"Yes! Finally got one in!"
The boy pumped his fist, beaming with delight.
"Wow, Tacchan, you're amazing!"
The little princess, a touch younger than the boy and every bit as adorable, laughed with delight.
(It had been a good while since anyone had landed a hit on her like that, and it had given her quite a start...)
And that wasn't all.
(That strike... it had looked so much like the old man's, hadn't it...)
It resembled, uncannily, the blow dealt by the very old man who had handed her a first taste of defeat, back in the days when she'd never lost to anyone.
Granny Moon remembered how that resemblance alone had left her stunned for one fatal instant.
And then...
"Come and get me, hag! Nyah nyah!"
The little brat, riding high, kept right on taunting her.
"Raspy old hag! Withered old hag! Decrepit old hag!"
Children, dear listener, can be cruel creatures. And foolish ones, too.
"You little brat, I'll—!!"
"Aaaaargh!!"
Wham wham wham wham wham!!
And so Granny Moon gave the taunting little brat the thrashing of his life!
* * *
"Granny Moon! You're awake!"
Mani-hime beamed down at her, delighted.
Granny Moon, her vision filled with Mani-hime's flowing hair and lovely face, understood the situation at once.
"My lady... you're unharmed, then..."
Granny Moon sighed with relief at the sight of that bright smile, but Mani-hime, for her part, was furious.
"You push yourself too hard! That was so dangerous!"
"My apologies..."
Granny Moon said, slowly hauling herself upright.
(It seemed her ladyship's healing prayers had pulled her through...)
Granny Moon pieced together the rest of the situation.
For all her girlish looks, Mani-hime was in fact a priestess of considerable rank, having mastered nearly every rite of prayer there was.
"To think that woman was a Yōjin, though..."
Granny Moon's face soured at the memory.
It had all started when Mani-hime declared there was "a thieving hussy on the loose," and Granny Moon had simply tagged along to see the woman properly punished.
After all, left to her own devices, this princess might well have killed the woman outright.
Granny Moon had come along only to stop things going too far, and yet somehow it had all ended up like this.
Mani-hime, too, wore a sour look of agreement.
"I never dreamed that woman was so strong..."
"Even a weak Yōjin is a match for a seasoned Kabukimono, my lady. We simply drew a bad hand."
A Yōjin, after all, was a demon of cunning wearing a human face: it hid itself well, was fiendishly hard to kill, looked for all the world like an ordinary townsperson until the moment it revealed itself, and wielded uncanny arts besides. No simple matter, dealing with one of those.
Mani-hime grumbled, frustrated.
"I've never once seen anyone go toe-to-toe with you, Granny Moon..."
"And this is what happened even to me. An ordinary fighter wouldn't have lasted a moment..."
Granny Moon was, after all, counted among the strongest Kabukimono alive, a name that still came up whenever folk argued over who truly stood at the top.
Age had worn her down some, true enough, but she wasn't the sort to lose easily.
Mani-hime fretted, clearly uneasy.
"Tacchan... will he be okay? Not even you could beat her, Granny Moon..."
Seeing the worry on Mani-hime's face, Granny Moon allowed herself a small smile.
"He'll be fine. For all he looks, that boy's a stubborn, cunning little brat."
"Meanie... you always call Tacchan a brat..."
Mani-hime pouted in protest, but something occurred to Granny Moon just then.
"Now hold on, my lady. Don't tell me he's gone off to fight that Yōjin all by himself?"
"No, he's not. He reported it to Lord Onihei, and Onihei said he'd be leading a subjugation party. Something about asking the Northern and Southern Magistrate's Offices for help too, though I didn't quite follow all of it."
"I see..."
Hearing that, Granny Moon relaxed a little.
(Trust Onihei to move fast on a call like that.)
No doubt he'd acted quickly for fear the creature might slip away otherwise.
With both the Northern and Southern Magistrate's Offices called in as reinforcements, Granny Moon figured things would probably turn out fine, but Mani-hime still looked troubled.
"Tacchan..."
"My lady, don't worry. A Yōjin's no easy catch, that much is certain..."
Granny Moon said, a small chuckle escaping her.
"But that boy is tougher than Liu Bang and craftier than Zhao Gao. A single rope won't hold him; not even a thousand ropes would do the trick."
Granny Moon laughed at her own comparison to the great figures of the fall of Qin, but Mani-hime's expression only darkened.
"But, but! Tacchan's only ever beaten you once! If he can't even beat you, how's he supposed to beat a Yōjin...?"
Granny Moon just laughed away Mani-hime's worry.
"Kyahaha! True enough, that... My lady, it's true he's only ever beaten me once out of a hundred tries. I dare say those are still his odds..."
"Then! I should go help him too..."
"But, my lady, he's the sort of man who can make that one win in a hundred come first, before anything else..."
"...Huh?"
Granny Moon laughed at Mani-hime's blank, puzzled look and went on.
"He's a man who can win that first try, and only that one. And every living thing only has one life to lose. So this fight, that boy is bound to win."
Granny Moon smiled on, brimming with confidence, while Mani-hime just kept staring at her, utterly bewildered.