well-being of a human. You didn’t see these kinds of creatures every day. Had she gotten close to a human in the past before?
She shoved the rest of the peach down her mouth and then changed the subject. Pointing to herself with a thumb, she whipped up an air of pride around herself while she introduced herself.
“Name’s Sorcha! And soar like the winds, I shall!”
“Sor… sha… Sorcha-san. Your name sounds quite foreign.”
“Right? Bet you think it’s from the capital?”
“Umm… maybe? Biko doesn’t really know about human civilization, but she can believe all sorts of people with all sorts of names live there. Biko’s name is Biko. It’s nice to meet you, Sorcha-san. And sorry again for hurting you.”
Once again, Biko put her hands together over her waist and bent forward, bowing at her in greeting. Her display of etiquette–human etiquette–was remarkable.
“Nah, don’t worry about that. I wonder, what makes your voice so powerful? With an ability like that, I don’t think even I could forget after witnessing it once.”
No soon after, Biko introduced herself as a yamabiko, a species of animalistic yokai that dwelled in recluse high up the mountains. It was said that when a human hiker shouted into the distance from the mountaintops, they would hear their own voice call back to them in return in the same tone, volume, and spoken words. Echoes, as scholars came to coin it. Such echoes were the work of a shy yet curious yamabiko watching those humans from within the shrouds of tall bushes or behind cliff faces and repeating their calls back to them. It was like an indirect interaction.
Once Biko finished with her shockingly erudite explanation of her own kind, Sorcha, who had blankly listened on, tried to ask a question in return to pretend she still had her head in the conversation.
“So you shout a lot?”
She’d already forgotten the earlier half of Biko’s explanation by the time she ended her last sentence, so she chose to smile through it.
Biko’s ears dropped and her eyes veered to the side, her cheeks turning a peachy pink. She twirled her index fingers around each other. Even her tails wagged from Sorcha’s sight as if shying away.
“Well, if other people shout near Biko, then she might be compelled to shout back because it’s in her yamabiko blood, as much as it embarrasses her…”
“Really now? Compelled?”
Sorcha’s lips curled. Her fingers stroked her chin as hundreds of thoughts raced across her mind.
She breathed in and—
“Prepare for my coming, human capital!”
“PREPARE FOR MY COMING, HUMAN CAPITAAAAAAAAAAL!”
So boomed Biko into the sky from beside her. The yamabiko’s voice engulfed Sorcha’s whole and undulated like echoing wave after wave of pital pital pital. There was nothing in the forest that could not have heard Sorcha’s deafening declaration now.
And Biko, realizing what she’d done, flushed a hot red, and she covered her mouth with both her hands.
Sorcha chortled and applauded.
A yamabiko’s ability was fascinating. Biko was fascinating. If all yokai had unique abilities like her, imagine the experiences Sorcha might have encountering one after another.
“Biko thought telling others could warn them from making her shout back…!”
“Why be so embarrassed! It’s powerful! I’d be proud of myself if I could project my voice like you.”
While Sorcha was ruminating about the next words to shout in front of her new yokai friend, Biko’s floppy ears suddenly straightened and turned rigid. Gasping, she darted her head left and right, her pupils enlarging, her senses attempting to pick up the slightest movement or sound. Her voice was tinged with alarm.
“Something’s coming here. Something big!”
“Big? What’s coming here?”
Sorcha’s question was answered immediately by rumbling and shuffling and cracking and snapping of leaves and branches. Shrikes took off in terror, their piercing shriek a warning for all life to flee. No sooner did only Sorcha and Biko remain, with not even a scent of the spirits’ essences. For once, the forest fell into complete stillness.
Lumbering into view was a mass of volcanic red skin hulking as tall as two Sorchas stacked on top of one another. Its horrendous, muscular body was painted with broad lines of coal from its bald head to its jiggling, exposed bloated belly. Disheveled clouds of white hair crawled out of its chin, forearms, and shins like rampantly growing brambles. Two drill-shaped horns protruded from its forehead, both as long as Biko and larger and thicker than her. Each gigantic step it took rocked the earth beneath them.
