Episode 2 · Mononoke

Mononoke

He walks the roads of feudal Japan with a box of medicines on his back, but that is not really what he sells. The Medicine Seller hunts mononoke, angry spirits that cling to a place and kill whoever comes near. His sword stays sheathed until he has torn the whole story out of the thing. Form. Truth. Reason. Get any of those wrong and the blade is just dead metal in his hand. A pregnant woman named Shino only wants somewhere to sleep. The innkeeper grumbles but gives her the last empty room, and it takes almost no time at all for her to realize why nobody wanted it. Something is already living in there. A pack of them, the Zashiki Warashi, and they do not share. The Medicine Seller starts asking questions, digging through the room's past and the people who pass through it, because the only way to kill a spirit is to first understand exactly what it is and why it came. Meanwhile the thing in the walls is not waiting for him to finish. How many more people have to die in this room before he learns what he needs?