THREE SPARKS
They found the first bodies around noon, suspended from a branch high above them, arms dangling. Samurai? They could not tell. It was hard to know someone’s social status after they had been skinned.
From the bloat and the stink, combined with the heat, Hiroto guessed they had been dead for three days. He had skinned a lot of game, so even in their sorry state he could tell that this oni was very skilled at butchery. Hiroto was impressed. There were no signs of rope. It would take an incredible amount of strength and balance to haul corpses all the way up there. He had seen great cats cache their kills in trees, but this felt different, as if staged for their benefit. Was it to send a message? Marking territory? He tried not to let his appreciation show. A regular porter should be frightened, so he tried to act that way.
The others, however, didn’t have to act.
* * *
“Captain Nasu Hiroto, hero of the battle of Dan-no-ura, hero of the battle of Kurikara, master swordsman, and champion archer of the Minamoto clan. Some say the finest archer in our history, if not, second only to his father. Yet after the war, there would be no peace for him. No. Hiroto took one of my ships, and was carried about wherever the waves would take him, always searching for a new battle, for new beasts to slay. Over the years, I heard he was hunting tigers in the jungles of Tenjiku or great white bears in the desolate lands north of Joseon. It is widely believed Nasu Hiroto is the greatest hunter in the world.”
There were some exaggerations there but Hiroto did not correct the shogun’s inaccuracies. When the most powerful man in Nippon wanted to ramble, you let him. So Hiroto simply knelt and waited for Minamoto Yoritomo to pronounce his judgment.
“You were one of my most trusted warriors, Hiroto. Why did you leave? After our victory over the Taira clan, I would have given you great responsibilities.”
“I left because you would have given me great responsibilities.”
“Your life was mine to spend, Hiroto.”
“Spending it teaching children how to use a bow would have been a waste. I am not trying to be facetious, my lord, but I would have died of boredom. I am not very good at peace.”
“Then you picked a fortuitous time to return.”
The castle was stifling. It was a miserable day in what had to be the hottest summer in generations. A servant was fanning the red-faced and sweating shogun. Nobody was fanning Hiroto. He did not rate a fan.
“I should have you executed for your disobedience, you impudent ronin bastard. Yet curiosity gets the better of me. After all these years you returned to Kamakura. Why?”
“I received word that the Shogunate has need of my services.”
Minamoto Yoritomo chuckled. “I should have known that the Oni of Aokigahara would bring you out of hiding. Summer began with it murdering a score of my warriors, picking them off, one by one, and leaving them hanging from trees, skinned. Since then, samurai have been rushing there in order to defeat it and win my favor. All have failed. Witnesses whisper of an invisible demon, stronger than any man, which kills by spear, claw, or even bolts of lightning, before vanishing as quickly as it appeared.”
“You can see how such stories would catch my interest, my lord.”
“Sometimes, three glowing embers appear upon its chosen victim.” The shogun held up three fingers, then put them against his forehead, fingertips making the points of a triangle. “Being marked by these fire kami are the only warning before it strikes. So many samurai have perished that they believe the oni cannot be defeated by a mortal hand. I seem to recall they said the same thing about the Great Sea Beast, before your father killed it with a single arrow through the eye.”
“A truly heroic moment.”
“I know. I was there. No man has ever equaled his feat… including the man who has hunted every dangerous beast beneath the sun. Hmmm… Perhaps if you were to defeat the Oni of Aokigahara, you could finally match his legend?”
It might have been in his blood, but that wasn’t why Hiroto followed his path. The shogun may have been a brilliant general, but he did not understand the compulsion to constantly seek out new dangers. “You are wise, my lord, but what is one little forest demon when compared to a mighty kaiju?”
“You could never resist a challenge, could you, Hiroto?”
He had never fought a demon before. “No, my lord. I could not.”
* * *
It was a few days’ ride to Aokigahara, the dense forest to the north of Mount Fuji. Despite the blistering sun, Hiroto enjoyed seeing the land of his birth again. He felt eager and alive. Each morning the mountain was a bit closer and so was his next great challenge.
Unfortunately, he was not making the journey alone. The Shogunate had sent a representative, a young warrior born of high status, named Ashikaga Motokane, and his retinue of five bodyguards. Though Hiroto had helped their lord rise to power, that had been a long time ago. Now, the shogun’s samurai looked upon him as a dishonorable outcast, a wild man, an anomaly in their orderly world.