In its bulking arms was an ugly wooden club with uglier metallic spikes, a kanabo. Deep copper splotches marred the point tips of the steel that were each as sharp as its claws on its four limbs, likely remnants of human heads it had bashed in its life serving its wielder.
Wiping her nose with a thumb, Sorcha materialized her bow from her back and assumed a defensive stance. She cocked a battle-ready smirk.
“Well, well, well, what do you know? A greater oni! Now things are getting exciting.”
“Our shouting attracted it, Sorcha-san!”
The yamabiko cried in fear, pulling the rims of her bowler hat down in a way that it snapped her yamabiko ears shut, and cowered into a ball.
A puff of steam snorted from the greater oni’s boil of a nose, and a wild toothy grin cracked beneath its perpetually wrathful mien. With a thundering slam, it stabbed its weapon into the ground, sending a shockwave that made smaller rocks and Biko hop. Its raging solid crimson eyes leered down at its two new playthings.
“Haaau… Why would a greater oni be here of all places?”
“I dunno, but I’m not gonna let it escape now that it’s showed itself up.”
The archer looked at the petrified yamabiko. Her left hand was a nail’s breadth away from her bow’s airy strings.
“Run, you! I can handle this.”
“You’re going to fight?!”
Sorcha only narrowed her eyes at the oni.
It was only her up against the greater oni. Honestly, the yokai’s fear for her wasn’t misplaced. Its fearsome size did intimidate Sorcha, but the bigger they were, the harder they fell, right? She needed only to dodge its kanabo and stay far away from its feet or weapon. The greater oni was a challenge meant for her, and would she pass on that?
As if sensing her threat, the greater oni’s nose flared in response.
“No way we can let it pursue either of us. I’ll take it on. I’m a veteran when it comes to exterminating demons.”
“But Sorcha-san, you’d be alone!”
Concern welled up as tears at the corners of Biko’s eyes. Sorcha’s expression softened, but she wasn’t in the right spot to think of words to soothe her since she had to keep her full attention on her impending battle.
The greater oni heaved its kanabo over its shoulder and its pillar-like legs budged forward. Its eyes bled a bloodier crimson, no doubt sensing the deaths of its troop by the archer’s hands.
Sorcha’s fingers wrapped around the funnel strings, her other hand holding her bow steady. She needed only aim and pull, and sharp wind would fly into her gigantic target.
Biko, in a panic, snapped back and forth between the oni, Sorcha, and a direction to escape, unsure of what to do.
But it was their shared foe who acted first. Without so much as a second to breathe, the greater oni launched itself at Sorcha and Biko at a speed impossible for its weight. Its pounce left a foot-sized crater in the dirt from where it stood, exposed roots and cracked stone jutted out. It twisted its body, interposing its arm between them, as it barreled at them, converting all of its momentum into a terrible force.
“Oh, kamuy!–”
Immediately, Sorcha drew, aimed at the space right between her and Biko, and released without thinking. Explosive gales erupted at their feet, propelling them backward like stray rocks caught in a storm.
Biko screamed as she was thrown off to the opposite side. Thanks to her smaller and lighter stature, she was flung without resistance, landing prone on a mound of soft grass.
Sorcha, meanwhile, wasn’t as lucky. Though she flung back, her left thigh grazed rock-solid bone, and combined with the force from her own emergency wind blast, both sent the archer rolling on the jagged, granule earthen carpet where a nasty, thick root awaited a taste of her back.
“Sorcha-san!”
The yamabiko lifted her head and cried out to the archer. More than a couple of yards separated them.
The hulking oni guffawed and slapped its belly with its free hand, celebrating its early and easy victory. As if taunting Sorcha, it brandished its kanabo, watching and waiting for her from ahead to pick her twitching body from the dirt.
