~~~

The brown-freckled hare sniffed the mound of dirt several times before concluding that, once again, she stopped at the wrong place.

Too minty, not crumbled enough.

And a slight gravelly texture…

She lifted her head and re-scanned the area.

Lines of tree trunks that all looked the same, surrounding by grass and dirt with no distinguishing features.

Gods with paws, why had she come this far out again?

Just to avoid Blacknose and his nonsensical territorial claims, not to mention his weird sexual advances? Probably. It was annoying. Pretending to be stuck in that hole. Trying to lick her paws at 3rd Junction, Level Five. Didn’t he know she was dating Glad Eyes?

Scurrying forward, she sniffed another patch of dirt, then moved left towards the stream. If she followed that down far enough then there was a chance she would be able to-

Her thoughts ended instantly as a spear descended out of the sky and pierced the top of her head.

Atta Noe watched through Sachiko’s eyes as the blood flowed out from beneath the hare’s chin then, grunting in satisfaction, pulled the sharpened twig back out.

‘Not ideal,’ she said, using her native tongue, ‘but it should suffice.’

Pushing herself back up into a standing position, she rotated her neck in slow circles and stretched out her right leg, determined not to fall victim to cramp again.

Human bodies are so ridiculous, she thought, finishing her mini-exercises and walking away from the stream.

Could die from a mosquito bite, yet also survive being stabbed a dozen times.

That was another thing.

How could you stab someone a dozen times and not kill them? The odds of not hitting a single vital organ were astronomical. Though the best way to ensure that never happened was to do what she did. Slice them into pieces and eat the tasty parts.

She looked down at the body she was trapped in, at the wound peeking out from under the idiot boy’s jacket.

Or perform a perfectly executed, clinical kill, on a moving target.

The other girl popped into her head, leaning down to help an acting demon in distress. The look of complete confusion as she realised she’d been stabbed. Followed by blankness as she died.

‘Naive fool,’ the purple demon said, fierce, gripping the twig tight. ‘I did you a favour. Wouldn’t have lasted a day under Shingen’s rule.’

The picture of the girl’s vacant face morphed into the dopey sincere stare of the boy as he’d handed her his jacket.

‘And you…irritating child…’

There was a shout in the distance. A male human’s voice.

She looked ahead and saw a large figure jogging across a short wooden bridge, then stopping at the end and leaning like a drunk on the railings.

‘Who’s this fat fool?’ she whispered, hiding the twig behind her back as the man caught a second wind and jogged over to her. As he got closer, she could see he was wearing the uniform of a chef. And his physique was larger than she’d thought, possibly big enough to pose a real threat.

‘Sachi-bag,’ he said, reaching her and immediately grabbing her hand. ‘You crazy, mad, sexy fool.’

‘What did you call me?’

‘You are in some serious shit. Himiko’s been folding her arms all afternoon and you know what that means?’

‘Ah, you work there too…’

‘Err…no, I just hang out in a kitchen. Unpaid. What’s got into you?’

Sachiko shrugged off Chef’s hand and looked towards the bridge. ‘Take me to the ryokan.’

‘Wah, easy, you can’t go there yet. Gotta come up with a cover story first.’

‘Cover what?’

‘Your ass, of course. She’ll fire you if we don’t come up with something good.’

‘I do not care about work. The ashigaru and the boy are my main priority. Where are they now?’

‘Who?’

‘The boy who picked vegetables with me.’

‘What, that little runt, Miho? What do you wanna know about him for?’ Chef stepped back and tilted his head, noticing the jacket she was wearing. ‘Did you two do something together?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Why do you have his jacket on?’

‘This body felt cold. Yet I feel spritely again now. Lead me to the boy and I may overlook your annoying nature.’

‘How about we focus on placating Himiko first?’

‘She is irrelevant.’

‘Kuso…you really have lost it, haven’t you? Okay, doesn’t matter, I’ll do the thinking for both of us.’ He took her hand again, this time too firmly for her to shake him off. ‘But first, I need some encouragement. A bit of warming up.’

