His gaze stayed on the direction his sister had taken as he spoke, “It isn’t that. She thinks you will complicate our lives.”
That was funny as the introduction of magic to her life had already complicated hers. It wasn’t like she had asked for any of this. Glancing at the naginata on the kitchen counter, she said, “I’d be happy to leave.” Though she appreciated free lodging. She didn’t make much in her work for her to turn her nose up at a decent roof over her head, but she never liked to overstay her welcome. A tengu would easily be able to take her out as she slept if she was in her usual accommodation of a tent.
He shook his head. “You are in danger out there, and you are still injured.” There was that so she wouldn’t mention she was glad she wasn’t sleeping in a tent. Haku turned to go about his morning routine. For him, the conversation was over. A smile touched her lips as her eyes dropped to his shapely form.
Her energy was flagging so she wasn’t as recovered as she had thought. Picking up the naginata, she held it up when it remained a pencil. She would have to figure out what she did to make it turn into a full-sized weapon; otherwise, she might do it by accident and slice off a part of herself.
She turned to where Haku was in the kitchen. “So, what’s the plan now? I can’t just hang out here all my life.” The thought had the last word catching in her throat. There was no way she would let anyone trap her in one spot again. And that included a size-changing stick.
Haku cleaned up her dishes before he answered, “I think we should ask for some help. Maybe they will know how to break the bond.” So when she had heard the hesitance in his voice, she had been right. He had no idea how to get her out of this. Panic caught in her throat. She would be trapped here.
Chapter Four
“So, who is this guy?” Kiera was lying on the couch, but it was a contrived relaxation. She was just as anxious for the wise man to arrive as the others.
“Someone wise,” Akari answered facetiously. She sat on the other end of the couch with her laptop, tapping away, her focus entirely on her screen. She glanced towards Kiera when she answered. Obviously, she wasn’t fooled by her relaxed demeanour.
Kiera wrinkled her nose. “You said that already, but how wise are you when you’re over an hour late.” Kiera didn’t have much time for people who were late.
Haku seemed to agree with her, as he paced in the courtyard. Every now and then, they would see a flash of colour as he entered their field of vision and then moved out again. Kiera watched him in concern.
Akari noticed as she said, “He’ll be fine if Manabu is here soon.”
“He looks like he is about to have a meltdown.” Giving up on looking relaxed, Kiera put her feet on the floor and peered to get a better look at Haku in the garden.
Akari didn’t dispel the possibility of a full-blown man tantrum, and Kiera continued to watch him with concern. To change the subject, she asked, “Were you able to organize a hearing with your school?” Akari was significantly calmer than before, so Kiera assumed she had either put the whole thing into perspective or had closure.
“Yeah, they’ve set it up for next month. Apparently, it is a big deal to have them do another exam and all that. But it should clear up everything.”
“Do you think someone dobbed you in?” She couldn’t see someone picking on Akari randomly for cheating, and the letter had been clear that there had been someone who had laid the allegation.
Akari glanced at her with a sharp look in her eye. “What do you mean?”
“I mean someone is out to get you, so they told a big fat lie to the university. Is there someone who doesn’t want you to study or graduate?”
Akari closed her laptop and slipped it into a case as she said, “There are a few that don’t want me to be a doctor. Kitsune are supposed to be creative and apparently, medicine isn’t creative enough for the elders.”
That seemed wrong in so many ways, but Kiera didn’t get a chance to explain her thoughts as the doorbell rang. She jumped in fright while Akari hopped over the back of the couch to open the door.
Kiera watched Haku as he stood in the door to the courtyard listening for Akari at the door. He must have recognised the tones of their visitor as his shoulders dropped, and his face softened.
It bothered her it had taken the wise man so long to see them. When Haku had called him the other day, he had put them off. Kiera had slept through most of the time as she recovered from travel and injuries.
Still shaky herself, she hadn’t minded the time to relax and be cared for. And she had gotten used to the routine around the house. And routine it was. Haku liked things done in a certain way. That he easily added her to the routine was a testament of his feelings, though she still wasn’t sure Akari was right about them being romantic. Kiera thought he still felt guilty about biting her and that was why he was being so accommodating.
Akari came into the lounge area with the yokai wizard. He looked like the old guy from Karate Kid. Small and dressed in too much beige.
He eyed Kiera suspiciously. “She is human.” His lip curled in disgust.
Haku growled, and Akari blurted, probably so Haku wouldn’t say something stupid, “Remember, Haku told you that on the phone.”
The wizard sniffed the air. “I don’t do anything with humans.”
He turned to leave, but Akari caught his arm. Turning to Kiera, she implored, “Show him.”
Kiera took out the naginata from her jean pocket. It had been jabbing her in the gut, but she didn’t have anywhere else secure to hold it when her jacket was currently a victim of old scissors hands.
Manabu’s attention came to the naginata even in its small form, and he offered his hands reverently. Kiera glanced at Haku and Akari, and they nodded for her to hand over the weapon. Manabu turned the naginata over in his hands once she had surrendered it to him. He shook it, but it stubbornly remained small. She couldn’t help the small smile that touched her lips.
