A great clamoring, frantic crowd of people, police vehicles, and ambulances had gathered near Hakone Shrine
.
Having taken the motor boat to the stone wharf beneath the Torii of Peace, Takaya and Naoe were there to witness the harrowing spectacle.
The main shrine seemed to have escaped damage, the worst of which had struck and collapsed the stone steps of the shrine path and pulverized the stone torii. The asphalt was gouged and trees toppled. There were many casualties.
A noisy throng of curious bystanders and reporters watched as another body was placed on a stretcher and carried to a waiting ambulance. Standing silently in the shade of the trees, Takaya’s gaze followed the ambulance as it drove away.
“...Did you do this?” he asked the man beside him without a glance, with no trace of emotion.
Naoe made no response.
His gaze still focused straight ahead, his thoughts purely on the reality of the situation at hand, Takaya repeated, “You did this, didn’t you?”
“I had no choice. I did my best with what I had.”
“You went too far.” There was no change in Takaya’s expression. “You call this your best? — Injuring and killing so many people when it’s likely most of them were merely possessed by Houjou spirits?”
“Nevertheless, here you stand. If I had acted otherwise, I would not have been able to recover the Tsutsuga Mirror.”
“There must have been a better way,” Takaya brushed aside any possible compromise based on the premise of his own well-being. “Our highest mission is to protect the safety of the living. There is no greater consideration—any advantages, disadvantages, and handicaps to us is irrelevant. This won’t happen again. Do you hear me, Naoe?”
“...”
Naoe did not dare protest. Emergency rescue workers carried yet another corpse away on a stretcher. As it passed in front of him, Naoe recognized the man who until just a few hours ago had been Houjou Ujiteru.
Takaya must have realized the same thing, but his expression never changed. He gazed after it gravely before turning to survey the multitude of giant fallen cedars.
“There were human souls bound to those trees, weren’t there?” Takaya remarked, glaring into the middle distance. “So the Houjou onshou are planning to fuse the three energy forms in the ‘Ritual of Unification by Fire’.”
Naoe was struck once again by Takaya’s clear objectivity and lack of predilection for his own blood. Yes, it was true that he had no memories of his past, but his cool composure impressed Naoe. Rather than severing all sentiment, he seemed simply to be completely cold.
“Looks like they were planning to use the ‘Yatate Cedar’ as their power core, huh? I guess it’s suitable, but we cannot allow the Houjou to violate this place further.”
“A barrier, then?”
“Kagetora! Naoe!” The joyful shriek of a familiar feminine voice from the path above the stone steps interrupted them. Ayako squeezed her way through the tangle of emergency personnel and police officers, bounding towards them with all the eagerness of a puppy, half laughing and half crying.
“Haruie.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay! Both of you!”
Ayako looked like she was about to start bouncing off the walls. She had arrived on her motorcycle shortly before them. Fearing that Naoe and Takaya had been caught up in the devastation, she had frantically made inquires amongst the police officers and rescue workers.
“I thought for sure we were finished! The Fuuma got to Tooyama; then, when I rushed here from Odawara, I found Hakone Shrine like this! I was convinced you were dead!”
“Tooyama? Odawara? What are you talking about?”
“I called him.”
Takaya returned Naoe’s surprised look sharply. “I turned Tooyama Yasuhide and had him spy on the Houjou. I also sent Chiaki to rescue Yuzuru, but it looks like he ran into something we didn’t expect.”
“Tooyama? Rescue Yuzuru-san? What happened?”
“That’s right! We haven’t heard anything from Nagahide! Something must’ve gone wrong, Kagetora.”
“Let’s head to Nikkou,” Takaya decided, looking at Naoe resolutely. “But first we need to put up a barrier to keep the Houjou out of this area; so long as the tree-bindings are not released, this place will remain dangerous. A barrier will make performing the ‘Ritual of Unification by Fire’ that much harder—another reason we need to protect Hakone Shrine and its sacred ground. Without the use of Hakone’s sacred power as a focus, even the Houjou’s most powerful spell will fall short.”
“...”
“They’re maneuvering to seize and combine the immense spiritual power of Nikkou and Hakone, the two great sacred ground of the Kantou. If we can hold just one of the two, we deny the Houjou the ability to complete their monstrous spell. We‘ll enclose Hakone Shrine with a ’Fire Seal,’ Takaya resolved. ”Without the use of fire, the Houjou will not be able to perform the unification ritual. We will then place the Hakone barrier under the direct protection of the Four Heavenly Kings."
