Storm (24 page)

“Tomo,” I said, pressing my hand on his back. “Please.” My palm felt hot, like I was touching the steaming surface of a bath. I pulled away and discovered the ink pooling on his back, spreading out into feathered wings as he cried out.

“Is this why you called Jun here?” Ikeda shouted. “Do you know the danger you’ve put us all in?”

“He wasn’t like this a minute ago,” I wailed. I could feel a heat welling up in my chest, one that made the trees sway and the field ripple in front of me.

“Don’t you start, too,” Ishikawa said, and I felt the grip of his fingers on my arms. I tried to shake the feeling, to bleed out the power that was surging in me.

“Wait, that’s it,” I said. “Give him his notebook. The power is building up. His notebook, Satoshi!”

Ishikawa scrambled to Tomo’s bag and produced the black notebook and pen. I grabbed it from him and flipped to a clean page, where I drew a quick butterfly. Its wings barely fluttered on the page, but my mind cleared, and the world became still again. I put the book in front of Tomo, forcing the pen into his hand. I didn’t know what to make him draw, so I just helped him sketch out another simple butterfly on the page. The pen slipped and the ink from Tomo’s arms dripped everywhere. A cloud of a hundred butterflies sprang up from the spilled ink, flapping their paper wings with the haunting sound of ripping pages. Jun ducked as they swarmed into the sky, one of the wings slicing a long cut into his skin, just under his left eye.

He gasped inward, clutching at the cut as blood welled up to the surface of the wound.

Tomo panted, his eyes and pulse returning to normal, but his face as pale as the paper butterflies.

Ikeda dabbed at Jun’s cut with a lilac handkerchief she fished out of her bag.

“I’m... I’m fine,” Tomo said, but I could see the tinge of red on his cheeks, the mortification at meeting Jun on the ground and out of control. He didn’t have much left to bargain with now. Jun could see how desperate he was.

“What’s with the getup, anyway?” Ishikawa said, motioning at the kimonos Ikeda and Jun wore. “Funeral or something?”

“School concert,” Jun said. I tried to picture him playing his cello with Ikeda accompanying on the piano. And all the while, he was the leader of the Kami gang, building an army, taking over the world—destroying the Yakuza because he couldn’t face his guilt over killing his own father. His world was so messed up, and yet I still felt sorry for him.

Tomo stood slowly, his hair slicked down with sweat. “Takahashi,” he said. “You’re here.”

Jun’s eyes hardened as he looked at him. “I am. And by the state you’re in, I see you’ve found the Imperial Treasures. I’m sorry I couldn’t assist you at Ise Jingu. I was busy with other things.”

“Things like brainwashing?” Ishikawa snapped.

Jun smiled, his eyes dark. “Oh, believe me, they come to me willingly. All the Kami who’ve been struggling. All the Kami who’ve been put on meds for hallucinating about their drawings, who’ve been outcast for their godly ancestry. You’d be amazed how many were crying out for a leader.” He reached a hand out, motioning to Tomo. “And now Yuu is finally here at my feet.”

“Did you know?” I asked. “The story of the treasures?”

Jun nodded. “The jewel bears the marks of love turned to hatred. The mirror shows the truth of the depth of despair. And the sword cleaves the past from the future.”

My thoughts raced. That wasn’t what Amaterasu had said to me.
The jewel bears the marks. The mirror shows the truth. The sword saves all.
Why had Jun been told something different? But there was a seed of truth in everything she’d told me.

“If you know all this,” Tomo said, “then you’ll know that the sword is lost, and has been for a long time.”

Jun raised an eyebrow. “Lost? No, I didn’t know.”

“Then how did you know the meanings of the treasures?” I asked.

“It was passed down in my family, like all the Kami training I had to endure. It was echoed in my nightmares, as it has been yours.”

“Takahashi.” Tomo looked at him with eyes of stone, his chin jutting out as he readied himself to ask.

My heartbeat drummed in my ears. Please let him help us. Please.

“Yuu?”

