Born of Aether: An Elemental Origins Novel (Elemental Origins Series Book 4)

by A. L. Knorr

  I began to turn the blade around, but it was so long and awkward, and handling a sword was so foreign to me that my whole being telegraphed my intention in slow-motion. Raiden spun so fast he was a blur. His foot kicked the sword out of my hand and pain shot through my wrist and up my right arm.

  My knees buckled and I landed on my knees. A sob ripped from my throat as the blade clattered and rolled along the clifftop, coming to a stop in the dust and pebbles. A long keening wail came unbidden from my chest and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was completely alone, helpless, and now the property of my worst enemy. The humiliation and tragedy of it was enough to crush my heart into powder.

  "Stop that," Raiden snapped. "Be quiet. And get up."

  The sound snapped off in my throat and I was compelled to get to my feet. I couldn't see through the tears in my eyes, nothing but the blue of the sea beyond Raiden and the rising sun in the distance. I stared at the cliff's edge, longing to throw myself over.

  "Don't even think about it," Raiden said. He wandered to where Daichi's white robe sat in a heap. He toed the robe open. An ages-old-looking bloodstain had spread over the lap of the fabric, and more dust floated up and swirled into the air. The wakizashi clattered from the folds and onto the rock.

  Raiden stooped to pick it up. Examining the blade, it was easy to see that it was shiny and free from blood. Daichi’s blood had turned to ash and blown away.

  I wanted to scream at him not to touch it, but my throat was a steel trap. The thought of Raiden touching anything of Daichi's was abhorrent. Strange, since Daichi had been my captor for so long. In that moment I admitted to myself that I had come to care for him in spite of our situation.

  "Was it worth it, little Hanta?" he asked, sheathing the wakizashi. He laughed. "You belong to me now."

  But just as suddenly, Raiden stopped laughing, and his gaze locked on the woods behind me. I turned.

  A man stood just outside the forest. His black hair was tied half-back, and he wore a simple, button-up shirt, with a thick fabric belt wrapped around his waist. A katana with a red leather-wrapped handle was tucked into his belt. He looked exactly as he had the last time I saw him, just as beautiful, just as strong, and I knew I was having visions. I had finally become unhinged and couldn't handle what had just happened.

  I had to be hallucinating. Because Toshi was dead.

  24

  My heart stopped and then tripled its speed. I felt like I couldn’t open my eyes wide enough—I only wanted to stare at my beloved from decades past. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to clear the hallucination. But when I opened my eyes, he was still there.

  "She is not yours," Toshi said quietly, his eyes never leaving Raiden's. "She will never be yours."

  Raiden bared his teeth in what might have passed for a smile on any other face. "Who are you?" he barked. "An idiot from the village?"

  "Return her tamashī," Toshi commanded. "And do it quickly."

  Toshi's hand rested on the katana tucked into the broad sash around his waist. Except for the weapon and embroidered band, the man, so slight and youthful, would have been commonplace in a dozen Kyoto campuses or bars. It was his stillness—his lethal, earnest placidity—which made Raiden pause.

  Toshi was no hallucination. However impossible, he was here.

  My eyes flashed back to Raiden. Taller, wider, stronger. I had seen the brutality of Raiden's heart. He would kill Toshi as soon as look at him.

  Raiden's smile widened, catapulting his face to those same demonic proportions I remembered from the night at the fortress. With a speed telling of years of practice, the towering oyabun drew a handgun from the shoulder rig beneath his suit coat. The gun, a metal projection of its owner in steel and polymer, eyed Toshi from beneath its master's grin.

  "Or what," Raiden drawled, his free hand removing and then tucking the sunglasses inside his coat. He was only slightly less monstrous without the insectile lenses.

  I wanted to scream at Toshi to run. Every muscle in my body tightened in terrible anticipation of the sound of a gunshot and Toshi's body slumping to the rock.

  With deliberate slowness, Toshi adjusted his stance, feet spreading and weight shifting forward onto his toes. He adjusted the angle of the sheathed katana like a master steersman handling the tiller. He cocked his head ever so slightly, the movement a clear challenge.

