Arahabaki

Yata snickered to Alex in a low, whiny tone. "Oh, I can imagine Arahabaki's last visit to Takamagahara didn't go so well."

"I know little about this Arahabaki. What has he got to do with Kanghui?"

"Jomon god, a primeval being but he is what I would call - a one primeval show demolition derby," Yata pointed to the two islands and continued, "There's a rumour that the inhabitants of the two islands regard him as notorious for wanton destruction."

"He wrecked Xitian too?" Alex whispered, wondering if this Jomon god was as audacious as they made him out to be.

"No. But they witnessed what he did to Takamagahara slightly less than 2000 years ago. He nearly crashed that entire island into the mountains."

Alex learned about Arahabaki in a brief lecture on the Emishi in the Jomon period during his university days for only a week.

From what he knew of Arahabaki, he had nothing much to go on other than the fact that Arahabaki was a name of an Emishi god, whom indigenous Japanese Emishi tribes worshipped with such fervor.

Great was their devotion that they named an ancient Emishi city after him. The Emishi regarded even a little round rotund artefact with its enormous head and wide hip tiny body as the god himself.

Alex racked his brain for the quaint yet very cute name of the rotund artefact.

"Momunofu!" He exclaimed as Yata stopped and held him back. "They made those to look like Arahabaki, right?"

Yata slowly shook his head, then his somber expression turned into a crunched look of pain behind Alex, who looked at him quizzically. "Oh, sh… Kanghui?"

"Oh shut up, spider, shoo," a familiar deep, husky voice spoke in a calm but dangerous sounding tone, behind Alex, who felt an arm thrown casually around his neck.

The voice had a familiar ring to it. Then Alex froze - he had heard the same voice in the ICU and during the attack of the soul shearers.

"Change!"

Yata's clothing dropped mid air at that command.

A squealing brown arachnid, the size of a cat, appeared under the crumpled clothing on the ground, as the crowd screamed and made way for spindly legs to run for dear life before a doc marten boot came down with a thud.

Alex slowly turned to his side to spot a red headed and clean-shaven young man with scraggly hair, owner of the boots snapping his fingers in feigned disappointment.

"Damn, that spider got quicker."

Alex cringed at the words.

The young man looked no more than 21 years old, dressed in dark goth like gear with his half tied mid knee doc marts. Yet he stood a tad shorter than Alex. "You must be that newcomer, marked by Yasu Mawari."

"And you are…," Alex shrunk a little, aware that whoever this is, had turned Yata back into his original form.

The young man flashed him a pearly white dental perfect teeth with sharp canines. His large reddish eyes studied Alex for a while, then he replied, "Arahabaki."

Alex regretted listening to Yata's less than glorious talk about Arahabaki so much that he wished the ground could open and swallow him up.

"I could actually open this ground and let it swallow you up." Arahabaki read his thoughts out, unabashed.

Don't think, don't think, oh shit, oh shit, Alex thought.

"Don't think, don't think, oh shit, oh shit," Arahabaki held him in closer with his arm and Alex could feel his warmth breath in his ear. "You are hilarious."

"ARA!"

A now hunched and frightened Alex crinkled his nose. How did Kanghui get behind them?

"Damnit Kanghui, I was having some fun with your new pretty boy here," Arahabaki said nonchalantly as he gave Alex a quick sniff. "His soul smells somewhat… familiar. Not the same, but really familiar."

A quick forceful swing around and Arahabaki brought him face to face with a poker faced Kanghui who now had Yata in his spider form, clinging on her arm for dear life, almost like a stray cat which got fished out of a pond.

Pointing to Yata, she said, "and fun with Yata too?"

"Can't your pet spider just turn back?"

"Not without his clothes and I am here to make sure that you don't step on him… accidentally again."

Alex widened his eyes in horror at the contempt that Arahabaki held for others.

What would he become?

Another squashed bug, courtesy of a volatile primeval being?

"My bad, he is just… too insignificant to be of any notice. But now this one…," Arahabaki's face came close to Alex's cheek.

Then a wet slick of a tongue went up his cheek, sending a chill up Alex's being. "Tastes so good. Fresh too. I will pay you five quality souls for his."

"I am not bargaining with you," Kanghui replied.

"There's something you want and I like this soul."

Alex glanced around in a panic, fearful of his fate. The once bustling street had turned into a ghost town. Without even the ghosts.

Everyone, full or partial souls, had snuck away or cleared out once they spotted Arahabaki - an ultimate testament to his infamy.

