~~~

With the sun dipping down below the mountain to the west, and the sky phasing into a hazy pink, the Jewel of Kai Ryokan looked almost magical.

That’s what Miho thought as he walked across the courtyard, luggage sack over his shoulder, with Akira doing a fairly good impression of a wounded soldier two yards ahead of him.

‘I hope you’ve got enough energy for the steps,’ Himiko said back to them, cleverly avoiding the danger of addressing the ashigaru directly.

‘Might need a shoulder to lean on,’ replied Akira, blowing out his cheeks.

‘Shoulder?’

‘Or a nice waist to grip onto.’

Himiko stopped a little higher up, and looked down at Miho. ‘You want to carry your friend?’

‘I was thinking of a more feminine touch,’ intercepted the ashigaru.

‘What?’

‘Feminine. You.’

Himiko muttered under her breath and turned back to the steps. Catching up to Akira, who was starting to lose the feigned hobble, Miho tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, ‘I don’t think she’s available.’

‘You mean she’s fucking that guy in the green yukata?’

‘Err…who?’

‘Doesn’t matter. I don’t like her much anyway. Tried to poison me with that garbage medicine. Con artist too…saying I had to work off some imaginary debt. And forcing you to actually do it.’

Miho shot back, ‘not forced,’ and kept moving, wiping his hand against the side of his luggage sack.

‘Does have a nice shape to her though,’ added Akira to the hawfinch sitting on a branch nearby.

~~~

The door panel to Room 28 was a little different from the one in their old room.

Instead of a blank sheet of rice paper, there were green swirls stencilled on, and something that looked like a giant red spider lily on fire.

‘Artistic wank,’ said Akira as he shuffled in, looking left through a tiny gap into the onsen room then coming to a stop between Himiko and the bigger of the two futons.

‘You can leave the panel open,’ said Himiko to Miho, who pulled his hand off the frame and continued into the main room.

‘This is it then,’ said Akira, doing a full rotation while also making another weak attempt at a whistling noise. ‘The luxurious Room 28.’

‘We don’t use such grand words,’ replied Himiko, moving away from Akira and back towards the panel to the onsen room.

‘Don’t blame you. Definitely not the biggest room I’ve ever seen.’ He stepped on the futon, pressing down hard with his feet. ‘Not the softest bed either.’

‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘Actually, we don’t mind going back to the other room,’ said Miho, still holding on tight to his luggage.

‘Don’t be silly, this is an upgrade.’

‘Our luggage isn’t unpacked yet, it’s no problem.’

‘Then unpack it.’

‘Listen to the woman, youngling,’ said Akira, putting his feet back on the tatami. ‘Put your luggage down, warm up the onsen, enjoy yourself.’

‘But…’

‘Appreciate the moment.’ Akira walked up to Miho’s shoulder, and whispered as soft as he could manage into his ear. ‘Because we’ll be gone by tomorrow morning.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘Of course I am. I’m a samurai.’

‘Ashigaru,’ Himiko mumbled, adding a fake smile when Akira picked up on it.

Moving over to the futon that hadn’t been trampled on, Miho dropped his luggage sack on the tatami beside it and performed his own scan. It had pretty much the same theme as their room; painting of a snowy mountain, water bucket, an okiandon that wasn’t yet lit and a wisteria bonsai tree on the desk. No sign of any luminous green rocks.

Maybe they were stored in the other room…

Akira seemed to be thinking the same thing as he walked over to the balcony and checked both corners outside. ‘Now, where are all these green rocks I’ve been hearing about?’

‘Storage,’ Himiko replied in a brusque tone, giving Miho a puzzled look as he walked closer to the onsen room

‘There’s a hissing noise,’ he said, putting his ear closer to the shoji screen.

‘Comes from the spring. Underground.’

‘It’s quite loud.’

‘Not really.’

Miho put a hand on the door panel and was about to pull it across when someone beat to him to it. In one smooth motion, the screen slid to the other side of the wall, stopping about a hundredth of a millimetre from hitting it.

