Yokai (22 page)

“
You were
right.”

Yumiko turned to find herself staring
into the eyes of Kuchisake-Onna, The Slit-Mouthed Woman. Yumiko
stiffened, but the yokai was smiling warmly at her, giving her
pause. “I was right?”

Kuchisake-Onna nodded, her horrible
mouth stretching even wider. “I found peace here, like you said.”
She clasped Yumiko’s hand, startling her. “I didn’t think it was
possible, to escape being a slave to my nature, from my drive for
revenge. Thank you.” She bowed deeply, then stepped back and
disappeared into the crowd. Yumiko stared after her stupidly, not
quite believing the encounter as she tried to make sense of
it.

“
You did this,” Ame-Onna
said, suddenly at her side.

Yumiko looked at her curiously. “I
don’t understand.”

“
Every time you sent a
yokai to this world, Lord Kagami would bring them here, and created
this place for them to thrive, and live with one another. He
created this community for them, where they could be
happy.”

“
You mean that these are
all yokai that
I
sent here?” Yumiko asked, blinking at the creatures around
her. But she could tell that Ame-Onna was right. She recognized
each yokai she focused on: Kejora, the woman with hair hiding her
face, had been a victim to Yumiko’s blade at a hostess club.
Mikaribaba, a kindly-looking old woman, had been pushed through a
mirror in her cottage in the woods. Yumiko had sent them all here.
And they’d found a place to live, apart from humans, where they
could actually enjoy their lives, without their innate need to
terrorize humans in the real world.

“
Well, nearly all of them,”
Ame-Onna amended. “There is Tanuki, Enenra, the kappa, and a few
others that Kagami brought here himself.” She nodded toward a
kitsune, who caught Yumiko’s eye and winked. The very kitsune who’d
replaced Kagami to make it seem like he was a were-fox.

“
Amazing.”

“
He took your words to
heart, you know,” Ame-Onna told her.

“
Hmmm?” Yumiko found it
difficult to focus. She was overwhelmed by the crowd, at looking
into each and every face as she remembered having faced them with
her sword.

“
Kagami. Brian. He heard
your words that day. About it being lonely here without others
around.”

Yumiko turned to stare into Ame-Onna’s
face, noting the small smile on the yokai’s lips. “I
remember.”

“
Then you know that he did
this for you. He could have just as easily escorted all of the
yokai you sent here back into your world. But instead, he built
this.”

Yumiko blinked, forcing herself to
look around the crowd again. Her eyes fell on two oni she
recognized from Oni-Baba’s crew. “Wait a second. Is this a good
idea?”

Ame-Onna followed her gaze. “Their
strings have been cut from Shuten-Doji, so they have nowhere to
channel their rage. They won’t harm anyone here, not when they’re
so outnumbered. Even the most unruly yokai have learned to adapt to
this place in time. It truly is magical. One would say
peaceful.”

“
Peaceful,” Yumiko echoed,
frowning. Something tickled the back of her mind, and she turned
toward Ame-Onna with suspicion. “I am supposedly going to bring
about peace between humans and yokai.”

“
As it was foretold,”
Ame-Onna bowed to her.

“
And in order to have built
this little peaceful community, this beginning to a world of peace,
I needed to have my power over mirrors, and the drive to fight
yokai, to send them here.”

“
What are you saying,
Yumiko?”

Yumiko jumped as Brian materialized
behind her. She met the concern in his eyes and opened her mouth to
reply, but couldn’t get the words out.

“
She means,” Ame-Onna said,
cocking her head, “that my comment about you consuming her body and
soul was meant to motivate her to fight yokai, and to
inadvertently, build this paradise.”

Brian’s eyebrows furrowed.
“But…what? Why would she think….” He frowned, then lifted a finger.
“Why
did
you say
that, Ame-Onna?”

