Crack.
Crack.
Like glass on the verge of shattering, fissures spread across "Xu Fu's" false face, and its hair began to fall out.
The fact that this evil spirit had dared to impersonate her—the cutest beautiful girl in all the world—made Xu Fu extremely unhappy, so the very first thing she did was smash apart its disguise and force it to reveal its true form.
It turned out to be the evil spirit of a monk.
"Ugh... aaagh...!!" The monk evil spirit let out a hideous roar.
"You think that's the end of it? Dream~ on~! That was just the interest! I haven't even collected the principal yet!" Xu Fu puffed out her cheeks in displeasure. Far from being frightened by the evil spirit, she glared at it angrily instead.
"So... go! Red Hood, show that bastard what's what~!"
Red Hood flicked a cool glance at Xu Fu, but said nothing.
After all, she was only a doll Xu Fu had made based on her own memory, not the real Red Hood.
And besides, they still had no idea what bizarre abilities the enemy might have. Xu Fu needed to stay by Morita Taku's side to protect him.
The dolls Xu Fu had given those four all had the power to repel and deflect curses, so Yoshida Saori and the others, who had kept their dolls on them, were fine for the moment. But this idiot Morita Taku had actually handed his doll to someone else, which was why the monk evil spirit had singled him out. If Xu Fu had arrived even a moment later, this guy would have been done for.
The curse that could make a body regress in age had mainly come from that skull that produced the sound of a wooden fish. After Xu Fu damaged it, Morita Taku's body returned to normal, but the lingering curse had still left his mind utterly exhausted, and he was currently unconscious.
"You actually... obstructed my salvation..." The monk evil spirit glared at Red Hood, his twisted expression looking as though he wanted to rip her apart and chew her to shreds. "You... are all demons!"
"Kill—!!"
His roar, overflowing with killing intent, spread outward.
As though they had received some command, the child evil spirits kneeling on both sides of the corridor all rose to their feet and charged at Red Hood with shrill, savage shrieks, trying to tear her apart and devour her with fang and claw!
Even faced with that many evil spirits, Red Hood's expression did not change. Her figure flashed into a streak of crimson lightning and plunged straight into the dense mass of enemies. The utterly unremarkable kitchen knife in her hand whirled through the air, carving out countless crescent-shaped arcs of bloody light in an instant.
"Kiiiiyaaaah—!!"
One child evil spirit was merely grazed by that bloody blade-light and immediately let out a scream of agony. In the very next instant, Red Hood came sweeping in with lethal force and cut off its head with a single stroke.
These child evil spirits were all exceedingly weak. Most of them could not even withstand a single blow from Red Hood before dispersing into nothing.
Their wails, capable of polluting the mind, had no effect on her whatsoever. They could not cause even the slightest flicker in her gaze, and the kitchen knife she swung over and over only grew faster and crueler.
But before long, the advantage of numbers began to show.
Another evil spirit lunged at her with a roar. Red Hood calmly pulled out her firearm, shoved the muzzle straight into its mouth, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
A burst of flame flashed, and the bullet instantly shattered the evil spirit's skull.
Just as Red Hood was about to step forward, she discovered that several child evil spirits had crawled up out of the floor and seized her ankles and calves.
She frowned, shot dead another evil spirit trying to ambush her from behind, and in the same moment swung down her kitchen knife to kill one of the spirits clinging to her leg. But with her movement restricted, one child evil spirit after another seized the opening and hurled themselves onto her body.
One child evil spirit split its face into a grin full of malice and bit down hard on Red Hood's arm, tearing away a large chunk of flesh with a wet rip.
And that was only the beginning.
Child evil spirits clung all over Red Hood and fed on her flesh. One of them even shoved its hand straight into her eye socket and tore out her eyeball.
"Uwaah! Ganging up on someone when you outnumber them? That's so unfair, unfair! If you've got the guts then—no, wait, that's not right!" Xu Fu, hiding inside the Bounded Field she had spread, watched Red Hood being torn apart, and her face turned somewhat grim.
Watching Red Hood get devoured bit by bit by the child evil spirits, the monk evil spirit split his face into a twisted smile and let out an awful cackling laugh.
"Ugh... that laugh sounds horrible. It's right up there with nails on a chalkboard." Xu Fu shot the monk evil spirit a look full of disgust. "You're laughing awfully happily for someone who thinks he's already won."
The monk evil spirit understood what Xu Fu meant and froze slightly.
