Stormdancer (18 page)

His skin was the leather of old boots, brown and weathered, cracking at the edges. Cropped hair, shaved so close to his skull that it seemed a shadow on his skin, old scars crossing his scalp and puckering the flesh above one narrowed eye. An ancient pair of goggles hung about his throat; custom Shigisens that in their day would have cost a small fortune. His irises were the same color as his daughter’s; steel-gray, shot through with a thousand splinters of cobalt. He knelt in front of a low table set with a saké bottle and simple cups, salt- and-pepper mustache reaching almost to the ground.

“This is my father,” Kaori had said softly. “Daichi.”
Yukiko blinked, a flickering of remembrance in her mind.
I think . . .
She stared hard, a small frown darkening her brow.
I think I know this man.
They sat in a rectangular room, walls of raw wood, caulked with tar. Daichi’s

house crouched atop one of the larger trees, a shadow among the swaying foliage, nestled between a fork in the branches. One bough reached up through the floorboards and disappeared into the roof, letting in a faint draft and sweet wisteria perfume. Yukiko was reminded of her family’s old hut in the bamboo forest.

She had waited until the others ascended before climbing the ladder. Buruu had climbed beside her, bleeding gouges left in his wake, talons and claws sticky with sap. Unable to fit through the door to Daichi’s dwelling, the arashitora crouched on a branch outside, motionless save for the rhythmic sweep of his tail. His tension was palpable, radiant, eyes glittering like blades. Yukiko could feel his pulse, the rhythm of his breathing. Without even being conscious of it, her own heart and lungs fell into pace with his.

She knelt across from the old man, pressed her forehead to the floorboards. “Daichisama.”
“Yukiko-chan.” The old man nodded, covered his fist with his palm. “Friend

Kaori and the rest of her group knelt in a semi-circle around Daichi, respectfully silent. Yukiko glanced around her: rough furniture, fire pit in the center of the room, crude metal chimney stabbing up through the ceiling. Three closed doors, leading off into different rooms. An old-fashioned katana lay sheathed in a groove on the wall at Daichi’s back, its scabbard exquisitely crafted: black lacquer, golden cranes on the wing. There was another groove beneath it, and Yukiko had no doubt that Kaori’s wakizashi had once sat there, part of the same daishō pair. Only the noble-born were permitted to carry the daishō, the proud symbol of their status among the samurai caste.

He must be ronin.
WHAT IS RONIN?
An ex- samurai. A noble-born warrior without a Lord.
WHY DOES LORD MATTER?
All samurai follow the Code of Bushido. It’s like a religion and a philosophy

and a set of laws all mixed together. Loyalty and sacrifice and humility— they live their entire lives by it. But above all, the code demands servitude. Allegiance to a master. If your master dies, or you break your oath, you become ronin. It is a source of shame. A great loss of face.

