*** Saquila(Ume POV) ***
The smell of cigarette smoke had masked the odor, but Kan-chan was right: there was an unmistakable stench of burning metal. The same smell I had first noticed outside the nighttime Senryukyo Tunnel. This was the first time I had seen the Shadow Realm, Muko, during the day. I had expected something more sinister. Maybe we were just on the edges because the only notable change was the odor and the light steel blue that had replaced the clear azure of the sky we had left home under. Thin, scraggly trees lined an exitless road with bare winter fields beyond. Bleak, but there was nothing unworldly about that.
“Yabai,” Tomo swore softly as Kan-chan started chanting,
Yatagarasu ga mamotte kureru (Yatagarasu protect us)
Anata no tsubasa ni tsutsuma rete (Wrapped in your wings)1
Next to me, Shishi clutched my hand, whispering, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
I almost pulled my hand away but resisted. Instead, I squeezed it reassuringly and said, “Stop it.”
“Ume?” came Tomo’s fearful voice from the front. “What do I do? There’re motorcycles following us.”
I glanced out the back window. Sure enough, four large motorcycles stretched across the road behind us. An ominous black figure mounted each bike. Looking forward, I realized they had picked a good place for an ambush.
“Drive. I’ll figure it out.” I responded.
“But what?” I thought. Centering myself with a deep breath, I continued to myself, “One thing at a time.”
I looked at Shishi. “I need you to be strong. Please support me, not drag me down.” It was a little harsh, but given our history, I needed to say it.
“Too harsh,” I wondered. With that thought, I added, “You didn’t need me to carry you before. Don’t start now.” It wasn’t quite true, but it softened the tone.
She bit her lip and nodded. If I had time, I would have rated its cuteness, but I didn’t. Tomo was talking to me again.
“There’s a barricade ahead and some guy in front of it. What should I do?”
“Drive up to it. If it’s some guy in overalls with no face, don’t look. Forget that. Don’t look at anyone’s face. If it’s some guy in a rain slicker, I’ll talk to them. That one seemed harmless.”
The whole time this was happening, Kan-chan kept up a steady chant, and I racked my brain for a solution. It was up to me: Kan-chan was busy protecting us; I doubted Shishi could help; Tomo had no experience with this kind of thing; and Hanayome-shin might bail me out, but I wouldn’t count on her helping the others.
Tomo pulled up and stopped in front of the familiar striped barricades that stretched across the road. I wondered what would happen if we ran it, but decided that could be a last-ditch tactic.
I glanced back and saw that the bikers had stopped a hundred meters back. The black-clad figures reminded me of the man who had given me the saquila. If we wanted to turn around, we would need to go through them. A plan that seemed less hopeful than the previous one.
No help there, so I turned forward again.
The guy by the barricade approached. I was relieved it wasn’t Time Space Man, but appeared to be a normal flagger. As he drew near, I saw a wiry man with wispy gray hair wearing a fluorescent orange vest. What drew my eye, though, was the nose that dominated his face, almost drooping over his mouth.
“I’m going to talk to him,” I said, “but if I say ‘floor it,’ I want you to drive right through the barricade.”
Tomo glanced at Kan-chan, who nodded without breaking off her chant. He then responded, “Got it.”
Rolling down my window, I stuck my head out. “Hay, we need to get past.”
The man finished walking over. There was a funny roll to his gait, like a pigeon. His reedy voice left no doubt it was the flagger we’d met at the barrier near Numata. “Power lines down ahead,” he said, holding up a birdlike hand in apology, a hand with only three fingers and a thumb that stuck out at an inhuman angle.
“You said that last time and then sent us into a trap at Sen no Taki.”
“Just doing my job.”
I could hear the bike engines reviving. “What was I going to do? Run the barrier?” Instinct told me that was a bad idea, remembering the Sen no Taki bridge.