“Long ago, you wanted me to join you. But now I know you want to stop me.”

Jun smiled, the coldness of it unnerving. “I saw potential in you, if only you could learn to temper your power. But the truth is, Yuu, that as a descendent of Tsukiyomi, as heir to the wrath that nearly destroyed the world, you are nothing but an abomination that threatens our existence. Your power cannot be tempered or controlled. It is a fire raging out of control.”

Tomo’s voice was steady, determined. “Then you know as well as I do that only the Kusanagi can stop me.”

Jun nodded slowly. “Three choices lie before you. You can let the darkness surging in you take control, and destroy those you love.” He glanced at me, but I looked away. “You can die, and your power and threat die with you, while the world is spared. Or you can use the Kusanagi to render you frail and powerless, to silence the ink in your veins for a time.”

“For a time?” Ishikawa said. “It isn’t forever?”

Jun shook his head. “There is only one way to silence a Kami forever,” he said. I shivered. “And so you’ve found your way out, Yuu. The Kusanagi. Except it is lost to time.”

Tomo tucked his bangs behind his ear and tilted his head back. “There’s another way to obtain it.”

“Drawing it would kill you,” Jun said. “You’re lucky you didn’t get shot by the gun you drew for Hanchi, or the dragon that rose over Toro Iseki. I’m surprised you haven’t died from your nightmares by now, to be honest.” He reached up to rub the silver earring in his ear. “I have to admit, you do have a strong will.”

“Takahashi.” Tomo took a deep breath, his hands curled into fists. He bowed forward slightly. “Draw Orochi for me.”

Ikeda’s eyes widened, and she looked to Jun for his reaction. I held my breath, pleading, praying, that he would say yes.

Jun laughed, the sound so dissonant against the dying sunlight, so harsh against this strange and barren landscape. “You don’t dare ask me to draw the Kusanagi, which you fear I’d wield against you, but ask me to draw a demon beast? What does it matter if I have the sword? You plan to use it on yourself, anyway. Who cares who wields the blade? Or do you think I won’t stop with you?”

Tomo’s eyes flashed. “Would you?”

Jun paused. “Probably not. You aren’t the only descendant who suffers bastard demon blood. None would challenge me with the Kusanagi at my side.”

Tomo unzipped his jacket and threw it to the ground, baring his arms to Jun. “Without the sword, there’s no way you can stop me. And you know there’s no time left.” Ink dripped like blood from the scars down his arms. “This is my demand, then. Draw the Kusanagi and yield to me. Or I’ll destroy everything, right now.”

Jun stared. “You wouldn’t do that. Not with Katie here.”

“He wouldn’t have a choice, moron,” Ishikawa said.

“Let’s end this,” Tomo said. “Once and for all.”

Jun’s voice was quiet. “I can’t.”

I let out my breath. “Jun, please.”

Ikeda winced at the familiarity of my tone, but it didn’t faze Jun. “Katie, I’m sorry. I can’t do what he asks.”

“What the hell?” Ishikawa burst out, but Jun raised a hand to quiet him.

“I can’t draw it,” he said again, “because I’m not a descendant of Tsukiyomi.”

I hesitated. “I don’t follow.”

“The Kusanagi was found in the tail of Orochi,” Jun said. “Orochi was birthed by Tsukiyomi’s hatred for the world. The power in that sword, the power to destroy even the ink itself, is from Tsukiyomi. I don’t share his blood. If I draw the Kusanagi, it will be an empty shell of a forgotten blade. A useless copy.”

Tomo took a deep breath. “Then help me fight Orochi. I can draw him, but it was Susanou who defeated him. If I draw something that dangerous, I... I won’t...”

Jun smiled. “Don’t let your pride get in the way,” he said. “You won’t be able to control such a drawing. I know that. You are a more powerful
kendouka
than me, Yuu. Did you know that? But I always win our sparring matches. Do you know why?” He lifted his hand and the ink lifted into the sky in sparks of gold, spiraling in ribbons through the air. “Because I have control. Because I’ve spent my life training my ability, embracing my power. I do not fear my lineage, not any longer. I do not fear death or your retribution. I am a prince, Yuu, a god. I am superior to you in every way.”