Ame-Onna closed her eyes, the smile
still playing at her lips. “I said that you would consume her body
and soul because it’s true. She will be consumed by passion and
love for you. It will envelope her and be her light in the dark.
She will do anything for you, in time. I have seen it in the waters
as I’ve scryed.” She opened her eyes and stared into Yumiko’s
without apology. “However, she needed a push. My words were
truthful, but I knew when I uttered them how they would be
interpreted by her. Her quest for vengeance led her down this path,
and now, she is where she needs to be for the prophecy to be
fulfilled.”

Yumiko couldn’t believe
what she was hearing. She stared at Ame-Onna wide-eyed. She’d
always imagined the yokai as playing a passive role in all of this,
but it seemed that she had been all but instrumental. She had
chosen Yumiko’s path
for
her. “You used me,” Yumiko breathed. “You…you
shoved me headfirst into this life of…of pain and bitterness and
vengeance.”

Ame-Onna lifted her head high. “And I
would do it again. It was necessary. In time, you will see
that.”

And with those words, Ame-Onna turned
and disappeared into the crowd. Yumiko watched her back until she
couldn’t see it through the throng of yokai. And she hoped she
would never see her again.

Her fists clenched tightly, Yumiko
turned to Brian, barely holding back tears that wanted desperately
to taste the mirror world’s blue sky. “You…” she choked out, unable
to finish.

“
I didn’t know,” Brian
looked upset too, almost desperate. “I knew that you were holding
on to this anger, this resentment. I knew you would fight me to the
death, that you longed for it. But I didn’t know that Ame-Onna
manipulated this. I swear to you.”

“
And what of my mother?”
Yumiko was ashamed that a tear betrayed her, and swiped at it
angrily. “Where is she? Hidden in your fortress?”

Brian opened his mouth, then closed
it. He seemed at a loss for words, then just shook his head. “Your
mother is unharmed.”

Yumiko blinked. “What? No. You
kidnapped her! You…you did something to her.”

“
I didn’t.” Brian looked
away. “I never touched her, Yumiko.”

“
Then…” Yumiko frowned.
“Shuten-Doji? Or another yokai?
Something
happened to my
mother!”

“
Yumiko,” Reina put a hand
on her shoulder, her voice low and sympathetic.

Yumiko glared back at her, then
stopped when she saw the look of concern on her face. All of the
yokai in the vicinity had stopped to stare, and Yumiko looked away,
ashamed.

“
We’ll find out what
happened to your mother,” Reina murmured, close to her ear. “But
first, we need to work with Brian to rescue Shou.”

Yumiko took a deep, calming breath
that made her whole body shudder. She felt herself calm slightly
and nodded sharply. “Yes.” She looked at Brian. “I’m sorry for my
outburst.”

Brian looked wary, and tired. He
nodded. “We’ll talk once we find Shou.”

“
Yes. We will.”

He held her eye for a moment, then
turned and led them to The Hall of Mirrors.

Chapter
Eighteen

The Hall of Mirrors was just as Yumiko
remembered it. When she stepped through the doorway, she saw a
shimmering floor that resembled water, but felt solid beneath her
feet. It stretched down a hallway that was long and curved, and it
made her wonder vaguely just how far she would have to walk to find
the end, if it really did contain the other side of every single
mirror in the world. That would be a lot of mirrors. Billions of
them. And as Yumiko swept into the hall alongside Reina, she saw
strange places reflected back at her in mirrors of different shapes
and sizes. Most of the mirrors didn’t have frames, but some ran
from the floor to the ceiling, which was twenty feet overhead.
Others were tiny silver circles that twinkled like snowflakes.
Along the ceiling, huge mirrors could be seen, and through them,
Yumiko saw museums and historical sites.

Reina was silent beside her as she
peered at mirrors of strangers’ bedrooms, the insides of student
lockers, full-length views of bathrooms, and the dark outline of
makeup in closed cases. “This is…weird.”

Yumiko nodded in agreement. It felt
like she was peering into people’s lives, spying on them. She felt
like she should be averting her eyes.

