by Amanda Sun
“Learn?”
“That you weren’t nothing to him,” Tomo said, closing his eyes.
“That’s not... You don’t know that.” But there had always been a tenderness in Jun, a kindness, that despite all the horrible things he’d said and done, they couldn’t erase from him. There was still something in him warm and familiar, that even until now I couldn’t bring myself to call him something as distant and unsurmountable as Takahashi.
Takahashi Jun. Literally, his name meant a bridge that was too tall, that was strong and impassable and undefeatable. And his first name meant benefit, a drop of sorely needed rain on the desert. The drop that would quench the thirst of the world. Or the tear that would stain its cheek.
I shuddered. A lofty name for a lofty dream, one that had borne him too high. It was time to fall.
We waited in silence, the mountain breeze whispering through the trees around the clearing. Ishikawa had his phone out, scrolling through the internet for more info on the Kusanagi and Orochi, but there wasn’t much to be found.
“Susanou fought Orochi to rescue this guy’s daughter,” Ishikawa said. “The monster had already eaten the first seven girls, and the parents begged him to save the last. He turned her into a comb to ornament his hair.”
“Dreamy,” I said. “Every girl wishes she’d be turned into a comb.”
“Why would they want that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Never mind.”
Ishikawa clicked his phone off and slid it into his pocket. “You’re weird, Greene.”
That’s when Tomo cried out and collapsed into the grass. We both shot over to him, grabbing his arms.
There was a rustle in the forest near us, and we looked up.
“Not now,” I whispered. I could hear the groans of voices as the ink in Tomo awakened.
The voice in me stirred, too. It said quietly, patiently, Jikan de gozaimasu.
It is time.
* * *
Tomo heaved in each breath like he was drowning. He coughed and ink spattered in black drops on the ground.
A figure stepped forward from the forest, dressed in an elaborate kimono of plum and lavender, tied with a golden obi. She’d done her hair up in a bun, with a string of tiny purple flowers dangling back and forth as she walked.
It was Ikeda, I realized after a moment. I’d only ever seen her in her school uniform or her motorcycle jacket. She wore a fluffy white stole around her shoulders to keep out the cold of the coming winter, the kind girls wore in January for Coming of Age Day. She looked so elegant.
She stumbled when she saw Tomo on his hands and knees, the two of us desperate to help him. “What happened?”
“It’s the ink,” I said. Tendrils of black trailed down his arms and dripped onto the ground below. “He’s losing control of himself.”
Jun stepped out from behind her, clad in a black men’s kimono that I’d seen him wear once before, the day he’d learned the truth about his link to Susanou. He looked regal and princely, his blond highlights and silver earring the only trace of his modern identity. When he lifted his arm to tuck his highlights behind his ear, the kimono sleeve slid back and revealed his familiar black bracelet with silver spikes.
He and Ikeda looked like they were from a different era, a different world. They looked like gods. Like kami.
“Katie,” Jun said gently, his voice lacking any of the wrath it had had that day in the train station. “Are you all right?”
Tomo clutched at his heart, letting out another cry.
“I see,” Jun said. “Deep breaths, Yuu. Calm down.”
“Stay out of it,” Ishikawa snapped.
I shook my head. “Help us, Jun,” I said. I ignored the glare that Ishikawa shot at me. Who cared who helped Tomo, as long as someone did?
Jun knelt at his side. “Yuu, can you hear me? Don’t get lost now. Find your way back.” He turned his icy eyes to me. “What set him off?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ve been waiting here for you for a while. Ishikawa was reading about the kami on his phone, and suddenly Tomo just fell over.”
“Reading what about the kami?”
“Susanou and his comb chick,” Ishikawa offered.
Jun frowned as he thought. “Wait...the story of Orochi?” I nodded. “Orochi was born from Tsukiyomi’s hatred for Susanou. It must have stirred the memory in his blood.”
Ishikawa let out a single laugh as he folded his arms. “That or he felt you approaching. I don’t get it, Takahashi, you go around threatening Yuuto, yet you try to help him whenever Katie’s around. Which is it?”
