Storm (25 page)

Ishikawa swore as the giant bird swooped above him, its shining blue eye gleaming like a flame.

Orochi cried out as Tomo struck another blow to its severed neck. The final cut lopped the head off and it hit the ground with a thud, its eyes dull as it rested in a pool of ink. Seven left.

The raven reached out with its talons, all three sets of claws digging deeply into another of Orochi’s necks. The beast shrieked and its remaining heads honed in on the bird, lunging at it in a flurry of fangs and feathers. It shook the bird off, but the central head flopped unsteadily, barely attached to its neck anymore.

The bird was enough distraction—Jun managed to cut through another neck. Two of the heads now lay on the ground, forked tongues lolling out between the huge, sharp fangs. Ikeda loosed another arrow, and it struck in the narrow gap between the tottering neck and the head, enough to dislodge it from the body. The remaining five heads shrieked and hissed. Behind me, Ishikawa retched into the grass. I barely held back as I darkened the bird, hoping to give it whatever power I could.

The raven curved in the air, lifting its wings high in the sky as it swooped down again. Jun sliced his two blades into the side of the monster and it shrieked into the air so loudly I covered my ears. The katanas stuck in the monster’s flesh, and Jun pressed his foot against its scaly hide to pull them free. They wouldn’t budge. His arms strained with the effort as he pulled, the blades inching forward, the ink pouring down the creature’s side.

The five heads wove among themselves as they lunged for him.

“Jun!” Ikeda cried out. She shot an arrow as she ran, but it flew too high, right over the targeted head. Her bow clattered to the ground as she cast it aside, stumbling in her kimono toward him. The ink pooled into a spear in her hand as she ran.

“Ikeda!” I called out. I pressed my pen against the wing of the bird, and the raven in the sky veered toward the heads plunging toward Jun. It dug its claws into one, but the other four kept moving.

Jun tumbled backward as the blades slid out of Orochi’s skin. I screamed as I saw the fangs of one mouth bare, as the ink dripped from them into Jun’s hair.

It happened in an instant. Jun raised his katana and thrust it toward the open palate of Orochi’s mouth. But Ikeda lunged in front of him, her spear plunging through the beast’s cheek, and before Jun could stop himself his blade pierced through her.

I screamed as the thunder cracked around us.

Ikeda’s eyes widened as she collapsed on Jun. The snake head drew back, shaking the ink spear from its cheek. The Yatagarasu clawed at the eyes of the multiple heads with its three legs as Tomo leaped onto the beast’s back and started carving through its hide, searching for the Kusanagi.

I dropped Tomo’s notebook as the cold wind swirled the scent of blood and ink through the field. Orochi moaned and roared as Jun cried out, Ikeda collapsed in his lap.

“Naoki!” he shrieked, his hands tangled in her hair.

Another of Orochi’s heads slithered toward him.

“No!” Ishikawa grabbed his tree branch and lunged at the head. “Over here, you big ugly!” He swung the branch and the head snapped toward him. Ishikawa rolled through the packed dirt out of its reach, stumbling to his feet and swinging again.

I raced toward Jun and Ikeda. “Get her out of here!” I shouted, pulling on her limp arm. Her startled eyes stared up at the sky, her white stole stained with ink and blood and dirt.

“She’s gone,” Jun moaned, clutching at Ikeda as he pulled her close to his chest.

The hot breath of Orochi wafted against my back, and I turned to see its sharp fangs looming in front of me.

I was helpless. I had nothing to fight it with. The anger and powerlessness surged through me as I stared at it.

The head dropped to the ground beside me, rolling sideways as the fangs tipped over. Tomo straddled what was left of the neck, the stump of it wriggling with nerves.

“Naoki,” Jun sobbed as the ink spread out in wings on his back. He brushed his fingers over her face, leaving trails of ink like tears on her cheeks.

“Takahashi!” Tomo yelled as Orochi thrashed underneath him. “I need you!”

“Go,” I shouted at him. “I’ll take care of Ikeda.” Jun looked dazed, like he couldn’t control his own arms and legs. I grabbed his wrist, the spikes of the bracelet sharp against my palm. “Get the Kusanagi,” I said, and Jun stumbled forward, his wings flapping.

The raven let out a twisted cry, and I looked up to a waterfall of feathers spiraling around me, black ink pouring from a jagged bite mark in its side. Its lifeless body slumped to the ground and began to dissolve, lifting like golden fireflies on the bitter wind.

I looked down at Ikeda’s lifeless body, her elegant purple kimono stained with darkness. The Orochi was destroying everything. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

Tomo, what have you done? What have you drawn? Did this hatred always live inside you, wriggling to get out?

