The next day…
I let out a moan as it began to rain heavily without any warning. The weather news hadn't announced any rainfall for the day.
Fortunately, I had taken my umbrella.
Opening it, I took a glance at Tsurayuki Senryū who was getting drenched in the rain. The latter didn't carry an umbrella.
We were at the train station, about to leave on an assigned mission together.
In the mountainous region of Oguro, there were strange things happening and Master Kagami wanted us to investigate.
Heihachi wasn't accompanying us on this mission. He had been assigned another mission- his very first mission as an official member of the organization- and has been partnered up with Hatsu.
'Do you want to take shelter under my umbrella?' I offered, kindly.
'No, thank you,' the dark-haired male replied.
I didn't insist.
Tsurayuki Senryū was a gloomy person, who did not easily socialize with others. He usually appeared to be indifferent and from what I had noticed, he didn't tend to inspire confidence or boost the morale of his comrades.
Apparently, his anti-monster weapon was a Kusarigama. The Kusarigama was a traditional Japanese weapon consisting of a kama on a kusari with a fundo at the end.
Tsurayuki Senryū mastered the art of handling Kusarigama which was called Kusarigamajutsu.
As I looked up at the dull sky, I sneezed twice. 'Oh, I feel like I'm going to fall sick again,' I said to myself.
Our voyage by train was aborted mid-way to destination for the bad weather had caused a landslide that had blocked the track. But a kind old man heading in the same direction as us accepted to give us a lift in his animal-drawn cart.
'Will we reach Oguro soon?' Tsurayuki called at him after a good hour.
'Oguro? I thought that it's to Oguri that you wanted to go!'
Eh?!
Tsurayuki Senryū and I asked the man to stop the cart on the spot, and we got down from it. Oguri was a small village found in the opposite direction of where we needed to go!
'I'm sorry, young ones, I've understood Oguri,' giggled the man, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. 'The names Oguro and Oguri resembles each other! Well, good walk!'
Going back the way we had come, it took Tsurayuki Senryū and I several hours of walking through thick forest until we finally reached civilization, arriving into a village named Aoki.
We weren't very far from Oguro anymore.
Aoki was the closet village to our destination.
Since night had fallen, we decided to find ourselves a lodging in the village for the night, but to our dismay, all the inns were full.
Humping my back, I whined, 'All this bad luck, it's depressing in the long run!'
Everything seemed to be going wrong ever since morning!
'Tsk! You're just like all the others, aren't you?' Tsurayuki snapped at me, becoming upset all suddenly, causing me to flinch. 'Yes! I'm someone sinister and yet, the organization had accepted me!'
I stared at him, startled and confused.
Flinging around, he began to flounce away.
'No, wait!' I called after him when I found my voice again.
Just as I took a step ahead of me to try to catch up with him with the intention to apologize for having angered him, abruptly, my legs went limp under me and I fell down heavily on my chin.
'Ouch!'
Pushing myself off the ground with both hands into a sitting position, I held my grazed chin in pain, before I looked at my feet which were refusing to move.
I was having an attack of cataplexy and to make it worse, one of my zori has broken when I had fell. I stared at it, then at Tsurayuki Senryū who had paused down.
'Hello, there!' came an unfamiliar voice in all of a sudden, and my eyes shifted from the dark-haired male to settle onto the two teenaged boys at the end of the alley, coming into our direction.
These were around fifteen of age, clothed like scholars. The first one was quite short with light-brown hair and he was wearing a hat and other accessories. The second, who wore spectacles, measured average height and he had ginger hair.
They stopped a few feet away from us.
'Your name is Tsurayuki Senryū, isn't it?' called the one with the hat at the dark-haired male, in a condescending tone.
'I don't think that I know you,' replied the latter, turning to face them completely and the ginger-haired boy declared, 'We are from Shindō Organization.'
Shindō Organization?
I couldn't see Tsurayuki's expression from where I was, but I saw his posture stiffen.
'It's impossible,' he stated. 'The Shindō Organization doesn't exist anymore.'
'We know everything about you,' asserted the brown-haired one. 'You were part of the Shindō Organization in the past. Your parents were members of it too. You were it's youngest member at the time.'
I was surprised to learn that Tsurayuki Senryū was part of another organization before. This helped me realize that the two younger males were monster-hunters too, just like us.