He said, distracted by his study of the naginata, “I can feel the power, but it is unresponsive. Dormant I’d say. Only a god can release its true potential.”
Akari snorted, and Haku said, “She can. Kiera, show him.”
Kiera was reluctant. She didn’t like the vibes this priesty guy was giving. He was almost drooling over the naginata, and she wondered if he would return it when asked. Manabu eyed her with suspicion, and it ate at her till she offered her hand asking for the naginata back. Manabu was reluctant, but his curiosity must have won as he handed it over.
With a sigh of inevitability, Kiera silently asked the naginata to reveal itself. She had spent most of yesterday trying to figure out how it worked. If she spoke aloud, it always worked, but it had taken time to figure out if she spoke the words clearly in her head and visualised it at its full size that she could command it silently. Since she wanted to impress the snobby scholar, she went with the silent approach. The naginata was instantly at the battle ready in her hands. It even sparked a few arcs of static around the tang. That was new.
Manabu hissed, “Impossible.” He went to reach for the naginata, but it quickly snapped back to its smaller size before his fingers could even touch the staff. He threw her an accusing look which just rankled her. She hadn’t asked it to reduce in size, but it clearly was picking up her reluctance to let the man have the naginata. She didn’t reveal that she didn’t have as much control over the weapon.
Instead, she nonchalantly placed the naginata back in her pocket. The guru could dispense his wisdom without any more pawing of the naginata. He seemed to understand her thoughts as he said, “Fine. You’re right. It has bonded with her. It must have been a gift from a god.” He went silent as if asking for more of the story.
Kiera wasn’t about to give him any information and when Haku and Akari remained silent as well, she didn’t feel the need to fill the gap.
Manabu frowned and said, “There are many ways to break the bond. If the human dies, it will bond with whoever killed her.” This was
clearly the man’s preferred method to break the bond, and she assumed that many of the yokai would feel the same. Blood-thirsty man.
“Not an option,” Haku growled. “Next one.”
Manabu hesitated. Kiera narrowed her eyes, aware that his prejudice was probably a product of years of prejudice against him. It didn’t mean she liked it. He huffed. “You can supplant the bond if you are powerful enough. Since she is human, that shouldn’t be a problem. You can try all the rituals in the Tome, any of them should work.”
The capital letter on the word Tome implied he was speaking of a specific volume of a book rather than some Dungeons and Dragon relic. When the others nodded, she assumed they knew what the sage was talking about. She wondered why they hadn’t used it in the last day while they were trying different ways to break the bond. It made her wonder if they had even been trying. A glance at Haku told her that was probably true. He wasn’t as keen as her to break the bond as he thought she could stay with him and together they could fight off anyone that wanted to take the weapon.
“The weapon is a holy one. It shouldn’t have bonded in the first place.” The wizard’s tone was almost petulant.
“Why? Surely, it doesn’t make a choice. It’s inanimate. It’s not yokai,” Kiera asked, tired of being spoken around. In the last day, she had been researching what yokai were and though there could be yokai that came from inanimate objects, the naginata didn’t have any of the other aspects.
The little man sneered. “No, it has its own powers, and one of those is to know who is supposed to wield it. In its day, it was held by the greatest of our female warriors, who fought against the humans. It’s sacrilege to see it in the hands of its enemy.”
Akari speculated, “If it bonds with whoever killed the wielder, and it was used against humans, surely, there was a human in the past.”
The mystic’s eyes grew stormy. Kiera gave a smug, pleased Akari had picked up on the flaw in the man’s story. The wise man sniffed. “It has happened, but the people who took it all proved themselves unworthy, and the naginata disappeared from their possession. Always returning to one of the gods.”
Curious, Kiera asked, “What did they do to lose the naginata?” As being unworthy seemed like something she could do. Surely, it would be less painful than dying.
“They were horrible people who broke vows to yokai and killed others,” he spat out the words. Kiera was surprised by the priority of the vows to the yokai over murder. Culture shock was a familiar feeling, but this was more pronounced as she had been bombarded recently.
Shaking herself she asked, “So, as long as I’m a decent person, don’t get killed or have some super-powerful person try to take the naginata, I’m stuck with it?”
His face pinched and reluctantly admitted, “Yes.” She hadn’t made any vows she could break, so that was out, and she wasn’t about to kill someone else.
Akari caught the mage’s arm and said, “Well, then that is all we need from you.”
The Wiseman stared at the naginata with avid interest. It surprised Kiera he wasn’t drooling. He licked his lips before he said, “Don’t you want me to store the naginata in a safe place?” Implying at the same time that Kiera was far from a safe person for the naginata. There was a reason she didn’t like the man, and she narrowed her eyes as she took him in.
Haku shook his head. “It would only return to her. Just like it did with the gods. The naginata has chosen her.”
The mystic pleaded, “I’m sure I could devise a way for it to remain with me.” Akari deftly angled the man out of the house.
Kiera let out a breath and said, “Well, that was useless.”
Haku shook his head. “Maybe, but now we know where to start.”
