Halloween is here and the witching hour draws near in our world, but the spirits and the presence of the otherworldly are a constant in Rokugan. As a little seasonal reminder, we bring you a special Halloween short story from Aconyte Books – ‘Kabukimono’ by Robert Denton III.

Read or listen to this chilling tale below. You can also find the audio version on Acontye Book’s YouTube channel and the Aconyte Fiction Podcast.

If you’re ready, proceed…

Kabukimono

by Robert Denton III

Now that he was free from his contract, Eitarō wanted desperately to find some trouble.

An uneventful winter in the employ of chief magistrate Shosuro Hikoshirō, escorting prisoners and watching the old man eat at his desk, had left Eitarō hoping something terrible would happen to the doddering fool, if only to break the tedium. But now he had a coin-string weighing down his wrist and no obligations until morning. Karoku no Eitarō, watchstander of the Mantis Clan, would finally extract his due of excitement from the City of Lies.

Chisen whistled beside him as they strode down spice-scented Alabaster Street. Because the Tide Seer religion forbid its practitioners from wearing precious metals, and because Hikoshirō didn’t pay with bamboo tallies, Eitarō carried Chisen’s string of coins in addition to his own. Her long sleeves flapped like the fins of a flying fish, the bright pink floral-patterned kimono clashing with the black-and-white scarf around her neck. She’d chosen a red kabuki wig for tonight, and with her face obscured behind a velvet half-mask, she looked nothing like a tide seer priestess.

Eitarō felt he’d done better. His overcoat once belonged to a Unicorn emissary and was overtly foreign, with brass bells where the buttons would be, making his ensemble an assault against two senses. His lacquered mask resembled an ogre with bulging eyes – attention-seizing even among the mask-wearing Scorpion denizens of this city.

They found Benji leaning against a lantern at the intersection known as the Seven Corners. He wore the physical manifestation of an eye-strain headache.

Chisen cackled like a schoolyard brat. “Well done, Benji. Compliments to the six-year-old who assembled your outfit.”

Benji feigned offense. “If only I knew your seamstress, Chisen. Did you tell her, ‘Make me something that will blind bystanders?’”

“Alright,” Eitarō said after they’d finished laughing. “The hours are on a swift current, so I’ll be brief. The captain doesn’t want anything disruptive traced back to the Mantis Clan. So remember, for tonight, we are not Mantis samurai. We are simply kabukimono.” Bizarre ones. “Agreed?”

They nodded, eyes starry with mischief.

Eitarō grinned beneath his mask. “Then let’s raise some hell.”

They stalked down Copper Avenue, their hoots and bawdy jokes echoing down dimly-lit townhome streets. In upper story windows, parents clasped their hands over their children’s ears. Chisen winked at a commoner who crossed the street to avoid them.

“I assume you know where we’re going?” she remarked at Benji’s back.

The younger man nodded as he turned down a narrow alley. “I’ve never been myself, but I hear the clientele is mostly merchants and their bodyguards.” He glanced back. “What’s the plan?”

Eitarō counted with his fingers. “First, we drink our fill. Then, I approach someone who’s having too good a time. Chisen asks a helpful spirit to tip the poor sap’s cup onto my sleeve.”

Benji gave an exaggerated gasp. “They’d better apologize and pay for your expensive coat!”

“Sadly, by then, I’ve had too many drinks to be reasoned with.”

“Then the fun starts.” Chisen cackled. “I hope some dumb oaf underestimates me. I haven’t sent a jackass through a paper wall in months. Working for old Hikoshirō was boring as beige.”

Eitarō watched the night beetles collide with the street lanterns. The kama blade under his coat felt heavy. “I’m done taking orders from pampered bureaucrats. I want to ruin some rich fart’s evening.”

The outside didn’t look like much. Just a shoulder-wide doorway and a curtain painted with a demon’s grinning face. The sign above depicted a crow holding a coin in its mouth. Eitarō took its resemblance to the Doji family heraldry to be a joke at their expense.

They stepped through the demon’s mouth and into the foyer, leaving their sandals by the door. Purple lanterns sagged like gently-glowing plums. Stairs ascended into darkness; private rooms, Eitarō supposed. The establishment stretched further back into a wide room with sake barrels serving as communal tables for those without reservations, paper screens separating samurai from common drinkers.

An older woman behind a counter flipped open a book. “Welcome to the Rich Crow. Your names?”

