Bound Together (19 page)

“Enough,” Star replied. She turned to my mother, a polite expression of concern on her usually stoic face. “Are you all right, Mrs. Ashley?”

Mama seemed to come to life at Star's mention of her name. She ignored the AEGIS agent, instead staring at the very dead Saitou for a long moment. I was afraid she'd start screaming out of the shock of seeing him messily shot to death right in front of her, but her eyes narrowed instead. She walked, shakily, over to Saitou's corpse and spat on him.

“Rot in hell for all of eternity, you vile piece of shit,” she snarled. Mama then turned to Star and offered a weak smile. “Thank you for saving us.”

“I didn't save you,” Star said, her voice stiff. “I used you.”

Mama gawked at Star but said nothing to her. She turned to me instead. “What do you know about all of this, Karin? Who is this woman? Who was that vile man? Why does Misaki have fox ears and a tail? How did you make a sword appear out of thin air?”

My mother threw her hands up in exasperation.

“Somebody
please
tell me what the hell is going on here?!”

act three

/

love

answers

“So we were the bait, too,” I mused, watching the curl of bluish smoke rise from my lit cigarette. Star sat across from me at the kitchen table, once again placed in the center of the dining room of the Takeda family home. Next to me, Misaki seemed to vacillate between admiration for AEGIS and Star and anger at being used, twice.

“AEGIS has been working to eliminate the Tsukimura clan for many years with only minimal success,” Star explained. “When your unique situation came to our attention, you provided a rare opportunity to draw them out into a place where they and their allies could be killed.”

I frowned and glanced at Misaki. Her expression was sullen. I couldn't blame her for being upset. I wasn't quite as upset as she was, but I was close. Granted, this probably had a lot to do with the fact that Star's presence meant there
was
a way out of this hell that didn't involve me having to kill myself and doom Misaki to a life of brutal enslavement.

“I suppose that explains why AEGIS was so generous with our retainer contract,” I put in, trying and failing not to make it sound like an accusation. Star, to her credit, was contrite and nodded once.

“We wished to bring you under our control, knowing that the Tsukimura clan would attempt to recover the Relic and thereby reveal the location of Lord Isao. To attract their attention more quickly, you were assigned cases where their involvement was suspected. I did not expect it to happen this quickly.”

“I should have seen it sooner.” I took a puff off my cigarette and sighed.

“Miss Ashley—”

“Call me Karin. I hate honorifics,” I interrupted, giving Star a cold glare. “Look, we've got way more important things to worry about than accusations and apologies. Mama has a fucking specter growing in her body! We have to do something about that!”

“Star, please, isn't there something we can do to help Yoshiko?”

I gawked at Misaki. It was the first time she'd spoken since Star called us to the table for a conference. Only an hour ago, Misaki and I gave my mother a somewhat abbreviated explanation of the events leading up until Saitou Tsukimura was killed. Mama took it surprisingly well, all things considered.

Misaki did her best to soothe my mother's wounds, but she was built for battle, for killing, not healing. Still, she did the best she could for Mama, placing her in a restorative deep sleep with her magic. It would suppress the miasma seed, slowing its growth, and help heal the minor injuries she sustained at Saitou's hands.

The sound of Star's voice brought me out of my thoughts. “I'm afraid there isn't anything we can do directly. The miasma seed is bound to Mrs. Ashley's spirit, drawing energy from her mana to fuel its own growth.”

My expression was grim. “Like the Relic.”

“Yes... the miasma seed cannot simply be removed. Unless Mrs. Ashley dies or the seed is destroyed at the source, a pestilence specter will grow within her and take possession of her body.”

“So there's nothing we can do?!” Misaki cried. “I—no! I don't believe it!”

“Calm down, Misaki,” Star urged. “We
have
options. Don't give in to despair; that will only aid House Tsukimura. The miasma seed was created by Lord Isao and is tied to his own miasma. The binding will be severed and the seed will disappear if he is defeated.”

My eyes widened as I processed Star's words. Miasma was a property of specters and
only
specters. For Isao Tsukimura to possess and manipulate miasma would imply that he was more—or maybe
less
, depending on how you looked at it—than human.

