A Sword's Poem

by Leah Cutter

  For the first time, the man stepped back.

  Now Masato laughed. He could see it. The man fought on straight lines, always directly forward.

  Fuko was more wily. The sword needed to be, in order to defeat their common enemy.

  Step by step, Masato forced the man back.

  He was good. Probably the best swordsman Masato had ever seen.

  But Fuko was better. The man certainly caught on, and was able to defend after a bit.

  A lesser swordsman would have been killed. Masato certainly would have been killed if he’d wielded any other sword.

  They finally reached the center of the opening, both panting from their exertion. Neither of them could gain headway. They could neither kill each other or walk away.

  After a flurry of fast strikes that couldn’t get through the man’s defenses, Masato pulled back. He didn’t want to declare it a draw. But he didn’t see how to defeat the man.

  “Will you yield to your rightful lord?” Masato demanded as he stepped back.

  “Never,” the man said. He kept his sword down at his side as he stepped forward. “I didn’t allow you to wield me when I was a sword. Now, as a man, I won’t serve you either.”

  Masato took a step back, blinking with surprise. “Seiji?” he asked, incredulous.

  No wonder Fuko had twitched so hard in the man’s presence! He’d once been a fox fairy, and the soul of the sword Seiji.

  The man nodded. “I am Norihiko, the sword made flesh. Now go.”

  “I will not be commanded by one such as you,” Masato sneered. “I go, but of my own will. Just know that we will return, with an army ten times any that you could muster.”

  Masato turned and walked to his horse, mounting in one swift motion, then racing away.

  Damn him. Damn that stupid sword. Damn Junichi for using a fox fairy soul.

  Masato was going to get back at all of them. And burn the estate to the ground. It would be an appropriate start for his temple, given the vision of the Buddha on fire.

  Ξ

  Masato sat at his writing desk composing his formal declaration of war. He felt ridiculous. He’d already done this once, when he’d declared war against Iwao.

  This time, though, Masato would leave nothing to chance. He spelled out the terms more completely, including demanding the lives of all the generals, the army, as well as the priests and priestesses of the Mori temple. Everyone.

  He didn’t care if he was going to leave the mountain without people. The mountain would survive. He’d bring in his own people, his own monks and farmers.

  In his mind, he could already see the estate burning, the elegant wooden buildings collapsing with flames shooting out of the steep rooftops. The women there would be turned over to his generals, to use or discard as they pleased.

  Then, once the estate was settled, Masato would go hunting. He’d find every single fox fairy in the entire land of Nifon and hand out the death such creatures so richly deserved.

  Fuko shivered by his side. The sword slumbered after working so hard this morning, and dreamed of blood.

  Masato then sent a second letter to Junichi. He kept the tone moderately firm, but accusatory, informing him of Seiji’s transformation to a human, admitting how difficult it had been to kill him, and demanding his former master’s assistance in creating a great army.

  The men would complain about fighting beside the creatures that Junichi raised. They would fear, and rightly so, about becoming such creatures themselves if they fell in battle.

  Masato planned on pointing out that that fear should just motivate them to do better.

  After he sent off both letters, Masato rested. It had been trying, these last few days.

  But he would do more training, later. He had to be prepared. He had to win.

  The estate had to burn.

  Five

  How Strong

  Hikaru

  How strong I felt, moving through the woods! The night seemed to enfold me in her bosom, making it easy to slide between the shadows. Even the winds aided me, carrying interesting scents to entertain me on my quest: The cowering mice that curled together for comfort as I passed, the foolish rabbit who believed that standing so still would make me miss her, and the owls above that screeched their displeasure as I scattered their prey.

  I wasn’t certain how far away my sisters hid from me. Sometimes the trail seemed so close, as if I merely had to peer out into the darkness to see them. Other times, it felt like the trail was days old, and they had passed in a hurry.