"So, do I look like the Momunofu?" Arahabaki's voice disrupted his thoughts.

Alex meekly shook his head. Best not to offend a powerful being, he thought. Then he realised from Arahabaki's grin, Arahabaki had read his thoughts.

"Well, those little rotund things… want me to show you what they can do?"

Kanghui shook her head at Alex, who followed her cue. He was curious, but not suicidal. He was dead enough.

"Ah darn… but I will anyway…"

Kanghui pointed up at Takamagahara, which Arahabaki flashed a smile and shot his middle finger back at the island in insolence.

"Listen, my little friend… ever heard a lightning Kami bellow?" He asked Alex.

"Huh?" Alex blurted out in confusion.

A wave of Arahabaki's hand and the chains around his right wrist turned into strange archaic words which weaved into the air, and ripped through the fabric of the dimension, pulling a large swarm of swirling tiny figurines out of the rip. "These are my momunofu."

"Boys, disturb Takechitchai for me," he added with a mischievous grin.

Alex tilted his head. He had never heard of a Japanese Kami named Takechitchai. Then again, the Japanese were also proud of the fact that they have Yaoyorozu-no-Kami, or eight million gods.

Perhaps Takechitchai was a very minor primeval being or an ancient of no consequence.

The large swarm flew around, creating a dark shadow as it flew towards Takamagahara.

Not long after, Alex could hear a large commotion from the floating island of Takamagahara. So far, yet so near, like someone using a powerful loud hailer.

"ARAHABAKI! GO FUCK YOURSELF!" someone bellowed as loudly as thunder from Takamagahara.

"TAKEMIKAZUCHI, DON'T!" others shouted.

Alex realised, to his horror, that Arahabaki was referring to the Japanese Kami in a derogatory way. Takemikazuchi is famous as a Kami of War, Sumo, and lightning. So famous that the imperial family revered him in grand shrines.

"LET ME GO! I WILL SEND HIS JOMON ASS BACK TO THAT TIME PERIOD."

"Jomon period," Arahabaki's eyebrow raised at the words as he chortled in amusement. "The uppity bastard couldn't even beat me during the Heian period. What damn war god is he?"

"EVERYONE STOP HIM!"

"Ehehehehe, my favorite Kami to disturb," Arahabaki chuckled in amusement. "Has the worst temper amongst them. Better the reaction, though."

He snapped his fingers, and the swarm swirled from the top of Takamagahara back in front of them.

With a wave of his finger, floating words appeared around another opening rip, which the swarm flew through. The clinking sounds of chains retracting and a chain bracelet appeared around Arahabaki's free wrist again.

"And this, my friend, is the way you make a lightning kami bellow."

Then he dragged Alex aside in a flash as a lightning bolt struck inches away from them and tutted. "Takechitchai is getting a tad rusty with his aims."

"W-w-won't they c-c-come after us?" Alex asked timidly.

"Only if they want me to move Takamagahara deep inside the mountains. And not above the capital city."

Alex tried to get out of Arahabaki's arm grip, only to get a tightened grip on his neck while Kanghui stood with her arms folded in front of Yata like a shield.

Nothing on her face betrayed her thoughts.

"What are you looking at?" Arahabaki glanced at Kanghui, whose eyes were on Arahabaki's arm around Alex's neck.

"Alex. Can you free yourself from his hold?" Kanghui asked as Arahabaki chuckled.

"I-I…"

Alex frowned at the strange request, which sounded more like an order, puzzled by the reason.

He tried using his hand to wrench away Arahabaki's wrist. It would not budge.

Then an idea came to his head.

He launched the back of his elbow into Arahabaki's ribs with all his strength.

Not even a flinch. Arahabaki was like a thick concrete pillar.

Arahabaki flashed his pearly whites while his eyes glinted with malice at Alex. "This body of mine is just an illusion."

Damn it, Alex thought.

"Besides, I was thinking that we could hang out in the Japanese ghost city," he added.

Arahabaki snapped his fingers and three hot doe eyed Japanese girls gyrating in bikinis appeared in front of him. "Hottest entertainment area guaranteed."

Alex dropped his jaw at the slim, giggling girls.

A counter snap of Kanghui's fingers and in a blink, Alex flinched at the sight of three rotting corpse-like girls instead of those beautiful girls a second ago.

Their smooth porcelain skinned transformed into decomposing putrefying meat of blue and black with maggots wriggling in the strips of flesh hanging loose and exposed skeletal bones. Their large doe eyes were now sunken sockets of darkness.