Chapter Five
Haku and Akari argued over the methods suggested in the book in a very un-Japanese way. Anger and passion were reserved just for family. She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered that they were showing her the family face or scared that they might get into a physical conflict over the issue. Haku threw around his arms while Akari stayed with her arms crossed. Only for them to swap positions as the argument bounced between them. Akari paced, so she assumed the argument was ending. While in Japan, she had only ever seen one argument and that was when she was in a dodgy area of Osaka.
They had already tried muttering over her with smelly incense. But the naginata came to her call every time. Her knees hurt from the kneeling on cold stone, and incense still lingered in her nose. She could barely tell all the rituals apart as they had complicated names and had blended together. The Tome had offered a few rituals, but it hadn’t been very helpful. Akari had even tried a few they had found on the internet. Who would have guessed the yokai had their own places online?
Kiera had the Tome with a capital T on her lap. It wasn’t nearly as old as the sobriquet had led her to believe. Printed as a hardback book, it had a dust jacket reminiscent of her father’s old Wilbur Smith books.
With her feet up on the couch, she had her phone with a translation app hovering over the pages. Akari had kindly pointed out the page that dealt with the naginata before she had started her argument with her brother.
A black and white sketch of the naginata graced half the page. Despite Haku’s claim that the yokai differed from the Japanese people, they had one thing in common. Naginata, a woman’s weapon, didn’t get as much flash and ceremony as the weapons usually wielded by men. The Tome didn’t even have a name for the weapon. She was tempted to get her Instagram followers to name it, but then it might end up being Sticky mcpointy Stick.
In the history of the naginata, there had only been one man to hold the weapon, and it hadn’t ended as a pretty story. She didn’t know enough about Japanese history to place the event as it was all written from a yokai point of view and unfortunately, humans had written all the histories she had read. But it spoke of the wielder. A yokai of some nondescript background who had stolen the naginata from an obake and used it to slaughter entire villages. Of course, the book spoke about his glory and his courage, but the lists of towns and deaths spoke for themselves.
Whenever the naginata went to a human, they merely listed as, ‘And it returned to the gods.’ No mention of how long it stayed with the humans or if it bonded with them or if it just disappeared in the middle of the night. Whoever wrote the book either didn’t know or merely didn’t care. Since it was written by yokai, she assumed it was the latter.
Akari stomped her foot loud enough that it brought Kiera out of her thoughts. Kiera glanced up in time to see Akari throwing her hands into the air before she stormed out of the room. Haku had clearly won whatever argument they were having.
He motioned to Kiera and said, “There is one last thing we can try. It’s a longshot but if we bond, it might come to me. That way, you would be free to go on your business.”
She liked this answer and clapped the Tome shut. “Awesome! Sign me up.” Swinging her legs off the couch.
“It is a serious thing this.” He frowned though he didn’t go into details why he thought this latest ritual was more serious than the others.
“I’m sure it is but getting killed by some random bird dude is also a serious thing.” He bowed his head in deference to her argument.
“Then follow me.” He took her to the courtyard outside. The clear sky and sun warmed the stones of the low wall. She took a seat as she was still shaky on her feet from her injuries. She’d already had a lot of naps and as many meals as she could stuff into herself. It had taken her from feeling flattened to just mildly shaky. It really was a good thing she wasn’t staying in a tent while having to fight off tengu. Though Haku felt guilty about biting her, it had actually been in her favour. She had barely gotten any sleep the night before as the pain had kept her awake. If she had added the fact, she was sleeping on an inflatable bed, it was a guarantee she would have gotten zero sleep.
He sat next to her just as it started to rain. She glanced up. The sun was still shining. The rain wa
s light, so she ignored it. Hopefully, whatever Haku planned wouldn’t take long.
He took her hands. They shook a little, and she wondered what this ritual really was that it had first started an argument with his sister and made him so nervous. He gathered himself as he said in a falsely calm voice, “You need to repeat after me.” Taking a deep breath, she repeated the Japanese words. They were foreign even to her minimal conversational Japanese and probably from an ancient form of the language, careful to pronounce them as closely as possible. She had always been good with languages but there were some sounds in Japanese even she struggled to wrap her mouth around.
He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand when they had finished. Whatever nerves that had plagued him before seemed to have settled. She said, “It feels no different.” Not that she had any experience with magical spells. When she had first bound to the naginata, it was deep into her fight with the tengu. Adrenaline had obliterated any natural feelings. She shook her arms to see if there was some internal tingly bit she was supposed to feel. Haku didn’t let go of her hands and let her wriggle in his grip.
The naginata sat inside on the kitchen counter. After the visit by the Wiseman, she had put it aside so it wouldn’t jab her in the stomach while she had been dragged from one ritual to another. Having it further away had also made checking the bond that much easier. She tugged one of her hands free of his and held it out. The naginata slapped into her palm. Expanding to its full length.
She grimaced at the shaft until it had reduced to the size of a pencil. So much for the serious bond thing working. They would have to find someone more powerful than Haku though as a newcomer to the magical world, she had no idea how to measure that. It didn’t help that she didn’t know other magical beings, let alone trust them. She was happy for Haku to have the naginata, but she wouldn’t just give a sacred, powerful weapon to anyone.
He asked, “May I?” She nodded.
Zero Foxes Given Page 5
