Chapter 3: Yokai, Yokai, and Even More Yokai

Before the boy could finish his confession, Yukimura saw a pair of twin bovine horns protruding from the ground behind him. The rest only happened in a moment.

Yukimura reached into her pocket, revealing a talisman. It burned an azure hue in the sky before enveloping her completely, but unlike what one would suspect from the intense light, it didn’t seem to pain her. Instead, it transformed her. Yukimura’s everyday school clothes were replaced with a pearly white robe that bore a resemblance to a ceremonial garb. Her long hair was fitted with a black lacquered cap. From the sleeves of the robe, Yukimura unveiled a katana that was larger than half of her own body. And just past that sword’s blade, she saw the yokai she was supposed to slay.

The creature was 9 feet tall. It could’ve passed for a really well-raised ox if it were just its bullish head. But the true horror of the beast was what lay below it. Instead of its lower body mirroring its head’s taurine features, it had the abdomen of a spider. And protruding from it were 1, 2, 3…6 spindly, identical legs, each tipped with a razor-sharp blade-like claw. From these features, Yukimura knew exactly what this beast was since her master told her about it once before. It was a ushi-oni, and another thing she knew about this yokai in particular: they didn’t like to work alone.

Whoosh. Swoosh. Whizz. Three water sphere-shaped projectiles homed in on her current position. She couldn’t tell where they came from, but with a swing of her blade, she was able to nullify the threat of the flying shots by freezing them into ice balls, which subsequently fell onto the ground. However, that defensive maneuver left her prone to the ushi-oni’s devices.

Without a second to lose, he pounced upon her. If it weren’t for Yukimura’s quick reaction time, allowing her to roll out of the way, she would’ve been pierced just like the ground where she stood moments before. The claws that the ushi-oni attacked with seemed to be somewhat stuck in the ground, seeing as they created a hole in the school grounds. And Yukimura didn’t let this opportunity go to waste. She shifted the weight of the blade throughout her body before reciting the word: Freeze.

All the immediate ground around her froze, including the space where the ushi-oni had just pried its appendage from the earth. She then took advantage of the ice’s slipperiness to glide across its surface and to cut across the ushi-oni’s body with her sword. However, when her blade made contact with the yokai’s skin, it bounced right off, and the only thing the sword left was Yukimura stumbling back on the ice. But what caught Yukimura off guard wasn’t the hardness of the ushi-oni; it was that of the ground below them.

The ice was supposed to be hard and slippery, just as it had been seconds prior. But now the ice felt looser, less solid, like the ground around her turned into some kind of liquid, only because it had. The ice below her seemed to bear the properties of water as it began to submerge underground, yet she didn’t dare struggle against it.

This must have been how he snuck up on me, she thought, not failing to grasp onto her blade. And this also may be where its partner is hiding. And alas, she was right about both.

When she fully submerged, Yukimura was not met with a subterranean surface; instead, her surroundings mirrored those of a lake. Clear water surrounded her body, so clear in fact that she could perfectly make out the figure tens of meters away from her.

Its body was covered in lime-green scales, except for its more peachy underbelly and the horribly obvious bald spot on its head. The figure was only slightly taller than she was, possessing webbed hands and feet, and a set of tiger-like claws on its kneecaps.

A suiko. Now it all makes sense. They can create bodies of water and also manipulate water to some extent. And so to get out of here, I just need to kill that suiko. With her objective in mind, Yukimura held her katana close to her body, channeling a luminous energy into it. But before she could fully channel that energy, another body entered the vast body of water: the ushi-oni.

“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha,” the ushi-oni released a manic laugh as his jaws were only an arm’s length away from her blade. “Is this the best you got, little Miss Onmyoji? You know, if you drop the sword, maybe I can save you for tomorrow’s snack since you got a cute face.” However, Yukimura ignored his taunts, not breaking her pose, continuing to imbue her blade with that mysterious energy.

Confused, the ushi-oni slightly prodded her with his sharp appendages. “Hello… Are you listening? I’m gonna eat you in just a few seconds if you don’t nod or something.” Yet, there was not the slightest twitch from her. “Hey, I think she drowned already.”

While the news of her drowning should have been good, the suiko was frustrated at the words of his partner. “If you don’t just hurry up and eat her already, you know the only way to confirm the death of these Onmyoji bastards is to detach and scatter all their limbs from their bodies.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going to. But it's just not as fun if they’re not like squirming, you know?”

“Then I’ll just make sure she’s dead with this.”

Water swirled at the suiko’s webbed fingertips. Spiraling and morphing into a sharper, longer, spear-shaped projectile rather than the balls of water it shot out earlier.

“Alright, get out of the way, horn for brains. Before this pierces ya.”

“Please, it wouldn’t even leave a dent.” Despite the ushi-oni’s words, it still moved a bit, allowing the suiko a clear shot at the girl. And when the water spear released from its fingertips, that’s when the once motionless Yukimura finally made her move.

She dove, avoiding the water spear. The ushi-oni attempted to duck down after her, but it was too late; her sword was finished charging. With a shift of her wrist, the blade pointed right at the neck of the suiko, and within this range, she was confident she wouldn’t miss.

Burst!

The energy she had been channeling was released from the sword all at once. The water this energy touched immediately froze into ice, seemingly forming a moving icicle as the energy pierced the unsuspecting suiko’s neck. And almost as if the two events were related, the surrounding water’s density suddenly increased.

This sudden increase propelled Yukimura, the ushi-oni, and the suiko’s corpse upward toward the ceiling of the body of water until the three found themselves ejected from the ground and pushed beyond the ground’s surface. By the time their elevation stopped, they were slightly above the school building’s height.

Yukimura grabbed onto the edge of the rooftop, leaving the ushi-oni and the corpse to plummet. The first yokai who made contact with the ground was the ushi-oni, and the bovine yokai made their best effort to preserve the corpse of its partner, allowing it to land on its back. However, this moment of kindness, this moment of absent-mindedness, was a moment of opportunity, one that Yukimura did not pass up.

She released her hold on the building and pointed her sword downward, toward the spider-like sac on the back of the ushi-oni. As the sword plunged into the yokai’s spider-like sac, at first, it didn’t make a dent like her attempt before. But then she yelled out the word, “Blizzard!”

As that word exited her pursed lips, a swarm of ice shards appeared seemingly out of thin air. They all aimed toward the same spot where the sword was pointed, and then she plunged them all into the same point. And finally, it made a dent.

Blood burst out like a fountain. It was an inky black, like the one that stained Yukimura’s blade. Following the blood’s emergence was a bellow so ferocious it knocked Yukimura off the beast’s back.

“You. What is your name, young Onmyoji? I wish to know the name of the person who pierced me even with that inside of me.”

That? What is it talking about?

“Yukimura.” Her response was cold and swift, just like her blade. She swung her blade toward one of the ushi-oni’s legs, aiming to cut it. However, the yokai parried it with its claw. Its other hind leg hovered above Yukimura, but before it landed upon her, the ushi-oni let out another cry of pain. However, this time, Yukimura was not the cause of it.

The ushi-oni fell onto its side, continuing to screech as the black blots of blood continued to leak out from its sac. Yukimura, confused, took a step back. She knew yokai could shift into different forms. Readying herself, she took a stance.

But what was happening was no transformation. It was something that even the most seasoned fighters couldn’t expect. It was a pair of hands. Hands were emerging from the wound Yukimura had inflicted. Hands stained black from the ushi-oni’s blood as its emergence began.