Even after having both eyes gouged out, an arm torn off, her abdomen ripped open, and an ear bitten away, Red Hood did not make a sound. Silently, she used her one remaining arm to draw a long blade forged from dragon fangs and dragon claws from beneath her cloak.
Her fingertips brushed across the hilt, awakening the strange power hidden within the blade, and the phantom image of a flying dragon suddenly appeared behind her.
"ROOOOAR—!!"
The dragon phantom's roar became a tangible shockwave. The child evil spirits shattered in the blast like fragile glass, and before their twisted bodies could even hit the ground, they had already turned into phosphorescent fire and burned away into drifting specks in the shaking air.
This was the Drake Sword! It came with the skill [Dragon Shockwave]—an all-target attack that always hit and also had a chance to stun the enemy. In BS1 it had been insanely useful, though by the second game it was only middling.
After wiping out all the child evil spirits, Red Hood used the sorcery [Soul Light] to restore her HP to full. The ghastly wounds all over her body disappeared at once without leaving even a scar, and her skin returned to being fair, clear, and lustrous.
Her torn-off arm regenerated as well. Raising that restored arm, Red Hood pointed at the monk evil spirit, her expression cold as she said,
"Unfortunately, I will not die... before I cut off your head."
"Grrrk... grrrk...!"
A sickening grinding sound kept pouring out of the monk evil spirit's mouth, as though countless broken bones were being crushed in his throat. Malice as thick as tar gushed from all seven of his orifices, condensing into roiling black mist around him and filling the surrounding air with a rotting stench.
"You damned... demon...! To dare... obstruct salvation...!"
Consumed by fury, he threw aside the string of brain-prayer beads in his hand and stood, preparing to engage Red Hood in close combat. But suddenly a flash of cold light sliced through the air before his eyes, and an unremarkable kitchen knife came hurtling in to bury itself in his forehead.
Before the monk evil spirit could even scream, Red Hood was already upon him. Gripping the Drake Sword, she struck in one clean motion, and the cold blade-light flashed across his neck as fast as lightning, sending that twisted head flying high.
With the monk evil spirit no longer there to sustain it, that endless corridor began to collapse and break apart. In the end, Xu Fu and Morita Taku both returned to the abandoned temple.
Yoshida Saori, Nagata Takaya, and Yasukawa Nagisa had returned as well, but instead of relaxing, they backed away from Xu Fu in fear and huddled trembling in a corner.
The dolls Xu Fu had given them could deflect curses, but they could not stop them from being frightened. And since they had not seen Xu Fu burst in and take care of the evil spirit, they still had no way to tell whether the Xu Fu in front of them was the real one or another evil spirit.
Realizing that, Xu Fu puffed out her cheeks like a pufferfish.
It was all that hateful evil spirit's fault—wearing her face while doing bad things and ruining her reputation!
Grrr... so annoying~! I seriously want to find a chance to go eat all the rice in his house~!
"Tada~! You don't need to be afraid anymore, because the evil spirit causing trouble here has already been taken care of by the beautiful Taoist Xu Fu-chan~!" Xu Fu lifted her chin and planted one hand on her hip, striking a pose that practically screamed, I'm amazing, hurry up and praise me.
"However, I was the one who dealt with the evil spirit almost entirely on my own. You merely watched from the sidelines." Red Hood suddenly spoke up and mercilessly tore down Xu Fu's grandstanding.
"Hm?" Xu Fu stared in shock, then protested indignantly, "You're a doll I made, so of course your achievements are my achievements too. The people you saved are basically the same as people I saved. It's all the same!"
After working that logic out, Xu Fu happily went back to standing there with her hands on her hips in smug satisfaction.
After some time, Xu Fu finally managed to calm Yoshida Saori and the others down, more or less, and prove her identity.
"Taku-kun... he's okay, right?" Yasukawa Nagisa asked nervously.
After learning that the dolls Xu Fu had given them could actually deflect curses, Yasukawa Nagisa felt deeply remorseful and guilty about having taken Morita Taku's doll. If she had not taken it from him back then, her boyfriend would not have ended up like this.
"It's nothing, nothing~! Thanks to the beautiful Taoist Xu Fu-chan arriving in time, this unlucky guy isn't in any danger of dying. I also got rid of all the remaining curse energy in his body. He's just too mentally exhausted, and on top of that he got badly frightened, so he won't wake up for a while. As long as he gets plenty of rest and good nutrition, he'll be fine."
