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It had been a bad day for the Arataki Gang.
“Get lost, oni!” had been the most common thing Itto had heard all day.
“Get lost, get lost,” he muttered to himself. “Maybe you should get lost.”
Not the best comeback, he thought. “Maybe I’ll get lost—in your kitchen!” No, not much better.
It was hard, after all, for a hungry oni to come up with good comebacks. Once he had eaten, they would see.
But he still wasn’t sure how he was going to eat. No one wanted to give him work. He couldn’t figure out why. He was a good worker, the best worker ever. Want him to deliver goods? He’d deliver them in record time. (It wasn’t his fault the pots were all broken by the time they arrived.) Want him to harvest grapes? He would strip those vines bare. (No one had told him he was supposed to leave the leaves on.) Want him to escort a merchant? You came to the right oni. (Yes, he had gotten distracted, and yes, the bandits had attacked, but he’d beaten them all back, hadn’t he? The merchant was basically fine. And only one of the crates had been destroyed. Okay, maybe two. But the onikabuto he’d spotted was a serious fighter. Of course he’d had to go after it.)
He’d gotten desperate enough by midday to head out of the city. There was a lavender melon tree just on the other side of the harbor, and it always had melons for the taking.
A lawachurl had taken up residence on the little islet in the middle of the ford, plus three or four hilichurls. No big deal, not for Arataki “Numero Uno” Itto. Of course, he’d forgotten about the water, and its unfortunate tendency to react with electro lawachurl attacks. He’d beaten the thing, in the end, with Ushi’s help, but only barely. When he’d gotten to the lavender melon tree, he was so hungry that he’d eaten three melons raw. There was nothing else on the tree.
He'd tried Konda village, but it was just as bad there as in the city. No one wanted to hire an oni. They’d run him out of the village, waving their weapons, and though he could have taken all of them on, that wasn’t how Arataki Itto rolled.
Maybe the gang had had better luck. But when they met up in their favourite TCG spot, none of them had earned anything. Well, Genta had found a 10-mora coin lying on the ground, but that wasn’t enough to feed them.
“Hey, boss,” Akira asked, “I saw you heading out towards that lavender melon tree. Did you bring any back?”
“Nope, they were all gone,” he lied. Ushi looked at him, and he looked away.
“You didn’t eat them all, did you?”
“Whaaat? Me? No way, dude. You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Okay, boss, if you say so. But what are we going to eat?”
“We—we’ll just have to go out into the wilds, and find a traveller or something. Yeah, that’s it! We’ll find some lonesome traveller with extra food, and we’ll offer to guide them through the island. Then they’ll have to give us food!”
“Yeah, boss, let’s do it!” the gang members chorused.
They all leapt to their feet and headed out, Itto setting a pace the others could barely keep up with. Now, where to find a campfire?
The first two campfires they spotted would never work. Hilichurls sat at one of them; no hope there. Nobushi sat at the other, and though they would be no match for the Great Arataki Itto, beating them up wouldn’t solve their problem. It might get them back on the radar of the Tenryou Commission. And there was no way Itto was dealing with that scary tengu again.
The third campfire, though, was perfect.
There was just one person there. Small, much smaller than the Nobushi.
When they got a little closer, they realized it was a girl.
To be sure, not a dainty girl, the kind who wore kimonos and hid behind fans, and screamed whenever Itto got close. She looked—honestly, a little fierce. She had on some kind of mask that hid her lower face, and her clothes were—well, let’s just say they weren’t the most prim and proper. But still. A girl. Girls were mostly scaredy-cats. When the gang told her how many Nobushi and hilichurls there were between here and the city, she would beg them to help.
Of course, the tengu is a girl, he reminded himself. But no, that was different. The tengu wasn’t a girl; she was a tengu. This one wasn’t. He could tell.
He’d spent so long looking at the girl that he hadn’t noticed the lavender melons roasting over her fire. There was a pile of melons sitting nearby, too. Enough for all of them!
“Hey there, girl,” he greeted her, grinning to see the way she turned around suddenly at his voice.
Of course, she grabbed a sword as she turned, but she didn’t attack him. That had to mean something. Maybe she’d hear them out.
“Looks pretty lonely around this campfire. Mind if we join you?”
“Sure, why not?” she answered with a shrug. Well, that was better than he’d gotten all day.
“Whatchu cooking?”
She looked at the roasting melons, then at him. “Sakura mochi.”
“Wait—what? Really? No way!”
“Of course not, you moron. I’m roasting lavender melons.”
“Oh. Yeah, I knew that. Duh.”
“I’m Kuki Shinobu, by the way.”
“And I’m the Great Arataki Itto, the One and Oni.”
“You come up with that name yourself?”
“Uh—maybe. But everyone calls me that, don’t they?”
The gang nodded vigorously. He introduced them.
“So—you a traveller? Some kind of—roaming adventurer?”
“Eh, not really. I’m just coming back from Ritou, where I was getting an equivalency certification for the chef certification I got in Liyue.”
“You’re a—chef? What’s that?”
“A chef certification states that the successful graduate has—” She stopped. “It means I have papers that prove I know how to cook."
Eight eyes grew wide. “Like, really know how? Like a—what’s the word—a professional?”
“That’s right.”
