through cloth and taking a bit of skin along with it. Hakaimono snarled in rage and surged up, urging me to let it go, to release its power and slaughter the pathetic crowd before us. I ignored it, pushing the demon’s influence down, not trusting myself or the blade right now.
Something larger than an arrow flew past my head and hit a gaki in the face. It staggered back as a large daikon radish dropped to the ground in front of it. With a snarl, the gaki ignored the vegetable and flew at me again, and Hakaimono hissed with pleasure as the sword cut through the skinny neck. The head fell, bounced once beside the radish, and dissolved into mist.
Several more food offerings sailed past my shoulders and swinging arms, into the crowd of gaki, who ignored or even batted them away. “I don’t think they’re interested in regular food,” Yumeko observed, as I gritted my teeth and wished my companions would stop hurling things past my head. “I think they just want to eat us.”
There was a loud rustle above me, and Yumeko let out a yelp. “Okame, they’re coming in through the roof!”
“Dammit!” There was a hiss of a bowstring, a thump and a screech above me as a gaki met its end. “More incoming,” the ronin shouted, as the sound of thatch tearing echoed overhead, and bits of straw began drifting around me. “Hey, Kage, how’s the mob looking on your end?”
I sliced down two gaki that had rushed forward, catching a split-second glance of the numbers beyond. “About a dozen left,” I panted, jerking back to avoid gaki claws tearing open my face. “Just keep them off me for a few more seconds. And protect Yumeko.”
More hisses and shrieks rang out behind me, but I couldn’t turn from the mob at the door. I heard scuttling feet, the ronin swearing and then a cry from Yumeko that sent a chill through my stomach. Beheading the last gaki, I whirled, ready to rush to her defense, hoping I wouldn’t see her lifeless body on the floor, a pair of monsters ripping it to pieces.
The ronin lay sprawled on his back near the firepit, his bow held in front of him as if to ward something away. Yumeko stood beside him with her tanto outstretched, the remnants of green mist coiling around her as it vanished on the breeze. Her sleeve was torn, ripped by grasping claws, but there didn’t seem to be any blood.
“Is that...the last of them?” she panted, looking at me.
I nodded once and sheathed Kamigoroshi, feeling a strange flicker of emotion in my chest. Seeing her alive and unharmed...was this relief I felt?
“Tatsumi.” Yumeko stepped forward, her eyes gazing worriedly at the side of my neck where the gaki had clawed it. I could feel blood from the torn flesh beginning to seep into my collar. My arm, too, was starting to drip blood on the wooden planks. “Before we do anything, we should take care of those. Do you have any medicine left?”
She took another step toward me, and I remembered her touch, cool and soft, sliding over my skin. So unlike the healers of the Shadow Clan; they took care of my wounds with quick and brutal efficiency, sparing me no discomfort. As with everything in my life, I had come to see the pain that came from their ministrations as normal. As Ichiro-sensei often said: pain was a good thing; it meant I was still alive. But with Yumeko...that had been the first time in recent memory that another person had touched me...without hurting me.
I stiffened and drew away from her. No distractions, I reminded myself. No emotion, no weaknesses. If I let myself fall under this girl’s spell, craving a touch that wasn’t painful, Hakaimono would latch on to that flaw and turn me into a demon.
“Don’t,” I warned in a cold voice, and she halted, blinking in confusion. “Don’t come near me,” I told her, backing away. “I don’t need your help. I’ll take care of it myself.”
Her brow furrowed, puzzlement and something else going through her eyes. Ignoring that look, and the vague squeezing sensation in my chest, I brushed past her, toward the full water bucket in the corner of the hut. I had my mission, and I would not falter. Nothing mattered except retrieving the scroll and returning to Lady Hanshou. A weapon did not question the demands of its owners, or the purpose for which