Setsudankanja Gaiden: Siamese suits 2

Part 2

Oryo and Mihiro arrived. The sensei and his students contemplated the shocking scene. Kei Tai and Akiha were now joined at the back of their indestructible suits. Soon he realized they will remain like that for the rest of their lives.

Kanami then turned to Lin. “What was wrong, Lin? Why you didn’t prepare to attack.”

“Lin felt confused, Lin wanted to prepare for fight, but body not respond.” The Chinese fighter replied looking down while moving her legs.

The sensei turned to his pupils and observed them. Then he looked down at their feet as the sun shinned above them.  The old man remained thoughtful for a minute.

“Kanami, Ayase, Come with me at the smithy. Mihiro, Oryo, help up Kei Tai and Akiha and take them to the smithy. Lin... guard the perimeter.” The sensei ordered everyone.

Inside the smithy, Matsudaria talked with Kanami and Ayase. “That was Puku, an Ungaikyo. It is a trickster demon.” The old man tells his students. “Years ago when I found this abandon temple, I read about him in the scrolls left by the monks.”

“And why he is attacking us?” Kanami asked.

“For years, Puku terrorized the monks and was able to escape all their efforts to trap him. Since they couldn’t stop the mirror demon, the monks choose to leave the place. I confronted Puku and I was able to trick the demon trapping him with one of the monks’ traps. I suppose he escaped and now wants revenge.” Matsudaria replies.

“What can the demon do to us?” Ayase asked worried.

“He is a mirror demon. He can control reflecting surfaces like water or mirrors. He can steal the reflection of anyone and control that person. He can copy anyone he has seen and imitate his movements, and other reflection magic. Matsudaria responded. “We need to take out of the dojo anything Puku can use against us.”

“Yes sensei!” Both kunoichis responded.

At that moment, Mihiro and Oryo arrived. They pushed Kei Tai and Akiha inside the smithy and they fell down the floor. They merged students tried to stood up but repeatedly fell as they both tried to be the one facing forward to the sensei.

“Stop pushing Kei Tai, drunken.” Kei Tai stated on the floor.

“Shut up, bunny lover! Let me hear how the sensei is going to separate us.” Akiha shouted while they dragged on the floor.

“QUIET BOTH!” Matsudaria yelled at the merged women. “I can not open your dresses once you put them on. So you are trapped like that permanently.”

“You have to be kidding, sensei.” Akiha said scared. I can’t be like this dragging this pest all my life!”

“Kei Tai prefer to be stuck to a tree. They don’t say stupid things.” The other student added.

The old man raised the cone of his leg and told them. “I could end your suffering right now if you both lower your head.”

“No, sensei. There must be something you can do.” Akiha interrupted.

“If you want to survive, you’ll take your things and go directly to the temple on top of Mount Tomaya.”

“Sensei means now?” Kei Tai asked but then lowered her sight after looking at the expression of her sensei.

Both women stood up and walked out moving sideways as they bump into every obstacle in their way. Then the sensei turned to his four students.

“Oryo and Mihiro, go with Yuko. As a priestess she must know how to defeat an Ungaikyo.” The old man ordered them and they obeyed immediately. “After that, return immediately.”

After the two left, Matsudaria turned to the sisters. “There is something you must know...”

That night the merged students reach the top of Tomaya Mountain. At the front of the temple, both women drop on the ground tired. Minutes later a silent monk approached them.

Akiha looked up at the man, who simply smiled at them and bowed. She signalled the monk about a scroll they were carrying tied at their waist. The Tendai monk picked it up and started reading it.

After a minute, the man started walking around the temple. He stopped and looked at the tapped students. Finally, they stood up and walked clumsily following him.

“Where bald man taking Kie Tai?” The Chinese woman asked while they both move sideways toward the holly man.

The monk took them down the mountain at the other side. After a half hour journey, they arrived to a lower valley. In there it was a small cabin with several training poles surrendering it and other combat items.

“This looks like the dojo’s back, but bigger.” Akiha stated surprised.

The Tendai monk entered the small home and moments later he exited. The man passed aside the merged women and then took the path back to the temple. Surprised, the two ladies watched this as he left. They stared following the monk, but a voice made them stopped.

“Where are you going, you two?” A male voice called them. “Haven’t you disturbed that man enough? He has a meditation session.”

A monk came out the house. He was wearing a dark colour robe going down to the ground. He also had a straw hat covering half his face. The students looked at the strange man’s walk.

“Greeting… my name is…” Akiha bowed her head.

“We know who you are and what happened to you. Your sensei took time to write about the details of your misfortunate confrontation with the mirror demon.” The holy man paused and then a female voice was heard. “We are in gratitude with your mentor for trapping Puku and giving us peace all these years. We also are victims of his tricks.”

The monk took off the hat and untied his robe. The girls were puzzled by the action of the holly man. The upper part of his robe rested above his waist, revealing his naked torso. He then turned aside.

