Yokai (30 page)

“
What sort of
event?”

Oni-Baba hesitated. “A…an overwhelming
emotional or physical trauma. The yokai is a response to the
trauma. But there’s no formula. Sometimes the result of the trauma
is the creation of a yokai, but most of the time, no yokai
manifests.” She shrugged helplessly. “It’s up to
nature.”

“
Very well.” Yumiko looked
thoughtful, then turned to Shou. “Can you take care of things here?
Bring some order to this mess?”

Shou blinked. “I…yes. I can do
that.”

“
You’re leaving?” Reina
asked, eyes wide.

“
There’s something I have
to do,” Yumiko told her. She glanced over at Enenra and gestured
for him to approach. She spoke low into his ear, and he nodded,
pulling back. He looked surprised, but answered her question. And
when he stepped back, the look on his face was knowing.

She glanced at the floor where her
mirror sword laid, blade partially out of the scabbard. She leaned
over and picked it up, unsheathing the weapon the rest of the way.
She looked into the mirror, saw her eyes reflected in them. They
looked determined. They looked confident.

She was a yokai. And she realized the
potential in that.

She smiled at Tanuki. “Watch my sword
for me.”

Tanuki nodded as Yumiko put a hand on
the blade, and was absorbed into it.

She stepped out into The Hall of
Mirrors, where she had hoped she would come out. It felt very empty
without anyone else in the corridor with her, even with the
hundreds of people in the mirrors around her.

She closed her eyes and let out a deep
breath. She was crazy to do what she was about to do, but it had to
be done. She refused to give up now. She had a plan. It was a vague
plan, but she’d put it into motion and it could work. And it was
all that she had.

When she opened her eyes, she walked
along the hall, watching the mirrors for signs of location. She
followed Enenra’s directions until she stopped before a small
mirror that was little more than a jagged triangle. From the
placement, it had recently been part of a larger mirror, still
relatively small, but more than what this fragment of mirror was
now.

Through it, she saw mostly darkness.
The little light she could see illuminated the outline of rocky
terrain.

She nodded and bit her lip as she
psyched herself up for what she about to do. And before she could
think about it too much, she reached out and touched the mirror,
traveling through it to the other side.

When she was aware of her surroundings
once more, she blinked and lifted her head, taking a moment to
orient herself. She was in a tunnel. A tunnel made of rock, rough
and uneven. She looked down at her feet to see a fragment of mirror
winking back at her.

With a smile, she reached down and
pocketed the mirror, ignoring the blood that clung to it, making it
slippery. Shuten-Doji’s blood, from where she’d shoved it into his
chest.

But Hell was a place. And as long as
it was a place, and as long as there was a mirror from Earth to be
found there, she could get there.

And so she had.

She looked up the tunnel, where light
could be seen flickering far ahead. And she took the first step of
her journey to track down Brian.

Chapter
Twenty-Six

Yumiko paused as she approached a
torch on the wall, frowning at the shape. Her stomach flip-flopped
as she realized that it was another Wa-Nyudo. She walked slowly up
the hall toward it, keeping an eye on both ends of the tunnel. When
she was directly before the Wa-Nyudo, she tried not to gaze on the
painful spokes of the ox-cart wheel as they skewered the head of
another monk, his eyes frosted over. The wheel itself was on fire,
providing light for the passage, as if it were merely a
decoration.

“
You will not remain
undetected for long,” the Wa-Nyudo croaked, then smiled knowingly
at her.

Yumiko swallowed hard, then picked up
the pace. Once a curve had left the Wa-Nyudo behind, she slowed and
looked back. The creature had been right. She would have to locate
the new arrivals in Hell, and soon, if she was going to get out of
there with her soul intact.

She reached into her pocket and picked
up the wedge of mirror, careful to grasp it with a piece of fabric
she ripped free from the hem of her shirt. Her hands were throbbing
terribly, but the bleeding seemed to have mostly stopped. She would
probably have had nerve damage if she were a normal human being,
but if she could survive a broken neck, she was sure that she would
somehow recover from this as well.

