Chapter 5 – Chap 5

Hey, guys, Will here. It’s been a minute, to say the least, and things in my life have not gotten any less crazy or hectic. The first night in the spirit world was not a walk in the park, I’ll tell you that much. While I was waiting in my room, which I was lovingly confined to for the majority of this past month, Hana came back and got me, saying her father had finally deemed me worthy enough to eat dinner with them.

I followed her to a dining room and sat on my knees at the spot she designated me to. Shurui and Jaakuna were already there, dressed in kimonos. After so long of seeing Shurui’s actual face, it was pretty weird to see it so caked with makeup as well as seeing her hair be pulled up and accessorized with a comb and some stick things, meanwhile Jaakuna had no makeup and had her hair down.

For awhile, everything was silent, but then Shurui’s father cleared his throat. “So, William… Shurui has spoken of you highly. Despite the fact that you are… human… I have decided to give you my blessing to marry her.”

I wanted to mention that we hadn’t been planning to get married, but all I found myself doing was nodding and forcing a smile, “Thank you, sir.”

That was when I noticed Shurui’s face and how scared she seemed. Her father chuckled and sipped at a glass full of deep red wine. “Do not thank me just yet, young man. First you must go through the three trials I set for you to prove your worth as a suitor for my daughter.”

Shurui turned to her father, her brow furrowed, “Please, father, don’t do this. You know he won’t be able to survive.”

He regarded her with a shrug, “He wishes to marry you? He must prove his worth, as did your sister’s suitors.”

At these words, Hana’s eyes sprang up with tears. She clenched her lips together tightly and blinked them back, but I’d already seen. It was clear she’d lost someone to these trials, but she didn’t open her mouth to object to her father’s clear attempts to kill me. Jaakuna, on the other hand, was quick to slam her palm down on the table, “Just because he’s not one of us doesn’t mean Shurui deserves to watch him die!”

Everyone at the table seemed taken aback by this, myself included, considering this was the chick who’d literally just tried to kill me not all that long ago. Her father turned on her, scowling, “Jaakuna, you speak out of turn. Remember your place.”

“My place?” Jaakuna muttered angrily. “My place? If it hadn’t been for you I never would have left my place! But you decided that starving me and leaving me in the dark was the way to keep me in myplace!”

“What I did was for your own good!” her father boomed.

“Was killing Kaito in front of me for my own good, too?!” she demanded.

“YES!”

At this, Jaakuna’s jaw quivered, and she clenched her fists at her sides, bitter tears “I loved him. You knew that and still you decided to kill him.”

“He was a filthy human. Not worthy of my daughter,” her father replied coldly.

Shurui’s eyes widened, “Jaakuna… What is father saying?”

“I have said enough this evening, Shurui,” he ended sharply. “And so has your sister. Guards!” Three armored Yokai approached and Shurui’s father snapped his fingers, “Take Jaakuna to her room and see to it that she does not leave it.” He turned and glared at me, causing my knees to shake under the table, “And as for you…” He held out his hand, which began to glow, “Do you agree to attempt to complete the three trials and earn the hand of my daughter? If not, I will be merciful and simply send you back to your mortal realm, but Shurui will not be returning with you.”

I frowned, my brow furrowing. I’d nearly lost Shurui once already, and I wasn’t about to let it happen again. I took her father’s hand, and shook it, a glowing orb erupting around us before it completely disappeared. “Good choice,” he said. “You are a brave young man, I’ll give you that. Go with Hana. She will help prepare you for your first trial… Stealing a wind sword from one of the tengu.”

Shurui gasped and gripped her father’s sleeve, “Father, you can’t! If he is discovered the tengu will tear him to pieces!”

“Then you had better hope he is fleet of foot, my child,” her father replied, a wicked grin spreading across his face.

Next thing I knew, I was being carted away by Hana who shoved me into yet another random room and shook her head. “You are either very foolish or very brave to attempt these trials. If you die then Shurui will never forgive herself.”

I shook my head, “Bravery and foolishness have nothing to do with it. I love your sister, and I’ll do anything to keep her with me. If I die proving to your father that I’m worthy, at least I won’t have died a coward in his eyes.”

“No, you will have died a fool,” she shot back, a few drops of venom flying from her mouth and hitting the floor, causing it to sizzle. She rolled her eyes and stamped out the venom with her shoes like it were a cigarette. “So I intend to help you escape from the spirit world with your life.”

“So you take the cowardly way out, huh, Hana? Why am I not surprised?”

Looking around the room, I turned my gaze up and saw Jaakuna’s snaky torso wrapped around the rafters. She dropped and landed on her now transformed feet. She regarded me with a curt nod, “Hello, William. Sorry I tried to eat you awhile back.”

I could only nod and back up a little, “Uh-huh… No problem.”

Hana raised an eyebrow, “Didn’t father lock you in your room?”

Jaakuna rolled her eyes and chuckled, “Father should’ve figured that I’d have built myself a way out of that room years ago. I won’t be telling you where it is, either. Now then, let’s talk about Will’s trials and how he’s going to get through them without dying.”

I couldn’t help but be a little confused, “While that sounds all well and good, I have just one question… Why are you helping me?”

Jaakuna rolled her eyes yet again and massaged the bridge of her nose, “Look, I don’t know what Shurui told you about me, but it’s because she was too young to remember how I used to be. In fact, I was a lot like her. I fell in love with a human and was going to run away with him until father found out and killed him. This made me super bitter, and I became the monster my father wanted me to be.” She sighed, “But seeing Shurui be so willing to risk her life for you… It makes me realize that she must really care about you and I don’t want to see her end up like me.”

I nodded, “Thank you.”

