Three Sparks: The Oni Of Aokigahara
Three Sparks was a male Yautja hunter in Larry Correia's short story "Three Sparks," published in the 2017 anthology Predator: If It Bleeds. Locals in feudal Japan called him the Oni of Aokigahara, or Three Sparks, after the three glowing points that marked his chosen prey before a lightning strike. Through one hot summer he killed Minamoto warriors one by one in the dense forest north of Mount Fuji, skinned them, and hung the bodies from trees. He ignored the nearby village, hunted only skilled warriors, and died when the ronin archer Nasu Hiroto cut through his chest with a katana.
Biography
Summer Of Death
In the hottest summer in generations after the Genpei War, the hunter began killing warriors of Minamoto Yoritomo in Aokigahara. About twenty men were picked off one by one, skinned with skilled butchery, and left hanging high in the trees with no rope marks, as if staged for those who found them. Witnesses whispered of an invisible demon stronger than any man that killed by spear, claw, or bolts of lightning, then vanished. Sometimes three glowing embers appeared on the chosen victim, arranged as the points of a triangle on the forehead or armor, and those three sparks were the only warning before the strike. Samurai rushed to the forest to win the shogun's favor and failed, until the stories reached the ronin hunter Nasu Hiroto and brought him back to Kamakura.
A village at the edge of the forest told visitors that the creature had not harmed a single peasant. Young Hagi first saw it perched high in the trees, shaped like a man but bigger, with a head like an ox. Old Genzo heard the thunder when it killed the first samurai, saw the three sparks, and fled before more lightning came. Villagers left offerings at a shrine to appease it, and they called it Three Sparks. That name stuck with Hiroto.
Hiroto And Motokane's Party
Yoritomo sent the young official Ashikaga Motokane and five bodyguards with Hiroto. Hiroto entered the forest stripped to the waist and carrying a bamboo pole, posing as a conscripted porter, because earlier porters had come back alive and the hunter seemed to ignore peasants. The party found corpses already hanging and a headless body in a stream whose spine had been ripped out. Motokane recognized the personal mon of Hojo Murashige, a fearsome swordsman of the Hojo family. Tracks around that kill showed a long duel: sandal marks, much larger footfalls that crushed moss flat, twin-blade cuts high on the trees, dried green blood, and a severed clawed finger with an obsidian tip. After losing the finger, the hunter stopped accepting sword duels head-on and preferred ambush from the trees.
Ambush At The Stream
While Motokane shouted challenges at the forest, the hunter killed the bodyguard Kaneto with a plasma blast after the three aim-points appeared on his breastplate. Nobuo later told Hiroto the sparks had been there for only a few heartbeats before the flash. Hiroto concluded the marks were used to aim, not as a spiritual omen. The party retreated along its own trail. Hiroto, still ignored as a peasant, listened for the hunter's quiet movement in the haunted stillness of Aokigahara and heard flesh scrape bark, a branch take weight, and an unnatural chittering-slither sound above them.
Sundown Attack And Venom Arrows
At sundown the hunter hurled lightning from the canopy like a thunder god. Another warrior lost an arm to a blast when he drew his katana and challenged. Motokane ran as a tree exploded beside him. Focusing on the armored samurai and ignoring the supposed porter, the hunter left Hiroto free to shoot. Hiroto put jellyfish-venom arrows into the cloaked form until an angry roar and green blood told him he had struck true. Fresh blood glowed like a smashed firefly and faded as it dried. The poison did not kill the hunter, but the wounds forced him down from the treetops onto the ground, where Motokane, Nobuo, Zensuke, and Hiroto could follow the trail. Motokane reported that everyone else in the retinue was already dead.
Land-Bridge Trap And Final Fight
The blood trail led to a narrow land bridge between stagnant ponds, where the hunter had doubled back through the water after planting a trap. When Nobuo set it off on Hiroto's order, the device erupted like a mine, hurled Nobuo, and set the canopy on fire. Three red dots climbed Hiroto's arm and chest; he flung himself aside as the tree behind him came apart. Firelight broke the cloak into a tall man-shape of refracting glass. Zensuke charged with his katana and was cut in half by twin wristblades. Hiroto's arrow into the arm struck in a flash of blue and broke the cloak by blocking the wrist device. For the first time he saw the hunter clearly: a giant about two feet taller than the largest samurai, a too-large shining metal head, hair like a sadhu monk, and a body covered in mesh netting.
