“WHERE IS MY SISTER,” David demanded, his blade jerking as his self-control flagged in the face of one of her captors. Chul Moo cowered under the rage pouring off his old classmate.
“I don’t know the whole plan,” Chul Moo said. “They’ve been hiding things from me since Okinawa. He made promises, but Manami warned me of the lie so that I could talk to you.”
“You know Manami,” Rie asked, suspicion coloring her voice.
“Yes.” His voice smoothing as he turned to Rie. “I was the one who talked to her. I had no idea there was another way for us to live, but I was still wary. Chul Soon was always there driving me, but as his plans progressed he told me less and less.” Chul Moo turned back to David. “He said if I seduced her, he wouldn’t kill her or Rie-”
David leapt forward; his Seikaku stopping bare inches from Chul Moo’s head as Rie wrapped her arms around David’s bare chest, holding him back from the killing blow. Enraged, David ignored everything but trying to impale the ōkami before him.
“Better hurry,” Rie gasped, straining against all of David’s rage.
“They are coming here, I don’t know how many, they mean to kill you all. You need help, save who you can.” Chul Moo’s eyes closed peacefully as Rie lost her grip and David’s sword ripped straight into the creature. It stuck there until Kou reminded him to turn the blade to his wood form. Chul Moo shrank into a small wooden statue. No sign remained of the violence except David shaking in Rie’s arms.
Even as Reimi landed, Natsuki pulled one of the military grade-radios from the pocket of Takumi’s clothes.
“It will happen here,” she said into the speaker. “Bring Ryohei.”
THE ENTIRE THIRD YEAR
CLASS IS POISONED
Going into the shadows was almost peaceful this time. There was no pain. I had accepted it as my fate the instant I made the choice to betray my brother. There would be no missing piece to keep me locked in a prison. The fire would release instead of torture. If only I had been able to talk longer with Rie, or tell David that last, most important piece of information…
David recovered a little with each blink. Looking into Rie’s eyes, yellow since the strain of keeping him in check had melted her cosmetic contacts, David found his center. He stood, and with a final squeeze of her hand, let go to face the others.
“Tsubasa, watch over Hidemi. Get her back to the campsite then grab a radio and watch the road in,” David said with a clear voice of command. “Reimi meet with the Matsumotos and explain things. They should have Takumi’s armor in the cars. Natsuki, go with him. Rie and I will follow.”
“There will not be time to evacuate everyone,” Kou said. Although he had kept from intruding before, his observations were too important to keep quiet. If Hidemi was concerned over the sudden change in David’s voice and manners, she did not show it. “The cub-mates and their parents will be safest where we can keep watch on them. We need to consolidate them, make sure there is no one that might tempt a lone ōkami. Let’s move.”
Natsuki and Reimi were away in an instant, their swift legs and wings carrying them out of view among the trees. Tsubasa followed after, pulling Hidemi behind him.
“I’ll make sure you don’t come back to bite us a third time,” David said picking up the wooden statue. He hesitated a second, then turned to Rie. “Be careful.” He stepped in and kissed her once more in farewell, and then handed her the statue. Seconds after, Kou dashed off in a blur of fur.
When they got back to the clearing, it was full of third years, teachers, and a few parents. Natsuki was a bit away from the majority of the students talking with Takaeishi while Takumi dragged the cooler toward a group of trees. Kou had passed Tsubasa and Hidemi on the way, and Rie was still behind him, so, he continued past the campground. Out of sight, Kou kept every sense focused on the search for the scent of wolves. As he neared the road, a familiar roar sounded as Masao’s sedan slid to a stop on the gravel road. Masao jumped out, clad in his full armor. Ryohei glided out from the front of the car.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to stay in the car when you drive that fast,” he complained. Masao ignored him, pulling more armor from the cramped cargo area. Kou grabbed David’s armored skirt in his teeth and dragged it back into the forest. There he transformed and attached that bit of armor, so at least he was decent before running back over to the car. As he started buckling greaves to his legs, Takumi, Rie, and Natsuki showed and began sorting through their own armor. Rie came over and began lacing his chest piece. Every time her fingers brushed his skin, a shiver raced through him. He hoped Masao was too busy to catch his involuntary smile.