“You’re no different,” I said. “You’re descended only from Susanou. He was thrown from the Heavenly Bridge down to Earth. He was rejected.” I waited for my words to strike Jun, but his expression remained the same. “Tomo has ancestry in the sun and the moon
kami
. If you’re a prince, then he’s rightfully emperor over you.”

Ikeda’s eyes flashed. “And what’s he doing to serve his empire? The streets are filled with the hungry and the crying. What’s Yuu doing but hiding in his room, trying to deny the ink in his veins? I’m a Kami, too. I know the nightmares, the fears that chain your heart when you try to live your life. But I’m not running. I’ve never run away.”

“Ikeda,” Jun said. “Yuu had to run away. He was doomed from the beginning. A demon can’t do good for the world. He can only shrivel up and die.”

My throat was parched; I could feel my pulse drumming through me. “Jun, please. Help us fight Orochi.”

“You know you’re asking us to unleash hell?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

Jun pursed his lips as he thought. “When you have the Kusanagi,” he said after a moment, “you’ll use it against me, too. You’ll try to cut me down.”

None of us answered. It was true.

“I will help you, Yuu.”
What?
I couldn’t have heard him right. “But I have conditions.”

Tomo’s said nothing, the ink streaming down his arms.

“The Kusanagi belonged to Susanou. I will keep the sword, when you are done bleeding the ink out of yourself. You will not challenge me with it, or attempt to stop me any longer.”

My heart froze. If we didn’t stop Jun, the world would be ripped in half. Already the gangs were fighting—soon it would spread to civil war, an entirely new world where life and death were at Jun’s whim. Sure, he said he worried about justice and protecting the weak and all that, but I could already see how the power of leading the Kami had overtaken him. He’d killed Yakuza—no, other people. Humans. He’d killed to get what he wanted. How could the world trust someone like that?

Jun wanted to help us because then his only rival, his only equal, would be gone, and nothing would stand in his way. But if we didn’t get the Kusanagi, Tomo’s life would be doomed, and maybe worse. What would Tsukiyomi do when he fully awoke? Would he destroy the world? He and Jun would fight until the end, and what would be left? A cold, shredded world.

Tomo let out a short laugh, and the sound of it startled me. “Are you afraid of me, even without the ink? How could I stop you after I can’t make my drawings come to life?”

Jun looked irritated, a faint flush of pink on his cheeks. “I’m not scared of you. You’re annoying. Even now I should be rising to power, but instead I’m in a field in the mountains drawing snakes and little sticks. It’s like swatting a fly, Yuu. Stop buzzing in my face.”

Tomo’s eyes flamed with the bait.

“And with the Kusanagi, any rival Kami could be easily silenced. So yes, I will fight Orochi with you, but when it’s over, the sword is mine, and you leave me alone.”

Tomo’s voice was deep, determined.
“Wakatta.”

Ishikawa and I stared at each other, just as I saw Ikeda look at Tomo with surprise. He agreed to the terms?

Jun laughed. “I know you’re bluffing, but I’ll help you, anyway. I’ll show you that you don’t have the strength to oppose me.” He reached down for Tomo’s fallen notebook and pen, and tossed them to him. Tomo hunched over as he caught them, and it was then I realized his hands were still shaking.

The butterflies hadn’t been enough to settle him. He was in no state to draw.

“Oh, and one more condition,” Jun said.

The panic seized in my throat. What would it be?

“Atama wo sagete.”

Tomo narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, please,” Ishikawa mumbled. “That’s petty and lame.”

“No,” Jun said. “It’s fitting. Show me respect for the abomination you are, the bastard of Tsukiyomi. Lower your head.”

