The night was a tense, watchful thing. No one slept deeply. Sakura would startle awake, whispering about "cold thoughts in the water" or "the fast one is circling." Kenta clutched the tanegashima pistol as if it were a holy relic. The two elderly peasants, an old married couple named Eiji and Fumi, huddled together, their whispers a constant prayer. Hana rocked her son Koji, who slept the deep, oblivious sleep of the very young.
Hayato sat with his back against a mossy stone, the wakizashi across his lap. Kei sat beside him, not sleeping either. She was studying his nearly-healed bite in the faint moonlight filtering through the trees.
"It's remarkable," she whispered, her voice full of scientific awe. "The tissue regeneration is… impossible. By all rights, you should have a festering wound, or be one of them by now. Your blood must contain a neutralizing agent. An antibody we've never seen."
"My blood is just blood," Hayato said, though he knew it wasn't true. He remembered the guard-Gaki's pained retreat.
"Nothing about this is 'just' anything," Kei countered. She looked toward the creek. "Sakura said they don't drown. They walk out of rivers. That means the contagion isn't air or water-borne in a traditional sense. It's in the body. It modifies the host on a fundamental level. But your body… fights the modification. It's like you have a pre-existing defense."
"Or I am already modified," Hayato said quietly.
Kei fell silent, considering this. "Your father… you said he was a nobleman. Was he… involved in strange studies? Alchemy? Medicine?"
Hayato thought of the stern, distant man he'd known for only a few years before being cast out. "He was interested in power. In legacy. If a strange study offered that, he would have funded it." The connection was a cold thread in his gut. His immunity, his father's ambitions, the plague's unnatural origin… they were knots in the same rope.
A low moan drifted through the trees, far away but distinct. Everyone froze.
Sakura sat up, her head cocked. "It's the fast one. The one from the stable. It's… calling."
"Calling?" Kenta hissed. "They don't talk!"
"Not with words," Sakura whispered, her face pale. "With feeling. A pull. It's trying to gather the others. It's… herding them."
Hayato stood up, every sense screaming. A Gaki with enough mind to lead others was a nightmare they weren't ready for. "We need to move. Now. This hollow is a trap."
Protests died on tired lips. The fear of the intelligent hunter was greater than the fear of exhaustion. They packed the precious rice and fish, shouldered their meager belongings, and followed Hayato as he led them away from the creek, deeper into the trackless woods.
They moved for hours in the pitch dark, guided only by Hayato's instinct and Sakura's whispered warnings. "Left… the ground feels sick there." "Ahead, a quiet spot under the big rocks." She was navigating the psychic landscape as much as the physical one.
Just before dawn, as a grey light began to leach the black from the sky, they stumbled upon the river.
It was wide and slow-moving, cutting a silver path through the forest. A rickety wooden footbridge, little more than a few planks on ropes, spanned the narrower part. On the far side, the land rose into rocky hills. It looked like harder, less populated country. Safer country.
"Cross here," Hayato said. "The water might throw them off our scent."
They approached the bridge cautiously. The ropes were frayed, the planks slick with morning dew. Hayato went first, testing each step. The bridge swayed alarmingly. He made it across and turned, motioning for the next person.
Fumi went, then Eiji, holding each other's hands. Then Hana, carrying Koji on her back, her face tight with concentration. She was halfway across when Koji, stirred by the swaying, began to cry.
"Hush, my heart, hush," Hana murmured, but the child's wail cut through the morning stillness.
From the trees downstream, a chorus of groans answered.
"Go! Faster!" Hayato called from the far bank.
Kenta shoved past Kei, practically running across the planks. Sakura followed, light as a feather, her eyes wide with fear. Kei went next, the medical box clutched to her chest.
Hayato looked back the way they had come. Shapes were emerging from the mist along the riverbank. Five, six, ten Gaki. Drawn by the sound. And leading them, moving with a predator's grace along the water's edge, was the one from the stable. The fast one. It stopped and looked directly at Hayato across the river. It raised an arm and pointed.
It remembers.