  It finally occurred to me that Etsu used her magic to hide their trail. Not from me, of course—they didn’t realize that it was I who was trailing after them! But perhaps Junichi was on the hunt for another fox fairy soul to power his evil magic. Or maybe some other power had come into the woods seeking them.

  No matter. Despite how corrupted my powers were—how much I feared, loathed, and relished using them—I still knew that I would have to use them in order to find my family.

  I decided to do a proper calling of my kin. Like making a nest, it was one of the simplest, most basic spells I was taught as a child, so that family could always help in time of great need.

  I didn’t know how my powers would corrupt the spell, what else I would call. I had to risk it, though.

  I needed my sisters.

  I found a rocky outcropping far up the mountain. The trail to it was steep, narrow, and difficult. Few humans had ever been to this place. The moon smiled down on me from my high ledge. Just beyond the edge, trees tumbled down into a valley that was well tended, with fields and half a dozen huts gathered together.

  I tried not to think as I raised my fox head to the moon and started singing. I knew the song was different—in addition to the yips were great howls, and growls erupted too.

  However, the magic was strong, and I cast my net far and wide, seeking for my kin.

  I don’t know how long I sat and serenaded the clear sky and the valley. But the moon had long set by the time I heard something creeping through the bushes behind me.

  I transformed back to my humanlike form immediately. I was ashamed of my new fox form, how monstrous I’d become.

  A shadow slunk out of the trees. For a moment, I wondered what I’d called. Then it stepped further onto the rocks, and I saw a large fox before me.

  “Etsu!” I cried, thankful that she’d finally come.

  The fox looked at me with her head to one side, puzzled. Finally, she shook herself, and my sister stood before me. She looked tired, even in the sparse light. Her robe was plain, rust–colored, and her hair was tied with a simple string in the back.

  But she didn’t take me into her arms. Didn’t immediately cry out my name. Instead, she asked, “Are you Hikaru?”

  “I am,” I told her. At her continued hesitance, I added, “Etsu. It’s me.”

  Slowly, my sister nodded. She gave a single yip. A second figure came out from the woods, the fox form melting away as Cho took form.

  Cho didn’t hesitate. She came straight to me, holding me tightly. “You had us so scared,” she whispered.

  Scared? Was I that much of a monster?

  I looked toward Etsu, who nodded. “You aren’t yourself,” she said flatly. “I barely recognized your call. Your scent is completely different. Only traces of the old you remain.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said automatically. Then my anger flared up. Why should I be sorry for what had happened? I hadn’t been the one who had corrupted my magic like this.

  Except—I had let it happen.

  Cho stepped away from me, backing up slowly while I struggled to contain myself. I was hurt, angry, confused.

  And heartbroken.

  “I need to purify myself,” I told Etsu. “Purify my powers. Please, sister, can you help me?”

  Etsu gave a great shudder and looked away. “I foresaw this day, you know,” she said quietly. “Knew that it was coming. Please, do not ask me this of me.”

  “Why
not?” I asked. Fright had now taken root, deep in my belly, and was sinking its spikes throughout my body. Pain laced through me, as if every word Etsu spoke was a magical arrow, scoring my flesh.

  Finally, Etsu turned to face me. “From like, comes like.”

  When she didn’t say anything more, I asked her, “What does that mean?”

  “Your powers are corrupted by death,” Etsu explained. “In order to be free of it, you must die a little. Give up that which is most important to you.”

  I blinked, surprised. “Norihiko?” I asked. Were all the sacrifices I’d made for nothing? Was I going to have to give him up as well?

  Etsu shook her head. “I wish it were that simple. But he’s not who you’re closest to, not at this time.”

  ‘Then who?” I asked, already dreading her answer.

  “Us. Your family. You have to give us up.”

  I shuddered, remembering Etsu’s exact phrasing from what seemed like forever ago.

  We’ll stay with you as long as we can.

  It seemed the sundering had finally come.

