115. Mad Monster Party
Black clouds swirled through the evening sky as the remnants
of the Royal Guard descended the ravaged hills that led to the old capital of
Kyo. The dark remains of the city loomed in the distance, finally in view after
days of traveling. Sakuragaoka's village chief had provided them with food and
new clothes, and now, the 16 men and women marched through tangled grass with
renewed strength and fortitude.
Azuka wore a traditional hakama and a crimson cloak with white
fur around the edges. Behind her ran Ravi, clad in a tan tunic with white bandages
around her joints, and Kamo in a stylish kimono with green dragons on blue
silk. Backing up the captains were Caleb and Sabine, in blue and green respectively,
followed by Reijiro and the 10 women, still in their conservative black cloaks.
The end of their journey toward Kyo had taken them through abandoned shrines
and villages, some wrecked due to the torrents of war that had thundered through
the land in the past months.
"Half a year ago, we were chased out from our homeland after
my father sacrificed himself to protect the palace," Reijiro reminisced. "In
the end, we had no choice but to abandon the capital. It was the only way to save
the Emperor."
Half a year ago... Azuka suddenly found her mind
drifting back. That's when I first heard my father was in trouble. Before I went
on that mission to the Kantor District, before I met Vance and Eden, months
before the tournament. That's when I first sought help from the Church...
"They'll pay for what they've done," Azuka's eyes
were locked on the horizon. "It's our turn to take them by surprise."
"I hope you're right..." Kamo flitted his eyes
about. "Who knows how many creepy crawlies they have waiting for us in there."
"It may do you well to know the history of the city before
you enter," Chiaki spoke up. "The capital was originally built because
of its advantageous location: surrounded by four mountains with a river running
through the center. It was to become a basin of souls, a spiritual graveyard so
that the Royal Palace would be protected by its forefathers."
"Kyo is a capital of ghosts." Another girl cut in
with a low voice. "Where the slain rot."
Several of Azuka's companions cast glances to the speaker:
Inugami Kiriko, a thin, petite girl with a mess of long black hair. She stared
through sweaty bangs with bloodshot eyes, focused only on the city, offering no
explanation for her outburst.
Tall spiked stone walls lined the capital. As the group neared,
strange, sour smells danced into their nostrils. Far in the distance, the
echoes of inhuman growls and bellows could be heard. Guarding the gargantuan
gates were two statues of robed demons, painted in chipped, jagged red. High
above the walls, the tips of arched rooftops and temple awnings could barely be
seen.
"So, what's the layout?" Caleb asked Reijiro.
"How can we sneak in?"
Reijiro studied the landscape. "We stand before the Southern
Gate. The Royal Palace stands at the foot of a mountain, on the edge of the Northern
Gate. Ten wide, horizontal streets fill the space between, pierced by the Ima
River. Temples line the mountains on both sides, so if you start to see them, you'll
know you've strayed too far."
"We won't have to worry about that," Azuka declared.
"There will be no splitting up this time. We're charging through as one
force, regardless of whether our enemy is one or one hundred."
"Yes." Reijiro bowed with reverence, then quickly
turned to face his subordinates. As he looked upon the women, his eyes were
still hard and stern, but not entirely filled with contempt. "No matter
what appears, you must cut it down without any hesitation. The populace has
long since fled, meaning we no longer have a single ally within these walls."
"Yes, sir!" the girls answered.
"Yeah, yeah, we got it..." Kamo rubbed his chin and
looked at the gate between the guardian statues. "Now what do you say we
crack this sucker open?"
"Stay together, stay shrouded," Azuka reminded.
"But don't hold back."
Ravi brought her body up into a palm tree pose and let psynergy
emanate from within. "We won't."
The ground trembled as the 16 warriors let their auras explode
in order to blow through the gate. Once the atmosphere began to crackle from the
sheer amount of psynergy gathered in one small space, Azuka nodded.
A stream of psynergy flowed outwards, converging into a
multicolored cannon of light that splintered the thick gate and crumbled the
stone blockade to pieces. Smoke billowed out from the entrance, passing over
the stern, narrowed eyes of the intruders.
Surprisingly, neither demons nor swordsmen awaited them on
the other side. The stone-paved streets were deserted, but certainly not empty,
for corpses littered every corner. In front of every dilapidated-looking wooden
house that crammed the streets were festering monuments of death, serving as
both a warning and a sign of dark victory.
At the first intersection, the houses cut off on the left side
and gave way to a winding river, dammed up by charred black skeletons. Corpses
of vermin also covered the ground, proving this hell was unforgiving to even
the basest of creatures.
Tears streamed down Reijiro's eyes as he stepped into the
nightmare. "The flowered capital, we once called it..." He heaved, and
his eyes burned with indignation. "Grieve no more, father. I will drive every
last demon out of our homeland."
Sabine's eyes floated over a line of mostly-devoured heads
strung up over the entrance to a rowhouse. Bits of green-black flesh still
remained on the skulls. "This is horrific. Who would do such a thing?"
"Not who..." Ravi stepped over the minced remains of
a dog. There was no need for her to finish the rest.