  My eyes darted back and forth between the two men and I could almost see the communication that passed between them. Toshi had thrown down a gauntlet, something that Raiden's ego could not deny, even if he could simply pull the trigger and be done with his challenger for good.

  The oyabun growled deep in his throat. He rotated the pistol in his fist, a pendulum swaying with fatal whimsy.

  Toshi did not move, not even seeming to notice that death was ready to fly from the pistol’s blue steel hive.

  Raiden laughed, and then with a sh-h-hrik, k-klick, the gun’s magazine and a formerly chambered round fell to the pebbled clifftop, followed by the louder clatter of the gun itself.

  "This should be fun," Raiden said, and I could once again hear the voice of the Oni surfacing. The softer sounds hissed out underneath the words and lingered long in the air like a growl. He shucked out of his suit coat and shoulder holster. Taking his time, he unbuttoned his white shirt. The Oni tattoos shone bright and fearsome in the sunlight.

  I watched his jacket fall to the earth. Everything in me strained toward the tamashī in the pocket, but my feet were rooted to the ground just as solidly as my voice was locked down. I looked toward Toshi, trying to tell him that I could help, if only I could get to what was in that coat pocket.

  Toshi remained defiant, staring at Raiden in immobile tranquility. My heart burst with love for him and the courage he displayed in the face of such a deadly opponent.

  Raiden bent and scooped up the katana Daichi had left behind, weighing it in his hands as if taking its measure. He lifted the sword in both hands. The long blade extended from just above his widow's peak like a gleaming horn of steel. Arms upraised in an aggressive stance, his tattoos were on full display. The koi bodies undulated sleekly across his broad chest. The muscles moving beneath his skin set the Oni faces to laughing. On any normal man, the movement would be just an illusion, but on Raiden, the demons' visages moved just enough to make an opponent do a double-take.

  Toshi continued to stare, not reacting to the hideous display before him.

  Raiden's laugh became a snarling roar as he launched himself across the distance. Toshi did not advance and did not retreat; in fact, he did not move at all.

  My throat swelled with the words clawing to get out, pressure building in my neck and face. I couldn't watch, but I couldn't look away.

  Raiden's feet hammered the hard ground, leather dress shoes scattering dust and pebbles in his wake. The space between them had seemed so great, but in a breathless heartbeat Raiden descended on Toshi with a stroke that would have cleaved him from shoulder to groin. In one blink it would all be over.

  But Toshi was not there—at least not where the blade descended. He curled back on his haunches, just enough to let the scything blade pass within inches of his face.

  Raiden's eyes flickered with surprise, but his fearsome reputation was not built just on looking impressive, and with a rising kiai he reversed his strike in an impressive swallow-tail cut. The blow was wasted when Toshi pivoted on his forward foot and the blade hissed upward in a harmless, frustrated whoosh.

  The oyabun had no time to wallow in his irritation as Toshi's blade licked out. Raiden just managed to swing his blade around to guide the stroke away from his throat.

  For the briefest moment, Toshi and Raiden froze with their faces close together and I could see the understanding pass between them. Toshi's fierce glare and tiny smile was full of meaning.

  My turn, he seemed to be saying.

  Raiden shoved against the blade near his throat with a snarl and Toshi let him. Toshi’s katana, lighter and qu
icker, spun wide and then darted for a low slash across the Raiden’s shins. Raiden's height worked against him, and all he could do was dance backward from the serpent tongue of bright steel. Toshi did not advance so much as a single step, and his quiet poise must have stung Raiden more than thousand insults.

  Raiden's dark eyes smoldered. He prowled back and forth a few paces away, blade held level. Suddenly, he kicked off his dress shoes and bent and ripped off his socks. His bare feet settled into the dirt. He straightened and dropped his chin, ready for more. Finally he was taking Toshi seriously. With an eye-stinging flash of sunlight from his katana, Raiden renewed his assault.

  With his longer, heavier sword, Raiden began a series of probing jabs and swipes. With the advantage of his greater reach, Raiden had a better shot at the more vulnerable targets—throat, armpit, groin—but each time Toshi's blade set the thrust aside. The men shifted and moved across the clifftop together like dancers. Raiden put more of his weight behind the stabs, drawing on the strength of his shoulders and back. The red-skinned demon tattoo across his spine flexed and bulged grotesquely with each thrust, green eyes winking and flashing, thirsty for Toshi’s blood.

