Foxfire: Veil of the Nine Phantoms

25: Crawl III - Pest Control

January 7 - Melanie

I had once asked my mother how she dealt with fear in her profession, knowing that she'd get hurt, or worse knocked out. She told me that the fear never really went away, but one night, walking up to the ring during her fifth fight, she had merely decided to start having some fun with it. At the moment I was trying to hold on to that advice, really I was grasping for anything to quell the anxiety, so I latched on to mom's old words, and had held my face in a smile as I walked with Hoshiko to the manhole leading down to the sewer where the centipede had made its lair.

Grandma Hoshiko was smiling too, and I wondered if she too had coincidentally come across the same mindset during her many battles against Yokai.

"You don't enjoy doing this, right?" I asked.

She glanced at me with her perpetual foxlike grin. "Oh, I do enjoy it, when I win."

"You don't like losing, eh?"

"Who does? Losing in my former line of work means either the people you're rescuing are dead, or you're dead."

I nodded.

"You remember the plan, darling?"

"We're going to lure the ōmukade, avoiding a direct fight with it until we reach the holding tank where Fuyuko will trap it in ice. Once the centipede is immobilized, I'll finish it off with my human saliva-coated sword, because that's the only thing that can hurt it."

"And remember, try to avoid its venom."

I went over my mental map of Toronto's sewer system over and over until we stopped in front of the manhole cover. I removed the cover and dropped down into the dark tunnel, my boots splashing on the disgusting sewer water. Hoshiko dropped into the sewer shortly after me. At first, I couldn't see into the darkness, but I drew upon my magic, feeling it transform my left eye as I tapped on my latent shapeshifting ability. That was unfortunately the current extent of my shapeshifting powers, but one fox eye with night vision was better than zero. Behind me, Hoshiko's amber eyes glowed in the darkness.

We walked toward the centipede's lair, located in the middle of this maze of a sewer system. Once we alerted the centipede, we'd be running all the way back to our ice trap, so we avoided exerting energy, choosing to reserve our strength for the final sprint. I was the one who volunteered to lure the centipede, Grandma tagging along with me because I wasn't yet strong enough to do this alone.

Wading briskly through the water, I in the lead and Hoshiko bringing up the rear, it took us several minutes to reach the grand chamber which the centipede had chosen as its lair. We slowed down and crouched as we got closer, stopping once we could see the centipede.

I almost started at the sight of the unconscious man lying in the middle of the lair, the monstrous centipede biting down on his limp body.

"Shit, that wasn't part of the plan," I whispered.

Hoshiko's fox ears perked up. "I hear a heartbeat. He's still alive." She whispered to herself, but I knew she was communicating telepathically, "Satsuki, change of plans. I'm doing a rescue, so you have to rush over here as fast as possible and meet up with Melanie as she lures the centipede." She turned to me. "When I say three, we go. Ready?"

I nodded.

Hoshiko pulled out an oil paper umbrella out of her dimensional storage, and her hand floated above the handle ready to pull out the hidden blade at a moment's notice. I gripped the Kogitsunemaru's hilt tightly. She whispered, "One. Two. Three."

We launched ourselves out of a crouch and into the ōmukade's lair, each of us drawing our swords. The centipede belatedly realized we were there, and before it turned to face us, Hoshiko slammed her blade into the monster's head, while it couldn't cut through its impenetrable exoskeleton, her powerful blow threw the whale-sized beast against the wall of the large sewer chamber.