Rise (5 page)

Chapter Ten

“Yuki,” Tanaka said, his eyes meeting the boy’s as his paintbrush rested on the brick. “Let’s get out of here.” He tugged on her hand and headed toward the gate.

“
Chotto!
” the boy called, running in front of them. “As far as you’re concerned, you saw nothing, got it?”

“No problem,” Tanaka said, trying to steady his voice. “We won’t say a thing.”

The boy laughed nervously. “Here’s the thing. I don’t believe you.”

“What do you want, then?” Tanaka said. His mind raced as he stepped in front of Yuki, his arms out to his sides. She tried to tug him back, but he pretended he didn’t feel the pressure of her arm against his. “Don’t worry,” he breathed, not even believing himself.

“I’m just following orders,” the guy said, looking back nervously toward the wolf pen where the crowd was gathering around the fallen man. “And the orders are, don’t get caught.”

Yuki’s grip tightened around Tanaka’s arm.

“We didn’t see anything, okay?” Tanaka said. “Come on. You don’t want to do to this. I can see you don’t.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” the boy snapped, running his hands through his hair. “Oh god,” he whispered to himself. “He’s gonna kill me.”

He looks as scared as I am
, Tanaka thought. “Are you in trouble? Maybe...maybe I can help.”

“Stay out of this!” he yelled in response, and Tanaka jerked backward, Yuki burying her head in his arm.

“Hey, I’m just trying to help, okay?”

“I’m just painting the words. I don’t know what they mean,” the guy said.

Right
, Tanaka thought.
Which is why you’re threatening us.

“Hey! You three!” called a voice. Tanaka turned, a security guard walking toward them. Did he think they were in on it?

The guy swore and took off toward the gate, ink trailing from the edge of his jacket. Tanaka grabbed Yuki tightly as the security guard raced over. “You all right?” the guard asked.

“He’s part of it,” Yuki blurted out, pointing toward the gate. “He was painting the raven on the wall!”

The security guard took off after the boy, shouting back, “Leave the zoo. It’s not safe!”

“Come on,” Tanaka said, holding Yuki’s hand tightly as they hurried toward the gate. Outside three police cars pulled up one after another, their sirens blaring. Tanaka’s heart froze at the sight of it.

“Oh god,” Yuki said. “It wasn’t a heart attack that man was suffering, was it? It’s a gang attack.”

The police fled by, one of them stopping to talk to the security guard who’d pursued the teen. He was lost now to the forests of Nihondaira without a trace, the ink trail stopping at the base of the trees. The security guard looked at Yuki and Tanaka. “Did you know him?”

Yuki looked at Tanaka, and he swallowed slowly.

“No,” he said at last. “Sorry. We don’t know him.”

They stood hand in hand as they waited for the bus, the feeling so familiar to Tanaka. He felt like they were back in kindergarten again, the world too large and confusing around them, the string of his hat tied too tightly to breathe. They hopped on the bus in silence, watching the fall leaves of Nihondaira slip away as the city of Shizuoka engulfed them once again.

“Why didn’t you tell them who it was?” Yuki asked quietly as she looked out the window.

“It’s a gang turf war, Yuki. I’m not going to get us involved.”

She shifted away from the window, and toward Tanaka, resting her hand in his. “What if more people get hurt?”

Tanaka gave an empty laugh. “I told him my name and my school, even which club I’m in. I can’t risk dragging you into such a dangerous war. Right now the only ones getting targeted are Yakuza members, which is bad, but it’s not like innocent people are at risk.” He wrapped his fingers around hers. “Besides, he’s just a kid like us. I believed him when he said he was just a messenger. How is he going to hurt some grown Yakuza with a pen and paper?”

“You’re right,” Yuki said. “All he did was sketch.”

“Maybe he’ll realize today was a close call,” Tanaka said. “Maybe this will give him the strength to change his mind and get out of it, too.”

Yuki smiled, her breath fogging against the bus window, smearing the city grays together outside. “I always liked that about you, Tan-kun. You worry about others sincerely. You have a kind heart.”