“‘Fire Seal?’ Isn’t Hikohohodemi-no-mikoto, one of the deities of Hakone Shrine, a god of fire? If something goes wrong, we may end up with a case of ‘heterogeneous powers opposing each other’...”
“Don’t worry about that. The true forms of the three deities of Hakone Shrine are Monju, Kannon, and Miroku no San Bosatsu, their enshrined incarnations Ninigi-no-mikoto, Konohanasakuya-hime, and Hikohohodemi-no-mikoto. It is the duty of the Four Heavenly Kings to protect the gods and buddhas, no matter what forms they assume. We are not trying to seal the gods, but to protect them. Fire is, in this case, a necessary evil, so it should not cause a backlash of incompatible powers.”
“...”
“We have no other choice. Let’s get this started,” Takaya commanded, turning his back to the crowd and heading for a deserted grove on the lake shore without looking back. Naoe stared after him, stunned by his swift decisiveness, the familiar feeling of rejection welling up inside him.
(Despite everything, I have no choice but to obey...) Naoe broke out of his reverie and chased after the resolute figure of his master.
Would he keep walking even if Naoe did not follow?
He wondered...
“This spot should do.” The place he had chosen offered an almost unrestricted view of the entire Hakone Shrine forest. “The ritual may draw spirits who will try to interfere. It will be up to you to protect me,” Takaya said, stepping forward with careful deliberation and sinking in lotus position to the ground. He slowly formed the ritual gestures of the Four Heavenly Kings in turn, his sleeves sweeping with the movements. Breathing rhythmically, he focused his will.
Standing to either side, Naoe and Ayako raised their index and middle fingers in the sign of the sword. They touched their foreheads and cried, “Dome barrier!” before drawing a circle around Takaya. “Let no powers of evil touch him!”
“Hail and all reverence to the Four Heavenly Kings!” Takaya intoned. “Here, upon this holy ground of the three avatars of Hakone, I devote myself to the eradication of those who seek to summon the demons of fire. Lend me your power for the protection of the ‘world.’ —I bind the four directions!”
A pearl of white light formed within Takaya’s fists as he released them from the ritual gesture. He slowly brought his hands apart, and the light separated into two, and then four.
Within each sphere floated the seed symbol of one of the Four Heavenly Kings. As they whirled in Takaya’s hands, the spheres of light roared and burst into pure white flame.
“Let all fire be sealed by the pearls of the Four!”
He raised himself to one knee in a quick movement.
“Barrier to the east!” he shouted, casting the sphere of the guardian of the East, Jikokuten, up into the sky. It transformed into a flaming arrow and flew towards the mountains to the east of Hakone.
“Barrier to the south!”
He flung the sphere of the South, Zouchouten, upward. It trailed a blazing tail towards Moto-Hakone .
“Barrier to the west!”
The sphere of Koumokuten, guardian of the West, streaked away toward Lake Ashi.
“Barrier to the north!” he cried, and threw the last sphere, that of Tamonten, also known as Bishamonten, up into the sky. Takaya paused a moment to allow the four spheres to bury themselves into the earth at the four cardinal points before bringing his hands together in prayer.
“O gods, defenders of the faith, appear before us!”
A deep rumble shook the earth from the forest’s four corners, and the air shimmered above them as if from high heat. Then they resolved into humanoid shapes: four warriors as tall as the mountains.
These were the divine defenders of Buddhism known as the Four Heavenly Kings. Ordinary people could not see them, of course; only those especially sensitive to the spirit realm were able to sense them at all.
“Dome barrier!”
Takaya spread his arms wide, and spiritual energy flared from the entire length of his body to fill the clear air. It set the Four Heavenly Kings aglow and covered Hakone Shrine’s forest in a semi-spherical barrier.
Naoe and Ayako’s «curtain of protection» had withstood attacks from the various evil spirits attracted by the supernatural disturbance, melting them away as soon as they came in contact with it. But on the verge of the ritual’s completion—
“...!”
Something odd pinged Ayako’s sixth sense.
“Naoe!”
Naoe had already noticed the susurration of eerie auras moving around them. Was it tsutsuga? Naoe shifted into fighting stance.
“Eww!”
A mass of ghouls half-slithered, half-crawled toward them, oozing unidentifiable secretions from their mouths and bodies as they went.
“Wh-what the hell is that?!”
“Guh!” More surged from the ground. A hand erupted from the soil beneath Naoe’s feet and held him fast.
Ayako shrieked. She was surrounded, trapped. “Naoe!”
