~~~

As luck would have it, the path around the western edge of Lake Suwa had been designed and crafted by someone fond of curves and bends, and therefore only took about half a minute before they were out of sight of the twelve monk demons. Then another minute on top of that to find a sufficiently dense clump of trees to hide within and get a visual on Akira.

‘He’s not stopping…’ protested Miho, trying to move out and quickly being pulled back by his yukata sleeve.

‘I told you, it’s hypnotic suggestion. He’ll go directly into the lake without stopping, and if anyone tries to stop him or pull him back, there’s a good chance he’ll stab them.’

‘No, he knows us…’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘…and he doesn’t want to drown in a lake. At all.’

‘What part of hypnotic suggestion is confusing you?’

‘Seriously, let go of my sleeve. We can’t just stand here and do nothing.’

Aya used up a few more seconds with pretend contemplation then said fine and released her grip, muttering kuso under her breath as Miho shot out from the treeline and, straight away, started sprinting after the zombie ashigaru. In some ways, she admired him for this kind of moral nature, the impulse to rescue those who definitely wouldn’t do the same for him. But those ways were deep in the back of her brain, right next to not all ashigaru are bad and the bandit lifestyle is quite romantic actually, and her functioning rational core was telling her to ditch them both, cos they’ll only get you killed.

It was a persuasive argument, but a lonely one too, and, when she saw Miho reach Akira and, two seconds later, get punched to the ground, she thought, okay, maybe we can knock the ashigaru out before he reaches the water, and started running.

By the time she caught up to a dazed Miho, Akira was already at the shore of the lake. He ignored the shouts of the people who’d initially run away from the twelve monks to ‘wake up,’ and strolled straight in as if it were nothing more than an early afternoon dip.

‘His eyes are gone,’ said Miho, letting Aya help him up and then stumbling on again towards the water’s edge.

‘You have to hit him first,’ she replied, scanning the grass for a decent-sized rock. ‘Hard enough to knock him out.’

‘What if we kill him?’

‘It’s either that or the water,’ she said, spotting a rogue twig and picking it up.

They both ran on, past the onlookers who had stopped yelling and were instead lobbing pebbles at Akira’s head as it descended towards the surface of the lake, and then into the water itself.

‘He’s too deep…’ said Aya, pulling back.

‘Come on.’

‘Miho…it’s too far, he’ll drown you too.’

‘Just need to get on his back.’

‘He’s too strong…’

‘Both of us. Come on, stop paddling, get in here.’

Aya stayed rooted to the spot, the tide trickling over her feet. She watched, with the twig still loose in her hand, as Miho started shouting Akira’s name, abandoning his laboured strides through the water and launching into a desperate front crawl when the ashigaru’s head vanished beneath the surface.

It really was too late, she thought. Somehow, the ashigaru…Akira…had walked faster than expected, as if some part of him welcomed this kind of passive death, and there was a good chance that Miho wouldn’t even be able to find him.

Was that a good thing?

The twig fell out of her hand and sank into the water. Crouching down to pick it up, she heard Miho’s shouts in the near distance, then splashes behind her and another voice telling her it was okay, this wasn’t the first time this kind of thing had happened.

She looked up and…toppled over as a figure with red and white ribbons trailing out of his hair blazed past…his water walking technique exceptional…

No, wait…she’d seen him before.

The magic guy from the izakaya in Uehara, the coins floating off the floor. The red and white paint on his neck…

Kao nashi? Was that what Reiko had called him?

Either unaware of or unconcerned about the tide, Aya stayed sitting in the shallows of the lake, eyes fixed on the magic guy as he joined Miho, the two of them barked queries at each other for a few seconds before screaming ‘no’ and diving under the surface.

Thirty seconds passed and Aya started to get nervous.

Then a minute.

Then Miho broke the surface and pushed back, looking around for signs of other life. But there was nothing, just the sedate backdrop of Lake Suwa, and he was about to drop under again when something froze him solid.

A rush of wind, accompanied by a whistling noise, followed by two heads sprouting up out of the water, the red and white striped one gripping the other with his right arm.

