Golden Scars

Chapter Twenty Three: Dragon Woman

Chiko slowly gets back on his feet as he glares at Noaya. "Ya know, you really are quite oblivious, Noaya."

"What?" He growls back at his opponent.

"It's kind of funny, really. Seriously, get a fucking clue." Chiko simply answers back cooly. That's when I finally notice Chiko's snake shinigami poised underground, ready to attack the unaware Zenin heir. 

Noaya, ironically enough, hisses at the Kubo clan's second in charge, "Sniveling like an idiot isn't going to do you any favors, Kubo!" Just as Chiko's snake jumps out of the ground and bites the Zenin heir's ankle, inserting his master's cursed energy into his body. Within seconds, Chiko uses his cursed energy to incapacitate his opponent.

"Once you understand Projection Sorcery, it's easy to find loopholes and possibly even use the technique against the sorcerer wielding it. Especially, when it's in the hands of someone as overconfident and inexperienced as Noaya. If it was his dad, that would be a different story." Chiko says absentmindedly as he nudges his foot against the Zenin heir's head. "He can only subject what he sees to his Projection Sorcery, but since he's so full of himself he doesn't even consider what tricks I could've laid out before him."

"Dirty...trick..." Noaya grunts out from the ground.

"Yeah, but I'm still an amateur too, we're not strong enough to play fair and you should know that." Chiko abandons his fallen foe and strides over to Shoko and I. "I'm heading home."

"Chiko!" I call out to him without much thought; he stares at me in shock, "We should hang out sometime."

He sighs and glances down at his feet, "I can't right now, I'm chasing something right now."

"Is it Toji?"

The cries of cicadas fills the space and silence between us at my simple question. A single drop of water slide down his cheek and hits the dry dirt. Whether it was sweat or a lone tear remains a mystery to me as the young boy walks away without a word.

🐲🐲🐲🐍🐲🐲🐲

The vibrant evening is filled with the cicadas singing to one another as I try to read one of my family's scrolls. Unfortunately, I haven't found anything useful, just another retelling of the same story of our ancestor. According to most tellings of Kiyohime, she was once the daughter of a local steward in Hidakagawa. One day, she met a monk named Anchin and her life pretty much fell apart from there. Anchin and Kiyohime had an affair and the young maiden had fallen hard for the Buddhist monk. But the young man had no intention of abandoning his journey, so he ran away. When Kiyohime heard that the young monk had no intentions of honoring her, she flew into a wild rage and ran after him. Now this is where the tale sometimes differ; some claim she turned into a snake and swam across the river after Anchin. Others say that she turned into a dragon and flew across to the temple. Neither interpretation is technically wrong since she turned into both forms that night. She turned into a snake and chased the monk across the river. Once she reached the temple where her prey was hiding, she transformed once more into a large dragon to cook Anchin alive inside of the metal bonshō bell. With her vengeance achieved, she flew away, never to be seen again. At least that's how it ends for the general public. In reality she gave birth to the unfaithful monk's child and taught her daughter how to transform her body into a snake and dragon. This technique has been passed down between the head of the clan and the heir for generations. And yet, the knowledge for how to transform into a dragon has been lost for quite some time now. 

I lie down on my side and watch as the Shishi-odoshi bows down from the constant stream of water and creates a sharp hollow sound as it snaps back up. How am I going to recover a long lost technique? I don't even remember what I did to be able to talk to Kiyohime's spirit that time. How can I reach a cursed spirit? My eyes begin to shut against my will and I fall into a deep sleep.

🎍🎍🎍🐉🎍🎍🎍

Suddenly I'm standing on a river bank, but I'm not alone; standing before me is the very woman I was looking for, Kiyohime. Her sage green hair dances with the wind and her familiar gold eyes are locked on me.

"I see you've come for me." She states matter of factly.

"I did, I need to learn how to turn into a dragon."

"Why?" She questions walking leisurely along the shoreline of the infamous Hidaka river.

I run over to match her pace as I plea with her, "Please teach me! Please, I need to kill the man who murdered my mother! I'll do anything!"

"...tell me child, do you have any idea why I changed my form?" Kiyohime picks up a small stone before skipping it across the water.

"Because you wanted to kill Anchin for disgracing you."

"I see my tale has gotten twisted over the years...I will only teach you if you can tell me the true reason for why I killed Anchin." A thick mist starts to surround us, my mind starts to feel hazy.

"How can I do that?! I only know the story I've been told!!" I cry desperately to my ancestor.

The mist thickens and all I can see are a pair of golden eyes cutting through the fog. "Search for the answer where my tale begins."

"Wait!" I reach out towards her, only to grab at a phantom.

🏯🏯🏯🌌🏯🏯🏯

My body lurches forward as I open my eyes to an empty room. Another hollow sound resounds as the bamboo tube smacks against the rock on the Shishi-odoshi. Once I've calmed my beating heart, I quickly reach over to grab the scroll I was reading earlier. Going back to the beginning of the story, I find the clue I was looking for; Kiyohime's answer is somewhere within this mansion. The place where she first met Anchin.