章節 3: Shibuya incident (2)
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Slowly, I approached the nearest entrance to Shibuya Station. To say I wasn't scared would be a lie. A big lie, even.
The entrance was shrouded in an unnatural darkness, and a sinister wind, whispering of fear and dread, blew toward me.
I gathered all my courage and continued walking slowly, step by step, down into the darkness.
The flames of my sword and my eye burned into the darkness, but even they couldn't completely dispel it, as it flapped like a black sheet over the ground.
In the distance, I could make out the figure of a woman who had just turned a corner, and without thinking, I ran after her to warn her and get her out of danger. But as I rounded the corner, only darkness lay before me once more.
Then I sensed movement behind me and turned around as quickly as I could, drawing my sword to strike.
But in front of me stood only a young woman who had pulled a scarf deep over her face and looked panicked.
Quickly, I transformed my sword into a talisman and said, "You better get out of here quickly, it could be dangerous!"
But she just looked at me and asked, "Am I beautiful?"
I quickly replied, "Yeah, yeah, beautiful, but you need to get out of here fast!"
But the young woman continued to stare at me and then pulled the scarf from her face.
"And now?"
'Fuck, Kuchisake-onna!' were my only thoughts. Quickly, I tried to remember what Amaterasu had taught me about this kind of cursed spirit.
"The Kuchisake-onna, or slit-mouthed woman, is a very sad but extremely dangerous type of cursed spirit.
She appeares as a creepy woman who wears a surgical mask or a scarf to hide her disfigured mouth, which is slit from ear to ear.
She was once a beautiful woman and is often described as a samurai's wife or concubine. In various versions of the story, her face was disfigured by her jealous husband or lover, who believed she had cheated on him. When he slit her mouth, he supposedly said, 'Who will find you beautiful now?'
She frequently appears on streets, especially at night, and asks passersby a terrifying question: 'Am I beautiful?' If you answer 'yes,' she pulls down her mask and reveals her mutilated mouth, then asks again, 'And now?' If the person still says 'yes,' she slits the victim's mouth in a similar manner to make them like herself. If the person says 'no,' Kuchisake-onna is said to kill the victim immediately."
Both options were out of the question for me, so I ran and took my sword back in hand. Behind me, I heard a creepy howling and hissing, and one could faintly make out the words "So no?"
I rounded the next corner and took a deep breath. I felt the fire of my heart flooding my lungs and the warmth calming me.
I heard the soft steps of bare feet following me and prepared myself internally. Then I saw the cursed spirit rounding the corner. Her eyes narrowed, and a sinister grin spread across her disfigured face. With a guttural growl, she lunged at me, her claws outstretched, ready to tear me apart.
The Kuchisake-onna was quick, but I deftly dodged and positioned myself. Her breath was like hot wind on my skin, and her attacks came with wild, unpredictable fury. She shrieked as she reached for me with sharp fingers, but I blocked the attack and pushed her back.
With a powerful scream, she launched another attack, but the moment I had been waiting for had come. With a mighty swing, I severed her neck with the first step of my sun sword dance. Blood spurted in all directions as her head hit the ground with a dull thud. Her body twitched violently once more, as if refusing to accept the reality of her death, before finally collapsing.
I stood motionless, the blood of the Kuchisake-onna evaporating on my fiery blade. After taking a deep breath, I looked back into the darkness, from which I now heard cruel screams of pain and fear.
With a sigh, I ventured further into the darkness. The deeper I went into the station, the greater my unease grew. I knew that something lurked in the darkness, just waiting for my concentration to lapse.
Suddenly, my steps splashed, and I found myself ankle-deep in a puddle. Around me, hundreds of pairs of eyes lit up, reflecting the light from my flaming eye. These were kappas, water spirits usually found in rivers, streams, and ponds.
The fact that they were here, waiting in a puddle for potential victims of their often deadly pranks, was extremely unnatural and immediately stood out to me. Whatever was going on here definitely had power over smaller and weaker cursed spirits.
The kappas chattered with their beak-like mouths among themselves while I watched them cautiously. Not all cursed spirits were malevolent, and kappas are generally considered more benign. Nonetheless, they were also known to drown humans or animals in their waters, so...
Fortunately, I was alert because, after a deep humming sound emanated from the darkness, they all pounced on me simultaneously.
I smoothly drew my katana and began my sun sword dance. However, I did not kill the kappas; instead, I split each one's hollow head with precise strikes. After a beautiful yet deadly dance through the ranks of the kappas, they all lay with their split shell heads draining water.
This might sound extremely cruel, but only if you don't know that the most notable feature of kappas is a hollow, water-filled shell on their head. This water gives them their supernatural powers, and when it's spilled, they lose their strength.
Thus, I didn't kill any kappas because they often help humans. For example, they heal the injured or irrigate farmers' dry fields in the summer.
The wounds on their shell heads would soon heal, and new water would form, making the kappas lively again.
The deep humming sounded once more, and a cruel wind came from the deep darkness, killing all the helpless kappas.
I stared silently at the carnage before me and swallowed hard. The wind hadn't just killed the kappas; it had shredded them. Anger welled up inside me, and I couldn't help but think about the poor people still trapped in the deep darkness, who kept screaming loudly.
Whether out of fear or pain, I couldn't say. But after seeing how mercilessly the kappas were killed, I already imagined the worst in my mind.
Forgetting my fear, I ran, plunging deeper into the darkness until it completely swallowed me, heading toward the screams. My heroism, or stupidity as Granny called it, flared up once again, even though it had been thoroughly beaten out of me by Granny during my training. Nonetheless, I continued to run; I simply couldn't leave the people ahead to their fate.
I ran until I was so deep in the darkness that not a single ray of light could reach me.
Then the darkness practically spat me out, and according to the waysigns i saw, I was on the platform of the Ginza Line.
But I wasn't alone here. In the middle of the platform stood a skeletal throne on which an incredibly muscular man sat. He wore traditional samurai armor, and resting on his knees was an really oversized ōdachi. Beside the throne stood eight identical-looking men.
This was always a bad sign in the supernatural world; after all, have you ever heard of identical octuplets? Neither have I.
Finally, my eyes fell on the roughly 150 people bound to the tracks. A quick glance at the display board filled me with panic. In exactly six minutes, the Ginza Line would arrive, giving me exactly five minutes to solve any problem the throne-guy throws at me and one minute to untie them all.
"Ahhh, hello and welcome! Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest today! May I introduce? Amaterasu's Blade!!!" the man on the throne shouted to the people as he stood up and walked around his throne.
"My name is Susanoo, God of the Winds, Storms and the Ocean and last but not least, I am your host for today's fight. Will my sister's blessed warrior win the battle and save all your lives as the prize? Or will my old foe but now good eight-headed buddy Yamata no Orochi prevail and win an all-you-can-eat human buffet?"
"The fight will last one round of five minutes or until death! Let the game begin!" he said with a devilish grin, and in the next moment, the octuplets rushed toward me, transforming on the halfway mark into an eight-headed serpent.
"Fuck!!" I screamed as loud as I could, letting my flames flare up as I leapt towards Yamata no Orochi with my drawn blade and flaming eye.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票