“Like I said from the beginning,” Jun answered, his voice calm. “Yuu is something that never should have existed, and a danger to all of us. He’s come to the end, now. If he doesn’t get this under control, I don’t think any of us will be walking off this field.”
“Tomo,” I said, pressing my hand on his back. “Please.” My palm felt hot, like I was touching the steaming surface of a bath. I pulled away and discovered the ink pooling on his back, spreading out into feathered wings as he cried out.
“Is this why you called Jun here?” Ikeda shouted. “Do you know the danger you’ve put us all in?”
“He wasn’t like this a minute ago,” I wailed. I could feel a heat welling up in my chest, one that made the trees sway and the field ripple in front of me.
“Don’t you start, too,” Ishikawa said, and I felt the grip of his fingers on my arms. I tried to shake the feeling, to bleed out the power that was surging in me.
“Wait, that’s it,” I said. “Give him his notebook. The power is building up. His notebook, Satoshi!”
Ishikawa scrambled to Tomo’s bag and produced the black notebook and pen. I grabbed it from him and flipped to a clean page, where I drew a quick butterfly. Its wings barely fluttered on the page, but my mind cleared, and the world became still again. I put the book in front of Tomo, forcing the pen into his hand. I didn’t know what to make him draw, so I just helped him sketch out another simple butterfly on the page. The pen slipped and the ink from Tomo’s arms dripped everywhere. A cloud of a hundred butterflies sprang up from the spilled ink, flapping their paper wings with the haunting sound of ripping pages. Jun ducked as they swarmed into the sky, one of the wings slicing a long cut into his skin, just under his left eye.
He gasped inward, clutching at the cut as blood welled up to the surface of the wound.
Tomo panted, his eyes and pulse returning to normal, but his face as pale as the paper butterflies.
Ikeda dabbed at Jun’s cut with a lilac handkerchief she fished out of her bag.
“I’m... I’m fine,” Tomo said, but I could see the tinge of red on his cheeks, the mortification at meeting Jun on the ground and out of control. He didn’t have much left to bargain with now. Jun could see how desperate he was.
“What’s with the getup, anyway?” Ishikawa said, motioning at the kimonos Ikeda and Jun wore. “Funeral or something?”
“School concert,” Jun said. I tried to picture him playing his cello with Ikeda accompanying on the piano. And all the while, he was the leader of the Kami gang, building an army, taking over the world—destroying the Yakuza because he couldn’t face his guilt over killing his own father. His world was so messed up, and yet I still felt sorry for him.
Tomo stood slowly, his hair slicked down with sweat. “Takahashi,” he said. “You’re here.”
Jun’s eyes hardened as he looked at him. “I am. And by the state you’re in, I see you’ve found the Imperial Treasures. I’m sorry I couldn’t assist you at Ise Jingu. I was busy with other things.”
“Things like brainwashing?” Ishikawa snapped.
Jun smiled, his eyes dark. “Oh, believe me, they come to me willingly. All the Kami who’ve been struggling. All the Kami
who’ve been put on meds for hallucinating about their drawings, who’ve been outcast for their godly ancestry. You’d be amazed how many were crying out for a leader.” He reached a hand out, motioning to Tomo. “And now Yuu is finally here at my feet.”
“Did you know?” I asked. “The story of the treasures?”
Jun nodded. “The jewel bears the marks of love turned to hatred. The mirror shows the truth of the depth of despair. And the sword cleaves the past from the future.”
My thoughts raced. That wasn’t what Amaterasu had said to me. The jewel bears the marks. The mirror shows the truth. The sword saves all. Why had Jun been told something different? But there was a seed of truth in everything she’d told me.
“If you know all this,” Tomo said, “then you’ll know that the sword is lost, and has been for a long time.”
Jun raised an eyebrow. “Lost? No, I didn’t know.”
“Then how did you know the meanings of the treasures?” I asked.
“It was passed down in my family, like all the Kami training I had to endure. It was echoed in my nightmares, as it has been yours.”
“Takahashi.” Tomo looked at him with eyes of stone, his chin jutting out as he readied himself to ask.
