The Distortion

The fierce growling was definitely concerning. He flashed his canine teeth, exposed his pointy claws and flattened his ears, directing them backwards.

“Hey hey hey, Râad, what’s wrong?” Laith approached his companion.

Râad did not respond kindly to him, as if he reverted back to his feral stage, forgetting all about his human companion. A type of response he was met with previously on rather troublesome occasions. Laith didn’t hold it against him, but he did worry. Friendly or not, Laith trusted Râad’s instincts, as they proved their worth in the past. As such, he readied himself for more serious trouble than the few drunken and feeble soldiers he had faced so far—he didn’t even require unsheathing his scimitar to deal with them. However, it proved to be far more severe than what he imagined as Râad left his side in a rush, heading towards the main courtyard.

“Hey stop! What are you doing?” he shouted at Râad.

Laith was completely ignored.

What the hell is going on? It’s not like him to act this way…

Laith grew anxious. He wanted to run after him but hesitated…he was assigned with a particular task he ought to fulfill, and he didn’t wish to mess it all up right at the end. However, Laith spotted the signal flare which marked the retreat of his allies and no one showed up as of yet. His brother was still in there, still no sign of Yuuna and his tiger decided to go rogue…

Ah, damn it, he broke into a run.

As he drew closer to the heated courtyard, Laith began hearing some unsettling sounds. Screams of terror overlapped by a deafening roar—definitely not a tiger’s—rough footsteps that rumbled across the entire scene and pounds of battings that shattered the ground itself…Laith shuddered, briefly coming to a halt. Whatever it was, it reeked of an incident of catastrophic proportions that potentially spelled their doom. He resumed his sprint, picking up the pace, a sickly mix of anticipation and angst coming over him. Laith soon caught up to his companion whose previous signs of aggression were even more pronounced, almost ready to pounce. But Râad would not dare, not yet.

Laith could finally get a closer look and he saw the carnage that was unfolding. People, ally and opponent alike, were casually tossed aside like rubble on the way, smashed to bits to a point where you could no longer tell the difference between bones, flesh or organs. A sight ill-advised for the weak of heart. Even Laith’s stomach twisted, and he had seen his fair share of gore and violence.

The culprit however was the most horrifying sight by far. A gigantic ogre-like creature wearing a loincloth and holding an iron spiky club. His skin was dark green and two long horns—one of them broken—sprouted from his head amidst a mass of shaggy white hair. Adding to the already dreadful look was the multitude of crisscrossing scars and bruises spanning both his large back and chest. The appearance alone was enough to scare away people without having to witness the terror from up close.

Laith wished he didn’t know what he saw, but he knew all too well what he was facing.

An Oni.

Under normal circumstances, he would have been beyond thrilled to meet any type of fictional creature he saw or read about. Beholding the massacre before him, he buried that excitement very deep inside him. Humanity had come to know all sorts of creatures after the Distortion; this wasn’t one of the nicer ones.

Laith quickly assessed the situation; he racked up enough battle experience for his brain to still function in these situations. The Daimyo was killed, the battle should have been over and yet, there was a monster rampaging, wreaking havoc and destroying whoever and whatever was in its field of vision. Clearly a desperate move, an attempt to prevent the withdrawal of the enemy even at the cost of their own forces. The monster was indeed attacking indiscriminately; he even slaughtered the two guards who released him of his chains as soon as they did so.

What Laith couldn’t understand however was the behavior of the samurais, on both sides. Considering their number, they should have at least attempted to stop the monster; the warriors of mankind had never been better equipped to deal with dangerous creatures, even outright monsters. The best reason Laith could think of for their reluctance had to do with this particular monster.

An Oni was a part of this country’s culture and religion, the Yamatojin believed in his existence as one of the “Yokai” even before the Distortion. Even worse, he was one of the malevolent ones, often correlated with demons. Perhaps it was due to the samurais not sharing Laith’s perspective who only viewed this monstrosity as one born from the collective imagination of the Yamatojin following the breaking of the seals. The Oni was very real in their minds and now they were face to face with his actual physical manifestation. To pit a Samurai, however strong, against one of their own nightmares…Laith wouldn’t fault anyone for cowering.

Regardless, one fact became clear: no one was safe. Not a single soul was allowed to escape the ogre’s club, not the Daimyo’s subordinates, not his allies and certainly not his brother who he just spotted, hopelessly taking cover in the midst of the ongoing mayhem. No one would escape…unless the ogre was put down. Laith never thought his previously frivolous comment would bear some truth to it, but the “dungeon” was mostly cleared and all that remained was the “raid boss”.

His heart sank all the way into the depths of his body while a chilling cold crawled its way up from the ground and into his feet…there was no denying how aghast he felt at the time. The last time he felt this way was when he was thrust into the merciless field of war. Both times it happened he was certain he would drown in the sea of soldiers. And both times he made it out. Luck, faith, competence, a combination of the three, whichever one saved him, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even sure if it would ever save him again, but Laith was willing to take his chances.

Laith rested his hand on the growling tiger’s head.

“Alright bud, looks like we’re doing this.”