Before she could robotically command him to take her to the ryokan again, he was pulling her backwards into the forest. She tried to wriggle out of his grip, but in her current body, it was impossible. He was physically too large, and even worse, sexually aroused.

Pinning her up against a tree, Chef checked back once to see if any predators or bandits were watching, then proceeded to fondle and grope various parts of her body, muttering ‘Sachi-bag, I missed you,’ alongside sharp breathing noises.

It was an odd experience, and a time-consuming one, so, as the fat human was busy licking her neck, Atta Noe gripped him by the hair, pulled the sharpened twig out from her skirt and stabbed him four times in the throat.

His eyes doubled in size, and the hand that was still on her left breast spasmed, flicking the host body’s nipple and giving her an annoying ticklish sensation.

She was so annoyed that she stabbed him again.

This time it was more final.

His hand released her, blood flowed out from his neck and his body dropped onto a mound of dirt with such a loud thud that the hare family having dinner in its burrow below all looked up and said [in hare language], ‘shut the fuck up, human shit.’

Adjusting her kosode, Atta Noe looked over at the bridge again and started walking. She managed three steps before her limbs started to ache, and another one before her lower back gave up.

Gods, this body…

Returning to the large, dying man on the ground, she put her finger into the largest of the throat wounds and wriggled it around until he stopped breathing. Then, closing her eyes, she made the transfer.

Purple mist leaked out from Sachiko and funnelled itself into the ears, eye sockets and mouth of the dead man.

Opening his eyes, Chef instantly understood everything. He patted his arms and chest, then used the corpse of Sachiko, his ex-lover, to pull himself up onto his feet.

‘Won’t miss you,’ he said, giving her a kick to the waist, then started off towards the bridge. In a sign of comradeship, patches of faint grey mist rolled down from the mountain slopes, along with a trail of hares sneaking around in the nearby bushes. Possibly relatives of the one she’d just killed.

Ah, let them follow, Chef thought, dipping a finger in one of the throat holes and licking blood of the nail. I have a bigger list to deal with.

The idiot boy, the annoying girl, the ashigaru, a bossy tyrant named Himiko. Possibly some guests as well, though they would most likely be in their rooms at this hour.

Ah, irrelevant. If they were there, either ignore or kill. With this larger body, it wouldn’t be much of a hassle.

The ashigaru, on the other hand…assuming he was back to a relative degree of health…and had close access to his katana…that would require some strategy. The syk anvaa ek gambit perhaps?

He walked onto the wooden boards of the bridge, running the palm of his hand along the railings until he was stopped by a splinter.

Gods, another way to get hurt, he thought, swatting away mist to find the offending piece of tiny wood.

‘What are you doing here?’ droned a voice, seemingly from within the air itself.

Chef looked up, reaching back for the twig then realising he’d left it with the girl’s corpse. Ah, not a huge mistake. The man ahead wasn’t too imposing. Tall, yes, in good shape, yes, but the way he was standing there on the bridge seemed far too limp to qualify him as a threat. And his outfit…

‘This is my territory,’ said the man in the green yukata, placing a hand on both sides of the bridge railings. ‘Leave.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Turn around. Walk. Don’t circle back.’

‘I work here, idiot,’ tried the purple demon, but it was a half-hearted attempt and, judging by the flinch of the man blocking the way, a misplaced use of idiot.

‘You are not the chef.’

‘Are you blind? Look at my uniform.’

‘It is stained with blood.’

‘Yeah…I fell over…onto a sharp rock. All this mist floating around…makes it very hard to see where you’re going.’

‘There are several holes in your throat.’

‘What?’

‘Leaking.’

Chef put a finger on each of the wounds that he’d completely forgotten about, even though he’d just been dipping into one of them a minute earlier, and, with the emerging sound of air leaking out, tried to come up with some quick excuses. It’s not as deep as it looks was the only one that had any kind of weight to it, so he opened his mouth and…said fuck in his native language as an extra reservoir of blood spurted out.