Benji slapped a few coins on the counter. “We’re on the list. Lord Ichinoshin highly recommended this place. Has this not been prearranged?”

Of course this was a lie. But would the matron risk contradicting three armed samurai dressed as gangsters? Wasn’t it better to just take their money and surrender a booth?

The three stored most of their weapons – the obvious ones – on a rack by the door, then followed her up the stairs.

The hall was dark. Eitarō followed the woman closely, vaguely perceiving screen doors and whispers at either side. The rusty air suffocatingly coated his lungs. Was this really a fine establishment, or was Benji mistaken?

They were led to a balcony room overlooking the noisy commons, perhaps so the matron could keep an eye on them from below. Benji chose a cushion near the door. Chisen draped her arms across the railing, looking down at the lively crowd. She pantomimed spitting on them, and the three laughed.

The door clacked, and a tall woman in layered silks glided into the room. She was like a painting that had come to life: lips that were too red, glittering eyes like dark mulberries, and inky waterfalls of curled hair. She drew the breath from Eitarō’s lungs, and he briefly forgot how to refill them. Benji abruptly locked his gaze on the table. Chisen just stared, mouth agape and face turning crimson.

 “Greetings, honored guests.” The woman spoke as she folded into a bow. “I am Kaginawa. Please permit me to make your stay more comfortable.” Rising, she gestured to the tray. “May I offer you a refreshment?”

“Yes, please!” blurted Benji.

Demurely the woman poured clear alcohol until it overflowed, waterfalling over the side and into a lacquered box for each cup. “This is our house special. We call it ‘kuchi-sake.’”

Eitarō had never heard of it, but it was smooth and fiery, with a lingering, vaguely familiar iron taste.

“I have never seen you here before,” Kaginawa remarked as she poured another cup.

Benji cleared his throat. “This place was suggested to us.”

“Is that so?” The barest smile pushed a dimple into her cheek. “Since you are new, a word of advice. Such fanciful costumes are not necessary here.”

Eitarō and Benji exchanged mischievous looks.

Normally, she would have been right. Samurai clients in such a well-hidden place were unlikely to be recognized, word of their carousing never returning to the court. Kabukimono costumes were simply insurance. It wasn’t the samurai who caused any mischief! It was the costumed impostors, the bizarre ones.

Eitarō laughed, jingling his coat’s bells. “Hey, I like this coat. Don’t you think it’s rude to make such a comment about what a guest is wearing?”

She shrugged, her midnight curls swaying with the bounce of her shoulders. “Ah, well, I am in no position to judge. I wore my own costume, after all.”

Her lavish robes were gentle on the eyes, especially on one so elegant, but Eitarō would hardly have referred to them as a “costume.” Was she flirting? Or did she mean something else?

Kaginawa nodded in Chisen’s direction. “Is your friend alright?”

Once, Chisen had danced on the boat deck during a raging thunderstorm, lightning slashing the sky while rain hammered the deck. The boat rocked and water foamed around her ankles, but Chisen never flinched, the invisible ocean spirits weaving a safe path for the ship. Eitarō had known her to swim with barbed sharks and to dive from sheer cliffs, all while emitting her cackling laughter. She was probably the bravest person Eitarō knew.

So why was she trembling, sake spilling down her arm? Why was her face pale, her forehead glistening with sweat?

Eitarō forgot their no-name rule. “Chisen?”

She flinched like a startled cat, setting down her drink.

On her left wrist was a lacquered wooden bangle with a smaller porcelain ring set into a groove, which was carved with symbols representing aspects of the ocean: wind, waves, salt, sand, sun – her people’s equivalent of the Five Elemental Rings. The decorated band rotated freely within the groove; Chisen would turn this ring whenever she prayed, or sang to calm stormy waters. Now, as she mumbled something resembling an apology, she spun it absently, with frenzied energy.

He’d never seen her do that before.

“Oh but you must be hungry. Excuse me.” Kaginawa rose, bowed, and turned to exit.

Chisen’s eyes darted between Eitarō and the woman, urgently, over and over. She clearly wanted him to watch the woman for something, but what?

While Kaginawa slid the doors open, a tangle of her black hair came loose. The strands stiffened, then weaved together into a ropy writhing coil with a barbed tip, like a scorpion’s tail. Kaginawa slipped through the door, and before Eitaro’s eyes, the braid stabbed into the doorframe and pulled the door closed, tucking away at the last moment.

