An Eye for an Eye

Hell calls hell.

This is the passage we must learn at which hour the Gosuto~ingu is etch'd into our skin. Three words as simple as declaring "I love you" and meaning just as much [to us] art spoken to us bef're we art b'rn... by our family's m'rtal foe. The hell traveler's spouse has a role not meant for the faint of heart and is why they are selected as our companions by supernatural means. They must present all children birthed to the king ogre for the passing of power. The responsibility of choosing our successor is removed from us to ensure no favoritism and no manner of manipulation plagues the next in line. We are not allowed to accompany the mothers in this ceremony. The king ogre can sense our power as just seedlings. It is mixed with our predecessor's might and a fraction of our own. The king ogre will not accept us as his master, but he bears no ill will to the mothers. Tis only recently yond I has't learn'd a possibility as to wherefore this is so.

The distaff of the hell traveler family art kin in nature to a female oni. Tis with most wondrous grievance yond the mothers must go to the king of oni to sacrifice their young. Years before, our foe would kill and englut our children out of hatred who did not bear the marking. Twas once the only way the gent could bethink of in order to escape his imprisonment, so the mothers feared him and hoped often that he would spare the child. Years ago, he had no such mercy. It is only after a child with the markings is born that he stops devouring the young. The hardest thing for a mistress to do in our family is understand and bear with such brutality, but I've some relief to give. Alas, the great king has changed! He no longer devours our young who do not possess the Gosuto~ingu!

To the women, he has become a grief counselor of sorts; likewise, to the men, he has become an informant. Surprisingly enough, he sees children as what they are. Simply children to either entertain or scare off as punishment for bad behavior. This change in him is most curious. The king oni is unlike most ogres we have come across, or even ones that I have interacted with. He always has been since I learned of him in my youth. He is too intelligent and has ascended to such high power that I am no longer certain that his servitude to our family was meant to be an act of retribution. I believe it could have been for something else. I have met other oni who knew him as king. Though I learned little more of him or his time as ruler, there is more to the oni than previously thought. They've a caste system similar to their human counterparts and a set of politics reminiscent of the dichotomy found in predatorial groups. Perhaps, with time, I might learn more of this, but I fear my calling will be too arduous to learn much.

We, O descendants of Unmei, cannot escape hell any more than we can escape death or love. These three things, or perhaps it is best if I name them worlds, define our existence quite well. Hell calls to us when order is disrupted among its plains. Your predecessors before you knew a creature by the name of Tetsuzan, the gatekeeper and master of the pallbearers. He taught us the language of the dead for many years and helped us find the key to save our lost souls. With him gone, I have lost the means to find my key with some ease. It is my mission and my misfortune to find Tetsuzan's killer along with whatever task I must now face in order to access the full power of the hell travelers before me and restore our family tree. Something with otherworldly strength had to have been able to kill him. Deities are not allowed to interfere with Tetsuzan's reign. He is one of few creatures in hell who is immune to the might and prowess of a deity. It is why he was chosen to be gatekeeper. With time, I will be witness to his successor's coronation, but this recent event confuses me most of all... and will inevitably force me to meet the overseer of my strength.

The blight of the female hell traveler is as your mother ancestors have said. We must answer to one of the ten kings of hell in order to perform our duties. It is through our servitude to him that the male descendants following us are able to travel deeper into hell with greater immunity and less armor from the Green Pheasant, our beloved friend. We possess the ghost eyes to see many extravagant colors in the world. Think of it as being surrounded by weaving from a loom. Hell claims its prisoners through the black strings. We can see them surrounding those who have chosen to lead a life of graver criminality. The black string is a strange entity. It is more like a web. It connects two people together and lets fate decide who will die, but first... it doesn't stop there. It connects to the weapon, location, and even the time when one of the people are meant to die. Sometimes, it is both. We can see each connection, and it will feel like you are trapped. The pallbearers will stop you from interfering with the souls hell has claimed, but you can aid a side to ensure the right soul goes to the underworld. The other's string will detach and the new life following will decorate the broken string with new colors. These souls will possess a rainbow string, and it will have a sort of pendant at its end to allow heaven to judge the soul's home in the afterlife. It is the one and only mercy we are allowed to give. We cannot change fate so easily. Our tasks as holy warriors are far more delicate and complex than simply being a Shinto priestess or even a Buddhist.

As for the kings of hell and the duties that have befallen you, daughters of Unmei, well... that will require an in-depth and visual explanation. Pray I have enough paint and ink for the task...

