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      "body": "Congratulations @clarastorm! You received a personal award!\n\n<table><tr><td>https://steemitimages.com/70x70/http://steemitboard.com/@clarastorm/birthday2.png</td><td>Happy Birthday! - You are on the Steem blockchain for 2 years!</td></tr></table>\n\n<sub>_You can view [your badges on your Steem Board](https://steemitboard.com/@clarastorm) and compare to others on the [Steem Ranking](https://steemitboard.com/ranking/index.php?name=clarastorm)_</sub>\n\n\n###### [Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness](https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=steemitboard&approve=1) to get one more award and increased upvotes!",
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      "permlink": "laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-20-finale",
      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 20 (finale)",
      "body": "![1024px-Dszpics1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV4JYHAGBEWx4re2aAu4r5dgWS3C47zx897ZeHcYpnNZC/1024px-Dszpics1.jpg)\n[Part 1](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-1), [Part 2](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-2), [Part 3](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-3), [Part 4](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-4), [Part 5](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-5), [Part 6](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-6), [Part 7](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-7), [Part 8](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-8-coming-soon-placeholder), [Part 9](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-9), [Part 10](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-10), [Part 11](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-11), [Part 12](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-12), [Part 13](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-13), [Part 14](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-14), [Part 15](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-15), [Part 16](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-16), [Part 17](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-17), [Part 18](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-18), [Part 19](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-19)\n\n*Ichiro,* Gin thought when she heard the scream.  She stepped off the slow-moving soil kami and ran as fast as three legs would take her towards Gogo. She cut through the copse of trees and saw a giant spider reaching its long limbs into the cart.\n\n*That can't happen.  Spiders aren’t big. It's the laughter.* She looked again but the spider was still there.\n\nShe realized it Gogo was screaming.  Not in her musical voice, but a pained, discordant scream.\n\nShe heard a strike on the spider’s carapace followed by a high-pitched squeal. It reflexively withdrew one of its limbs back from Gogo. Arrows flew from Gogo, but they bounced off.\n\n\"Gogo, run!\"  She heard Lady Taira scream.\n\n\"No,\" came a voice that sounded like two boulders sliding together, \"you stay right here.\"  Gogo didn't move.  She screamed again.  Gin saw a strand of spider silk wrapped around the two horses necks. The horses kicked at it, which kept them from choking.\n\nGin had never seen anyone attack a kami like that before.  Asking them, demanding of them, but never beating them into compliance.\n\nGin reached for a breeze kami again.  *Black as moonless night, blind that spider!* This time she felt the tether at the back of her mind.  The kami grew darker and more opaque as it rushed towards the spider.\n\nThe spider swiped one of it's back limbs towards the cloud and it immediately returned to it's clear, calm state.  “Hahaha, as if such a simple trick would work on me.  Mujina, is that you?  I'll track you and kill you later,” said the thunderous voice.  Gin's blood went cold.\n\nThe giant spider reached into the cart again and withdrew a bleeding limb.  Another arrow bounced off.  *Ichiro and Suki are fighting him off!*\n\n\"You inferior creatures are no match for me, one of the Kami Speakers,\" laughed the spider.  Gin barked to get the spider's attention.  *Chase me!* But the spider ignored her.  \n\nGin realized in horror that the spider silk around Gogo's necks was a kami tether.  A real, physical thing. Gogo tried to direct her tornado towards the spider, but the spider threw another silk tether and smacked it away.  Her wind kami shrieked in pain.\n\n*That spider hurts kami and completely destroyed my illusion!*  \n\n\"Spit those creatures out. I am hungry,\" the spider commanded. Inside, one wall began bulging, pushing Ichiro, Suki, and the unconscious guard towards the door.  Gogo kicked at the tether to no avail.\n\n\"No, don't listen to him!\"  Ichiro yelled.  The bulging wall stopped.  \"Gogo, find Lord Taira and Taru and let's get out of here.\" \n\n“No go go!” She screamed in pain.\n\nReizo and Taru arrived riding the dirt kami as the spider commanded, \"You will listen to me, creation of inferiors.  I, your new master, command you as one of the Kami Speakers to *spit out my food!*\"  The wall started bulging again.\n\n*If I don’t do something, my wife will get eaten by a giant spider and then kill us.* Reizo thought.  Instead of panic, the thought brought him clarity and a sense of purpose.  He grabbed a hand full of dirt.\n\n“Suki!  Suki! Cover your eyes,” he yelled.\n\nTaru fired three arrows at the spider.  One of them stuck in the spider’s body.  A scream of rage shook the ground. Gogo’s wall quit bulging.  \n\nThe spider released it’s tether on the horse’s neck and swung it around to the new threat.\n\n“Tanuki scum!” he roared as the lashed his tether towards Taru and Reizo.\n\n“Find his eyes!” Reizo blew on the dirt and pushed both the dirt and breath  kami hard.   His vision narrowed and a sickening thud reverberated through his entire body.  *Talking to the kami too much!*\n\nA dust cloud arced around the spider and slammed into his eyes.  Taru pulled Reizo out of the path of the spider's whipping tether.\n\n“Dirt return to the one who threw it!” The spider thundered.\n\n“No,” Reizo said weakly.  He sent the request to a breeze kami that circled him. The breeze kami slammed against the oncoming dirt. He nearly passed out from the effort, but that saved his and Taru's eyes.  Instead of cutting Reizo and Taru, the dirt dissipated in a cloud.  More dirt got in Reizo's cuts and he coughed.  The cough turned into vomiting.\n\nTaru fired his bow again.  This time, the arrow stuck in the spider’s head.  \n\n\"Gogo, you like us.  You're a wonderful cart, don't you want to go home again?\"  Ichiro kept talking, hoping to say the right thing.\n\nSuki said, \"Gogo, don't listen to that thing!  It’s not safe here,  Run away from here!\"\n\n\"Stupid inferior creatures, you have given me ammunition to kill you with.  I can't believe you're making it is easy.  I almost feel sorry for you.  If all of you are this pathetic, reclaiming the Yamato gate will be trivial.  Perhaps I should keep you alive as entertaining slaves. Arrow, return to the Tanuki scum who dare fired on me.\"  The arrow pulled itself out of the spider’s head and flew towards Taru.\n\n“No!” Gogo’s beautiful harmonious voice rose in a crescendo. Her will overcame the Kami Speaker and she pushed her tornado out to save her first friend. The arrow crashed into a wall of wind.  One of the wind kami broke it in half and delivered the pieces to Taru. \n\nThen two very solid horses appeared.  They were white but other colors danced just underneath their fur giving the impression that they glowed slightly, even in bright sunlight. \n\nThe spider said, \"That creation is worthless to me now.  The kami within it are fully awakened and will no longer bend to my will.  Don't worry, I'll kill you all anyway!”\n\nGogo kicked one of the spider’s legs and broke it.  He roared and hobbled off into the trees before vanishing from sight.\n\n\"Go go now!\"  Gogo’s musical voice cried. The tornado slowed and shrank back inside the cart.\n\nSuki called, \"Come on!” \n\nThree paper hands picked up Taru, Reizo, and Gin and gently placed them on the benches.  As before, the hands held them in place.  Another hand held the unconscious guard safely on the floor.\n\nIchiro and Gin embraced.  “Big brother, you’re bleeding!”  He had a long scrape on his neck and shoulder and several cuts and bruises, but was alive!  *My brother is alive!*\n\n“Your hand is swollen, little sister.” \n\n“It doesn’t matter, Ichiro.  You’re safe!” Tears of joy rolled down her face as she sat beside her brother again.\n\nReizo had never been so happy to see anyone as he was to see Suki.  Blood flowed like tears down his dusty face, the result of his tornado kami blasting dirt into him. “Suki,” he said, before the pain in his head, scalp, and ribs overwhelmed him.  Merciful blackness claimed Reizo.\n\n\"Reizo, I love you.\"  \n\nGogo hid herself and leapt into the air.  She would be back in Yoshi’s wonderful garden very soon  Her passengers were too preoccupied to notice they were flying.\n\n“Gogo, I must help Reizo,” Suki said as Gogo’s acceleration pushed her back into her seat.\n\n“Soon,” Gogo replied even as blood dripped on her paper hands.  Everyone was bleeding from somewhere.  Suki hadn’t realized the spider had torn her arm open yet.\n\n“Where are we going?” Taru asked. He looked at their traveling supplies.  Everything was still in its place.  They had water to drink and clean their wounds with.  \n\n“Home.”\n\nA short time later the hands released them. Reizo had skin missing in several places. Suki learned this as she cleaned and bandaged his face and hands with strips of her outer silk robe. *My poor Reizo,* she thought.  \n\nTaru ripped a strip off her robe and bandaged her arm.  She needed stitches, but if he didn’t stop the bleeding, it would weaken her.\n\n“Lord Taira will be fine if you keep his skin clean.  None of his cuts are deep, there are just many.  