Natsuki moved to help Takumi don his gray and red streaked armor as well. David attached his own sleeves and gauntlets, and placed his wide helmet on his head before helping Rie struggle into her armor. Tsubasa showed up just after carrying the swords from the cooler.
“What? You said to keep an eye on her,” he said as everyone turned on him and Hidemi.
“You can kill me after if you have to,” Hidemi said, “At least that way I don’t get eaten by some crazy wolves with revenge on their minds.”
“Awww, come on,” Takumi complained as Natsuki slid a bit of armor over his head. “How much did you tell her?”
Hidemi’s eyes darted between David and Rie, a frown forming on her usually pleasant face. Natsuki jerked Takumi’s armor into place. “Be nice, she’s a friend,” she said in a biting tone. David could not complain. With adrenaline rushing through him, he had to remind himself just how dangerous the coming minutes would be for all his classmates.
“Ryohei!” David called. “I think you know what we need. Good Luck. Tsubasa, Hidemi, go with him, and drag any stragglers back by the fire pits. Take a radio and give a shout if you see anything strange.”
Ryohei gave a grand bow, complete with rolling arms before floating after the pair.
“Yukiko is staying at the Estate in case this is another feint and they want to turn Jessica into a yūrei using the Shrine,” Masao said. “Of course, you need to be prepared in case they have already done that. I don’t understand Chul Moo’s timing. Even with the time it took to get here, there is no way he should have had time to make her into a yūrei and give her time to strengthen enough to summon oni. We have to be very careful.”
Within twenty minutes of Chul Moo’s warning, they were almost ready. Masao, David, Natsuki, Rie, and Takumi were all armor clad and armed. Ryohei was using his ghostly aura to knock out the Nakano Junior High students, while Tsubasa used the latest version of the Eye to screen the surroundings for kami, ōkami, or worse.
The barest sound in the woods behind him sent David spinning away from Rie. His Seikaku appeared in an instant. Takaeishi stepped onto the road, clad in the same black armored fatigues his men had worn when storming the Estate. In his hands, he held two wickedly curving blades with a perpendicular handle a quarter of the way from one end. They were like the tonfa David had begun practicing with in the morning, except they were no wooden nightsticks. The curved blades glinted in the late morning’s light.
“So what’s the plan then,” Takaeishi asked.
“Form a perimeter around the students,” David said without hesitation. “Reimi will watch from above, and Tsubasa will plant himself in a tree with Hidemi to keep watch as well. The rest of us will spread out around and hope they are attacking here. If you see my sister, call me.”
“I’m surprised,” Takaeishi said. “Nothing you’ve shown in class so far this year hinted at the kind of intelligence needed to concoct such a dynamic strategy. Make a perimeter. Very clever.” Before David could reply, Takaeishi turned and walked down the road. Rie’s hand, light on his arm, kept him in place.
Takumi handed his sword to Natsuki, and then disappeared. Reimi emerged and jumped into Natsuki’s arms. She began explaining the situation as she walked off after Takaeishi. Masao looked between David and Rie. He stopped, as if he wanted to say something, but instead walked off throu
gh the forest to cover the western approaches.
David reached for his mask, but the contoured metal piece was gone. He turned, and Rie was there, staring into him with such intensity that she reminded him of the way Masato Matsumoto, her grandfather, had seemed to look into his soul.
“Do what you have to, then come back to me,” she said as she attached the snarling tiger image to his helmet.
‘She’s ready to run off and face the same things that turned her into a yūrei, all to save my sister and protect her classmates,’ David thought. ‘She’s stronger than I am.’
‘Chul Soon is going to tuck tail and run when he sees the three of us together. Don’t forget, Rie said she’s been practicing some very interesting origami just in case. I’m looking forward to seeing what she has in store for that furry mutt.’
