Katsumi stared at her hand, trying to figure out the ancient kanji calligraphed below the descending numbers. She knew how to read and write well enough, but these words, they weren’t ones you’d see in your day to day encounters. They were old, really old, making it difficult to gain insight on the matter when she had trouble deciphering the magic script telling here what to do. Oh how ridiculous that would sound to anyone but her, and not because she was living these odd happenings. The Empire was a strange one when it came to accepting the curious conjurations of the realms. If you’re born with white hair, you’re destined to become great; if you’re born with one eye colored different than the other, you invite evil spirits wherever you go. Yes, Katsumi knew the unwavering resolution of cloistered minds all too well. To anyone else, one would be mad to say such things. To anyone else, except the Spider.
They had accepted her even when her own parents had abandoned her. She was too young then to remember, or know the exact reasons, but she grew up understanding that something as simple as a discolored eye invited fear and demonizing from others. Her new family didn’t concern themselves with such frivolous ideas. Her father had told her to be proud to be chosen by the realm, but even he knew there was a time when she needed to hide what others ignorantly feared, and had provided her with a patch for those occasions. It was easier for people to accept some horrible accident had befallen Katsumi than to accept that her eyes were not a matching pair. Even now, even here. She had noticed Shiba staring at her this morning, staring at her the way everyone stared when they realized her ‘affliction’.
“Okay, let‘s find the mayor.” Asahina tore Katsumi from her thoughts.
Katsumi looked up to see Matsu and Shiba arriving, only a few minutes behind Asahina and herself. She had kept pace with Asahina this morning after Matsu had made her advances at Katsumi. She hadn‘t understood at first, thinking Matsu may have been attempting to intimidate her in some strange and very ineffective way. It wasn‘t until Asahina had snorted his annoyance at Matsu‘s behavior that she became aware of what Matsu had been trying to get at. Katsumi hadn’t ever been propositioned in such a round about, tongue in cheek way. Maybe that was because courtesy wasn’t exactly idolized in the Spider clan, like it was to the rest of Rokugan. Or that they weren’t weighed down with the honor expected of other samurai. Either way, she wasn’t sure what to do at that point, their current situation made it a considerably inconvenient time to fuss with someone’s lustful vices. So she had taken the easy way out and just taken off with Asahina.
He wasn’t much taller than herself, so his strides weren’t long so much as they were quick. He was always the first to make a move in this game they were playing, obviously he was in a hurry to get back to his life. Though, his head had been caved in, so she wondered what sort of a life he’d be returned to. What an unfortunate turn of events if they were to live with their injuries, well, everyone but her. Jashuwa had said she was drowned. She still didn’t believe the story, however, she had nothing else to go on at the moment and no control to find out more.
“They’re dismantling the area, so the mayor should be somewhere nearby to delegate tasks.” Katsumi pointed out. She had a feeling she already knew what today’s game would entail. The bones this morning had given her ‘Teardown isn’t going well’. Now they were to find the mayor, surely it would lead to finding a solution for whatever is causing problems with disassembling the championship grounds.
Katsumi walked around looking for someone who seemed more important than the rest. The one standing around while everyone came to them. It was the easiest way to find someone who ran a city, they wouldn’t stoop to manual labor, believing soft hands, and with that a soft body and spine, made them superior somehow. Sure enough the man who had spoke at opening ceremonies for the tournament was standing nearby, or at least the hazy shadow of that man.
“I found him.” Katsumi called. She didn’t have to speak loudly, Asahina was already headed towards her and the grey man. She took a step back and let Asahina do his thing. Matsu had said that touching them allowed you to hear their thoughts, but Katsumi wasn’t about to go around running her fingers through the consciousness of people. It seemed wrong. Deeply personal. Not something she felt was her place to be doing.
Asahina reached into the shadow, looked as if he was listening rather intently, and removed his hand. “Progress is moving slower than it should. People are getting hurt by walls falling over and others are falling into holes.”
Katsumi nodded, she expected to hear nothing less after this morning‘s bones. She raised her right hand to follow the next directions, noticing Asahina had done the same at nearly the precise moment she had. “Find the problem.” This would be easier than yesterday. Yesterday they had to hunt for clues as to what the problem even was, today, they just had to figure out why things were already going northeast*.