Ahead, the street curved along with the river and headed
into a roofed shopping district. Azuka pointed ahead, and the group followed. Curved
rooftops lined with sleek black tiles had been newly painted with blood and
entrails.
One sliding door to a house had been split in two. In the gap,
a severed hand lay with its fingers outstretched, beckoning for visitors. A stench
that smelled like a mixture between vomit and urine wafted out from within.
No cicadas buzzed, and no birds chirped as Azuka and company
walked down the dark shopping street shrouded by a patchwork wooden roof. By
now, the sun had gone down, and only thin slivers of moonlight pierced through
the cracks in the haphazard roof tiles. The most unsettling part of all was how
there seemed to be no exit – only black space, stretching on eternally.
Then, they heard a rustling. The muffled, barely-audible
sound of laughter. Scraping. As the Royal Guard moved forward, the last traces
of twilight slipped off their backs.
Still in the distance, the moaning and lurching continued. Sometimes,
it even sounded like it was coming from in front of them. Azuka slowly felt her
sense of space go awry, and reached out to grasp what she hoped was Ravi's arm.
"Stay still, everyone," she commanded. "I'm
going to create a light."
At the end of the line, the feet of the Royal Guard shuffled.
In the center of the line stood the youngest member of the group – Muro Kyokuran,
a 17-year-old girl with a bob haircut and short bangs that stopped halfway down
her forehead. As she watched Azuka charge her aura, she shivered and spun
around.
Arashima Yayoi stood behind her. Kyokuran looked her friend
up and down and breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought I felt something on the
back of my neck..."
Sabine also jumped as she felt a warm hand rest on her
shoulder. "Is that you, Caleb?"
"Yes," Caleb replied sternly. "But we aren't
alone here. Can you feel them?"
Sabine closed her eyes and let her psynergy be her eyes. Inky,
ghostly auras surrounded them.
Azuka pulled out her wooden blade and illuminated it. White
light pierced the corridor, revealing the faces of a hundred demons.
Screeching laughter echoed through the tunnel as the yokai
delighted in the group's surprise. The cavernous district was filled with
unthinkable forms, from bouncing bamboo umbrellas with eyes to hulking blobs of
flesh and hair.
After a flinch, Azuka slashed her blade forward and produced
a swipe of red psynergy. Black blood splashed out from the spooks in front, arousing
inhuman whoops and whistles as the carnage began.
Everyone else followed suit. The Royal Guard supported the
group from the rear, while Caleb extended his trident through an entire line of
fiends. This, matched with Sabine's quick swordwork, Ravi's tentacle-like arms,
and Kamo's keen sniping, soon changed the yokai's excited laughter into screams
of pain.
Roars erupted from the crowd. A spidery creature with leathery
skin and ox horns barreled into Caleb and sent him careening off to the side.
Before the beast could begin to devour its prey, Reijiro beheaded it, sending
Caleb a disapproving glance before he turned back to the slaughter.
"Jigokuiki! Jigokuiki!" Floating, decaying
heads with long black hair screeched in the rafters of the shopping district, splurting
blood from their zombified mouths.
"What are they saying?!" Kamo yelled, as he fired
an arrow through the eye of a giant horned ferret.
"That we're going to Hell!" Reijiro bellowed.
With a shout, Azuka constructed a sizzling blue sphere around
her body. Like a mad bull, she charged through the crowd, immolating the
opposition.
Meanwhile, Chiaki and her friends did their best to hold off
the creeping yokai in the rear. They spotted Kiriko ripping through the demons
from the opposite end, black blood dripping off her cloak.
"These are the weaklings," she muttered. "We
shouldn't be wasting time here."
"Are you alright?!" Kyokuran shouted.
Kiriko rubbed the inky blood with her fingers. "Don't worry.
Mine's red, remember?"
Despite their numbers, these demons seemed no smarter than
the oni that the group had encountered in Kurogaya, and were certainly no stronger
– but their shapes and sizes varied, and there seemed to be no end in sight.
Old crippled women with snakes peeking out from their mouths, bipedal warthogs,
giant crabs with warped human faces on their shells, flying squirrels with blades
for hands, headless cows, giant floating pink jellyfish, tiny children with
jaws as big as their heads, a massive snake with the head of an old man,
malicious clouds in the shape of dragons, one-eyed dwarves, flying fanged
lanterns, faceless spectres... after a while, everyone grew numb to the bizarre
shapes around them, slashing on and on for what seemed like hours.
An explosion rocked the shopping street, crumbling buildings
and knocking three of the girls to the ground. A tiny monkey with the face of an
old woman laughed hysterically on an awning, tossing wanyudo, the
explosive flaming wheel-heads that Ravi had seen in the previous battle. The
monkey had already armed itself with three more before Kamo sniped it and knocked
it over the side in a puff of inky blood.
The air was thick with blood, guts, and sweat, so foul that
many of the humans present found themselves racked with constant nausea. Moonlight
shone in from he northern exit to the street.
"We're almost there!" Ravi palmed a hulking ogre
with long white hair and sent it crashing back into other yokai like a torpedo.
"Come on, everyone! This is nothing!"