“Don’t let them near Kagetora-sama! The careless use of power will disrupt the balance of his energy and place him in danger!”
“Eeeeek! Get away from me!”
The ghouls pressed toward Takaya. Naoe’s «nenpa» failed to stop them as they smashed through the «curtain of protection» with their arms and reached for Takaya. Desperate, he seized a ghoul and dragged it back with his bare hands.
“The «curtain of protection» is too weak! Haruie!”
“These ghouls are way nastier than ordinary spirits—they’re infused with «evil intent»!”
“Why would...!”
Worm-like tentacles shot out from the bodies of the encircling ghouls to enveloped Naoe and Ayako.
“Gyaaaaaah!”
Their «nenpa» had virtually no effect. Ayako floundered beneath a suffocating mass of ghouls. Naoe, still desperately bolstering the «curtain of protection», struggled for breath as their thick tentacles clung to him, filling his nose and mouth, thrusting themselves down his throat as they sought to invade his body. Choking, suffocating, Naoe and Ayako writhed in agony.
Ssslt! Ghouls fell howling and oozing fluids as their tentacles were ripped away to wriggle along the ground like maggots.
Barrier ritual completed, Takaya had risen to join the fight. The ghouls turned their focused hostility on him, but he only glared calmly back at them. They attacked with muddy sputum flying.
Eyes flashing, Takaya knelt and touched the ground with his right hand. “Thunderbolt of exorcism, strike!”
Silver plasmatic energy streaked across the earth like horizontal lightning, branching endlessly. Where they struck, ghouls screamed and vanished in wisps of smoke. The entire ghoul horde was annihilated in the blink of an eye.
Takaya straightened with a brief sigh. Ayako and Naoe joined him, still coughing.
“What were those things, those ghouls?”
“Artificial creations, a little like clay dolls. They’re produced by mixing and binding together the emotions of people with that of beasts. My guess is that there are still a large number scattered around this area.”
“Who in the world would do something like this?”
“This is the work of the Fuuma,” Takaya stated with certainty, and turned on his heels. “Their mastery of the secret Esoteric teachings of the ascetics of Hakone makes such a working trivial. I’m sure we’ll see more of their tricks. Don’t let your guard down until we’ve left the Hakone mountains behind.”
“We’re heading to Nikkou, then? But the Houjou still hold the Tsutsuga Mirrors...”
“No, we do. Or as good as.”
“What?!”
“I drew a tsutsuga into Tooyama’s mirror and forged a sympathetic link with it while in the mirror world. Then I merged it with the female Tsutsuga Mirror—thus I will always be able to track the Mirror. If all goes well, I’ll be able to use the influence of the female Tsutsuga Mirror to control the entire pride.”
“...”
The sheer brilliance of Kagetora’s groundwork astonished Naoe. Takaya could never lay claim to this absolute determination to turn any misfortune to his advantage; this, clearly, was all Kagetora.
“The Four Heavenly Kings will protect Hakone for the time being. We need to get to Nikkou immediately. The Houjou intend to take possession of the three cedars of Futarasan Shrine—Nikkou’s core of power. Souls with tremendous spiritual energy have already been bound to the two subordinate trees.”
Souls, of course, which belonged to Asaoka Shinya and the man devoured by a tsutsuga at Kegon Falls. These two souls possessed spiritual energy many times greater that of the average person, thus making them targets of the Houjou.
“Whom do they intend to bind to the main tree?”
“Yuzuru,” Takaya responded, features sharpening. “They don’t know how dangerous it would be to make him their sacrifice. We must stop them by any means necessarily.”
“Then you know Yuzuru-san’s true—?!”
Takaya cut him off with a shake of his head. “...His power is fully as devastating as a nuclear bomb; it is capable of leveling a country. This is my father Kenshin’s command: protect Yuzuru.”
“Lord Uesugi’s... What in the world!”
“Let’s head for Nikkou,” Takaya concluded grimly. “But first we need to get out of Hakone. I’ll ride with Naoe. Haruie, link with me. I’ll break through any obstacles the Fuuma throw at us. Don’t let them confuse you; listen to my voice and obey me and me alone. Got it?”
Takaya turned to head through the forest as soon as he received confirmations from them both, the hem of his kimono flaring. But his foot gave way on the second step, and he stumbled and fell.
“Kagetora-sama...!”
Naoe could not help but be concerned. To expend so much power almost immediately after awakening from a near-death state... He rushed up, reaching for Takaya’s shoulder to help him regain his feet. But Takaya shuddered and reflexively pulled away, glaring darkly at the startled Naoe.