His ribs are injured, make sure he rests.  His magic took a lot out of him.” Taru told her.  *Yoshi told me things like that happen, I hope I'm not lying to her.*\n\n\"Your face,\" Suki said to Taru.\n\n\"A bad sunburn.  It will heal.\"  It was a bit worse than that, but he smiled slightly.  \n\nAll of them tended each other’s wounds and before long, they were as patched up as they could be.   Even the man on the floor was cleaned as best they could.  He'd passed out before Ichiro reached Gogo and Ichiro had carried him the rest of the way.\n\nReizo’s skin was pale where it wasn’t bandaged.  It's because his magic took a lot out of him, Suki told herself over and over again.\n\n“Have you ever seen a spider that large, Taru?” Suki asked. \n\n“I have not.” He leaned against the wall with a piece of wet silk over his face.\n\n“He called himself a kami speaker,” Ichiro said.\n\n“Is he dead?” Gin asked.  She looked around at her friend’s faces and saw the same doubt in their eyes she felt.  “I’m sorry we can’t visit your family, Lady Taira.  I still remember all the right things to say,”  she said.  Suki smiled gratefully through tears. \n\nGin looked out the window, but decided to keep the fact that they flew high above the road to herself.  She didn't want to see Lord Taira injured like that, he was so scary and powerful.  Taru's burned face made her sad.  He'd held her when she needed it.\n\n“He’s not following us,” she reported, and put an arm around Ichiro.  He squeezed her back.\n\nThe ride back was silent because everyone, even Gogo was lost in their own thoughts.\n\nThe Kami Speaker watched the fully awakened kami leap into the air from where he hid in the trees.   That wretched cart was at the center of a wind ball.  None of the arrows he had would get through.\n\nHe slowly walked back to the village to count his resources.  He had a serious head injury and two broken limbs.  His eyes were raw because the human had blasted dirt into them. He’d recover after a month or two rest. He hadn’t realized humans knew the art of kami speaking, but he’d account for that next time.\n\nThe Kami Speaker didn't find the bodies of his soldiers.  Were they dead, or had the Tanuki scum and his group killed them? If so, they'd done him a favor.  The red men didn’t follow orders well, and he would have had to kill them before the next phase of his plan anyway.\n\nHe was patient.  The gateway to Yamato, the Kami Speakers ancestral homeland, was not going anywhere.  This town was be full of dead humans to eat, he discovered.  He ate two, then spun the rest into a web. He could eat them when he woke up instead of hunting for more. \n\nThe giant spider crawled onto the ceiling of the town hall and bullied the kami so much that they keep him and his food hidden while he hibernated and healed for the next two months.  \n\n\n*Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165*",
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      "permlink": "laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-18",
      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 18",
      "body": "![1024px-Dszpics1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV4JYHAGBEWx4re2aAu4r5dgWS3C47zx897ZeHcYpnNZC/1024px-Dszpics1.jpg)\n[Part 1](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-1), [Part 2](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-2), [Part 3](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-3), [Part 4](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-4), [Part 5](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-5), [Part 6](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-6), [Part 7](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-7), [Part 8](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-8-coming-soon-placeholder), [Part 9](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-9), [Part 10](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-10), [Part 11](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-11), [Part 12](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-12), [Part 13](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-13), [Part 14](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-14), [Part 15](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-15), [Part 16](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-16), [Part 17](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-17)\n\nTaru waited to see what the last man standing, the one who'd been stabbed by his fellow criminal, did next.\n\nHe raised his hands in surrender.  Taru lowered his bow.  “I accept your surrender, be gone from this place.”\n\nThe man whimpered as he walked past Taru down the road out of town and on to a new life.  *He can have one of his friends patch him up.  Maybe he'll learn who to trust in the future.*\n\nThen laughter rolled over Taru and destroyed his calm.\n\nHe screamed and grabbed his head in pain.  Suddenly he was standing on the ocean floor looking up at a great wave that crashed over him and into his lungs.  He couldn't breathe.  He coughed out water but he was still drowning. *No air, no air!*  He sank to his knees.\n\nThen all was silent.  Taru finally coughed water out of his lungs and drew a gasping breath. After a few more gasping breaths, he looked around him carefully.  It was the same way he looked at his paper to see how its kami was acting.\n\nPink tinged kami surrounded his head and gobbled up dark, malevolent looking kami as they approached him.  He saw the bandit on the ground coughing.  Each time he coughed, these kami rushed back into his mouth and nose.  Taru took a tentative step in his direction.  The pink kami followed him.  He rushed to the dying man's side, but it was too late.  The bandit's final journey was over before Taru got there.\n\nGin heard the laughter.  *It won't make me sick...I'm at the granary with Ichiro and he's coughing...Mama holds me as she burns...it's day, no night, no both at the same time...don't let Taru hear! Don't let him hear!*  A coherent thought directed at a breeze kami surfaced and it flew to Taru.  She couldn't save the other man without losing control over the kami protecting her brother.  That weighed on her in the weeks and months to come.\n\nGin concentrated on both kami's tugs at the back of her mind. She closed her eyes so she wouldn't see the other man die and clenched her jaw so hard it was sore for days afterward.  *Ichiro must live, he won't die in fire, no they all die in water.  This is water.  Don't let them hear!*  She staggered towards the stronger of the two pulls and felt warm hands pick her up.\n\nSilence.  “Shh, shh, little one.  You're ok.  You saved me.”  She was close enough to Taru that her own kami protected her.  He stroked her fur like her father did when she awoke from a nightmare and carried her away from the dead man.\n\nGin shook with the effort it took to control her kami.  The tug at the back of her mind was fraying, like a rope slipping through her fingers.  *No, no, don't let them hear! Not yet, don't go yet,* she called to her kami.\n\n“It's over.  Let go, Gin.  I have to save Lord Taira now like you saved me.”  Taru gave her fur one last stroke and set her gently on the ground.\n\n---\n\nReizo saw the men choking on water and looked with his kami sight.  Violent, dark, deadly kami swarmed into their mouths.  His tornado kami shredded any that got close to him. *I can't control the tornado kami well enough to protect these men, and after what they did to the guard, maybe I wouldn't.*  He would  ponder that in the weeks and months to come, but for now, survival was his only thought.\n\nReizo walked out of the town hall and saw three ugly beast men laughing.  They looked like short, squat humans covered in matted fur.  Their faces were bald, and had nasty expressions.  They each held spears in sharp clawed hands.  The dark kami poured from their mouths as they laughed.  \n\nReizo charged them, hoping his Ofuda would hold the tornado kami a little longer.  *Maybe if I get lucky, the tornado will kill them.  This can't reach Suki or The Capital.*\n\nThe three beastmen split up and Reizo chased one into the field.  Too late he realized he'd run into a trap when they surrounded him.  Reizo ran back towards the safety of the buildings.  *If they can't surround me, I stand a better chance.*\n\nOne threw a spear at him.  The tornado kami batted it out of the way.  Reizo realized there were fewer wind kami and they were losing focus on destruction.  *Oh no, I'm going to die in a field far away from home.*\n\nSharp, stinging dirt and rocks slammed Reizo in the eyes and on his face and hands.  Over and over again the few remaining kami raged and buffeted the soil into him.  The kami were angry.  Reizo was blind and something warm ran down his face and hands.  *I'm bleeding.  I'm bleeding.  My own kami attacked me.  I'm an onmyoji, that doesn't happen. My eyes won't open, I can't see!*\n\nHe stumbled and fell.  It knocked the wind out of him and the pain of so many little cuts surfaced through his adrenaline.  Reizo heard vicious chuckling and tried to scramble away, but got tangled up in his own clothes.\n\n“He's down now!”  The beastman's voice was raspy and promised Reizo a painful death.  He reached for another one of his Ofuda, but his sleeve wrapped  around his hand and couldn't reach  it.  Reizo's fear bloomed into panic.\n\n---\n\nTaru fired a shot at the beastman closest to Reizo.  He stopped and pulled the arrow out and tossed it on the ground.  *Their fur acts like armor,* Taru realized and stepped closer.  \n\n*Twang.* Taru shot him in his throwing shoulder and he dropped his spear.\n\nThe monster howled, but kept advancing.  \n\n“Taira, stay down!” *If he stands up, all three of them can hit him with their spears.  If he's down, the close one blocks the other two for now.*\n\nGin saw the vile creatures responsible for so much suffering and rage filled her heart and mind.  She saw was ugly red furred creatures.  *The red fur.  Same as Ichiro and Mama.  