Eitarō felt his back go rigid, while all the heat sapped from his body, leaving his heart to hammer inside a frozen chest. He gripped the table as the room started to spin.

Had that actually happened? Was it a trick of the light? Across from him, Benji poured sake into his own lap, stunned eyes wide and directed at the door.

“She’s a harionago,” Chisen murmured. “A barbed-hair yōkai. They disguise themselves as humans and eat people.” She gestured shakily below the balcony. “Down there. Look.”

Eitarō stared down at that crowd of drinkers: merchants, firefighters, even a few dock workers, and servers moving between them. Nothing out of the ordinary.

No. Something was off, as though he were looking at a painting, not a crowded room.

The people. They had no shadows.

Just as this dawned on him, a server’s head detached from her body. It floated like a jellyfish to a table on the other side, where the patrons seated there put money in her open mouth.

The barrels had yellow orb eyes. Tails poked out from under kimonos. One patron opened his mouth and spider fangs unfurled. Eitarō’s gaze fled from one horror to the next. He’d been looking at the entire world through a rice-paper screen, and only now it had been rolled aside.

Eitarō reeled from the scene below, leaning on the table for support. He couldn’t breathe. His arms were limp noodles. He’d trained for years to keep his calm aboard storm-lashed ships and surrounded by enemy blades. So why couldn’t he slow his pounding heart or his racing thoughts?

Surrounded. Monsters in every corner. They were sitting ducks among them.

Benji leapt to his feet.

Chisen yanked him back down. “You want to get us killed?” she hissed.

“We have to escape!” Benji snapped back. “If they discover we’re humans–

“And what’s going to clue them off more than panicking and running?” Chisen looked to Eitarō. “Most of those yōkai are flesh-eaters. No way will they let us walk out alive if they think we’ve discovered their secret.”

Every fibre of Eitarō’s being told him to flee. But the rationale behind Chisen’s words gave his mind something to grasp. She was right, even if he didn’t like it.

“We’ve walked into the spider’s web, but it hasn’t noticed us yet,” he said. “That changes if we leave abruptly. Just drink your sake, draw no attention, and when the time is right, we’ll walk out.”

Benji shook his head. “We should go now. They won’t chase us into the street.”

“They might,” came Chisen’s haunted reply. Her normally-tanned skin looked waxy in the dim light.

Eitarō liked Benji’s plan even less than his own. If they ducked the monsters in the hallway rooms, surely they’d be intercepted in the foyer. It was too risky.

“Control yourself,” he spat, as much to Benji as to himself. “We’re kabukimono, remember?”

Minutes passed. They emptied their cups, then refilled them. Each passing moment seemed to sap Chisen of further strength, her back bending more and more. Benji began to drum his hands on the table, craning over the balcony, his face a mixture of horror and fascination.

Eitarō kept his eyes forward, drinking rigidly, automatically. The floor shook as something colossal stomped past. A woven sandal with spider legs skittered up the wall. A squelch came from below, followed by evil cackling. But he refused to indulge any of this. Only his drink. Just focus on each astringent sip. Not the pounding of your heart in your ears or how trapped you are, surrounded by blood-sucking, flesh eating, soul-stealing—

The door opened. Kaginawa placed a series of stone bowls on the table. The rice was the color of a riverbed, but worse was a bowl filled with something red and glistening, something that jiggled wetly when jostled, tiny specs of white writhing in the folds.

“This delicacy is on the house,” she said sweetly. “For our first time guests.” Then she sat, folded her hands, and watched.

Benji and Chizen exchanged looks.

Eitarō’s jaw clenched against a rising wave in his stomach. It smelled pungent and sour, like something flies would fight over. It made his eyes twitch and water.

Kaginawa didn’t budge. She tilted her head. “Not to your liking?”

Panic lanced its was though his thoughts. She knows! She’s calling your bluff!

But if that were true, if she suspected, then why hadn’t those living ropey spears in her hair simply torn his entrails from his body? Why not just kill him now?

Was she testing him?

He had to convince her that nothing was awry. To make her go away. And that meant…

His shaking fingers dipped into the wet fleshy contents of the bowl. His fingers clumsily groped at the slippery meat. Benji looked away as Eitarō lifted it to the hole in his mask, near his lips.

Stale blood filled his mouth with each chew. Something moved against his tongue, and he clenched his jaw. His stomach tightened, protesting, refusing to cradle the putrid minced corpse flesh sliding down his gullet. He forced it down, shuddering, then reached for another.

