by Carly Chase
“So, maybe let’s see if Sakura has anything we can eat and tell her our plan, then get moving after lunch. We can have the whole thing resolved and be back home by sundown,” Kiba said.
Feeling optimistic, the group followed his suggestion, Anya checking her bag full of magic pictures and ink one last time before moving out.
Chapter 18
They may have looked like an odd traveling party – the two scary looking warrior men in their leather, the dark skinned, curly haired woman-from-another-world in her lilac silk kimono, and the white haired, fox-eared, nine-tailed teenager – but nobody troubled them as they took the main route from the forest of the kitsune toward the human town.
“Did you do something?” Ikari asked Yuki-Shiro, as a third merchant horse cart passed them by with a friendly wave.
“Yup, she did. Even to me you all look like normally dressed humans – no leather, no tails… And my own arms and hands don’t look like mine, either… It’s quite disconcerting!” Anya said, holding her hands up in front of her eyes.
She’d realized as soon as they’d moved out of the forest and onto the road that Yuki-Shiro was making them blend in, which in her own case had meant making her look Asian. It was pretty uncomfortable to think about, but traveling unnoticed was a lot more relaxing than having to deal with unwanted attention, so, being a pragmatic sort of woman, she tried not to let it bother her. She definitely tried not to think what something like this would mean in her own world.
“I’m sorry Anya, I always forget you can see the illusions too. Must be pretty weird seeing Kiba look all boring and covered up, and me not looking cute at all! I’ll stop the illusion when we are in sight of the town though, and then I’ll do the mouse one on myself.”
The woods behind the town were soon in sight, and although Anya couldn’t see it, so was the barrier.
It was a strange experience for Kiba and Ikari to be drawing close to a visible barrier, with the knowledge that they now had a magic that could let them walk through unimpeded. Ikari felt it appropriate to point out that if he’d had Anya’s bird drawing before, he could have rescued Yuki-Shiro without having to take out the wards and have the lower yokai attack. Anya replied that had he not attacked the town three times before without success, Mamoru would never have summoned her to this world, and so the magic pictures wouldn’t exist.
“Well, that’s destiny for you, I guess,” Ikari conceded.
“Wait!” Kiba shouted suddenly, spinning around to face the direction they’d came from, and instinctively shielding Anya with his body.
In the same instant, Ikari did the same to Yuki-Shiro, both men in silent concentration, looking out at the horizon, where, in the distance, the mountains could be seen looming over the land.
A few seconds later, it became apparent to Anya what Kiba and Ikari had sensed, as what first appeared as three dots in the distance grew larger, speeding across the grassland next to the dirt road.
“Tigers?” she asked, shielding her eyes to try and make out the creatures better. She was sure she saw stripes.
“Yes. And I think I can take a guess as to whom,” Kiba replied.
“What are they doing?” Ikari asked, “did you say anything that would make them follow us or attack us?”
“Not that I can think of. I told them we’d do what they wanted, and get an agreement out of the priest, but that they would have no say in how that agreement would be reached. Akira seemed satisfied enough with that, and Ryokan and Katsuo are never satisfied, but they didn’t object.”
“What should we do? Should we transform? We can’t fight them in human form if that’s what they’ve come to do…”
“I will wait until they get closer – they may not have come with violent intentions, and might just be using their tiger forms to travel faster. Whether you want to transform is up to you, I’m not the leader anymore, remember,” Kiba said, gently. He believed that Ikari was ready for these kinds of decisions now – he’d be married soon, after all.
Ikari frowned as he mulled over the choice.
“They may not be coming for us at all – they might be heading for the town themselves to take their own action, in which case we are going to need to stop them. I don’t like this Kiba, I am going to transform and run over to meet them. If the enhanced tiger form from Anya’s magic is as good as you say, I’ll be a lot faster and stronger than them and can hold them off, at least for a time. If they didn’t come for a fight, I can lead them here. If they did, and you see me engaging them, I can rely on you to come straight over and join me, right?”
