A Journey to a Hundred Worlds

Ryokou had come after the ninja meeting to get Vale and Michelle, and now they were eating at the banquet. Michelle had to restrain herself from just shoving food down her throat. There seemed to be quite a bit of seafood which she wasn’t used to, but it all tasted so good anyways after not having a good, wholesome meal in days.

The stick things that they tended to eat a good deal of their food with—chopsticks as Ryokou had pointed out to her as he had sat next to her—took a while for her to get used to, but she had eventually adapted due to the necessity. It was definitely an experience she was glad to have been able to had, learning and being able to live in a culture so different from her own. Now that she thought about it, the world she had just been in had been almost the exact same as her own world. Mujunku was entirely different though, and she started feeling homesick yet again.

There were about twenty ninja sitting at the long, low table eating with them including Tatsuya and Ryokou. The table was built so low that you sat on the ground, kneeling, yet another culturally different thing for Michelle.

Vale sat silently on the left side of Michelle. He had picked up on using chopsticks almost instantly, causing Michelle to have felt stupid or mentally challenged, even. It seemed like he always did that, make her feel bumbling and incompetent. Why was he like that, anyway? Why couldn’t he just be normal or an average type of person?

As they were finishing up eating, Michelle sensed that Ryokou seemed to be anxiously awaiting something eagerly. She wondered if it had something to do with the meeting they had had. Maybe the meeting had had something to do with the negotiations that were hopefully soon going to ensue between the humans and the kitsune.

It turned out that her assumptions were correct when everyone had finished eating their fill and Tatsuya spoke, “Ryokou, Vale, and Michelle will be going to the kitsune in order to try negotiate with them. Sasazuka and Ryuuki, you will trail them to make sure that nothing bad happens to them during the negotiations. You must make sure that the kitsune do not notice you. The rest of you are to spread the message to the daimyo that the kitsune are not to be hunted anymore and that they should tell the people not to hunt them anymore. Do not fail, I have already told you what is at stake. It is up to our clan, the Matsushita Clan, to take care of this mess before it can do much more damage.”

“Yes, Tatsuya-sama!” everyone said in reply except Michelle who didn’t know that that was what she was supposed to do. She blushed, hoping nobody had noticed. She bet Vale had, because Vale always knew what to do and how to do it and he had known to say that.

‘Stupid Vale,’ she thought, glaring at her chopsticks that were lying on the table in front of her.

* * *

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Michelle asked Vale yet again.

“Yes,” was his simple answer as always.

“But you hardly have a plan. Again.”

“And didn’t that work in the last world?” Vale pointed out.

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Michelle admitted.

“Don’t worry, Michelle,” Ryokou tried to reassure her. “Even if Vale’s plan is a dud, you have me, Ryuuki, and Sasazuka watching to make sure nothing bad happens to any of us. We ninja are quite capable of handling a kitsune or two if need be. We have plenty of tricks up our sleeves.”

“And why would those tricks even be needed?” Vale asked. “I would be able to kill them before you if needed. But that’s not going to happen. No one is going to be attacking any one. All we have to do is persuade the kitsune to see your hunting of them as just misguided human mistakes, like they are. Then you humans and those kitsune will leave in harmony again.” Here Vale spat. “I swear, it’s always one perfect little happy ending after another.”

“What, you summon the dead so you hate all things happy and want only cold, barren things?” Ryokou questioned.

“No, what I don’t like is just how…I don’t know how to explain it exactly,” Vale shrugged. “It’s just so stiff and predictable. Nobody dies, nothing bad happens, everybody’s happy. I’m not saying I want the opposite to happen. It’s just so quaint, though, and unrealistic. I can kind of see where the villain behind all of this might be coming from.”

Michelle quietly processed all this. It seemed slowly she was learning more and more about how Vale thought.

Right now the three of them followed by Ryuuki and Sasazuka were walking around in the middle of the night. Michelle had realized that they were heading towards the field that her and Vale had first arrived in.

Just as they entered the field, an orange bolt streaked toward them: a kitsune like before. In fact, it even had six tails like the one Vale and Michelle had first met. Maybe it was even that one, Michelle thought. The three of them stood there, waiting for the kitsune to reach them. It did so in a few seconds. Then, it greeted them.

"What are you humans doing here?" it asked immediately.

Just as Vale was about to answer, a knife flew through the air and narrowly missed the kitsune, digging itself into the ground right next to one of the kitsune's paws. At that, the kitsune snarled and its tails went crazy, going in all different directions so speedily, Michelle started feeling dizzy watching them. Ryokou spun backwards and saw what Michelle was pretty sure to be Ryuuki fly through the air towards them, a sword in his hand.

"What are you doing?" Ryokou yelled at Ryuuki.

Ryuuki didn't reply. He just landed on the ground a few feet away from them.

"Stop what you are doing," Vale told him. "You're not Ryuuki, are you?"

What Michelle had thought to be Ryuuki grinned. "Nope," he replied easily.

Instantly Vale stretched out a hand towards the ground and a skeleton popped out. He pointed at the person who was not Ryuuki and the skeleton charged him. Michelle edged away, freaked out by the appearance of the skeleton. She didn't think she would ever get used to seeing the dead pop up under Vale's command.