I heard a whisper in my heart. It spoke, as it had before.
Once there was a demon so hungry he devoured the world.

I looked at Tomo, the way his eyes shone as he fought against Orochi. His wings flared out, his horns dripping down his hair as they formed and reformed. Now Jun lifted into the air, his kimono robes fluttering as he flapped higher, his two katana aimed at the back of the creature’s rib cage.

Susanou killed Orochi
, the voice whispered.
He slayed the beast of never-ending hunger, the monster born of Tsukiyomi’s hatred for the world.

Jun let out a horrible strangled cry and dove toward the creature’s back. I looked away, but the earth rumbled with Orochi’s cry. When I looked again the beast was flailing backward, trying to strain its necks back to reach Jun.

Tomo cut into the base of the beast’s tails, and the heads lunged toward him. Jun fell to the ground and rolled onto his back, directly under Orochi’s now-exposed heart.

I clapped my hands over my ears at the sound of the flesh giving way, the horrible screech the beast made as it gave up the life Tomo had sketched into it.

Tomo and Jun raced for the lifeless tails of the monster, carving through each of them, searching for the sword. Jun pierced the skin at the base of the tails, and the sound of metal clanging against metal echoed through the clearing.

Susanou killed Orochi, and claimed the Kusanagi no Tsurugi
, the voice whispered loudly as it snaked through my thoughts.

And then Susanou killed Tsukiyomi, right? I knew what came next. I remembered my dreams, Jun soaked in ink—no, blood—telling me he was sorry. And Tomo, motionless on the ground, the way Ikeda was now in my arms.

I shook my head.

Jun pulled the Kusanagi from the base of Orochi’s tails as the beast melted into a pool of ink, as the blackness lifted like clouds of golden fireflies around us.

Though Orochi was dead, it wasn’t over. It was just beginning.

“Naoki,” Jun said, stumbling toward us. He fell to his knees, the Kusanagi at his side as he pulled Ikeda toward him. Tears slicked down his ink-streaked face.

My voice shook. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said, his blond highlights clinging to his face as he rocked back and forth. “She was my best friend, Katie. She always stood by me. Always.”

Tomo’s quiet voice sounded from behind us. “She loved you.”

Jun shook as he tried to stop his tears. “I didn’t deserve it. When the nightmares threatened me with death, I always thought they meant my own. I had nothing left to live for, so they didn’t scare me. But I was wrong. I had Naoki to live for. I had everything and I didn’t even see it.” He choked on the words, his shoulders shaking as he tried to muffle the sob. I rested a hand on his shoulder, unsure what to say.

Beside him, Kusanagi glinted in the grass. It looked less elaborate than I’d imagined, an old boring and common sword, not at all worth the price Ikeda had paid.

The dark clouds had cleared and lifted away, and the golden dust of Orochi’s blood glimmered on the sword’s edge. The hilt was without ornament, simple and inscribed with Classical Japanese that I couldn’t read. But I’d never seen a blade that looked so sharp. Looking at its strange edge, the way it glinted with a faint rainbow along its edge, I believed it could cleave Tsukiyomi from Tomo. It could cleave Susanou from Jun.

Jun’s fingers wrapped tightly around the sword as he lowered Ikeda off his lap to the ground. His eyes had frozen over again, his emotions held tightly to himself.

“Let’s finish this, Takahashi,” Tomo said, but as he spoke, a hundred others spoke with him, like a strange echo in many different voices. He hovered above the ground, his ink katana in his hand, and a glowing jewel around his neck. The Magatama, recreated from his own ink.

“You want me to break you, little boy?” Jun said. He gripped the Kusanagi so tightly the blade shook in his hand. “The rules have changed. I’ve decided not to spare your human life.”

No. God, no.
“Jun,” I said, my voice wavering. The dream flashed back in my head—Jun covered in dark ink, Tomo not moving. “Don’t do this!”

“Naoki is dead, Katie,” Jun said, the blade shaking. “It’s too dangerous to leave Tsukiyomi inside, even if he’s sleeping. Yuu Tomohiro has to die.”

“Then come for me,” Tomo said darkly, the ink rolling off his wings like a waterfall. “And we’ll see who survives.”

Ishikawa cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yuuto. Don’t be an idiot! Come down.”

“Tomo,” I said, reaching my hand up for him. He was too high to reach, his clothes rippling in the wind as he hung in the air. “Don’t forget who you are. You’re not Tsukiyomi, remember? This isn’t what you want.”

He hesitated, his eyes searching mine as he tried to remember.

In that moment Jun leaped at him, tackling him out of the sky. The two hit the ground hard, rolling across the grass as Jun held the Kusanagi over Tomo’s neck. Tomo pressed back with his katana of ink, the two blades locked against each other as they struggled.

