Authors: Zoe Marriott
I didn’t know if the Kitsune had houses or maybe dens hidden among the trees, but a minute or two after a pair of giggling fox girls had led me into the silver-and-gold forest and then disappeared into the shadows, they came back with a set of new clothes for me. The soft, wide-legged, black trousers and short kimono top – almost exactly like a kendogi – fitted me as if they had been tailored to my newly elongated body. The white sash for my waist was just long enough, and the sturdy boots were the perfect size too (which told me that I was going to need a lot of new shoes, because I’d gone up two sizes). The Kitsune girls even had a pair of brand-new cotton socks for me to wear.
“How is your throat?” the first girl asked sweetly when I’d finished dressing. “Would you like some water?”
I gave her a confused look.
The other one added, “We thought you might be a little thirsty. You know, after all that screaming.”
They both giggled.
Most superheroes got to be cool, dammit. I wanted a refund on this whole deal.
The girls carried on giggling and whispering as they led me back out of the trees. Only the sight of their tails – they both had two – poking out of their flowery little kimonos made it possible for me to believe that they were a couple of hundred years old each. My mum’s voice piped up in my head:
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
I could really have done with my mum around right now.
I’d insisted on taking the katana with me into the trees. Since the fox girls were walking ahead of me and paying no attention, I pulled the sword out of my sash and tried a few passes with it, leaving the saya in place for safety.
Hmm
. I kept walking, trying a couple of low front kicks and then a mid-level side kick, movements that Ojiichan had drilled into me as soon as I learned to walk. I hadn’t done any of the exercises he’d taught me in a while, but my muscles still remembered.
They remembered almost too well. I was faster now. I could feel it and hear it in the way the air whistled around my skin when I shifted. My injured arm was barely aching any more either. The hilt of the sword heated in my grip, as if it approved of this new speed.
It ought to. It had given it to me.
The blade was sentient. Deep at its core was an intelligence of some kind, far more dangerous and wilful than any of us had realized. It had decided I needed to be taller, faster – maybe stronger too, but there was no way to test that now – and just like that, I was. The sword was already changing me. At the moment it was only my body, but what might come next?
As I grappled with that thought, we emerged from the trees. Below me the terraces had emptied, but the bottom of the bowl around the central mound was filling up with Kitsune in human form. Some of the fox spirits were in modern clothes, others in traditional Japanese garb. Some were dressed in armour from a time and place completely unfamiliar to me. They all had one thing in common. They were loaded with weaponry.
I don’t know why I had assumed that ancient fox spirits would turn their noses up at guns. I mean, some of them were carrying swords or bows – I even saw a war-axe – but nearly every one of them had a couple of guns holstered on their hips too. Several were carrying massive pump-action shotguns and wore bandoliers of ammo slung across their chests. They looked like something out of a zombie movie.
A shiver of definitely-not-Kitsune electricity touched the back of my neck as the fox girls bowed and disappeared back into the trees. I turned to see Shinobu striding round the rim of the amphitheatre towards me.
He was wearing a new outfit – the twin of mine. A plain, black katana and shorter wakizashi blade were thrust into the red sash wrapped around his lean waist, and his liquid prowl announced to the world that he knew exactly how to wield them. He’d rebraided his hair, but long, glossy strands blew loose around his face as he moved towards us, drifting back to reveal the smoky depths of eyes that were completely focused on me.
The Kitsune who stood in his way parted before him without a murmur. The men looked impressed and the women looked flirtatious. Actually, some of the men even looked a little flirtatious. Shinobu didn’t seem to notice any of them.
“Shin—” I began. Before I could string together the remaining syllables, he went down gracefully on one knee, bowing his head before me.
“All is as you commanded, Mio-dono,” he announced, his deep voice pitched to carry to the foxes around us. “The Kitsune are rallying. Soon we will be ready for you to lead us into battle. Do you have any more instructions?”
“What are you—?”
“Play along,” Shinobu said softly, not looking up. “We need to keep their respect now that you have won it for us.”
Oh, right
. We were trying to wipe the image of me and my Hello Kitty underwear out of the Kitsune’s brains. I could do that. I attempted a regal expression, hoping that I didn’t just look constipated, and answered: “Very good. Thank you. You may, er, rise.”