They let their fur get nasty.  They destroyed everything, I will kill them!  Kill them!*\n\n“Gin, get out of the way!” Taru yelled.  But Gin only heard her heartbeat in her ears.  She only saw ugly matted red fur.  She leaped over Reizo to rip the monster's throat out only to have him grab her out of the air.  Gin bit down on his hand hard.  In his shock he threw her in a high arc so she landed without hurting herself.\n\n“Gin, stay back!” Taru screamed.  Taru saw how strong the monster was.  He'd have killed Gin if he'd thrown her straight down.\n\nGin landed and retched.  As bad as they smelled, they tasted even worse. \n\nTaru shot again.  He was in spear range if the beast looming over Reizo chose to throw it at him.  His shot missed.  The ugly monster sniggered and picked up his spear.\n\n*Black as moonless night, blind him!*  Gin thought at a breeze kami. But it was like trying to grab water in her fist instead of her cupped hand. The kami sailed off, then forgot what it was told.  *Too soon!  I can't help Mr. Yellow and he's going to die.*\n\nShe started circling around behind the vile thing attacking Reizo.  *He can't throw me if he can't see me.* \n\nReizo screamed a pure scream of panic.  *I'm going to die, I can't see, help, Taru, help!  Suki, I'm sorry.  Blood, so much blood.  Get away from me.  I don't want to die on the ground.* He grabbed an Ofuda through his sleeve, and released the kami.\n\nThe kami heard him and followed his instructions as best as it could.\n\nThe ground vanished under Reizo.  \n\n*Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165*",
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      "permlink": "laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-19",
      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 19",
      "body": "![1024px-Dszpics1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV4JYHAGBEWx4re2aAu4r5dgWS3C47zx897ZeHcYpnNZC/1024px-Dszpics1.jpg)\n[Part 1](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-1), [Part 2](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-2), [Part 3](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-3), [Part 4](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-4), [Part 5](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-5), [Part 6](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-6), [Part 7](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-7), [Part 8](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-8-coming-soon-placeholder), [Part 9](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-9), [Part 10](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-10), [Part 11](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-11), [Part 12](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-12), [Part 13](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-13), [Part 14](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-14), [Part 15](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-15), [Part 16](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-16), [Part 17](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-17), [Part 18](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-18)\n\nReizo landed hard, still bleeding and in pain.  Something heavy landed on him and pinned him in place.  He heard something crunch and pain bloomed in his chest.  A vile smell like an outhouse and dead body combined flooded his nose.\n\nReizo's eyes were sealed shut.  He wiped them on his shoulder opened one.  It watered fiercely, but he realized he could see again.\n\nA sunken finger of earth grew from the sinkhole around Reizo up to Taru. It wasn't a deep split, but it's sudden appearance caught him off guard and he tumbled into the ditch.  Shock went up his right arm and his ankle twisted, but he didn't think anything was seriously injured.  He retrieved his bow, grateful the string held.  His shooting arm was numb.  *This is the danger of having those with no fighting experience on the battle field!  I wish I’d been more insistent that Yoshi train his traveling onmyoji,* Taru thought as he climbed back out.\n\nGin fared the best.  She was light and on four legs, so when the ground disappeared beneath her, she manged to land on soft soil.  She climbed back up to the field and saw two beasts aiming spears at one sinkhole.  \n\nGin sneaked up on her prey. Months of hunting helped her. The beastman didn't see her until she bit his ankle. He howled and kicked her head over heels through the air.  She landed in a roll and threw up again from the disgusting taste.\n\nTaru drew a knife and threw it at the closest monster.  It missed, but just then Gin bit him and his thrashing got in the way of the other monster's throw.  That monster was aiming at Taru.  Taru hobbled closer, cursing his useless right arm.\n\n“Taira, Taira!  Stay down, they can’t hit you!” Taru screamed as soon as he realized why they weren’t throwing their spears. When the beastman threatening Taira fell, he landed on his own spear.  Reizo was pinned down, but he was also temporarily safe from the two remaining spears.\n\nTaru wasn't safe, so he slide into the ditch.  \n\n“I’m trapped!” Reizo screamed. *I’m trapped at the bottom of an outhouse!*  \n\n“You’re safe, get a hold of yourself,” Taru snapped.  “One of them fell on you.”\n\n*I’m safe, I’m safe.  I’m an onmyoji,* Reizo remembered. His ribs made it hard to talk to the kami, so he said out loud, “Dirt, leave my eyes.”  It did and he opened them.  They watered, they were sore, but they opened.  He realized he was laying in dirt. Something stinky was pressing him to the ground and he couldn’t move.\n\nMeanwhile the two remaining monsters walked towards Taru.   Sliding down the ditch on a bad ankle had cost him.  His knee didn't bend quite right now.  But his shooting arm was pins and needles now.  He flexed his hand, grabbed an arrow, and carefully situated himself to shoot as best he could.\n\n“Taira!” Taru called.\n\n“Leave him, get the archer.  He’s the biggest threat,” one beast-man said to the other.  “We’ll avenge our tribesman's death later. He’s not going anywhere.”\n\nWas it a trick?  Only one way to find out. “Lift me up,” he said to the soil kami beneath him.  It obeyed.  “Move me to the right,” he said.  He maneuvered the soil until the weight fell off of him.  Each breath was fire, but he wasn’t pinned anymore.  Reizo peeked over the lip of the sink hole and saw a tiny Kitsune pounce toward on one of the beast man’s ankle.  He was waiting for it, and kicked her.  Gin landed in a sprawl and didn’t move.   *She's fighting.  I can't be a coward when she isn't.*\n\n“Taira, hurry!”  Taru called from the pit the monsters walked towards.\n\n“Hey!” Reizo shouted at the monster’s backs.  He winced as he dug in his sleeve for his last Ofuda.   *\"It only takes a few moments to release a kami properly, or not.\"*  Ministry Head Fujiwara's words echoed in his mind.  He blocked out the pain  released the trapped kami.\n\nFire rushed from Reizo’s hand towards the two beasts that were closing in on Taru.  He'd chosen a short, intense burn instead of a longer burn because fire was very fickle.  *The way things happened, it’s lucky I grabbed the soil Ofuda instead of this one before.  My thoughts were so jumbled and chaotic, it would have burned them alive! Shame washed over Reizo with that realization.  I would have killed my friends.  Me.  Not these monsters, not drowning, not bandits.  Me.* \n\nThe smell of burnt fur filled the air.  The monsters screamed a terrible scream and rolled into the pit with Taru.  Maybe they were trying to put out the flames, maybe they were desperate to kill one of their enemies. \n\nNo!  “Lift up Taru!”  Reizo screamed. His vision narrowed to a red tunnel as his mind scrabbled for the right kami out of the thousands surrounding him.  He found it, and Taru rose on a wave of soil above the burning, screaming bodies.  The screaming cut off abruptly when the wave of dirt crashed over them.  Taru slid down the wave of dirt and landed near Reizo.  His face was burned from the heat but he was alive. \n\n“Gin.  She’s hurt.  I can’t see her around the pile,” Reizo said.  \n\n“Yip!”  Came a faint bark.  Gin limped into view holding her left paw.  She sat down on Taru’s lap.  *He’s not Daddy, but I need to pretend right now,* she thought.\n\nTaru rubbed her head.  “She saved me in the village, then she saved you when you were trapped in the pit.”\n\n*Unlike me who almost killed them both.*\n\n\"Lord Taira, it's all over.  Time to return to Gogo.  Suki will be happy to see you.\" \n\nTears fell down Reizo’s cheeks.  “I..” He began, but the words wouldn’t come out.\n\n“You have never been in a battle before.  It is ok, you did as well as you could,” Taru continued.  \n\n*He is so wrong.  I thought being an onmyoji was enough to win a fight.  If either of them find out I almost burned them alive, they’ll hate me.*\n\nTaru helped him to a sitting position. Every breath was pain, but Reizo ignored it and guided the soil kami towards Gogo.  *A just punishment for my failures.* \n\nThen a scream split the air.  It wasn't over.\n\n*Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165*",
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      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 17",