Tanaka grinned, brushing the tassels of the red scarf with his free hand. “Yuki?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you cook
ebi
fry again this Monday? I don’t have club practice then.”

Yuki grinned. “Sure. With extra
onigiri
on the side.”

They got off the bus at Shizuoka Station. Tanaka looked at her lips, barely covered by the pink of her own woolen scarf. He was dying to kiss her, but he didn’t dare make a scene here. Some guys could be daring that way, but Tanaka was all talk. He was worried he’d embarrass Yuki, too.

Instead, he felt Yuki’s slender fingers slip into his, trailing up and down the skin of his palm. The motion sent a wave of warmth shuddering through him.

“You have to go home now,” Tanaka said.

Yuki laughed. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to kiss you if you don’t,” he whispered.

Yuki stopped laughing. “We could go somewhere else,” she said quietly.

Tanaka’s heart pounded against his ribs. “Yuki, it’s our first date. We don’t have to...”

She pressed a hand against his coat buttons. “I know. But I’ve been in love with you since the second year of Junior High, Tan-kun. It’s hardly our first date, not really. Don’t you think I’ve waited long enough?”

Tanaka’s face turned crimson red beneath the coiled scarf.

“Anyway,” Yuki said, “we don’t have to do everything if you’re not ready. We can be alone and talk. We can eat the macarons and pig out.” She laughed. “Whatever you want. Okay?”

Tanaka took her hands, and held them tightly. “I want to be with you, Yuki. That’s what I want.”

She smiled. “Me, too.”

Chapter Eleven

Izanagi rolled out of the way just as Izanami thrust the inky blade into the earth where he’d stood. A chill ran through him as he watched her tower above him, blade in hand, her hair draped over the cavity in her cheek. Above her, on the rocks around the cavern, perched her
kitsune
, his tails splayed out around him, his tiny fangs bared.

He was too late—the cold of this empty place had frozen her soul, corrupted her beyond saving.

“I will avenge my son, and my death,” she uttered, and her voice rode the wind like a demon, encircling him with frost and fear.

The slick blade clawed toward him and again he leaped out of its way. “Izanami,” he said, panting as he stumbled among the rocks. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Then die,” she said. “We can gather up everything we’ve made and drown it in sorrow, sink it all beneath the bridge once more.” The gemstones on the
naginata
clinked together as she moved, the fabric of her torn kimono whistling like silk against the boulders.

“No.” Izanagi shook his head, reaching for the small blade at his side—Yamato’s sword, the one Izanagi had almost refused to take from him. “I’m going to retrieve your mother,” he’d told the boy. “I won’t need a sword.” But he’d been wrong. So horribly wrong. He pulled the small blade now, shaking in the darkness of night.

Izanami’s spear gleamed in the blue light as it came down from above. Izanagi blocked the blade with his own, the sparks scattering on the boulder tops and fading to nothing.

Izanami’s eyes gleamed like the incandescent shells of beetles. The boulders lit with the golden light of the ink, flooding upward into the shapes of hundreds of
kitsune
spirits, foxes of every shape and size, some with one tail and others with nine, all ghostly white like the
washi
paper map Kunitoko had given Izanagi to find Yomi. The foxes’ outlines dripped with heavy black ink and their paws crinkled as they leaped from boulder to boulder toward Izanagi.

Izanagi ran, his sandals tumbling toward the cavern as he sprinted toward the edge of Yomi. The sharp rocks bit into his soles but he ran, the blood slippery and warm against the shattered landscape. The inky fog swirled around him with a fierceness like a scream—was it Izanami making that noise? She shrieked like a demon, the foxes snapping at his heels as he scrambled toward the edge of the cliff.

He couldn’t let her drown the world. He was all that stood in the way of her desire to destroy everything. He remembered the way she’d looked that day in the field, the soft
kitsune
dozing in her lap, the birds flitting around and the rainbow petals catching on the wind. She was all of creation, and now she was pure destruction. He couldn’t let her unravel everything she had knit together.

He turned, his blade slicing through the closest
kitsune
. The ghostly pale body ripped like paper, the image melting on the ground in a puddle of ink. Drawings—they were only drawings, like before. But the ink had lost its edge—she couldn’t create, not permanently. They were only illusions. The thought saddened him as much as it filled him with hope. He could fight a paper army—there was a chance for him.

