At this point, I'm going to skip a couple of months. In hindsight, it was mostly just a couple of false leads, some incidental encounters here and there, but otherwise nothing worth noting and nothing that was of any importance to future events. So if anyone was really looking forward to random filler at this point, sorry.

Now, going a number of months with no leads on either Genkyou or my mother was discouraging to say the least. Yachouon didn't seem too terribly bothered by my lack of success over such a length of time, but that didn't keep him from grilling me daily about any scents that seemed out of the ordinary, which was the cause of the various wild goose chases which I have not bothered to go into detail about for the sake of brevity.

Yachouon would occasionally take off by himself once a week or so, and each time I worried he was ditching me because of how useless I was. He always returned a few hours later, though, and said that he had merely been out listening where the air was clearer or getting something to eat. After a while I began getting used to being left on my own, but still had a certain anxiety each time that he really wasn't going to come back.

Necessity had caused my hunting skills to improve, and I was now able to catch squirrels, rabbits, and other small animals on my own. I'd sometimes offer a share of my catches to Yachouon in a vain attempt to keep him from leaving me, but he never seemed interested.

As my sense of smell improved, my anxiety over being left alone decreased, as it meant that I could track Yachouon when he left and confirm that he hadn't gone far, and was headed back in my direction. Yachouon didn't have much of a scent himself, but what scent he did have was exactly the same as Kakyou's. I knew that it was imperative for me to know this scent and recognize it from a distance to succeed in our endeavor, but I felt a bit guilty that I had only really used the ability to stalk him remotely.

It was at this time that I was once again left to my own devices, and I was taking the opportunity to attempt to catch a wild boar. The deer from before was a fluke and I hadn't actually killed it myself, but rabbits and squirrels were beginning to bore me. Over the past few months, while my senses had improved, my strength really hadn't as far as I could tell. If I was going to find my mother, it would likely involve facing oni, and there was no way I was going to survive at my current level.

Stealth was no longer a necessity, as my numerous kills of rabbits and squirrels had improved my speed and agility significantly, to the point where I was fully capable of simply chasing down whatever I was after. The boar was not particularly fast, but it could maneuver through underbrush impassable on foot, which would force me to take to the trees and leap branch to branch to maintain pursuit.

I finally spotted an opening and leapt down from the branches on top of the boar, digging my claws into its hide. The animal refused to yield, though, and continued dragging me through the forest, smashing me into trees and rocks and the occasional thorny bush. I bit down into its back, but it was in no way a lethal wound, and the boar was too chubby for me to get any good grip on its neck.

The boar slammed me into another rock, this time knocking me off. It then turned and shook its head, ready to charge me with its tusks. I leapt on top of the rock to dodge, then jumped back down on top of it, giving it another few slashes with my claws. It squealed and attempted to roll me off, but I continued to hang on, gnawing at the nape of its neck in an attempt to hit something vital. My actions were definitely wearing it down, and I felt that I now had the upper hand.

I raised one hand high and drove my claws sharply through the back of its neck. The pig let out a gargled squeal only for a moment, before slumping beneath me and ceasing to struggle.

Tentatively, I relaxed my grip and slid off its back, flicking the blood off my claws. I gave it a few cautious pokes with my foot, but the beast did appear to be dead. I beamed at my accomplishment and the prospect of an ample dinner tonight, though for some reason I didn't notice the acquisition of any boar-like abilities. Was it because I hadn't killed it with a bite?

I noticed Yachouon's scent faintly nearby and was excited to show him what I'd done. I was unable to lift the boar to show him, so I began running in the direction of his scent.

Given the faintness of the scent, I stumbled upon the source much more quickly than I was expecting. And it wasn't Yachouon.

A woman wearing an ornate pink kimono and carrying a small stringed instrument was sitting lightly on a rock, tuning its strings. She strummed across it once with a large triangular pick, then resumed adjusting the strings. Upon seeing me, though, she immediately set her instrument aside and began examining me intently with a slight grin.

I shifted uncomfortably under the stare and cleared my throat. "Um... hello," was all I could manage.

"Beautiful..." she whispered. I blushed slightly and fidgeted even more. "Such an exquisite harmony of elements flowing about you, playing off each other in an elegant yet powerful carrying melody."

I blinked at this. "Um... thank you?" I had no idea what to make of her opinion of me, but the wording certainly made it obvious that she was someone sound-based like Yachouon. Given the scent that I had followed, did that mean that I had found the one who had stolen Genkyou? But even standing here right in front of her, the scent was fleetingly faint.