He wanted to break Tomo’s pride, to humiliate him. My hands tightened into fists. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” I shouted. “What do you want? Tomo’s life has been just as hard as yours. Why do you have to punish everybody for your own mistakes?”

But Tomo was bending his knees, lowering himself to the ground.

I shook my head. It was too much. The tears blurred in the corners of my eyes as my veins lit with anger. “Tomo, don’t.”

Tomo pressed his hands against the cold soil, and touched his forehead to the grass. I blinked my tears back.

Ishikawa smirked. “It’s easy to bow when it doesn’t mean anything,” he said. But I saw the resentment burning on Tomo’s face, the humiliation and the bitterness. I saw it as he sat back with the notebook on his knees, as he clicked open his pen and held it to the empty page.

Anger is something Tsukiyomi knows well
, said a whisper in my thoughts.
If his wrath bursts forward, the world will flood beneath it.

Jun took a step back, the fabric of his
hakama
skirt rustling as he clasped his hands in front of him. Ikeda stood beside him, a ghost of the Amaterasu who’d visited me in my dreams.

In the distance, the sky glowed orange and purple as the sun set behind the mountains.

“Now draw,” Jun said.

The moment Tomo’s arm arced across the page, I knew I’d lost him. His eyes grew vast and alien, like pools of ink. The whispers of
kami
gathered on the wind. He drew the arch of the monster’s back first, and the long tails of a dragon or a snake. He outlined the first of the heads in a pale gray scribble, adding long horns and spines and stretched sinew around the mouth. But the sketch didn’t look vicious until he drew in the eye, a sharp lizard eye that darted back and forth to watch as Tomo drew the rest of it.

The slender, draconic necks slithered around the page like tethered snakes. I wondered why he didn’t draw it to look a little friendlier. I mean, did he have to draw teeth so sharp they tore the edges of the paper? And what happened to the chains he was supposed to draw in, or the tubs of sake to drown the heads in? But Tomo had lost himself in the sketching, and wasn’t thinking straight. How could he? He’d never drawn anything this primal, this close to the truth. It was like all those other drawings had been leading up to this one sketch, like all this time, he just hadn’t been able to put a shape to his nightmares.

Look at him
, the whisper inside me said.
This is who he really is
.
This is the full truth of him.

I saw the smile on his face, the dark pride at creating something so terrifying. Maybe this what Amaterasu had been talking about. To truly know himself...to know that part of Tomo relished the darkness. He’d told me before how he loved the feeling of the current of the ink sweeping him away, that he didn’t care if it drowned him.

I hadn’t believed it then. But seeing him now, as he jumped into the black ocean willingly, I knew it was true.

You see now the threat that Takahashi Jun saw? This is who Tomo is. He’s fought it all along, but if it wasn’t true that he was darkness at his core, he wouldn’t have needed to fight.

I do see
, I thought to myself. He was kindness and human, but he was just as much darkness and demon. I could see the threat. I could see it now so clearly.

Feathered raven wings oozed their way down Tomo’s back as he drew. Horns pushed through his hair, spiraling around the copper spikes.

He will consume the world
, the voice warned. And I finally believed it. After all this time, he truly frightened me.

A low moan echoed through the clearing. It was sunset, but dark clouds gathered to block out what remained of light. The world began to shake, and I could feel the vibration in my heart.

Ikeda pulled her white stole tighter around her shoulders. “Jun,” she shouted over the rumbling. “He needs to stop drawing.”

“It’s not the drawing that’s causing this,” Jun yelled back. “He’s finally acknowledging the truth to himself. Tsukiyomi is taking over. I only hope he can finish the drawing before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” I shouted, the gathering moan of cries on the wind drowning out every sound. Ishikawa bent over Tomo’s shoulders, his palms black as he tried to shake him out of his trance.

“If Tsukiyomi takes him over before we get the Kusanagi, we won’t be able to stop him,” Jun yelled back. “He’ll destroy the world.”

Ishikawa’s eyes bulged. “Are you serious? I know you guys talk big, but...for real?”

