The Night Itself

by Zoe Marriott

  “Oh. Right.” I tried to imagine “observing” anything in the middle of the screaming terror of facing that thing, let alone acting on it, and failed.

  “Not something that you were taught in your kendo lessons,” he said after a moment. His voice was gentle.

  “Nope.” I abandoned the mess on the coffee table and picked the katana up instead. Then I tried to make my voice sound light and careless. “They pretty much expected your opponents to have just the four limbs. And you don’t aim for the heart anyway – that’s not a point-scoring thrust.”

  He nodded. “It is a shame they did not teach you better.”

  My hackles went up. “I was one of the best in my class, actually.”

  “I know. Your form was always excellent, and you were fast and graceful. But your kendo is a sport. It teaches you how to score points. Not how to kill.”

  “I … I’m not sure anyone can teach me that. I’m not sure I’ve got it in me.”

  Is that really true? Or do I just wish that it was?

  “Everyone has it in them. You must only be frightened enough, desperate enough, angry enough. The trigger is different for each person, but it is there, nonetheless. It is the dark side of our humanity, I think.”

  In my mind, I saw Shinobu attacking the Nekomata. The lightning-fast, ruthless movements, the way his body turned into a blur when he struck. How the Nekomata had cringed from him when he held the katana. It had feared him.

  Shinobu was the one who had taken the monster down today. In the kitchen he’d practically laid it out for me, and I’d still managed to muff it up. Looking back, it seemed impossible that I hadn’t lost the sword and my life. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have.

  There was a part of me worried that if I got that good, I’d end up hurting people. It had felt safer to get really good at blocking my killer instinct, my natural aggression. But the instinct was still there. It was what had saved Shinobu, and probably me and Jack, from the Harbinger in the hospital today.

  Didn’t that show something? If I kept holding myself back, was it possible I could get myself – or worse, someone else – killed?

  Jack and Rachel needed me. And I needed help.

  I gulped. “Shinobu, do you think you could teach me to fight like that? Because right now I feel … completely unprepared. Actually, completely unprepared is an understatement.”

  “It would be my honour.” To my surprise, he stood up, pushed the coffee table into the gap between the two sofas and then stepped away, gesturing for me to rise.

  “Right now? I don’t want to wake Jack.”

  “Then be quiet,” he said simply, his voice a low murmur.

  He had me take up the beginning kendo stance and grip the hilt of the sheathed blade. My injured arm ached a little, but I pushed the pain down as Shinobu walked round me, examining me with focused, intense eyes. With a few words, he improved my grip, altered the placement of my legs and corrected my posture.

  “Your teachers cared about making your form pretty. I care about you not dying. In a real fight the only thing that matters is drawing blood without gifting any to your opponent in return. The only point you wish to earn is to hurt or damage him enough that he will draw back and give you room to strike again, until he either retreats for good or falls down dead at your feet. That is your focus. Your own survival. Nothing else matters.”

  I nodded slowly. “OK.”

  “Try to relax your muscles,” he said, standing behind me. Both hands hovered in the air above my shoulders. The warm, callused skin of his thumbs brushed the back of my neck as he shifted. I nearly bit my tongue.

  “The instinct to tense is natural,” he went on. “But it works against you, telegraphing your strikes to an experienced opponent. In armour this risk is not so great, but fighting as you are now, it is a deadly weakness. Stay relaxed. Stay loose and flexible. Allow yourself to dodge and move quickly, to change course if you must, without giving your enemy the advantage of tracking your movements.”

  I nodded again, taking deep, calming breaths and hoping that he couldn’t hear my heart hammering away against my sternum.

  Shinobu instructed me to go through one of the basic kata, a set of minutely choreographed movements that drilled the elements of sword work into muscle memory. At first I tried to move quickly, carelessly, because I’d completed the kata so many times before, because my bad arm was itching and it made me impatient. He stopped me and made me begin again, slowly, so that he could correct me as I moved.

  His body flowed through the space of the living room alongside mine. Unconsciously, I fell into rhythm with him, my limbs echoing the economic, unhurried grace of his.