Putting strength to her arms, Sorcha ignored her pained back as she lifted herself from the ground, taking her dropped weapon near her hand. Flipping her ponytail aside and wiping away trickling blood from a fresh cut on her cheek, she mustered bravado and shouted to Biko.
“Like I said, stand back…! It’s dangerous!”
Her right hand thumbed along the markings etched into her bow’s momiji.
Closing her eyes, she prayed to the kamuy for strength and guidance. And when she opened them, she felt their spirits gracing her mind and body with their incorporeal touch.
She licked her lips, frost setting on her tongue. Her finger pointed at its ugly nose.
“I’ll let you have that first hit, fatty. But if it makes you feel I’m gonna be just a breeze for you, then you’ll be sorry when my wind sends your giant butt flying over Kamueku.”
The oni pounded its kanabo on the ground again. Hot steam snorted from the greater oni’s nose. Its thick eyebrows creased and its volcanic eyes flared. For an evil creature that enjoyed clanging its own cattle bell, it sure disliked being mocked in return.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Her yamabiko friend, up on her feet now, understanding that her presence risked both herself and Sorcha, tearfully fled into the shelter of the woodlands.
Nature spirits, if you’re around, keep her safe.
The choking stench of malevolence hung in the surrounding air, driving all manner of essences away.
Sorcha exhaled a steadying breath, then with narrowed eyes, a cocky curl on her lips, plus a little bored scratch behind her ear, she put on her best smug. Might as she appeared to be maintaining her air of levity, it was her steeling herself for round two.
“What’s wrong? Scared?”
The oni roared. Once again, with impossible agility, it lunged at Sorcha with its spiked greatclub heaved over its shoulder. It cared not for the two tree boughs obstructing a clean path between them. It plowed through them like picket fence posts, and it planned to use its velocity as fuel to crush her into a red paste with one swing.
Anticipated! A burst of air scattering dried leaves, and Sorcha launched herself thrice her own height. Frontflipping, she raised a finger and stroked the oni’s bony horn. The oni looked up in rage, exposing the root of its neck, to which Sorcha released three rapid, arcing wind blades right at it with a strum of her strings.
Air slashed around its neck from either side of its shoulders, managing only to inflict minor wounds on its resilient skin. As Sorcha landed behind the oni, its fresh cuts were already ichorous scabs.
“Tsk, should’ve realized normal attacks were ineffective. Fine, I’ll just have to try harder!”
The oni turned around and bared its two lower sizeable fangs rivaling the kamuy of wild boars at her.
Swiftly, she drew her bow as far as her armspan allowed, forming a glowing bead of wind at the tip of her bow. But the greater oni denied her the chance to fully charge when it rushed at her again, destroying another tree and forcing Sorcha to jump backward in defense and prematurely release her arrow. With a shwip, it scraped across the oni’s cheek.
“Woah woah woah! Let’s not get too chummy, fatty. We barely know each other!”
Makai’s curse! There was no way Sorcha could find an opportunity to power up an effective arrow if it intended to disrupt her by lunging at her. She could not afford to be hit. With its speed and bulk, one hit would devastate her. The oni knew too, and it showed no signs of changing its tactics.
With all the last-second evasions, Sorcha’s legs were beginning to feel the strain and pull, yet her foe was barely winded. Ugh, she wouldn’t have fought in close quarters if she could…
An opening, an opening…
If fate wasn’t giving her a chance for one, then Sorcha must make her own with her korpokkur luck.
Mmm?! Wait a second…
Between all the dodging and barreling into trees in their catch-me-if-you-can battle, Sorcha realized their battlefield had altered. They had created a clearing in the middle of the forest–one littered with tree trunk halves that were reducing not only her leg room, but the oni’s as well!
Her ahoge peeped upward, and she cracked an impish grin. Sorcha could dash and hop on top of the fallen trunks, but the oni would be stuck. With its weight, those robust wooden pillars were practically barricades. It might try to lunge at her, but she’d like to see it try while its legs were wedged between them.