He carved his blade through the air, ink dripping from the sword’s edge. The drips collected on the ground, pooling into the form of a great wolf—an
inugami
spirit. It leaped on pale crinkly paws toward the
kitsune
just as Izanagi formed another wolf with the blade of the sword. The field flooded with wolves and foxes, tackling one another in matted paper fur and inky blood. Their howls and hisses and shrieks drowned him in a cacophony of suffering. Izanami cried out as her
kitsune
fell, ink painting the ground with its slick blackness, filling the air around them with golden dust as it lifted into the sky.

Izanami pierced the
naginata
into the side of an
inugami
and ink poured out from the rip in his paper flank.

“Izanami, stop!” Izanagi cried out. The wolves circled around him in defense, baring jaws of gleaming white teeth at the foxes who snapped at their heels.

“You don’t understand,” she panted. Even from here, he could hear the maggots writhing in her skin, the horrible click of the beetle shells as they scuttled about her hair. “I will never stop. The warmth is gone from me, Izanagi. I will kill forever. It is my calling.”

He’d done this to her, he knew now. He’d wanted to look into her deep brown eyes, to hold her hand, but he’d let that feeling slip away to his own arrogance. He’d loved himself more; he’d left her alone and empty.

He saw them, then, the two boulders tipped precariously over the cavern to Yomi. If only he could close off this foul place, it could end. There would be no chasm in the painting for her to hide in, no river of darkness in which to drown the world.

The biggest of the
inugami
leaped through the
kitsune
and loped toward the top of the cavern. The foxes bit into his ears and his ankles as he ran. They trailed behind him in balls of angry fur, the wolf yelping as their fangs sank into his papery skin. But he didn’t slow. He galloped to the edge of the cavern and pressed his colossal shoulder against the boulders. His paws slipped in the earth as he sought traction.

Then the golden
kitsune
lunged for the wolf’s throat. Izanagi threw his sword in desperation. The
kitsune
fell with a strangled cry, a note of sorrow that Izanami’s own voice followed.

“No!” she wailed, and the inugami’s claws sank into the ground, the boulders heaving toward the gaping mouth of the cavern. Izanami ran into the cave just as the boulders smashed in front of the entrance. The weight of them shook the earth, and the smaller boulders trembled in the earthquake, rolling toward the cavern mouth in an unstoppable stampede. Izanagi clasped his arms about himself, racing for the top of the cliff as the boulders tumbled around him. The
inugami
and the
kitsune
shrieked as the stones tore them flank from limb, as they returned to ink and shredded
washi
paper. Izanagi huddled at the top of the World of Darkness, his hands clasped over his ears. He fell on his side as the world shook, as the foundations of everything he’d known tore and bled and drowned.

When the ground stopped shaking, when he lowered his hands, he heard silence, the emptiness of Yomi.

Chapter Twelve

Tanaka stared up at the ceiling, his arms crossed behind his head. The macaron bag lay crinkled on the table beside the bed, tiny crumbs of pink and mint green in a trail around the discarded golden ribbon. The brass-and-gold fabric of the comforter whistled as Tanaka slid his legs back and forth, all the while looking up at the paintings on the ceiling.

They were elaborate, like a Japanese version of the Sistine Chapel. They’d been done in a European style, but the story and the figures were purely traditional.

Yuki clicked the bathroom door open, her eyes wide. “Have you seen the size of the tub in there?” She giggled, then jumped onto the mattress and slumped into Tanaka’s side. He lifted his head to free his left arm and wrap it around her, the warmth of her feeling so natural, so right. “What are you looking at?” she asked.

Tanaka pointed upward to the painting. There were three panels of the story between the swirls of gaudy golden trim. Two
kami
, one in a black kimono, and the other in white. The first panel they held hands, a swirl of black mist around them and the roof of a pagoda, barely visible. The second panel, of a cave deep in a rocky valley. The
kami
in black was on his knees, his hands up in the air, while the white
kami
vanished into the mouth of the cave. A tiny golden
kitsune
sat on the top of the cave, his tail curved over the side of the gray rock. In the third panel, the
kami
in black stood alone on a red-and-gold bridge, looking out over a breathtaking view of forest and ocean.