  “The sword is a part of you,” he murmured. “Remember that. It is part of your own body, the razor-edged extension of your own flesh and bone. It is the shining point of your will moving through the world, making your intentions reality. A true warrior reveals his own soul with every flash of his sword. Remember?”

  I kind of thought I did. This didn’t feel like anything anyone, even my grandfather, had ever taught me but – it felt right. Natural. Like some part of me did remember. Like I was reconnecting with something that I had always instinctively known, deep inside.

  The pain in my arm faded. The awareness of Jack sleeping on the sofa faded. Everything faded except the sword and Shinobu. We flowed smoothly from one kata to the next, unspeaking. It was like a dance. A dance that we knew as well as breathing. One we had been born to dance. Together.

  Finally, as if we had agreed it beforehand, we both came to a halt. I found myself standing in the shelter of Shinobu’s larger body, the shape of him pressed lightly into my back, his hands lying over mine on the hilt as gently as a silk scarf wrapped around my skin.

  I turned my face towards him, my head coming to rest on his chest. I could feel his heart pounding under the skin there. His eyes were already waiting for mine. The grey clouds in the darkness glowed with something like exultation. His gaze slowly drifted down to my lips.

  He’s going to try to kiss me again.

  And this time I’m not going to stop him.

  I felt my face flush, my heart rate flipping out of control. I drew in a shaken breath. “You’re very good at this. Have you taught someone before?”

  His face broke into a sudden, heart-breaking grin. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. “Of course I—”

  The words choked off. I felt a pained shudder travel through his body. He pulled away from me at once and half turned, rubbing his face with one hand, hiding his eyes.

  Have you taught someone before?

  My stomach churned as I realized what I had said. How could I – even I – have been stupid enough to ask that? His whole life had been before. Family, friends. People he loved and who loved him. A place in the world that was his. All gone. How could I have forgotten that? How could I have thrown it in his face?

  “I’m so sorry. I – I didn’t mean—”

  “No.” He didn’t move, didn’t look at me. His face was still hidden. It was like staring at a man-shaped rock. “I know. You should rest, like Jack.”

  With an awkward jerk he walked away and ended up on the other side of the room, in front of one of the living-room windows. His face was a pale blur, reflected in one glass pane, as he stared out at the gathering darkness.

  I crept to the sofa and curled up next to Jack, fingers wrapped around the katana as tightly as metal vices, trying to take comfort from the low buzz of its energy. There was nothing I could do. Nothing could make up for all that he’d lost. No one could do anything for Shinobu. No one could give him his world back.

  “Oh…” Someone sighed.

  A voice.

  A voice?

  New sounds crowded in. I could hear. Hear sounds I had almost forgotten. I had not heard them – heard anything – for so long. I knew those sounds.

  Breathing.

  Heartbeats.

  Life…

  Light broke throug
h the darkness, blinding, agonizing, amazing. Sunlight. It shone down patchily through dirty glass, turning long columns of dust into spiralling galaxies that were golden against the sleek, dark head bent over … the sword.

  My sword?

  Small hands clasped the hilt gently, and the tiny fingers were warm. Somehow I could feel that warmth. It pulsed through me, drawing me back from the endless dark and cold.

  “It’s so… It’s … beautiful.”

  Oh yes, yes it was. The light. The warmth. Thank you. Thank you.

  “He is yours, Mio,” a deep, aged voice said.

  Mio?

  The dreamlike blur of black and gold sharpened painfully and I saw a pair of slanting chestnut-brown eyes, filled with surprise and joy, staring down. The little girl’s fingers tightened around the sword. Something shifted inside me.

  Mio…

  The golden shafts of light brightened. I heard the echo of laughter, smelled the heady scent of ripening grass warmed by the sun. A breeze whispered sweetly through the tall fronds.

  “Shin-chan! Shin-chan!”

  A small figure, a blur of black and red and white, ran through the long grass. The wind tossed unruly, dark hair around a pair of laughing eyes. I reached out…

  Pain ripped through my chest. I was lying on my back, looking up at clouds of red-and-copper leaves blurring as they danced, blurring as the world began to go dark.

