Their Secret Song

A Tale from the World of Heathmoor

PART I

                The seamstress was no longer in control of her body. Her eyes rolled back in her head and an evil smile spread from ear to ear, while she lunged at my throat with her nigiri-basami. I narrowly avoided the small blades, but the Yokai possessing her gleefully pushed her fragile body beyond its limits. She would not relent until I was dead.

                "Gwuahahaha---hnnngh..." Her disturbing laugh was interrupted by a desperate blade of my own. I had drawn my katana thousands of times, but this time proved different in the strangest way. With a lightning-quick flash of metal, I swept the sword across her entire torso. And rather than collapse in defeat, the woman shocked me with a laugh and a leap. She clung to my forearm and bashed my wrist with incredible force, enough to cause me to drop my sword.

                The possessed woman held me close enough now that I smelled her rancid breath and was drenched in blood by her fresh wound. As I wrestled away the frantic swipes of her fabric sheers, I lamented that my katana was far out of reach - but what use was it to me if it failed to stop her the first time?

                I considered myself out of options until the Mamono Dagger sheathed at my hip began to twitch. I have always carried the family heirloom as a symbol of honor but today drew it in self-defence for the first time in my life. A troubling thought flashed briefly in the back of my mind - speculation that the dagger had compelled me to use it... And upon slashing across the deranged woman's neck, my jaw dropped as the blade glowed under her blood and pulsed in my hand. Finally, she slumped to the ground lifeless and silent.

                "Y-you can slay Yokai?" A wide-eyed elderly man emerged from hiding and tugged at my dō. "You must defeat the Jorogumo! Please, save our village!" The peasant's words spilled out like flies from an emaciated carcass. If the other survivors were just as starved and frightened, there would soon be no village left to save. As for the Yokai and the rumoured Jorogumo monster, I had no real understanding of their nature and could make no sense of what just happened...

                "I will do everything I can." My feigned composure swiftly melted away as a foreign surge of energy rushed through my right arm, stunning me with a painful yet intoxicating heat. My gaze traced the coursing sensation from the dagger up my arm in a series of lacerations, like well-traveled routes on a map. I muffled an impulsive cry in my throat and tore off my sleeve, exposing my bloody arm. The muscles swelled and inflated with such bizarre intensity that my flesh tore asunder, then scarred shut right before my eyes.

                I prayed that with time I would grow numb to the excruciating transformation the dagger had afflicted upon me, but my hope was forgotten as I fixated on that old man's words... Had I truly slain a Yokai? I did not know what to believe, but I was certainly repulsed by the look of my disfigured arm, despite its apparent strength. I reflected on how a younger Yoshiro would welcome this mysterious power without hesitation. I am not the boy I once was.

PART II

                I pushed my heavy feet down streets that no longer resembled any I once knew. Wicked flames licked at the walls of ruined homes infested with Yokai, and I am ashamed to say I am to blame. I sought to join my father in the Imperial City - to prove my capabilities as a warrior, not to languish away on guard duty growing plump on Mother's pampered lunches... All the memories - foolish, impatient, selfish - roiled in my stomach like a shallow puddle of acid.

                "Hmm hmmm hmm." A soft, choking hum crept into my ears coming from a possessed Orochi further down the road. Something about the melody struck me as familiar but twisted. As did this warrior... I recognized him and the dishevelled Kensei and Hitokiri flanking him as friends I trained with years ago, but I had forged a different path. "I am superior now. This blade chose me. No evil spirit shall remain."

                Each warrior already suffered fatal wounds, but they were unmistakably propped up by hateful Yokai. I watched as they clumsily clamored towards me with bestial movements accentuated by broken bones and dislocated joints. "They were too weak. Your strength protected you. With the dagger, you can do anything." No trace remained of the people they used to be. I was different too - stronger, better...

