Shounen Onmyouji Vol 9 Chapter 7.4

The water at the sh.o.r.e's edge was quite shallow, and teemed with all kinds of small fish that made their home at the edge of the roaring spray. Beneath the water, the soft sand hid all kinds of sh.e.l.lfish.

Musoru shrugged off his straw cape and carefully stepped into the shallows. The cold sea water rushed up to meet him, and he found himself immediately knee deep in the cold water. Musoru shuddered but endured, forcing himself to tolerate the frigid water. After an agonizing moment, the water no longer felt so cold, and Musoru shifted his feet forward, shuffling along the sand. He wiggled his toes, hoping to feel the hard sh.e.l.ls of sh.e.l.lfish hidden under the sand.

Some moments of shuffling around pa.s.sed, and his foot sc.r.a.ped against an object hidden beneath the sand. Musoru rolled up his sleeve and reached into the sand to pull out a large scallop, its wavey sh.e.l.l snapping shut at his touch.

Soon he filled his arms with scallops. Mother loved scallops. She always took the scallops that Musoru and Mizu caught and made them into a delicious soup. Perhaps if he brought back these scallops, mother would remember those times. He thought it was a good plan.

He wrapped the scallops in his shirt, taking no mind of his now soggy clothes.

Just a few more.

His foot hit a hard object, and he reached down to grasp the last scallop, catching the sight of his face reflected in the rippling water. His face was scratched and dirty.

Were his eyes really that red? ...... they shouldn't be.... he had tried his best not to cry.

A darkness flitted over his reflection.

Odd.... Musoru looked around, perhaps it was the shadow of a seabird, sailing in on the edge of the storm.

But the sky was empty for miles.

He look down at the water to see the dark shape pa.s.s over his reflection once again. It was enormous, dwarfing him in size, and Musoru realized with a gasp that there was something just beneath the surface. 

His sudden awareness of his surroundings led him realize something else. He had long since learned to tune out the soft lapping of waves against the sh.o.r.e. But now he realized that they sounded different, and each soft lap came away with a desperate edge, like so many claws scrabbling for purchase on rocky sh.o.r.e.

The scallops he had worked so hard to collect fell from his arms, splashing one by one into the water in a cacophony of concentric ripples.

Musoru stood rooted to the spot, his legs felt like rubber, suddenly unable muster the strength to run away. He stumbled back a few steps before falling back into the water.

Around him, the water swirled unnaturally, the soft ripples of the tide crescendoed into a deafening roar as an enormous dark creature broke the surface before him.

The creature was enormous. Its silhouette made indistinct by the s.h.a.ggy dark hair that hung from its body in soggy strands. An indistinct beast of drowned flesh, clad in the hair of its victims.

The world became strangely silent...even the lapping of the waves seem to subside. Musoru was left with the deafening pounding of his heart and the creature before him. 

Slowly, it began to turn towards him..........

Musoru bolted, desperately scrabbling for sh.o.r.e on all fours, catching his knees and hands on the sharp rocks as he clawed for purchase in terror. 


He didnt dare look back.



It was him......


It was the creature...... the shrine...... the creature of the shrine......


It was the creature sealed in the shrine........


It was he that.......... mother..........


An unexpected rage rose within his chest. Unbidden, hot tears welled up in his eyes and his fingers seized a nearby rock.

Musoru stumbled back and with a cry of pain and rage hurled the rock towards the creature, accurately aiming for the creature's head.

The rock found its mark with a painful thud and bounced off to splash into the water.

The creature startled. It hadn't expected an attack of any kind.

Its head seem to shrink in on itself, like a s.h.a.ggy fleshy snail withdrawing it's head into a sh.e.l.l.

It was silent for a moment before an unearthly cry pierced the air, a frantic high pitched chittering that twisted into a perverse choking laugh as it issued forth.

The sea itself seem to respond in kind, the waves resonating to the rhythm of the harsh sound until the waves rippled sharp and tall, slicing against the sh.o.r.e with an unearthly anger.

Within seconds, the once calm water of the bay seem to roar with a life of its own.

Musoru was just pulling himself onto the rocky sh.o.r.e when he felt something catch on to his ankle.  His breath caught in his chest as he glanced down in shock at the slimy dark hairlike tendrils encircling his ankle.

He glanced back at the beast to notice for the first time, a mouth,  sliding open where there was only hair before to reveal jagged teeth, and the same tendrils now tightly wrapped around his ankle.

With a sharp jerk, the tendrils took his precious balance on the rocks and the sea seemed to swallow him as he was pulled beneath the waves.

Musoru struggled furiously, raking his fingers against the sandy bottom, hoping to gain some kind of hold.

Presently, his head broke the surface and he screamed, calling out desperately for help.

"Anyone.... Please "

The water churned as he fought to keep his head above water. His vision blurry with tears that he would probably never live to shed.

"Mother..........................mother"

Darkness enveloped him as Musoru was pulled beneath the waves.

"Mother....... I only wanted to collect some scallops for you..............I only wanted to see you smile again.......so I.............. I dont want to..............."