Alright, time to bring in the storm.
Climbing up the nearest tree trunk, Sorcha whistled and waved at the oni.
“Yoohoo! Over here!”
A curving air blade was let loose, flying in a wide arc at her foe. It prepared to shield against her attack with an arm, but then strands of hair dropped on its shoulders and the brown grass at its feet. Her blade had sliced its cloudy white beard.
The greater oni stroked its chin and discovered its brand new shave. This time, the muscles on its face furrowed so deeply, every crease on its nosebridge, its forehead, even at the corners of its eyes and lips were trenches splitting across his red mien.
“What’s wrong? It looks great on you! …Oopsies, looks like I angered you. Guess I might’ve overdone it, silly me!”
So the mischievous half-korpokkur archer fled leftward.
But instead of withdrawing, Sorcha dashed in a circle around the oni while keeping a fixed distance. She jumped from trunk to trunk, letting the wind carry her across greater distances. And if any two trunks were too far apart, she glided along the ground until she found the nearest one to hoist herself up.
And all the while she ran, she released blade after blade of wind, in volleys of two to five, without once shifting her gaze toward her foe. Instead, controlling their trajectory, her attacks curved inward the circle, with not a single one missing her towering target. Left, right, left, right, sharp air pelted the oni’s flanks, forcing it at bay. Unsure of which direction the archer’s relentless attacks would fly, the oni could only defend itself with both of its arms.
Her cheeky grin turned sweeter and sweeter, and the oni’s wrathful mien sourer and sourer.
The oni whipped its entire body around as it tried to turn and catch up to the annoying archer’s movement to no avail. A hundred bleeding and crusting black marks peppered its legs, arms, belly, and neck, and a hundred more soon to follow.
After the fifth rotation, the oni clutched its forehead with its free hand and thrashed in place as if in a sudden headache. Its clenched weapon fist quaked with rage, ready to snap its own kanabo in two.
Confusion. That was how she would buy herself time to charge up an arrow!
And by Ural-Kamuy’s guidance, it was working as haphazardly planned.
When she stopped, only a single chance did she have to draw her bowstrings as far back as possible, to muster all her spirit and energy, culminating into one strike that pierced through its thick skin and heart.
The oni snapped at last. Roaring, its volcanic skin somehow flared a hotter crimson. Heat simmered from its nostrils, boiling even the water vapors in the air into steam.
Uh oh.
Sensing impending danger, Sorcha sent a triple volley at the oni while mid-long jump, but the oni took it all without so much as a flinch.
And then, without warning, the oni kicked a fallen tree trunk with a horrendous crash, sending a haybale-sized log spiraling straight into Sorcha’s path like a horizontal windmill.
Uh oh was right.
At her speed, Sorcha had no time to stop or change her direction. A shattering blam, and Sorcha cried as her body collided with the sheer force of the stray trunk. Swatted like a bug, her body barreled into the deep forest. Sharp twigs and rough stones buried underneath blankets of dried leaves dug into her limbs.
Cracking, rolling, snapping. After what was an eternity of hurt, the archer finally slowed to an agonizing halt, with her vision a psychedelic mess of spinning colors.
Was she still conscious? Yeah, she was. Funnily, she felt no pain whatsoever.
“Sorcha-san! Sorcha-san, you have to get up, please! Oh no, oh no, oh no, you’re bleeding. What to do, what to do? What can Biko do? Haaaau…”
That familiar voice buzzed in her ears. Right, Biko. There was Biko who kept herself away from the fight, but if she was here, did it mean she had been watching the whole time instead of escaping?
Biko frantically looked between her and the oni stomping closer and closer. Her trembling, sweating hands hovered above her wounds, and her own breathing turned more ragged than Sorcha’s.
Biko was right about one thing, though. Now was no time to be lying around.