“Izanami and Izanagi?” Yuki asked.

“I think so,” Tanaka said.

“That’s a sad thing to paint in a love hotel, though.”

“Why?”

“Look at the last panel.” She reached her hand up into the air, pointing with her glittery fingernails to the image of Izanagi alone on the bridge. “He’s alone because she died. It’s depressing. And everything went wrong when they tried to be together because he got all jealous and pushed her around.”

“It
is
kind of depressing,” Tanaka said. “But it was the first love story. It’s not like they had any model of how to go about things.” He reached his right arm into the air to tangle his fingers with Yuki’s. They stared up at their intertwined fingers, silent for a minute. “Look at how he’s crying out in the second panel,” Tanaka said quietly. “His heart aches for her.” He turned on his side, the comforter crinkling underneath him, his deep brown eyes meeting Yuki’s. He let go of her hand to tuck some stray hairs behind her ear. “He made a lot of stupid mistakes along the way. But he loved her, even if he didn’t know how to show it. Even if he screwed it all up.”

“Tan-kun,” Yuki said quietly, resting her own hand on his cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment, living in the touch. “You didn’t screw it up.”

“I did,” he said. “I should never have taken this long to tell you. What if I’d lost you?” He studied her eyes, her delicate nose, the softness of her mouth painted with shimmery pink lipstick. “There...there were times I was jealous of you, Yuki-chan.”

She rolled her eyes. “
Uso
,” she said. “You’re a liar.”

“It’s true. You make friends so easily. It’s not like that for me. I have to work really hard at it. And you’re way smarter than me. You scored higher than me on the Suntaba entrance exam.”

“You finally admitted it,” she teased.

“Yuki, I’m serious.” He rested his hand on her cheek. “But whenever I felt envious, I just thought how lucky I was to be your best friend. How lucky I was that you wanted to spend time with me, even if you were better than me.”

“Tan-kun,” Yuki whispered. “I never, ever thought I was better than you.”

“I know,” he said, trailing his thumb down to her lips. “And that made me love you more.” Yuki’s eyes fluttered closed as Tanaka pressed his lips to hers, as the kiss they’d been aching for finally happened. It tasted of honey and pistachio cream from the macarons, of mandarin oranges and last cookies snuck under the table.

They pulled back gently from the kiss, looking at each other as if they might vanish into a dream. “I can’t believe you’re here,” Tanaka whispered.

Yuki smiled, but the ceiling paintings caught her eye again. “I don’t really want to think about
kami
right now,” she said.

“I’m so sorry that happened,” Tanaka said. “Our first date and I put you in danger.”

“It’s not like we knew the zoo would be dangerous,” Yuki said. “Anyway, I felt safe with you. I knew you’d protect me.”

“Of course I would,” Tanaka said. “Although you probably could’ve protected
me
better. I’ve seen your tennis swing.” He attempted a laugh to lighten the conversation, looping his fingers into her hair elastic and pulling her raven hair free like a curtain around her.

“I can’t believe it’s happening here,” she said. “In Tokyo, maybe, or I guess Kobe, but Shizuoka is hardly a nest for Yakuza.”

“It’s not just in Shizuoka,” Tanaka said, running his fingers through her hair. “These Kami are cropping up all over Japan. We just have to trust the police to deal with them.”

“Kami is the wrong name for them,” Yuki said. “
Kami
are supposed to protect us. That’s why we go to the shrines at New Year’s and exam times and everything, right?”

Tanaka grinned. He still had the same smile he had when he was little. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s why we don’t have to worry. The real
kami
are protectors. And after all that bell ringing and clapping and bowing, they finally brought me you. And I promise, Yuki-chan, as long as you want me here, I’ll be here.”

Yuki draped her arm over Tanaka’s neck and pulled him toward her, resting her lips on his, pulling the warmth of him closer.
I
see you
, every touch said.
And I’m here.