      "body": "![1024px-Dszpics1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV4JYHAGBEWx4re2aAu4r5dgWS3C47zx897ZeHcYpnNZC/1024px-Dszpics1.jpg)\n[Part 1](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-1), [Part 2](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-2), [Part 3](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-3), [Part 4](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-4), [Part 5](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-5), [Part 6](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-6), [Part 7](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-7), [Part 8](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-8-coming-soon-placeholder), [Part 9](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-9), [Part 10](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-10), [Part 11](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-11), [Part 12](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-12), [Part 13](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-13), [Part 14](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-14), [Part 15](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-15), [Part 16](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-16)\n\nIchiro lifted the man over the small of his back and walked as quickly as he could. It was hot and the man was heavy.  His feet drug on the ground, but he wouldn’t leave a trail until he entered the field. *And by then they’d be visible above the grass anyway.*\n  \n“Wake up,” he said to the man many times.  Finally the man responded with a “Gnnnk,” noise.  \n\n“Just a little farther, we’re almost to the field,” Ichiro grunted.  *Why did we have to park so far away?*\n\n“Water,” the man said faintly.\n\nIchiro set him down and handed the man his water gourd.  “My head.  Everything is so blurry,” the man said.  Ichiro had ignored the smell of blood, but it was impossible now that the man had bled into his water gourd.\n\n“You’ll be ok, we’re almost to safety,” he told the man who passed out again.  They were about halfway to Gogo.  *You couldn’t wait until after I’d picked you up to go completely limp?*\n\nIchiro picked him up again and trudged as fast as he could.  He was tired, and he could feel his influence lessening on the kami that hid them both. Must put more space between us and the bandits before the kami wander away and stop hiding us. \n\nHe heard the man retch and felt something warm on his leg. But the man was awake, sort of. Ichiro put him down.  “You can walk,” he said and guided the man towards Gogo.  It was much easier with the man leaning on him than carrying him, but still slow going.  Then the hiding kami left them and they were exposed.\n\n“That smells terrible,” Ichiro gagged at the most disgusting thing he’d ever smelled.  *If I had anything left in my stomach, I’d throw up.* Then he realized the smell wasn’t coming from the vomit on his leg.\n—-\n“Lady Taira, I want to go outside,” Gin said.  They’d pulled the cushions from the benches onto the floor, and had the choice of standing inside Gogo, or sitting on hard wooden benches.\n\n“It’s not safe out there,” Suki reminded her.\n\n“There’s space for us to sit that’s still hidden.  We can watch for Ichiro and the men to return,” Gin explained.\n\n“Can you touch the kami that keep us hidden from Gogo’s step?”  *Gin is honest, but losing her village has something something terrible to her mind,* Suki concluded after spending some time with the young Kitsune.\n\nGin shook her head.  “You can’t touch these kami,” she explained.  “Some you can, like Gogo’s.  But not these, they’re just floating in the air.”\n\n“Go up to what’s hiding us and show me.  Don’t cross it,” Suki said.\n\nGin nodded very seriously and walked five steps from Gogo. “It’s here.  It looks like my friend’s fur.  She had little brown specks mixed in with the red.  We always laughed at them, calling them ‘bird feathers’, but I miss them now.  I miss her.” she said sadly. \n\nThe two of them sat outside.  The trees blocked most of their view, but it was comforting to think of seeing their loved ones as soon as possible.  To pass the time, Suki told Gin how to act and what to say when they visited her family.  Gin listened intently and followed every detail.\n\nThat smell. That vile smell hit Gin. She first smelled it on the day her village died.\n\n“Lady Taira, get inside Gogo!  Gogo, don’t let any laughter inside you!  It will kill you both!  Don’t listen to the laughter!” The young girl pulled the older woman to her feet and pushed her towards Gogo.\n\n“Gin, Gin, what is it?”  Suki let Gin push her inside Gogo and gathered the young frantic girl into her arms.  “It will be ok, just wait for Ichiro.  You want to tell him how brave you were, right?”  Suki stroked her hair.\n\n“No!” Gin said.  She stood on Gogo’s step and made sure Suki was inside.  “I must save them. It’s here!”\n\n“Shh, shh, there’s nothing here, just come inside.  I brought dried chicken.” She lifted the young girl inside.\n\n“Gogo, don’t let Lady Taira leave or she’ll die too!  Don’t let her listen to the laughter!”  Tears were spilling out of her eyes so she barely got the words out. And Gin turned into a kitsune, slipped out of Suki’s arms and bolted into the field.  All Suki held was Gin’s kimono.\n\nSuki tried to follow Gin, but Gogo had erected a barrier across the entire door.  She was trapped.  “No, no.  Not safe,” said Gogo in her musical voice.  Suki pulled out Junko’s paper, but no matter what she said, Gogo wouldn’t let her follow the young Kitsune.  The windows were blocked, too. She was so frantic and worried about the young girl and her husband that she burst into tears.\n\n“Gogo is friend.  No cry,” the musical voice tried to sooth her. A paper hand stroked her hair.\n\n“Why won’t you let me get her? She’s in danger,” Suki sobbed.\n\n“Gogo cry. Safe here,” *She’s trying to tell me something, but Gogo is like a young child learning to talk,* Suki realized.\n\nSuki dried her eyes and composed herself, although it did take two tries.  She took off her outer robe and folded it neatly.  Then she took off her two other robes until she was wearing only her under kimono with its tight sleeves.  She didn’t know how to tie her sleeves like Taru, and when she shot with Junko and Lady Fujiwara, she was able to wait until just the right time to shoot: the wind calm, her sleeves out of the way.  She didn’t have that luxury here.\n\nSuki took the bow and quiver down from the shelf.  She drew the bow to make sure she could, then sat down and folded her other robes.  She was scared and alone.\n\n“Gogo, what is the danger?”  \n\n“Bad.  Gogo cry.”  Then Gogo whipped up her tornado around her.\n—\nGin ran towards Ichiro and the man he’d rescued in the field.  Her heart pounded and black spots filled her vision.  *I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you. Kami, kami, don’t let them hear, don’t let them hear!*\n\nThe breeze kami heard her and rushed towards her brother. Gin collapsed and panted in the grass until her vision cleared.  She felt the tug of the kami at the back of her mind.  They would protect Ichiro and the other man.\n—\nIchiro’s world went absolutely silent.  He looked up from supporting the injured man and saw breeze kami eating sound.  Instead of their mouths pointed towards him, they were pointed away.  They ate every scrap of sound that came near him. Huh?  They had the slight pink cast that any of Gin’s kami took on. *The laughter.  She thinks whatever laughed is close by.  Where is she? She can’t control kami very well.* He couldn’t see Gin anywhere, so her kami gave wouldn’t last.\n\nIchiro was very afraid and he picked up the pace.  The trees where Gogo hid were closer now.  The disgusting smell got stronger.\n—\nGin stood up when she could run again and headed towards her brother.  Ichiro saw her and yelled, “Gin, Gin!  Get back to Gogo!”  \n\nShe yipped in return, although he couldn’t hear her.  She noticed the kami, her kami, still followed her orders.  She ran to her brother and nipped at his heels. *Hurry, hurry Ichiro! I can’t lose him, don’t let him hear!* She thought desperately towards her kami.\n\nShe continued towards town.  She still felt the kami’s tug so Ichiro was safe.  Gin heard the fury of a great wind storm and angled towards it.  When she saw the angry kami who circled Lord Taira rip off a door, she changed direction to find Taru. *The man in yellow’s kami will keep him safe, they hate everything.*\n\nNo one noticed a small Kitsune running through town.\n\n*Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165*",
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      "author": "clarastorm",
      "permlink": "laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-18",
      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 18",
      "body": "![1024px-Dszpics1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV4JYHAGBEWx4re2aAu4r5dgWS3C47zx897ZeHcYpnNZC/1024px-Dszpics1.jpg)\n[Part 1](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-1), [Part 2](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-2), [Part 3](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-3), [Part 4](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-4), [Part 5](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-5), [Part 6](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-6), [Part 7](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-7), [Part 8](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-8-coming-soon-placeholder), [Part 9](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-9), [Part 10](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-10), [Part 11](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-11), [Part 12](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-12), [Part 13](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-13), [Part 14](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-14), [Part 15](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-15), [Part 16](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-16), [Part 17](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-17)\n\nTaru waited to see what the last man standing, the one who'd been stabbed by his fellow criminal, did next.\n\nHe raised his hands in surrender.  Taru lowered his bow.  “I accept your surrender, be gone from this place.”\n\nThe man whimpered as he walked past Taru down the road out of town and on to a new life.  *He can have one of his friends patch him up.  Maybe he'll learn who to trust in the future.*\n\nThen laughter rolled over Taru and destroyed his calm.\n\nHe screamed and grabbed his head in pain.  Suddenly he was standing on the ocean floor looking up at a great wave that crashed over him and into his lungs.  He couldn't breathe.  