The woman returned to her instrument and began tuning and strumming it again, shaking her head in frustration. "No... no, I can't copy it. There's so much there, just this isn't enough to capture the full extent of it. Such a pity..."

"Excuse me, um, ma'am..." I began, shuffling my feet a little. How exactly was I going to go about finding out about the bell? If she really had stolen it, she probably wouldn't just give it up if I asked about it. And if she wasn't my culprit, she probably wouldn't take too kindly to being accused of being a theif.

"Do you have kane?" I simply blurted out nervously. "Kane" intending to mean "bell", but in any case, this wasn't really the delicate negotiating strategy I was hoping for.

"Kane?" she replied, meaning "money" in this case. "Little man, if you're intending to be a pickpocket, you sure have a strange way of going about it."

"Ah, no, kane! Ka-ne," I repeated, swinging my arm in the motion of ringing a bell. I already looked exceedingly stupid, so this couldn't really make me look any worse.

"A bell?" she repeated, narrowing her eyes seriously at me. "Exactly who are you?"

Crap, now I was in for it. Yachouon had never given me any specifics about Genkyou or what it did or why someone would steal it. I could understand why he so desperately wanted it back, seeing it was sort of his parent and all, but beyond that I had absolutely zero information about what all was going on.

"A... a friend of mine... lost his bell and is looking for it... and I was, you know... wondering if you knew anything," I stammered. It wasn't really a lie, but it definitely left out all the specific details in case mentioning Yachouon specifically would cause trouble. Though for all I knew, this was nothing more than a cut-and-dry case of theft.

The woman looked at me intently, resting her chin on her palm. "Really, now? So where is this friend of yours now?"

Before I could come up with a suitably vague response, Yachouon burst onto the scene personally. He glanced at me briefly, but immediately glared menacingly at the woman in front of me.

"Eika... so it was you," he growled. What? They knew each other? Well, this was certainly more promising evidence that I'd stumbled upon the right person.

The woman now identified as "Eika" looked at him flatly. "Well, if it isn't dull little Monotone."

"That's Yachouon, you bitch! Ya-chou-on!"

"Could have fooled me," she said, looking away boredly. "You may go on and on about being 'pure of sound', but all that means is that you only sing one tune." She lazily raised her pick to her instrument, and Yachouon immediately grabbed for Kakyou in a panic.

Eika plucked a single string of her instrument and Yachouon's body froze in place. He seemed to struggle against it, but to no avail. Eika plucked the same single string a few more times, causing Yachouon to contort into various awkward and embarrassing positions, before he was simply rendered bowing before her on the ground.

"Damn you... Eika..." he struggled to say with his face in the dirt.

I had been standing aside in the meantime unsure of what to do. Finally, I spoke up and said, "Please, Eika-san, don't hurt Yachouon-sama like that!"

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Sama? That little twerp doesn't deserve a title like that. 'Monotone-chan' is still probably too good for him." She relaxed her instrument and Yachouon immediately pulled himself up from the dirt, snarling. "I wasn't hurting him, except for maybe his ego. You shouldn't be feeding it by addressing him so formally."

"Bitch, that was the same move you pulled on me before!" Yachouon shouted, pointing an accusing finger at her. "That day, someone was manipulating my aura and forced me to hand Genkyou over to some two-bit oni. I'll bet that oni was just the delivery boy, though. You didn't want me to catch the aura of the one who was really stealing it." Eika didn't respond to the accusation, but merely looked away wistfully.

Yachouon stood up straighter and stuck his nose in the air. "Though through all that, I'll bet you couldn't even use it. You may be a sound-user, too, but you aren't specialized in the same way I am. Only I can use my bells to their maximum effect."

Eika merely continued staring blankly away from him, but muttered, "Stupid little Monotone..." She slid off the rock she had been perched on and began pacing in a slow arc behind me.

"It's true that your bell didn't work as well as I had hoped," she said. So she admitted to having it! "However, because of its failure to perform, the bell is no longer in my possession. So if you want it back, you're going to have to do as I say."

That didn't sound good. Yachouon didn't seem to like the prospect, either. "What are you scheming?" he asked cautiously, his hand resting on Kakyou's handle.

But Eika was already wandering away. Yachouon gritted his teeth, then grabbed my hand and pulled me along. "We haven't actually found Genkyou yet, so you're still working for me, kid." He then shot a hushed comment directly into my ear as he had done when Mokuzenmei was in effect. "Plus, if things get ugly, I don't think I can take her on alone."