Riposte

Chapter 1

There are many perks to living in Tokyo, especially when you’re 2000 years old. First is that there are no pesky gods or kami to bother you. Second is that you’re the oldest being around. Other magic users and magical beings will respect you. The next oldest being in the area was a bakeneko called Tomomi, and I don’t worry about her much, because despite being pretty eccentric, she’s still nice enough. (She’s nothing like Amanozako, which means we’re getting along fine. The teenagers nowadays would describe Amanozako as a “major asshat”).

Even better is the near absence of malevolent yokai. These yokai are nothing like those you see in the movies, Oni don’t look like trolls, nekomata aren’t just large cat spirits. I figured that of all the places I could hide in Japan, hiding in Tokyo would have been my safest bet.

I started performing in a band, with Tomomi. The other two members were Mami and Rina. Mami was a priestess too, similar to me, but her patron goddess was Gaea, while mine was Amaterasu. Rina, on the other hand, was a mere student, and didn’t know about our “otherness”.

But when I set up my identity, I didn’t realise how easy it’d be to find me by a public search record on the internet. The idea that any of the kami would ever try it did not occur to me - I expected them to use scrying or divination - and I was not careful in choosing my name. I should have called myself something utterly plain like Sato Yui, but my pride would not let me change my surname, so kept to my surname, Ono. I gave myself a relatively plain first name, Haruna, for everyday use. So when the Inugami came for me, I was utterly unprepared.

It was 2 weeks before the Hinode Matsuri. I was just leaving my apartment when suddenly a bunch of dogs surrounded me. They were black, dark to the point that it seemed like light simply did not reflect off their coats. I knew something was wrong and started backing away. But the dogs followed and suddenly pounced. Their bodies warped and formed a cloak. Shit. Inugami. I ran, knowing i stood no chance against them alone and unarmed. It was lucky the sun was up otherwise I could never have outrun a bunch of spirits on my own. I called on Amaterasu to give me a speed boost. My goddess answered, I got a sharp boost of speed and I ran back inside. I thumbed the lift button frantically and rushed back into my apartment. I was sheer good luck that I managed to get back into my apartment. The inugami had managed to grab hold of my shoe just as I was about to enter, and that was about as close as it could get.

But once I was inside, the inugami couldn’t touch me. I had set up wards so that creatures of the dark couldn’t enter. Besides, I had Kusanagi-no-tsurugi with me now.

“Who sent you?” I asked, even though I knew the answer already.

“Lord Susanoo would like you to return the sword.”

“Lord Susanoo can go shove an Oni tusk in his big gob.” I promptly replied.

This eluted a series of barks and the inugami tried to force themselves into my apartment. But all they could do was keep trying. I was pretty sure my wards could hold up to lesser Kami easily. Before they could realise what I was doing, I whipped out Kusanagi-no-tsurugi and lopped off their heads.  Even with the powers of Kusanagi-no-tsurugi, I could not be sure that they would not come after me again. The rage of the inugami is known to be their driving force, they could still come after me given the time to heal. I quickly sliced the heads in half too, ensuring they could not regenerate their bodies.

Thank the Gods Below for paranoia. I classified it as a survival skill rather than a neurotic condition; it was a keen knife’s edge, sharpened for centuries against the grindstone of People Who Want to Kill Me. It was what made me wear an amulet of cold iron around my neck, keeping out most magic. It was what made me train in armed and unarmed combat and test my speed against various yokai, and what had saved me countless times from thugs like these.