She scoffed, “Don’t thank me just yet. I have to make sure you don’t die, then you can thank me and name one of your kids after me and all that good jazz, yada, yada, yada.” She cleared her throat, “Stealing a wind sword from one of the tengu will be near impossible. It will require skill, cunning, and the ability to be as silent as the trees on a day with no wind.”

“But because I’ve already shown myself to be so brave you have the utmost faith in me?” I offered.

“No, because I know full well you won’t be able to survive this on your own I intend to help you cheat,” she replied shortly.

“Oh. Right. Okay… So, uh… How are you going to do that?” I asked.

She walked to what I guessed was another closet and pulled out a black cloak and a bag which I soon found contained a cherry blossom tree branch. “Okay… How is a branch from a tree and a cloak going to help me?”

Jaakuna sighed exasperatedly and took the branch from the bag, tossing it against the ground and stomping on it, breaking it in two. The branch turned into a pair of shoes with little wings on their sides. Jaakuna put the cloak on and disappeared before shrugging it off and tossing it at me. “These objects are enchanted. Wear those shoes and the tengu won’t be able to hear you approach. Wear the cloak and they won’t be able to see you, either. That make sense?”

And, yeah, even though I was fixing to go and do a trial that might lead to my death, the gamer in me was super giddy to be thinking of leveling up with this totally awesome gear. I reached out for them, but Jaakuna pulled them away, “Ah, ah, ah, not yet. Here’s the deal. Hana’s supposed to take you to a room where you get to pick out weapons to use to help you get through the trial. You’ll receive a bag that’s bottomless and can fit anything you choose without filling it up. I’ll hide the cloak and the branch in the room. Take them and put them in the bag, then grab a sword, but not just any sword. Grab the sword in the battered sheath. Trust me on this.”

She sighed, “I think that’s everything… Oh! When you finish the trial take the shoes and cloak off immediately and put them back in the bag. When you get let back into the room leave them where I put them, but put the heels of the shoes together first so they can turn back into the branch. Then leave the sword where it was and… Yeah, now that’s it.”

I went over her notes in my head and when I was sure I understood, nodded, and Hana nodded in return. “In that case, we’ve spent enough time here. It’s time that you are taken to the room.”

So after a long walk down a really long hall being followed by guards Hana stopped in front of a door, handed me the bag, and motioned for me to walk inside. And guys… Let me tell you… The contents of that room are a gamer’s definition of freakin’ Heaven. Picture every boss you’ve ever fought’s treasure trove and multiply it by like, a thousand… and it still wouldn’t be enough to equal just how much gold, silver, jewels, and fancy armor and weapons that were in there. I grabbed the branch and cloak first before digging around to find the sword in the battered sheath and shoved it all in my bag.

After that level up montage in the middle of the night Hana escorted me to the bottom of this giant mountain and let me gear up. She pointed at the sky, “You have until the sun rises over the mountain to sneak into one of the tengu’s homes, steal one of the swords, and escape before they wake up. I will remain here until the sun sets, and if you don’t return by then I will assume you’ve been killed and go give the news to father.”

I was now sweating under my invisible cloak and smiled nervously, “Ri-i-i-ight. Okay. Here I go. Off to steal an enchanted sword.”

So I flew up the mountain on the flying shoes, which is a lot harder than it looks in video games, let me tell you. I picked a random house and did my best to creep inside without knocking anything over. Then it was a matter of, If I were a sword, where would I be kept? So I started looking around and ended up in the tengu’s bedroom, and you should know that these guys are super, mega, impossibly *ugly!*Even uglier than they look in their art. So I ended up getting a little freaked and knocked over a vase. I reached out to try catching it, but it was too late and the damn thing fell and hit the floor, immediately waking up the tengu.

Next thing I knew this dude sat up and unsheathed his sword, which, get this, was literally RIGHT BESIDE HIM IN HIS BED! Yeah, it pissed me off to think I probably would’ve spent at least another hourlooking for something that was literally this guy’s equivalent of a stuffed animal. Before he could say anything, I unsheathed my sword which had a surprisingly shiny-looking blade and managed to chop his head clean off. The stump spurted so much blood it eerily reminded me of the Sweeney Todd movie. And I almost threw up when I noticed the body was still moving, stumbling around like some weird worm that had limbs.

Gotta admit, I felt kind of bad since I was literally stealing this guy’s stuff, but I also was sort of relieved I still had my head and remembered how I needed to zip back down the mountain locket-split before the rest of the tengu woke up and lopped my head off.

After I got back down the mountain I showed the sword to Hana, she gave me a small round of applause for winning, and then told me even though I’d chopped that guy’s head off he’d be just fine and we probably should get the hell out of dodge before he managed to get his head back on and started coming after the one who stole his sword.

We got back to the throne room and Shurui’s father was sitting and waiting for me. I bowed and presented him with the sword, to which he raised an eyebrow. “Hmm… You managed this quest surprisingly easily. Nevertheless, you survived and brought back what I asked of you, and therefore have passed the trial. Congratulations. Tonight a feast shall be thrown in your honor and my halls shall be full of Yokai singing your praises.”

I smiled, “Thank you.”

“Oh, ho, ho, ho,” he chuckled, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t thank me just yet. Tomorrow’s trial will be even more difficult, so I wouldn’t drink too much sake this evening. You’ll need to be sober if you want to live five minutes into your task.”

After that little encouragement speech I got led away by some servants who bathed me and dressed me in some super nice clothes, and I spent the night partying and attempting to enjoy myself since this was the first time in what felt like forever that Shurui and I had gotten to spend any time together at all in a setting where her dad wasn’t looking like he was going to kill me. Despite her smile, I could tell she was just as worried as me about the second trial. And now that the party’s over and I’m back in my room I’m finding it super hard to sleep. Tomorrow is the second trial.

Wish me luck.