Kode

Phantom

   My body acted before my mind, throwing me from my perch and into the tea table, splintering it to rubble as porcelain shattered and bamboo splintered. Pain pounded nails into my knees but it could wait.

Lelou's voice lashed out, words dripping poison, "You—the cowardly monk from the temple. You're no friend of mine. You're not welcome here!" She arose, towering over me and tinged by malevolent aura, violet shrouded by dusks edge, flickering like a candle to wind. The warmth I had felt from her prior, the ember in my soul. This was its antithesis.

I scrambled to my feet, narrowly evading the tables fragments as I pressed myself to a wall, powerless to stop Lelou as she whisked herself towards me. Graceful, methodical, death. Monkey clambered to his feet. I could not see his eyes from where I stood, but could picture their vacant, unblinking, expression. One I would rather him not wear. Spurred in-part by raw instinct and part by some ill-pondered plan, I threw myself at Monkey and, with every vestige of strength I could muster, picked him up and threw him across the room, directly into a folding screen.

"What are you doing you idiot?!" He yelped, flailing about in the torn wreckage like a beached fish. In a better situation I would have found it amusing, but my attention had rooted on Lelou, who, with razor nails ravenous for blood, cleaved a diagonal slash my way, screaming through the air.

'Again!' Father's voice echoed. I spun, forged my palm flat, and slammed it against the phantasm's wrist to force her blow aside. Somehow it worked, a frostbitten jolt and her misty arm went momentarily stiff. Sheer muscle memory and desperation had deflected a phantoms strike. I stepped back, my hand numb and unresponsive, as though it had been submerged in icy water.

Lelou, hardly dissuaded, swiped once more with her razor-tipped hand, forcing me to roll towards where I tossed Monkey. He had scrambled to his feet and backed himself, on his own volition, into a corner.

"Kode, you can't fight it like that!"

"I must try." I said, setting into a defensive stance, one foot aimed towards the ghost and another turned sideways behind.

Lelou wafted herself around, until her face, needly fangs and bottomless voids, locked to us both. She zoomed ahead, another wide strike aimed my way from the side.

I shot my hand out to intercept, but this time it did not work. This time her hand simply phased through my arm and raked me across the chest. Hot, frozen, knives.

Pain set in, a sharp pain biting deeper every second. Blood dribbled warm down my midsection, dotted across cold foundations from the speed I had been hit.

"Don't fight it, Kode," Monkey said, "there's another way."

Yes, there was.

I scrambled away from Lelou and looked to Monkey, "Throw me your sword."

He shook, rattled, his head, "Kode, that will not work. You aren't strong enough. I had this under—"

Nonsense, "—Your sword, Monkey. Give it to me now."

His hand pawed at the weapon as Lelou whirled towards me yet again, but his face had been cracked by fear and his hands trembled. "Please, Kode. You need to trust me on this."

"I will strike her down." I pulled myself together, and to full height. I faced Lelou, focused my spirit to my hands, and batted away another swipe with a flat left hand, stomping my foot and lashing out with my right. It phased through her. Why would this buffoon not give me the sword? Why would he keep a weapon and not use it? Weak. Dishonorable.

The weapon gleamed from its sheath, a glimmer of hope in the crushing darkness as Monkey slid it across the ground towards me. I dashed for it, rewarded with three more icy cuts across my flank. I did not care. As I claimed the weapon from the gnarled boards my training seized me. I stomped my foot into the ground so hard it was a surprise boards did not shatter, rooting the other far behind as-before until my stance became unshakable. I held the weapon diagonally before me, arms straight. Firm as this swords flawless steel. Indeed, it would be difficult to find another like it in these lands. I would prove myself worthy to wield it.

Lelou shrieked, her shrill, horrible, voice clawing at my ears as she cut down at me with her talon hand. I shifted the blade so its flat, curved, length was before me and caught the incoming blow on the swords edge. Forwards I stepped, pouring my might against the spirits terrible strength to knock her deathly digits upwards, whisk the swords cutting edge to my side, and slash Lelou across her exposed waist, a lightning flash against the all-pervading dark. To any opponent, this would be a deathblow.

No impact.

Time fell to a crawl and a frigid, horrible, realization came over me. Lelou seized my throat and my blade clattered uselessly to the ground as she yanked me aloft, clenching her ghostly hand like a vice to my neck. My bones threatened to buckle and my eyes would surely blow their sockets. I could not breathe. I kicked and swiped at my unearthly foe to no avail. This is how I would die. My best efforts had been fruitless.

From somewhere, though, I heard Monkey's voice, "Come, Lelou. Join me for tea."

Her grip relented and she turned to face the boy now standing over the tea tables ruins.

Monkey bowed and folded his legs upon the ground, arms meeting at his lap to cradle a teacup. From a steaming tea jar he poured a sickly black liquid, resting the pot between him and the spectre currently crushing the life from me.

"Do you expect me to be fooled?" Said Lelou. "You would have your friend prey upon my hospitality?"

"He's not my friend, I only just met him," Monkey's hand found another cup in the rubble, set it past the tea jar, filled it, and set the steaming basin aside. He motioned towards the cup, balled his hands to fists, and bowed his head low and long. "Please, Lelou. I wish to speak to you over tea."

His eyes tried to drill holes into the floorboards. The spirit wafted towards him with a dancers grace, her sandals tiptoeing over splintered wood and fractured china alike. No sound. Lelou tossed me aside as casually as one would a grain sack, air bursting from my lungs as a wall crashed met my back like a warhammers steel. Pain strangled my body, both dull and sharp, hot and cold. I could not move, and splinters pricked at my nape. I gasped for air and simply watched, useless. How foolish, naive, I was to think him my friend after having just met. We shared nothing but a journey.

Lelou took her seat in a formal fashion, resting on her knees and lowering slowly to the floor with balled fists. She folded her hands into opposite robe sleeves.

Monkey said, "My acquaintance and I met with your husband."

"Oh yes, he returns from battle today. He will join us for tea."

"He's dead, Lelou. If there's one thing I know it's history. I know what happened in these woods," Monkey leaned in. "The Empire, the black willow crest. Their muskets, don't you remember them?"

"Black willow," Lelou murmured. "The black willow."

"He was a leader, wasn't he? In the rebellion?"

"No, it cannot be..."

Monkey's eyes fell, face sombre, "He went off to the poppy field, didn't he? To Heron Valley?"

"Yes, Heron Valley. I remember it. The black willow. Yes, the willow tree."

"The Imperial crest. It was a rout, Lelou. Their armies flooded these forests and killed everyone. Burned everything to ash."

The spirits face split as it had before, unhinging its jaw like a snake fit to swallow prey. A tongue—no more than writhing pink worm—flailed as a horrible wail, an infant cry mixed with a dying animal, lanced through the room.