He came to an upright position in one smooth movement, like a perfect soldier. Now I could see the laughter glinting in his eyes. He was enjoying himself. I guessed after the entire Kitsune Kingdom had sneered at and tried to crush us, he was entitled to feel a
little
smug that my sword had knocked them all off their feet and nearly brought the roof down.
“Well?” I said, voice pitched low. “What now? Where are Jack and Hikaru?”
“Jack-san is choosing weaponry, with Hikaru-san’s expert help. I have found a place suitable for you to inspect your troops as they gather.” He added more quietly: “Try to look commanding.”
I suppressed a panicked cry of “How?” and nodded, letting him lead me away from the trees, down to one of the empty terraces midway up the amphitheatre. Someone had spread out a beautifully coloured patchwork quilt on the mossy grass. In the centre of the quilt there was a low, round silver table, where a large glass bowl rested. It was filled with emerald-green apples, blushing peaches, ruby-red grapes and freckled, coppery pears. There was also a glass pitcher filled with some amber liquid that steamed faintly and two glasses shaped like those horn goblets you saw Vikings quaffing out of in films.
“What is this?” I asked, confused.
“They asked if there was anything you would like.” Now that we were out of everyone else’s hearing, his voice was eager, slightly anxious. “Is it all right?”
He did this for me
.
My heart squeezed almost painfully. “It’s lovely. Thank you.” I stepped carefully onto the quilt and sat down, crossing my legs neatly and laying the katana across my thighs. “Does this look commanding enough?”
“I think so,” he said, smiling a little. He sat down on the other edge of the quilt and poured some of the amber-coloured liquid into one of the goblets, then pushed it across the table towards me.
“I don’t want to get drunk,” I protested. The only drink that colour I knew of was cider.
“It is not an intoxicating drink,” he said. “I made sure. Try it.”
I picked up the glass and drank cautiously. The taste of honey, and apples, and something sharp and delicious I’d never tasted before exploded on my tongue, closely followed by a fizzing sensation of warmth that flowed into me, soothing my slightly sore throat and my nervous stomach with one sip. “Wow.” I blinked down at the glass. “Not intoxicating?”
“There may be a little of their magic in it,” he said. “But nothing that would harm you. That is the last thing any of them would want now.”
I had another mouthful and decided that, intoxicating or not, I might start giggling if I had any more. That would be bad. I put the glass down and reached hesitantly for a grape. It burst in my mouth with the sweetest, most intense flavour I’d ever experienced. God, what did they put in this stuff? It was amazing. A bite of a peach almost made me cry.
“Don’t you want anything?” I asked Shinobu, noticing that he hadn’t even poured himself a drink. He shook his head, apparently happy to watch me eat instead.
Something whipped past in the corner of my eye. I turned my head to see Hikaru and Jack on one of the terraces below us. Jack had a long stick in her hands and Hikaru appeared to be giving her tips on how to use it. Probably trying to persuade her that she didn’t need a shotgun, which is what she would really want, if I knew her. I smiled, wondering if I should wave and call them up here to share the picnic.
My gaze wandered to the bottom of the bowl. About fifty Kistune had sorted themselves into neat rows that looked like the ranks of soldiers you saw marching on Remembrance Day. They stood to attention as the king talked; he paced back and forth among them, his tails lashing and his head held high. After a minute he bowed his head to them all. As one, they saluted sharply. Just like real soldiers.
My mouthful of sweet, golden peach was suddenly as bitter as lemons. I put the piece of fruit down slowly, wiping my fingers on the knee of my new outfit.
Calm down. Just take a deep breath. Calm down…
I sensed Shinobu turning his head to look at me, but I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look away from the soldiers who were getting ready to go into battle with us.
This is really happening. We’re going to fight the Nekomata. Jack is going to fight. I am going to fight. And Rachel’s life is at stake
.
“I don’t think I can do this.” The words were out before I could stop them.
There was a long, singing moment of quiet, while I waited for Shinobu to say something. He didn’t.