Standing in the newly revealed space was a strange figure; ostensibly the same tall man in a green yukata he’d spotted around the ryokan a few times, but close up, as Miho was then, he appeared more like a golem that had yet to be coloured in. Eyes buried somewhere in cavernous sockets, neck waxy-looking, hair with the faintest tint of green dye.

And when his mouth opened, it looked almost abstract, his teeth scattered about as separate blocks instead of part of a functioning human jaw.

‘Ah, you are real,’ said Akira from the other side of the room, tapping his temple. ‘Thought you were a hallucination.’

‘You can leave now, Himiko,’ the mouth said, as the hands slid the door to the onsen room back across.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, glancing at Miho, then at Akira, who surprisingly was not edging his hand towards his katana guard.

‘It is late and you have other duties to perform. I can show them around.’

‘Around what?’ asked Akira, gesturing to the walls. ‘We’re already here.’

The hissing noise that was apparently a spring underground grew louder, providing a nuisance to no one except Miho, who backed away from the onsen room and the odd-looking man next to it, and said, ‘can you not hear that?’

‘Perhaps I was too hasty,’ said the man in the green yukata, turning his back on the ashigaru and flashing his pupils green at Himiko. ‘You may stay.’

Himiko blinked and looked down, startled to see her hand clutching the green necklace. In the background, the hissing noise changed pitch, morphing into something akin to a squeal.

‘It is, of course, your choice.’

She rubbed the stone in the necklace between her fingers, raising her head three separate times to look at Miho, before finally giving up and closing her eyes completely.

‘How about you both leave?’ said Akira, moving closer, still not concerned enough to reach for his weapon. ‘Or you leave and she can stay. As long as she stops glaring at me so much.’

‘Think of it as a gift,’ the man in the green yukata continued, moving in close to Himiko and running a green-tinged finger down the string of her necklace.

‘The boy…’ she muttered back, eyes remaining shut.

‘Annoyingly curious.’

‘He’s-…’

In the onsen room, the hissing-squealing noise ceased abruptly, allowing Miho to finally let his shoulders drop in relief.

It lasted about three seconds.

Taking his hand away from what looked like Himiko’s chest, the man in the green yukata turned in a sliding motion and glided as if on an invisible hawk over to Akira.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘Quiet…’

The man held his palm up in front of Akira’s eyes and….seemingly mesmerised him with a dose of green light.

‘Hey…’ said Miho, taking a step forward.

A few more seconds and the green faded out, leaving the ashigaru swaying lethargically from side to side.

‘What did you do?’

Ignoring the boy, the man in the green yukata clamped a hand down on the ashigaru’s shoulder, steadying his rocking motion, as the hissing noise restarted in the background.

That seemed to spark something in Akira’s brain, his hand reflexively swatting away the pinch and putting his own grip on the attacker’s throat.

‘What the-…’ he slurred as the man stared back at him, the outline of his hair, his eyes, his eye sockets, all translucent pale green.

‘Akira…’ muttered Miho, hand rising up slowly as if he were asking permission to speak.

‘My hand…’ Akira said, as the man’s neck became moist, impossible to grip onto, and, after another flash of green light, the man had pushed Akira’s hand away and clamped his own luminous paw back on the ashigaru’s shoulder.

This time it was stronger, more assertive, like a whole castle was weighing down on him and he had no choice but to drop to the floor and-

‘Himiko…’ shouted Miho, waving his arms at her.

‘No, no, no, no…’ she mumbled, putting her forehead against the painting of the snow-covered Mt. Togakushi, eyes shut tight.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Attack…’ slurred Akira, trying to rotate his shoulder back into shape.

‘What?’

‘Hit him…fight…’

‘How?’

‘Gods…’

Sliding one knee back, Akira reached for his katana guard, but the green man read the move and intercepted, gripping his wrist and twisting.

The snap of Akira’s bone and his muffled scream were both lost to the intensifying hissing noise from the onsen room. Turning again to Himiko, Miho opened his mouth to say help…and closed it again when he saw she still had her eyes closed.