  I heard footsteps approaching. Someone leaned over me. I saw a long, pale face. A face that I knew. A twinge of surprise cut through the pain, through the slowly deepening darkness. Then I saw the sword. The red light glowed on its smooth, mottled brown and green blade. The man lifted it above me.

  Why? Why, when I am already dying…

  These are not your memories, Yamato Mio.

  The voice echoed as if it came from a hundred miles away. The bright leaves, the glowing blade, the pain – all rushed away like water being sucked into a drain. I opened my eyes.

  My own face confronted me. Involuntarily one of my hands lifted, and I touched a smooth, icy cold surface. A mirror. The face in the mirror blinked slowly.

  I stared at my own eyelids for a second before I realized that my eyes were still open.

  I started back. There was nowhere to go. The mirror curved around me, above me and below my feet. All I could see was my own face. My own reflection.

  Except it wasn’t me.

  It wasn’t me.

  My reflection’s eyes began to change. The inky blackness of the pupils dilated, spiralling out to engulf the irises and the whites. Her hands lifted, palms up, reaching towards me. They hit the other side of the glass and pressed against it, straining, turning red and yellow as they pushed.

  You should not play in other people’s memories, Yamato Mio.

  Pitiless, black orbs stared at me, glistening and blank like a shark’s eyes.

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  You are afraid of me. So afraid… Once I was like you. Don’t you see? Just like you. I was not always like this, the voice said.

  It held a childish note of pleading that made me shiver – because the voice did not belong to a child. It was a grown woman’s. She sounded like one of those people you come across sometimes in the city, sitting alone in a doorway or hiding in an alley, muttering to themselves in the shadows. People with shaking hands and ravaged faces that you flinch from because you sense instinctively that they aren’t right somehow. They are broken.

  And dangerous.

  I shied away again, but the reflection was waiting behind me too, still pushing desperately against the glass. Her teeth were bared, her nails scraping at the mirror as she tried to get through to me.

  Once I walked under the sky. Once I knew how to laugh, and sing, and run, and cry. Once I knew sunlight, and water, and breath…

  The voice filled my head, echoing, pleading.

  “I don’t know what you want!” I screamed. My voice was small and dead-sounding, as if the mirrors had sucked it up. The face behind the mirrors didn’t change.

  I only want one thing. Only one. And I have killed so many people for it. Good and bad. Young. Old. Beautiful and ugly. I just keep killing over and over and over and…

  I don’t know how to stop.

  Death is all I have.

  I felt moisture trickling slowly down my cheeks. It was too warm, too thick. I raised my hand at the same time as the twisted reflection lifted one of her palms from the glass. We touched our faces at the same moment.

  Oily, black liquid smeared my fingers and dripped onto my hands.

  I was crying my reflection’s tears.

  Death is all I can give you.

  “Mio-dono. Wake up.”

  I opened my eyes again. Shinobu knelt on the floor next to the sofa, one hand outstretched as if to touch my shoulder. I was curled up into a ball, clutching the sheathed katana to me so tightly that my fingers had gone numb. I’d rolled onto my bad arm, and it was aching fiercely enough to make my eyes water.

  I’d been having freaky dreams for most of my life – dreams which made me feel sad and frightened and awful – but nothing like that. That … that hadn’t felt like a nightmare or a memory. It felt…

  It felt real.

  “It is an hour past sundown,” Shinobu said, his hand dropping away without touching me. “Hikaru-san should be here soon.”

  I sat up, still unable to speak, unclenching my fingers from around the saya with difficulty.

  “Is something wrong?”

  I couldn’t answer. Who was that woman? Who was that woman, and why did she have my face?

  “Mio-dono?” Shinobu sounded concerned. “Are you well?”

  I couldn’t talk to him about it. No way. That would make it seem more real than it already did. In fact, I didn’t even want to think about it.

  “Where’s Jack?” I mumbled.

