Chapter XXXII—Chinatsu of the Soulless Night

Rōkura rushed down from the marble steps of the tomb and cut one skeleton in half.

“Be careful!” Hans called. “She will try to strike you while you’re distracted.”

“No matter!” called Shinjiro deeply. “Hnnnnngyaaah!” He swung his katana down, cutting a dead man down to his waist in a watery explosion of bloated dead flesh.

“Disgusting!” Hans said, and he kicked a skeleton thrice—once in the head, in the chest and in the shin—toppled over and lurched about, clawing and gnashing its teeth.

Hans turned his shoulder as a shuriken flitted past him.

“Not bad!” called Chinatsu and she giggled.

Hans finished the skeleton off by crushing its head underneath his finely polished dress shoe, then raised his hands defensively. The girl’s undead minions weren’t that fast, so he kept his eyes trained mostly on her.

Luckily, her shuriken were designed to slow, not to kill. Hans just hopped there was no poison on them.

Shinjiro grunted as the sting in his back smarted like a dag was being twisted. He continued cutting down the girls puppets, feeling one, then two. He kicked another out of his path as he cut his way toward her, grinding his teeth from the pain in his shoulder.

He saw how the girl slowly backed away, trained her eyes on Rōkura, who was screaming with every slash of her wakizashi. “Look out! She has her eyes on you, Rōkura!”

The oni backed away from her wounded target, if “wounded” was even an applicable word. These things were dead! She growled, narrowing her eyes on the girl. Something came at her—she sensed the evil intent.

Instinctually she lifted her blade and metal shrieked against metal.

“Wow—you three are pretty good,” said Chinatsu.

“You have no idea!” Rōkura spat through her teeth before cutting the moaning gnashing corpse in half. It fell over and continued squirming. She twisted her wrist and brought the point of her sword down through its head. “Strike their heads—it kills them faster.”

“We know,” Hans drawled.

“Sorry—I’m just trying to help, you know.”

With a flurry of kicks and strikes, Hans sent two more of the undead toppling over.

“Well, well,” Chinatsu said. “I think I’m going to have to try harder.” She tucked her shuriken back behind her waist, raised her arms and called, “FATES OF THE UNDEAD, CEASE!”

The ground broke apart in many areas as arms and hands poked through. Heads pushed through and gnashed and growled.

“Disgusting!” cried Rōkura, and she cut one in the head before it even managed to birth itself through the dirt.

Growling, she pushed forward, cutting through another of the dead minions, then she kicked a second out of the way.

Chinatsu saw that thee three of them were making headway toward her position. While the gravestones served well as a means to clog up the walkways though the cemetery, her undead minions were falling pretty fast.

She hopped atop one of the stones and balanced herself on one foot so she could get a better look at what was going on. All in all, she had around thirty undead minions right now.

With her knee bent and her foot pressed flatly against her leg that she used for support, she clasped her hands together and peered over the heads of the moaning and gnashing undead.

And she giggled. “Teehee!”

The oni girl was angry—really really angry. With each of her slashes, she snarled and growled like a bear. “Aren’t you that oni girl that killed Sir Alaric?” She wasn’t certain, but Chinatsu thought she heard the others talking about it, how Severin had his City Watchmen interview all the surrounding witnesses.

“That’s right!” snapped Rōkura as she made headway down the isle. But she was tired of this. She jumped and landed atop a grave stone.

“Uh-oh!” cried Chinatsu in mock fear. “Whatever will I do.”

Rōkura hopped over the stones and almost fell. “Whoa!”

“Be careful,” Shinjiro said, and grunted quietly. The pain in his back was becoming unbearable. His vision swayed and shimmered.

With a chink Chinatsu revealed multiple shuriken in her gloved hand. It wouldn’t do to cut herself, otherwise she might as well join these zombies all around her.

“Try balancing while I throw these at you, Oni!”

She flicked them at the girl, two of them shrieking away with bright sparks. The third struck the girl in her thick, leaving a trail of blood seeping down.

Chinatsu laughed. “Uh-oh! I hit you. Are you okay?”

Rōkura growled through her teeth. She was going to cut this girl in half! “Laugh while you can—I’m coming you little shit!!”

“No,” Shinjiro said. “She’s just a girl. Try…” he breathed deeply. He was so… short on… breath. “She’s just… a little girl.”

That doesn’t sound right. Hans furrowed his brow. “Shinjiro—are you all right?” he was sweating profusely. Something was wrong with him. “Shinjiro!”

The samurai’s eyes closed and he fell over the grass, his body unmoving.

“Oops,” Chinatsu said happily. “Must have been the poison.”

“What?!” snarled Rōkura through a new hot rage that took her. Meanwhile, her heart started beating fast, fast with fear and apprehension for Shinjiro. “What have you done?!

“I doubt you’ll be able to save him,” Chinatsu said. “But if you get him away really quickly, you might still have a chance. Or you can chase me—teehee!”

She jumped, flipping backwards where she landed atop another grave stone. She turned, hopped a few more times and was gone behind the graves.

Swallowing, Rōkura had the temptation to go after her, but she turned toward Shinjiro. “Hans!”

“I know!”