“He must finish the drawing,” Jun said, wrapping an arm around Ikeda as she stumbled on her geta sandals in the trembling earthquake.

The low moan grew into a horrible hissing sound. Eight behemoth snakes hissing at once. I could see the shadow of Orochi in the distance.

God, I didn’t want to look. A nightmare come to life.

It was at least three stories high, slithering toward us in a mound of papery coils that dripped ink all over the clearing. Its sixteen eyes glowed with a strange white light as it neared, each of its eight mouths open and snapping with fangs the size of people. I couldn’t stop myself—I let out a horrible scream. The sight of the monster sent every thought I’d had reeling. I wanted Tomo to cross it out before it got too close.

Ishikawa and Ikeda screamed, too. Even Jun looked startled. He’s underestimated Tomo’s power again, that the creature he’d draw would be this monstrous.

And then Tomo cried out, but it wasn’t in horror like us. He cried out because the ink was flowing through his veins, because Tsukiyomi was taking over.

“This is it, Yuu,” Jun snapped. “If you give in to the ink, it’s over.” He held out both hands, his palms open. Ink trailed down Jun’s arms and collected on his outstretched fingers, the blackness dripping in a slow waterfall, carving itself into glossy weapons. “We are
kendouka
,” he said, “trained in the shinai used by samurai for practice. But practice has to end sometime.” Instead of flat bamboo swords, the liquid dripped into the shape of sharpened blades, two katanas made of ink.

Armed with one in each hand, Jun turned to face the towering monster. “I know you!” he shouted. “I banished you from the earth once. Today I will destroy you again!” He looked over his shoulder at Tomo, still on the ground. “Get up and fight!”

Tomo gritted his teeth, his body shaking. “I... I can’t...”

“Get up!” Jun shouted.

The tangle of snake heads snapped at the air as they approached us. I had to fight every instinct in my body to run.

Ink dripped down the sleeve of Ikeda’s purple kimono as it formed into the shape of a
yumi
, a Japanese longbow that stood even taller than she was. An arrow formed in her other hand, which she notched into the bow as she bent down beside Jun. She wasn’t a
kendouka
, I knew, but the sight of the
yumi
surprised me. I didn’t know anything about her, I realized. She played piano, she owned a motorbike and now I knew she did Japanese archery. But I’d only labeled her one of Jun’s dumb goth followers, never as her own person. The remorse flashed through my mind as she pulled back the bowstring, ready to follow Jun into battle.

I grabbed Tomo’s arm and pulled him to his feet. His body shook with the effort to stand, even as the ink dripped down his arms. “Come on, Tomo,” I said. “Let’s get the Kusanagi.”

He nodded, sweat rolling down the sides of his face. The ink pooled in the palm of his hand, the liquid twisting and shaping into the blade of a katana, the hilt shimmering with golden dust. The wings on his back molted feathers everywhere, new ones constantly growing in as the old melted away. One wing was featherless, angular and leathery like a demon’s. It was like his body couldn’t decide which direction it was going, which way to manifest the ink. He gripped the sword, his hand shaking.

Orochi’s hissing slithered through my thoughts and I turned to see it towering above Jun, its heads weaving between one another as they eyed him hungrily. The center one lunged at him, its long neck flexing, its fangs dripping with black ink. Jun rolled out of the way and its teeth sunk into the earth like two daggers, shaking the whole valley. I stumbled backward into Ishikawa, who had seized up in terror.

“What have you drawn, Yuuto?” he said quietly to himself, his voice near my ear.

I wanted to tell him this was the Orochi of legend, that Tomo had only sketched what had existed once before. But long ago, Tomo had told me his drawings were an extension of him, that his own spirit lived, however briefly, in those drawings.
They aren’t alive
, he’d said.
They’re part of me.

Which meant this monster, this rage and desire for destruction, lived inside him. It always had, or he wouldn’t have been able to call it forward.

Oh, Tomo.