Kiba couldn’t help being somewhat proud of his brother’s bravery and decisiveness, and part of him wanted to race off with him, taking the same more proactive approach, but he knew he was better placed to stay and guard Anya and Yuki-Shiro. He nodded his agreement to Ikari’s plan. The three tigers were getting closer by the second.
Ikari darted behind a nearby tree and quickly took off his clothes, throwing them in his bag before transforming. His senses thrilled at how much more powerful he felt thanks to Anya’s tiger drawing, the bandage still wrapped around him now, around his right foreleg in his tiger form, the stretchy fabric causing no constriction even though he was so much bigger now. It had been smart of her to use this approach.
With his bag around his neck, he raced off, only briefly looking back to see Kiba standing poised but confident in front of the two women, who both looked somewhat bewildered.
Don’t worry, Yuki-Shiro, I’m going to be fine.
“Hey, the illusion has stopped – has the fox spell on your ribbon worn off?” Anya asked Yuki-Shiro, as, hiding behind Kiba, they watched Ikari on his speeding collision course with the other three tigers.
“No, I don’t think so, it’s just, well, it’s hard for me to keep the illusion up in my mind because I’m distracted by worrying about Ikki.”
“Ah, I see. Well, it probably doesn’t matter at this point anyway, any humans passing by are going to be far more interested in four tigers than in a few odd looking travelers… and I don’t suppose you can make them look like rabbits or something if your concentration is gone,” Anya said.
“Yes, but we are near the town, and so there’s still a chance the priest or someone else who knows Shiro may make an appearance, so if you can get your composure together enough, use the mouse illusion on yourself at least. Ikari is going to be fine, I promise – I’ll follow him if there is a physical fight, and they will know they can’t beat us both, especially with our enhanced tiger forms,” Kiba said.
Yuki-Shiro nodded, and, with strain showing on her pretty face, managed to perform the illusion.
Anya saw the white mouse appear on Kiba’s shoulder, its little black eyes looking intently ahead. Though she could tell by how Kiba was standing that he was still shielding Yuki-Shiro’s real body along with her own.
She gripped onto Kiba’s bicep with one hand, her heart pounding hard in her chest as just quarter of a mile ahead, Ikari and the other three tigers reached each other. All four drew to a halt, the larger form of Ikari faced with the other three, his tail lashing menacingly.
But, to everybody’s surprise, the other three tigers made a kind of bowing gesture with their heads, and then transformed into three men, nude men, hurriedly pulling clothes out of bags and trying to dress as the man in the middle spoke animatedly.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Anya whispered to Kiba, knowing his hearing was sharper than a human’s.
“No, the wind is in the wrong direction, the sound isn’t carrying at all…”
Ikari, still in his great-tiger form, suddenly spun around and began running back towards the group, with the three men following him, sprinting with all they had. As he got closer, Ikari swerved off behind the same tree, presumably to transform, and the men who were lagging behind kept on running towards Kiba.
Uncertain, Kiba adopted a fighting stance, but the man in front waved his hand as he ran, in a dismissive gesture –
no, they weren’t here to fight. So what was with the urgency?
As they waited for the men, and an explanation, none of the party heard the sound of footsteps crunching twigs underfoot in the woods behind them.
Chapter 19
The bolt of light that hit Katsuo, a man whose name Anya didn’t yet even know, seemed to come from nowhere at all, whooshing inaudibly over Anya’s shoulder, and then Kiba’s, before hitting the man square in the chest. Everything felt like it was happening in slow motion as she heard all of the other men shout that unknown name in unison, and Yuki-Shiro scream – an odd sound to hear coming from a mouse. The man simply vanished.
“Shit! What the fuck just happened?” she cried, pushing forward as if to try and grasp the space where he had just been and bring him back.
One of the other two men was now running away from the group towards the woods, towards the source of that weird beam of destructive light, but Anya tried to stay composed.
Priest magic. It has to be priest magic. Mamoru must have improved his skills.