The explanation and theory Star presented made sense to me, but Misaki didn't accept the idea calmly at all. Her eyes widened in horror, her ears flattening and her tail curling between her legs as she shrank back from Star. I stared at her as I felt her pressing herself against me, clinging to my right arm.

“T-that's crazy,” Misaki gasped. “Insane. Lord Isao is
incredibly powerful
. You don't know what you're saying! You want us to—to
fight
him? If you can say what you just said then you
know
.”

“Yes, AEGIS is aware of this,” Star confirmed. “However, there are no other options. Under absolutely no circumstances can the Tsukimura clan be allowed to recover the True Relic. These are the orders I was given.”

The unspoken implication was clear. Star was ordered to ensure that the Relic did not fall into the hands of the enemy, regardless of any collateral damage and loss of life. She was taking a great risk in bending her orders slightly, allowing me to walk right into the dragon's lair in order to save my mother's life.

“Thank you, Star,” I murmured.

“I hope this will work out. I am taking a risk, yes, but I believe my superiors will agree with my decision, as it will result in a much more favorable outcome.”

I let out a clipped laugh. “So you're saying it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask for permission in the first place?”

Star grinned broadly. It was the first time I've ever seen her show any strong emotion. Though, to be fair, I'd only actually talked to Star face-to-face once, so there was that.

“Karin...”

I turned to Misaki and wasn't surprised to still see her looking very shaken. Just the mention of the Tsukimura head seemed to dim the fire that burned within her. I reached out and placed a hand on her cheek. It felt warm, as usual, but I could feel slight tremors running through her body.

“Misaki, there really isn't anything else we can do. Either I die and you go back to being their slave or Mama and So-yi die and they still keep coming after us. Or, we face them head-on and maybe we kill them. I know you're scared, love, but don't you remember what you told me about courage not too long ago?”

Misaki's lower lip trembled, but I saw the faintest hint of a smile forming. Her ears seemed to prick back up, just a little.

“O-of course I remember!”

I leaned forward and kissed her. She was pliant at first, but the touch of my lips seemed to rekindle the flame that burned within her. Misaki returned the kiss with most of her usual fierce passion. A moment later I drew back and was not surprised to see the color returned to her cheeks.

“Y-you always know how to make me feel better,” she murmured. “Okay. Okay, we can do this, right? We can fight. At least we'll know that we tried our best even if we fail.”

“You won't be fighting alone,” Star promised. “If you allow me to borrow the wardstone you obtained from Saitou Tsukimura, I will utilize my Spell Engine to create an emulation program that should allow others passage through their defensive barrier.”

I handed Star the piece of miasma-suffused stone. I was thankful to get rid of the thing, at least for a while. Just having it with me felt unpleasant. I didn't want to think about how it would feel for Misaki when she absorbed it in order to locate the Tsukimura shrine.

Star placed the wardstone in a small glass vial. “AEGIS has deployed twenty front-line hunters and their equipment to Kyoto for the operation. I can provide only minimal support to you and Misaki, however.”

“How did you—never mind, I don't even
want
to know.” I lit another cigarette and took a drink from my beer. It had long since gone warm, but I didn't care.

“The two of you need not worry about enemy reinforcements,” Star informed me. “We will be making coordinated simultaneous strikes against Tsukimura and their most powerful servant house, Morita. Without the two most powerful houses and their stabilizing influence, the remaining servant houses of Tsukimura will fall to infighting. AEGIS will watch and lie in wait, prepared to finish off the exhausted victors when the fighting ends.”

I covered my surprise with another swig of beer. “And you're going to manage all that with only eighteen operatives? Are you shitting me?”

Star smiled, her expression reflecting no small amount of pride. “This is not the first time we've completed such a mission. You know that we do not have the advantage in numbers, but we play for keeps.”

“Misaki, is there anything you can tell me about Lord Isao? Like, maybe, how we can kill him quickly and then go out for margaritas and a burrito?”

Misaki tried very hard not to smile at my lame attempt at humor. “I don't know very much about him. The everyday operations of House Tsukimura are operated by the patriarch's current eldest son—the Relic's previous wielder. Isao rarely visited the manor I was kept at. I think he spends most of his time at the shrine, projecting his consciousness into the astral world.”

