by A. L. Knorr
Just then our waitress came by to check on us. Most of the food had been consumed by Yuudai, but our rice bowls were still half-full. Yuudai asked for more temaki and another bottle of sake. She bowed and disappeared.
He took a breath. "I would like to help you, and I think, seeing that you know so little of the Hanta life, I can probably tell you some things that you don't yet know. But I can't tell you how to be a Hanta. It would be contradictory to our very nature to explain it to you."
My heart plummeted. "Why is that?"
"Because we operate by faith. Faith is to believe without seeing. If I show you how a Hanta's work is done, then you'll fail at it. You literally won't be able to do it. I will have permanently crippled you. You'll be a faithless Hanta." His brow puckered and his mouth turned down at the corners. It was the most negative expression I had seen him make so far. "And it would be better to be dead than to be faithless."
Frustration bubbled in my blood and the desire to press for details was nearly overwhelming. "Inaba told me that you said you can't kill a demon." I was fishing for information. If he wouldn't tell me how a Hanta did their job, then maybe he'd explain more about our enemies.
He took another bite from his bowl and shook his head. "No, they can't be killed. Not by a Hanta anyway."
"By who?"
He half-shrugged. By now I was getting used to that lift of one shoulder. "That's the business of the Æther, not us. We weren't made to kill them."
"Just to unseat them," I prompted. My rice bowl sat abandoned, getting cold. The sake had warmed my blood.
The waitress returned with a fresh bottle of sake. We thanked her and she took away the empty plates from in front of Yuudai. I noticed her eyes linger on his face and form, on his long limbs. Yuudai didn't notice. He was probably used to the stares. Either that or he was oblivious to them.
I picked up the sake and poured him a fresh cup. "You said that your target wasn't 'ripe,'" I said, setting down the ceramic jug. "What did you mean by that?"
He took a deep breath as though he was starting to get full. His eyes roamed the dishes left in front of us. He snagged the last temaki cone and took a huge bite. I stifled a laugh. The way he ate reminded me of the jocks at the high school, desperate to fill every empty space.
"You’re like the world’s largest hummingbird. Five minutes from starvation at any given moment," I laughed.
He shot a stuffed-cheeks smile at me and swallowed his temaki. "That's not far from the truth," he said. "You try fueling a body like mine and see how far you get on no food."
"Good point." I had never really noticed that I was any more hungry than my girlfriends. Georjayna ate the most of any of us, but she was nearly six feet tall, so that made sense. Yuudai would tower over Georjie, probably by a good six inches, so it made sense too that he needed thousands of calories to get through a day.
"I'm guessing you've lost your Hanta vision?" Yuudai asked as he lifted a bowl of soup to his lips and took long swallows. He smacked his lips and set it down before eyeing up the waitress as she set down a plate of tuna sashimi laid out in a flower shape.
"I never had it," I said. Aimi had talked about the vision, assuring me that it would come as I matured.
"That sucks," he said. "You were very young when your tamashī was stolen." Five pieces of sashimi disappeared down his throat, he barely chewed. "You can't hunt without it."
"But you didn't answer my question—"
He was already nodding around another mouthful. "Ripe, yes. This is something that you will understand when you get your vision back." He swallowed. His eyes grabbed mine and his face went serious. "What you haven't learned yet, is that demons have a purpose. Yes, they are evil, wicked, horrible creatures that feed on blood and fear and chaos—"
I felt the blood drain from my face at this description.
"But, even wickedness has a reason for being. You can't have light without dark, and the people who get themselves tangled up with demons have become vulnerable to possession by putting themselves in a demon's path. Some deeply deceived people even seek them out because demons can present themselves as a kind of savior."
My head jerked back in surprise. "Why would they do that?"