With shaking hands she tore open her bag and pulled out a bandage, thrusting it at the third man, who was gaping open mouthed, his grave eyes fixed on Kiba’s in terror.
“Tie this onto you, somewhere, anywhere. It’ll protect you. I hope it will anyway… I have to get to the other guy…”
“Anya I’ll go, I can get to him faster,” Kiba said, trying to grab her bag out of her hands.
“It’s no good Kiba, if you touch the bandage it’ll work on you instead of him, it has to be me.”
Not waiting for a reply, she tore off in pursuit of the man, a man she’d later find out was named Ryokan, as he powered towards the woods.
“Wait! Wait! I can protect you!” she shouted, and she could hear Kiba shouting after the man too, but he wasn’t listening to either of them.
Another shot of light came out of the woods and, dodging it, Ryokan switched to a zig-zagging mode of running, which was sensible under the circumstances and also allowed Anya, who was running in a straight line, knowing that the priest magic couldn’t hurt her, to gain some ground. But then a figure emerged from the trees, a young man in a white kimono top and dark blue pants, holding a staff.
Reo? He couldn’t possibly have the power to take on a tiger?
Ryokan let out a roar of hatred – a roar which, despite coming from his human form, was as bone-chilling as that of a big cat – and launched himself at Reo, tackling him to the ground and raining down heavy blows on his face with his fists.
“No! It’s not him, it can’t have been him! He’s just the assistant! Please, let me protect you!” Anya shouted, her throat burning from the exertion of sprinting as well as from trying so hard to make herself heard by this man.
But what happened next she could have easily predicted. She dropped to her knees in anguish, tears of frustration wetting her cheeks, as the shot of light came from the trees and hit the tiger-man, causing him to vanish instantly just like his friend had. Cries of the name ‘Ryokan’ filled the air behind her.
Why wouldn’t he just let me help him?
“Reo! Reo! What’s the meaning of all this? Where’s Mamoru hiding? Why did he kill these men?” she shouted through her tears, as she saw the battered youth struggling to stand back up.
Another shot of light sped past her, but Anya didn’t look back to see if it hit anyone. She’d managed to give a bandage to the other stranger, Ikari and Kiba were protected, and Yuki-Shiro was hidden from human eyes with her mouse illusion. The only unprotected yokai were gone now, blinked out of existence in a heartbeat by whatever terrible new magic Mamoru had acquired. He could fire all he wanted, now, as long as her magic held. She struggled back up to her feet and walked forward, her eyes locked with Reo’s own swollen, frightened ones.
How could he use Reo as bait, too? He took a serious beating before that Ryokan guy was destroyed…
“Mamoru! Come out here! These other men are under my protection, you can’t destroy them. Meet with me now, or they will come into your town. Your wards no longer affect these yokai. There doesn’t need to be any more violence if you show yourself now!”
It seemed to have worked. A few seconds later, Anya could make out the white of Mamoru’s clothing as he made his way out of the cover of the trees. But it was then that Anya froze in shock, her blood like ice in her veins. Because Mamoru was not alone. Beside him, looking ahead proudly as she leaned on a magic staff to help her pick her way over the woodland ground in her high heeled black leather boots, was a short-haired black woman in a short red dress and a leather jacket. Fairly normal clothes for Anya’s world.
Don’t tell me that’s… Hime-sama?
Chapter 20
“This is what we came to warn you about! Our spies, they weren’t just watching you. Takara has been staking out this town and getting information from a young human boy – she used her feminine wiles I guess to persuade him to let her know what the priest was doing. After you left the mountain, just as we were voting in Ryokan as the new leader, she reached us with the news that the priest had summoned another woman from another world, and he was excited this time, because this time he had successfully managed to bring over Hime-sama – that’s apparently their name for – ”
“I know who that is,” Kiba said, cutting off Akira’s panicked revelation.