Worst case scenario, Hiroto would use them as bait.
* * *
The map provided by the Shogunate had shown a small village at the edge of the forest, so Hiroto had picked that as their destination. Upon arrival it had proven even more pathetic than expected, simply a collection of rotten huts and stinking pig pens, yet it would provide a final opportunity to restock their provisions. Hiroto also hoped for first-hand information.
The villagers saw the warriors approaching and abandoned their fields to hide in their huts. That was not surprising. Villages like this were often menaced by one conquering army or another, and during times of peace there were always bandits. One farmer remained in the center of the village to greet them. That would be their appointed headman, the presenter of taxes and hospitality.
“The rest of you hang back for a moment. There is no need to spook them further.” Of course the shogun’s representative did not listen. When Hiroto dismounted and began walking into the village, Ashikaga Motokane followed, swaggering in the most intimidating way possible.
“I need to ask these farmers some questions.”
“Why bother? They’ll know nothing.”
“You might be surprised.”
Motokane looked upon the village with disgust. “They’re beneath us. We’re authorized to take whatever supplies we require. Let’s do it and get on with it.” It was no wonder the poor farmers saw little difference between bandits and samurai.
The headman had seen their banner bore the Shogunate’s mon, and as they approached had already launched into a rapid speech telling them how wonderful they were, but that his poor village had paid its taxes, and for them to please have mercy because the terrible heat had caused their crops to wilt and their well to run dry, so on and so forth.
Hiroto didn’t have patience for such frivolous things when there were monsters about, so he cut the headman off. “I am Nasu Hiroto. We’ve come to kill the Oni of Aokigahara.”
“You are not the first. The stories are true. Our land is cursed! It is a terrible scourge. We are so thankful more brave samurai have come to fight the demon.” Only the headman didn’t actually sound relieved, if anything he was annoyed. “Many of you have come through here this summer, eating our food, putting our men to work as guides—”
“Yes, I know.” The village had probably seen a parade of warriors by this point, but he needed information. “Have you seen it yourself?”
“No, but I have felt it watching. Many have, though. Young Hagi saw it first, perched high in the trees, shaped like a man, but bigger, with a head like an ox. She thought it was an angry ghost and ran away. Old Genzo saw it too. He heard the thunder when it killed the first samurai. It put the three sparks on him too, but Genzo fled before more lightning came! Lucky it didn’t chase him because it is swift as a horse!”
Any creature capable of effortlessly slaughtering samurai would have an easy time with a place this defenseless. “How many of your people has the demon killed?”
“Who cares?” Motokane said. “They’re just peasants.”
The headman looked nervously between the two imposing warriors, unsure whether he was still supposed to speak or not. Hiroto wished that Motokane would keep his idiot mouth shut. These farmers were probably as frightened by hungry soldiers as the demon plaguing their woods.
“I must know, how many of you have died?”
“It is hard to believe, but none, noble samurai. He has only attacked mighty warriors such as you. Our village has not been troubled by Three Sparks.”
That name would suffice. “All of those men beheaded or skinned nearby, yet this Three Sparks has not harmed a single person in this humble village… Curious.”
“Perhaps they’re in league with the oni!” Motokane snarled. “Why else would it leave them be?”
The headman immediately threw himself into the dust and began begging for mercy, which with a hothead like Motokane was certainly the wisest thing possible. “No! Please! We would never! After the killing started some of us left offerings at the shrine to appease it at most!”
“You gave gifts to a demon that was killing my brothers?” Motokane bellowed as he reached for his sword.
Hiroto sighed. Clan officials always made his job more complicated. He wasn’t going to get any answers if Motokane started slaughtering villages. “Please, calm yourself.”
“The shogun will abide no treachery!”
“And I will not abide you interrupting me again.” The official may have outranked him, but Hiroto was the one handpicked for this assignment, and his patience was wearing thin. “You said it yourself, peasants are beneath your notice. You and Three Sparks have that in common. Now walk away and let me finish.”
Motokane was quarrelsome, but he wasn’t stupid. Rank had privileges, but they were a long way from Kamakura. The young man gave the headman one last threatening glare, then let go of his sword and went back to join his troops. Good. Hiroto didn’t particularly want to murder him, but he would if necessary, and then simply tell the shogun that the demon had gotten him. “Now where were we?”