HE IS OATH-BREAKER, THEN? LIAR?
Yukiko lifted her head from the floor to look for the man’s irezumi, the symbol of his clan inked on his flesh. But his arms were covered with the sleeves of his uwagi, gray cloth running down to his wrists, frayed at the cuffs. He followed her eyeline, something like amusement twinkling in that steelgray.
“Where are you from, Yukiko-chan?”
“Kigen, Daichi- sama.”
“And you served on the sky-ship that crashed into Kuromeru Peak?”
“Hai,” she nodded, keeping her eyes low.
“Mrmn,” he grunted, running one hand through his mustache. There was something reptilian about the man; something ancient and slow, all muscles and teeth and endless, cold-blooded patience. “You were not aboard the life boat. How did you survive the crash?”
“I set Buruu free from his cage. When he leaped over the railing, I jumped on his back.”
“You flew on an arashitora?”
A faint murmur rippled among the assembled figures. Kaori narrowed her eyes.
“Hai,” Yukiko nodded.
“Aiya.” Daichi shook his head. “One hundred summers could come and go, and we would never hear another tale like that.”
“It was either that or die,” Yukiko shrugged.
“And you killed four oni?”
“Five, Daichi-sama,” said Kaiji. “The northern slopes. Near Black Temple.”
“Mrmn,” he nodded. “Have you heard of the Stormdancers, Yukiko-chan?”
She looked up from the floorboards and met Daichi’s stare. He was older than her father but unmarked by lotus smoke, gaze still sharp, skin clean. His body was hard, lean, calloused fingers and old scars. The katana on the wall behind him was within easy reach of his hand.
“Stories.” Yukiko shook her head. “From childhood. Kitsune no Akira and the Dragon of Forgetting. Kazuhiko the Red and the hundred ronin. Widow’s Bridge, and the doomed charge of Tora Takehiko into Devil Gate.”
“One of my favorites,” Daichi smiled.
“They’re just stories.”
“Some might say,” he nodded. “Tales of halcyon days can serve to promote nationalist pride. The Communications Ministry invokes past glories to inspire new ones among the working class, to wring more sweat from the karōshimen’s backs. To convince more young men to take up arms and spill their heart’s blood beneath the Shōgun’s flag in a war they know nothing about. The Stormdancers have become pulp heroes, serialized on the Guild wireless, their stories drained of all meaning and truth. It is easy to see why you’d think them nothing more than propaganda. Such is the shape of the world in which we live.”
Daichi nodded toward the doorway, in the direction of Buruu.
“Your . . . friend, you call him? If there were any justice, our kind would have never seen his kind again. But here he is, a miracle in flesh, proof that there is truth even in their lies. And what do they do when they learn one of these creatures still exists?” The old man sighed. “Hunt him down and cripple him like some wretched sparrow in the palace gardens.”
“The Shōgun commanded it.”
“The Shōgun.” Daichi chuckled, amusement spreading like an infection among his cohort. “The Shōgun commands only that which we allow him to.”
“Everyone on these islands owes Yoritomo-no-miya their allegiance.” Steel-gray eyes glittered.
“Nobody in this room owes Yoritomo a thing, Yukiko-chan.” “So you are ronin, then?”
“Hai, I am ronin.” Daichi’s smile faded. “Once I served the Shōgun’s house. I wore the ō-yoroi and the golden jin-haori of the Kazumitsu Elite guard. I know Masaru, the Black Fox, who mutilated your friend’s wings. I know Yoritomo, who sits as Shōgun of the Four Thrones and would be my Lord.”
Daichi’s hand moved slowly, rolling up the sleeves of his uwagi. Where there should have been irezumi, there was only a blanket of patchwork scars, stretching from his elbows to his shoulders. The skin was rough and uneven, pale in comparison to the rich tan on his face.
“You burned off your tattoos?” Yukiko frowned.
“I have no zaibatsu. I will suffer no Lord such as Yoritomo. None of us here carries the symbols of slavery any longer. No clan save our own. No masters save ourselves.”
Conscious of the irezumi running down her left arm, Yukiko thanked Kitsune that her uwagi’s sleeves were long enough to cover it. Daichi smiled, as if he knew her thoughts.
“Symbols of slavery?” Yukiko tilted her head.
“When a man’s fate is not his own, when he may die at the behest of a man born luckier or wealthier, when he sweats all his life for scraps from another’s table, then he is in peril.” Daichi’s eyes glittered in the half light. “But when he accepts it in his heart, when he ceases to struggle against that fundamental injustice, then he is a slave.”
Yukiko’s face burned. She was no slave. Her friends, her family, they were all freemen. Who did this man think he was?
“Most men would rather be a slave than an oath-breaker.”
“An oath to a liar is no oath at all,” Daichi growled. “Yoritomo broke his oath to me.”
“How?”
“He demanded what was not his to take.” Daichi’s eyes flickered to his daughter, back to Yukiko. “And when it was denied him, he decided that no other man should possess it either. Nor should they ever want to.”
Yukiko looked at the scar running down Kaori’s face, beauty forever spoiled, feeling sick to her stomach. She nodded. Not in understanding, because nobody who claimed to be human could possibly understand something like that. But she nodded. She knew.
MADNESS.
“So it has always been with the line of Kazumitsu.” Kaori’s voice shook with remembered anger. “What they see they want, and what they cannot possess, they destroy. Look at your friend outside. If not for your Shōgun, he would be free, soaring over the desolation that Yoritomo names ‘Empire.’ ” She shook her head. “I wonder why he ever came here.”
“Perhaps he was brought here,” Daichi answered, his eyes never leaving Yukiko’s. “Perhaps you were too.”

Yukiko stood on a broad footbridge, watching maple leaves spiral toward the ground. She held a wisteria bloom in her hand, fragile as spun sugar, petals shaped like an upturned bowl, white as pure snow. A hush had fallen over the world, a pre-dawn silence that held the night in a fragile embrace, waiting to break in the sunrise with the first birdsong. The horizon was aglow with the promise of impending daylight.

Though she’d suppressed her yawns as long as she was able, Daichi had realized Yukiko was tired. He told her that Kin was being cared for, that she should rest, but she knew it was only a matter of time before someone discovered the bayonet fixtures in his flesh. Yukiko had no idea how she was going to explain them.