He coughed out water but he was still drowning. *No air, no air!*  He sank to his knees.\n\nThen all was silent.  Taru finally coughed water out of his lungs and drew a gasping breath. After a few more gasping breaths, he looked around him carefully.  It was the same way he looked at his paper to see how its kami was acting.\n\nPink tinged kami surrounded his head and gobbled up dark, malevolent looking kami as they approached him.  He saw the bandit on the ground coughing.  Each time he coughed, these kami rushed back into his mouth and nose.  Taru took a tentative step in his direction.  The pink kami followed him.  He rushed to the dying man's side, but it was too late.  The bandit's final journey was over before Taru got there.\n\nGin heard the laughter.  *It won't make me sick...I'm at the granary with Ichiro and he's coughing...Mama holds me as she burns...it's day, no night, no both at the same time...don't let Taru hear! Don't let him hear!*  A coherent thought directed at a breeze kami surfaced and it flew to Taru.  She couldn't save the other man without losing control over the kami protecting her brother.  That weighed on her in the weeks and months to come.\n\nGin concentrated on both kami's tugs at the back of her mind. She closed her eyes so she wouldn't see the other man die and clenched her jaw so hard it was sore for days afterward.  *Ichiro must live, he won't die in fire, no they all die in water.  This is water.  Don't let them hear!*  She staggered towards the stronger of the two pulls and felt warm hands pick her up.\n\nSilence.  “Shh, shh, little one.  You're ok.  You saved me.”  She was close enough to Taru that her own kami protected her.  He stroked her fur like her father did when she awoke from a nightmare and carried her away from the dead man.\n\nGin shook with the effort it took to control her kami.  The tug at the back of her mind was fraying, like a rope slipping through her fingers.  *No, no, don't let them hear! Not yet, don't go yet,* she called to her kami.\n\n“It's over.  Let go, Gin.  I have to save Lord Taira now like you saved me.”  Taru gave her fur one last stroke and set her gently on the ground.\n---\n\nReizo saw the men choking on water and looked with his kami sight.  Violent, dark, deadly kami swarmed into their mouths.  His tornado kami shredded any that got close to him. *I can't control the tornado kami well enough to protect these men, and after what they did to the guard, maybe I wouldn't.*  He would  ponder that in the weeks and months to come, but for now, survival was his only thought.\n\nReizo walked out of the town hall and saw three ugly beast men laughing.  They looked like short, squat humans covered in matted fur.  Their faces were bald, and had nasty expressions.  They each held spears in sharp clawed hands.  The dark kami poured from their mouths as they laughed.  \n\nReizo charged them, hoping his Ofuda would hold the tornado kami a little longer.  *Maybe if I get lucky, the tornado will kill them.  This can't reach Suki or The Capital.*\n\nThe three beastmen split up and Reizo chased one into the field.  Too late he realized he'd run into a trap when they surrounded him.  Reizo ran back towards the safety of the buildings.  *If they can't surround me, I stand a better chance.*\n\nOne threw a spear at him.  The tornado kami batted it out of the way.  Reizo realized there were fewer wind kami and they were losing focus on destruction.  *Oh no, I'm going to die in a field far away from home.*\n\nSharp, stinging dirt and rocks slammed Reizo in the eyes and on his face and hands.  Over and over again the few remaining kami raged and buffeted the soil into him.  The kami were angry.  Reizo was blind and something warm ran down his face and hands.  *I'm bleeding.  I'm bleeding.  My own kami attacked me.  I'm an onmyoji, that doesn't happen. My eyes won't open, I can't see!*\n\nHe stumbled and fell.  It knocked the wind out of him and the pain of so many little cuts surfaced through his adrenaline.  Reizo heard vicious chuckling and tried to scramble away, but got tangled up in his own clothes.\n\n“He's down now!”  The beastman's voice was raspy and promised Reizo a painful death.  He reached for another one of his Ofuda, but his sleeve wrapped  around his hand and couldn't reach  it.  Reizo's fear bloomed into panic.\n---\n\nTaru fired a shot at the beastman closest to Reizo.  He stopped and pulled the arrow out and tossed it on the ground.  *Their fur acts like armor,* Taru realized and stepped closer.  \n\n*Twang.* Taru shot him in his throwing shoulder and he dropped his spear.\n\nThe monster howled, but kept advancing.  \n\n“Taira, stay down!” *If he stands up, all three of them can hit him with their spears.  If he's down, the close one blocks the other two for now.*\n\nGin saw the vile creatures responsible for so much suffering and rage filled her heart and mind.  She saw was ugly red furred creatures.  *The red fur.  Same as Ichiro and Mama.  They let their fur get nasty.  They destroyed everything, I will kill them!  Kill them!*\n\n“Gin, get out of the way!” Taru yelled.  But Gin only heard her heartbeat in her ears.  She only saw ugly matted red fur.  She leaped over Reizo to rip the monster's throat out only to have him grab her out of the air.  Gin bit down on his hand hard.  In his shock he threw her in a high arc so she landed without hurting herself.\n\n“Gin, stay back!” Taru screamed.  Taru saw how strong the monster was.  He'd have killed Gin if he'd thrown her straight down.\n\nGin landed and retched.  As bad as they smelled, they tasted even worse. \n\nTaru shot again.  He was in spear range if the beast looming over Reizo chose to throw it at him.  His shot missed.  The ugly monster sniggered and picked up his spear.\n\n*Black as moonless night, blind him!*  Gin thought at a breeze kami. But it was like trying to grab water in her fist instead of her cupped hand. The kami sailed off, then forgot what it was told.  *Too soon!  I can't help Mr. Yellow and he's going to die.*\n\nShe started circling around behind the vile thing attacking Reizo.  *He can't throw me if he can't see me.* \n\nReizo screamed a pure scream of panic.  *I'm going to die, I can't see, help, Taru, help!  Suki, I'm sorry.  Blood, so much blood.  Get away from me.  I don't want to die on the ground.* He grabbed an Ofuda through his sleeve, and released the kami.\n\nThe kami heard him and followed his instructions as best as it could.\n\nThe ground vanished under Reizo.  \n\n*Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165*",
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      "permlink": "laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-17",
      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 17",
      "body": "![1024px-Dszpics1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV4JYHAGBEWx4re2aAu4r5dgWS3C47zx897ZeHcYpnNZC/1024px-Dszpics1.jpg)\n[Part 1](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-1), [Part 2](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-2), [Part 3](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-3), [Part 4](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-4), [Part 5](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-5), [Part 6](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-6), [Part 7](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-7), [Part 8](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-8-coming-soon-placeholder), [Part 9](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-9), [Part 10](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-10), [Part 11](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-11), [Part 12](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-12), [Part 13](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-13), [Part 14](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-14), [Part 15](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-15), [Part 16](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-16)\n\nIchiro lifted the man over the small of his back and walked as quickly as he could. It was hot and the man was heavy.  His feet drug on the ground, but he wouldn’t leave a trail until he entered the field. *And by then they’d be visible above the grass anyway.*\n  \n“Wake up,” he said to the man many times.  Finally the man responded with a “Gnnnk,” noise.  \n\n“Just a little farther, we’re almost to the field,” Ichiro grunted.  *Why did we have to park so far away?*\n\n“Water,” the man said faintly.\n\nIchiro set him down and handed the man his water gourd.  “My head.  Everything is so blurry,” the man said.  Ichiro had ignored the smell of blood, but it was impossible now that the man had bled into his water gourd.\n\n“You’ll be ok, we’re almost to safety,” he told the man who passed out again.  They were about halfway to Gogo.  *You couldn’t wait until after I’d picked you up to go completely limp?*\n\nIchiro picked him up again and trudged as fast as he could.  He was tired, and he could feel his influence lessening on the kami that hid them both. Must put more space between us and the bandits before the kami wander away and stop hiding us. \n\nHe heard the man retch and felt something warm on his leg. But the man was awake, sort of. Ichiro put him down.  “You can walk,” he said and guided the man towards Gogo.  It was much easier with the man leaning on him than carrying him, but still slow going.  Then the hiding kami left them and they were exposed.\n\n“That smells terrible,” Ichiro gagged at the most disgusting thing he’d ever smelled.  *If I had anything left in my stomach, I’d throw up.* Then he realized the smell wasn’t coming from the vomit on his leg.\n—-\n“Lady Taira, I want to go outside,” Gin said.  They’d pulled the cushions from the benches onto the floor, and had the choice of standing inside Gogo, or sitting on hard wooden benches.\n\n“It’s not safe out there,” Suki reminded her.\n\n“There’s space for us to sit that’s still hidden.  We can watch for Ichiro and the men to return,” Gin explained.