“I’m sorry, great and noble—”
“Enough groveling, and stand already. I’m no tax collector.” He waited for the farmer to get up. “I’m simply a hunter, and you’re going to tell me everything you know about this demon so that I can kill it.”
* * *
It was hard to tell over the clanking and huffing of Motokane’s bodyguards, but beyond them the forest was unnaturally quiet. The wind did not penetrate far into the Sea of Trees. There were no birds singing, no insects buzzing, just the occasional tap of collected humidity falling on leaves.
It was no wonder the place had been considered haunted even before an oni had moved in.
That morning the others had dressed for war. Motokane’s retinue were wearing their armor and helmets, with bows strung, spears held high, and their swords at their sides. The shogun’s finest looked like fearsome combatants, a worthy challenge for any demon.
Meanwhile, Hiroto lagged behind them, unarmed and stripped to the waist, with a bamboo pole balanced across his shoulder with a bundle hanging from each end. He had even gone and rolled about in the fields to complete the act. The other samurai thought he’d gone mad when he left his swords behind, but Hiroto looked and even smelled like a local farmer.
Hiroto tried to appear inconsequential, head down, tired and stumbling from rock to rock beneath his clumsy burden. He would be no threat, especially to a mighty oni. He was simply a porter, conscripted from the village to carry his betters’ supplies because the forest was too rugged for their horses. The headman had told him that some of the other would-be demon hunters had done the same, and each time their porter had come running back alone, terrified, sometimes covered in blood, but alive.
In his experience, most beasts targeted the weakest prey. This oni was different. It attacked the strong. He would use that to his advantage.
* * *
They walked for hours. It was slow going across such rough terrain. Thick roots waited to trip them. Each warrior was drenched in sweat. The air felt heavy and smelled of moss. The soil was dark and littered with black volcanic rocks. Between the heat and the uneven ground, the samurai were surely regretting wearing their armor, but they were all too proud to show it. Each of them thought that they would be the one to take the trophy back to their lord, and they passed the time by boasting of what they would do with their reward.
Hiroto just kept his head down, appearing meek and subservient. He reasoned it did not do much good to use his eyes to hunt a creature which was supposedly invisible. Instead, he listened.
In a forest without sound, the faintest things became audible. The oni was quiet, but not as quiet as a tiger. In trees packed too tight for the wind to rustle through, the smallest movement was a clue. Occasionally he’d hear flesh scrape against bark, or the creak of a branch as weight settled on it. There was another sound beneath as well, barely audible, but unnatural, like the chittering of an insect combined with the slithering of a snake across sand. It made the hair on his arms stand up. All of that information would have been lost amongst the noise of a living place, but in the haunted stillness of Aokigahara, it told a story.
They were being followed.
It was somewhere above them and to the right. He tried not to let his excitement show.
* * *
“Over here,” Kaneto called from the edge of a nearby stream. “There’s another.”
This body had been there for a few days, and was missing its head, but from his fine clothing and the broken katana lying in the water, he had clearly been a samurai. Motokane knelt next to the corpse and pointed at the emblem embroidered on the sleeve. “I recognize this from court. This is the personal mon of Hōjō Murashige!”
Hiroto had no idea who that was, but the Hōjō were a family of some importance. The corpse’s identity seemed to shake the others.
“He was a fearsome swordsman,” Zensuke whispered. “The best of us.”
“It didn’t just take his head. It ripped out his spine.” Motokane stood up and glanced around nervously. A full day of nerves and stress had worn him thin. He suddenly raised his voice and bellowed, “Show yourself, demon! Show yourself so I can kill you like the wretched cowardly dog you are!”
Hiroto took a few steps away from the angry samurai. The peasants had spoken of it throwing lightning bolts, and he didn’t think it wise to stand so close to the most tempting target. He listened, but if the demon was still watching, it was being especially quiet, or at least quiet enough he couldn’t hear it over the shouting. So while Motokane continued to rant and threaten the trees, Hiroto looked for tracks. Signs always told a story.
The black ground was too hard to leave good prints, but the moss once smashed grew differently than what was around it. There were the marks of normal sandals, and then much larger footfalls, heavy enough to crush the moss flat. The two had fought back and forth for quite some time, covering a lot of distance. He examined a cut on a tree. From the height and angle, it had come from someone extremely tall. Deep cuts. Incredible strength. Twin blades… An odd weapon. There were other cuts in the bark. The oni had fought with a wild and ferocious style. Then he found the dried blood where the oni had finally struck true. He followed the trail. These rocks had been stained green. Paint? He touched it. No… it had the consistency of dried sap… So oni bleed green. Curious. The smell was completely alien. He spied something else lying on the rocks, something out of place. He picked it up.