Sorcha looked up at the yamabiko who was so preoccupied with her own rambling that she didn’t notice the archer waving a hand at her. Spitting out some blood, she cleared her throat and whistled at her.
“A lift?”
“S-Sorry!”
Once again, the yokai pulled Sorcha up to her feet in an instant with a mountainous tug of her right hand. Once again, the archer was flabbergasted at the oni-like strength this girl half her size had.
Sorcha steadied herself, but as she tried to recall her bow from her back, sharp pain stabbed at her right hip. She buckled under her own weight and was saved from another tumble by Biko who hoisted her from below her waist.
“Ow ow ow… It got me good.”
“Does this h-help?!”
Biko was quaking in fear, far more violently than the approaching greater oni’s thundering stomps, but still, she chose not to turn around and run. She peered up at Sorcha for reassurance in her squeaking voice.
“You know I’m not planning to run until that oni’s banished, right? I’m getting a feeling it’s gonna jump at us again, and I’m not gonna have the time to counter with an attack that could pierce its stupidly thick skin.”
“Biko understands. That’s why she cannot leave you alone.”
And then Biko repeated Sorcha’s words slowly.
“Have the time…”
Her contemplative tone caught the archer’s attention, who glanced at her below. Her twin tails were twiddling together, akin to her youngest brother who tended to twiddle his finger whenever he was tight-lipped.
“Got a plan or something?”
“Biko… Biko can try something too. She had been observing your battle with the oni, and she realized that it is distracted easily. Look at its ears, large and wide. And whenever it is about to attack, it roars really loud. She thinks she can try stunning it by echoing it back…!”
“Echoing? Really?—Uh, yeah, do what you need to do! Look out, here it comes!”
The oni tapped its kanabo over its shoulder while grinning and baring its lower fangs. With Sorcha’s mobility nulled to near zero due to her injury and Biko now present, it could finish both of them off together. Its volcanic skin had completely healed, leaving no trace of the hundreds of cuts from earlier. It savored its time to approach the two like a predator walking up to its helpless prey.
Biko’s ears flopped up and down, adjusting and tuning themselves, while keeping her sights on the oni. She released her grip on Sorcha’s leg, stepping forward to put some space between them.
Wobbling slightly, Sorcha forced her weight onto her left leg to stabilize herself. An urge to step in front of her emerged, but she chose to shout at the yokai.
“Getting cold feet over here myself, Biko!”
“Please trust Biko!”
The yokai’s ears lifted straight up and her open palms moved to the corners of her lips, forming a funnel around it.
Was she planning to mountain serow spit at their enemy to blind them? Sorcha decided against readying an arrow over concerns that the oni would instantly lunge for her and hit Biko in the path.
The oni raised its eyebrow in amusement at Biko’s bizarre posture. It flared its nostrils to intimidate her, and the yamabiko squealed, tails swaying in anxiety. Yet her zori were affixed on her position.
Biko inhaled, inhaled, and inhaled, swallowing as much air as possible into her tummy. Her back arched, her stomach pushed outward, and she stretched a quarter of her own height.
And when the oni had seen enough, it roared at Biko, poised to crush her in the next breath.
And it was exactly what the tiny yokai had been waiting for.
“Kyōfu - Ōmugaeshi!”
Makai was unleashed.
Mimicking the oni’s roar flawlessly, a returning tumultuous roar rippled through the forest before Biko in a cone. It tore the soil asunder, uprooted newborn sprouts, and distorted the space between her and the oni. It boomed louder than the great monsoon thunders, so loud that it could put the kamuy of storm’s maelstrom-triggering howl to shame. Even as she drilled her fingers into her eardrums, Sorcha could hear Biko’s echo.
One single, continuous bellow. It was the most destructive clamor she’d ever heard.
And their foe seemed to be more strongly affected than her. It thrashed its head, roaring in pain, ichor spurting out of its ears. Biko’s overwhelming force threatened to send it reeling, so it drove its kanabo into the earth to steady itself.