My heartbeat drummed in my ears. Please let him help us. Please.
“Yuu?”
“Long ago, you wanted me to join you. But now I know you want to stop me.”
Jun smiled, the coldness of it unnerving. “I saw potential in you, if only you could learn to temper your power. But the truth is, Yuu, that as a descendent of Tsukiyomi, as heir to the wrath that nearly destroyed the world, you are nothing but an abomination that threatens our existence. Your power cannot be tempered or controlled. It is a fire raging out of control.”
Tomo’s voice was steady, determined. “Then you know as well as I do that only the Kusanagi can stop me.”
Jun nodded slowly. “Three choices lie before you. You can let the darkness surging in you take control, and destroy those you love.” He glanced at me, but I looked away. “You can die, and your power and threat die with you, while the world is spared. Or you can use the Kusanagi to render you frail and powerless, to silence the ink in your veins for a time.”
“For a time?” Ishikawa said. “It isn’t forever?”
Jun shook his head. “There is only one way to silence a Kami forever,” he said. I shivered. “And so you’ve found your way out, Yuu. The Kusanagi. Except it is lost to time.”
Tomo tucked his bangs behind his ear and tilted his head back. “There’s another way to obtain it.”
“Drawing it would kill you,” Jun said. “You’re lucky you didn’t get shot by the gun you drew for Hanchi, or the dragon that rose over Toro Iseki. I’m surprised you haven’t died from your nightmares by now, to be honest.” He reached up to rub the silver earring in his ear. “I have to admit, you do have a strong will.”
“Takahashi.” Tomo took a deep breath, his hands curled into fists. He bowed forward slightly. “Draw Orochi for me.”
Ikeda’s eyes widened, and she looked to Jun for his reaction. I held my breath, pleading, praying, that he would say yes.
Jun laughed, the sound so dissonant against the dying sunlight, so harsh against this strange and barren landscape. “You don’t dare ask me to draw the Kusanagi, which you fear I’d wield against you, but ask me to draw a demon beast? What does it matter if I have the sword? You plan to use it on yourself, anyway. Who cares who wields the blade? Or do you think I won’t stop with you?”
Tomo’s eyes flashed. “Would you?”
Jun paused. “Probably not. You aren’t the only descendant who suffers bastard demon blood. None would challenge me with the Kusanagi at my side.”
Tomo unzipped his jacket and threw it to the ground, baring his arms to Jun. “Without the sword, there’s no way you can stop me. And you know there’s no time left.” Ink dripped like blood from the scars down his arms. “This is my demand, then. Draw the Kusanagi and yield to me. Or I’ll destroy everything, right now.”
Jun stared. “You wouldn’t do that. Not with Katie here.”
“He wouldn’t have a choice, moron,” Ishikawa said.
“Let’s end this,” Tomo said. “Once and for all.”
Jun’s voice was quiet. “I can’t.”
I let out my breath. “Jun, please.”
Ikeda winced at the familiarity of my tone, but it didn’t faze Jun. “Katie, I’m sorry. I can’t do what he asks.”
“What the hell?” Ishikawa burst out, but Jun raised a hand to quiet him.
“I can’t draw it,” he said again, “because I’m not a descendant of Tsukiyomi.”
I hesitated. “I don’t follow.”
“The Kusanagi was found in the tail of Orochi,” Jun said. “Orochi was birthed by Tsukiyomi’s hatred for the world. The power in that sword, the power to destroy even the ink itself, is from Tsukiyomi. I don’t share his blood. If I draw the Kusanagi, it will be an empty shell of a forgotten blade. A useless copy.”
Tomo took a deep breath. “Then help me fight Orochi. I can draw him, but it was Susanou who defeated him. If I draw something that dangerous, I... I won’t...”
Jun smiled. “Don’t let your pride get in the way,” he said. “You won’t be able to control such a drawing. I know that. You are a more powerful kendouka than me, Yuu. Did you know that? But I always win our sparring matches. Do you know why?” He lifted his hand and the ink lifted into the sky in sparks of gold, spiraling in ribbons through the air. “Because I have control. Because I’ve spent my life training my ability, embracing my power. I do not fear my lineage, not any longer. I do not fear death or your retribution. I am a prince, Yuu, a god. I am superior to you in every way.”