Next to her, Caleb roared and released a blast of icy psynergy
from his trident. Simultaneously, Kamo fired tiny psynergy arrows with rapid
precision, shattering the frozen enemies.
Sabine was the first to make it through the bloodthirsty horde.
As soon as she stepped out into the night air, she froze.
Beyond the shopping district was a wide crossroad lined with
trees and buildings. The northern street continued over a river, and beyond
that, she saw an army marching from the other side.
All the yokai in the army had the same type of face: red, humanoid
with long rounded noses, clad in hats and decorative robes. Each one carried a jeweled
staff and shield, and in the rear marched taller ones with white beards and
spiked clubs. Patrolling the air were smaller sentries with bird beaks and feathery
wings, equipped with bows and arrows.
"Tengu..." Chiaki whispered.
"Mystics of the forests and mountains." Reijiro
cracked his neck. "And there's a lot of them."
Kamo sighed as he watched the massive army march forward.
"Where the hell do these things keep coming from?!"
Reijiro stepped forward and extended his right arm in front
of the group. "I'll take care of this."
"Oh geez." Caleb shook his head. "Look, man,
we already know you're a badass! There's no need to overdo it."
Reijiro unsheathed his blade. "Trust me, Caleb, my
ability is perfectly suited for a battle like this. I'm only trying to save you
all from wasting your precious energy."
Caleb looked from Reijiro to Azuka, but the empress looked
confident in her servant.
Reijiro held his katana out towards the approaching demons.
"The only thing I must ask is that you seek cover until the battle is
over. Although it shames me to say this, once I activate my ability, I lose
control of both it and my own body. You may be damaged if you stay in the vicinity."
"This is absurd," Ravi frowned. "There's hundreds
of them, how do you expect to--"
"Reijiro would not step forward unless he was fully confident
in his abilities," Azuka declared. "However, we will not desert you,
Reijiro. We'll keep our distance and support you from the shadows."
Reijiro looked at the Empress with uneasy eyes, but did not
resist her. "Understood. But I would like to request that Chiaki and her
companions seek cover. This is not a matter of strength...I simply do not wish
them to see me in this light."
It sounded odd, but Reijiro's sister nodded in approval.
"Okay, Rei," she said. "We won't watch."
"Go far down the street," Reijiro continued.
"Standing next to me will mean death."
"Do your worst," Azuka commanded. "We're all
counting on you."
Chiaki gave one final look of compassion toward her brother,
but the two warriors did not embrace. And so, as his 15 comrades walked down the
road, Reijiro put the Onikoroshi to his forehead and concentrated. Screams
and wails from battles of the past filled his mind, accompanied by a dark mist.
As the group dashed into the distance, Chiaki spoke to her allies
in hushed tones. "My brother's ability channels hate, woe, and resentment.
Whenever an ally dies nearby him, their grudge becomes swallowed up by the Onikoroshi,
possessing the sword until Rei decides to release them."
"His psynergy manipulates emotion?" Caleb asked.
"All objects in this world are capable of collecting
some type of emotion," Chiaki went on. "Whether it's the love put into
crafting something or the sadness written in a letter, humans are forever connected
to the tools they use."
The road thundered as the tengu approached from the distance.
As war cries filled the night, Reijiro started to feel the first pieces of his
mind slip away, swallowed up by hatred and the warped visages of dead men.
"Our father Kenjiro could use hatred to fuel him in battle,"
Chiaki explained, "but Reijiro's power gives those emotions a shape."
Back at the crossroad, Reijiro fell to his knees. Veins
popped out along his arms as he gripped the hilt with white knuckles, trembling.
The tengu army marched onwards, moments from reaching him.
Soon, Reijiro's body was nothing but a dark speck to the
group, who watched him from the far end of the western street. Beside them stood
a large house that seemed in better condition than many of the other decrepit
buildings. The doors were closed, the windows were still in tact, and it didn't
reek of decay.
The group stared back to the crossroad with bated breath as
the rumbles of footsteps began to shake the houses lining the road. Two
grey-skinned goblins leapt out of the darkness and latched onto Chiaki's hakama.
"Gaki!" she shrieked, then swung her leg
into the side of a wooden signpost, splattering brain and black over the oak.
The shriveled gaki looked like emaciated goblins, save for their bulging
bellies. Rotting chipped fangs gnashed as the creatures stared upon their prey,
scampering out from the darkness one after another.
Then, a scream erupted through the hellish city. Reijiro
stood up, fury enveloped his face, and his warped eyes glowed with hatred. From
his gaping mouth he vomited 99 souls, then bit down and swallowed the 100th
before it could leave his lips. The spirits surrounding his body quickly took
on shapes, powered by the Onikoroshi's unbridled energy.
The warriors assumed forms just as the tengu reached
their prey. Arrows, energy beams, and staves converged on Reijiro, but with a
bellow and an explosion of power, he destroyed it all. Surrounding him were 99
infuriated apparitions of the fallen, clad in battle-scarred armor and demonic
masks, brandishing swords and bows.
Reijiro's jaws hissed. "Hyakki Yagyo."