She and Buruu were taken to an empty dwelling high in the branches of an old oak. The tree was overgrown with wisteria vines, twisting up from the forest floor in thick, fragrant growths. Buruu had stretched out on a branch shaped like a cupped palm as she began pacing across the footbridge, too restless to sleep.

She let go of the flower, watched it spiral into the drop below her feet. Staring down through the camouflage nets, she blinked in wonder at it all: the squat houses covered in creepers and wrapped in twisted branches, the bridges, dwellings and storerooms blending in seamlessly with the greenery around them, mere shadows in the canopy to anyone looking up from below. A hundred men would have to slave for a de cade to build a place like this. The will it must have taken to craft it out of nothing made her marvel.

These people are fanatics.
Buruu opened one eye, blinked sleepily.
YOU SHOULD REST.
I don’t trust them. What are they doing here?
LIVING FREE. AWAY FROM YOUR SCABS AND DESPOILER LORD. ADMIRABLE.

There is hatred in their eyes. Darkness. I can feel it. They are not just men who seek freedom from the Shōgun’s rule. There is more to it than that. SLEEP. I WILL WATCH IF YOU FEAR.
Yukiko heard soft footsteps. She turned and saw Kaori approaching across

the bridge, surefooted, hair rippling in dark, velvet waves. The diagonal fringe hung over her face, obscuring much of the scar, one eye visible between twin curtains of black. She stopped beside Yukiko, leaned against the railing and stared out into the whispering gloom.

“You should sleep.” Kaori’s voice was as soft as smoke. “You look exhausted.” “Soon.”
“Rumors are already spreading among the people here.” Kaori glanced at her

sidelong. “The girl who rides the thunder tiger. Slayer of half a dozen oni. I fear you will be inundated with attention tomorrow. You should rest while you can.”

FIVE PIT DEMONS ALL ALONE.
Yukiko made a face.
“Buruu did most of the work, anyway.”
SHOULD THINK SO . . .
“The oni will be angered,” Kaori sighed. “The loss of so many of their number . . .”

Yukiko stayed silent, staring off into the dark. There was something wrong with all of this; the simple folk with warriors’ weapons, the burned tattoos. Suspicion gnawed at her insides, the feeling of being constantly watched prickling the back of her neck.

“Your friend is running a fever.” Kaori stood on tiptoe and peered over the railing, waves of raven hair falling about her face. “We have given him antibiotics, something to help ease the pain.”

“And where did you get the medicine?”
Ever so slightly, Kaori narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?” “Well, do you trade for it? You seem intent on keeping this place secret. But

Kaori turned toward her, shoulders square. Her face had hardened; a sudden shift to smooth stone. She glared behind her fringe.
“You ask a lot of questions, Yukiko-chan. They can be dangerous things so far from home.”
Buruu growled; a low rumble full of menace. Yukiko met the older woman’s stare coolly.
“There are all sorts of dangerous things around here.”
Kaori’s eyes flickered to Buruu, now rising to his feet. The thunder tiger stared at her the way an avalanche stares at a butterfly.
“As you say.” The woman gave a small bow, palm covering her fist. “Get some sleep. We will talk more in the morning.”
Kaori turned away, her feet making barely a sound, the bridge unmoving beneath her. Yukiko watched until she disappeared among the shadows, eyes narrowed.
I do not like this, Buruu.

Yukiko was awoken late the next day by the arashitora’s voice in her head, warning her of approaching footsteps. She had dreamed of flying above the mountains, high and free, thermals cupping her wings and bidding her higher until the whole world lay on display beneath her claws. She knew it was Buruu’s dream. She wondered if he sometimes dreamed of the boy with the sea-green eyes.

The footsteps belonged to Isao and a girl around Yukiko’s age, who peeked in the door and introduced herself as Eiko in a small, shy voice. Isao had brought Buruu a brace of fresh trout, and the arashitora began tearing the flesh with relish. The boy bid Yukiko good eve ning and handed her a pair of old polarized goggles, explaining that the sun was still bright enough to burn her eyes if she ventured beyond the forest shade. The glass was scratched, the leather strap so timeworn that it felt like sandpaper under her fingertips.

Eiko offered a bowl of nigirizushi and fresh, fat plums; Yukiko had missed both breakfast and lunch, but it was not yet time for dinner. Giving genuine thanks, she began wolfing down the food, asking Eiko’s background between mouthfuls.