'Then five years ago, the Shindō Organization has ceased to exist when a monster has decimated all its members leaving you for sole survivor.'
I was astounded.
'After that, you joined Gushiken Paranormal Organization.'
'The Shindō Organization has been revived not so long ago,' the spectacled boy informed him. 'My name is Tetsuō and he is Shinnosuke.' He thumbed his friend.
'I see,' said Tsurayuki.
'"I see"?! That's all you've got to say?!' exclaimed the brown-haired boy- Shinnosuke- angrily.
'You know,' spat his ginger-haired friend with venom. 'We had great esteem for your master and you for having hunted down and exterminated the creature who has annihilated the Shindō Organization. But that was, until you recruited a sadistic killer in your ranks!'
They casted furious looks at me and my heart accelerated in my chest. I felt utterly vulnerable in my present state.
'That girl is a criminal and you, you've teamed yourself up with her?!'
'This girl is under my responsibility until the end of our mission. I'd advise you to leave us now. Otherwise...'
Tsurayuki Senryū left his words hanging.
They stared at the dark-haired male in disbelief for a minute, before their eyes shifted onto me. They looked like they could kill.
Finally, their eyes returned onto Tsurayuki, and snorting, they swung around and began to walk away.
'We'll see each other again!' called the boy Shinnosuke over his shoulder, in a warning. 'I have well the impression that both our teams are working on the same case!'
***
The following day…
Oguro was a totally uninhabited region, with long mountain ranges and thick forest for only sceneries. Many people came hiking in the area.
'Thank you for yesterday,' I said to Tsurayuki Senryū, timidly, as we explored the region.
We had left Aoki Village by walk at dawn and it was sometimes before noon by now.
'I didn't do it for you but in loyalty towards Master Kagami,' he replied, his voice detached.
Out of the blue, a middle-aged couple came running towards us in the forest, screaming their lungs out, their expressions frantic. 'Run!' the man yelled at us as he went past us, while the woman shouted, 'Don't go into this direction!'
I was petrified into place when I caught sight of the object of their terror. They were being pursued, none other than by a red-skinned, four-armed, two-storied tall, horned Oni!
Tsurayuki Senryū was the first to react.
He launched an attack onto the Oni with his Kusarigama but the latter skipped the blow before it sent him flying several meters away with a strike of the hand. The dark-haired male passed out as he collided into a tree.
I was about to summon my Godai Shakujō but the Oni was faster. Its hand closed around my face and I got smacked down on the ground.
My heart fluttered.
With my vision near completely obstructed, I couldn't do much of anything.
Unexpectedly, Burabura appeared out of thin air and to my great stupefaction, the Oni came to a standstill for a few second, before it released me, turned away and went back the way it had come.
I didn't move for a whole minute, so much I was shaken by what just happened.
Why did the Oni stop because of Burabura?
Speechless, I stared at the chōchin-obake and the latter vanished as swiftly as it had appeared.
Picking myself up, I ran up to Tsurayuki Senryū who was just starting to come around.
'Are you alright?'
'Did you manage kill it?'
'No,' I replied, explaining to him what happened. I called Burabura to appear again after that, but the small yōkai refused to come.
When Master Kagami had sent us to investigate the "strange happenings" in the area, I would never have thought that there was an Oni prowling the region.
It was one of the most ancient creatures of Japanese folklore and accounts of encounters with them were so rare. Oni were known to be fond of eating animal and human flesh.
Tsurayuki and I began to tracking it down.
We were climbing higher up onto the mountain when, suddenly, my eyes landed onto an emakimono lying there on the forest floor. It looked quite ancient.
'What is this doing here?' I wondered.
I was about to pick it up when Tsurayuki called at me, 'What are you doing? Leave that! It's old and useless!'
'What?' I said in surprise, looking at him where he had paused down a small distance ahead of me, half-facing me. 'But we can't abandon it here.'
Crouching down, I picked the emakimono off the ground and unrolled it.
The scroll illustrated painted images of several monsters of imposing sizes.
'The illustrations are magnificent!' I whispered, mesmerized.
And not only the paintings... The paper was well illuminated, the scroll ornate with a beautiful tassel.