And then Kaneto’s chest exploded.
There was a whoosh-crack and a flash of light. Motokane’s shouting was suddenly interrupted as the bodyguard’s blood sprayed him in the face. Bits of meat and armor rained out of the sky, making ripples across the stream. Kaneto dropped to his knees, lifeless, and then flopped forward with a splash.
The wound on his chest must have been incredibly hot because it boiled the stream around it. Steam rose through the giant hole in Kaneto’s back.
The samurai’s reaction was near instant. Spears were lifted, arrows were nocked, only they had no target for their wrath.
“Where’d that come from?” Motokane shouted.
Hiroto had dropped his bundles, crouched behind a tangle of roots, and was listening carefully. The lightning strike had made his ears ring, but besides the warrior’s heavy breathing, he caught a rapid series of thumps as the oni danced from tree to tree. It was pulling back to watch from a position of safety… toying with them.
That meant they had some time before the killing would resume. The odd item he had found was still clenched in his fist, so Hiroto opened his hand to study it. The thing was too big, it ended in an obsidian claw, and the exposed meat was bright green instead of decaying red, but from the joints and knuckles, it was clearly a finger.
So Hōjō Murashige must have challenged the oni to a duel, it had accepted, and lost a finger in the process… No wonder it preferred to attack from ambush.
* * *
“Why won’t this damned thing come out and fight us like a proper warrior?” Motokane grumbled as they trudged through the forest.
“Because it isn’t stupid,” Hiroto muttered from the back of the line.
“What was that?” he demanded.
They were going back along the same trail they had come in on. Ostensibly to find better ground to fight on—or so the official declared. Hiroto assumed it was because Motokane had realized he was in over his head, but he didn’t want to lose face by outright calling it a retreat.
Hiroto kept his voice down. It wasn’t a low-born porter’s place to offer tactical advice to samurai, but he did not feel that the demon was near enough to eavesdrop. “A clever hunter pits his strengths against his prey’s weakness. He does not pit his weakness against his prey’s strengths.”
“Nonsense,” Motokane spat. “He’s just dishonest like you! Now shut up and keep moving!”
They continued walking, but a few moments later the nearest samurai whispered to Hiroto, “What did you mean by that, hunter?”
“It knows we are strong in close combat. The Hōjō was a good swordsman. The demon fought him, katana against some odd manner of dual blade. It won, but left behind a finger. A costly mistake. It will not be so foolish to face one of us head on again.”
“Ah… I see…” The samurai was carrying a tetsubo, a heavy war club, a fearsome weapon which wouldn’t do him much good when the invisible oni returned and blasted them with lightning bolts from the tree tops. “Unfortunate.”
Since Hiroto had assumed most of them would die poorly, he had not bothered to learn all their names, but this one did not seem as dense as the others. “What do they call you again?”
“Nobuo.”
His attention had been elsewhere during the attack. “Did you see the fire kami mark your companion? The three sparks?”
“Yes, but I did not react in time. I saw light flickering on his breastplate, but the heat made me slow. At first I thought it was a trick of the eyes. Then it was too late. Kaneto’s death is my fault.”
He was still not sure what purpose the sparks served. “How long did they linger before the lightning struck?”
“They were already there when I looked over, for how long before that I don’t know. Then only the space of a few heartbeats before I was nearly blinded by the flash.”
“Hmmm…” At first he’d suspected the sparks held some spiritual significance, but now… Nipponese archers trained to see their target then draw and release in one smooth movement, but the archers of the Song dynasty he had trained with always drew, then paused to sight down the shaft before release. “It sounds as if the demon uses the fire kami to aim. This knowledge may prove useful.”
They continued on for a time in silence. Hiroto could not currently hear the demon stalking them. He assumed that was because it had waited for them to leave the stream, and now it was skinning and hanging Kaneto from a tree. He had been tempted to stay and wait in ambush, but Motokane had ordered his men to move out. Faced with the choice, Hiroto had decided that live bait was more valuable than dead.
“Hunter, another question.”
“Please do not call me that. The oni might be listening.”
“Apologies.”
Hiroto sighed, because samurai apologized to low-born laborers so very often. “What is it, Nobuo?”