\n\n“Can you touch the kami that keep us hidden from Gogo’s step?”  *Gin is honest, but losing her village has something something terrible to her mind,* Suki concluded after spending some time with the young Kitsune.\n\nGin shook her head.  “You can’t touch these kami,” she explained.  “Some you can, like Gogo’s.  But not these, they’re just floating in the air.”\n\n“Go up to what’s hiding us and show me.  Don’t cross it,” Suki said.\n\nGin nodded very seriously and walked five steps from Gogo. “It’s here.  It looks like my friend’s fur.  She had little brown specks mixed in with the red.  We always laughed at them, calling them ‘bird feathers’, but I miss them now.  I miss her.” she said sadly. \n\nThe two of them sat outside.  The trees blocked most of their view, but it was comforting to think of seeing their loved ones as soon as possible.  To pass the time, Suki told Gin how to act and what to say when they visited her family.  Gin listened intently and followed every detail.\n\nThat smell. That vile smell hit Gin. She first smelled it on the day her village died.\n\n“Lady Taira, get inside Gogo!  Gogo, don’t let any laughter inside you!  It will kill you both!  Don’t listen to the laughter!” The young girl pulled the older woman to her feet and pushed her towards Gogo.\n\n“Gin, Gin, what is it?”  Suki let Gin push her inside Gogo and gathered the young frantic girl into her arms.  “It will be ok, just wait for Ichiro.  You want to tell him how brave you were, right?”  Suki stroked her hair.\n\n“No!” Gin said.  She stood on Gogo’s step and made sure Suki was inside.  “I must save them. It’s here!”\n\n“Shh, shh, there’s nothing here, just come inside.  I brought dried chicken.” She lifted the young girl inside.\n\n“Gogo, don’t let Lady Taira leave or she’ll die too!  Don’t let her listen to the laughter!”  Tears were spilling out of her eyes so she barely got the words out. And Gin turned into a kitsune, slipped out of Suki’s arms and bolted into the field.  All Suki held was Gin’s kimono.\n\nSuki tried to follow Gin, but Gogo had erected a barrier across the entire door.  She was trapped.  “No, no.  Not safe,” said Gogo in her musical voice.  Suki pulled out Junko’s paper, but no matter what she said, Gogo wouldn’t let her follow the young Kitsune.  The windows were blocked, too. She was so frantic and worried about the young girl and her husband that she burst into tears.\n\n“Gogo is friend.  No cry,” the musical voice tried to sooth her. A paper hand stroked her hair.\n\n“Why won’t you let me get her? She’s in danger,” Suki sobbed.\n\n“Gogo cry. Safe here,” *She’s trying to tell me something, but Gogo is like a young child learning to talk,* Suki realized.\n\nSuki dried her eyes and composed herself, although it did take two tries.  She took off her outer robe and folded it neatly.  Then she took off her two other robes until she was wearing only her under kimono with its tight sleeves.  She didn’t know how to tie her sleeves like Taru, and when she shot with Junko and Lady Fujiwara, she was able to wait until just the right time to shoot: the wind calm, her sleeves out of the way.  She didn’t have that luxury here.\n\nSuki took the bow and quiver down from the shelf.  She drew the bow to make sure she could, then sat down and folded her other robes.  She was scared and alone.\n\n“Gogo, what is the danger?”  \n\n“Bad.  Gogo cry.”  Then Gogo whipped up her tornado around her.\n—\nGin ran towards Ichiro and the man he’d rescued in the field.  Her heart pounded and black spots filled her vision.  *I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you. Kami, kami, don’t let them hear, don’t let them hear!*\n\nThe breeze kami heard her and rushed towards her brother. Gin collapsed and panted in the grass until her vision cleared.  She felt the tug of the kami at the back of her mind.  They would protect Ichiro and the other man.\n—\nIchiro’s world went absolutely silent.  He looked up from supporting the injured man and saw breeze kami eating sound.  Instead of their mouths pointed towards him, they were pointed away.  They ate every scrap of sound that came near him. Huh?  They had the slight pink cast that any of Gin’s kami took on. *The laughter.  She thinks whatever laughed is close by.  Where is she? She can’t control kami very well.* He couldn’t see Gin anywhere, so her kami gave wouldn’t last.\n\nIchiro was very afraid and he picked up the pace.  The trees where Gogo hid were closer now.  The disgusting smell got stronger.\n—\nGin stood up when she could run again and headed towards her brother.  Ichiro saw her and yelled, “Gin, Gin!  Get back to Gogo!”  \n\nShe yipped in return, although he couldn’t hear her.  She noticed the kami, her kami, still followed her orders.  She ran to her brother and nipped at his heels. *Hurry, hurry Ichiro! I can’t lose him, don’t let him hear!* She thought desperately towards her kami.\n\nShe continued towards town.  She still felt the kami’s tug so Ichiro was safe.  Gin heard the fury of a great wind storm and angled towards it.  When she saw the angry kami who circled Lord Taira rip off a door, she changed direction to find Taru. *The man in yellow’s kami will keep him safe, they hate everything.*\n\nNo one noticed a small Kitsune running through town.\n\n*Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165*",
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      "permlink": "laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-16",
      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 16",
      "body": "![1024px-Dszpics1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV4JYHAGBEWx4re2aAu4r5dgWS3C47zx897ZeHcYpnNZC/1024px-Dszpics1.jpg)\n[Part 1](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-1), [Part 2](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-2), [Part 3](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-3), [Part 4](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-4), [Part 5](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-5), [Part 6](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-6), [Part 7](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-7), [Part 8](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-8-coming-soon-placeholder), [Part 9](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-9), [Part 10](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-10), [Part 11](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-11), [Part 12](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-12), [Part 13](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-13), [Part 14](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-14), [Part 15](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-15)\n\nIchiro ducked behind the town well out of habit and watched bandits alerted by the cry spill out of the town hall stop and stare at the tornado moving slowly towards them.  The two minding the stew stood up, then sat back down again. The confusion on their faces was comical.\n\nThey argued about what to do.  Some wanted to run towards their comrade who screamed, others wanted to go back inside for safety from the storm.  \n \n“We need to fight alongside our man!”\n\n“How can we get around a tornado?  Oh, it’s not moving…”\n\n“How do we fight the wind?  This is Kitsune magic!  A Kitsune cursed us.”  Ichiro suppressed a laugh.\n\n“No, this is one of those cops from The Capital, the magic ones!” Said one of the men cooking. The other agreed with him and they both took off running into the fields.  They’re the smartest of the bunch, thought Ichiro, relieved they chose a direction away from his sister.\n\nSome bandits went back in the town hall and slammed the doors.  The rest ran towards the man who altered them to the attack.  They ran behind the two stores next to the town hall in order to avoid Lord Taira. \n\nIt was time. Ichiro walked to the bound man.  He was still unconscious. None of the bandits were around to notice when he vanished into thin air or when the cut ropes appeared on the ground.  \n—-\nReizo walked slowly down the street as he waited for Ichiro to rescue the guard.  He watched bandits rush out of the building and into the street.  He couldn’t hear anything over the rushing kami.  He looked with his kami-sight and saw Ichiro waiting.  \n\n“Destroy!  Destroy!  Destroy!”  the tornado kami said.\n\nReizo watched two bandits run into the field away from Suki, four walk to assist the now-dead one who called for help, and several skitter back inside the town hall and slam the doors closed.\n\nIchiro rushed to the guard, kami-hid him and cut his ropes.  He half carried, half dragged the man away.  It was time. He stopped seeing with kami-sight.  *Listening to them scream “Destroy” is more annoying than the sound of  wind.* Reizo’s heart pounded as he walked to towards the town hall.  \n—- \nMeanwhile Taru waited with his back against a building.  *In happier days, Junko would love to shop here for raime and dye.* Then he heard pounding feet, and his moment of reverie was over.  Violence and killing brought Taru no pleasure.  Every time he drew his bow he weighed who or what he was saving in the future because of who he allowed to live.  Over the years he’d come to accept the fact that it was an unfortunate part of his life, while magic, politicking, and setting things in motion was Yoshi’s path.  \n\nBrigands were all too common outside of the order and safety of The Capital.  Killing all of these men wouldn’t end banditry in this province.  By next spring’s thaw a new horde would take their place.  But there was no way he would sacrifice his life by showing trash like this mercy.  *However, some of these men would choose a different life after today.  I hope I know the difference, and it’s not just Yoshi’s arrogance rubbing off on me after all these years.*\n\nIt was easier to fight smaller groups than a large group.  Even if they couldn’t see him, if enough men threw spears one might hit.  Only four ran towards him.\n\nHe could see darkness surrounding the men who ran towards their two fallen.  