Hida Osana

It rained from the high heavens as if the sea itself had been taken and then thrown over the empire. No noise was t be heard except for the rushing of the rain. It was dark, wet and cold and the young women in the inn wondered if she was going ot see any costomers in the near future.
Proberbly not, she thought to herself, not with that thing lurking in the woods.
She looked out the window and listened to the rainfall.
To her great suprise she heard something else too - could it be...?
A large figure steped out of the curtain of the rain and into the inn.
The person shook herself and threw off the dripping wet strawcloak they were wearing.
Underneath was a tall muscular women in ragged clothing with black windswept hair.
She was armed to the teeth, to her right she had a knife, to her right a katana and a wakizashi and on her back the innkeeper saw a second katana, that seemed to be of exeptional craftsmenship.
The innkeeper approached the samurai with great care:"Greetings my Lady. what can we offer you?"
The women brushed back her hair with her hand and turned to the speaker.
Her left eye was of a darkish brown, but the other, the odd eye, was of a bright, piercing grey.
And around her neck she was wearing a small jade pendant in the shape of a crabs pincer - a Witch-Hunter. The inkeeper felt very cold all out of the sudden.
The women spoke in a rough voice:"I heard you had some problems in the woods."
The other women wanted to answere, but her husband, who had come out of a backroom, interrupted her.
"I'm terribly sorry, this is a misunderstanding. We merely wished the road to be patroled more regularly so that more people may find the way to our humble establishment. Absolutly nothing for you to be concerned with, my Lady."
The Witch-Huntress looked at the man and then back at his wife, who looked to the ground imidietly.
"I see. Well then...thank you for the hospitality.", she said with a bare minimum of kindness. The women picked up her strawcloak, sholdered it and walked out into the rain again.

Outside Osana visibly walked past the open window, rested her back against the wall and listened.
"I told you it was a bad idea to tell anyone of them!"
"But she might be able to do it."
"Haven't you heard the stories? If they think this place is taintd the will burn the entire village to the ground and torture and disect us! Do you want that to happen?"
"No, but I am afraid to go to the woods with that thing around."
"That thing at the northern river is not a threat to anybody, but this women is."

The northern river...not much, but it was a place to start the search.
She took a deep breath and started walking, between the houses straight north into the woods.
After about half an houre walking through the freezing rain she reached the river.
Originally this might have been more of a rivulet than a river, but the endless rain made it grown and now the otherside was three to four sword-lengths away. The rain had made it nigh on impossible to find tracks, but it was very hard to miss the inky black spots leading up the river.
She walked beside the marks, while carefully avoiding stepping in them and after a short while she found the origine of the marks.
The quadruped shape suggested that the creature once had been a deer or a pony or something like that, but nowadays It had mutated out of shape.
The thing was standing on all fours with a fith limb coming out of the right side of its distorted neck. It had spikes and horns growning on its forehead and its mouth was packed with jagged fangs, that were dripping with the foul black ichor she had seen before. The thing turned and looked at her and released something that loosely resembeled a neighing.
Osana did not need the help of her jadependant to see that this creature has been corrupted by the tain, or to realise that this poor thing was beyond salvation.
With out thinking twice she drew the blade from her back and charged the monster.
The monster in turn reared up and tried to hit her with its three frontal limbs.
Osana landed a hit on the creatures stomach before one of the limbs hit her sword and it dropped out of her hand. She tried to grab it, but the creature ran at her and she fell flat on her back, as the mutant attempted to trampel her. She managed to roll to the side just before the thing could crush her face on the ground. The huntress came up next to a tree, with the creature side righ infront of her and with every little piece of her strength that she could muster she threw herself against the thing and pushed it into the river where it submerged right away.
She didn't loose any time, she grabbed her sword just as the creature emerged from the river again.
"Sei-ya!"
With a single slice of the blade she send the things head flying. The body fell back into the river and quickly drifted down the river and out of sight. She walked over to where the head had landed, the creatures clouded eye looked towards the dark sky. Osana kicked the head into the river to follow the rest of the thing.
"Rest in peace."

The innkeeper heard something moving in the rain again. Concerned she looked to the entrence and was shocked when she saw the woman she had seen earlier, now covered in mud and blood.
Osana threw of her strawcloak and hat and then dragged them to the fire where she dropped her weapons aswell and set down. The innkeeper rushed to her side.
"M-my Lady, what happened to you?"
The huntress massaged her shoulder with her eyes closed, before answereing.
"I solved your problem at the river."
"The river...You heard us?!", now the woman was terrified.
"Please, my Lady, forgive my husband, he-he did not know...he...please..."
"Yeahyeahyeah...", interrupted Osana "Just bring me some food, please."
Osana wasn't really hungry, she just wanted the woman to shut up, but the innkeeper rushed away to satisfy her every need, giving her a little time to look into the fire and remember something her Sensei told her...

"If you gaze into the shadows for too long the shadows also gaze into you."
Osana never fully understood the meaning of those words.
"After all, I'm just killing monsters."