"Get out!"

I fell to the ground, the slap stinging my cheek as I heard my belongings clatter behind me. Scrambling to my knees, I turned towards the woman who had been my landlord for a few weeks, intent on begging for just one more night. I opened my mouth before another slap cracked against my face, pain blossoming along my nose as heat radiated in my cheek from the first strike. Shoving my left hand against my mouth, I choked and spat out a gob of blood, the taste of iron flooding my mouth.

"I will not give shelter to an evil spirit!"

I heard the mutterings of villagers start to rise behind me.

"I'm not a spirit," I gathered up the scattered books about yokai, most of them holding my written notes, "Please, just let me stay one more night, then I'll leave in the morning peacefully!"

"You'll curse my family," She uttered angrily, folding her arms over her chest.

"I will not curse anyone's family," I countered, looking up as I felt blood trail down from my nose, "I do not have any kind of talisman or familiar! Just one more night, and I'll leave after the Night Parade!"

"I've given my answer, now leave!" She slammed the sliding door to the small apartment building shut. Catching my breath in the chill autumn air, I looked down towards the small pile of books that had triggered such a quick rage in my former landlady. They were small journals, ones that I had found in some of the newer bookstores, that contained eyewitness accounts of demons and devils throughout Japan. I gathered the books up gently, brushing off the dirt from the road and cradling them in my arms before standing up.

They were all I had to try and keep track of my betrothed and his brothers, as well as to continue to look for the source of the cursed fude set. If they were created by a Shinto priest or Buddhist monk, then I needed to find someone to forge more to reseal the yokai residing in my friends.

I didn't have a lot of time to try and find shelter before nightfall. The Night Parade was supposed to happen tonight and everything in me was screaming to not be out in the open. I could only guess that the very people I was looking to save would be participating, but they'd sooner spirit me away before keeping me hidden from the Parade.

Making sure the fude tucked away in my sash was still safe, I gathered what remained of my pride and walked down the road, looking out for some place that looked to offer temporary shelter.

Just outside of town was an abandoned shack, something that looked to be used by one of the local farmers to store rice or feed in, but the stale stench of air hit my nose as soon as I opened the jammed door. It was completely empty on the inside, an empty frame of a storage shed with a single covered ventilation hatch near the door. Laying out my books into a neat stack, I went to the vent hatch and tugged at the slab of wood covering it, some of the rotted wood pulling away and revealing a little viewing spot that I could use to look outside.

"...good enough," I whispered to myself before closing the sliding door behind me, finding a lengthy stick to prop it closed. The sunlight began to dim from a bright orange to a deep red as it sank behind the mountain range nearby. I read through the journals for as long as I could before I lost the light, pressing myself right underneath the vent hatch.

A faint chime sounded in the night, silencing the ambient noise in the town as night rolled over the mountains and swept through the town, blanketing everything in an eerie fog that swallowed the ground. Another chime joined the first, followed by a gasp as a door nearby shut forcibly.

The Night Parade was coming.

It didn't take long for the sounds to grow closer, a faint muttering that swelled into a cacophony of jeering, shouting, and yelling. The light outside the shack began to grow brighter, the noise growing along with it as I could hear wheels churn up the packed dirt in the street, footfalls combined with various chimes and bells. What was a red sunset shifted to vivid blues and greens as oni- and fox-fire danced along the path the Night Parade was to take, the loud cheers and laughter of the Parade grew closer until it sounded like it was passing right by the door.

The fude brush stored in my sash grew ice cold, as if responding to the closeness of other yokai. I held my breath and risked peeking through the little viewing corner of the venting window, trying to keep out of view from those outside.

The Night Parade was large, much larger than the scroll drawing I had seen. There wasn't much space between one yokai and another, but they all seemed to march forward with the same mindset. In the midst of the section I saw was a large man who was partially dressed in furs, a cracked club over his shoulder that had some blood dripping down the spikes as his free hand lifted a torn arm to his mouth, the enlarged fangs ripping through the skin and muscle like paper. His blood red eyes roamed his surroundings, not really searching for anything in particular. I covered my mouth to silence my scream as I heard the bones in the arm snap and crunch underneath the strength of the oni's jaw.

It was hard to see the eldest of the sextuplets eat human flesh. I had known the sextuplets for most of my life; to see them turn into the monsters they were now was nearly unbearable to me. It was all my fault that they ended up how they were.