                My trusted katana was useless. It was the dagger that ensured my prior victory against the possessed seamstress, and I would need it to deliver again. In fact, I wanted to use it again. It was perfectly clear to me now: I only felt whole with its hilt in my hand and its blade in my enemy. One by one I dispatched the corrupted warriors with my mystical weapon. I half-expected them to rise again, but indeed they remained still and quiet. Strangest of all was the sensation of some mysterious energy transferring from their corpses to my blade. Suddenly I felt again the burning pain in my arm as it resonated up my shoulder and probed deep into my temple, exploding in a demonic ecstasy. I felt the dagger's strength swell so intensely that my mind calmed and cleared of all thought. With a blank slate awaiting intention to be carved upon it, the Mamono Dagger etched a singular purpose into my psyche: Slay.

PART III

                "Hmm hmmm hmm. Sleep sweetly on the moon, won't you try? Catch me a shooting star when Mister Tanuki cries..." The lullaby danced into my ears from nowhere. I had finally realized why it sounded so familiar, but there was no logical explanation for it. Decades have passed since I last heard Mother's song while she cradled me to sleep as an infant. But my memory of her voice was now warped - even inhuman. And I cannot be sure I truly heard anything at all or if it was just a trick of my exhausted mind... The lullaby continued, luring me out along a trail of corpses covered in what appeared to be a spider's sticky webs. I could no longer discern hallucination from reality.

                "Survival hinges on perception. Every feeling must be filtered out. Every reaction must serve you not as Yoshiro, but as a warrior." Father's lessons, permanently seared into my memory, surfaced once again when I was quickly ambushed by three Shugoki behemoths - all possessed by evil spirits, and each humming the same melody that was impossible for them to know. Enraged, I ran my dagger swiftly through each of their throats... Believing I had finally silenced the song, I was puzzled as Mother's lullaby returned yet again from somewhere beyond the marketplace. I left the slain corpses behind me, but my obsession in quieting this taunting song remained.

                "Hmm hmmm hmm." At last, I arrived at the song's source. It was clearly the Jorogumo monster's lair, complete with webbed corpse monuments and dancing shadows that fooled my eyes with every flicker of flame. I felt the demon stalking me, piercing me with what felt like a thousand eyes. And that haunting lullaby stiffened my spine like a pole. It had no right to affect me now. Couldn't it see that I was more than a man? "So much more..."

                My fury exploded with each false start. The skitter of claws on stone flew behind one shadow to the next until a sudden tug of my dagger yanked my arm to point straight up like an excited magnet. Finally, I saw it - the Jorogumo was right above me, but I had not the means to fathom the horror my eyes beheld. A monstrous spider decorated in chilling Noh masks... Wrapped in an aura of pure death... Somehow melded with a disturbing imitation of my precious mother's likeness... A wretched abomination. My ultimate nightmare.

                "Eheheh..." Like the other Yokai, the monster was incapable of speech, but there was no mistaking the satisfaction in its ominous laughter. How could it possibly know that lullaby when it existed as a singular secret strand between myself and my mother?

                "I can think of no greater offense! Not desecrating my home, nor defiling my people... I see through you, foul demon! Exploiting a resemblance to my mother will do you no service!" Feeling all traces of sanity escape me, I leapt at the beast, imagining my dagger piercing every inch of its cursed flesh a thousand times over. I was not so lucky.

                I only saw white. Her gigantic legs thrashed and nearly removed the head from my body. I could hear the small bones in my neck shatter into sharp fragments. Slowly, my vision returned, flooded by a rainbow of fireworks popping in and out of existence. Pushing myself off the ground and looking at my reflection in a muddy puddle was all it took to quiet my denial. This was really happening. I was damned and completely transformed. And no matter how much I willed it to be untrue... That thing was my mother.

                For every single iron-hearted lesson Father used to mold me into a fierce warrior, Mother taught me two lessons of ruthless compassion. As far as I had fallen, I still clung to her ideals. I would put an end to the rumours of Yokai and a spider demon laying waste to a fortress I was once proud to call home.

                "Goodbye, Mother." I flew at her in my own unnatural way. One tragic curse aimed at another - each with the other to blame. That day the Lady of Castle Chiyo was served by the mercy she was renowned for. If her heart remained, I left it untouched. Yet my hesitation ceased there, and I would see the demon banished.

                With but a mere glance, I have no doubt others would wish the same fate upon me. Should the dagger further instill my mind with madness and defile my body with perverse corruption... I would not stop them.