As soon as Ren embarked on the boat, he was promptly given charge of the oars.
Toshihiro gave him a smug look as Ren rowed. Clearly, Ren couldn't ask a woman or an old man to help him. His strict upbringing had taught him to respect women and the elderly and so he kept his silence as he rowed across the river.
He glanced at the girl and heard Toshihiro speak to her and address her as Kana.
He watched her as she nodded at something Toshiro said and then tried to conceal her scar with her kimono. She put her hand over it but even Ren could see that the scar was still visible and bound to attract the yokai.
Which was just what he wanted.
He had heard rumors that spoke that people who sinned and were sent to hell but found a way to escape, attracted the yokai who would be hell-bent on dragging the sinner back to hell.
A sinner. He couldn’t imagine a delicate-looking young woman like her could sin, much less go to hell.
Toshihiro caught him staring at Kana and glowered. Ren immediately averted his eyes and adjusted his mask.
Toshihiro was covertly whispering to Kana.
Ren cleared his throat and asked them where they wanted to go.
Toshihiro looked at him suspiciously but then must have realized that they may require his escort. Toshihiro was a cooking pot and Kana was a woman.
The town they were headed to know was infamous for being a haven for criminals. The lawlessness there allowed a lot of criminals to escape punishment and do what they wanted.
Ren gazed ahead. He had been told to go there after what had happened in the small village he had visited.
He had to set fire to a house after a Shitanaga Uba was discovered.
He had only been looking for shelter after a long trek and was exhausted. An elderly woman had gladly welcomed him home and even given him food and water.
While he ate, the old woman was spinning cloth and he noticed her gazing at him with hungry eyes.
He had assumed it was his imagination. His dealings with the yokai over the past few days had confused him and he hadn't sensed that an old woman, who could barely walk straight could be a yokai.
He had been wrong.
In the middle of the night, he had woken up when he felt a wet tongue on his forehead. His eyes snapped open and his first thought had been that he was being attacked by a snake.
He jolted when he saw it was a long tongue licking his neck. Crying out, he jumped up from the makeshift bed the old woman had given him. His sword drawn, he braced himself for an attack only for the old woman to lunge at him, throwing him off guard.
The old woman was no longer the innocent woman he had met hours ago. Her hair was gray and open and disheveled. Her fingers had grown longer and claw-like. Her eyes were bigger, fiercer. The tongue that shot out of her mouth was long, thin, and felt acidic.
He cried out when her tongue wrapped around his neck. His flesh burned and sizzled as she licked. His katana had been knocked out when she had jumped him. It was near his left hand. He had struggled to reach it and strained his shoulder as his desperation grew. Finally, his fingers touched his trusty sword and he had been able to pull it back and clasp a hand around him.
In one swift move, he slashed at her tongue. The skin on his neck had been seared and he would live with a mark forever but at least he was alive.
And then to his mounting horror, the old woman's tongue grew back, stretched, and became even longer.
The tongue slithered towards him like a snake and he realized he just hadn't acquired enough knowledge on how to defeat her.
But as he had learned in the past, fire destroyed everything. He rushed towards an oil lamp and picked it up.
The old woman's tongue wrapped around his ankle and made him stumble. He fell hard to the ground. He threw the oil lamp at her and pulled his leg back when she screamed in agony as she was lit on fire.
Ren had run, as fast as he could, making sure his katana was on his belt.
The yokai had rolled around and set the whole house on fire.
As soon as he ran out, he saw the neighbors gather who called out for the guards.
They saw him and assumed he had set fire to the house of a very gentle elderly woman. None of them knew she was a yokai.
The guards chased him to a mountain where he managed to hide in a cave.
It wasn't long before he found that the cave was a hiding place to bandits. He hid behind rocks and eavesdropped on their conversations.
They talked about a town that wasn't under any law. The town was overrun with criminals and the law upholders were mercilessly eliminated.
That was where he would stay until the guards stopped searching for him.
Ren sighed. The whole incident had caused a delay in his quest.
He glanced at Kana again.
But as luck would have it, he had run into the one person who was going to help him in his quest.
Even if she didn’t realize it just yet.
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