Yumiko held the mirror before her like
a weapon, because it was all she had. And when she heard footfalls
up ahead, she pushed herself up against the wall as closely as she
could, willing the shadows to hide her. She watched, heart racing,
as a shadow crossed the light, and a figure drew closer to
her.

Drawing in a deep breath, Yumiko
watched the creature approach. A bipedal cat, as tall as a human,
fur black and fluid like ink in the wavering light. With each step
it took, fire rose from the ground beneath its feet. Yumiko
recognized it, even though she’d never seen one with her own eyes
before. A kasha. A cat from Hell who fed on corpses and walked like
a man.

Yumiko knew that she wouldn’t be able
to control an oni should she cross one, so this seemed like her
best chance for information.

When the kasha walked past her, it
swung its head toward her, green eyes glowing in the dark, and
meeting hers. Yumiko leapt at it, shoving it against the far wall,
her shard of mirror at its throat. The kasha let out a yowl, but
stopped abruptly when she flashed the mirror at it.

“
Okay,” Yumiko said,
looking into its eyes and conveying as much intimidation as she was
able. “This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to bring me
where I want to go, and in return, I won’t cut you with this
mirror. Do you know what happens when I cut you with this
mirror?”

The kasha shook its head, eyes
wide.

“
I extract your soul and
then I eat it,” she lied, then licked her lips in what she hoped
was a convincing display of hunger. “Now, are you going to do as I
say?”

The kasha nodded its head
vigorously.

“
It takes only the tiniest
cut,” she told the creature. “So don’t you dare try to
run.”

“
I won’t,” the kasha said,
its voice like that of a human male, which was rather
unsettling.

Yumiko lowered the mirror and stepped
back.

The kasha put a hand to its throat and
blinked at her. “What do you want?”

“
I want you to take me to
the new arrivals here.”

The kasha licked its paw and rubbed it
against its cheek. “The humans that have just arrived are down two
levels. You’ll never get to them unnoticed.”

“
I want the yokai new
arrivals.”

The kasha cocked its head. “Two levels
up. Same problem.”

Yumiko blinked, then narrowed her
eyes. She had found the mirror along this passage. It had fallen
from Shuten-Doji on this level, which meant that the kasha was
lying.

She held the mirror before her
threateningly. “I don’t take kindly to liars.”

The kasha swallowed hard. “Alright,
alright. It’s straight ahead.”

Yumiko smiled. “That’s more like it.
Lead the way.” She watched as it turned and began to slowly walk up
the tunnel. She searched it carefully for any cues that it might
take off running or decide to turn and attack her, but it seemed
more than willing to follow her orders. And keep its
soul.

They passed several more Wa-Nyudo, but
they seemed content to merely light the way, offering no advice or
remarks, if they even noted their passage. More troubling than the
grotesque heads were the sounds of screaming coming from ahead.
Wails of torment, of despair, found their way down the corridors,
worming into Yumiko’s ears. She tried to ignore them, insistent as
they were, but they became increasingly urgent the closer they drew
to the screams. Soon enough, it was a cacophony of pain, and she
wanted nothing more than to throw her hands over her ears to keep
the torturous sounds out. But she had a mission, and if she showed
signs of weakness in front of the kasha, she might never find
Brian. So, she held her head high and did her best to look
indifferent, although each scream made her heart beat a little
faster.

After about five minutes of walking,
the tunnel ahead noticeably brightened, but Yumiko could still
detect the dancing shadows of flames. “Slower,” she ordered softly,
and the kasha slowed its pace, allowing her enough time to
comfortably step into the light as one wall of the rock tunnel gave
way to a gaping opening for about twenty feet, before resuming.
Yumiko drew closer to the kasha, to make sure that it didn’t make
any noise, for the opening overlooked a vast cavern, and there were
many yokai among the rocks below.