A black flitter swept through the corner of Katsumi’s eye, demanding her attention. She followed the movement and found herself watching a colony of bats flapping and fluttering through the air. Bats. In the middle of the day. There were a good dozen or so of them, passing at head level through the laborers and miscellaneous deconstructed benches and tents. Misty, smoky bats, creating a soupy black cloud against the dim, colorless background. It might have been the oddest thing Katsumi had ever seen, at the moment, nothing else could come to memory of something more peculiar. She reached out a hand to tap Asahina, to show him the colony, half to assure her she wasn’t going mad in this place, half because it would probably be the only time in anyone’s life that they witnessed so many bats during midday. She watched them swoop down, in unison, clutching at the rope used to hold down a tent, tied snugly to a wooden stake, and with the smallest amount of effort and a swoop of the colony, untie the rope causing the tent to collapse.
She never did get Asahina’s attention, but it seemed he had witnessed the same unique scene. Before the man inside the tent let out his scream of agony as the scaffolding collapsed on him, Asahina was running towards the pavilion. The colony lifted and simply rippled off into the distance. Katsumi watched the cloud of bats head towards the mouth of a cave, a cave that she didn’t recall seeing the previous days in the city, nor yesterday the last time they were in this area. Then again, she never really was looking for a cave. A loud thud brought her attention back to the fallen tent as a tree trunk wielded by a giant, headless, ogre pounded into the ground. The animated monstrosity wasn’t alone, a second ogre in the same shambles coalesced, also holding a club the size of a small tree in its discolored, grey hands.
A spear flew out from her peripheral vision, sinking behind the first ogre. Katsumi followed the trajectory to its source, a scowling Shiba standing empty-handed. Hikaru was positioning himself in front of Matsu. Katsumi pushed the ground with her polearm, giving her a small boost in speed, but also angling the bisento towards the ogres, the perfect position so she could ready her weapon while on the move. She raced towards the second of the demons, taking note that Asahina was already slashing at the first, catching it on the arm. Hikaru sprinted in front of her, leaping towards the same giant Asahina had inflicted, bringing down his thick claws into the ashen flesh.
Katsumi lunged at the headless beast, catching the ogre in its side. Perhaps it was because nothing else had been of this size, or maybe it was because Katsumi’s full weight was coming down on the creature, but the way her bisento plunged into the shadowy being just wasn’t right. Instead of the resistance flesh provides before giving way to the feeling of muscle separating from each other, it was soft. There was something tangible about the ogre, but it was more like cutting into a high piled down pillow. Only the smallest of resistance before she was pushing into nothing. She landed, feet firmly on the ground, as the ogre swung its trunk club towards her head. It was incredibly slow allowing Katsumi to easily dodge with a squat. She jabbed at its belly again, this time coming too short on her reach, the ogre backing up from her.
She could hear the snarls of Hikaru, the lion instinctually attempting to intimidate the ogre. The soft scratch of Asahina’s sandals on the fake ground, as he slid from one attack to the next. The grunts of Shiba, thrusting and slashing. And dared a peek towards the first ogre to gauge how well they were doing to see Matsu’s chestnut hair, and earth toned clothes, sweeping behind the beast, katana drawn and mid swing. There was a hallow howl of air being split, Katsumi refocused on her target to see a trunk descending on the spot she stood. She rolled, barely dodging the blackened wood as it came crashing into the faded ground. She sprang to her feet, slicing at the tendons behind the behemoth’s knee. A fist the size of her head flew towards her. Katsumi was already low to the ground, a duck and she was in the clear, jabbing again, but missing this time.
A gurgling groan and the slow sound of something large toppling over came from her side. She didn’t want to be caught off guard again, but it was clear to her the other monster had fallen. Hers’ twisted lurched, attempting to grab her this time. It was so slow, there was no way it would ever get a hit on her. Katsumi hopped forward, thrusting her bisento into the ogre’s strangely empty feeling chest with all her strength, pushing and twisting. A blade came close to her own abdomen, hacking at the shadow’s leg. Shiba had severed the artery, or at least where the artery should have been. These things hadn’t bled from the first one they came across, there was no spray of warmth Katsumi had to shield her eyes from, no thick and sweet blood covering her clothes. She pulled her bisento from the giants chest, propelling herself backwards, out of the way of its lifeless decent to the cloudy ground.
It may not bleed like those of the living, but it died just like the rest of them.
*The people of Rokugan have lives steeped heavily in superstitions. Most people believe it is unlucky to travel in a northeast direction as that is the same way the Shadowlands, an area of Rokugan tainted by Jigoku (hell), runs. If one does have to travel northeast, they will travel north as far as they can, then east.
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