A loud shriek from the hallway made them jump. Kaginawa laughed, her mouth widening with each guffaw, until her head split, rows of shark teeth glinting in the dim light. Then a blur, and she was back to her human appearance. “I must answer that. Excuse me.” She bowed and exited.

The wave rising up from his gullet allowed no time for stealth. Eitarō leapt from his seat and burst into the hallway, running in the opposite direction she had gone. He came out onto a balcony in the open air, convulsing, regurgitating over the side, maggots falling from his mouth into the bay shallows. He was certain the rancid slime coating his lips would never go away.

Dizzy, he suddenly felt eyes upon him. A rice paper lantern hung from the balcony roof, a single eye blinking at him from a tear in the paper. The lantern broke, the lower half hanging limply like a hinged jaw, unfurling a curled tongue with barbs like a centipede’s legs.

It was alive. It saw him vomit the meal. The facade was surely broken; they were good as dead. Think of something! Say anything! But Eitarō could only stare at that glowing eye.

“The meat isn’t so good here, is it friend?” The lantern’s words were punctuated by flames pouring from its jagged mouth. “Try the place on Ash Street. The meat there is much fresher.”

Eitarō forced a shaky smile. “A-appreciated.”

The lantern twisted towards the bay. Moths flew heedless into its open maw and burned.

Returning inside, Eitarō kept his face down. New horrors spilled into the hall. Something long and soft skittered above his head. He marched on, refusing to look.

Hadn’t some dock workers gone missing on Ash Street recently? He’d heard that somewhere…

His companions stood in the doorway of their room. Benji watched with a detached look, while Chisen drooped from exhaustion. “We’re done now, yes?”

Yes, he was quite done. After that bowl, Eitarō was willing to risk raising suspicion. Indeed, the place had suddenly grown louder, rowdier, busier. Perhaps they could slip out unnoticed.

Benji left several coins on the table. “A tip,” he explained. “She did a good job, after all.”

Eitarō didn’t have the willpower to question him. He just wanted to leave. How he longed for boring courts and the old magistrate who never did anything exciting!

One step. Another. His hand on the wall. Lightless, they inched away from maniacal laughter, the shatter of bottles. He counted the screens. Four. Five. A few more.

The foyer’s light! Stairs! They tumbled down, all pretense lost. And the old woman behind the counter wasn’t there! Eitarō inhaled crisp night air. Just a few steps more, and this nightmare would be behind them.

They stopped cold.

Shosuro Hikoshirō, still garbed in his magistrate jacket, laughed merrily between three servers. Boring old Hikoshirō, who Eitarō had guarded these past winter nights. It was unmistakably him.

One server hung on his arm, a woman with no face except for a saw-like mouth. One with an eel for a tongue and one massive eye removed his sandals. The third was Kaginawa, her animated hair stalks pouring blood-red liquor into the magistrate’s held cup. Hikoshirō laughed as the faceless women playfully removed his mask and pressed it into the fleshy mass beneath her brow.

The old man’s expression lightened with recognition. Eitarō’s heart held still.

“Eitarō! Chisen! And there’s Benji! What a pleasant surprise! I see you’ve found my favorite place. I have a room reserved just upstairs. Please join me.”

The three Mantis exchanged looks.

“Apologies,” Eitarō said carefully. “Perhaps another time.”

A look of disappointment crossed the magistrate’s features. He shrugged, bowing just-so as the three monsters helped him up the stairs. Their giggling faded into the darkness.

Eitarō exhaled. His pulse pounded in his ears as he hurriedly grabbed his weapons and snatched sandals that he hoped were his. He would feel no relief until he had put a block between this place and himself.

He’d just stepped through the doorway cloth when he felt Benji turn back. The man had one foot on the stairs.

Eitarō seized his sleeve. “Have you gone mad?”

Benji’s eyes had an unhealthy sheen. “I have to see for myself! Don’t you want to know if we’ve been working for a yōkai the last few months?”

Something must have snapped in him. That crazed smile turned Eitarō’s blood cold.

“I don’t want to know anything!” Eitarō shouted. “I know too much as it is!”

Benji tore free. The darkness swallowed him.

Eitarō lunged after, but Chisen dragged him back. “He’s gone,” she urged. “You tried. We can’t help him now.”

Tears stung Eitarō’s eyes. Damn it!

As they fled, Eitarō cast one final look at the sign above the door. The crow with the coin in its mouth had a third eye.