“We have seen this hunter ’s strengths. What are yours?”
“I am a fast learner.”
* * *
The next attack came at sundown.
Hiroto saw a single leaf fall from a tree fifty paces to their side, then a few moments later a branch vibrated high in a tree thirty paces ahead. The blessing of Hachiman—god of warriors—was upon him, because if they were anywhere other than the unnatural stillness of Aokigahara, he would not have sensed it.
“The oni is here,” he whispered.
Nobuo quietly repeated that to the next samurai in line, who repeated it to Motokane, who immediately ruined any chance of an effective response by shouting, “Halt!”
Spears and arrows were readied. The warriors watched the thick undergrowth, wary. Hiroto acted the frightened porter and ducked behind a tree. Several tense seconds passed.
Three flickering sparks appeared on Zensuke’s helmet.
“Look out!” Nobuo shouted as he hurled himself against his companion. As they collided there was another whip-crack of sound and a brilliant flash. The two samurai fell in a shower of sparks.
Hiroto had seen exactly where that bolt had come from. He quickly dumped the satchels from the bamboo shaft he’d been carrying. His real cargo had been hidden inside all along.
One of the samurai—he had not bothered to remember this one’s name—launched an arrow into the branches. To his credit, he was close, yet not close enough. The oni must have felt rushed, because the three sparks did not linger this time, and the bolt struck the warrior low. The resulting blast still sent him flipping through the air. One of his legs flew in the opposite direction.
Careful not to cut himself on one of the specially prepared arrow heads, Hiroto retrieved his bow. He had it strung and had taken up one of his poisoned arrows before the crippled samurai landed.
The oni was hurling lightning down upon the samurai like he was Raijin the thunder god. Another warrior drew his katana and screamed a challenge, but the oni had learned the hard way what happens when you duel with a samurai, so it blew his arm off instead. As Motokane ran away a tree exploded next to him, and the official was lost from view in a cloud of splinters.
Hiroto had guessed right. The oni concentrated on the warriors and ignored the supposed peasant. Like him, it only enjoyed hunting dangerous game.
That had been a terrible mistake.
Focusing on the source of the lightning, Hiroto raised his bow and brought it down as he drew. The instant his thumb touched his jaw he let fly. The oni was still invisible, but its angry roar told him that he had struck true.
Yet Hiroto did not let up. He had once pierced a great northern bear six times and it had still retained the strength to charge him. Surely a demon would be tougher. In the blink of an eye he launched another arrow, and then another. This time when the oni moved, he saw it. Light seemed to twist and reflect, like staring into a diamond, and for the first time, he saw it was truly shaped as a man.
Another arrow went into its chest. The oni dropped from the tree. Hiroto could not see if it landed on its feet or its back. He would hope for the best and expect the worst.
Zensuke was screaming in pain. Because of Nobuo’s quick reactions his sode had been hit instead of his helmet, but there was a glowing molten hole through the iron shoulder plate and the lacquer had caught on fire. Nobuo had taken out his tanto and was slicing through the cords before his friend cooked to death in his own armor.
He could only hide so many of his own arrows inside the bamboo pole, so he picked up Zensuke’s quiver as he ran past them. “It is wounded. Follow when you can.”
Hiroto leapt through the bushes, arrow nocked, ready to draw the instant he saw light bend. There were insects and lizards which could become the same color as the ground around them; apparently this oni’s magic worked far better, but in a similar manner. Cautiously, he approached the spot where the oni had fallen.
There was more of the green blood splattered across the rocks. It turned out that when it was fresh, the oni’s blood glowed like a smashed firefly. There was a lot of blood, but considering he thought he had struck it with four arrows, not enough. The light was fading quickly, which would make the glowing blood trail easier to follow.
The other samurai caught up a moment later. Nobuo had gotten Zensuke’s burning armor removed in time, but the other samurai’s shoulder was a bloody, charred mess. His right arm hung useless. He had to be in terrible pain, but he hid it behind a mask of grim determination, and carried his katana in his left hand.
“That’s its blood?” Nobuo gestured with his war club. “Then we can track it!”
“Wait,” Hiroto said as he knelt and picked up a broken arrow shaft. It was slick with the green slime. “I coated these arrow heads in a concentrated poison made from the venom of a jellyfish some pearl divers introduced me to. Its sting causes weakness, paralysis, and usually death. I do not know what it will do to a demon, but we will give the poison a moment to work.”
