A Quiet Meeting in the Forest

[Crow]

Nokoribi rubs her cheek, feeling fresh blood open on the wound. “You are a shit shot,” she yells out into the void. Another arrow whistles in between her feet, causing her to stumble and fall. And the figure appeared finally.

“You hunt demons. Oni.” He says.

Noko spits into the ground, not giving the intruder the satisfaction of an answer.

“Then stand up. Draw your steel. Tonight I will be your Oni.” He says as he dropped his bow, shrugging his arrow quiver off of his back.”You have been hunting me for how long, three moons? Don’t think I have not noticed.” He steps forward, his dark green cloak swaying behind him.

“Steel. Now. Let us see if you are worthy of killing a demon.”

Nokoribi draws her katana instantly, and slashes with the madness of a woman possessed. Her blade flashes against the cloaked figure’s kukri, with all of her adopted father’s skill, an ancient elven samurai. And yet. And yet…

The cloaked man parries her blade away, twirling his kukri up to her throat.

“That is his sword.” His golden eyes glance down on the tsuba of the blade. “You stole it?” His kukri twists in his wrist.

“I earned it. It was his passing breath that I would have it.”

“Liar.”

“You have fought me, you can see Wilt’s training in my blade.”

The cloaked figure sighs. “So it is true, that damned old elf has finally passed.” He steps away, reflecting. “Very well, keep hunting, when you decide I am your demon, come find me” He turns and simply walks away, picking up his bow and quiver. His steps into the shadows a promise.

 

[Crow]

'If you think I am going to just let you walk away," Nokoribi grinds her teeth, her entire body tense, her sword subtly shaking in her hand, nearly imperceptible save the sway at the very tip. "He told me about you. He told me who... what you are."

Mosane Feathurin Embermoss stops dead still. Silence and moonlight surrounds them both for a fleeting moment.

He closes his eyes. In a flash behind his eyelids there is Wilt's temple. His blade meeting the elf's a hundred hundred years ago on the very ground Nokoribi claims as her home. "He was a father to me too," his fingers curl around the hilt of his kukri.

"Until you betrayed him, until you did the unspeakable." Nokoribi's voice is venomous in the way that whispers seep into your bones.

"I did not choose that path, it was chosen for me."

"It does not matter. What matters now is ... I hunt demons, Mosane-san. To call you a demon is a mercy. At least demons have a purpose, a reason for being, even if it is vile." Her sword is as still as ice now. "You are just a sick dog to be put down. A mistake. A stain on this world to be cleansed."

The shaggy haired elf looks up to the moon as Nokoribi speaks. His kukri lifts, flashing a fingertip's width of blade as his shoulders slacken, defeated, knowing what comes next as it has so many times for hundreds of years. "You have his determination, his drive you know? You could have been just as masterful as he."

Nokoribi does not hesitate, she rushes with her blade high, her scream a loud and powerful Kiai! It pierces the silence of the forest as she brings her blade down on the elf.

And slashes only air and hits only the ground at her feet.

She feels Mosane beside her, pressed shoulder to shoulder. "I am envious. Wilt. You, now. So many others. They get the honor of dying a warrior's death. A final peace I am never allowed. But you know this." He pulls his kukri from her stomach, helping her to her knees and then finally to lie down. "Go now," he rests her sword over her as her bloodstained hands grab for it.

The elf wipes his blade on a corner of his cloak, sheaths it, and pulls his hood up over his pointed ears.

 

[Crow]

Ninety-nine days pass. Ninety-nine days of watching the same motes of dust stir and settle in new places about the temple. Nokoribi groans, the daily ritual of pain that has given way to soreness feels as familiar as a friend now as she unravels the bandages about her torso, discarding them in a basket and reaching for fresh ones. She poked her scar, a dull hiss escaping her lips. The worry of infection was long gone at least.

The worry of... him. However.

It flashes in her mind again, his sidestep of her blade, the cold bite of his. The emotionless look in his eyes as he nearly ended the demon-slayer's life almost effortlessly.

Almost.

She thought to say something, in this empty room where no one will hear, a declaration that Wilt's daughter is not going to die so easily. She has had this exact thought ninety-eight times before, and instead grits her teeth, wrapping her bandages around her before pulling a fresh kimono over her shoulders. She steps into the sunlight, the training yard that is her home, just quieter now that he is gone.

