Yorimitsu sat in the centre of the dimly lit room, the silence pressing against his eardrums.
A single, low-wick lamp flickered in the middle of the floor, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to claw at the paper shōji screens. In one corner sat an iron-bound chest containing Dōjigiri and his travelling gear; on the other side, a lone lacquered table held a neatly folded kimono.
"There is something wrong with this place," Yorimitsu whispered to the empty air. His mind drifted back to the evening meal the servants had moved with a terrifying, mechanical grace. "No matter how much I tried to communicate with them, I couldn't reach them. It was as if they were puppets... every last one of them."
He stood up and walked to the table, picking up the wooden plaque resting on the silk. Etched into the grain was a single name: 照明 (Shōmei—Illumination/Lightning).
"Lightning, ha?" A cold smirk touched his lips. "So that is the school I am supposed to join." He tossed the plaque back and retreated to his futon, lying face-up and staring at the dark cedar beams of the ceiling.
"I wanted to sneak off to find Inoue, but the air is too thick. Someone is watching. To think they'd grant me this much attention on the very first night, was that match too much?"
High above, nestled in the complex joinery of the ceiling rafters, a figure crouched like a hunting spider. He was draped in a Shinobi-shozoku of deep indigo, nearly black; it was designed to blend with the natural shadows of the wood. His breath was shallow, masked by a small silk veil, and his presence was so suppressed it was almost non-existent.
The man's eyes were cold and unblinking, never leaving Yorimitsu, even now as he slept on the futon.
"The Mistress was right to be cautious," the watcher thought, his hand sliding into a hidden pouch at his waist. "His skill during that match was something else, but I doubt he can fight against this."
He pulled out a small, hollowed-out vine stoppered with wax. Through the translucent skin of the vine, something moved. It was a Blade-Slug, a parasitic insect that pulsed with a sickly, necrotic purple light. It stretched and coiled unnaturally, its many-toothed maw questing for the warmth of a host.
"Make sure he feeds on the boy tonight," the Mistress's voice echoed in the watcher's mind. "Once the slug tastes his Reiryoku, his body will be mine."
The watcher leaned forward, positioning the vine over a small, pre-drilled hole in the ceiling boards. He carefully peeled back the wax seal, ready to drop the parasite onto the sleeping Yorimitsu's chest.
He peered through the hole one last time to fix his aim.
His heart skipped a beat. The futon was there. The indentation of the body was still visible in the cotton. But the space where Yorimitsu had been lying was empty.
The watcher's eyes widened, his pupils dilating in the dark. He scanned the room frantically. The chest was shut; the table was untouched. There was no sound of the door sliding, no rustle of silk.
"Ho, what do we have here?"
The voice didn't come from the room below. It came from the shadows directly behind him in the rafters.
The watcher's spine turned to ice. With the frantic, twitching reflex of a cornered rat, he dropped the vine containing the blade-slug and whipped a serrated Tantō from his sleeve. He lunged backwards into the cramped, dark joists of the ceiling, the steel whistling toward Yorimitsu's throat.
As the dagger reached his chest, his right hand snapped up, his palm open and blackened, mimicking the body of steel.
Clack.
The metal blade bit into Yorimitsu's palm, but there was no sound of tearing flesh, only the dull thud of steel hitting stone. In his free hand, black dust swirled, adhering to the spy's face, covering his nose and mouth.
The watcher gasped, his lungs seizing as the powder entered his system. His vision blurred into a chaotic smear of grey and purple. He clawed at his throat, his dagger clattering against the cedar beams, before his body went limp. He tumbled forward, but Yorimitsu caught him by the collar before he could crash through the thin ceiling into the room below.
"So this is a shinobi, ha, I always wondered what they looked like," Yorimitsu murmured, wiping the black soot from his hand. "Medicine made from the ground bones of Hakamadare... who knew I would be using so soon, tch what a waste."
Yorimitsu hauled the unconscious man out of the rafters, dropping through the trapdoor and landing softly on the tatami mats. He dragged the limp body into the centre of the room, under the dim light of the single lamp.
He stood over the man,
"Should I kill him?" Yorimitsu thought, his hand drifting toward the chest where the Dōjigiri lay. "Tch, if I do that, I will just be adding more attention to myself if one of their shinobi goes missing; they are sure to investigate how that happened, and I will be found out."
" Haaa, what a drag, can't they just leave me alone for a bit?"
He sighed, the weight of the night pressing on him. "Bothersome. I'll have to bind your soul before you wake."
Yorimitsu knelt. He reached into his travel chest and pulled out a small, crudely fashioned Wara-ningyō—a straw doll tied with sacred hemp twine. From a small pouch, he produced a long, rusted iron nail (Gosun-kugi).
He took the shinobi's limp hand and pressed the nail into the man's palm just deep enough to draw a single, thick bead of crismon. He let the blood drip onto the chest of the straw doll, the dry stalks drinking the liquid until a dark stain blossomed like a heart.
Yorimitsu began to sway, his voice dropping into a low, jagged drone.
"On-be-ki-ra-ta-no-mo-ka-ro-sha-na-u-ta-ma-ya..."
His feet touched the ground lightly as he twilled and swayed.
He took a lock of the shinobi's hair, slicing it off with the man's own dagger, and wove it into the straw.
"Hear my call, breath of the earth, hungry ghosts that wander the Seventh Ward, I tie your breath to this straw. Your heart beats here. Your lungs pull air here. I burn this, you turn to ash. If I drown this, you choke on dry land."
He slammed the iron nail through the doll's centre.
The unconscious shinobi's body lurched, a phantom pain causing his fingers to twitch in perfect synchronisation with the doll in Yorimitsu's hand.
Yorimitsu stared at the doll, then at the man.
"Hear my call, little spider."