Samurai considered poison a cowardly and dishonorable way to kill, but Nobuo and Zensuke did not protest. At this point they only wanted to survive. Surprisingly, Motokane found them a minute later. Hiroto wasn’t surprised to see he was still alive—officials were more survivable than rats—but rather that he wasn’t in the process of running back to Kamakura.
“Everyone else is dead.”
Hiroto had assumed that by the way it had violently blasted their limbs off. He gave a noncommittal grunt in response to the news. It was time. Hiroto began following the spilled blood.
* * *
The poison did not kill it, but either it or the arrow wounds were having some effect. Earlier the demon had been effortlessly leaping from tree top to tree top. Now it was sticking to the ground, and from the relative strength of the glow, it felt like they were catching up.
The ghostly forest was eerie in the dark. There was a full moon, which was enough to keep them from breaking their necks, but not much beyond that. It made the trail extremely easy to follow… perhaps a little too easy. If he were wounded, and a hunting party was following his blood trail, he would use that to his advantage to set an ambush, or lead them straight into some prepared traps.
“Motokane, you should take the lead.”
“What? Why?”
“From all this blood, the oni appears to be weakening and dying. It should be a man of your status who gets the honor of striking the killing blow on behalf of the shogun.”
Sadly, Motokane wasn’t that gullible. “I don’t feel like catching the first lightning bolt, hunter. Nobuo! Follow that trail.”
Like a good dutiful samurai, Nobuo did as he was told. That was a waste. Hiroto thought the lad had potential.
The trail led them steadily downhill. The footing was treacherous. Nobuo tried to listen for danger over the clumsy crashing and slipping of the exhausted samurai. The demon staying on solid ground rather than shifting branches made it harder to hear. He thought he caught the hissing insect noise a few times, but could not be sure.
Nobuo signaled for them to stop. “Hunter, come look at this.”
He left Zensuke and Motokane and crept forward. Nobuo had followed the blood to a narrow path with stagnant pond water to both sides. Trudging through that mud would make for slow going. It was a splendid place for an ambush. When he reached him, Nobuo was pointing at something ahead. There was quite a bit of glowing firefly splatter on the land bridge, as if the demon had stopped for a bit. Even as keen as Hiroto’s vision was it took him a moment to spot the danger. There was a tiny reflection of blood light against something metallic hidden among the roots.
It had to be some manner of trap. “Good eye.”
But then Hiroto noticed something the less experienced warrior had not. After setting the trap, the blood continued across the land, and then turned sharply to the side as the demon had doubled back through the pond, where its dripping blood would be swallowed from view.
It was circling behind them.
When the trap was sprung—probably a snare or a spring noose—against the lead man, the sound would draw their attention forward, and then it would assault the rear. There were only four of them left. It could take half of them in one move. Hiroto grabbed Nobuo by one of the horns on his helmet, dragged him close, and whispered, “Count to thirty. Then set off the trap.” He picked up a rock and shoved it toward him. “Throw this at it.”
Then he began creeping back toward Zensuke and Motokane. With luck, he would be in position to put an arrow into the demon as soon as it moved. As soon as he could make out the other two in the dark, he hunkered down, wiped the sweat from his eyes, and waited for Nobuo to finish his count.
There was a thunk as the rock was tossed… The whole forest erupted with yellow light.
That was most unexpected.
The demon hadn’t set a normal trap. He had summoned the fires of Jigoku. Nobuo had been hurled through the air. Sparks were falling from the sky like rain. It was like being beneath an erupting volcano. Rocks big enough to split a skull crashed through the branches. Hiroto covered his head as fiery debris fell all around him.
Rather than fear, he felt a pang of jealousy. If I had weapons such as this, there is nothing I could not hunt!
Hiroto could barely see, but the three red dots climbing up his arm were clear as day, but he lost them as they crawled onto his chest. Instinctively, he flung his body to the side.
The tree he’d been leaning against came apart. Splinters pierced his skin.
He was the one who had hurt the oni so now he was its greatest threat. Somehow it had picked him out… The oni could see in the dark!
Hiroto rolled to his feet and ran, trying to put more trees between his body and the oni’s fury. Lightning struck. Branches came crashing down. Rocks shattered into a million stinging pieces. Bushes burst into flame. Hiroto dove behind a boulder. When the boulder wasn’t immediately cleaved in two, Hiroto risked a peek over the top.