With Miho bobbing alongside, trying to find an avenue to get close and help the escort mission, the magic guy swam slowly, methodically back to shore, eventually getting close enough to stand up and carry Akira over his shoulder.

‘Close call…’ he said, passing Aya, who grabbed her twig and stood up, pursuing them onto the grass.

‘How?’ she asked, kneeling down next to the magic guy as he slapped Akira on the face several times before holding his nose and giving him a big kiss on the lips.

‘Magic…’ he replied, coming back up for breath, and getting a gob full of lake water in the face from a reviving ashigaru.

‘But…he was under hypnosis…’

‘Not anymore.’

‘Water…who…where?’ blurted Akira, coughing up more contents of Lake Suwa, and then squinting at the magic guy’s face. ‘Kenji? Is that you?’

‘Err…not quite.’

Akira rubbed his eyes and tried again, singling out the red and white ribbons, which seemed to be emitting a faint, silvery glow. ‘Who are you? What happened?’

‘That depends on how much you remember.’

‘You almost drowned,’ added Miho, bending down on the other side, pushing his soaking wet fringe away from his eyes.

‘Drowned…’ Akira closed his eyes, slapped himself on the cheek then opened them again. He did a full scan of the three faces staring back at him. Then coughed and brought up more lake water.

‘Take your time,’ coached the magic guy, sitting back and wiping his own face.

‘Don’t try and move,’ added Miho, swiping away an insect that was attempting to crawl onto hand.

Akira nodded shakily, then let his head drop back down onto the grass. He looked up at the sky for a while, coughing every now and then, before finally let out a long, deliberate breath. ‘Kuso…’

‘What?’

‘I have a doomed feeling you saved my life again.’

‘Not really. It was mostly this guy.’ Miho paused, looking at the magic man. ‘Sorry, I don’t know your name.’

‘Daiki.’

‘Ah, not Kao Nashi,’ muttered Aya, accidentally stamping her hand down on Akira’s arm and making him muffle a squeal.

‘That’s my stage name, for performances. I assume you saw one?’

‘No. We met at the izakaya…yesterday, in Uehara.’

‘We did?’

‘You lifted a coin off the floor. Using your hand.’

‘Err…doesn’t sound like a very memorable trick,’ he said, running his fingers down the length of a hair ribbon and then onto the painted skin of his neck. ‘Anyway, lucky for you, I was walking by today, otherwise…’

‘…he would’ve died.’

‘Well…in all likelihood, yes.’

Aya looked down at the ashigaru and the lake water still dribbling out the corner of his mouth. ‘I still don’t get it though, how did you disarm the hypnotic suggestion?’

‘Hypno what?’ asked Akira, raising his head again.

‘Hypnosis. It’s what led you into the lake.’

‘It’s true, you wouldn’t stop,’ said Miho, pointing at his cheek. ‘I tried to pull you back and you punched me.’

‘So that’s why my hand is sore again.’ Akira slowly rotated the previously sprained wrist, making quiet kuso sounds, then stopped abruptly and stared at Miho’s face. ‘Wah…the monk…’

‘Ah, I see it’s coming back to you.’

‘Twelve of them, way too calm to…ah, and those orange eyes. Kuso, he’s a fucking demon isn’t he?’

Daiki rubbed the red paint on his neck and looked at Aya, who looked at Miho, who looked at Daiki.

‘I take it this isn’t the first time you’ve encountered one of their kind.’

‘Not the second time either,’ replied Miho.

‘We’ve seen one or two,’ clarified Aya, swatting an insect away from Miho’s hand [the same one as before, in fact].

‘Huh? When did you see one?’ asked Akira, coughing up more fluids.

‘The green man at the ryokan. I didn’t know for sure, but-…then you said he was a demon and…’

‘Hang on,’ interjected Miho, moving his hand off the grass completely as the insect just wouldn’t stop. ‘You knew about that monk too.’

‘Who did?’ asked Akira, instinctively looking to the stranger with paint on his neck, and then at Aya when she started speaking.

‘Yeah, the hypnosis part…it happened to my friend before, the same thing. But I didn’t know he was a demon.’

‘Okay, maybe we should keep our voices down a bit,’ said Daiki, his own voice not that quiet. ‘Not everyone around here knows as much as we do…’

‘We’re not that loud, are we?’