Yumiko gazed into the cavern stupidly,
as many large torches lit the uneven ground. It was larger than a
football field, with many hills and outcroppings, as well as pools
of molten lava. Many of the yokai she saw were oni, or their female
counterparts, kijo. While the red and blue-faced oni walked around
with large iron clubs, razors fastened to them, the kijo wore
monstrous masks with exaggerated teeth and features, their true
faces hidden. Yumiko wondered if what was beneath those masks was
better or worse than the features of the masks. Most of the kijo
brandished whips or lengths of chain, although some had iron clubs
like the oni.

Thousands of humans and terrified
yokai cowered in the cavern, trying very hard not to be noticed by
the oni and kijo, who lorded over them threateningly, mocking them
and spitting on them and, ultimately, torturing them. Humans were
forced into the molten lava, their screams filling the air, much
louder here without the rock barrier muffling their sounds of
anguish. As they pulled themselves out of the lava, skin blackened
and boiling, the flesh healed, so that they could be tortured all
over again.

Other humans were being skewered on
large stakes that seemed to grow naturally from out of the cave
floor, while still others were merely beaten under the blows of the
iron clubs the oni wielded. The oni and kijo seemed to be having a
blast, while the humans suffered at their hands in ways no human
should ever have to suffer.

Before she could tear her eyes away,
Yumiko noted a woman, definitely a yokai of some sort, who wore a
simple white dress, her blonde hair flowing behind her like honey.
She was barefoot and seemed to be watching the torturous goings-on
around her with amusement as she walked around the cavern,
carefully stepping on the heads and backs of humans when she could.
Before Yumiko turned away, the woman looked up and caught her eye,
tilting her head with interest. Yumiko felt her heart quicken at
the attention of the woman, but the yokai dropped her eyes after a
moment, suddenly taking delight in a kijo who was strangling a
woman with her whip. She clasped her hands to her chest and
laughed, her voice echoing loudly even over the shrieks around
her.

As Yumiko stood there, transfixed by
the scene, she suddenly noticed something roiling overhead, and
tilted her head to look up at the ceiling of the cavern, where a
large disembodied eye watched everything that occurred below, black
smoke slowly swirling around it like a storm cloud. Even looking at
the eye made Yumiko feel sick to her stomach, like she might
suddenly vomit. It made her feel dirty, and filled her with
self-loathing and disgust for everything. Her throat thickened with
bile, and she choked it back, tearing her gaze from the eye. As
soon as she looked away from the eye, she felt much better,
suddenly clear-headed again and in control, but for a moment, she
had descended into despair, and she knew that she couldn’t dawdle,
but had to find Brian and escape as soon as possible, or find
herself in a similar state of mind in the near future, and perhaps
too broken to find the strength to leave.

It was hard for Yumiko to look away
from such a terrible scene, but she did, heart heavy, knowing that
she would have to leave these people to their torment.

Upon passing the opening in the rock
wall, the kasha looked back over its shoulder at her and led her
down the right tunnel at a fork in the road. A few steps in, and it
took another right, then waved up a short hallway, where the tunnel
ended in what looked like a room, glowing bright with fire.
“They’re in there. They will each have their own cells, as they
await judgment.”

“
Judgment,” Yumiko
repeated, biting her lower lip. She looked up the tunnel then
nodded toward the end. “Go on, then. You’re coming too.”

The kasha didn’t look pleased, but it
complied. When they reached the room, Yumiko saw that it had been
telling the truth. There were cells built into the stone walls,
with thick iron bars keeping prisoners in check.

Yumiko stopped the kasha as they
stepped into the room. “Guards?”

The kasha chuckled. “This is Hell.
There is nowhere to go.” It nodded to the far left of the room,
where a large metal door took up most of the wall. “That’s where
the oni and kijo will take the prisoners for judgment, where they
will decide if these yokai deserve to be tormentors or the
tormented.”