  Ξ

  I railed at Etsu for the rest of the night as well as all the following day. Despite the beauty of our surroundings, the bright sunlight painting the valley in different colors and shades as it moved across the sky, the piercing blue sky above us, the wise pines and oaks surrounding us, all I saw was gray.

  It wasn’t fair. I’d already sacrificed so much. Lost my mate. Lost my innocence. Now I had to lose my family too?

  “Even mother?” I complained. True, while she had constantly overreacted to everything, and not always been a part of my life, I couldn’t lose her.

  “All of us,” Etsu said, her voice colder than storm wind. “You will believe yourself orphaned at a young age, raised in the wild.”

  “Mother certainly accused me of that often enough,” I complained, bitterly. “But why?” At that point, I wished I could change everything. Norihiko had changed my life, cursed it from the moment I first saw him.

  But I never would have known love, without him. As much as I wanted to deny it, I couldn’t forgo him.

  “You can get another love,” Etsu said, her voice softening for the first time. “You can even build a new family, choose sisters of the heart. But your birth family is irreplaceable. And you must give them up, give up that essential, core part of you, to clean yourself.”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” I wailed. I didn’t care if my voice echoed down the valley, making the farmers there look up and tug on their protection charms. “I need you. Is there no hope?”

  Etsu hesitated.

  I couldn’t help but pounce. “There’s hope? I could regain you?”

  Etsu sighed. “I don’t want to give you even this slim hope,” she said slowly. “You’ll never recognize us as family. Whenever you see us, we’ll remain dumb animals, to you.”

  “But?” I asked after she fell silent. There was hope!

  “There is a slight, slim future where we might be reintroduced,” Etsu finally admitted.

  Before I could start pestering her for more details, she added, “However. You will no longer be the person you are now. You may have lost more, much more, before you see us again. In this future, though you may finally recognize us, you may not want us to see you.”

  I shuddered at her dire words. There was more for me to lose? More pain to twist me, meld my shape, until I could no longer recognize the being in the mirror?

  “Must it come to that?” I whispered, my soul shrinking at the thought of what might lie ahead.

  Etsu shrugged. “It may not. You may die first. Or we will. Or the future will take another twist or turn, and our paths will never cross again.”

  I didn’t want tomorrow to come, the future where I no longer knew my family, my sisters.

  However, I also knew I couldn’t remain as I was. My corruption was growing. Despite the beauty of the day, I found myself looking forward to the night.

  Cho had spent part of the afternoon raising wildflowers from the dirt, making them spring up, following her hand as if it were the sun. I couldn’t make a single thing grow. If I tried, I ended up killing it, driving a plane of ash across the beautiful clearing.

  I knew I had no choice, and slim hope.

  “Let us part, then, my dearest sisters,” I told them sadly.

  We cried together, then, with both of them folding me into their arms for the first time. I would have held onto them forever, if I could have. But the night was coming, and already I could feel my face turning toward it.

  I turned away first, as I knew I would.

  “I will always remember you,” Cho declared. She took one of her beautiful, blue–and–green enameled hairpins and placed it in my hair.

  “And I,” Etsu said. She gave me a crooked smile. “As the most stubborn, obtuse, wild sister one could ever have.”

  “Thank you,” I told them. It meant a lot to me, that though I was cutting them away from my life that they wouldn’t cut me off from theirs.

  “And we will continue to help, whenever we can,” Etsu promised.

  It was more than I could have asked for. I almost backed out, asked for them to stay with me, for one more day, to never let go of their hands.

  But I had my own future to face. With or without them.

  Etsu nodded when she saw the determination in my face. “Then let us begin.”

  Ξ

  Etsu made me sit close to the edge of the outcropping, so I could look down into the valley below. The last of the sun’s rays still stirred the heavens, painted the clouds in orange and purple. It surprised me that there wasn’t that much I was supposed to do for the spell. That at least half of it came from Etsu and Cho.

  Maybe the sundering had always had to be both ways.