I moved uneasily, getting ready to plead when my foot hit the saquila bottle where I had put it on the floor. Why hadn’t I realized it? That was the link, the saquila. I had known the bottle was cursed, but assumed something bad would only happen if you drank it. Threatening Bōsōzoku bikers; roadblocks manned by a weedy, three-fingered, big-nosed tender. The pattern was apparent. Not Mikawa, but something unafraid of the day, Tengu. All linked by a bottle of liquor.
I had a sudden idea of how to break that link and simultaneously open the way in front of us.
The bottle wasn’t hard to grab, and I picked it up. My glance at it was a mistake. The maggot had grown and was now several inches long, with one bloodshot eye peering out of a baby-like face. I didn’t give the eye a chance to affect me and looked away.
“Look, I can let you have this if let us go by?” I said as I held the bottle out the window so the gaudy label showed. “I’m told it’ll get you wrecked.”
The fellow peered near sightly at it and then his face lit up. “Wow, you got the good stuff. But I don’t know about letting you pass. Those guys wouldn’t like it.” He pointed with a long bony finger toward the bikers.
“Oh, those guys. They’re escorting us. They’ll be upset if you don’t let us by.”
It didn’t sound believable to me, but the fellow cocked his head and looked at me with one eye.
“Your friend can stop chanting. It’s getting on my nerves. I’m a good Buddhist, so it doesn’t affect me anyway,” he said in his birdlike voice.
Kan-chan stopped, and the man’s eyes dropped back to the bottle. “You wouldn’t have any cigs to go with that?”
“You want peche or lights?”
“Don’t you have anything decent?”
It didn’t occur to me to offer him Tomo’s Mevius’. But Shishi saved the day, reaching over me with a pack of her smokes. “They’re Camels; you just tear the filter off,” she explained.
The man reached out and took the offered smokes. The pack disappeared into his pants pockets, and he snatched the bottle. “I’ll just move one barricade, and you can go through. Don’t guess I’ll be needed here, after that,” he said, glancing warily at the bikers down the road.
The next few minutes were tense. We soon rolled between the opened gap, and I kept looking first behind and then in front of us. I was happy to see the flagger close the gap. That would at least slow the bikers, but I needn’t have worried because we didn’t see them again. The smell of burning metal dissipated, and we were soon moving down a road with normal traffic and a bright blue sky.
Once it was clear we were safe, Tomo asked, “What was that, and how did you know that would work?”
“I didn’t, but he was a Tengu, and they are easy to bribe and trick. Thanks to my research, I recognized him. His nose and hands were a dead giveaway. I can’t be sure, but the bikers were probably Tengu as well.”
“And you Shishi,” I said, turning to her, “did good.”
“I did?”
“Yes, ‘tear off the filters,’ brilliant. I didn’t know that worked with lights.”
“It doesn’t. — You’re not mad?”
“About what?”
“My depending on you?”
“About that. Please don’t be so clingy.”
“Ouch,” I thought. “There I’m being harsh again.” But it was true ever since I’d promised not to abandon her, she had been hanging on to me. “I won’t send you away, pinky promise, but I prefer a partner, not a servant or slave. I know you can do that. You became an idol on your own. No one made you Fukitsu, the goddess. You did that all on your own.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” said Kan-chan. “We’re here. Tomo, pull into that driveway. You’ll find some space to park at the end.”
We got out of the car a minute later, and a gray-haired gentleman in his late forties to fifties came out to greet us. His face was unlined and left an impression of dignity and power. I instantly liked him.
“This is Mikito-sensei,” Kan-chan introduced us.
After we bowed and went through the formalities of greeting, Mikito-sensei led us into the house, a one-story building behind a temple and its garden. On the way in, Shishi grabbed my hand. She looked a little intimidated entering the building, but looked straight ahead, not at me. I took that as a good sign. Step one on the “Ume to Shishi” project. In the next few days, I could work on improving our relationship further.
Only that isn’t what happened.
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Note:
They finally made it to the temple, but can Mikito-sensei help them and how much?
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Story by Nara Moore
Twitter/X:@nara_moore
Mastodon: sakurajima.moe
WordPress: Josei Yuri and Paranormal Romance
Art by Mai-sensei
Twitter: @Maiisheree
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