This darkness wasn't kami, this was from a long history of violence.  Two of the four men exuded menace and desperation in the way they gripped their bow and spears. *Do others see the same on me?  No matter how much I didn’t chose this, they probably do.*  Taru pondered in the moments the brigands ran right past him and stared at the bodies. \n\n*I might let them live after all, they look pretty spooked.*  One did run. *He lives, and I was right.  He had no darkness.*\n\n“I told you a Kitsune did this.  A Kitsune killed them!” One yelled.\n\n“Shut up about Kitsune,” said a second.  \n\nThe third man stared around him wide eyed.  He was panicking. \n\nThe first one tried to run, but the second stabbed him with a knife.  He screeched in pain. “Stay and fight, or I’ll kill you.  I’mna track down Po, Ku, and Baka and do them after this.”\n\n\"If you surrender now, you can be far away before we report this to the Ministry of the Law in The Capital,\" Taru said.  He walked back and forth, so he couldn't pinpoint where his voice was coming from.  When he was finished speaking, he stepped again.  Taru’s feet made no noise, and the compact dirt road didn’t betray his footsteps.  *This one won’t surrender.*\n\nThe stabber ran towards Taru’s voice and threw his spear.  It bounced off the building close to where Taru had been moments before.\n\nThe third man ran.  *Another life spared for now.  Perhaps he’ll choose a different path in the future, or maybe he’s looking for another gang.*\n\nAn utterly vile smell touched Taru’s nose.  The smell was so overpowering and unique that it distracted him. Then he dismissed it as unimportant and raised his bow.\n\n\"It's death for me either way, I've already been branded a criminal.  The next time I'm caught, it won't matter if it’s a prisoners release holiday or not.\"  The stabber smiled grimly as he shifted his knife back to his other hand.  \n\nTaru shot him.\n—-\nReizo checked his Ofuda.  The connection from the paper to the leading edge of the tornado was faint, but still there.  The tornado was under control because of the Ofuda, so he could get away with opening the door to the town hall.\n\nHe concentrated.  Kami didn’t have to hear his voice, they just had to be aware of him.  Kami were always aware of him because he’d spent years talking to them.\n\nAfter opening and closing for so long the doors instantly obeyed Reizo.  Three arrows flew towards him.  The tornado kami grabbed them. Two kami fought over one arrow and splintered it before flinging the pieces away. One caught an arrow and threw it back towards the door. Another kami threw an arrow to an unknown fate.\n\nOne of the kami grabbed the cooking pot and flung it into the air as Reizo walked to the veranda.  Another smothered the fire.  The wind grabbed the sliding front doors and tried to tear them off the building.\n\nThe men inside the town hall panicked and attacked blindly.  The tornado returned some weapons and bad aim directed others.  A spear lodged in the ceiling.  A knife stabbed an ally in the leg.  Several men scurried for the back door.  \nSuddenly, all of them grabbed their heads in pain and terror and fell to the ground.\n\nReizo looked around for the new threat and saw…\n\n*Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165*",
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      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 15",
      "body": "@@ -7451,8 +7451,223 @@\n  them.%0A%E2%80%94\n+%0A%0A*Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165*\n",
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      "permlink": "laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-14",
      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 14",
      "body": "![1024px-Dszpics1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV4JYHAGBEWx4re2aAu4r5dgWS3C47zx897ZeHcYpnNZC/1024px-Dszpics1.jpg)\n[Part 1](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-1), [Part 2](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-2), [Part 3](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-3), [Part 4](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-4), [Part 5](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-5), [Part 6](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-6), [Part 7](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-7), [Part 8](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-8-coming-soon-placeholder), [Part 9](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-9), [Part 10](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-10), [Part 11](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-11), [Part 12](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-12), [Part 13](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-13)\n\n“Suki, do you know where we are?” Reizo asked her instead.\n\nShe peered out both windows and said, “Yes, this is Crossroads.  I see the roads that leads to Hot Spring and The Capital.” *Home is a day’s walk up the road.  I’ll be there soon!*\n\nReizo pinched his nose.  “Thanks, Suki.  Just stay inside Gogo, whatever happens.” Real concern crossed his face. She nodded.  He’s not upset at you for a change, he’s just worried about the bandits.\n\n“Be careful, Reizo.” She was worried for his safety as well.\n\n“If you have to, tell Gogo to flee back to The Capital.  Where’s that paper?”\n\n“It’s right here in my sleeve.” The paper’s outline was visible through the fabric.  Reizo looked at her until she drew it out.  She handed it to him for inspection.  He returned it when he was satisfied and watched her carefully as she put it back in her sleeve.\n\nReizo reached for his own sleeve.  “I hear their song.  They are fine.  Relax and wait for Ichiro to return,” Taru said. He strung the smaller bow, the one for Suki. *Getting wound up won’t do the kid or us any good,* thought Taru.  *A nervous fighter is a dangerous fighter.  He barely qualifies as one, since he’s never held a weapon.  But I must keep him safe.  I doubt Yoshi is wrong about danger coming to The Capital.*\n\nThe four of them waited in silence, enjoying Gin’s cherry blossoms.\n\n---\nIchiro gave the little wax balls a good sniff before he shoved them into his ears.  It was strange using another’s fur for such a thing instead of his own, but it was what he had.  He gleaned no further information about a Papermaster.  \n\nIchiro walked around the copse of trees and towards the town. \n\nHe’d never been to Crossroads, which was a human village.  His village of Big Fork mostly traded with Hot Spring.  He was surprised that Crossroads was very similar to Big Fork.  A well, houses, and a town hall.  But Crossroads was a trade hub for the province, so there were also three shops instead of one in Big Fork.  The buildings sat empty and there was something forlorn about them, as if they missed the bustle of people.\n\nHe gave a wide berth to two bandits watching the road at the edge of town.  Hidden and silent or not, there was no reason to risk a fight.  They smelled and look rough. The cooking fire was in the meager early afternoon shade of the town hall.  Several more rough looking men sat on the veranda watching a pot boil.  Taru was right, it was rabbit stew. \n\nOff to the side a man in a torn and bloodied uniform was tied up.  Ichiro noted the man’s features as he got as close as he dared.  He could smell the breath of two of the bandits talking.  The bound man was unconscious…but breathing.  He saw more men inside the town hall dozing in the afternoon heat.  At the other end of the road out of town were two more guards.\n\nIchiro returned to Gogo.  He couldn’t smell Gin’s cherry blossoms until he was right next to the cart.  He glanced around and realized Gogo’s kami were eating sound and smells. He dismissed the kami hiding him once he got to the step Gogo pushed out.  \n\nTo Suki, it looked like he appeared in front of the door.  \n\n“There’s two bandits on the road in and out of town. One of them has several knives and the other has a bow. Two are watching stew boil, and I saw three sleeping in the town hall.  Some of them have bows, most have spears or a clubs.  And..they have a prisoner.” Ichiro reported after removing the wax balls from his ears. \n\n“Who?”  Reizo asked.\n\n“I don’t know, he looks pretty beat up.  It looks like he’s wearing a uniform.”\n\n“Show us,” Reizo said.  Ichiro looked at the onmyoji, remembering that he’d told them not to do any Kitsune tricks.\n\n“Go on,” Reizo pinched his nose.\n\nIchiro showed a picture of the prisoner.  Gin closed her eyes. “I don’t want to see,” she whispered.  Only Ichiro and Taru heard her.  The phantom blossoms and smell vanished.\n\n“That’s one of the guards who protects the mail,” Suki said.  She grimaced at his injuries, but didn’t look away.  “You’ve got to rescue him!”  She said to Reizo and Taru.\n\n“Ichiro, can you carry and hide him?”  Reizo asked.  Ichiro nodded.  \n\nTaru tied a dagger on to Ichiro’s waist.  “Only use this if you need to.  Don’t look for a fight.”  Then he tied a water gourd on his other side.  “When you have a chance, drink.”\n\nReizo tied a gourd on as well.\n\nTaru handed Suki the small bow. She took it without a word.  Reizo saw her grim determination.  “Bandits attacked our farm a time or two,” she’d said last night,  which seemed like weeks ago.\n\n“The draw isn’t heavy enough to pierce deeply, but no one likes being shot at,” Taru told her.  She nodded.\n\n\"Taru and I will talk to the bandits and find out what happened here.  Perhaps we can resolve this without violence after all.\"  *But the way my luck goes, no.  I’m in over my head.  I’ve never been in a fight like this before.  I was hoping the town was deserted, and whether we found clues or not, we’d visit my in-laws for a few days.*  “Ichiro, when they’re all distracted, bring that man back to Gogo.  Don’t draw any attention because we can’t rescue you.”  Ichiro nodded.\n\n“Be careful, Ichiro!  Don’t leave me,” Gin whispered and gripped him in a bone crushing hug. \"I want to go with you,” she continued.