He cocked a dark eyebrow and raised a finger, "Don't make the mistake of underestimating the power of these entities. They can influence the events that happen in the earthly realm, always through deception. It's all around us. There is a war going on. Humans think the war is with each other, but it’s not. Their enemies are not flesh and blood, but demonic entities in high places. The Akuna Hanta were very important at one time, and we are becoming very important yet again. Possessions are increasing, especially with humans who have a lot of political power. Demons have caught on that it’s through the elite families of the world that they can have the most influence, and the elite are more than happy to make pacts with them."
"Because the demons make them more powerful?"
"Exactly," he said. "And those humans who have made these pacts are beyond our reach. The Hanta has a responsibility to help humans who have a wish to be freed. But for those who are being used voluntarily in exchange for something like fame or fortune, we can't help them." He shook his head and took another bite.
"So, the ones who are ripe?"
Around a mouthful of rice and vegetables he said, "The host has been through hell with this entity inside them, and only when they are in the worst of it, when they've been brought to their knees, can they be freed." He swallowed, the thick column of his throat moving. "Doing it this way triggers real change in a human heart. It isn't likely that anyone would ever want to make the same mistake again. They were deceived into hosting it, and they have come full circle and now know that demons might lead to a temporary power, but will end only in destruction and death." He raised a finger again. "Until that point, when they are full of regret and desperation to be free," he made two fists and thudded them against his chest. "When their spirit is absolutely wailing, and you can hear it from miles away," his face scrunched up to illustrate the agony the people in this state were experiencing, "spiritually screaming in abject misery." His eyes popped open and he opened both fists at the same time, splaying his fingers outward. His face became a mask of wonder and ecstasy. "Only then can you help them."
I stared at him, mesmerized.
His voice lowered nearly to a whisper. "In that moment, they are ripe. There is nothing that feels better than unseating that evil." His eyes grew wistful, the same way any professional who loves his work might look.
My spine had pushed back against my seat as he had described this. Goosebumps crawled over my flesh. "I'll experience all this when I have my Hanta vision back?"
He nodded and his theatrical face relaxed into its normal chilled-out expression. "More or less." He scooped up a roll of sushi with his chopsticks and into his mouth it went.
"Your wingspan," I said, my mind going back to the enormous shadow that had passed over me.
He swallowed, bumped a fist against his chest and gave a soft burp. "Excuse me." He cringed and looked around, hoping he hadn't offended some innocent passer-by. "That caught your attention, did it?"
"How could it not?" I said, hiding a smile behind my hand. "How can you possibly be that big?"
He chuckled.
"You have some seaweed caught right here," I said, pointing to my teeth to show him where.
"Thanks," he said, and fished it out with his tongue. "Better?" He fake-grinned at me, showing more teeth than there are keys on a piano.
"Beautiful," I said, laughing. The more time I spent with Yuudai, the more I liked him.
"I weigh three hundred pounds," he said. "Birds have hollow bones. Even the largest raptor with a wingspan of ten feet rarely weighs more than two-and-a-half pounds. If I use all my mass…" he shrugged.
I blinked with understanding. "You're as wide as a soccer field?" Why had I never realized this before? I had never tried to be anything larger than a normal-sized bi
rd. I had never had a reason to be bigger, other than big enough to carry the wakizashi. The night before, when I'd increased my size to make the sword easier to carry, I didn't think about pouring all of my fleshly weight into my bird form. How big would the wingspan of a ninety-pound bird be if a bird had hollow bones?
Yuudai gave a cough to dislodge something in his chest. "Bigger." He said it without any pride, just matter-of-factly.
My eyes widened. "Have you ever measured?"
He laughed. "No, why would I do that?"
"But if you had to guess?"
He blew out a breath and closed one eye. "Maybe a thousand meters?"
My jaw dropped. The waitress walked by and I snapped my mouth shut. "Your wings can span a kilometer?" I said in a hushed whisper.
"Yes, or I can be a hummingbird. That's the beauty of being a Hanta." He sat back and surveyed the wreckage of our table. Drippings of sauce dotted the place mats, crumpled napkins sat sucking up leftover broth in empty bowls, stray grains of rice stuck to just about everything. The space in front of me was empty and clean.