Glancing back outside, I saw two others from the sextuplet group walking next to each other and chatting as if they weren't bothered by the actions of their larger oni brother. One had a beaked tengu mask sitting off to the side of his face while his body was covered in loose-fitting yamabushi clothing, a tengu fan clutched in his right hand while his left held out a green-colored choko as the other brother poured sake into the held cup. The other brother was dressed in Shinto monk robes, the straw hat sitting partially tilted back to reveal his fringe and ears. They laughed together and drank the sake as the procession continued, like they hadn't a care in the world about what they had become.

The fude brush grew ever colder, numbing the part of my back that it was resting against within the sash. As tempted as I was to remove it, I didn't know what would happen if I touched it.

"And here I thought you had forgotten about us."

A hand covered my mouth, clamping down with the pinky curling underneath my chin and clamping my jaw shut. My front was pinned to the wall by a cloaked figure, the hood pulled high as if resting on something on top of their head. The shadow of the hood barely covered their red eyes, the eyelids lowered as a knowing smirk spread across their face.

I swallowed a whimper, shrinking underneath the satisfied look as the person pulled back the hood to fully reveal the blue horns adorning his head, his lips revealing more of the sharp fangs as he smiled wider.

"Hello again, (y/n)."

Karamatsu...! I tried to push myself off of the wall, feeling his chest press against my back.

"I can see that my younger brother isn't with you," He sounded a little disappointed while looking around the empty shack, turning his eyes back to me before long, "No matter. I can find him at a different time."

I reached up and tried to pull away his hand from my mouth, tugging against his inhuman strength. A muffled cry pressed against my lips as I felt his other hand slide against my waist, twisting up my back before inching towards the front of my chest.

"What fear shall I feed on this time?"

In an instant, I was pulled from the wall and pinned to the dirt floor, his hand still covering my mouth as Karamatsu settled on top of my body, his other hand holding my wrists high above my head. My eyes went wide as he lowered his head to my neck, still struggling as I felt something wet and cold drag against my skin. With a pivot of his hips, he forced my legs to open wider as my yukata loosened from the friction.

I screamed into his hand, his red eyes glowing brighter as he lowered his head again to lick my neck, letting his fangs scrape across the skin. The fude brush was freezing cold against my back, my body pressing so hard against it that I was surprised that I didn't hear it snap.

"Your taste is so much sweeter than anyone else's," Karamatsu muttered against my skin, licking my neck again and breathing in deeply. His hand slid down my right arm and ghosted over my breasts, a finger tugging at the yukata opening by my waist. I instantly tried to shove him off of me, pushing at his head and trying to move his hand away from my mouth. The Night Parade be damned, I'd rather die by Osomatsu's hand than have Karamatsu feed from my terror again.

My screams turned into whimpers as I couldn't budge him even a little bit, tears sliding down my cheeks. Karamatsu pulled his head away from my neck, leaning close and licking up my tears before his eyes settled on my face again.

"I won't be so nice next time I see you, (y/n)," Karamatsu released his hold on me and stood up, pulling the hood back over his head as black butterflies began to swirl around him, "Even if you're not human."

The butterfly swarm grew thicker and hid Karamatsu from view before dispersing, fading into the darkness of the shack.

I lay on the ground for a moment before curling up on my side and shoving my face into my hands, muffling my cry as frustration and anger filled my mind. Once again, I had played into Karamatsu's hand and was unable to do anything against him. Unless I used the fude brush against him, I really was powerless...

Sunlight pushed through the cracks in the window cover, dancing over my eyes and stirring me from sleep. Rubbing my eyes, I looked towards the door of the shack to see it still propped closed.

I had survived another Night Parade, yet was still tracked down by Karamatsu. Brushing off the dirt on my yukata, I stood up and straightened out my clothes before gathering the books. One of the books was opened to a page about sightings on the island of Shikoku, a tuft of gray fur wrapped in a thin purple string keeping the book from closing. I knelt next to the book and picked up the tuft of fur, seeing a rolled up note tied with the rope.

Holding my breath, I quickly opened the note and held on to the swatch of fur tightly.

'I'll see you on the peak of Mount Tsurugi. - I'

A weak laugh passed through my lips as I clutched the note, the laugh turning into a mixture of relieved laughing and crying. If Ichimatsu was reaching out to me, then I could only hope that he had found something.

The five year wait would be nothing compared to the two week journey ahead of me.