\n\n\"You have to protect Lady Taira,\" Ichiro replied.\n\n“I hate it when you do that.  When you act like I’m a dumb kid,” she glared at him.\n\nIchiro sighed.  He told her the whole truth for the first time in a very long time.  “You can’t control your illusions and you’re too small to carry him.  You couldn’t even stand to look at him when I showed everyone.”\n\nGin took it rather well.  “Show me what he looks like now,” she frowned.\n\n“You still can’t go.”\n\n“I know, but I want to see what he looks like now.” Gin was as exasperated as he was.\n\nIchiro sighed and showed the beaten and bruised man again.  Gin tightly shut her eyes, then opened them slowly to see.\n\n“Oh.  He’s not sick.” she was relieved.  Ichiro shook his head.  “Give me a hug, little sister.”\n\nReizo looked at Taru.  “I have three Ofuda: Tornado, Boulder, and Firestorm.  Can you handle most of the bandits?”  *If Firestorm or Boulder isn’t released properly, the kami will destroy the first things they come to, that’s the real danger.  It’s one thing to talk to the kami when you’re calm, another when you’re in the middle of a fight.* The reality of the situation hit Reizo.\n\n“I am an excellent shot.  Ichiro, you say the two on this side of town had bows?”  \n\nIchiro nodded.\n\n*These sound like the typical bandits who rely on numbers instead of skill.  They are prone to panic and therefore they are dangerous.  Nothing I haven’t seen, but these two are green.  No matter, this is the path and it can’t be changed now.* Taru pushed all dread out of his thoughts.\n\n“Tornado will take care of their arrows,” Reizo smiled grimly.  If they shoot me.  Taru and Ichiro will be unprotected.\n\n*It’s good that the kid isn’t overconfident.  He’s old enough to be scared.  Not sure about the boy.  He’s young enough that folly might over ride his caution.* Taru analyzed his fellow men-at-arms.\n\nTaru, Ichiro, and Reizo stuffed the little wax and fur balls in their ears and left.\n\n\"Gin, let's make a bed for that man Ichiro is bringing back.\"  Gin helped Suki, grateful to have something to take her mind off her brother walking back into danger.  Suki told her about life on her farm, and Gin listened attentively.\n\n*Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165*",
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      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 15",
      "body": "@@ -7261,15 +7261,19 @@\n ves \n-hel\n+tucke\n d in\n+to\n  his\n",
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      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 15",
      "body": "@@ -7225,16 +7225,65 @@\n a storm.\n+  He drew one of several knives held in his belt.\n %0A%0ATaru s\n",
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      "title": "Laughter is the Worst Medicine, Part 15",
      "body": "![1024px-Dszpics1.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV4JYHAGBEWx4re2aAu4r5dgWS3C47zx897ZeHcYpnNZC/1024px-Dszpics1.jpg)\n[Part 1](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-1), [Part 2](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-2), [Part 3](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-3), [Part 4](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-4), [Part 5](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-5), [Part 6](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-6), [Part 7](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-7), [Part 8](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-8-coming-soon-placeholder), [Part 9](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-9), [Part 10](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-10), [Part 11](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-11), [Part 12](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-12), [Part 13](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-13), [Part 14](https://steemit.com/fiction/@clarastorm/laughter-is-the-worst-medicine-part-14)\n\n\nThe three of them walked to the road. The copse of trees that Gogo was behind was around a bend. When they met the sentinels, it would look like they’d walked from the road.  Taru moved his bow and quiver behind him so it would be hidden.  His sleeves hung long and full, nothing to suggest he was ready to shoot.  A cord to tie them back out of the way remained hidden, but looped and knotted so it could easily be pulled. \n\nTaru let Reizo make a plan and only supplied suggestions when asked.  *Reizo has a head for battle strategy, he is just inexperienced.  And therefore prone to panicking.  I must insist Yoshi train his traveling onmyoji in basic fighting.*\n\n“Ichiro, when the fight starts, hide Taru and yourself and go grab the guard they’ve got tied up in the confusion.  Taru, if they want a fight, you start and finish it.  You know when men are about to be violent.  I’d rather just ask what happened here, but that’s probably not going to happen.” Reizo resigned himself.  “I’ll cast tornado on myself.  Stay an arm’s distance away and watch out for flying debris.  The kami grab and destroy anything that gets close enough.”  *At least that’s the theory, this is the first time I’ve created that particular Ofuda for combat.*\n\n“After I hide Taru, the guard, and me, I won’t be able to talk to kami for awhile,” Ichiro said.\n\n“Just get back to Gogo,” *Someone will be with Suki besides the crazy one, although she is comfortable enough around Gin.*\n\n\"Stop.  State your business.\"  A scarred muscular man yelled at them as soon as three strangers came into view.  Reizo dubbed him the leader.\n\n“They’re outside bow range,” Taru said quietly.\n\nReizo took a few steps forward and called quietly, \"I am from the merchant guild in The Capital.  I was sent to investigate why the raime shipments haven’t been arriving.\"  \n\n“Still too far,” Taru said.\n\n“What did you say? Speak up!”\n\nThe group advanced until Taru said, “Here.”\n\n“I’m from the merchant’s guild.  You’ll have to excuse my voice, I’ve had a bit of a cold lately.”  Reizo coughed and cleared his throat.  Ichiro winced.\n\nUpon hearing the word merchant guild the two men perked up.  A predatory smile split the leader’s face. \"Merchants?  Where are your wares?  Your cart?\" \n\nReizo’s heart pounded, now that it looked a fight was imminent.  The bow that was suddenly in the leader’s hand looked sinister.  *As an onmyoji, it won’t be a fair fight against these guys,* he reminded himself.\n\nAloud he said, \"I wouldn't recommend drawing that bow.  We are not unarmed or helpless.  If you answer questions will let you go about your business in peace.\"  *I hate leaving trash like this in my wife's home province but learning what happened is more important than dealing with petty brigands.  I’ll report it to the Ministry of the Law.*\n\nFortunately the leader was a talker.  \"We came along and found a perfectly deserted village.  All we had to do was burn a few bodies.  This place is ours now, Capital boy.  Hand over what you have and get lost.\"  Then he laughed.\n\nThe man beside him fell to the ground gurgling on his own blood. Taru had shot an arrow through his heart and one through his throat.\n\nIchiro closed his eyes to block bad memories of that noise. \n\nThe remaining bandit yelled, “We’re under attack!” And fired his bow at Taru.  His shot missed all of them.  The bandit threw his bow aside in disgust and drew a knife.\n\nIchiro opened his eyes and felt sick as he watched the bandit die.  He’d seen plenty of death, but he never witnessed someone taking another’s life.  He looked at Taru.  The older man's face was blank instead of his customary slightly smiling expression.  \n\n“Ichiro, now!” Reizo snapped.  Ichiro recovered his wits and told a breeze kami to hide Taru.  That particular kami had followed Taru since they set foot on the road, so it would pay attention to Ichiro’s request long after he left Taru’s side.\n\nThen he asked a breeze kami around him the same thing.  No one saw him vomiting up two chickens on the side of the road.\n\nReizo pulled an Ofuda from his sleeve and released the trapped kami.  A whirlwind spun from the paper and surrounded him.  The wind kami chased each other around and around him in a tight circle, a tiny tornado. They wanted something to destroy.  Since nothing was near, they grabbed at the dirt hear his feet and roared in frustration. Then they were surprisingly quiet for a tornado.\n\nHe’d written the spell correctly so the kami would only grab larger objects. “Larger” was a relative term.  If they found a big enough rock, they would either destroy or throw it. *That part is easy for me, since I watched the kami as it was trapped in the paper.  Releasing kami always a risk, though.* Reizo felt brief pride.  An uncontrolled tornado spell would fling dust in his eyes, then flee to find something else to destroy.  It would leave him defenseless against arrows and spears.  *Not hearing over the wind is a small price to pay for protection.* \n\nIchiro walked towards the prisoner at that point, grateful he had a plan to follow. *Taru, Reizo, and I can see each other, but the bandits can't see two of us at all.*     \n\nTaru stepped three paces away from where he had fired his arrow and called over the sound of Reizo’s tornado, \"I will kill you where you stand, but take no pleasure in it.  I'd rather you live, because where there is life there is hope. I ask you once again, do you wish to surrender.  Do you choose life and hope?\"  Taru moved after he spoke, so the bandit couldn’t pin point him.  \n\n\"What are you, some kind of priest?  A cowardly priest!  You won't even fight me fair,\" the scarred man scoffed and threw a knife who's hilt landed  where Taru’s left foot was a moment ago.  He was a pragmatic sort who could kill a man he couldn’t see easier than one surrounded by a storm.\n\nTaru shot him in the heart.  In the time it took him to die, the man threw all of his knives.\n\nHe’d raised the alarm.  Taru pulled out another arrow and waited for them.\n—",
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