The yawning silence beneath the waves seemed to stretch on forever..........Musoru closed his eyes.

............................................................

The still silence was broken by a strange and unfamiliar rhythm, and as it grew louder Musoru realized with a start that it was the rhythmic chanting of a human voice.

The chanting grew louder, stronger, until each unfamiliar syllable seem to vibrate through the water, churning around him in streams of bubbles.

And as suddenly as it came, the unbreakable grip around his ankle was gone.

Musoru mustered his last strength and kicked desperately for the surface. His lungs burned and it seemed like forever until his head broke the surface and he once again found the rock sh.o.r.e within his reach.

A figure appeared in his field of vision.

"Are you alright?!" A voice asked.

Musoru looked up between painful coughs to see a mud covered young man, perhaps only a few years older than himself kneeling before him.

Behind him the water seemed to churn with an invisible force. Musoru turned to see the creature at the surface, its long hair swirling in all directions as it too scrabbled for purchase in the churning waves.

And then... quicker than Musoru's eyes could register, it lept from the water with a roar, becoming a blur in the air and landing before them, as quick as the wind. Its great mouth yawned open between curtains of soggy hair to reveal great jagged teeth. It seemed to smile at them, leering viciously, and beckoning them forth.

It took a step forward.

Without warning, the young man grabbed Musoru, shielding him as he stepped forward and began to chant.

Musoru had never heard anything like it before. The strange foreign syllables seem to echo in the air, pulling the wind to its rhythm. With each new phrase, the wind itself seem to dance and flow until the wind whipped around them tearing at the gra.s.s and the creature before them.

The creature howled, guttural and strange as it vainly sank its claws into the earth.

And presently, it lost it's grip in a shower of sand and was carried back on the wind, howling and struggling as it writhed in the air over the bay.

The wind carried it far over the ocean before it writhed free, dropping to the ocean's surface with a thunderous splash.

The young man tensely observed the water's surface. Behind him, Musoru did as well, squinting to pick up any tell tale ripple that may announce the monster's return.

It was a long moment, and the ocean seemed to still before the ocean's distant surface seem to well up unnatrually and the surface erupted with a roar.

But unexpectely, nothing appeared. Musoru couldn't see any trace of the creature in the swirling spray.

The wind around them seem to ring, the air itself echoing with malicious intent, and a strange chittering issued from the empty air.

But there was nothing there.

Masahiro's eyes suddenly grew wide.

It WAS there, he realized. Only he couldn't see it......................     

Musoru frantically looked around in all directions, but he too could see nothing.

"MASAHIRO! TO YOUR RIGHT!!!"

The voice seem to slice through the air, reaching his ears through the roaring gale.

Instantly, Masahiro turned to face it. A spell appeared between his fingers as he screaming into the wind.

The spell lashed out in a wide arc, slicing through the wind, and pushing back sand and pebbles from the sh.o.r.e. Cracks ran across the large sh.o.r.eline rocks, but the chittering in the air began anew.

Masahiro bit his lip in frustration. Using sound and feeling the air alone is not sufficient to locate the enemy.

Unable to locate the enemy, he's unable to make decisive directed attacks.

Before him, Rikugou and Kouchin formed a shield, keeping their bodies between him and the creature.

They were invisible to Musoru, and to Masahiro as well, who was only able to locate them by feeling changes in wind direction.

Masahiro could feel the aura of the Shinshou pressing ahead.

Rikugou's form suddenly flickered into his vision. The wind around him twisted and churned, whipping against his tea-colored hair and black cloak.

Kouchin stood to his left, her aura bristling and angry like tongues of flame, spiraling down her blades so that they seemed to glow with their own aura. Their light rippled in the air, peeling away the illusion until the form of the creature was revealed.

Masahiro watched as the creature lifted into the air with the spray, seemingly climbing away on the sea mist itself.

Kouchin however seem to think differently as she pressed her attack.

"........ its gone? ....."

"It escaped?........."

"Well, it can move freely beneath the waves................It probably did....."

"That's a problem......."

The scent of youkai in the air gradually subsided and the sea once again seem to regain it's calm. The air seem to regain its stillness as well, the wind dying to a whisper.

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"Masahiro ! "

Masahiro sighed in relief and turned to nod at the approaching Narachika.

"It escaped...... "

"Aw, dont be discouraged....... you did fine. As long as the children are okay, that's a victory in and of itself. "

Narachika patted Masahiro on the head and turned to Musoru, who was cowering on the ground. In a serious voice, he asked "are you hurt ?"

Seeing his brother trembling on the ground, Mizu cried out to him, tears streaming down his face.

Musoru snapped to attention at his brother's cry. Tears streamed down his face as he nodded to him and forced a smile.

________________________________________________________________

Many of the villagers had dissappeared without a trace. Some of their bodies had been found floating for weeks on the surface of the sea.

Masahiro finally sighed in relief as he changed out of his muddy clothes and cleaned himself up.

"Looks like its much more serious than we imagined......."

The sun had set by the time they brought Mizu and Musoru home, and it was already dark when they rapped on the door of Chogu Yutari's manor.