“Just tell me what you know, even if it doesn't seem important,” I urged.

There was a haunted look in her eyes. “Lord Isao is one of the more powerful human summoners currently active today. His mortal spirit has been infused with miasma through an invocation that bound him permanently to a shackled specter, much in the same way we are connected. Through this bond, Isao gained a fragment of immortality and magic that can match that of a lesser spirit native to the astral world.”

“So what you're saying is that he's not really human anymore,” I reasoned.

Misaki nodded. “In a sense. All human practitioners can perform minor feats of arcana, but the unbolstered mind and body can only handle so much mana without breaking from the strain. Isao discovered a way to circumvent this restriction by defeating and enslaving a specter, imprisoning it within the fortress of his mind and forcing the spirit to act as an amplifier. The specter's individual will is destroyed and it fuses to the summoner's own soul.”

I could tell that even Star seemed to be very, very interested in this now. Her eyes were narrowed, her expression intrigued. Misaki might not have thought so, but perhaps in this history lesson was some key piece of information that could help us.

“What happened after he transcended his mortality?” Star inquired.

“The Tsukimura clan became powerful. Under Isao's leadership, the Tsukimura clan overthrew its sponsor house and became the strongest mystic organization in Japan, less than two years after the demise of the shogunate. The politics of the day played directly into Isao's hands. He allied himself with the new Meiji government, betrayed and deposed his former masters and became a powerful silent partner of the new regime.”

Star shook her head in disbelief. “How do you know all of this?”

“House Sakurai once wielded the Relic that I am bound to, and House Sakurai was the family that sponsored Tsukimura as a servant family. Sakurai was a wealthy but humble family of spirit hunters that held strong political and economic ties with the Tokugawa shogunate.”

“So Tsukimura, backed by the new government during the reform years, took out Sakurai and... what? Absorbed them?”

Misaki nodded. Her usually-swishing tail was still, indicating that she wasn't exactly fond of taking this trip down memory lane.

“In the end, it worked out for all but the heads of Sakurai. They were executed as traitors to the new Emperor and Isao was able to take full control of the house. At first, he kept up appearances, installing a puppet leader at the head of Sakurai and allowing them to keep their name and traditions. Over time, though, the house lost its identity and was absorbed into Tsukimura, further bolstering its strength.”

“And ever since then, he's been growing and festering underneath the surface, becoming more and more powerful.”

“Yes...” Misaki gave me a helpless look. “That's all I know. I have only met Lord Isao a handful of times since his clan took control of the Relic. It has always been wielded by one of his sons—the eldest living son of Tsukimura, to be exact.”

I lit another cigarette and turned to Star. “Clarify something for me.”

“If it is within my knowledge.”

“With only yourself and eighteen operatives, how is it even remotely fucking possible to take out an organization two centuries in the making with its tentacles in every damn source of power or influence in Japan?”

“The balance of power in House Tsukimura is incredibly top-heavy,” Star explained without even a moment of hesitation. “Lord Isao controls nearly every single aspect of the organization he commands.”

“That seems extremely stupid,” I muttered.

“He can't help it. The shackled specter colors his perceptions.” Misaki leaned over and reached into my pocket to pull out a half-eaten bag of sour candy. I fixed her with a mildly annoyed glare, but she ignored it and began snacking on the tangy treats.

“Miss Misaki is correct.” Star sipped at her glass of water and cleared her throat. “Isao is obsessed with control and trusts almost no one. He constantly subjects his subordinates to tests of loyalty and will never place any meaningful responsibility on anyone other than his sons, whom he controls subtly through his power.”

I let that sink in for a while. To me the actions of our enemy seemed almost insane in their stupidity and desperation. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that the ancient head of the Tsukimura clan teetered on the edge of madness.

Maybe it was the strain of so much responsibility... or maybe it was the invocation that bound an evil spirit to his psyche. It was impossible to tell for sure, but one thing
was
abundantly clear: the chance event that resulted in the loss of the Relic, their greatest treasure, and to a woman no less, had driven them over the edge.