Thud
Thud
Thud
Yorimitsu was a blur of motion against the greying dark sky of the Capital. His feet were light as falling cherry blossoms, as he skipped over the curved tiles of noble estates and the thatched ridges of merchant stalls.
His face was hidden behind a fox mask of pale cypress, its painted slit-eyes giving him the appearance of a forest spirit haunting the urban sprawl.
"Six hours," Yorimitsu thought, his breath coming in steady, controlled cycles. "The Kawarimi (body-switch technique) is holding for now, but the spiritual tether is fraying. Using that shinobi's weak soul was a gamble; he is so unstable. If the Shōmei squad masters check on me before morning, I will be in trouble."
He leapt across a narrow alleyway, his silk robes snapping like a whip. "I have to find Inoue, the divination said he is in the northern paths"
Below the high roofs of the wealthy lay the Rokuhara district labyrinth of leaning shacks where the air didn't smell of incense, but of open sewers and despair.
Inside one such shack, the air was stagnant. A mother sat on a rotting tatami mat, her fingers trembling as she stirred a wooden bowl. Inside was a thin, grey rice porridge. As the ladle turned, white specks rose to the surface, maggots, writhing slowly in the watery grain. Their only source of protein.
"Please, Akane," the mother whispered, her voice cracking. "Just a swallow."
The child in her arms didn't eat. She wailed, a thin, piercing sound that seemed to vibrate the very dust in the room. The mother looked up at the ceiling, her eyes hollow.
"Curse them," she hissed, her voice dripping with a venom that no prayer could cleanse. "Curse the Fujiwara in their silk nests. Curse the Emperor in his jade halls. After all the taxes they placed on us, they still took my husband and sons."
Thud.
A heavy vibration shook the roof of the shack. The mother froze, clutching her crying child.
High above, Yorimitsu had come to a dead stop. He stood on the ridgepole of the shanty, his fox mask tilted downward. He didn't just see the shack; he felt it. From the gaps in the rotting wood, a Deep Red Aura was leaking upward, thick, oily, and smelling of copper and old bile.
"So much bitterness..." Yorimitsu murmured, "The air here is so heavy with the commoners' it's almost like the nobles want people to resent them, what their ploy here."
Yorimitsu reached the outskirts of the Capital, and he landed silently on a rotted fence post, overlooking an abandoned village that time and the war had forgotten.
The village was a graveyard of wood and thatch. The houses leaned at impossible angles, their skeletal frames visible through the holes in the greying plaster. Wind whistled through the empty window frames like the breath of a dying man.
The place was quite except for the clicking sound of cicadas, accompanied by the dry rattle of dead leaves skittering across the cracked, barren earth. A thick, unnatural fog clung to the ground, smelling of sulfur and stagnant water.
Yorimitsu stepped down from the fence, his wooden sandals sinking into the soft, ash-like soil. He closed his eyes, centring his breath.
Inoue... he called out in the silence of his spirit.
Yorimitsu... Her voice flickered in his mind's eye, weak and distant, like a candle flame struggling against a gale.
He followed the pull toward a house at the edge of the village. It was half-caved in, the roof sagging like a broken spine.
"Tch, the air here really smells foul. Is this a nesting ground for Oni?!"
Yorimitsu reached out his hand to pull back the sliding door.
Hiss!
The moment his fingers grazed the wood, a high-pressure jet of green, viscous acid erupted from a silhouette behind the doorframe. He twisted mid-air, a blur of motion, but the liquid was too fast.
The acid sprayed across his shoulder, instantly eating through his silk robes and the fox-mask's strap. He landed five feet back, the fabric of his sleeve smoking and dissolving into black char, revealing the unmarred skin beneath.
Click.
The shadow shock and tired till finally a man stepped out, his presence radiating a cold and heavy. He was dressed in shiny purple Kinomono, he had long black hair and held a purple fan in his right hand, his other red with blood dripping to his soles.
"Yoshiro Minakaze."
Yorimitsu's vision tunnelled. A memory, jagged and hot, tore through his mind. He saw himself kneeling in the dirt while Yoshiro beat him down, "When the young master calls you to his room, don't look at his eyes."
Yoshiro had leaned down, his breath smelling of sake, and whispered, "Don't bother struggling, Northern dog. Your only purpose is to be a whetstone for Mai. You are his tool; right now, you have no name, no control, you will do as you are told, now turn around and face the north."
The memory of that humiliation burned deep within him, so much so that a large grin stretched through his face.
"Oh, so you know me, ha?" Yoshiro looked at the fox-masked intruder, "Impressive reflexes," Yoshiro drawled, his hand resting on the hilt of his tachi. "So, the stray beast in there is yours. I do wonder how you managed to get here. I placed a barrier around here. You must be quite skilled since I couldn't sense your presence."
Yorimitsu reached up and pulled the remaining half of the fox mask from his face. He began to laugh, a low, melodic sound that grew into a chilling, hollow cackle that echoed off the ruined houses.
"Yoshiro Minakaze," Yorimitsu said, his silver eyes locking onto the older man with a terrifying intensity. "I was worried I would have to wait years to see that ugly face again. To think Fate would be kind enough to deliver you to me on the first day."
He stepped forward, the blue flames of his Reiryoku beginning to dance at his fingertips, igniting the air around him.
"Oh, you seem to have some connection with me, but I have never seen you before, hahaha, well, it's not like it matters anyway, I have done lots of things to lots of people."