“I have lived here six years,” replied the girl, watching Buruu with unashamed wonder. “My family moved here when we could no longer afford inochi, and our fields began to turn to deadlands without the fertilizer.”

“Why would the Guild let your fields run to ruin?” Yukiko mumbled around a mouthful of plum. “Why charge so much that your family couldn’t afford inochi? That just means less lotus next year.”

“It’s not the Guild, it’s the clan Daimyo,” Isao explained. “Their soldiers run the farmers off the land before the deadening gets too bad. They drain money from the farmers’ pockets by charging land taxes, ensuring the little man hasn’t got enough coin left over to afford fertilizer. Then they kick him off his land under the guise of environmental protectionism: ‘If you can’t afford to preserve the soil, then we will.’ It’s all about consolidation of power. Taking the land away from the common people.”

“But who works the fields once the farmers have been kicked off?” “Slaves,” Eiko shrugged. “Why do you think the zaibatsu support the war? Most nobles run their fields almost entirely under slave power now. Every shipload of gaijin from the warzone is more cheap labor. Labor you can starve, sweating the skin off their bones until they drop. Then you just buy another shipload with spoils you make from the war. Gaijin aren’t people. What do the Daimyo or noble-borncare?”
WHAT IS DAIMYO?
The leaders of the clans. Powerful military Lords.
LIKE SHŌGUN.
Well, the Tiger Daimyo also claims the title of Shōgun. The other three Daimyo—Fox, Dragon and Phoenix—all swear allegiance to him.
“They’ve got bigger problems, anyway,” Isao was saying. “Inochi can only delay soil-death for so long. Covering the earth with that sludge will buy you a handful of years. A de cade or two at most. And now land is running out. They’ve razed all the scrubland, ‘reclaimed’ the swamps, clear-felled every forest. We’re standing in the last wilderness left in all Shima. The only reason the shreddermen haven’t levelled it is because of superstition and the fact that some genius discovered it’s more profitable to enslave gaijin instead.” The boy counted off on his fingers. “You get more land to seed overseas, cheap slave labor back home, the market on a war-footing, and an enemy for the common people to hate.” Isao made a face. “The nameless, round-eye barbarian, rather than the barbarian sitting on the country’s throne.”
Yukiko shook her head, thoughts tumbling inside her skull.
They’re speaking sedition. The Iron Samurai would execute their whole family for talking this way back in Kigen.
THIS IS NOT A SCAB.
No. But these are not simple displaced farmer folk either.
When the feast was done, Eiko offered to take Yukiko to the bathhouse, and Isao suggested he should come along. Eiko punched him in the stomach, threatening to cut his privates off, and the boy soon took his leave. With a small smile, the girl produced a bar of soap from within her obi. It smelled of honeysuckle and fresh daisies, and Yukiko closed her eyes, inhaling the fragrance and trying to calculate how long it had been since she’d had a warm bath. Her skin tingled at the thought of it.
“Hai,” she breathed. “Please.”

The girls walked together across creaking boards and swaying rope bridges, listening to the voice of the wind in the leaves. The thunder tiger padded a safe distance behind them, ropes creaking dangerously under his weight, wings slightly spread in case the bridge beneath him decided to give way. The sun was beginning to set in the west, fingers of burning red piercing the forest canopy, deepening the shadows amidst the treetops. Yukiko found herself astounded at the scale of it all; teahouses and storerooms among the winding branches, sprawling family homes, even a crude village center, fashioned from a broad platform of unfinished cedar wood.

As they drew closer, Yukiko realized some kind of gathering was taking place in the square, and she stopped, uncertain, reaching out with nervous fingers toward Buruu. With a smile, Eiko took hold of her hand and led her toward the group.

Two dozen children were sitting in a wide semi-circle, scattered across the landing in the long, muted light of the afternoon sun. Daichi was perched on a rough wooden stool at their center, loose, worn cotton draped about his body, a ceramic cup full of clear water clutched in one hand. His sword was tucked into his obi, his other hand on the hilt, all calluses and scarred knuckles. He leaned closer, one elbow on his knee, and looked each child in the eye.

“. . . but the Maker God, great Lord Izanagi, refused to accept his wife’s death after the birth of Shima. His love for her was as deep as the ocean, as wide as the great blue sky, for indeed, the sky was blue in days long past. And, ignoring the warnings of the kami spirits, the Maker God traveled by long and hidden roads, to bring his beloved Izanami back into the land of the living.”