'Hideous, you don't say?' declared Tsurayuki, critically, as he peered at the emakimono, having moved closer. 'Paintings depicting terrible monsters! You've got strange tastes!'
Then, making a shrug with his shoulders in sign of indifference, he began to continue his way.
Rolling the emakimono up again, I slipped it into my bag and straightened up, hurrying after Tsurayuki Senryū to catch up with him.
'Say,' I said at the dark-haired male, timidly, after a few minutes while we were walking. 'Yesterday, you referred to yourself as someone sinister. What did you mean?'
Without any warning, he jerked to a stop and I bumped into him from behind.
'Sorry,' I told him, immediately, backing away and he turned around to look at me, his face devoid of expression.
'I'm jinxed,' he stated, answering my question. 'All the bad luck ever since we've undertaken this mission- it's me.'
I lost my voice.
'I attract disaster like a magnet. It is, as though, I have a demon entitled to me that brings misfortune upon me and all those around me. My mother has died while giving birth to me. The members of the organization- I used to make part of in the past- have been decimated. I had isolated myself after that; I wanted to be all alone, until I met Master Kagami. Bad luck and misadventures accompany me in my everyday life.'
Letting out a grunt, he added in a mutter, 'But you, who make the nightmares of everyone vanish, do make mine disappear!'
***
An hour later...
'A village?' Puzzled, my eyes traveled across of the large open space spreading in front of us in the middle of the forest where a dozen of huts were standing. 'I didn't know that there's a village in the region.'
'I've never heard of any village existing in Oguro,' stated Tsurayuki. 'This region is supposed to be pure wilderness.'
The inhabitants of the village were around thirty in number and they converged towards us, watching us with curiosity, suspicion and a certain, fright.
One of the men of the village- who was definitely the eldest- stepped forward to ask us, 'Are you lost?'
We told him no, and the old man ushered us to a bonfire situated in the middle of the tiny village, for us to sit down and have a talk.
All the other villagers had tagged along.
'I didn't know that there's a village in this mountain or even in the region,' I said to the old man.
'That's because we have established ourselves here only sometimes ago,' he replied. 'It is the land of our ancestors. But what brings monster-hunters to this place?'
Reading the astonishment on my face, he smiled and said, 'It's not hard to recognize you.'
'We're from Gushiken Paranormal Organization and we have been sent here to investigate about the strange happenings that have been reported to occur in these mountains,' Tsurayuki informed him. 'We've discovered that there's an Oni prowling the region.'
'You must be talking of Boroboro. It's not dangerous. It doesn't devour humans; it just scares them away. It is the protector of our village.'
I was dumb-founded.
'We're sorry that its actions have caused a stir and made you travel all the way up to here. I assure you that Boroboro is completely harmless.' The old man's expression darkened suddenly, as he added, 'But if you still want to track it down to exterminate it, I fear that you'll have to oppose yourselves to us.'
Tsurayuki and I exchanged a look; uncertain about what to think.
Finally, we decided that our mission in Oguro was over and to head back to Toda.
But I didn't really feel reassured.
Accounts of Oni that didn't feed on human flesh were quasi-inexistent. But there hadn't been any deaths or casualties reported in the region. And there hadn't been any incident with the villagers either, involving the Oni Boroboro.
Are the villagers and hikers really safe? I wondered while we were descending the mountain.
Feeling thirsty, I searched for my bottle of water in my bag when, I realized that the emakimono I had found earlier was missing!
'Oh no!'
I paused down to search through my bag properly, but without finding the scroll.
'What is it?' demanded Tsurayuki in an unhappy tone as he paused down too.
'The emakimono; it must have fell off my bag in the village.'
When we had taken seat by the bonfire, I had set my bag down on the ground. That's when I must have lost it.
'I'm going to go back to the village to recuperate it,' I told the dark-haired male and anxious that I was making him waste his time, I added, 'You have but to leave without me. I'll catch up with you at the train station.'
I began to hurry back to the village without delay, but little did I know that, one big surprise was waiting for me there.
Thank you for reading!
Glossary
Kusarigama - chain-sickle
Kama - sickle
Kusari - metal chain
Fundo - a heavy iron weight
Zōri - sandals
Oni - an ogre-like creature
Emakimono - illustrated scroll