‘She did grab a lot of paper from the car…’ David sighed as they embraced. He smiled, and then remembered she could not see. He helped adjust her mask, and then checked to ensure every fastening was in place.
“Don’t worry, we will get her back,” Rie said. Then she was off, running after her father.
David transformed into Kou, secure in the knowledge that if he needed it, his armor would reappear with his human form. Before running off, Kou padded over to a gadget Tsubasa had made for him. Kou bit down on a foam case, which contained one of the encrypted radios. Tsubasa had designed it to sit on Kou’s lower fangs, so when he bit into the foam, his jaw came away with a mini waterproof receiver in his mouth so that he could talk hands-free if need be. With the last of the preparations complete, David and Kou immersed themselves in their animal instincts and began the hunt.
Kou made a quick circuit to the east, checking back along the paths through the forest to the diving cliffs. Halfway to the edge, he picked up Chul Moo’s trail and began following it away from the mountains. It curved back through the forest toward the main part of Nakano Town. David frowned as they neared the southernmost buildings. The trail was easy to follow, as if Chul Moo had made it obvious on purpose, yet if he turned to look back at the way he came, the trail disappeared among the forest’s underbrush.
‘Looks like he didn’t want anyone following him to the lake.’
‘He did not expect to return. He left the trail for you to follow back, but guarded against leading the pack to us.’
To David’s relief, the trail did not lead into town, but instead skirted it back to the west. Kou followed the broken branches and lingering smells that marked the last steps of Chul Moo.
‘Bet you wish you had let him finish talking. We could have found out how many friends to expect, or where they are keeping Jessica.’
‘You weren’t exactly a restraining influence you know. Besides, he already said Chul Soon had left him out of the plans. Either he was sent to lure us, or he wanted to warn us and Chul Soon was smart enough to keep anything that important from his brother.’
‘They will hunt as a pack, but if they are a newly formed group, perhaps they will not be organized. Think back on the attack by those five ōkami we ambushed outside of Nakano. They had a scout, but the rest moved together. The others are protecting your classmates. We should swing wide, go through town, and come at them from behind and the side. Perhaps we can find a greedy wolf or two among the outer houses.’
‘Fine, but only as long as we don’t get too far from the others. We don’t want to alert them we know what’s coming if Chul Moo was telling the truth.’
“Swordsmith this is tiger,” David called over the radio. He let Kou have full control over his movements as they turned north in order to concentrate on talking with his own voice.
“Go ahead, David,” Takaeishi replied. David cut off a growl at the fact his homeroom teacher was butting in.
“We need you to make it seem like the party is still going on, at least from a distance. We don’t want to tip off whoever is attacking in case Chul Moo was telling the truth. Start some music, throw a ball around, things like that,” David said as Kou cleared a fallen tree in one lithe leap.
They found their first target as Kou curved away from town. His keen ears picked up another animal moving through a field on approach to a farmhouse. Kou pawed toward the sound, confident in his ability to remain undetected. Passing around the edge, he followed the bank up a divide between fields, stopping at the top. Below and a bit ahead, a mass of plants and trees used as a privacy hedge and windshield surrounded a farmhouse. Kou just caught a reddish brown backside squeeze through a hole between a bush and tree as he passed.
Moments later, Kou jumped, clearing the distance between the bank and an old pine where he was able to watch the clearing between the trees and the house. The wolf below him was cagey, keeping to the shadows. Its jerky movements, constant looks behind, and reluctant steps told David it was not where it was supposed to be. Despite the giveaways, Kou recognized the posture of a predator on the hunt. The ōkami was torn between his orders and his nature. What ōkami could resist such an easy meal as a lone farmer far away from prying eyes? Kou, and David through him, knew how easy it must have been for the ōkami to make the quick detour.
One hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and bone tipped by two-inch razor-sharp claws fell from above to land on the unsuspecting ōkami. Kou flexed the muscles in his paws, driving his claws deep into the ragged fur of his opponent as his long fangs sank into the wolf’s neck. The fall alone was nearly enough to subdue the unwary creature, but Kou shook his powerful head and put a quick end to his prey. Before it could begin to recover, Kou reluctantly drew back and let David take over. Emerging once again as a human, they summoned the Seikaku and turned the ōkami into a wooden statue. David hid the statue among the trees, and then Kou was off again.
‘Great, now I have a leaf stuck in my teeth. This friend-caller I have to carry in my mouth, it is easy to put in the first time, not so much the second.’
‘At least Tsubasa was able to make the radio. Without it we’d be cut off from the others.’
Kou was able to ambush two more ōkami before calls from Takaeishi and Masao sent Kou back toward the campsite. Both men had been able to subdue ōkami closer to the mountains, but without a Seikaku, could do little more than hack the still-snarling bits of wolf to keep them from reforming in a nightmarish parody of David’s own healing abilities. They found Takaeishi first.
The second he spotted David, the ex-head of the Imperial Guard disappeared into the trees, leaving him to dispose of what had once been a brown wolf with dark beady eyes. Those orbs still shone with hate as David plunged the wood form of the Seikaku into it.
‘I don’t like how easy this is,’ David thought as they headed for Masao.
‘They are like the young ones we caught in the mountains, not like Jahangir. They are undisciplined, yet dangerous. Did you notice Takaeishi was injured?’
‘Ha! Is that why he ran?’ Kou followed the curve of a rock wall protruding out of the ground as it bent toward the mountains.
Kou found Masao on the far side of the river from the campsite. His host-father fought a thin framed canine that was surprisingly fast, even for someone accustomed to the speed with which animals could move. Alone, it was no match for the elder Matsumoto, but another ōkami Masao had already dispatched was wielding a heavy length of wood, making it difficult for him to finish off the newcomer. With a smile as they decided a course of action, Kou leapt into the air, David taking control as they flew. Kou and David’s thoughts melded and they imagined tightening their stomach muscles. There was no longer fur and claws flying through the air, but a boy in striped armor holding a long and deadly sword.
David landed in perfect unison with Masao’s graceful slashes. Every strike from his Seikaku was a counterpoint to the forged steel his host-father wielded. Overcome by the intensity of the renewed attack, the ōkami snarled and tried to back away. The Seikaku, glimmering and translucent slid just under Masao’s arm to catch the ōkami in the shoulder. He followed the cut under his host-father’s blad
e, which skimmed the top of his helmet before striking the wolf full in the throat.
David twisted, pulling his blade away from the bloodied ōkami just in time to stop a slash from the other at Masao’s back. The maimed wolf spun, as its injured leg buckled. It snarled and snapped at him, but like the others, was no match for David and his Seikaku. With precise strikes he immobilized the ōkami, and created another statue. A few steps away, Masao stood atop the other, his sword pinning it to the ground through its neck. The ōkami tried to rip away the sword, so Masao drew his shorter wakasashi and hacked at the hands. David rushed over to finish it.
“Something is wrong with all of this,” David said, handing Masao the two statues. “I’d like everyone to go back to the campsite. I’m going to take another look to the east. I haven’t caught a sign of Chul Soon and while there have been several single ōkami through this area, there is no pack. Kou’s radio fell somewhere among the trees when I transformed. Would you please let the others know?”
“Very well. How many have you found?”
“These make at least five that we’ve seen.”
“Good. Your form is looking excellent. Go. Today we take back your sister.”
David smiled, heat burning his cheeks as pride suffused through him. Pride was an emotion Kou was quite capable of. He could feel their thoughts align as the emotions brought them closer together. David transformed and with a growl and quick flick of their tail, they were off.
AMONG THE TREES
OF NAKANO VALLEY
With all my plans coming to fruition, the moment of my revenge soon at hand, it was annoying to have that whining failure cause me so much concern. I had found someone worthy to be at my side. One to witness and bring about the long awaited rise of the Akuma Clan…
Revenge of the Akuma Clan Page 27
