15 final destination part 3

[John's POV 1 hour 25 minutes Later]

Thank God that the moon and the stars are providing enough natural lights for us, well me to see, otherwise it would have taken a lot longer because of the fact that I can't see where I'm stepping in the dark.

"How much longer do we have to walk until we reach the place?" I asked, pausing for a moment to wipe the sweat from my face, trying to catch my breath and silently cursing myself for not exercising more when I had the chance. It didn't help that my feet started to hurt after walking for a long time and massaging them barely brought momentary relief before the painful throbbing came back after I was done.

Rinko was handling it much better than I thought she would, if the light sweat on her brow meant anything. Teleporting us all over the place must have drained her stamina less than I thought it would or she trained more than I thought with her powers. Everyone else seemed like they could still go on, lucky bastards.

"Not much farther now," Dakuan replied quickly, his eye twitching in annoyance as he surveyed his surroundings. "We should be there soon, so stop asking me-," He paused for half a nano second, ears picking up a faint sound nearby, and discreetly turned his gaze to the noise before continuing where he left off, "that already."

Dakuan started planning his escape route and slowly, casually shuffled closer to the middle, planning to use them as a shield should they be attacked again. Though it failed as he was forced to retreat when Rinko glared at him until he was back in his previous spot, keeping his senses sharp, ready to move at the slightest of noise.

I paused for a moment to take a quick drink of water from my almost empty canteen. The cold and refreshing liquid went down, momentarily bringing relief to my parched throat before it dried back up after the water settled into my stomach. I reluctantly placed the cap back on ignoring the need to consume more, learned that lesson the hard way.

A few minutes later after almost tripping on another hidden root, I was about to ask again when Dakuan suddenly stopped walking as we reached the edge of the clearing. I looked up at the place and he spoke the two words I didn't want to hear, "We're here."

I stared at the perfect opening scene of a haunted house in the movies. The stars sparkled brightly without a cloud in the sky, allowing the full moon to bathe the now dilapidated manor in a soft otherworldly glow, which showed that nature was reclaiming the land with vines creeping up on the walls, patches of grass and weeds scattered all over the place. One could even hear the sounds of crows cawing echoing faintly in the distance.

Upon a closer look, I couldn't help but notice the layers and layers of both torn and intact talismans scattered all over the place, especially near the front entrance as if to stop something from getting out. Though, it doesn't matter since the front door is missing, along with a giant hole in the roof, and a partially collapsed wall near the entrance that could be easily seen from our location.

It's certainly larger than I thought it would've been, but everything else is just as I imagined. Well, maybe not the talismans or the fact that the manor is still somewhat intact, but other than that, it's a perfect place for a ghost to haunt. I couldn't help but wonder if the talismans actually work against the yokai or not. Something to look into later, when we're not being hunted.

"Caw! Caw!"

It took all my self-control to not scream, but I couldn't help tensing up at the unexpected cawing from the crows behind us before they flew off. After calming my racing heart, I was starting to have second thoughts, but I squashed them. This is the only "safe place" that we can go to that we know of and it's better than staying out in the open trying to find a different one only to be spotted by the patrolling enemies. There's also the fact that I'm too tired to continue walking for a few more miles and I can see the harbor from here certainly helped in my decision-making. Though, looking at my companion's faces, they would most likely disagree.

Misao began looking for weaknesses in the general design and frowned as she instantly spotted several dozen possible entry points into the building. She didn't have high expectations, but this was worse than she thought. "I don't like this. It doesn't look structurally sound and there are too many openings to defend properly."

"I don't either, but we don't exactly have any other option than this. Besides, we won't be here for long. Just long enough to regain our stamina before heading out," Kuroyuri said, successfully keeping her tone light, as she discreetly signaled to Rinko and Midori to keep their senses sharp and place traps around the area. "Though that doesn't mean that we should fully relax, either. Just to be on the safe side, try not to go anywhere alone without someone else as backup."

With that said, we started walking again except for Dakuan who stayed where he was which didn't surprise us in the least.

He stared at the manor as a cold feeling that had nothing to do with the surrounding temperature went through him. His instincts are practically yelling at him that something's not right. "Ah, uh about that, why don't I go find Jubei and bring him here? We never did leave a note telling him where we'd be, did we?" Dakuan spoke nervously, slowly shuffling backward, away from the manor, as the hairs on the back of his neck stiffened up as he continued to stare at the haunted house. "You don't need an old man like me to slow you down, after all. I'll meet you back here before midnight tonight when I find Jubei."

"It's fine," I said with a small frown making him pause mid-step, "Jubei can take care of himself. Besides, we need a place to rest, and as much as it pains me to say this, and it does, this is the perfect place. We can see the docks from here and no one will know where we are since we made sure to leave multiple false trails that go on for miles for them to follow. And it's not like Jubei won't know where we'll be, since he knows our objective is to deal with the gold before it could leave the docks."

"But I... uh," Dakuan started to say as he started to slowly back up again, his eyes darting around their surroundings as if plotting multiple escape routes. "Oh yes! I have to go and scout the enemy's movements. They must know we're here and are on high alert since the patrol we killed hasn't reported back yet," He finished quickly and without waiting for any of us to respond, he ran off into the woods without another word. A few seconds later he disappeared completely into the foliage without a sound.

I couldn't help but blink at the weak excuse he came up with before turning to Rinko who was slightly frowning at his departure.

"I'm surprised he waited this long before running away since that's all he's good for," Kagero spoke after a few seconds of silence.

"I thought he would have waited until we were all inside before he would've made an excuse to leave, to be honest" Kuroyuri said with a smirk on her face causing us to chuckle at the mental image.

I scratched my head staring at the house and trying to figure out what made him so jumpy but finding nothing out of the ordinary. I sighed lightly following Rinko and the others, stepping over the overgrown grass and weeds while making sure not to disturb anything before stopping at the entrance. Past the front entrance, there's a slither of moonlight barely giving us enough light to see the hallway, but beyond that there's only darkness.

From what I could barely see, it's all covered in dust, cobwebs, dried leaves and smelled strongly of mold. I covered my face with my sleeve trying to not breathe it all in. I'm hoping there's a room that doesn't smell strongly of mold, but I don't think that's possible.

I sighed silently feeling both torn and relieved over the fact that we can't use a candle or a torch to see our surroundings. The lighting would add to the creepiness factor like something scary would pop out from nowhere to scare us or it would appear behind us and follow us without us knowing. No to mention it will also draw unwanted attention to our location.

We went in, moving slowly, keeping a careful eye on the shadows for any sign of movement as we stepped over the dark stains and the not so rare patches of missing floorboards. I hesitated a step at the edge of the moonlight before walking straight into the darkness keeping my hands out in front of me, sometimes touching my companion's bodies and other times hitting nothing but air while walking.

I almost tripped a few times and accidentally stepped on a loose board causing it to squeak loudly in the silence. I couldn't help but wince, feeling their gazes landing on me as my face burned. After taking another few more steps, I heard and felt the floor snap a split second before it gave way, causing me to partially fall through as my stomach lurched. Luckily for me, I felt two hands grabbing me just before I could fall any further. As I was pulled up, I hissed in pain from one of the sharp boards digging into my skin, causing me to start bleeding a little. I cleaned the wound with what little water remained and bandaged it, hoping it wouldn't get infected.

After that exciting event, it didn't take long for us to find another source of moonlight, but this time it was brighter, with a slightly more pleasant smell and sounds just as we reached our destination. The source being the giant hole in the roof which gives the clear view of the ocean.

As I looked around, it looks familiar for some reason, but I can't remember why. Eh, it's not that important then.