  Under such a punishing onslaught, Toshi danced and glided, each step taken just in time to avoid Raiden’s katana. Feet snapping and sliding across the loose ground, casting the rest of his poised body this way and that, away from the hungry tongue of metal, now desperate to have a taste of him.

  Toshi had nearly worked himself to a place with his back to the cliff when Raiden over-extended a lunging stab. Raiden’s bare feet skittered across the chipped stones. With a swift precision which made it seem like Toshi had expected the stumble all along, his katana hissed through the air, trailing blood. It had happened so quickly that I didn't even see it; I only knew Toshi's blade had struck when Raiden cried out and recoiled, cradling his wounded arm to his chest. Raiden swung his katana one-handed to fend off Toshi, but the strokes were slow and ill-aimed. Toshi, seeing his chance, uncoiled like a striking cobra.

  Katana singing through the air, he drove Raiden back toward the forest. Raiden parried, but the strikes came so fast and smooth that for most of them it was all that he could do just to keep himself lunging and lurching away. When he was too slow, Toshi's razored edge took another little sip of his life, hot and red. An Oni face upon his belly lost an eye to the pass of Toshi's blade.

  Raiden's teeth flashed as he bit back a scream.

  Rage and fear gave Raiden a burst of hateful quickness, and he threw his bulk inside the guard of Toshi’s katana. A rip appeared in Toshi's shirt and blood stained the shredded fabric. Raiden spun on his heel and delivered a crushing back kick to the side of Toshi's belly.

  My neck felt as though it was going to burst with the words and screams bottled up inside me. Toshi flew to the side, gasping for air as he folded around his stomach. Still he kept his feet, and his katana, though wavering, held its pointed vigil for its master.

  Raiden scrambled across his newly opened avenue to the cliffside. Dirty feet carried him out of reach. Toshi, his face flushing at his enemy's cowardice, moved to follow, albeit more gingerly than before. When he realized that Raiden was arrowing toward the discarded pistol, Toshi leapt after Raiden like a big cat closing in for the kill.

  Raiden scooped up the handgun, but he fumbled as he tried to ram the clip home with his injured arm. Toshi came hot on his heels, blade raised before him for a final, head-severing slash. Only instinct saved Raiden as he threw himself to the ground and Toshi’s katana whistled overhead.

  Raiden snatched Daichi's fallen kimono and threw it violently into Toshi's face. The fabric wrapped around Toshi’s head and Toshi danced backward, clawing to remove it. Dust and ash fluffed up into the sky. Toshi threw the fabric free with a flustered grunt, but he had to pause to blink ash from his eyes.

  "Koshinuke!" Toshi spat at Raiden's cowardice.

  The clip slid home and, growling curses, Raiden worked the slide to chamber a round. Toshi's vision cleared and his whole body snapped to face the earth-bound foe, who swept the pistol upward.

  The pistol barked and the katana sang out. The explosion from the gun made my whole body jolt like I'd been struck with lightning.

  Raiden screamed as his horrified eyes beheld the bleeding stump just below his wrist. He drew in a shuddering breath to shriek again, but Toshi's blade flashed out again and the cry transformed into a wet gurgle.

  Raiden groped weakly at his throat with his remaining hand. Sounds burbled and popped from between his fingers for a few pained heartbeats, and then his body slumped back. His open eyes looked dully to the sky.

  Toshi drew a shaky breath, and his eyes swept downward to the red line across his chest. Bright blood poured from the wound and a shiver of pain shook his torso. His knees seemed to buckle, but with a gasp, he leaned on his katana and stayed on his feet.

  With my captor's passing, my locked jaw opened and every frozen muscle flooded with energy. A cry ripped from my throat, layered and bursting with every sound I had tried to make since Toshi had appeared from the trees. I leapt forward as Toshi turned to me and opened his arms.

  He grunted as we collided and his arms closed tight around me. He was real. He was alive. He was here. My mind skittered for purchase on this new reality.

  "Akiko," he sighed, riding through another agonized breath.