“She just destroyed Katsuo and Ryokan like they were nothing…”
“I know, Akira. We’ll make sure their deaths were not in vain, but you should be safe, as long as you have that bandage.”
“That woman, the one who gave me the bandage, her powers really are incredible,” Akira said, with the air of an apology.
“Yes. They are. And she’s firmly on our side. We’re staking our lives on that, and trust me, you can too.”
“What should we do now?” Ikari asked, finally able to speak. He’d had no love for the two men who had died, but he had never seen a higher yokai destroyed before. None of them had. He was shaken and enraged in equal measure.
“Protect Yuki-Shiro. Keep her calm enough to allow her to keep using her illusion magic to hide. Other than that, I think we just need to let Anya try and talk to them…”
“Hime-sama, this is Anya, the other woman I told you about, who we brought through in our first experiment to summon your current incarnation,” Mamoru said, in a measured, diplomatic tone.
“I told you not to call me that! My name is Mariah!” the woman said, with obvious irritation.
“Mariah? Mariah, please, I don’t know how long you’ve been here or what you’ve been told, but if you’re from the same world and time as me, you have to listen to me – Mamoru is wrong. These people are people. They’re not monsters. They live in societies, they have families, they fall in love, they care about their lives. You just killed two men just because Mamoru told you – I presume, because it’s what he told me – that yokai were an enemy. Those men were real, and now they’re gone. You did that just because of his beliefs. I know it’s messed up and scary being in this new place and being told you have a role to fulfill here, but you need to use your head, and your heart, and figure out what you stand for. Don’t let him turn you into a weapon!”
Mariah had a strange look in her eyes – there was strength there, Anya saw, but also remorse, betrayal, and some degree of shame. She turned to Mamoru.
“You told me we were going to save Anya from the yokai, and save your sister, both of them kidnapped. You told me the yokai were emotionless monsters, that only my talents could defeat. Forgive me for listening to someone from my own world over you, but it doesn’t sound to me like Anya needed rescuing,”
“No, I didn’t. Those three men over there, they were from the same clan as the men you just murdered. The tallest one is my fiance...”
They hadn’t discussed marriage yet, but it gave Anya strength to refer to Kiba that way.
“The younger one, he is going to get married soon too, to a girl who used to be both Mamoru’s sister,
and a young fox-yokai, but who is now one person. This happened thanks to Mamoru’s attempts to destroy the fox girl, just for being friends with his sister. Mamoru would not accept that girl back in his life again in her new form, and kept her drugged and unconscious while he looked for a way to ‘cure’ her – to destroy half of who she now is. Ikari, that young yokai man, he accepted her just fine. Mamoru lied to me about all of this, and he’s lied to you too.”
Mariah’s eyes blazed, and she spun around to face Mamoru, slamming the butt of her staff into the ground for emphasis.
“Why did you do this to me? I knew, I knew as soon as you summoned me here that this was where I belonged, I knew that that woman in the painting really was me in another life, I even knew how to do this magic, somehow. But you let me believe I was and had always been a force for good – a slayer of monsters and protector of people. But here I am a fucking murderer! Why? Why do I even have these horrible powers? Whatever it was I did in some long forgotten past life, I must have had my reasons, but now, my only reason is the lies you told me, and I reject it! I fucking reject it, Mamoru!”
Mariah threw her staff down on the dirty ground and her shaking hands flew up to her face, where hot tears were beginning to fall.
Anya’s instinct was to comfort Mariah – in a sense, she knew that under certain circumstances, if the yokai hadn’t taken her when they did, she could have ended up in the same position. She also felt a strange bond with the woman – perhaps because she was the only person she had seen in weeks, and possibly the only person she’d ever see again, who knew her own world. But Anya stood there coldly, observing Mariah’s anguish with patience, and a poker face. Somehow it seemed important to let Mariah feel all of this without immediate forgiveness or sympathy – to feel the weight of what she’d done. She was undoubtedly of extreme power, and someone like that shouldn’t be roaming around this world without having to bear the consequences of what that power could do.