"What? You're done?" I said, hardly able to believe it.
After a longing look at the empty dishes, he glanced up and grinned hopefully. "Dessert?"
Chapter 21
"Where are you staying?" I asked as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. The light was growing dim and the shadows had deepened. I was taken over by a sudden panic that Yuudai was going to leave me alone to wait for Daichi. It knocked the breath from my system just how much I wasn't ready to say goodbye to him. Had I attached to him because he was a Hanta, or because of who he was as a person?
"I rented an apartment in Tottori. You?" We turned and began to walk toward the train station.
"I’m in Tottori, too, at the Gato Hotel," I said.
We walked in silence to the train station, but my mind was anything but quiet. As the trees and mountain-scape slid by through the train windows, I searched for a reason to stay with Yuudai longer. He was the only Hanta I had ever met. He was kind, and fun, and I had nothing to do but wait for Daichi to call and tell me he was here. I dreaded going back to my small hotel room and rotting there while time ticked by.
We stepped off the train together and began to walk toward the center of Tottori.
"I have to go this way," Yuudai said, jerking a thumb in the opposite direction of the Gato Hotel.
I swallowed, brave words dying on my tongue. "Okay," I said.
"Why don't you come with me?" Yuudai said. "We can get an ice cream on the way."
My heart leapt. I'd eat cockroaches if it meant I could stay with Yuudai a little longer. "I'd like that."
"No pressure," Yuudai said, holding up a hand. "Only if you want."
"I want," I said.
Yuudai and I ordered ice cream cups from a small shop in the town center, and I followed him to a tall apartment building with trees and vines and flowers spilling from every balcony. I expected to feel some kind of hesitancy or anxiety at going to the apartment of a man I had just met. But I trusted Yuudai completely. He was a Hanta. If I couldn't trust another hunter, then who could I trust?
With the spoon in his mouth, Yuudai unlocked his door and opened it for me. The place was breezy and light. The balcony door was open and the white curtains blew into the single room, stirring the leaves of a plant on the table. The largest bed I had ever seen, dressed fully in white sheets, sat in the middle of the wall.
"How did you find a place with a bed that big?" I asked, awed. "All of the beds are always so small."
"It wasn't easy, trust me. I had help." He closed the door and plopped down on the narrow couch at the foot of the bed. "I don't need much, but I hate when my feet dangle off the end of the bed." His face colored. "Spoiled, I know."
I laughed and sat in the chair across from him. "How do you fund your Hanta life, anyway?"
"My wife's business," he said, taking a huge scoop of ice cream.
My smile melted away and there was nothing I could do to stop it. "You're married?" I was shocked on multiple levels. I'd had the impression that he was too busy as a Hanta to be living a human life on the side. And everything about him so far had oozed bachelor. He wore no wedding ring, or any jewelry of any kind as a matter of fact.
"I was," he said. "She left me about six years ago. Can't blame her. Human women need husbands who are present, and I was gone a lot. It was inevitable, really."
"Your ex-wife pays your living expenses?"
"No, but when we split up, we divided everything equally. It was an amiable split, thankfully. She had recently sold a media company that she'd started decades ago. It was worth a fortune. I was a partner in an engineering firm in Tokyo, so I had done well, too." He peered sadly into his empty ice-cream cup and then set it on the small table beside him. "I invested my share of the money in some stocks and it generates more than enough for me. After the split, I quit my job and went Hanta full-time. I only intended to do it full-time for a couple years, but it’s been six and—" he leaned back and spread his hands wide as if to say 'here I am'.
"Oh." My ice cream had melted into a puddle and I set it on the coffee table unfinished.
"So, what are you going to do when you get your tamashī back?" Yuudai asked, lacing his fingers together.
The question hit me like a mental wrecking ball. "What?" I sat up straighter.
"When you get your tamashī back, what are you going to do then?" he repeated patiently.