The oni’s trap had set some of the tree tops ablaze. It was still using its magical trickery, somehow forcing the air to obscure its form, but that did not work so well near a flickering fire. It looked like pieces of broken glass, piled in the shape of a tall man, each bit reflecting the fire in slightly the wrong direction.
Zensuke had seen it, too. He lifted his katana in one hand and charged, screaming a battle cry. The light twisted around where the oni’s head must be, facing the new threat. A refracting glow that could only be an arm rose, and two gleaming blades leapt from the end of it.
Hiroto rose, drew back the bow string, and let fly.
The arrow sped across the forest and disappeared into the demon’s unnatural form. He heard it sink deep into flesh.
Dead center. A man would perish in seconds, but not this damnable oni. The pile of broken glass and flames remained standing. But everything had a weak spot. Like his father had taught him, the arrow knows the way. As it prepared to meet Zensuke, Hiroto nocked another arrow. The long bow creaked, power gathering in his hands. Find the way. Hiroto set the arrow free.
This time he had been focused on the arm. If it had no heart, then he would cripple its limbs.
The arrow sailed across the forest. It struck in a flash of blue.
Yet the arm still came down, slicing Zensuke in half.
As the samurai went sailing past both sides of the demon, Hiroto truly saw it for the first time. His last arrow had broken the evil spell! Gray beneath the fire and moon, it was truly a giant, easily two feet taller than the biggest samurai, with a too-large head made of shining metal, hair like a sadhu monk, and a body covered in a fisherman’s net.
When it realized Hiroto was staring right at it, the oni reached for its wrist, clawed fingers dancing—probably casting a spell—only there was an arrow shaft blocking the way.
“Enough of your tricks, demon!” Hiroto shouted as he sent another arrow across the forest. That one punctured the demon’s stomach. The next struck it in the leg.
The boulder in front of him disintegrated and Hiroto found himself hurled through the air. It turned out the demon didn’t need to use the three sparks to aim its lightning after all, though it did help the accuracy.
He hit the ground so hard it knocked the wind out of him. Worse, he lost his bow. From the burning bushes he could see that he was near the edge of the pond. Twenty paces away, Nobuo was lying in the mud, breathing, but knocked unconscious, his helmet visibly dented by the demon’s incredible trap.
The oni was coming. It had completely given up on stealth, and its heavy footfalls could be heard crashing against the rocks, getting closer and closer. He had no weapons. Nobuo’s swords were too far away. His only hope was to hide and perhaps surprise it… He was an excellent fighter with just his hands, but his opponents weren’t usually as big as a horse.
Gasping for breath, Hiroto crawled into the reeds. As he tried desperately to fill his lungs with air, he found himself wishing he had a hollow reed to breathe through. Now that would have been handy for hiding. As the demon got closer, he held his breath and sunk beneath the muck.
He was trying so very hard not to move to avoid ripples, not even daring to exhale because it would make bubbles. Even with his eyes open he could see nothing through the thick silt, but he felt the water vibrate as the demon stomped right past him. Either it hadn’t seen him, or it was going to finish off Nobuo first instead.
Hiroto’s hand bumped into something. Wooden, but sanded smooth. His fingers drifted along it until it was touching the first embedded metal spike… Hachiman had smiled upon him once again.
As he slowly, painfully, silently lifted himself from the murk, he saw that the oni was looming over Nobuo. Arrow shafts were embedded across its body, each wound leaking green. The oni may have been an unnatural being, but its emotions were as clear as any performer telling a story with only a dance. The oni was furious. Nobuo wasn’t the warrior who had filled its body with painful arrows! It lifted its arm blades to kill him anyway.
Hiroto had been trying to rise as quietly as possible, but something gave him away; maybe it was the pond water dripping from the spikes of Nobuo’s war club, or the sucking sound of his body leaving the mud, but regardless, the oni heard. It spun about, braids whipping, drawing itself up, so that it towered overhead.
He never understood why it didn’t strike him down in that moment, but the oni paused, just for a heartbeat, confused, as if Hiroto were the invisible one.
Hiroto smashed it with the tetsubo.
He’d been aiming for its metal head, but its sudden movement caused him to strike it in the shoulder instead. Glowing blood flew as flesh was pulverized.
