The Moon had a very simple effect on people and animals alike. Men, women, children…. To them, it was a beacon of fear. It made you anxious— made your skin crawl and everything became a monster in the corner of your vision.
For predators it became a beacon of power. Wolves, serpents, Gnolls, Kobolds, Tengu, Kappa…. They all grow stronger under its full whiteness. But none as strong as—
"Where are you going?"
I looked behind me to the crowd of huddled children covered in dirt and filth and found Yuki eyeballing me. Streaks of dirt and rotted flesh clung to her bald scalp. As usual, she looked as capable as ever.
"Out." Was all I managed.
"Do you want to die?"
"What I want with death is my business alone." I adjusted the sword at my hip.
"Not when you're that close to being Reborn. I'm going with you." Yuki stepped across the attic floor until she was standing next to me, overlooking the lands of abandoned homes and forest overgrowth. With the moon rising we both could see everything beyond its usual bleak and dim shaping.
We could see the cracks and gashes of old war. The glint of watchful eyes. The glow of the leaves.
"You think I'm letting you run off with power alone?"
"I know you aren't."
"What?"
"Nothing." Sometimes I talk too quietly. "I'm leaving now."
And just like that, I climbed down the face of our abandoned home, fingers and booted feet clinging to the wood ledges as I lowered myself floor by floor. Each window I passed showed me a room absent of life— identy, light.
Overhead Yuki followed, determined and silent as we stepped out into the night.
As soon as I hit the ground I was on the move— like I was led by a string. I re-entered my abandoned home, now on the bottom floor full of discarded trash and corpses. Flies the size of my eyes rose with our entry.
I stood over the dead Goblin within the trash heap.
"You want to kill more?" Yuki dug through the trash and came up with the Goblins dagger I never knew he had.
"More monsters? Yes." I replied before squatting over the Goblin and taking off his feathered cloak.
"I bet I can take down more than you." Yuki replied.
I stood up and threw on the cloak, "You won't."
"You know your arrogance is why people don't like you, right?" Yuki turned her bald head as she watched me lift the Goblin and haul it over my shoulders.
"And what of yours?" I asked as I exited the abandoned home. I could feel the fearful eyes of my peers watch me go from the hole in the attic a dozen floors above.
"I want people not to like me." Yuki replied, nervously watching the untamed overgrowth of the village grounds that welcomed them.
My silence dictated Yuki's the moment we were out in the wild.
Another positive about her. She could read the room. At least to some degree.
We traveled efficiently. No waiting around questioning faint sounds in the shadows— no random fear stricken sprints.
If you wanted to survive traveling a full moon night you couldn't act like prey.
And tonight I defintely was not that.
We moved through grass and streets emptied by Samurai mandate until guards and watchmen of inner cities forced us into the alleys.
And then when the alleys became active with slacking Samurai and the sex workers they couldn't help but entertain, I led us into the sewers.
We ran into more Monsters. Dire Rats. Yuki took her challenge against me serious as we moved through the labrynthine foul corridors. With her Goblin dagger she gutted a few of the slimy creatures.
I did the same with my blade. Every kill pulled me closer to that feeling. Every instance of battle sent lightning through my veins and connected me to my sword in that unique and profound way— turning it into a living extension of myself.
But I held it back.
Yuki noticed.
"Why! Why are you stopping yourself!" She shoved me in the sewers after our most recent skirmish with the sewage swimmers.
"You need to quiet down or we're both dead." I explained to her as I sheathed my sword and continued my trek through filth. Blood and guts floated in our wake.
"You need to tell me why you're avoiding being Reborn. Are you a fool?"
"I'm planned." I replied quietly as I adjusted the weight of the dead Goblin on my shoulder.
"What are you talking about?"
I kept walking. In the distance I could see a step ladder leading back to the surface. If I remembered my travels correctly, I was a mile away from him. Mere minutes.
"If you keep ignoring me I'm going to stab you…" Yuki replied. "I said what are you talking about, Ghost?"
I fought off the urge to gain permanent silence through violence, "Rebirth is a response to your soul acting on your enviroment— a circumstance. Combine that with your skills, fears and interests and your limitless power is born. So, I get what I want by choosing my awakening circumstance. Do I want to be Reborn in a sparring match? Or do I want to find myself in war against the strongest?"
"Are we going to war?"
"I am." I replied.
Yuki stopped pressing me for answers.
But it wasn't because of anything I said. I was a child. I couldn't instill fear like that.
Not in the face of the shelled creatures that rose from the sewer water in front of us.
They were big. One so much so that even while slouching its bulbous shoulders scrapped against the ceiling. Every breath swayed its movements. Sparks flew from the friction of reptilian skin and dry stone, illuminating the trio of beasts in stop motion flashes.
All three varied in physical stature but held the same baseline similarities. Spiked black shells, mossy strands of hair slathered over scaled faces and avian beaks pinked by blood. Their eyes looked like explosions frozen in time. The mounds of flesh atop their heads held pools of foul fluid that bubbled in the silence and smelled like oil if it could rot.
If Kobolds were trickster tactician servants of the Dragon. The Kappa were brutish degenerates in service of themselves. Both aspects of the Reptile mind. One was arguably worse than the other.
Especially for two children.
Yuki slowly leaned toward me and asked, "You don't have any cucumber do you?"