Xu Fu's reassuring words and gentle smile made Yasukawa Nagisa and the others all let out a sigh of relief.
Xu Fu even put on the airs of an elder and scolded them, "You'd all better learn your lesson from this. Don't go wandering into haunted spots just because you're curious. It's not like you can count on getting lucky enough to run into a cute and capable beautiful Taoist girl like me every single time!"
Yoshida Saori and the others all nodded obediently. This adventure had left them with enormous psychological scars. Even if Xu Fu had not said anything, they would never have dared risk their lives like this again.
Before today, they had never believed that demons, monsters, or ghosts truly existed, which was why they had come here so recklessly to test their courage. But what they had experienced today made them understand that ghosts were real—and Taoists were real too.
It seemed all those myths and legends they had once laughed off were worth believing at least a little after all...
As for the dolls Xu Fu had given them, without even discussing it beforehand, all of them arrived at the same decision: they were going to keep those dolls on them at all times—even when bathing or going to the bathroom.
After all, in any other situation maybe it was one thing, but if an evil spirit suddenly popped out while you were bathing or using the toilet, you really could die of fright.
"Taoist? Not an onmyoji?" Yoshida Saori recovered the fastest, enough to start asking Xu Fu questions again.
"I was born in China, so of course I'm a Taoist," Xu Fu explained casually. "Japan's Onmyodo is basically a mishmash of Taoism, Buddhism, even Western Christianity, and all sorts of other odds and ends. I do know a few onmyoji, and I can use a teensy tiny bit of Onmyodo myself, but I can't really be called an onmyoji."
After all, she did have experience as Kiichi Hougen and Ashiya Douman.
"Oh..." Yoshida Saori only half understood and mostly just thought it sounded impressive, but she still nodded as if she got it.
"Then... are there lots of people in this country as powerful as you, Xu Fu? Since evil spirits are real, does that mean gods, yokai, and even that great onmyoji Abe no Seimei really existed too?"
"No idea~ I'm not all that familiar with them either. I'm not even from around here, after all."
"Then Xu-chan must be someone really amazing, right? I mean, you're still so young, but you're already such an incredible Taoist. You could even deal with an evil spirit that scary. Are you actually from some great Taoist family or something?"
"You're asking too much. Those aren't things you should know, so you'd better put a stop to that curiosity of yours." Xu Fu rolled her eyes. "Wasn't this lesson painful enough for you already? Want to go get yourself killed again?"
"No, no, no! I'm definitely staying far away from evil spirits and ghosts from now on." Yoshida Saori hurriedly waved both hands, then abruptly changed tack. "But! I do want to know more about you, Xu Fu. After all, you're the one who saved our lives!"
And you're so unbelievably cute too... Yoshida Saori added inwardly.
Now that the monk evil spirit had been destroyed, Yoshida Saori and the others were finally able to make it safely down the mountain this time, and they even found the car they had left parked at the foot of the mountain. They did not even have time to savor the joy of surviving disaster. All they wanted was to get away from this awful place that had left such a deep psychological scar on them.
Xu Fu got into the car with them. The monk evil spirit might be gone, but who knew whether they might run into another evil spirit on the road? Just having the dolls was not enough. Xu Fu might have been tiny, but the sense of security she gave them was enormous.
And as it happened, Xu Fu also wanted to find somewhere to settle down and gather information as soon as possible, so with someone willing to drive her, she was spared having to run around the mountains like a headless fly by herself.
Seated in the back, Xu Fu looked up at the scenery sliding past outside the window for a while, but soon seemed to lose interest and lowered her gaze to the doll in her hand.
The doll she was holding was neither the Red Hood doll nor Lady Yu's doll, but a ragged, tattered doll that looked as though it had been sewn together from scraps of burlap.
What had been packed into that doll—or rather, sealed inside it—were the lingering remnants and soul fragments of the monk evil spirit and the child evil spirits that Red Hood had killed.
"What... pitch-black and tainted souls."
Xu Fu murmured softly, in a voice only she herself could hear.
Back when they were alive, those souls might once have held all sorts of colors. But the moment they committed sins and slaughtered others as they pleased, their souls had already been blackened by malice and guilt.
Xu Fu then took out Red Hood's doll from her robes as well. She looked at the black souls lying dormant inside the tattered doll, then at the doll modeled after Red Hood, and suddenly a bold idea sprang into her mind.
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T/N: hmmmm i have a sneaking suspicion that the author reaaaally likes black souls... not sure though teehee