“This … this thing…” My hands tightened on the katana’s saya and hilt in an agonized mixture of unwilling love and smouldering anger. “It’s like my ojiichan gave me a nuclear bomb. A supernatural doomsday device. I had no idea what it could do before – and maybe I still don’t. But I know it’s dangerous. Midori was right in one way: this is not something any mortal is equipped to handle. I don’t know how to handle it.”
“Yet handle it you have,” Shinobu said. His voice was quiet. “Well enough to gain the King of the Kitsune’s respect. Well enough to gain his people’s confidence. He is giving you these troops as a gesture of trust and friendship.”
I forced myself to sit still, resisting the urge to fling the katana away at the same time as I resisted the equally strong urge to lift it up and clutch it to me. “That’s the worst part, Shinobu, don’t you see that? It’s all fake! They’re doing this because I’ve persuaded them that I know what I’m doing, but I don’t. What happens if – if we fail?”
Shadows and blood will devour this world
. That was what the Harbinger had said.
Shadows and blood…
It hadn’t meant anything to me then. It was too big, too dramatic. What could the end of the world possibly have to do with me, Mio Yamato? But it had everything to do with me – because everyone I cared about lived in this world. Mum and Dad, Aunt Fumi and my cousins Chris and Sarah, the kids I went to school with, my teachers … Jack and Shinobu. And Rachel. Poor, lost Rachel. The shadows already had Rachel.
She was counting on me. Me. When this was all my fault to start with.
“The Kitsune almost destroyed the Nekomata once before,” Shinobu reminded me. “In this conflict we will have numbers and strength far out-matching those of a single cat-demon. It is foolish to be overconfident in any battle, but it is equally foolish to despair when the odds are so overwhelmingly in our favour.”
“But this isn’t just any fight. It’s not about winning. It’s about getting Jack’s sister out
alive
. That’s my job. Jack expects me to fix everything and get Rachel back. She seems to think – everyone seems to think – I’m some sort of badass action hero. And I’m not. I don’t know how to fight. I don’t know how to save anyone, not even myself.” I hesitated, then whispered bleakly: “I don’t know what to do.”
“You will do what is necessary,” said Shinobu, not a trace of doubt in his voice. “You will do what must be done. And you will do what is right. You will always do what is right, Mio.”
A tense breath shivered out of me, and I slumped weakly over the katana. My voice was a wobbly mumble. “Why do you think that?”
Shinobu’s big, tanned hand, marked with tiny white scars, appeared in the corner of my vision. He peeled my shaking fingers from the saya of the katana and clasped them in his, not squeezing but holding firmly. “I know you.”
And that was true, wasn’t it? Because he had been with me for so long. Longer than Jack, even. He had been there when no one else was. If there was a single person in this world – in any world – who knew who I was … it was Shinobu.
We sat in silence for a few moments. Gradually the paralyzing panic faded away, evaporating like a dark, wet stain off a hot paving slab in the summer. I was still tense and worried and afraid, but I could think again.
I sighed. “You – you’re good.”
“I am?”
“Good for me.” I finally managed to look at him.
“Mio.” He was gazing back at me intensely, eyes filled with that strange expression I had seen there a couple of times before. Like he was waiting for something. Shinobu lifted my hand up and pressed it to his forehead for a second, closing his eyes. “After all this is over—”
“Mio?” Jack’s head popped over the edge of the terrace. Hope and determination made her eyes almost glow. “There you are! Look what Hikaru lent me!”
Shinobu kissed my knuckles gently and released me. I got up as Jack clambered onto the terrace – and jumped back just in time to avoid losing my nose as she swung a wooden staff, which turned out to be topped with a six-inch, hooked blade.
Shinobu was on his feet in an instant. “Look out!”
“Sorry. But isn’t it cool? It’s called a glaive. They won’t let me have a gun for some reason. But they’re totally gearing up for battle, Mimi! They’re really going to help us get Rachel back!”
Her voice cracked a bit there at the end. I felt a sharp pang. No wonder she was excited. I thrust the katana into my sash, dodged her weapon again, and put my arm around her shoulder. It felt weird. My armpit was on the same level as the ball of her shoulder now, which meant I ended up sort of snuggling her into my body. And our faces were even. I tried not to let it put me off.