Wrong move.
Leaving one of its own big ears raw, exposed, and unprotected, the oni granted a passageway for intense vibrations to enter its skull cavity. It staggered and growled in agony, unable to move or think or act. Its kanabo, unable to stand on its own, timbered onto soil with its handle pointed toward the duo.
Biko collapsed to her knees and hacked for air. Cold sweat trickled from her forehead. With that voice attack packing so much power, she must’ve expended all her energy.
Yamabiko and their control over echoes and sound…!
If one couldn’t go toe to toe with an opponent in a contest of strength and skill, then all they needed was a way to disable them–even for a brief moment!
“Huff… huff… huff…”
“Nice going, Biko! Sorcha’s turn!”
Focusing, the world around Sorcha quietened, and she listened only to the whispering wind guiding her. Forest air swirled into a greenish-white bead at the tip of Sorcha’s bow, glowing brighter as the surrounding gales blew stronger.
Closing her right eye, her tongue peeping out the corner of her lips, she pointed with her index finger, aligning its tip to the squirming oni. But with its erratic movements, aiming for its brain or heart proved troublesome. She’d have to wound it first.
Her own breaths pulsated in her ears.
Sorcha did not miss, ever.
“Hey, fatty! Eat this!”
Barreling with the cyclonic wrath, the wind arrow streaked ahead at a speed that cleaved the space in front of Sorcha and Biko, leaving a spiraling green-white trail of residual wind lagging behind like a tail. Its path curved upward, penetrating the oni’s skin and ripping into its critical organs.
Ichor surged out of the oni’s back, staining the earthy brown in miasmic black. The oni bellowed and frantically tried squeezing the wound shut with its hand to halt the bleeding.
Sorcha lowered her bow to watch her panicking foe with glee. Finally, payback!
“Woohoo! I knew I just needed more time to charge up my attacks. Thanks for that, Biko!”
“We’re not done yet. Biko can keep shouting at it for you. Huff… Exterminate it…!”
Biko exclaimed as she recovered, albeit out of breath.
Was she in the shape to continue? Sorcha herself was in no shape to dash after that propelling trunk, much as it frustrated her. But if Biko could buy her even a fraction of a second, they’d truly turn this fight around again. A fraction of a second was all Sorcha needed. And so, she nodded.
“Here it comes!”
Noting Sorcha’s warning, Biko shouted at the oni again using her own voice, forcing it to block its ears before it could grab its fallen kanabo. Unlike moments earlier, it was far less intense, managing to only unsettle the oni. Exhaustion also hastily set on her as her body strained for every trudging step she took to close her distance with it to keep it in her echo’s faltering range.
Sorcha gulped watching her new friend struggle. She needed to end it quick, for both of them.
Thank the kamuy, quick was what she was.
But as she controlled her aim at its vitals, the demon roared over Biko’s weakening voice, overwhelming her, and rolled both its hands into two plunging boulders–and Biko was beneath their shadow.
Biko froze in terror, her shouting cut short.
“Forgetting I’m here too, did you!”
In a single motion, the archer released a wind arrow at full draw, striking the oni’s plummeting arms with a wind burst, flinching it.
And as the oni’s guard was exposed, Biko reacted in what Sorcha could only reckon was in her bestial yokai blood.
Effortlessly, the mountain yokai hefted the greater oni’s fallen greatclub that was taller than herself. With a half-cry half-squeal, she swung the massive weapon with incredible power, sending its rusted spiked burying into the oni’s kneecap.
“YAAAAAAAAAH!”
Ichor and wooden shards exploded. The oni roared again, falling onto one knee. It clutched its bloodied and bruised other leg, a dozen large splinters buried deep into its skin. Biko’s ears straightened in fear and she yelped upon realizing the kanabo had snapped into two halves from their collision.
Sorcha huffed an impressed laugh.