“Takaya-san...”
“Don’t touch me with those hands...”
Naoe allowed his expression to go cold in the face of Takaya’s tension and guardedness, returning Takaya’s wariness with a hostile glare of his own.
“You should not attempt so much physical exertion this soon, Kagetora-sama.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“But...”
Ignoring Naoe, Takaya got up and set off again at a dangerously rapid pace. Ayako demanded suspiciously, “What was all that about...?”
“...”
Naoe gazed at Takaya’s back without expression, his emotions walled ruthlessly away. He had gone so cold that it worried Ayako.
At this moment, that white-clad back refused even his protection.
The Windom, parked at the rear entrance of Hakone Shrine, appeared, amazingly, to have escaped any damage. They climbed in and set off for Moto-Hakone immediately. Ayako tailed them at judicious distance.
Naoe glanced at the back mirror and stepped harder on the gas.
“What in the world is this fog?” When Naoe next spoke, numerous ascending curves already lay behind them. “It’s strange...”
A white fog had descended on them as soon as they had entered the mountains, so thick that even Ayako’s bike close behind them was nothing but a hazy blur. Changeable though weather in the mountains could be, this went outside the boundaries of normality. Turning on the Windom’s fog lights made virtually no difference.
“Drive carefully.” Takaya’s look was calm. “This is no ordinary fog, but the work of the Fuuma.”
“A spell?”
“One to confuse the senses. Do not be mislead by anything you might hear. Listen only to my voice.”
There were many, many curves. In this murk he couldn’t see more than a few meters ahead.
“Haruie is in danger.”
“It’s all right. I’m guiding her. Trust me—...” His voice faded out.
The white fog gradually obscured his field of vision. “It’s too dangerous for me to keep driving.”
“Do not slow down. Their spell grows stronger every second we’re here. Our only hope is to cut through. Otherwise, things will only get worse!”
There was nowhere within Hakone where they could hide from the ingenious little traps of the Fuuma, through which their every movement could be countered and manipulated. The Fuuma would not allow them such an easy escape. With the kind of spells that were their forte, they could make their foes destroy themselves. Thrusting through the Hakone mountains to the outside was the only way to throw off the effects of their spellcraft.
And now Naoe had fallen prey. “I can’t see the way ahead!” He focused desperately on Takaya’s voice.
“I’ll be your eyes. Turn when I tell you!—Go right!” Takaya command’s was immediately followed by a whisper of «go left...».
(What...)
Refusing to be misled by the auditory hallucination, he spun the wheel right, safely navigating the curve.
(...What was that just now?)
An R-shaped hairpin curve was their next challenge. It was dangerous to navigate at the best of times—now, at their current speed and Naoe driving blind, it was suicidal.
“Left next, Naoe...!” And that insidious other voice instructed at the same time, “Go right”. It seemed intent on their self-destruction via a terrible accident, and grew clearer with every curve they safely navigated. Right, left. Naoe’s world narrowed to the sound of Takaya’s voice, but the other matched it so well that he could no longer tell which was which.
“Don’t let it confuse you; listen only to my voice!”
They were approaching another curve!
Left, right...
(Which one is it...?!)
Naoe shut his eyes tight. How could he possibly mistake that voice? And yet he couldn’t tell them apart. He couldn’t tell!
“Kagetora-sama!” Naoe screamed.
“Naoe!—Go left!” Takaya yelled.
Naoe wrenched the wheel to the left and down-shifted with heel and toe as the guardrail loomed. The Windom drifted on its rear wheels and screeched around the turn.
Naoe huffed a sigh of relief and glanced at Takaya, whose hand clutched Naoe’s left arm. Takaya immediately released him.
“Let’s have the Gohou Douji guide us.”
“In the glovebox. Hurry.”
Takaya extracted Japanese writing paper and a small knife from the compartment, and smoothly wrote out the Sanskrit summoning while chanting Bishamonten’s mantra. Drawing the knife from its scabbard, he wrapped it within the parchment and lifted it up in offering, tracing the shuji symbol above it with his finger. “On beishiramandaya sowaka—”
Still chanting, he touched the spot between his eyes with his fingers forming the symbol of the sword.
“O Guardian of the Sword, appear before us; guide us!”
He touched the knife with two fingers, and fire engulfed the paper charm he had created. Out of it rose the golden-skinned ‘boy-guardian of the sword,’ the Gohou Douji. He bristled with a thousand swords like the tail of a peacock and stood upon a rolling cakraratna, both of which held the power to destroy evil. He rode before them, ripping apart the magic fog.