  I pulled back and looked down between us at the blood spreading on his tunic and darkening my black sweater. I looked back up at his face, my lips trembling and sucking in air. My hands shook so violently I could hardly control them. “You’re hurt,” I gasped.

  "It's all right." He let go of me to approach Raiden's jacket. He reached into the suitcoat pocket and retrieved my tamashī. His face lit up and he squinted until he closed the light wholly in his hand. He returned to me and held his closed hand out, palm down. "I believe this is yours."

  25

  I lifted a trembling hand and Toshi passed my tamashī to me. I opened my palm and the bright white-blue light glittered like a star in my left hand. With a shuddering breath, I put my right palm over the tamashī. It melted into my skin and we watched as it trailed up my right arm and into my chest. My heart glowed brightly one last time as my tamashī settled back into its rightful home for the first time in decades.

  Tears flowed freely down my face. The years of servitude dropped away from me like heavy ropes falling off my shoulders and the warm, bracing feeling of freedom filled my whole being. For the first time since I was a teenager, I was not under the control of someone else.

  My eyes misted as I looked up at Toshi. Even through his pain, love filled his eyes and I could see the relief settle over him.

  "How?" I breathed.

  His gaze settled on something behind me and I turned to see the mangy gray fox creep from the woods. Its head was low, its gunmetal eyes on us. It sat on its haunches and its tail curled around its paws.

  I looked back at Toshi, my eyes widening with surprise and confusion.

  "You don't recognize her?" he said, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

  "Her?" My gaze snapped back to the fox. I gasped as his meaning sank in. "Aimi? It can't be!"

  The fox dipped her head, her eyes on mine. She dropped down to her belly and rested her jaw against the stone. She whuffed a sigh out into the dust and a cloud blew up in front of her.

  "But, Aimi is black, and she has green eyes. This can't be her." My mind felt shattered in pieces like a jigsaw puzzle.

  "A Kitsune without a tamashī turns gray," Toshi said. "With all of the winged shapes you must have taken for your captor over the years, did you not notice that all of your forms were gray?"

  I shook my head and my mouth dropped open in protest. But...he was right. A flashwork of memories played vividly through my brain. The reflection of my falcon self over a smooth lake, a flash of my pigeon self in a window over a mall in Kyoto, and my small hopping sparrow against the glass of an open window. All of them—gray.
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  I turned to the fox, flooded with so many emotions I thought I would burst. Elation, shame, relief. "Aimi," I said, stooping to the earth.

  The gray fox bolted toward my outstretched arms and barreled into my chest. My arms closed around her warm body as tears coursed down my face. An overjoyed groan became a whine of barely contained emotion as Aimi rubbed her face against mine and licked my jaw and ear. I covered her little face with kisses and stroked her soft ears back against her head. She licked the tears from my cheeks, her whines peaking with whistles. Her whole body shook and trembled, just like mine did.

  "Become a woman so I can see you," I said. "So I can hug you, and we can talk."

  She only whined again, deep in her throat. Her gray eyes looked into mine and they seemed filled with sadness.

  "She can't," Toshi said from behind us. "Not until I give her this back. Giving away a tamashī seems to mean something different for a Kitsune. She has been in her fox form since 1923.”

  I turned to see him holding out a glowing yellow ball nestled in the mouth of a small red silk bag. At once the meaning hit me and my limbs froze with shock. Of course. I shouldn't be shocked. How else could Toshi be alive? Aimi had given him her tamashī.

  "Why did you do this?" I asked both of them, looking from one face I loved to another. My heart backed up against my spine as though it was afraid to hear the answer.

  Toshi smiled. "Why do you think, Akiko? We did it for you. We've been looking for you, waiting for you. We knew of no other way to help you."

  I looked back at Aimi's little fox face and the realization of what she had sacrificed for me, what they had both sacrificed for me, hit me like a locomotive. I put my forehead against hers and tears flowed down my face. Shame burned deep in my belly. I had imagined Aimi might even be happy that I was out of the way, that she could have Toshi for herself. How could I have imagined such a thing? Aimi had kept Toshi alive all these years, and had sacrificed her ability to take her human form, not to mention her free will.