“Whoa, that’s awesome. So those lavender melons of yours, they’re professional? I don’t believe you. You gotta let us try them.”
She rolled her eyes. “You could’ve just asked. Go for it. I’ll cook some more.”
They didn’t need a second offer. All four of them dove for the melons, grabbing at the two melons already done roasting. Itto took one, and the other three squabbled over the other.
He took a single bite. “Whoa. This is amazing! This is—splendtaculous.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she answered, already sticking more melons by the fire to roast.
The others were enjoying the melons just as much. Seriously, Mamoru was crying. Really crying. “I never knew roasted lavender melons could taste this good!” he sobbed.
She thawed out a little. “Not bad, huh?”
“Is—is this what they teach you in cook school?” Itto wondered.
“It’s chef training, and yes, they teach all kinds of cooking. Though the lavender melons are technically my own recipe, since they don’t have lavender melons in Liyue.”
“No lavender melons?” Genta gasped. “How do they eat?”
“Wow. You guys really don’t get out much, do you?”
“Pssh, no, that’s not it at all,” Itto objected. “We’ve gone, like all over the place. We’re the Mighty Arataki Gang. Maybe you’ve heard of us?”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, well, maybe this Liyue village of yours isn’t important enough for us to visit.”
She stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Liyue village? You do know Liyue is its own nation, right?”
“Pssh, yeah, I knew that. Everyone knows that.”
“Right, okay. Here, the next set of lavender melons is done.”
There was silence for a minute as all five of them wolfed down the melons. Even Shinobu ate rapidly, with none of the fussiness he’d come to expect from most humans.
“That was even better than the first one,” Akira said, leaning back.
“Glad you enjoy them. I’m rather proud of this recipe.”
By the time the pile of melons was gone, all five of them were full to the brim.
Itto suddenly remembered the plan. “Hey, Shinobu, you’re travelling alone, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, there are, like, a thousand hilichurls between here and the city, and these wandering Nobushi who will tear you to pieces as soon as look at you. You need an escort.”
“I think I’ll manage.”
“What? No! You gotta come with us! I need more of those lavender melons. I mean—you need someone to protect you.”
“I’m not some wimpy shrine maiden,” she retorted.
“No way. Shrine maidens don’t know how to cook, and they run away from us. But nobody can go on this path by themselves.”
She thought about it. “How about this? You and I fight. All four of you, if these three idlers have weapons. You beat me, I'll let you come with me to the city, and I’ll buy some more lavender melons and cook them for you.”
“Hey, I’m not that kind of oni,” he objected. “I don’t beat up people for no reason.”
She seemed surprised by that, but said, “I’m not worried. Are you?”
“What? No way. I’m Arataki ‘Numero Uno’ Itto. I’m not worried of anyone. I eat lawachurls for breakfast.”
“Then I should be easy to beat, right?”
“Well, yeah, duh.”
“Then what are you waiting for? You refuse to fight me, and I’ll never make lavender melons for you again.”
“Boss, you gotta do it!” the gang members exclaimed.
“Fine, I’ll do it. But don’t complain when you get pounded,” he warned her.
She drew a sword. It was small next to his massive club, but he could tell from her stance that she knew how to use it.
Itto could never say afterwards quite what had happened in the fight. He’d started out a little hesitantly, not wanting to hurt this professional chef. Not because he was soft or anything. If he hurt her, she wouldn’t be able to cook until she recovered. That’s it.
But he’d realized pretty quickly that he would have to fight all-out. Shinobu wasn’t as strong as he was, not by a long shot, but she was fast. And smart. Every time his club landed, she seemed to be somewhere else, giving him a blow.
The gang members cheered him on. “Get her, boss!” And occasionally, “Whoo! Great shot, chef!”
But after just a minute or two, he felt a blow to his hand. It hurt. And he dropped his club.
The sword point was at his throat the next moment.
“Whoa! She did it! She beat the Boss!”
“Hey, that’s not fair!” he exclaimed. “The sun got in my eyes, that’s all.”
She glanced off to the side, where the sun had already dipped below the horizon.
“I think that proves my point,” she commented. “Now, I’ll head off. I have a meeting with a friend of mine, and I’m running a bit late.”
“Wait! No!” Itto objected, even as she pulled on her pack. “You gotta let us come with you!”
“I beat you,” she answered. “So I’m going alone. But how about this. I’ll be staying in the city for a while now. If you’re lucky, I might just find you again.”
“You promise?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what? I’ll do anything.” Whoops, that was a mistake. Don’t ever let them see that you’re desperate.
“Depends on what I hear about you. If I hear that you’re working hard, I’ll find you. If I hear that you’re out ambushing travellers at their campfires, then that’s it for the lavender melons.”
“Okay, got it. We’ll be the best, the hardest workers you ever saw. Right, boys?”
They all agreed.
“Great, I look forward to hearing about it. Now I really have to go. My friend is waiting.”
“Who’s your friend? Are they a—chef—too?”
He couldn’t see her mouth behind the mask, but he got the distinct impression she was smiling. “Hardly. My friend is a General in the army and a Commissioner of the Tenryou Commission. And she really doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
It was only after Shinobu left that he realized. There was only one person who fit that description.
“Oh no,” Itto wailed. “She’s friends with the tengu!”