Nokoribi grabs a training bokken, it hurts her ribs to lift but she holds it out straight. "One step at a time," she grunts in pain. Her eyes look over the yard, the tall evergreen trees, the training structures like the obstacle course Wilt made her run every single day. She realizes she stands in the very same place the one called 'Moss' stood some hundred years ago.

"Father," she gulped, keeping the wooden blade outstretched, "I could really use your help right now. Because I am not just facing a demon. Not this time." She closes her eyes as though committing herself to a contract, taking a sacred vow. "I am facing your demon."

 

[Crow]

In her mind's eye she can see him. How he keeps his body tight, controlled, his form close and measured with perfect practicality. His blade hidden. She swings her bokken, a scream of pain erupting from her lips. Too slow. Reset. She reinjured herself again, the muscle in her gut ripping apart.

"Too slow," she hears his voice as though he were still alive.

"Again."

Nokoribi adjusts her blade with a turn of her wrists, drawing deeply the crisp air of dawn. Her eyes focus on the imaginary opponent, her memory her only guide. But if nearly being killed by an elven assassin is the memory she calls upon, her recollection is picture perfect.

His foot shifts, his hips tilt, his blade comes out in a flash.

Nokoribi yowls through the pain of her wound, cutting the imaginary kukri away and in the same motion pressing herself against the ghost of an assassin, stepping into his guard so they are face to face, her wooden blade meeting the throat that is not there.

"Thank you, father." There is no answer, only the calm breeze of the morning that sways through the trees of her temple home.

 

[Crow]

The sun falls beneath the hills and the sky turns from blue to crimson to violet. Nokoribi breathes one last deep breath, twirling her wooden practice sword and sheathing it snug into her kimono. The evening is spent in quiet reflection, her eyes closed as she eats from her bowl of plain rice. And at night's end she leaves the main house.

She walks to Wilt's shrine.

It smells of old wood, dead leaves, but as she walks closer on bare feet across creaking wood, ever closer to where the old samurai rests, she can smell only ash.

Nokoribi kneels, bows with her arms outstretched in reverence, before rising to sit. "Nigh one-hundred days, I thought he would slit my throat while I was sleeping and be done with it." She whispered to the ghosts. "This was his home as much as mine, I am not hiding."

But she remembers the last words before his blade opened her stomach. 'When you decide I am your demon, come find me.' And that is it, is it not? The weight feels like a stone in her already wounded gut. Nokoribi gulps, but sets to her task, lighting incense about the temple, casting it in a flickering glow that cast shadows spirits can dance upon.

She rises to her feet and turns to leave, picking Wilt's sword up from his stand, holding it one last time. And she calls out, her voice soft into the moonlit night.

"I know you are here."

From somewhere unseen, deep within the trees there is a growl, a shuddering of scales that sound like falling stones.

 

[Crow]

Several months before Mosane Feathurin Embermoss met the Lady Samurai he sat on the side of a boat swaying amongst a vast city flotilla. The ocean’s breeze lifting his hair in waves, his bright eyes staring out upon an endless bright blue sea. The warmth of the sun was gentle on his olive face. But there was another warmth, that of the one that sat beside him, both of them in silence as they simply let the waves roll beneath them.

His feet dipped into the water with the rocking of the small fishing boat. He dreamed he could spend forever like this, so far from the lands and forests he roamed. So far from the hurt and hardship that the world of man endures. Just to be free, listlessly on the ocean, among the people here that live such a peaceful life.

But he could not continue in this world without making one last thing right. After all of his decades of adventuring, his battles, his victories and losses, he had to see his father one last time. Be the Little Ghost once more, and tell Wilt that all of his efforts were worth it, that he had become the man Wilt knew he would be.

The Deva beside him places her hand on his wrist.

“You’re trembling.”

“I’m not.” He protests, having been quite actually enjoying the stillness and quiet of the moment.

“And yet the air around you ripples like a torrent ready to manifest.” She turns to him, her eyes filled with concern. “You are going to leave.” She says, not as a question.

Mosane swallows a gulp. “I am. I have to. I…”

The Deva raises a finger to her lips in a shh, “you need not explain anything. One with a life such as yours, unfinished business is to be… expected. I do listen to your stories, you know.” She answers with a playful lilt in her voice.

Mosane smiled, looking out to the sea.

“When?” She asked.

“First light of the morning, I’d rather see this done sooner than later.”

“Then I will go with you,” The Deva unhooked a seashell from her necklace and placed it in his hand, folding his fingers around it, the smooth and pearlescent thing. “And come home, sooner than later. The flotilla is a better place with you on it.”