"Hana, now!" Hayato yelled.
Hana was almost across. Three more steps. Two.
A plank under her foot, rotted through from the constant damp, gave way with a loud crack.
She screamed. Koji shrieked. Hana dropped through the hole up to her waist, her arms flailing, scrabbling at the ropes. Koji slid from her back, tumbling toward the rushing water ten feet below.
Hayato didn't think. He dove.
He hit the cold water an instant after the boy. The current grabbed them both. Hayato surfaced, sputtering, and saw Koji's small head bob up downstream. He struck out after him, the weight of his clothes and swords dragging him down.
Behind him, on the bridge, he heard Kenta shout and the bang of the tanegashima pistol. A miss, or a hit, he didn't know. He focused on the boy.
He caught up to Koji just as the current swept them around a bend. He grabbed the back of the child's shirt and pulled him to a half-submerged log caught on the bank. He shoved the sputtering, crying boy up onto the slippery bark, then hauled himself up after.
They were on the same side of the river as the Gaki.
Hayato looked around frantically. They were in a small, rocky inlet. The bank was steep and tangled with roots. The main group was on the far side, the bridge now between them and a growing crowd of infected. He could see Kei screaming his name, Sakura pulling at her arm. Kenta was fumbling to reload the pistol.
On the near bank, the fast Gaki was wading into the shallows. The water didn't slow it. It came on, its clicking groan urging the others forward. Four more Gaki splashed into the river after it.
Hayato was trapped. A steep bank behind him, a river full of monsters in front. And a terrified child clinging to him.
He drew his wakizashi. It was a pitiful weapon against five.
The fast one reached their log first. It lunged, not with mindless hunger, but with a calculating swipe aimed to disarm. Hayato parried, the force of the blow numbing his arm. The thing was strong. It pressed forward, its jaws snapping.
Hayato kicked out, connecting with its knee. It stumbled back a step into the deeper water. The other four were almost on them, arms outstretched.
He prepared to sell his life as dearly as possible, to give Koji a few more seconds.
A shadow fell over them.
A rope, thick and knotted, slapped the log beside Hayato. He looked up.
A man stood on the top of the steep bank, silhouetted against the dawn sky. He was tall, wrapped in a dark, hooded cloak. In his hands was a strange weapon, a long, black staff that ended in a curved blade on one side and a heavy iron hook on the other. A nagamaki, but of an unusual design.
"Grab the rope, idiot!" the man called down, his voice rough but amused.
Hayato didn't hesitate. He shoved the wakizashi into his belt, grabbed Koji with one arm, and the rope with the other. The man above braced himself and began to haul.
Hayato's feet scrambled against the muddy bank as he was dragged upward. Below, the fast Gaki leaped, its fingers brushing Hayato's sodden sandal before falling back into the water with a snarl of frustration.
In moments, Hayato and Koji were pulled over the lip of the bank and onto level ground. Hayato rolled to his feet, placing Koji behind him, wakizashi back in his hand, facing their rescuer.
The man lowered his hood. He was in his thirties, with a lean, sharp-featured face and eyes that held a permanent, cynical smirk. He was missing the little finger on his left hand. He leaned on his strange nagamaki staff like it was a walking stick.
"A bit damp for a morning stroll, ronin," the man said, his eyes flicking from Hayato to the sobbing child.
"Who are you?" Hayato demanded.
"Call me Jubei. And you're welcome." He nodded toward the river. "Your friends are making a racket. We should move before her little friends figure out how to climb."
Hayato looked across the river. Kei was pointing and shouting. On the near bank, the fast Gaki was staring up at them. It wasn't trying to climb. It was watching, calculating. Then it turned and vanished into the trees, the other Gaki following it.
It's scouting. Learning our paths.
"Come on," Jubei said, turning and walking into the woods without a backward glance. "I know a place."
Hayato picked up Koji, who had quieted to hiccuping sobs, and followed. This Jubei moved like smoke, silent and fluid, finding paths where there seemed to be none. After twenty minutes, they came to a hidden overhang of rock, a shallow cave behind a curtain of hanging vines.