Yukiko and Eiko took up position quietly at the back of the crowd, leaning against the railing, towels and soap in their hands. Buruu stood beside them, tail sweeping from side to side, tense and irritable. The platform groaned as he shifted his footing. One of the children looked back and caught sight of the arashitora, breath catching in his lungs. He tugged on the sleeve of a friend’s uwagi, eyes like saucers, mouth opening and closing without making a sound. The friend looked up to see what the fuss was about, several others followed his gaze, and all of a sudden there came a great shout from the children; a jumbled clamor of overjoyed shrieks, a tumult of little hands and feet across the floorboards, running toward the arashitora as if he were some new puppy dog with which to play.

A single deafening roar rang out among the treetops, windows rattling across the village, wisteria petals drifting down to the forest floor in gentle, tumbling showers. The stampede halted as suddenly as it had begun, and the children scampered back to Daichi’s circle, pale and petrified.

“Forgiveness, sama.” Yukiko covered her fist, bowed. “Buruu means no harm.”
“Do not apologize, Yukiko-chan.” Daichi glanced around at the children, a mock frown on his face. “Respect is a lesson well learned in the presence of thunder tigers.”
“We did not wish to interrupt.”
“It is no imposition. Please, stay. Listen.”
Eiko shuffled a little closer to Yukiko, whispering as the children resumed their seats.
“This is a kind of ritual up here. The children gather in the square at weeksend, and Daichi tells them stories of yesteryear. Gods. Heroes. Myths.”
“Is it weeksend already?” Yukiko blinked.
“Hai.”
Yukiko was astonished to learn that so much time had passed since she left Kigen. The days in the mountains had become a blur, one melting into another. It must have been almost three weeks since they first set out on the Thunder Child.
The truth was, it seemed like a lifetime ago.
The children watched her out of the corners of their eyes as Daichi resumed speaking, whispering to each other and pointing when they thought she wasn’t looking. Rumor about her battle with the oni had obviously spread, just as Kaori promised, and the youngsters peered at her with a mixture of open fascination and slack-jawed awe. Buruu growled whenever he felt little eyes on him, and most of the children had the common sense to avoid his gaze.
“And so it was, after many dark trials, great Lord Izanagi found the entrance to Yomi.” Daichi leaned back and took a sip of water, his voice rough as sandpaper. “The Devil Gate, here in these very mountains. And there in the underworld’s pitch black and endless cold, deep enough to freeze a man’s flesh from his very bones, he found his beloved. He could not see her face, but he could hear her voice, felt the touch of her lips on his own. His heart swelled, and he knew her for his wife, and her voice drifted in the dark like the sweetest perfume.
“ ‘You must not look on me, my love,’ she said. ‘For the light will draw the hungry dead near, and they are cold as morning frost and fierce as tigers. But lie with me now, like we did when we were young, and the islands of Shima were but a dream in my womb, yet to be born.’
“And so Lord Izanagi lay with his wife, and held her in his arms, and they remembered what it was to be young again—”
“Did they have sex?” A young boy piped up from the front row, eliciting a few sniggers from the older children. Daichi reached out with one quick, calloused hand and tweaked the boy’s nose. Yukiko laughed along with the crowd as the boy yelped in pain.
“Now, you mind your tongue, young Kuon.” Daichi wagged one mahogany- hard finger in the boy’s face. “I have the telling of this tale. When you are my age, you might know better than to interrupt your elders when they are speaking. Until then, my hand will have to serve in place of wisdom. Hai?”
“Hai.” The boy covered his fist and gave a little bow. “Apologies, sama.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Daichi shook his head. “A boy your age should not even know the name of such things, let alone speak of them in public.” The old man took another sip of water. “Now, where was I?”
“In Yomi,” offered a young girl.
“Ah, hai. Yomi.” He leaned forward to heighten the drama, his eyes wide. “The deepest and blackest of the hells, where the hungry dead dwell in cold and silence for all eternity. Why was Lady Izanami there, you might ask, and you would be wise to. For she was not wicked, nor cruel in her life. But these were the earliest days of this land, before the one hell became nine, and before Enma-ō was charged to judge the departed souls of the living. Before that, all of the dead dwelt in the dark and despair of Yomi.
“Lord Izanagi awoke in the blackness, his beloved Izanami still in his arms. And though he knew he was in peril if the hungry dead were to see his light, he longed to look on the face of his wife again. And so, taking the comb from his hair, he lit a flame upon it, and gazed down at his bride. But what he saw was not the face of his love.