Weapon, he thought. Break the man’s grip before he…

Miho glanced over at the green man’s current status and regretted it instantly. What he’d initially doubted had been a human mouth was now stretching to twice its normal size and lowering itself gently onto the top of Akira’s skull, the fringes of it glowing yet more green

‘Stop…’ Miho said, rooted to the spot in confusion.

Either oblivious or uninterested, the green thing continued, pinning down Akira by the shoulder, gripping his non-broken wrist to prevent the ashigaru from going for his katana again, trying out different spots on the skull before, finally, chomping down for the opening bite.

Surprisingly, there was no scream from Akira, just muffled groans, as the demon…did something to his head. It wasn’t clear what, but there was a thin stream of blood down Akira’s forehead, and strips of green flashing light bursting from in and around his hair.

‘Stop…’ shouted Miho, snapping out of his funk and flinging a pillow at the green man’s head.

It connected…and changed nothing.

The biting of Akira’s skull continued, his muffled groans turning into wails, and a second stream of blood flowing down past his ear.

Moving round the perimeter of the attack, Miho grabbed the only thing grabbable, the wisteria bonsai tree and threw it at the green man’s head.

This was slightly more promising, as the demon paused for a moment…glanced down at the bonsai tree…then shrugged and went back to feeding.

Reviving a little, Akira tried again to draw his katana, but the green man once more swatted his hand away. ‘Shall I break this one too?’ he said, the Japanese words barely recognisable as human.

Before Akira could answer, a flying okiandon hit the green man on the side of his head and, for the first time in the struggle, affected him in a tangible way.

He rubbed his head, woundless, then turned on Miho. ‘Request granted.’

‘Get off him,’ Miho shouted, then added a ‘what?’ on the end when he heard the green man’s line.

He soon understood.

Climbing back onto his invisible hawk, the green man slid directly across the tatami to Miho’s cheek and latched on, instantly beginning the process of boring in.

Abstract teeth, thought Miho, as an intense, suffocating pain hit the left side of his face, not sharp and stinging, more like a giant clamp slowly crushing his skull.

‘No, you fucking don’t,’ said Akira, the tip of his katana bursting through the green man’s stomach and missing Miho’s chest by a millimetre.

‘Off…’ was all Miho could manage as the green man released his cheek and stared down at the blade sticking out.

On the other side of the room, Himiko opened one eye and let out a feral RAAARRR.

The hissing noise, which had been rhythmic for a while, stopped.

‘Okay, now let’s try the head,’ said Akira, drawing his katana back out, darting back a step then swinging.

This time the green man was ready for him; closing the distance in one quick glide and seizing the katana by its guard, then picking up Akira by the neck and throwing him against the wall.

Either due to shoddy workmanship or the general thinness of the material used, the wooden panels of the wall collapsed and a splashing noise followed as Akira landed in the onsen.

‘Kuso…’ sounded out almost immediately, along with more splashing sounds and, ‘it’s fucking boiling in here.’

Checking his cheek for giant bite holes, Miho held out his other arm in makeshift defence as the green man staggered towards him…then dropped it a little when he started coughing.

‘… … … … …’ came out in some alien language, along with several shots of bile.

The stomach wound, thought Miho, looking at the dark stain on the green man’s yukata. It worked?

More splashing from the onsen, another yell of ‘too fucking hot’ and then Akira’s face appeared at the new hole in the wall. ‘Is he dead yet?’

The green man responded by cough-gliding over to Himiko and collapsing against her chest. In another time, it would’ve been vaguely erotic, but the demon was still vomiting up bile, as well as emitting more-erratic-than-usual jets of green light.

‘Your stomach…’ Himiko said, reaching a hand down to touch it.

The demon swatted her hand away and seized the necklace, snapping the string in two. Coughing onto her chest a final time, he reeled backwards into the edge of the shoji screen, then vanished into the onsen room.