Tomo kicked Jun off him with so much strength that he sent him hurdling backward. Before I could reach him, he was on top of Jun, punching him so hard that Jun’s face twisted to the left.

“Easy, man,” Ishikawa said, grabbing Tomo from behind and pulling him off. Tomo snarled like a beast, and the sound of it horrified me. He didn’t even sound human.

Jun got to his feet, gingerly tossing the blade in his hand to feel its weight. He swung it in a slow circle and then sliced at Tomo with it. The air around the Kusanagi sang, and the smell of metal and warmth drifted on the air, like the wind itself had been severed.

Tomo and Ishikawa stepped backward as Jun advanced. He swung again, the blade slashing the skin under Tomo’s eye. The blood dripped from the gash down his cheek. “Now we match,” Jun said, reaching his fingers to the cut on his own cheek from the butterfly’s razor wing. He swung again, and Tomo’s katana connected with the blade in a metal hum that echoed.

The tears blurred in my eyes, my fingers caked with dirt and dried ink. “Stop it! Stop!” I grabbed Jun from behind and pulled with everything I could muster. Tomo lunged toward him, katana outstretched, but Ishikawa wrenched him backward.

“I’ll kill you!” Jun shrieked. “I’ll kill you for what your drawing did to her!”

“It’s not worth it,” I shouted as Jun squirmed against me. He was stronger, but I dropped my whole body weight toward the ground, throwing him off balance. “Ikeda is gone, Jun!” I screamed. He went limp in my grip. He stopped struggling. We stood there, panting, the warmth of his body rising and falling as he gasped for air. “She’s gone.”

Ishikawa was restraining Tomo, but barely. He was beating his wings against him, scratching him up with the quills of his feathers and the spikes on his leathery wing as he tried to lunge at Jun. He let out an angry, frustrated shout as he tried to shove Satoshi off. The shout echoed with a hundred voices on the cold wind.

Jun dropped the sword into the grass below, falling to his knees. “Let him kill me,” he sobbed, the tears running freely down his face. “Let him do it.”

“Of course not,” I said, reaching for the sword. They were both idiots. Thank god Ishikawa was here to help me.

I wrapped my hand around the hilt of the Kusanagi, warm from Jun’s steady grip.

A wave of fire lit through my veins as I touched the sword, and a shock of white lightning blinded me as I collapsed to the ground. The electricity jolted through me, like every nerve in my body sparking at once. I held on to the sword, barely, as the ink in me exploded with life and memory.

I couldn’t see anything in the white light except the faint outline of a woman in a golden kimono. Amaterasu, from my dreams. The whisper inside me, awakened by the sword.

I reached my left hand out for her as she watched me on the ground.

“Get up,” she said. “Now is the time.”

I sat up, but I wasn’t in the Minami clearing anymore. I was in that small island in the sky, the ink waterfalls roaring around me and the pagoda in the distance. “Time for what?”

“Time for the cycle to complete.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Tsukiyomi has awakened,” she said. “You have seen the true nature of Yuu Tomohiro, the depths of the blackness in his heart that he has hidden for so long. It is time for you to betray him, as I once betrayed Tsukiyomi.”

The words chilled me to the bone. “I told you I would never betray him.”

She tilted her head sadly. “You don’t have a choice. If you do not, he will destroy the world. You must save the world, as I did.”

My throat was dry, my face pale. “You’re asking me to cleave Tsukiyomi’s spirit from Tomo, right? But he’ll survive.”

She lowered her head. “Susanou’s heir spoke the truth. He is too dangerous alive. Tsukiyomi’s hatred is too great. If you do not kill him, Diane, Yuki, Tanaka, your father...all the world will perish.”

This couldn’t be happening. “But...you said there was another way. That if he knew the truth of himself, he could be saved.”

Her face was stone as she folded her hands against her stomach. “You would never have searched for the Imperial Treasures otherwise.”

The betrayal stung like a knife. “You...you lied to me. You lied to get me to this point!”

“To save this world, I would do anything,” she said. “Even betray the only being I ever loved. Now, show me the extent of
your
love.”

The sunlit island faded, and I was back in the clearing again. Ishikawa was on the ground, his face and arms covered with blood and ink and welts.

Jun watched the skies, the horror mirrored on his face.

I looked up and saw Tomo. His mouth was open as he cried out in agony, the ink ravaging his entire being. It poured from the corners of his mouth and trailed down his arms. It dripped from his wings and horns, and draped over him in robe-like waterfalls. It was choking the life out of him—he was drowning.