“All right, let’s go!”
The Windom and the FZR raced after, protected by the pure light emitting in a bright plume from the swords.
“Do not drop your guard—the Fuuma are coming after us!”
They had reached Hakone’s new road, which stretched in an almost straight line ahead of them.
This was the fastest way from Odawara to the highway. But they were not yet out of the frying pan.
“Naoe!”
Naoe reflexively slammed the breaks at Takaya’s sharp warning. An oncoming truck had, with remarkable timing, suddenly crossed the center line.
“Guh...!”
The truck roared through the space between the Douji and the car. Naoe wrenched the wheel sharply right, just managing to evade the rampaging vehicle.
“Haruie!”
“Shit...!”
Ayako banked with all her might, avoiding destruction by a hair.
“What the hell was that!”
“He was being controlled by hypnotic suggestion. Be careful! They’re gonna keep coming!”
Right on the heels of Takaya’s pronouncement, a Solara on the opposite lane abruptly swerved toward them. Someone was sorcerously controlling the car against the driver’s will, forcing it onto a crash course with theirs. Naoe evaded the oncoming vehicle in another display of his superb driving skills. The FZR, following the Windom like its shadow, dodged with exquisite precision. If only their enemy would show themselves!
“They just keep coming, Kagetora!”
“Well, it’s not like we can fly!”
“Here comes another one!”
Another truck rushed at them with reckless speed as if determined to immolate them all. In the blink of an eye the driver’s terrified face loomed in front of them.
“Leave it to me! Keep going straight ahead!” Takaya yelled. He leaned out of the wide-open window and threw two blue rings shaped from his «power» left-handed. The truck was right in front of them...!
The blue rings seized the truck’s front wheels, and it slipped rightward at fearful speeds before overturning with an enormous crash.
The Windom and FZR had now survived three deadly obstacles on hair-thin timing.
“Watch out!”
“It’s coming from behind this time...!”
Not a vehicle, but a mass of decapitated heads: fallen warriors of the Houjou, no doubt. The stone above them rumbled, signaling an imminent rockslide.
“Son of a bitch!” Takaya, still leaning out of the window, pulverized the rocks to dust with blast after blast of «nenpa». “Gohou Douji! Shove your swords down those heads’ throats!”
The Gohou Douji’s thousand swords rustled, then turned to point behind them.
“Fire!”
The swords flashed forward, instantly shooting down the pursuing heads. With Takaya focused on smashing apart the Fuuma’s attacks, Naoe and Ayako concentrated on maintaining their perilous speed.
They had to get out of Hakone’s mountains.
And if they could dodge the attacks within this barrier, if they could escape, what then...?
(I am not dying here!) Naoe told himself, as he continued to dodge the approaching obstacles with exquisite skill. (I’ll be damned if I’m dying like this!)
The attacks from their unseen enemy kept coming, relentless and fierce. Takaya, Naoe, and Ayako evaded and counterattacked and continued onward with unerring determination.
They had to get out of Hakone...!
To save Yuzuru, to end the threat of the Houjou.
From these precipitous, deadly mountains and valleys.
(We will get out of here...!) Takaya thought, glare fixed on the road ahead with all the fierceness of a wild beast. (No matter what!)
Comments
Thank you!
Thank you for the new chapter! It's really interesting seeing Takaya growing more decisive, as well as Naoe feeling somehow rejected by his independence here. I guess he had felt some comfort at being able to support Takaya while he remembered less and was more insecure, and now he is losing that.
Now that I can read bits and pieces of the source text too, it's nice to see the choices you make while translating. Well done, I think!
It's interesting that there
It's interesting that there isn't much about what Naoe thinks about the difference between Takaya and Kagetora--maybe it's actually like he says, that to him there's no difference at all.
If you have any suggestions for improvements, please do let me know! I'll probably need to go back and update the earlier books at some point...
You're right - any special
You're right - any special reaction from Naoe isn't really needed if he has been honest about not seeing the difference, and it seems that is the case. What a nice detail.
Thank you so much for
Thank you so much for continuing the translation. The events are so intense and your translation is amazing.
I agree with the comment above. Seems like Takaya is gaining his footing and Naoe is a bit dejected by how independent Takaya is becoming right now. He really enjoyed helping Takaya before and being some sort of a mentor to him, which was feeding his desire to trimph over him in a sense, and now he's losing this. He'a dejected but also in awe with Kagetora's decisive abd brilliant mind, something he's always amired.
I love the complexity of Naoe's feelings.
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