NEFELIBATA

.Himari Village 2.

...

AKIO TROTTED UP to Kusuriuri, wanting to ask him a question. The medicine vendor gazed him, giving Akio a sense of uneasiness but he pushed forward. Akio stood in front of the seller.

"I'm guessing there's Mononoke here, isn't there..." Kusuriuri smirked at the male, chills trickled down Akio's spine.

Akio waited for him to answer, one never came. The stoic medicine seller just walked away from the bewildered teen. The teen sighed, annoyed, and followed the man in pursuit, ending up behind the mysterious man.

They entered the village. The village itself was average, not the most prosperous but not poor; just average.  What was not average, was the woman in the middle of the serene village.

She had long dark hair, her locks were as dark as midnight. It cascaded down her back and shoulders. She had the perfect figure, not too voluptuous but not thin. The woman had a white kimono wrapped around her, hugging her curvy perfectly.

Her face was literally perfect. She had her eyes, nose, mouth, you name it, it was proportioned in a symmetrical manner. Her skin had no clogged up pores. It was soft and smooth, and he could tell that from miles away.
She was perfect. Too good to be human. She gave off an ethereal glow.

Then there was this tugging sensation.

He didn't know how to explain it. He knew one thing though, the feeling radiated off the woman. It was obvious everyone felt the same thing. The lady was surrounded by both men and women.

The pulling sensation only became stronger by the second, was it because he kept looking at her? Akio tried to pry his wanting eyes off the woman. He couldn't. He didn't want to. The pulling only got stronger.

He began to feel a little drowsy, his feet started to take steps. It wasn't his own, was someone controlling him? That didn't matter. That woman mattered.

With each step he took, a familiar feeling trickled down his body. He's felt it before but where. It was ominous. It was off. It was alarming him, of what?

Akio was stopped by the man that was once next to him. Right as he was blocked he snapped out of his trance. Akio glanced down at the sword in front of him. The sword was biting down its teeth again. He could hear faint sounds of bells ringing.

He then looked at Kusuriuri's face. Of course, his lips still had that smirking look if you didn't look closely. His eyes were a different story. The seller's eyes were cold; icy. His gaze was solely analytic and calculative. His eyes were purely stoic. It gave him chills.

Then it hit him. That woman was a Mononoke. Dread weighed heavy in his heart. He probably would have died if it weren't for the man next to him. But instead of thanking him, Akio opened his mouth to get confirmation.

"Is she..." Kusuriuri glanced down at the teen, even of his sentence wasn't finished he could understand what Akio was asking. The vendor nodded in confirmation and looked back at the unworldly woman.

Right then and there he felt fear claw at his bones. He knew it was a Mononoke but having it told -showed in his case- made it more terrifying for him.

---

They spent hours gaining information about the woman. They learned that there wasn't much information on the woman. They didn't know her birthday, her age, her first name, or her family name. It was almost if she just appeared in the village one day. He remembered asking one of the village elders why this village wasn't so popular, y'know with the literal angel-like lady. He just got a weird look from both the elder and those who overheard him.

Now the pair were in an inn. The same inn the woman ran. It was a small inn with two floors. It was old, the wooden boards were starting to decay making the place less inviting.

That didn't stop the eccentric vendor, in fact, he didn't even look like he cared. He just waltzed right in the place. Akio sighed and massaged his temple. He followed his stoic companion in.

When they walked in they saw no one, it was absolutely empty. You'd figure that some of the woman's admirers would book a room but no. It was empty.

There was hospitality, no one greeted, there was nothing remotely like that. Were there any employees? Did the woman work here alone?

Akio looked around the place, staying relatively close to the vendor. The place was a humble one. The inn had tables scattered across the room. It was clear that the inn didn't house many.

Also flinched. He turned towards Kusuriuri, a smirk present kn his face. His hand had a bell, the same bell that caused the teen to jump.

Akio just stared at the man in disbelief, fulling Kusuriuri smugness.

"Please wait a moment!" Akio heard an angelic voice. It was soft and light, he could only think of one person with that voice. The woman.

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Words: 852

A\N: Sorry again for not uploading at a constant rate. I finally have a better idea of where this story is going so that's good! There's not I want to say except thank you for reading and for having patience. Have a great day!