"You foolish humans!" the kitsune snarled. "Why would you attack us kitsune, such a small band too? We are great fox spirits while you are just ordinary humans! You should give us offerings out of respect, not hunt us. We have all but lost our patience with you. So prepare to be massacred. We will not hold back."

Ryokou turned to face the kitsune. "Please, we don't even know who that person is. He's not with us. Please don't punish us because of his rash actions."

There was a squelch and a scream that caused him to turn around to find the skeleton's hand had gone through the mysterious person's chest. As the skeleton withdrew its blood-soaked hand, the person collapsed to the ground. Vale stretched his hand out facing the sky, and the skeleton sank back into the earth.

"What did you just do, human?" the kitsune questioned, looking ready to pounce. "Did you just summon the dead?"

Vale turned around to face the kitsune. "Yes, I did."

"You're not from this world, then, are you?" the kitsune asked.

"No. Now, now that he's out of the way, we would like to negotiate. We humans would like to return to our peaceful relations with you kitsune."

Michelle stared at him in disbelief. He had just turned his back on the now dead person without sparing him another thought. 'What kind of morals does he have? Does he even have any?' she wondered in horror.

"What makes you think it can be so simple, and why are you the one doing the talking when you aren't even of this world?" the kitsune asked.

"That's why I'm here," Ryokou piped up.

"So you are here to try to convince me that we should not kill you all?" the kitsune questioned.

"Yes," Ryokou answered. "We realize our mistake. We hope that maybe, eventually, we can return to living together without any hard feelings. All I ask are what your conditions would be, and, if it's within reason, we will fulfill them readily."

The kitsune considered Ryokou for a moment, not speaking. It straightened up slightly so it no longer looked ready to pounce on them and rip them apart. Its tails twitched slowly back and forth, back to the way it was when it was in thought, Michelle assumed.

"Alright," the kitsune said at last. "We kitsune know how foolish you humans can sometimes be, and, therefore, we will forgive you this once if you promise to always fulfill these two conditions. One, never, ever hunt us again, or else we will immediately hunt you to extinction. Two, you are to return to your practice of making us offerings. We are greater than you, and so we deserve offerings and proper respect. Otherwise it is just insulting to think you can just be friends with us as that would imply that we were equals."

Michelle could see a small grin on Ryokou's face as he answered, "We would be happy to fulfill those two conditions. If any are to break the first, you have the right to kill them on the spot. If any break the second, however, we would like it if you would allow us to deal with them."

"Very well," the kitsune answered.

"Thank you for being so understanding," Ryokou replied, bowing.

"You humans better keep up those two conditions. You have already messed up once. Also," here the kitsune face Vale, looking him straight on in the eyes, "be careful with that power of yours. The dead aren't just for you to use."

"I know," Vale said. "My family knows that. I would never use the dead if I didn't see the absolute need to."

"Well then," the kitsune said. "I guess I will be going now. I will tell the other kitsune about our agreement. I assume you have already sent out other ninja to go inform the humans of it as well?"

"Yes," Ryokou replied.

"Good. I will leave you to deal with that corpse then," the kitsune said before turning and running off towards the forest again.

Michelle turned to see the corpse the kitsune had spoken of, and felt the color drain from her face. There lay a dead person, right there. Vale had killed him. Vale had killed him easily, without a second thought. It was as though this was something Vale was used to doing. How many other people had he killed so far?

"He must have either killed or incapacitated the real Ryuuki quickly and silently so that Sasazuka wouldn't notice," Vale said, staring down at the body.

Just then Sasazuka appeared, the real Ryuuki unconscious and slumping, his arm put around Sasazuka's neck so that Sasazuka could transport him.

"As soon as I saw that that wasn't really Ryuuki I went back to go try to find him," Sasazuka explained as he got to where the three of them stood. "I found him unconscious, so I guess he didn't have enough time to try to finish Ryuuki off properly. I am so sorry that I didn't realize that that had happened. I should have noticed, but I didn't."

"Don't worry about it," Ryokou reassured him. "We didn't realize it either until he flew through the air at the kitsune."

"But I was supposed to watch out for anything dangerous," Sasazuka protested.

"All that matters is that the negotiations were successful, which they were," Ryokou said. "Tatsuya-sama will be pleased either way."

"Right..." Sasazuka said, still looking a little unconvinced.

Vale looked up from the body. Michelle had noticed him looking at the corpse as though deep in thought, puzzled by something. "We should head back now, I guess," he said.
It seemed a little out of character for Vale to be so...pensive Michelle supposed if she were to describe the way he was acting now. She wondered what was on his mind.

They set off back to Murashisu slowly since Sasazuka had to carry Ryuuki. He insisted that he carry his fellow ninja back by himself the whole way since he still viewed it as his fault that Ryuuki had been attacked without him even knowing.

Michelle started growing anxious, wondering if now she and Vale were just going to move onto the next world since their job was done. However, uncharacteristically yet again, Vale didn’t seem to be inclined to be in such a hurry as the last time. So she just waited, wondering what was up with him.