“You’re no different,” I said. “You’re descended only from Susanou. He was thrown from the Heavenly Bridge down to Earth. He was rejected.” I waited for my words to strike Jun, but his expression remained the same. “Tomo has ancestry in the sun and the moon kami. If you’re a prince, then he’s rightfully emperor over you.”
Ikeda’s eyes flashed. “And what’s he doing to serve his empire? The streets are filled with the hungry and the crying. What’s Yuu doing but hiding in his room, trying to deny the ink in his veins? I’m a Kami, too. I know the nightmares, the fears that chain your heart when you try to live your life. But I’m not running. I’ve never run away.”
“Ikeda,” Jun said. “Yuu had to run away. He was doomed from the beginning. A demon can’t do good for the world. He can only shrivel up and die.”
My throat was parched; I could feel my pulse drumming through me. “Jun, please. Help us fight Orochi.”
“You know you’re asking us to unleash hell?”
“We don’t have a choice.”
Jun pursed his lips as he thought. “When you have the Kusanagi,” he said after a moment, “you’ll use it against me, too. You’ll try to cut me down.”
None of us answered. It was true.
“I will help you, Yuu.” What? I couldn’t have heard him right. “But I have conditions.”
Tomo’s said nothing, the ink streaming down his arms.
“The Kusanagi belonged to Susanou. I will keep the sword, when you are done bleeding the ink out of yourself. You will not challenge me with it, or attempt to stop me any longer.”
My heart froze. If we didn’t stop Jun, the world would be ripped in half. Already the gangs were fighting—soon it would spread to civil war, an entirely new world where life and death were at Jun’s whim. Sure, he said he worried about justice and protecting the weak and all that, but I could already see how the power of leading the Kami had overtaken him. He’d killed Yakuza—no, other people. Humans. He’d killed to get what he wanted. How could the world trust someone like that?
Jun wanted to he
lp us because then his only rival, his only equal, would be gone, and nothing would stand in his way. But if we didn’t get the Kusanagi, Tomo’s life would be doomed, and maybe worse. What would Tsukiyomi do when he fully awoke? Would he destroy the world? He and Jun would fight until the end, and what would be left? A cold, shredded world.
Tomo let out a short laugh, and the sound of it startled me. “Are you afraid of me, even without the ink? How could I stop you after I can’t make my drawings come to life?”
Jun looked irritated, a faint flush of pink on his cheeks. “I’m not scared of you. You’re annoying. Even now I should be rising to power, but instead I’m in a field in the mountains drawing snakes and little sticks. It’s like swatting a fly, Yuu. Stop buzzing in my face.”
Tomo’s eyes flamed with the bait.
“And with the Kusanagi, any rival Kami could be easily silenced. So yes, I will fight Orochi with you, but when it’s over, the sword is mine, and you leave me alone.”
Tomo’s voice was deep, determined. “Wakatta.”
Ishikawa and I stared at each other, just as I saw Ikeda look at Tomo with surprise. He agreed to the terms?
Jun laughed. “I know you’re bluffing, but I’ll help you, anyway. I’ll show you that you don’t have the strength to oppose me.” He reached down for Tomo’s fallen notebook and pen, and tossed them to him. Tomo hunched over as he caught them, and it was then I realized his hands were still shaking.
The butterflies hadn’t been enough to settle him. He was in no state to draw.
“Oh, and one more condition,” Jun said.
The panic seized in my throat. What would it be?
“Atama wo sagete.”
Tomo narrowed his eyes.
“Oh, please,” Ishikawa mumbled. “That’s petty and lame.”
“No,” Jun said. “It’s fitting. Show me respect for the abomination you are, the bastard of Tsukiyomi. Lower your head.”
He wanted to break Tomo’s pride, to humiliate him. My hands tightened into fists. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” I shouted. “What do you want? Tomo’s life has been just as hard as yours. Why do you have to punish everybody for your own mistakes?”