I raised my hand to my mouth, horrified. The weight of the Kusanagi pulled against my wrist.

He suffers
, the voice of Amaterasu whispered to me.
End his suffering.

Tomo’s wings gave out and he lowered to the ground, the ribbons of ink swirling around him like a tornado. His hands and legs stretched out into the storm as he writhed in agony. The ink—it was tearing him apart.

“He won’t survive Tsukiyomi’s awakening,” Jun shouted into the wind. “You have to stop him!”

Me? But...it was Jun soaked in ink in the nightmares. It was Susanou who destroyed Tsukiyomi, wasn’t it?

No
, Amaterasu whispered.
I was the only one. It has to be an act of love to end his suffering. You have no other choice, child. Takahashi cannot wield the blade.

“No,” I said, pressing the sword into Jun’s hands. “You can do it, can’t you? Cleave the
kami
from the human?”

“I can’t,” Jun yelled. He grabbed the sword from me and approached Tomo. A blinding wave of light shot him backward, the Kusanagi clattering along the ground. The force of the hit left Jun groaning on his back. “Only a descendant of Amaterasu can complete the cycle of betrayal,” he panted. “You’re the closest thing we have right now.”

I picked up the sword, looking at the faint rainbows that danced along the honed edge of the blade. It was all a lie to get me here, to hand me this horrible task. Is this all that was left for us?

Tomo’s voice cried out for me. “Katie,” he whimpered, pain shooting through his voice. I’d never heard him sound like that before. The suffering in it shook me to tears that blurred my vision. “Katie,” he wailed, louder, reaching his hand out for me. The ink swirled around him like a hurricane, golden dust and flashing blue and plum whirling around the field. The tree branches and grasses whipped wildly around from the bitterly cold gusts of wind.

Ishikawa pulled at his hair. “Greene, do something!” he pleaded. “Make it stop!”

“You have to do it,” Jun said, rising to his feet. “He can’t withstand the power of Tsukiyomi. It’ll rip him to pieces! He’ll die if you don’t.”

“He’ll die if I do!” I wailed. What was I supposed to do? There had to be another way.

Tomo’s voice was racked with pain. “Katie!”

“I have to save him,” I said. “Tomo!”

“He’s not Tomo anymore!” Jun snapped as the ink whirled around us. The words stung me out of numbness.

I gripped the sword tightly in my hand, taking a step toward Tomo.

In the end, there is always death.
That’s what Amaterasu had said from the very beginning. The only choice I had was how, and who. The whole world, or Tsukiyomi. Tomo had been doomed from the beginning.

Tomo reached for me, his spirit completely broken. “Please,” he begged, the ink swirling around him as he strained for his hand to touch mine. “Betray me, Katie. I’ll forgive you. I love you. Do what you have to do!”

“Urusai!”
I shrieked at him. “Shut up! How can I do this when you tell me you love me? Why does it have to be like this? It’s not fair!” The tears blurred the world as they stumbled down my cheeks.

“Please,” he panted. “Stop me. Amaterasu gave you the power you need to stop me. Do it!”

Jun was wrong, I thought as I stared down at the sharp blade of the Kusanagi no Tsurugi. It was still Tomo, deep in his heart. Even now he was fighting; even now he refused to let the wrath overtake him.

Until his last breath, he was Yuu Tomohiro. Until his last breath, I loved him and he loved me.

I was standing right in front of him now, the ink swirling around him in a storm of agony. He shouted as Tsukiyomi tried to take hold, his cries like the wails of
inugami
or
oni
,
Japanese demons. I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears. I wanted it to stop.

I tightened my grip on the hilt of the Kusanagi.

He reached out his hands to the sides, opening his chest so I could direct my hit.

“I love you,” I said quietly, lifting the sword out to my side.

He waited for the sword to cut through him, to cleave life from him, to take away hope. “I know,” he panted through the agony.

My hand shook, the blade heavy with memory. It knew its mark; it knew where to strike.

I raised the blade into the air as the tears curved down my cheeks, as the sobs racked my lungs.

He squeezed his eyes shut, his teeth gritted against the pain.

The wind and ink swirled around us.

Now
, Amaterasu said.
Take courage and save him.

I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I sobbed.

The ink whipped against my face, dripping from my hair, from my cheeks.

And then I dropped the sword to the ground. It clanged as it hit the earth, as it settled against the dirt.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jun yelled.

“Greene!” Ishikawa shouted.

Pick up the sword
, Amaterasu whispered sharply.
The world will tear in two.

“Katie, no!” Tomo shouted. The ink storm raged around him as he tried to reach for me. “Pick up the Kusanagi. Please!”

I shook my head as I wept. I couldn’t accept this. There had to be another way.