Their steps grew heavier after they’d put a block between themselves and the Rich Crow, dragging the closer they came to the docks. They walked in silence.

Until Chisen spoke. “What do we tell the captain?”

Her voice seemed distant. Benji’s haunted smile still lingered in Eitarō’s mind.

“Nothing,” Eitarō finally replied. “We went drinking. We lost track of him.”

Chisen lowered her face. “We’re cowards.”

Eitarō slammed Chisen into a store shutter, meeting her surprised eyes. He was as surprised as she; the anger had come so suddenly. He was a stranger in his own body.

“I tried to save him! It was you who held me back!”

The smack of her hand against his cheek echoed down the street. His mask clattered to his feet.

“Go back for him then, if you’re so brave!”

A slew of insults rose to his lips. He let them die unspoken.

She was right. He could have followed Benji. He didn’t. What right did he have calling himself a samurai?

Chisen’s expression shifted, her widening eyes transfixed on a spot behind him. The hairs on Eitarō’s neck were like thin rigid needles. He turned slowly to follow.

Benji came to a halt an arm’s length away. He looked unharmed, if out of breath. Relief cascaded down Eitarō’s body, and he reached to embrace his friend.

“You went without me?!”

Eitarō held very still.

Benji kicked a dirt clod free from the street. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week! Why did I even buy this ridiculous outfit if you were just going to ditch me?”

Silence permeated above Benji’s accusing stare.

“Didn’t you just come from there?” Chisen finally uttered. She looked at him like he’d crawled out of a crematory.

Benji frowned, scratching his head. “What? No. I waited at the Seven Corners, like we agreed. You never came. I felt foolish, so I got some noodles, tried to stir up some trouble. I finally decided to head back to the boat.” His brow knitted. “Hey, but where did you go? I was going to take you to the Dancing Ki-rin, as a surprise.”

“You took us to the Rich Crow!” Eitarō protested. “You said…”

Benji looked concerned. “The Rich Crow? Where is that?”

The world rocked, as though Eitarō were on a boat at a stormy sea that wanted nothing more than for him to drown. And he was drowning. His eyes swam. He couldn’t breathe.

One of them could have stolen Benji’s face and followed them. Wasn’t that possible? Didn’t imposters in disguise sometimes try to go places where they didn’t belong?

What would such a creature even want? To steal identities? To sow chaos on a Mantis vessel?

Vanishing dock workers on Ash Street. Red meat in a bowl. Glowing eyes. Barbs of prehensile hair. Anything could be under those kabukimono layers.

Kaginawa’s laughter reverberated through his mind as something tore inside him.

His kama blade glinted in the street lanterns light. He hadn’t even realized he’d drawn it.

Benji took a step back. “Eitarō, what are you doing? This—”

“Shut up! I won’t be made a fool!” Eitarō’s voice thundered down the street, conjuring lights in windows. He swung to Chisen. She’d identified the harionago before. “Is it him?” he demanded.

Chisen looked like a petrified doe. She spun her bangle, searching him up and down with her gaze. She said nothing.

Benji held up his hands. “Have you both lost your sails? It’s me. Who else would I be?”

If the Benji from before had been an imposter, Chisen hadn’t identified it. Or did that mean he had been the real one, and this one was the imposter? Could they take the chance?

Try the place on Ash Street. The meat there is much fresher. If he could help it, Eitarō would not give them another supply.

“Tell me something the real Benji would know,” he barked. “Why did he join the Mantis? What ship did we serve on before the Karoku? Answer me!” he blurted.

“Southern Winds,” Benji swore. “What happened to you? Don’t you know your friend?”

“I don’t know anything!” came Eitarō’s scream. The clatter of running footsteps preceded magistrates, rushing towards them with man-catchers, but Eitarō cast this aside. “It’s a trick! Everything in this city is–”

The magistrates tore away his weapon. An iron crescent pinned him by the neck. Chisen cupped her mouth, doubtlessly imagining their captain’s face once this incident reached his ears.

Eitarō didn’t care. On his knees, he searched Benji’s helpless expression for some proof that he wasn’t human. Or that he was. Didn’t they understand? The whole city was in danger!

“You have it wrong!” he screeched as the magistrates forced him down. “They’re getting away with it! You want the imposters! The bizarre ones!”

To make sure you never miss the latest news from Rokugan, subscribe to the Legend of the Five Rings newsletter, and for more great L5R fiction, visit the Aconyte Books website and subscribe to the Aconyte Fiction Podcast.