Inside, a small, cold fire pit sat in the center. A worn pack and a bedroll were tucked in the back. This was Jubei's camp.
Hayato set Koji down. The boy curled into a ball, shivering from cold and shock.
"Your woman is going to be frantic," Jubei said, shrugging off his cloak and using it to roughly towel the boy's hair. The action was surprisingly gentle.
"She is not my woman," Hayato said. "She is a doctor. We are trying to reach Edo."
"Edo?" Jubei barked a laugh. "Good luck. The road is a butcher's block. But a doctor, you say?" His smirk faded into something more thoughtful. "Useful. And the girl with the weird eyes? The one who was pointing at the water before the dead even showed up?"
Hayato didn't answer. He was assessing Jubei. The missing finger was a yubitsume—a ritual punishment for a transgression, often used by criminals or… ninja. His weapon, his stealth, his solitary camp. This man was a shadow-warrior. A sell-sword.
"You're a ninja," Hayato stated.
"Was," Jubei corrected, poking at the ashes of the fire. "Clan's gone. Now I'm just a man who knows how to stay alive. Which is more than I can say for you, marching around with a crying baby and a scholar." He looked at Hayato's bitten arm, now clearly visible with his sleeve torn. His smirk returned. "Though you do have interesting scars. That a bite?"
"It is."
"And you're not chewing my face off. Even more interesting." Jubei's eyes were shrewd. "You're full of interesting things, ronin. I was watching you at the way-station. The fire trick was bold. Stupid, but bold."
"You were there?"
"Following the Oda lord's caravan. Hoping to scavenge after the inevitable. Then you and your noisy friends showed up." He sighed. "Business is good these days, but clients are scarce."
Hayato ignored the banter. "We need to reunite with my group. They're on the other side of the river."
"Bridge is gone. The big one pulled the ropes apart after you fell. They'll have to go upstream to the ford. Half a day's walk." Jubei rummaged in his pack and tossed a strip of dried meat to Hayato, then one to Koji. "Eat. We'll meet them there. If they're smart enough to find it."
Hayato caught the meat. "Why help us?"
Jubei leaned back, picking his teeth with a sliver of wood. "Like I said. A doctor is useful. A girl who can sense the dead is very useful. And you…" He nodded at the bite again. "You're a mystery. Mysteries are either valuable or dangerous. I'd like to find out which before I decide what to do with you."
It was a brutally honest answer. Hayato preferred it to lies. He tore off a piece of the meat and chewed. It was tough and salty. "The ford. You'll take us?"
"For a price."
"What price?"
"One favor. To be named later." Jubei's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Nothing dishonorable. Probably. Just a small task for a new friend."
Hayato knew deals with men like this were deals with demons. But he had a child to protect, a group to reunite, and a deadly, intelligent hunter somewhere in these woods. He needed this man's knowledge.
"Agreed," Hayato said.
"Good!" Jubei clapped his hands together, the sound making Koji jump. "Now, let's get moving. I don't like staying in one place when she's on the prowl."
"She? The fast one?"
Jubei's expression turned grim, all humor gone. "You've noticed it's smarter. It used to be a kunoichi. A female ninja from a rival clan. Name was Kuroi. The Black Spider. Nasty piece of work. Now she's nastier. And she's building a pack."
The pieces fell into place. The coordinated attacks, the herding, the retreat. A ninja's tactical mind, trapped in a Gaki's body, driven by endless hunger. It was a commander for the enemy.
Hayato looked at Koji, who was finally eating the meat, his tears drying. He thought of Kei and Sakura, lost and vulnerable on the other side of the river. The world had just become infinitely more complex, and infinitely more dangerous. And their only guide was a cynical, fingerless ninja who charged in favors.
He stood up, sheathing his wakizashi. "Lead the way, Jubei."
The ninja grinned, a flash of white in the dim cave. "I think this is the start of a beautiful partnership, ronin. Now, let's go find your doctor before the Spider does."