Further arrows hit the stomach and leg before a boulder blast threw Hiroto and cost him his bow. The hunter did not need the three sparks to fire lightning, though they helped accuracy. Hiroto rose from the pond mud with Nobuo's tetsubo, smashed the hunter's shoulder and leg, and went to his knees with him. The wristblades cut through the war club and across Hiroto's face, taking his left eye. Nobuo woke and threw a sheathed katana into Hiroto's lap. Hiroto drew and slashed in one motion; the blade went through half the hunter's chest, green blood arced across the forest, and Three Sparks, the Oni of Aokigahara, died. Hiroto laughed through the pain and judged it a fine hunt.
Aftermath
Leaving the forest, Hiroto and Nobuo found Motokane hiding in a hollow tree. Nobuo beheaded him so their report to the shogun would list no other survivors. Hiroto presented the hunter's mask to Yoritomo. The shogun, reading the report, decided the oni's invisible, calculating methods could teach a secret corps of irregular killers, shinobi-no-mono, and asked Hiroto to build that organization. Hiroto accepted. The story ends with that charge; it does not name the hunter in any Yautja tongue or follow other hunters from the same ship.
Weapons And Equipment
Three Sparks hunted under a cloaking field that bent light until fire and a damaged wrist device broke the effect. He marked prey with three glowing aim-points before firing energy bolts that villagers called lightning, and he could also fire without the sparks when pressed. Twin blades extended from his wrist for close work. Witnesses also spoke of spear and claw kills early in the summer, before Motokane's party arrived. He set a land-bridge mine that erupted with fire and flying rock, and he wore a shining metal bio-mask and mesh netting over his body. Hiroto later gave that mask to Yoritomo as a trophy. A severed finger found near Hojo Murashige's corpse showed an obsidian claw tip and bright green flesh.
Personality And Abilities
The hunter chose dangerous game and left peasants alone, a pattern Hiroto used against him by posing as a porter. After losing a finger to Hojo Murashige, he refused fair sword duels and fought from cover, leaping tree to tree and toying with Motokane's party before resuming the kill. He was quiet in the still forest but not silent, strong enough to haul skinned corpses high into branches without rope, and tall enough that tree cuts sat far above a human swordsman's reach. Green blood glowed when fresh. Even after venom arrows and broken bones he kept fighting, paused in confusion when Hiroto rose muddy from the pond, and died still trying to drive his blades into the human's heart.
Behind The Scenes
Larry Correia wrote "Three Sparks" for Predator: If It Bleeds, which Bryan Thomas Schmidt edited and Titan Books published in 2017. The story is told from Nasu Hiroto's point of view and never gives the hunter a Yautja name. Humans call him the Oni of Aokigahara or Three Sparks after the three fire-kami marks on his prey. Correia's piece sits among the anthology's historical hunts, alongside stories such as S. D. Perry's Skeld's Keep, where Tli'uukop taught three Blooded students. Site pages on samurai-themed hunters, including Predators vs Samurai and the Samurai Predator, cite the same Aokigahara hunt when they discuss feudal Japan in Predator lore.
Conclusion
Three Sparks was the unnamed male Yautja who terrorized Aokigahara after the Genpei War, hanging skinned Minamoto warriors and marking prey with three aim-sparks before lightning strikes. He ignored villagers, killed Motokane's guards from cloak and canopy, and lost a finger, then a duel, to humans who adapted faster than he expected. Nasu Hiroto's venom arrows, tetsubo, and final katana cut ended the summer of death. The hunter's mask and methods then inspired Yoritomo's secret shinobi corps, while the Yautja himself never received a recorded name beyond the oni title the forest gave him.
Appearances
- Predator: If It Bleeds, "Three Sparks" by Larry Correia (2017)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Novels | Predator Lore