The solid blow would have shattered human bones. The oni lurched to the side, but stayed upright. With a roar he hit it with another overhand strike. The pressure caused blood to squirt from the various arrow holes. Then Hiroto swung the heavy weapon in an arc, striking the oni’s extended leg. Something snapped deep within and it went to its knees.
Except kneeling, it was still as tall as Hiroto. The twin blades lashed out. He blocked it with the tetsubo but the demon metal cut right through the wood as if it wasn’t there and still retained the power to slice cleanly through his face.
It was the worst pain he had ever experienced, worst he had ever imagined. He fell. The blow had rattled his brain. The world was spinning. All Hiroto could do was hold on. But something else was wrong. Desperate, sick, he reached up, felt along the two burning cuts to the empty socket where his left eye had once been, and screamed.
Through his remaining eye, he watched the oni try to stand, but its broken leg buckled. In his life he had seen thousands of things die. Something about the way the oni was moving told him that it was done for. Hiroto would perish, smug in the knowledge that his killer would follow soon after. The oni began crawling toward him. Hiroto tried to stand, but his body would not cooperate, all he could do was scoot backwards.
“Hunter!” Nobuo had woken up. He was too far to get there in time, but he threw something.
It was a good thing Nobuo’s sword was still sheathed, because it landed right in Hiroto’s lap.
The oni was bearing down on him. It pulled back its fist, blades aimed at his heart. Hiroto drew and slashed in one smooth movement.
The katana went through half the demon’s chest. Green blood flew across the forest in a long arc. The two of them remained there a moment, mangled face to metal face. The demon twitched. The twin blades slowly dropped. He twisted the blade free, and Three Sparks, the Oni of Aokigahara, was no more.
Hiroto was in terrible pain, but he laughed anyway. The summer of death was over. It had been a fine hunt.
* * *
As they limped out of the forest, they came upon Ashikaga Motokane, hiding inside the trunk of a hollow tree.
“You’re still alive! Is it done?” the official asked as he slowly climbed out.
Hiroto’s face was being held together with stitches and dried blood, and his newfound lack of depth perception was making him nauseous. He was not in the mood, so continued walking.
“Were you hiding in there all night?” Nobuo asked.
“Yes. And I was all alone! Because some bodyguard you are!”
Hiroto didn’t even look back when he heard Nobuo’s sword clear its sheath. There was a gurgle, and then the sound of a head bouncing down the rocks. The young samurai rejoined him a moment later, cleaning his katana on his filthy sleeve. “When we report to the shogun, it was a shame there were no other survivors.”
“Yes, a terrible shame.”
* * *
Nasu Hiroto knelt before the shogun. Their report had been delivered. The magnificent trophy he had presented to Minamoto Yoritomo was on the floor between them. Now they were alone. The shogun had dismissed everyone else from the room so that the two of them could speak privately.
“The eye patch suits you, Hiroto. What do you intend to do now?”
“If you aren’t going to execute me for deserting all those years ago, then I’m unsure.”
“When we last spoke, I came to understand something about you. Other samurai try their whole lives to make a mask that never shows fear, that declares they live for battle, hiding their true weakness beneath. For you, there is no mask. You only feel alive when you are hunting something capable of taking your life. Nothing else will do.”
Hiroto nodded. The shogun was truly a wise man.
“Your report has inspired me. I think it has given me the answer to a problem which I have struggled with for the last few years.” The shogun leaned forward and picked up the oni’s mask. “We could learn much from the Oni of Aokigahara. Invisible. Calculating. Hiding in plain sight, then attacking with ruthless efficiency, leaving his enemies filled with dread… The ultimate assassin.”
“To be stalked by such would bring nightmares to even the bravest samurai.”
“Indeed. What if I offered you the opportunity to never be bored again? A hunt which never ends?”
“I am intrigued.”
“The Shogunate has many enemies, dangerous men. Often politics make it so that I cannot deal with them directly. The oni has shown me the answer. I have need of invisible killers, inspired by this beast, who make its way theirs. Men who will engage in irregular warfare which most samurai would find distasteful.” The shogun stared into the blank eyes of the mask. “In short, I require men who can fight like demons.”
Hiroto was becoming excited. “Such an endeavor would have to be done with the utmost secrecy.”
“They would be the hidden men, shinobi-no-mono, emulating the Oni of Aokigahara to bring ruin upon the enemies of Nippon. Would you build this organization for me, Nasu Hiroto?”
“It would be an honor.”
The first ninja bowed to the first shogun.