  Cho and Etsu held hands and sang softly behind me. I could barely catch the words. But it seemed like some sort of lullaby. It made my head feel as though it was wrapped in cotton, and my body encased in warm blankets.

  While they sang, I plaited together the long stems of the wildflowers Cho had grown. With each one, I attached a little thread of magic, unraveling it until I could find the corrupt core, then wrap that piece around the braided flowers.

  Once I had finished tugging out a corrupted piece of magic, tying it up in a flower braid, I tossed it over the side of the cliff, letting it fall into the canyon below. Merely rocks grew directly below my seat, a wild place where not many animals and no man would go.

  Etsu had assured me that the magic wouldn’t stay, that as the flowers decomposed and went back into the earth, the magic would be released. It wouldn’t corrupt this canyon, or the valley below.

  I had to believe her, though I suspected she was probably lying, as well. The rocks here would always be haunted, if not with my corrupted magic, then with the tears we’d all shed as we grew apart.

  The piles of flowers beside me diminished as I kept braiding away the darker parts of me. While I went along, I realized how I could unravel more than just the dark bits. I could weaken myself, give away my powers.

  Never again, I vowed, being more careful then.

  I had given up my powers for Norihiko. I would never weaken myself like that again, not consciously. No matter what the price.

  I’d finally learned that I needed to stay whole in order to be me.

  Ξ

  As the sun rose again, making the clouds pink, I cast the last of the braided flowers off the ledge and down onto the rocks below.

  I took a deep breath, afraid to reach for my powers. Did it work? Had that old woman been right? Had I finally been able to cure myself?

  Tentatively, I reached out, encouraging my blood to warm my hand, drive away the night chill.

  It worked. Instead of a rush of heat, or worse, a deadly, nighttime chill overtaking me, my blood rose as it always had, fresh and heady, the day full of possibilities again.

  The sun looked so bright above me. When I thought of the night, it was no longer w
ith longing. I was finally a daylight creature again.

  I sagged where I was sitting, sighing greatly. I was myself again.

  I pushed myself up to standing, swaying a little. I was exhausted from staying up all night, from unraveling every bit of darkness from my soul, from all that I had been through. It had only been months, but it felt like years since Norihiko and I had left his home to start our journeys.

  I paused, looking over the outcropping of rock. I could see a few braided stems scattered there. Most had fallen further away, striking the trees below or falling to the floor of the woods. I prayed that they would decompose quickly, that no one would be haunted or cursed with that darkness that I’d carried inside of me.

  A noise behind me made me start. When I turned around, I saw two foxes sitting there.

  Had they been drawn by my song? Curious about my magic?

  They almost seemed familiar, though I’d never seen them before. The kitsune rarely mingled with mere beasts. Even though I’d been orphaned as a child and raised myself, I knew that.

  Still, they seemed friendly enough. “And a good day to you,” I told them, bowing low. Then I giggled. Why was I talking with them? It wasn’t as if they could understand me.

  The foxes didn’t bow in return, but they did nod their heads, as if to say goodbye. Then they turned and left, disappearing into the woods as only those born to it can.

  Despite my exhaustion, I knew I couldn’t rest. I needed to return to the estate. Kayoku needed healing. I could do that now. I felt stronger than I’d been before, though I knew I had to be careful.

  I’d released all the darkness that had tainted my magic. But if I pulled too hard, or pushed myself too much, I was afraid I’d bring some of it back in. I would need to be careful, at least for a while, until I learned the edges of all that I was again.

  I slipped into fox form myself. It would be the easiest way to travel across fields and roads.

  No matter how well I felt, I had no hope that after I cured Kayoku that Norihiko would ask for me to stay. He hated me, hated everything I’d done. It didn’t matter that I’d done it all for him, for there to be an us again.

  I flowed through the forest and down the mountain. After I did my duty, I would leave. Maybe go to a coast, find myself a hut on the beach, teach myself to fish and swim.