Daiki looked down at his hair, muttering something.

‘Daiki?’

‘Not yet…still too open.’

‘Sorry?’

‘When I’m certain, then I’ll go.’

‘Did he eat one of those fir tree talismans?’ whispered Akira to the general air space above his face, ‘or am I hallucinating this?’

One of the words, possibly hallucinating got Daiki’s attention and brought him back up from his hair. Or his neck. Whatever he was communicating with.

‘Sorry, I like to self-strategise sometimes. What did I miss?’

‘You said we shouldn’t talk too loud about demons.’

‘Ah, right. Good advice. People around here might not understand.’

Miho put his hand back on the grass, trying out one of his new scepticism faces. ‘Are you sure? They all ran away from the shrine when the orange monk demon came.’

‘Yeah, that’s just them being cheap. They don’t want to pay off the curse, see.’

‘They don’t know he’s a demon?’ asked Aya.

‘Not objectively, no. Of course, they believe in them generally, the stories, myths…Suwa is a historically superstitious place after all…but they wouldn’t pin the monk to it.’

‘But you do…’ said Miho, one eye on the insect discreetly approaching his fingers.

‘I’ve had some experiences.’

‘Tell me one thing,’ said Akira, leaning forward. ‘If I see that monk again, will he be able to control my brain?’

‘No. Theoretically.’

‘Right, action time.’ Akira used Miho’s yukata sleeve to pull himself up to his feet, acted out some impromptu neck exercises, then turned and began walking back to the portable shrine spot.

‘Where are you going?’ shouted Miho, straightening out his yukata sleeve.

‘You’re still in recovery, idiot,’ added Aya, standing up.

‘Gonna see a monk about a debt. And by debt I mean I’m gonna cut his fucking face off. Grinning little scab thinks he can…’

The insult died the same time his legs deserted him, and his whole irate ashigaru mass collapsed in sideways steps back onto the grass.

‘I told him not to move so much…’ said Daiki, letting out an impressive whistle.

‘Is he okay?’

‘Probably unconscious. You can go and check on him if you like?’ Daiki gestured at one of the onlookers moving over with a bucket and brush. ‘Before they start painting him.’

‘Wah, what is he doing?’ Miho sprang up and rushed over, pushing the bucket guy and spilling some of the paint in the process.

‘I better go and assist,’ said Aya, looking down at her hand and wondering why and how the twig was still there. ‘Thanks for saving our-…for saving that guy.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be paid back in kind one day,’ he replied, smiling.

‘Yeah…I hope so.’

Aya got to her feet and ambled over the grass towards Miho, who was standing with his arms folded, waiting for the bucket guy to finish his paint line.

‘You’re letting him do that?’ she asked, glancing back at the mage and frowning when she saw him jabbing a finger at his own hair, seemingly arguing with it.

‘He was upset about the spilt paint.’

‘Miho…’

‘Hey, one line, remember?’ Miho said, prodding the guy with the bucket, who turned and gave a feral look…then returned to add a final dab of red to Akira’s forehead.

‘There, fully reborn,’ he said, putting the brush back in the bucket, bowing to Aya, growling at Miho and then walking off towards the shore of the lake.

‘What are you going to tell him when he wakes up?’

‘About the paint? Nothing.’

‘Okay. Interesting choice.’

‘Should be no big deal. I mean, how often do you look at your own forehead?’

Aya shook her head, then saw the sincerity on Miho’s face, took off the handbrake and laughed.

‘Not often, right?’

Below them, the reborn ashigaru opened his eyes and groaned, then rolled onto his side and mumbled directly to a burnt-out patch of grass, ‘that fucking monk…gonna face off…cut it…’

‘Maybe after a short rest,’ suggested Miho, bending down and patting the air near Akira’s shoulder.

‘All of it…not just chin…whole skin…’ He stopped, wiping his forehead and taking off some of the paint. ‘Sweating…not that hot…’

Aya and Miho held their breath, but luckily, Akira was too out of it to look at the palm of his hand, and even if he did, he would probably think it was lake water.

Which it partially was.