~ A draft of the hell traveler's guide, Jigoku Meioshi

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Standing before the water demons in her orange and deep indigo regalia, Meioshi looked up at her cliff again with dread. Hearing the zipping over the water again, she let out a shaky breath and proceeded to walk forward. Kappa demons floated to the top of the water to act as steppingstones until she reached the center of the pond. Summoning a small ounce of mianyi, she performed the ritual opening of the hell traveler's threshold through a combination of dance and martial arts. Releasing a breath, she unleashed a series of punches and windmill strikes to unlock the pattern necessary to open the door. The kappa demons rose higher from the pond's depths below, allowing their shells to be seen in the moonlight. One could confuse them for spotted river stones lining the edges, but they were strong like shields and dark like coal being turned to ash. A pivot on tiptoe and a knife hand strike made swamp-like creatures raise their arms to lift underwater stones and broken wood to form stairs. Another group of aquatic creatures lifted more stones until a formal stairway had formed. Meioshi then used hand signs to summon the Four Heavenly Kings' spears, which acted as connectors to each set of stairs, and waited for a response from above.

A silence passed by until a door unlocked from somewhere and slid on railing to completely open. Churning could be heard, and the earth quaking and cracking gave new sounds to the night's silence. Even the crickets silenced themselves! Roots and branches from dead trees creeped out to form a proper stairwell. Meioshi's signature green, white, and orange lanterns lit her way. An ominous feeling settled on her heart before she inhaled and proceeded. Creak, step, creak, step, deep breath. Creak, step, creak, step, deep breath. That ominous presence wasn't going away. She ignored it. When she reached the top of the stairs, she was met with the burned and broken snowbell trees that used to line the path to her childhood home. She remembered the spring and summer blooms, the soft winds, her beloved pup's barks and whines, and... her family. Hell travelers, or descendants following, all returned to their home in Heiwa to live on this very cliff guarding and filling up the sentry much like any holy warrior. All of it... was no more. Her tears would probably never stop falling until all was restored, but every journey had to start somewhere. Hers would be cleaning the snowbell trees.

Sesshomaru was watching Meioshi go up the Kappa Kaidan, having caught the smell of decay and sensing a small surge of Meioshi's dormant powers not necessarily returning but being awakened. Though there was no need to rush over to her home, he had been waiting for her at her clinic to question her about her marriage counseling services. Obviously, it wasn't for him, but he wanted proof that she wasn't some closeted pervert on the loose. Kirameku Ha had invited him to dinner, so he simply stayed with the old man for a spell. Sanraku was explaining his findings about Heiwa's youkai district to Reijiro with such excitement you'd have thought he was a young child. While Sesshomaru didn't engage in the conversation, he did listen and found the atmosphere with these new inu soldiers to be fairly pleasant. It was odd being surrounded by men again. Since his stint as the leader in the battle against the Panther tribe, Sesshomaru hadn't really been around the men the way he was now. He didn't even give them a speech to boost their morale.

This made the western lord wonder about that battle a bit more. Would he have sat with the men and tried to talk to them on his own had Sanraku, who was eager to explore new things, and Reijiro, who has proven to be quite loyal to his comrades, been with him? What about Kirameku Ha? Would he have been the better teacher in showing his peers the way of honor? What did he show Ohta? Why was Ohta here before? Same with Kijiro. Was the old man just teaching them self-defense in Meioshi's place? The doctor... she's been in battle before from what he understood. Would she...?

"You can't go up there," a familiar voice said, breaking his train of thought. He turned to see Homugi in fairly nice, pink textiles for her nightwear. See, that's how a woman should dress! Not exposed for some gross painting! Homugi didn't seem angry or nervous in his presence anymore. She kept her eyes on the kappa staring back at them as they held the stairs on their shoulders. Forty-two stairs going up if he had to count the very bottom one. It seemed awfully shallow. The blue merle beauty then said, "It's a trial she has to do alone. It's too quiet to even sleep!"

"You are living here now," Sesshomaru sort of stated like it served better as a declaration than it did a question.

Homugi nodded before looking up at the cliff. She then said, "Until I earn enough money to build my own place. Meioshi's teaching me how."

"Eek!" Jaken yipped, stepping back at the glowing eyes of the kappa just staring at him. "What is this?"

"Just some kappa that Meioshi's family have known over the years," Homugi explained. "She said these waters were made from tears that fell from the heavens. When something happens - she didn't specify what, of course, because she has to be cryptic - but something big that the hell travelers need to know about, the waters will move on their own and the kappa are alerted. They often offer wisdom or grand insight into the situation, depending on how serious it is."

"They don't offer healing when she needs it," Sesshomaru said, remembering when Meioshi bruised a rib trying to run up to the cliff.

He didn't see why another set of stairs had to be summoned to get up there, but his curiosity seemed to grow. What was up there? Homugi said nothing in response to Sesshomaru's comment, but she did turn to the audience and shrug her shoulders.