‘Go home.’

The tone of the man’s voice was so patronising that the Chef couldn’t help but flash both pupils purple.

‘Ah, it’s one of you,’ said the man in the green yukata.

‘Recognition. Good. This whole façade was starting to grate...’

‘Out for a late night drift?’

‘Now for the obedience. There are two humans I need. An idiot boy and an injured ashigaru. Let me take them and I will not harm you.’

The man took his hands off the side of the railings and advanced, showing no sign of fear or apprehension, even when he got to within a metre of his demon counterpart. The mist too, appeared to bow to him, swirling left, right, up, diagonal, desperate not to get in his way.

‘I will not ask twice,’ said Chef, holding his ground.

‘You appear to be without your box. Is it lost?’

‘The boy and the ashigaru. Now.’

‘Typical Atashhka, always leading with your rage.’

Purple mist seeped out of Chef’s nose, and drifted impotently as his right hand formed into an awkward fist.

‘I wouldn’t let out too much of that if I were you.’

The left hand tightened too.

‘Not on my territory.’

Chef picked a part of the man’s face he’d like to rip apart and consigned it to memory. Then loosened up his hands. ‘Your territory. This. A shack in the mountains. Even for your kind, it’s pathetic. Unless…ah, that’s what you are, isn’t it? One of those weird types who lives off grid, directionless, too scared to step out the door. Sucking up tourists and drunks. No ambition. No drive. Ha, I bet even a bird chirping makes you cower back into whatever squalid little cave you’re lurking in…’

‘Is that why you’re here, in that leaking body? Ambition?’

More purple flashes, an instinctive reaction that couldn’t be stopped, but at least this time Chef managed to rein it in a bit. He stared beyond the man in the green yukata - the small-time demon feeding off a drip of fringe humans - past the end of the bridge, past a second, smaller bridge and focused on the ryokan.

It was only another two hundred metres at most.

Yet utterly unreachable.

For the moment.

‘I think we’ve indulged each other enough for one night,’ the man in the green yukata said, re-drawing Chef’s attention. ‘The path back to Kōfu is behind you.’

‘You’re right, this is becoming pointless.’

‘And please, don’t try to sneak back another way. It would not go well for you.’

‘No doubt.’ Chef blew into the grey mist, watching it drift back instead of lash out. Very well. I accede to your claim.’

‘Good.’

‘On one condition.’

The man stiffened, the hair around his head emanating a faint shade of green.

‘You make them suffer. The ashigaru and the boy, when you consume them.’

‘That…is expected.’

‘No quick kills, no medicinal aids. I want them to feel as much of their end as possible, to truly understand what is happening to them.’

‘Torture…’

‘Can you promise it?’

The man in the green yukata rotated his head round in one, lethargic loop, the green outline slashing out erratic green whisps.

‘Does that mean yes?’

‘Yes. We have an agreement.’

‘Then I leave them in your capable hands.’

Chef took one final look at the ryokan in the agonisingly near distance then turned and walked off the bridge, his pupils finally losing the handbrake and igniting in a fiery purple glare.

Dead.

All of you.

Your ramshackle little ryokan too.

It was wild fantasy, of course, but as soon as he made it back to Kōfu and the compound, and out of this leaking body, it would become a lot more realistic.

Though the boy and the ashigaru were probably off the table.

Unless…

No.

Would the Gos Ussu really wait that long? A whole day?

If he believed what he’d just heard…if the performance had been convincing enough…

Maybe.

Chef waited for the path to curve right, checked back to confirm that the bridge was almost out of sight, then quickened his pace.

Watching the large [and still bleeding] figure blend into the distant mist, the man in the green yukata stretched out his arms on both sides and placed his hands back on the railings.

One word cruised laps around the inside of his demon head, blinking in huge neon capitals.

Trouble.