Chereads / Ronin: Through Blue and Blood / Chapter 4 - Crazy and Calculated

Chapter 4 - Crazy and Calculated

The two Kappa crouched on all fours let out a bubbly throated screech in front of their long legged leader.

The sound reverberated off the walls and shook my brain.

"Just this Goblin. Bow." I dropped my head after responding to Yuki's previous question— that was made in jest. Who jokes at a time like this?

Yuki hesitantly followed suit. Just like in the dojo. Or not. Her eyes watched me as I dug into the foul giblit sewage with my free hand.

We listened in tense silence as the waters shifted with the Kappa mirroring the movement.

They weren't honorable. But sometimes self service demanded honor…. a fake husk imitating it. The only reason they dropped their heads was to gain something of value. A sacrifice. Food. Jewels.

After a few seconds the fluids filling the flesh mounds atop their heads emptied. As it always went. Ritualistic. Magical. Ominous. I remembered reading that the quirks and unique traits of monsters in the Kumataiyo Isle's makes it a place nearly impossible to adjust to for foreigners. Not me.

I stood up. Yuki followed. The trio of Kappa held their bow— eyes watching us in a horrific denial of natural anatomy. Their eyes hanging from their sockets, spun upward to see us.

Me and Yuki approached them. The Goblin slung over my shoulder grew heavy. The long intestine in my left hand dragged through the water silently.

As I walked towards them I could feel Yuki's dagger sheathed in the belt at her hip. A far better weapon for close space combat than my samurai sword. Or my strip of intestines for that matter.

We stopped in front of the Kappa, eagerly waiting for their donation.

I looked down at the sewage water rising to my knees. Foul and pungent swirling with crimson blood.

"No…"

I tossed the Goblin off to the side. It landed on the stone walkway bordering the river of filth they stood in.

The two Kappa on all fours— more savage than their leader went for it, still eager to "honor" the trade.

The second they moved I lunged. With the string of intestines still in my left hand, I felt it squish as I gripped my hilt.

I rose from the filth and toward the Kappa nightmare on two legs. With my right hand, I partially unsheathed my blade.

Time slowed. I could see with my blade again. I could feel the imperfections in the beasts brackish green scales. I knew where to cut— where the flesh would be the most agreeable.

I continued to unsheathe my sword as I neared the creature.

In a flash I blurred past it, running just enough of the partially unsheathed blade across its carotid artery covered in soft tissue. In my wake the creature let out a startled scream drowned in the sounds of rain.

No— not rain. Blood. It splattered and sprayed against the walls.

It splattered against Yuki and the Kappa as they smothered the Goblin.

Yuki took the attack as her que to hit the others, slashing at their eyes and empty flesh crowns like an animal in her own right.

All the while, now behind my bleeding target, I jumped on its back and fitted the DireRat intestines around its throat. Just above the wound so when I tightened with every fiber of my prepubescent being, blood squirted like a geyser. Like a blood volcano in the midst of unholy eruption.

Just like the Goblin, the Kappa went berserk in its absence of oxygen. I expected it. I was used to it now. The flexion of the throat muscles pushing against the binds. The swing of the limbs and pull of the arms.

Even when its thick webbed fingers reached up for the slippery foul intestines, it was no use.

There was already enough blood to paint the whole hallway red. A sign of its loss in strength. My gain.

The Kappa dropped to its knees.

I looked up just in time to see the two remaining Kappa fleeing.

Their blood would only lead a trail for shifters or Samurai to follow. Everything had to be finished in one place or my goal went from difficult to complete, to impossible.

I moved on them. Yuki stood watching them— appreciating their cowardice.

She jumped in fear as my hands brushed across her waistband.

With her Goblin Dagger now in my hands I watched the Kappa run, barely visible in the dark of the sewer system. Hell, they could've been invisible. It was like the bladed weapon had a mind of its own finely tuned to their location no matter where they went.

I raised the weapon and threw it as they rounded a corner.

It whistled into the shadows, only seen again in a flash of sparks when the blade ricocheted off the walls to sink into the flesh of one of the Kappa around the corner.

Just like in the attic we heard it. We heard flesh and blood. We heard pain. But this time, only one of us was surprised.

I raced through the sewage filth and rounded the corner finding one of the Kappa twitching in the shallow waves with a dagger plunged into the back of its neck at a downward angle to reach over the shell. Spine assumedly severed.

I didn't know Kappa's had spines. The blade did, though.

I ripped it from the creatures neck as I leapt over it and descended on the last runner.

I don't remember it putting up a fight.

Suddenly I was just standing over it. Deep gashes along its throat and arterial locations leaked red into the black green waters.

It was done.

"Help me move these to the where the DireRat carcasses are." I said.

"Why?" Yuki said from behind me.

"Because if a ShapeShifter is following us, they'll get stuck. They'll get lost in all the blood and guts. If they can smell past the filth. There won't be a trail that gets them closer to the fresher scents of us. We'll keep them off of us."

Yuki walked over and began helping me pushing the floating Kappa through the sewer, back to where we ran into them.

"Are you crazy?" Yuki questioned as she strained. The Kappa had to be upwards of one hundred and thirty kilograms. I read Kappa being heavier… but they didn't feel as much.

"What?"

"Are you crazy?" Yuki repeated, cruel eyes fastened on my pale skinned face. Every time she looked at me now she was searching for signs of power. Signs of something she could siphon for herself. My refusal to embrace must've been frustrating to her impatient mind.

"No." I replied.

"Do you attack every Monster you see? Do Creature Tiers mean nothing to you? Those could've been strong. People are one thing… but monsters— you're lucky—"

"No I'm not." I interrupted her.

"What?" Her thin eyebrows caked in sweat rose.

"I'm not lucky. I'm calculated."

Yuki rolled her eyes, "You're a stupid foreigner. And you could've got us both killed in this shit maze!"

"Lower your voice. And take note of the fact that only three Kappa were down here. In a sewer under an active city. Kappa Clans have more members and they usually take up homes over natural bodies of water where they can engage in trade and slaughter of wandering Samurai— Ronin sent to death in the wild. These three were alone… probably running from a lost war. The weaklings who fled at the first sign of losing. They were either hiding from the Full Moon or running from a lost battle. Or both. Something we are doing neither of so we had the advantage."

We reached the DireRat carcasses. I stood up, breaths coming harder than before. Yuki said nothing as I walked onto the bordering walkways and picked up the Goblin.

"Why are you so obsessed with that thing?"

"That's my business." I led us towards the ladder at the end of the sewer walkway and we crawled up into clean night air.

We came up just in time to see a team of Wind Onmyoji flying across the night sky. The mages were too high for us to see anything other than their glowing Aura's and flowing robes as the beings pushed the volcanic ash littered clouds further west.

The night lit up under the pale white glow of stars and the Full Moon.

Yuki held off a shiver as I squatted down on a curb in the alley we occupied and began cutting up the pants of my gi. Removing the filth infested ends around my lower legs.

She didn't notice. Not my problem. My gain— actually.

I led us further into the city.