It was like the breath had been knocked from my body. I hadn't thought that far ahead. What was I going to do? I had been a slave for so long that I didn't know how to be anything else. "I don't know."
Reality was that Daichi would give it back to me as soon as I gave him the wakizashi, and even that could be a mere handful of days, or even hours away.
Yuudai's brows knitted together with concern. "You don't know?"
I shook my head. Toshi's beautiful face flashed in front of my eyes. "For a long time, it was the desire to get back to my fiancé that kept me waking up every morning. But when so many years passed, and I knew he couldn't possibly be alive anymore…" I trailed off.
Yuudai was watching me intently. "You were engaged?"
I nodded. "Many years ago. So many years." The weight of all the time I had lost pressed down on my shoulders like a jacket with lead in its pockets. Tears threatened for a second time that day. I hadn't wept for my family or for Toshi in such a long time. It seemed that coming home, no matter how much it had changed, was enough to rip open even the oldest scars.
"Don't worry," Yuudai said softly. "When you have your tamashī again, a whole new future full of possibilities will open up to you. Between your human life and your Hanta life, there will be no end of things to do."
I smiled, grateful for his positivity. "What about you? You'll continue hunting?" I said, brushing my eyes to clear them.
"For now," he said. "I'll know if it’s ever time to settle in one place again. I always thought it would be nice to have the human experience, kids and everything. I sort of tried that and it didn't work out, but—" He made a face and shrugged. "I think for a Hanta, it is important to know what it’s like to live a mundane human life." He leaned back and put his long arms behind his head, stretching. "But for now, I'm never happier than when I'm flying the Æther. Up there, it’s so—"
"Pure and perfect," I finished for him. I remembered the feeling of pure love and freedom, of losing the edges of my physical self and feeling like part of the Æther.
Thirty-thousand feet up in the air, nestled somewhere in the earth’s thin layer of ozone, was a Hanta's heaven. I was reminded of the cold, empty space I had been so acutely aware of up there and wondered what it would feel like when I had my tamashī back.
"Yeah," he said. "Too bad we can't stay up there forever."
His face split in an enormous yawn, and I yawned sympathetically. Without any presumption in his face or movements, Yuudai got up and took off his vest. He dropped it over the couch
back, crawled onto his enormous bed and flopped out straight on his back.
"Sake hitting you?" I got up and stretched my legs. I picked up the ice cream cups and found the garbage under the sink.
Yuudai let out a long sigh with a growl at the end of it. "Just tired. And full."
"I'll let you rest then," I said. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him for a phone number or an email or something when he cracked an eye open.
"Stay, Akiko," he said. "You know you are safe here." He rolled over to his side and lifted a long arm. "Little Hanta."
Without feeling so much as a twinge of weirdness, I crawled under his arm and lay with my back to his chest. His arm draped over me and out toward the edge of the bed. His body heat melted my bones within minutes and there, under the safety of his wing, I fell asleep.
Chapter 22
I knew Yuudai was gone before I opened my eyes. The bed had the empty feeling that I was used to. I rolled over and looked at the dent in his pillow. A folded note lay on the pillowcase.
I sat up and opened the note. His handwriting made me smile. Bold strokes with beautiful curves said: Stay as long as you want. My home is your home. Gone to check on my target. He'd scribbled a phone number beneath it and: In case you're gone when I get back.
I put the number into my phone and sent him a text so he'd have mine. My head jerked up when something buzzed from a drawer—his phone was here. Of course it was. Yuudai was on wings and had left all of his possessions here. In fact, on closer inspection, his clothing was folded and sitting on a chair and his sneakers tucked underneath. I wondered how he got back into the building. He must hide his key somewhere. A breeze lifted the curtain away from the balcony door. It was unlatched. So maybe he didn't hide a key, just left the apartment open the way I'd left my hotel room open.
Thoughts of doors and windows left open made me think of the wakizashi. I got out of bed and splashed my face with water in the bathroom. I pulled my shoes on and left Yuudai's apartment to go to my own.
