Oni

The battle had been going on for months.  Momotaro thought it would be a quick and decisive victory, but he quickly learned the hard way that these oni were not willing to give in easily.  When he pierced the defenses of the fortress many months ago and defeated the leader, Ura, he had immediately returned home.  However, the oni had not been as cowed or defeated as he thought. 

Momotaro had to return to the island of Onigashima and defeat the army of oni once more.  However, this time the oni were prepared for him.  Upon reaching the island, Momotaro was met immediately by a force of oni.  They were as ferocious and frightening to look at as they had been the last time, but Momotaro had been hardened by his travels. He would not be deterred by the fact they were all at least seven feet tall, carrying clubs nearly as big as they were, and had skin that would burn as red as fire, or freeze as blue as ice. 

Momotaro quickly dispatched this initial force, but he knew there must be more of the enemy based on the rumors that had already reached his parents' home after a few months.  There were horrible stories of the oni leaving the island of Onigashima to attack villagers and travelers in the area.  Momotaro soon realized how unfortunately correct he was, when he saw the encampments surrounding the fortress.  The force of oni had grown to a staggering size while he was gone.

Momotaro knew it would be difficult if not impossible to defeat such a force on his own, so he left and petitioned the Emperor to send more forces to assist him.  The Emperor heard his plea, and dispatched a group of his finest men to assist Momotaro with what would hopefully be the final clean-up.

As soon as the men arrived, the oni attacked in force once again.  This time, however, they were not going to be defeated so easily.  After a hard fought battle, the oni were successful in driving Momotaro and his allies away from the island.  It was quite a humbling experience for Momotaro, since he had never been unsuccessful in anything he had done.  He now knew what kind of intelligence must have been awakened within the oni to put up such a fight.  They were never known for their intelligence, but rather their brute strength and frightening appearance.

Momotaro and the soldiers eventually secured a foothold on the island, but by that time the oni had been able to inflict serious causalities. One of the soldiers had to be dispatched to request further reinforcements from the Emperor.  The Emperor knew it must have been a horrible situation, and immediately sent every soldier available to him that wasn't vital to the defense of palace.

They gradually made progress, and after many months they had the oni pinned down at their soon-to-be final resting place.  Momotaro had grown rather gaunt during the battle.  By this time he was only interested in winning this final battle, and then returning home to his parents. 

The battle was quickly becoming one of attrition.  Momotaro knew he would need to defeat the leader once again.  After many months of trying to defeat him in combat, Momotaro finally had a one on one with the leader.  Even now no one knew his name.  All Momotaro and his allies knew was that he was a formidable warrior, and had turned the tide of a battle many times on his own.  It was a hard fought battle, and Momotaro came away with many injuries.  However, he was eventually able to defeat the leader and allow for the end to be seen.

With one final charge, Momotaro and the soldiers defeated the oni of Onigashima.  Almost immediately after the end of the battle, he left and returned home.  This time, it was with the happy ending he imagined so many months before.

Author's Note:  I took a lot of liberty with this story.  In the original, Momotaro defeated the oni much like I said in the first paragraph.  He snuck into their fortress, defeated the leader, and they practically surrendered.  The reason I wrote a continuance to the story is because I think it was a little too easy.  Oni in Japanese mythology are great, hulking beasts and it doesn't seem reasonable that a human would be able to defeat the leader and convince his army to leave him alone and not attack in retaliation. Therefore, the general idea is that another oni took over the leadership role, and he was even more of an oni than his predecessor.  I also left out the three talking fairy-tale creatures that Momotaro had.  They were in the original version, but I didn't develop them and was at a loss on what to do with them. The setting I wanted was sort of similar to the Trojan War, when everyone on both sides are so worn down they don't really care.  However, they also don't want to give up.  So while everyone is war weary, they keep doing it anyway and someone is constantly trying to think of a new way to let it end.  I also did it this way because there aren't a lot of stories that directly involve oni.  Plenty of stories mention them, they have a lot of depth surrounding them, but I can't find the stories.  A lot of Japanese anime will use oni, but they're not the type of source I wanted to use for something like this.  Furthermore, I would need to take even more liberty with the initial story to make it fit with the writing style I have been using so far.