  “She is ready to leave. I let you sleep for as long as possible, but you must get up now.”

  I nodded and rubbed my tingling fingers clumsily over my face, struggling to get my brain working again. Just a dream. Just a stupid dream, that was all.

  I looked up at him again, taking in his changed appearance. He must have gone searching in the cupboard under the stairs, because he was wearing my dad’s long, black coat which I hadn’t seen for years, not since the leather had started to dry out and crack under the arms. Obviously Dad had never got around to throwing it away. Shinobu had braided his hair tightly back from his face and in the severe, dark coat, he looked like a samurai again: too noble and beautiful to be real. He had my school coat folded over one arm. His face was calm, almost expressionless. Whatever devastating emotions had almost broken him before, he’d wrestled them down and locked them away. And himself too.

  I cleared my throat and reached for my coat with my good arm, avoiding his eyes. “Did you find shoes to fit you?”

  “Thank you, yes. These boots you wear are unfamiliar to me, but there was a large enough pair at the back of the cupboard.”

  I had hold of the sleeve of my coat, but Shinobu was still hanging onto it. I blinked groggily at it, and then at him.

  He hesitated, and I saw his muscles shift as he took a deep breath. Then he tugged the sleeve of the coat away from me and moved forward, carefully draping the garment over my shoulders, holding it so that I could slip my arms inside. The tip of my nose brushed his cotton-covered chest, just for a split second. I caught the smell of my own sport shower gel and the distinctive smoke and pine scent I had noticed earlier. Unthinkingly I grabbed a handful of the soft, old T-shirt, pulling him closer.

  “Mio.” His voice had lowered an octave.

  He knelt before me again, utterly still, hands hovering in the air. He was holding his breath. I wanted … oh, the hard lines of his body, the long silkiness of his hair, the smell of him, his deep, beautiful voice. The depth of my longing frightened me. It was as if he was already mine. As if he had always been mine.

  I had to hang onto him. I had
to hold on tight…

  There was a sound in the kitchen, and I jumped, meeting Shinobu’s eyes with a shock. Jack. I’d forgotten all about Jack.

  Shinobu shook his head as if he was waking up. I released my hold on his T-shirt, and he got to his feet. He stepped back and wordlessly offered me his hand. I took it, savouring the warmth of his grip, and let him pull me to my feet.

  We both let go at the same time.

  I turned away and picked up my shinai carrier from where I’d left it by the sofa. I slid the katana carefully inside and looped the strap of the bag over my head, wriggling until it fitted comfortably over the top of my coat. The flap of the carrier had been ripped off, so I could touch the sword hilt at any time – and draw it fast if I needed to. I cleared my throat, trying to make my voice businesslike. “Come on. I don’t want to leave Jack on her own.”

  The kitchen was shadowy and dim, and our feet kicked through chunks of wood and pieces of broken ceramic with eerie skittering noises. I didn’t turn on the lights. The sight of the destruction was pretty much engraved on my brain anyway. Jack had opened the back door and was fidgeting restlessly on the threshold as she stared into the quiet, dark space of the garden.

  “Where is he?” she said, more to herself than to us. “He promised he’d be here. If he’s flaked out on us, I’m going to hunt his foxy ass down and—”

  “Look,” Shinobu said softly.

  I crowded into the doorway next to Jack. A tiny, copper star was glowing among the leaves of the myrtle bush. As soon as I noticed it, another one winked to life. Then another. Dozens of sparks began to light up behind the foliage, shafts of sunset-coloured light piercing the shadows. The leaves stirred and rustled.

  Hikaru appeared.

  The white kimono was gone, replaced with skin-tight, white leather trousers and a nearly floor-length white leather coat. Like Shinobu, Hikaru had tied back his hair and his expression was serious and strained. Two white sword hilts, held in a twin scabbard on his back, poked up over his left shoulder. There was another sheath, holding a trio of small, gleaming daggers, strapped to his thigh. The light from the bush made his pale figure glow. If Neo from The Matrix had had a red-headed, more stylish younger brother, he would have looked like Hikaru.