“Lady Izanami had become rotten, as the bodies of the dead. Her flesh crawled with worms, and her eyes were empty holes and her tongue as black as pitch. For she had eaten at the hearth of the underworld, and was forever to be touched by death’s hand.”
Several of the younger children gasped. One little girl hid her face in her hands.
“Lord Izanagi was horrified, and cried aloud. And at the sound of his voice, Lady Izanami awoke and saw the burning comb in his hand. Her rage was terrible. She leaped at him, intending to keep him in Yomi, where they would be together always. Lord Izanagi ran, as fast as any god might, pursued by the hungry dead. But the Maker God was swift, and he sealed shut the entrance to the underworld with a mighty boulder, trapping his wife inside. From the other side of the stone, Izanami screamed that she was now with child, and that the demons birthed from her womb would destroy one thousand of Shima’s children every day to punish Lord Izanagi for abandoning her. And her husband replied thus:
“ ‘Then I will give life to fifteen hundred.’ ”
The old man straightened on his stool and cleared his throat, gave a small cough. He swirled a mouthful of water and spat on the decking, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“And there the boulder stayed for a thousand years, trapping all of Yomi’s evil inside it. Until a young and foolish boy . . .” he frowned at Kuon, “. . . moved the boulder aside and let Hell loose on the world again.”
Daichi looked up, fixing Yukiko in those steel-gray eyes. He stared at her for a brief moment, then turned his gaze back to his audience.
“All right, that is enough for one day.”
A universal wail of disappointment went up from the children.
“Aiya, I will tell you more next week. The tale of a great battle, and a greater sacrifice.” He looked around the upturned faces. “The charge of the Stormdancer Tora Takehiko into Devil Gate, and how Yomi was sealed shut once more. Now go on, off with you. Mind your parents and see to your chores!”
The children stood and began to shuffle off, many of them stopping to cover their fists and bow to Yukiko, whispering behind their hands. A deep growl from Buruu sent the stragglers scampering to catch up with their fellows.
Daichi stood and walked over to the railing. Eiko covered her fist and bowed low as he approached. Yukiko watched him carefully, trying to recall where she knew him from. All around, the forest was alive with the sound of birdsong, the perfume of fresh flowers. The old man stared out into the ocean of leaves, wrapped in the smell of wisteria.
“The children have heard of your battles,” he smiled. “They are quite impressed.”
“Impressed that I’m still alive?” Yukiko watched him carefully. “Or that oni exist?”
“You forget where you are, Yukiko-chan.” Daichi waved his hand across the vista. “The haunted valleys of the Iishi Mountains. Demons are as real as the trees or the sky to the children who grow up here.”
“Then why do you stay?”
“Long shadows. Dark nights. As far from the Shōgun’s throne as a man can be, and a thousand and one myths to keep superstitious eyes away.”
“I thought oni were just that.” Yukiko looked down at her hand, curling and uncurling her fingers. “Stories to frighten the simple and the young.”
“I am afraid not.”
“Where do they come from?”
Daichi blinked, as if he didn’t quite understand the question.
“From Yomi, of course.”
“Yomi?” Her voice fairly dripped skepticism. “The deepest hell?”
“Hai.” His reply was flat. Iron. “The deepest hell.”
“But the old tales . . .” Yukiko shook her head. “Even if they’re true, the gate to Yomi was sealed shut. And the Stormdancer Tora Takehiko gave his life to see that it would remain forever closed. My father used to tell us that story all the time.”
“It was a great sacrifice,” Daichi nodded. “But the cracks are big enough for the little ones to slip through.”
“Cracks?”
“The great boulder that the Maker God pushed into place over the Devil Gate is only stone. Stone breaks under enough force. Enough hate.”
“So it’s all true? The old stories? The myths my father told us at bedtime?”
Daichi tilted his head and frowned, motioned toward Buruu.
“You walked into this village with a thunder tiger beside you. You have slain demons with your own hands. Are the old myths really that hard to believe?”
“They wouldn’t be myths otherwise, would they?”
“Then have a care, Yukiko-chan,” Daichi smiled. “Keeping the company of the last arashitora in Shima sounds like an excellent way to become a myth yourself.”
The old man covered his fist and bowed. Clasping his hands behind his back, he walked off across the rope bridge, eyes still on the forest. Yukiko stared at his back until Eiko waved the soap in front of her face, a gentle smile on her lips. With a mumbled apology, Yukiko allowed herself to be led to the bathhouse, conscious of the many eyes on her.
Her tantō was a comforting weight in the small of her back.