The eyes of the trapped students widen. On the back of the man’s head was the face of a woman. The back of the monk also had female breasts. There were a monk and a woman fused at the back in a single body. The arms were also fused, but split at the elbows. The conjoined body had four forearms and hands.

Kie Tai fainted and she dragged Akiha to the ground with her. As she tried to stand up again, she looked horrified at the monk as he approached the locked together kunoichis.

“Let me talk to them, please.” The female voice was heard again and the monk turned around. “My name is Oto and I apologize in the name of Saicho if we scared you, but we thought by seeing us, you would comprehend quicker that we can help you with the trick Puku placed on you.”

“But why… who did that… how you can live like that?” Akiha asked surprised.

“It was Puku. He cursed us mirroring our bodies at the back. For the last years we have learned how to live like this and we will teach you everything.” The woman said with a soft voice. “Come one, let’s go inside and eat something. I bet you are hungry after your journey.”

“Do you have Sake, Oto?” Akiha said excited.

“Yes we have. Let us help you with your friend.” The woman stated as they helped Kei Tai wake up.

Later that night at the Dojo, everyone was asleep. In the middle of the night, the door of one of the rooms opened. One of the kunoichis walked down the hallway toward the room at the end. The student walked with caution on her bladed boots. Then she opened the door of Matsudaria’s bedroom and entered.

The moon was visible from a small slit in the window shutters. As the woman walked toward the futon, the moonlight reflected on her face. Lin was again sleepwalking. As she stepped aside of Matsudaria’s futon, she rose her right foot over her head and then she slammed bladed boot into the floor bed.

“It won’t be that easy to kill me, Puku.” The voice of the mentor was heard in the room.

From the shadows in the room, the old sensei, Kanami and Ayase stepped into the moonlight. Below Lin’s boot was only a rice bag beneath the bed sleeves. Lin stepped away from the others while her head tilted to the side.

“It’s easy to know you are possessing Lin. You cast no shadow. Now you let my student go.” Matsudaria warned the demon.

“We meet again, crippled old man.” The possessed kunoichi spoke mocking with a male voice.

As the demon talked, Lin woke up. She found herself standing in her sensei’s room in the dark surrounded by her friends. Lin tried to stop talking, but her mouth kept dialoguing with the male voice. She then tried to move, but again she realized her body didn’t respond to her. She couldn’t even turn her head around. Only her eyes obeyed her. With a scared look, she turned her sight around trying to understand what was going on.

“Lin, Lin…” Kanami signalled her with her eyes.

As Matsudaria and Puku talked, Kanami used the eye signal language the sensei taught them. Kanami explained to Lin she was possessed by the mirror demon and she needed to calm down. Lin closed her eyes for a moment complying with her sempai.

“When Puku was distracted threatening Matsidaria, the old sensei signalled his students. Kanami and Ayase stepped back into the shadows of the dark room. They went to the corners of the room and unveiled four artefacts on each of the four.

Each relic started glowing. Puku then realized it was a trap; the whole room was a trap. He tried to escape, but there were no reflecting surfaces inside the room. The demon tried to escape but a seal formed below Lin’s heels and literally were fused to the floor and sent painful shocks to the demon through the floor.

Puku had no choice, but to leave Lin’s body. The Chinese kunoich fell lifeless once the demon escaped her body. Puku remained like a floating ball of reflecting liquid and then was pulled down into the flashing seal on the floor.

“We got him?” Ayase asked her sensei and the old man nodded once to confirm it.

Kanami went to help Lin. She was still unconscious by the painful process her body went through to expel Puku. Ayase covered again the artefacts at the corners of the room.

“Good thing you still had the artefacts here at your room.” Ayase told Matsudaria.

“They never move. This is the place I tricked Puku the first time.” The sensei stated.

Ayase prepared to clean up. She opened the window shutters and then went helping her sister with Lin. Matsudaria then noticed a glowing in the floor. He took a closer look and realized the shine came from Lin’s boots.

“Ayase, close the window!” The sensei ordered. “Puku is hidden on the blades of Lin.”

Before being sucked into the trap, Puku had managed to use the reflecting surface of Lin’s bladed heels as mirrors to escape. Before Ayase could react, the mirror demon sprung into the window as a bolt of light into the largest reflecting surface, the moon. On his way to the moon, the demon saw a small lake and changed directions falling back to earth. The sensei and his apprentices watched the scene through the window the old man’s room.

“Where are you going, Kanami?” Matsudaria stopped the kunoichi when she jumped out the window.

“Puku will escape sensei.” Kanami replied.

“We don’t know where he is and we don’t have a way to confront him.” Matsudaria responded. “Probably he will hide a couple of weeks until he recovers. In the meantime, Mihiro and Oryo will be here with the artefacts I ordered Yuko to confront him and we will be prepared for him.”

Kanami complied and went back inside. They placed Lin in her room and let the unconscious Chinese rested. They went back to sleep as Puku hid in the lake planning his next move against the clan.


To be continued…