He definitely didn’t think it through as his feet moved on their own before even considering the possible outcomes. Even the sense of dread creeping through his body didn’t stop him from going along with his charge. Any reasonable man would have called it an act of madness, but to him, that word had lost all meaning ever since this world came to be. He realized it wasn’t the smart thing to do but, he believed it was the right thing to do.

Laith dashed, alongside his companion, straight for the ogre. The Yamatojin around him thought of him as a complete imbecile. He may have been an oddity all along, wearing different clothes, wielding an uncommon sword, having a tiger as a pet, coming from a different country. And yet, nothing could justify diving headfirst into the jaws of the monster in their mind. Except he had a different mind from the rest of them, and a different line of thinking, which would explain why he acted different.

Laith stood in front of the ogre inhaling deeply. He cupped his hands around his mouth and rang his voice as loud as humanly possible.

“I WILL TRY TO BUY YOU SOME TIME, SO EVERYONE HEAD TOWARDS THE EXIT RIGHT NOW!”

As intended, he caught the attention of everyone around him by doing so. Instead of immediately running though, they were left momentarily staggered by his act which could be deemed as either dumb courage or unparalleled stupidity. Luckily for them, his effort wasn’t all for naught since the ogre too seemed to have been staggered by his opponent’s boldness. In fact, the monster’s attention completely turned towards Laith, buying the samurais more than enough time to slip away.

Laith froze in place, his mind nearly going blank when he came that much closer to the monster. The Oni was towering over him, well above three-meters tall, not to mention his hulking build. The size of his club matched his own, making it bigger than the whole of Laith. This may have been the largest creature Laith had ever come across after the Distortion, certainly the most evil-looking. Some of his sharp fangs protruded outward like tusks, his gnarled face stuck in a perpetual snarl. The Oni’s eyes bore mere vestiges of their human counterpart, having long been consumed by evil. They were like a pair of black coals burning at the heart of a scarlet fire.

Laith just stood there, eerily devoid of any emotions of thoughts, functioning solely on instinct and reflexes…just barely enough to save his life. The Oni was done with his confused contemplation, putting an end to the stare down and resuming his ravage. With Laith being the primary target this time.

The ogre took a sweeping swing at Laith who instinctively put up his left arm in guard. However, resisting an Oni’s “Kanabo” would require a bit more than a mere left arm, even that of a Fares. Laith was sent flying to crash against the nearest wall that was partially destroyed by the collision. Râad immediately followed by pouncing on the monster’s right arm, sinking his sharp teeth and claws. Or so the tiger intended, for he failed to penetrate the green skin. The Oni grunted, tossing the tiger in the opposite direction as if he was shooing an annoying mosquito.

Their brave confrontation started out very poorly.

* * *

The loud statement issued by Laith earlier proved even more beneficial than intended as it caught the attention of two people still standing on the roof of the tower. They may have stopped fighting a few moments ago, but their argument had yet to be resolved.

“Please Ryuuma san, I’m begging you, just let me go down there. My friend needs help against that thing!”

“Friend? How long have you known that imbecile for, two days? And he’s already a friend?”

“I like to believe so, yes.”

Ryuuma snorted. “I am not letting you throw away your life like that fool. Nakamura is dead which means I’m no longer under any obligation to fight you so let us leave this cursed place.”

“How can you say that with everything going down below us?!” she yelled at him.

“They brought it upon themselves when they chose to release that thing. I owe them nothing, even more so now that I won’t get anything from it since their figurehead is dead.” Ryuuma said as he turned his back against her.

“I can’t believe you are this heartless…no, I refuse to believe that! I’m not sure what happened with you since you don’t talk about it, but I can tell you are not what you pretend to be. The way you looked after me, no coldblooded person would do that!” the thoughts she had been keeping to herself burst out.

He kept quiet, looking down, clenching both his fists and his teeth. He quickly swallowed back all of the agony that briefly resurfaced before giving her an answer, a hardly satisfying one.

“Look, I’m grateful I don’t have to kill you myself, so don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”

Ryuuma was still stifling his sentimental side, a side of him he chose to bury. It was the wiser decision. How ironic that those old fools in the village turned out to be in the right. He should have just stuck to their moral teachings, bereft of any notion of morality.

On the other hand, Yuuna gave up. She gave up on trying to convince him, she gave up on getting him to open up, she gave up on him altogether. But she had not given up on her companions.

“I’m going, whether you like or not. If you wish to stop me, you will have to kill me first.” not a shred of hesitation clouded her statement.

Ryuuma spun around to face her. He recognized her face, a determined face that would not back down no matter what, a face he once wore himself…

“Why are you so intent on doing this Yuuna? What is driving you to do so?” he asked coldly.

“Something tells me you know what it is, but you just refuse to acknowledge it.”

She was right. He did know. It was just an emotion he refused to remember and let it reemerge.

“If by any chance you come out of this alive, don’t come back, you’re not welcome anymore.” He wished he would have cut his tongue before he could say that.

“With all due respect Ryuuma san, but I was never planning on doing so in the first place.”

She quickly leapt off the roof, barely sparing him a glance.

He preferred not to look back, or even think back on what she just said. Best to leave this matter behind, just like all the other matters he left behind.