Ikeda loosed an arrow and the beast roared as the shaft lodged in one of its jaws. The struck head swayed back and forth before hurdling toward her. It snapped its jaws shut as she ran out of the way, another arrow forming from the ink in her hands.

Tomo shouted out the same loud
kiai
he used in his kendo matches and raced toward the monster. He sliced into one of Orochi’s necks, ink gushing from the wound as it oozed down the creature’s scales. The heads turned their attention to him, and Jun raced to the other side, whirling his two katana into the creature’s side one after the other. The beast cried out, knocking Jun into the air with its powerful neck. He flew through the air and crashed into a cypress tree before crumpling beneath it.

“Jun!” Ikeda shouted. She loosed another arrow, this time into one of its eyes. I nearly retched as I heard the squelch, the beast shaking the head violently, the arrow lodged deep inside its eye socket.

“What can we do?” Ishikawa said. He reached to the nearby cedar tree and yanked off a branch as thick as he could manage, brandishing it toward the creature.

A tree branch wasn’t going to cut it. “You’ll get killed, Satoshi.”

He flung the stick at the ground so hard it flipped over when it hit. “Well, what am I supposed to do? Yuuto’s going to get killed out there! I don’t have any Kami powers. All I have is a pocket knife.”

“I don’t know! Get behind it and cut the sword out of its tails?”

“Are you an idiot? You think this knife is going to cut through that hide?”

Ikeda ran toward us as she notched her bow, pulling the long string back. How could she use a bow that huge? But the arrow flew, and bounced off Orochi’s chest to the ground. Ikeda swore. “Do something!” she snapped at me.

“Like what?” I shouted back. “Can’t Tomo just scratch through the Orochi drawing? That would kill it.”

She shook her head. “It would dissolve before we could get the sword. Your presence makes Yuu and Jun stronger. So get moving already!”

She was right. Ishikawa couldn’t do anything, but I could.

Yes
, the voice whispered inside of me.
It’s time now.

I raced toward Tomo’s notebook, lying open and ripped in the grass. The small sketch of Orochi snapped at my fingertips, the wounds on its neck oozing ink that dripped over the sides of the page. My fingers were drenched in it as I tried to flip the oily pages to a clean one. I grabbed Tomo’s pen and wiped the dirt off it before pressing the nib against the page.

My mind blanked.

Orochi lunged at Tomo and I heard him cry out, saw him grabbing at his shoulder as blood dripped down the back of his black wings. “Tomo!” I cried. Tomo dodged the next of its heads, racing around the back of the creature toward its tails. Another of the heads darted out and grabbed at his back, throwing him straight up into the air. Panic choked me—Tomo couldn’t survive a fall from a distance like that. He’d die. But halfway down his wings started flapping, enough to slow him down so that he only landed with a thud. He’d feel it, but he’d live.

I thought of the giant raven that had protected Ise Jingu. Couldn’t that fight a monster like this?

I quickly sketched an awkward, angular raven. That was the messenger of Amaterasu, wasn’t it? But my bird didn’t move on the page or appear in the sky above. The cold wind swirled around me, and the raven’s feathers lifted slightly on the page. And that was it.

I screamed at the page, scribbling the lines of the raven darker. Tears began to pour down my cheeks. What was the point of being a man-made Kami if I was so useless?

I tried to calm down, to think about what Ikeda had said. Don’t try to do it on my own. Lend my ability to Tomo and to Jun. But how?

When I’d called down the power of Amaterasu to stop Tomo and Jun from fighting, I’d needed Ikeda to trace over my drawing. Maybe I could trace over Tomo’s. I flipped the pages, looking for something I could use.

There. A Yatagarasu, the one that had tapped on my window and attacked us on the train. I traced its lines darker through the scribbles Tomo had crossed through it. Maybe if I colored the raven darker, it would be strong enough to break through the bars of the cage he’d sketched around it.

On the page, the raven’s eyes lit with a deep blue light, like the jewel I’d seen on the kirin’s antler. It was working.

Thunder rumbled in the sky, and the piercing caw of a raven echoed through the air.