Reina paused before a square mirror
and pointed to the image within. The front desk of the love hotel.
“He can see everything.”

“
Yes, he can.”

Reina swallowed hard. “I feel
violated. I am never walking in front of a mirror
again.”

“
Now you know how I feel,”
Yumiko chuckled, looking ahead to find Brian watching her. She
looked away quickly, realizing that he’d overheard. Well, he
should
feel bad. And
ashamed. She’d been in constant fear of Kagami’s eyes on her for
over a decade, avoiding mirrors as much as possible. He should know
how much it hurt her, how it had affected her life. Even if it hurt
him to know, he needed to understand what her life had been like,
what he had shaped it into following their encounter. It had been
unnerving never knowing if she was being watched.

“
Look at all of these
bathrooms, you pervert,” Reina said loudly, to lighten the
mood.

A few kappa turned to stare at her,
but then continued about their business, shuffling along the
hallway, peering into mirrors as they looked for Shou.

“
It’s like a dream come
true,” Tanuki mumbled, eyes wide.

“
You would think so,” Reina
scoffed.

“
This could take us
forever,” Yumiko said, crossing her arms, not feeling particularly
good about herself for peering into these people’s lives unbidden.
She saw a little girl brushing her teeth at the instruction of her
mother, and a strange longing came over her. Had Brian watched
Yumiko in mirrors and longed for her? Had he averted his eyes at
the appropriate moments? Yumiko found herself looking at Brian
again, wondering, when he lifted his eyes to hers again.

“
I’ve always respected your
privacy,” he said softly.

Yumiko nodded, but looked away,
embarrassed at the implications.

“
The female is right,”
Enenra sighed, loudly. “I can cover more ground much
faster.”

“
Then do it,” Brian invited
him, gesturing up the hallway.

Enenra smiled, like he’d just been
promised chocolate, then winked at Yumiko. He turned to run up the
hall, and jumping, twirled mid-air as his body seemed to
disintegrate, losing cohesion and turning into smoke. Before long,
a roiling cloud of gray smoke floated purposefully down the
hallway, tendrils roiling from it, brushing the surface of mirrors
as it passed them. And then Yumiko could no longer see the cloud at
all.

“
How do you manage this
many mirrors?” Reina wondered. “It’s overwhelming.”

“
It is,” Brian agreed,
offering her a smile. “And I don’t watch them all, or care for
them. This hall does it all. New mirrors appear overnight, others
vanish without warning, and some merely become fragments of what
they once were. They are always free of dust and streaks.” He
shrugged. “But I only stroll through the hall every once in a
while. I don’t sit and stare for hours on end or anything too
creepy. I promise.”

“
Wasted opportunity,”
Tanuki shook his head, stopping as a woman stepped out of a
shower.

Reina nudged him along with more force
than was necessary. “But you checked in on Yumiko.”

Yumiko didn’t lift her head as she
felt several eyes settle on her at once.

“
I did check on Yumiko,”
Brian agreed, voice low. “But only long enough to make sure that
she was safe.”

“
How noble,” Yumiko
couldn’t help but mutter.

Brian sighed and Reina pursed her
lips.

After another minute, Reina gasped.
“How pretty!”

Yumiko peered over her shoulder to see
a vast darkness filled with twinkling lights and pink gaseous
nebulas. “What is this?”

“
Some probe in space,”
Brian said, a smile stretching across his face slowly. “I’ve seen
some very beautiful sights from that mirror over the
years.”

“
I believe it,” Reina
whispered.

Brian noted the interest in her eyes
and gestured to another mirror across the hall. “And what do you
think of this one?”

Reina followed his direction and
stopped before another mirror, her mouth hanging open.

Yumiko, curious, stepped up behind
Reina to stare into what appeared to be a blue forest, teaming with
strange, twisting mushrooms made of glass, and flowers that swayed
back and forth. “Where is that?”

“
Another dimension,” Brian
shrugged, like it was no big deal.

Reina blinked and then shoved him.
“You’re putting us on.”