And now, for the climax.
Paralyzed, the oni grumbled and painfully tended to its injury, completely oblivious to the archer who was breezily walking up to it with her bow drawn back fully. A teasing whistle brought its attention at last. With nowhere to escape, the only thing it could do was bend forward and smash the half-korpokkur.
And it was exactly what Sorcha wanted. She winked and aimed up.
“Back to Makai with you!”
A green-white streak shot straight into the bottom of its exposed chin and out the crown of its head. Ichor spurted like a ghastly fountain of black. Its head whiplashed upward from the wind force of the point-black attack, and the rest of its dying body timbered backward in a resounding and dusty thud.
After waving off dust in her nostrils, Sorcha pointed pejoratively at the oni’s corpse and stuck out her tongue at it.
“Cough cough cough… Ugh, stupid dust! And don’t ever come back, you!”
Biko tiptoed beside Sorcha, her ears flapping as she stretched her neck for a clearer look at their defeated foe. One trembling hand was held close to her heart, urging it to calm down.
“Is it dead? Is the oni dead?”
“You bet. Heh, it was no match for our combined dynamic duo!”
“Biko… Biko really didn’t do anything much. Sorcha-san, you’re so powerful! You were so fast that Biko couldn’t keep up when she watched you, and your wind archery was so quick and accurate, even without aiming. You remind her of Hyoren-sama. She’s a very powerful human, just like you.”
“Hehehehe… Thanks. Umm, Hyoren? Who’s that?”
“Fueh? You don’t know Mea Hyoren-sama of the Hyoren Academy? Hyoren’s name is far and wide in Miyako.”
“Miyako, as in, the capital?”
Biko nodded. Sorcha nodded in return too, finally learning the name of the capital herself. Rubbing her chin with her hand, she explained herself.
“Ohhhhh, I get it. Did I forget to tell you that I’m not from Miyako? I’m actually heading there myself!”
Biko’s ears perked up at her words, and her tails wagged in surprise.
“What a strange coincidence…! Biko is heading there as well.”
She was thinking of her reply to learn more about the capital when her hip throbbed in pain, causing her to stumble and her thought to vanish. It was with Biko’s help again that she was saved from an embarrassing tumble. Sorcha groaned in melodramatic despair.
“Ugh! I hate that I won’t be able to run like this!”
“Don’t push yourself, Sorcha-san! Biko will help you find a doctor at a human settlement for your leg. She thinks it will be a good idea not to travel alone where monsters and demons are lurking about.”
And it was Sorcha’s ahoge that perked up this time.
“A team up? I like the sound of that. Hehe, it’s gonna be fun with a bruiser with a big stick like the one you’ve got there.”
“Fueh?!”
It took a moment for the yamabiko to register that she was holding the broken half of the greater oni’s weapon up like a sword. Though it might be half its initial weight, it was still much heavier than a typical human weapon. And here, Biko carried it like it was an extension of her arm without realizing it.
Sorcha’s lips curled into a bakeneko’s smile. Her hand covered her mouth and she snickered, much to Biko’s flushing cherry red cheeks.
“I dunno about you, but that kinda suits you. I might be able to lift two poles with buckets of milk on my shoulders, but swinging that with one hand like you? Nah, no way. I mean, don’t you notice how heavy it is?”
“But it’s bloody and icky. It’s been used by that oni to kill before! I can’t wield this when I wanna be a Hyoren scholar. That’s… That’s sacrilegious!”
“Sacri-what now? Meh, you see, it just needs some washing and a woodworker to sand the splintered end there into a smooth tip and then it’ll be your trusty companion. Imagine. A foe jumps at you, and you whip out that big stick from nowhere, and they’ll be terrified because, who expects a pint-sized girl like you to carry a kanabo!”
Biko looked at the weapon with a troubled expression. Her free hand grasped the grip under her other, controlling its weight. She waved it, assessing its suitability in her hands.
