Wolf and Keeper

Chapter 19: The Nightingale Edicts

The Outskirts of Michizane, Kai Province, 1555

Maru exhaled hard when he jumped down from the tree. He stretched and heard the bones in his back pop and snap dully as he made his way to the assembled group. Two squads of four, eight Sayonakidori, all sent out to kill a tengu. One group Maru knew, the other he didn't, but he was under no illusions that despite the size of the group that the fight would be challenging. The group he knew was from Kai. The others were from a neighboring province. Maru wasn't told where, exactly, but he was pretty sure that he just didn't like them in the slightest.

"What did you see?" Danzo asked as he approached the group. He was a large man, heavy set, and Maru had known him since he returned to the Sayonakidori fold as a teenager. Beside him was Aki, a new recruit on his first hunt. Together, the three of them made Kazegumo's pick for this contract.

"Nothing. The mountain looks still," Maru replied as he rejoined the group. He glanced at the others and saw them grabbing small rocks and lobbing them at something nearby. When he looked, he saw what it was. 

An injured tatarimokke, its small wing hanging limply by its side as it screeched and tried to duck away from the rocks.

"Hey," Maru walked up and swatted one of their arms down, sending the little rocks skittering across the ground. "Knock it off."

Their leader looked at Maru and, on pure spite, launched one larger pebble at the screeching bird and nailed it straight in the head. The small owl's body reeled and collapsed soundlessly to the ground. "There," the tall man sneered. "Done."

"You piece of..." Maru stormed past them and hurried over to the small owl yokai, picking up its limp body in his hands. The rock had killed it. Other places felt bruised and swollen from the rocks, and he shot a glare over his shoulder as he cradled the body in one arm. "I get that we kill yokai, but for the love of the Kami!"

"I just put the runt out of its misery," the leader shrugged. Maru hadn't bothered to learn his name and he was slowly remembering why.

Mindless killing benefits no one, Maru heard Masakage's words in his head as clearly as if the man was standing there staring at him disapprovingly. And it can be done by any mindless person.

"Certainly fits the "mindless" part," Maru muttered as he walked past them, still carrying the small body of the tatarimokke. What made it worse was how these yokai came to be, or so he was often told. They were often believed to be the souls of children, either heralding death or watching after their loved ones. It may have been an ill omen, but if it was actually a kid... Maru only hoped that whatever life it found itself living would be kinder than the one it received this time.

He sat down and began to dig a small hole as Danzo shook his head, "Bastards."

Aki glanced between them, "I mean, why is it such a big deal? Don't we kill yokai anyway?"

"Only ones with contracts. Ones like this don't hurt anyone," Maru spoke over his shoulder as he laid the tatarimokke's body down into the shallow grave he dug and covered it in dirt before he raised his hands together in a small prayer, hoping that maybe the owl's spirit would be kind. "Killing every yokai gets no one anywhere."

"Let's keep going up the mountain," Danzo declared as he stood up, shooting a nasty glare at the other group as he did. "Kata should be up ahead."