“Think of it as your reward. I got my bow, and you get a big spiky club. Err, half a big spiky club.”
“Biko is unsure if that’s a wise suggestion…”
While restoring was an option, Biko couldn’t walk around toting a greatclub, so she had to stash it away. Only problem was that she had no place or way to do it, not to mention she was too short to carry it on her back even if they could find or craft a handmade holster. Its tip would incessantly klonk and klack on uneven ground. Biko herself added that the kanabo was a liability in its broken state.
So Sorcha offered to hold it for her. But as she expected, its oni-like weight proved too much of a challenge for even her archery-and-farm-trained arms, and she nearly dropped it after half a minute. Oni weapons were a different breed altogether.
So Biko reclaimed it. Tired herself, she sighed and planted its splintered tip into the dirt like a hoe, her hands on its skull-shaped hilt, and rested her forehead on her arms.
Then, the kanabo’s spikes began shimmering a sakura pink light that encroached over the rest of its ash black body. Biko veered back upright in surprise, both her ears and tails straightening up. Not a few moments later, the glowing weapon burst into pebble-sized orbs that fluttered toward Biko like white wintry snow.
Sorcha, overjoyed, raised her fist in the air in celebration.
“Would you look at that! I honestly didn’t think it could in its condition, but it actually ended up choosing you to be its wielder. Hooray for you!”
“Biko is doomed… She can’t be a Hyoren scholar anymore… She has to accept becoming a ruffian…! Haaaaau!”
Biko crouched into a ball, covering her eyes and ears with her bowler hat, and wailed in panic and mortification.
Sorcha’s heart stirred at the childlike girl’s pitiful sight. She leaned forward to her height and reached out to touch the spot between her eyes and above her bindi. Her warm fingers brushed over her round forehead, a cool mountain feel, and Biko’s coarse pink hair ran between the grooves of her fingers. Gently, affectionately, her palm rubbed Biko’s head.
“Feeling better?”
“...Biko thinks you are being weird, Sorcha-san.”
“Hey! My little brothers love when I do this!”
“Are you finishing soon? Please?”
A cheeky smile blossomed on Sorcha’s lips as she savored patting Biko on her head. Part of her wanted to remove her hat so she could rub behind her doggish ears too. Meanwhile, Biko only kept herself politely silent until the archer was satisfied, possibly not wanting to ruin her enjoyment, or because the yokai was enjoying it herself. Her leafy green eyes wandered to the edge of the forest.
But Sorcha’s enjoyment was cut short when her hip gave out from her posture, causing her to fall to her knees.
“Ow ow ow ow! Did I get injured that badly?!”
Without asking, Biko helped Sorcha up and offered her her hand.
“The sooner we find medical aid, the better for your legs, Sorcha-san. She’s concerned that you might end up having lasting injuries, so it’s best we get it healed as soon as possible.”
“Sorry for putting this on you, Biko. Normally, I’d just dash back to my village medic, but that’s not an option anymore, huh? For, uh, many other reasons besides my hip.”
After walking for a while with Biko’s support, the pain at Sorcha’s hip gradually numbed out into a lingering feeling that shrieked when she pulled it by accident. Sorcha sighed internally and verbally. This was likely going to impede her ability to dash for the time, and it was akin to asking for her to curl up and die. She prayed to Ural-Kamuy and the kamuy of health for a blessing to survive.
With the greater oni vanquished, the flora and fauna spirits returned to liven their surroundings, their woodland home once again safe. Sorcha espied the hollow faces of a couple of kodama, who disappeared once spotted. She fancied their inaudible mumbling were words of gratitude.
“You’re welcome!”
“Who are you talking to, Sorcha-san?”
“Ah, just my nature friends. They’re always following me everywhere, you know?”
Somewhere behind the path Sorcha and Biko ambled, a beautiful pair of saddled horses stepped around freely, wolfing on wildberry bushes they could find. They whinnied at each other without a care.