Elemental Origins: The Complete Series

by A. L. Knorr

  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."

  Chapter 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.

  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.

  I lifted my face to see Toshi kneel beside me. He held his tunic against his cut.

  "All these years? All this time? You've been alive," I whispered.

  Toshi exhaled. "I have so many questions. Like where did you disappear to, and who it was that took you. We tracked him to the port of Kitakyushu, and there we lost you and have been looking for you ever since." He laced his fingers through mine. He must have seen the agony in my face for he brushed my hair behind my ear and said, "Don't let it upset you. Time can pass differently for a human with a tamashī in his possession."

  The sun traveled high into the sky and the heat of the day warmed us as Toshi and I talked, there on the cliff that we had fallen in love on so long ago. Aimi curled up at my side and I stroked her fur and her ears. She listened as Toshi and I talked, Toshi holding a hand to his wound. I made to bind him, but he stopped me, urging me to tell my story.

  I told them of Daichi, of how he had taken me on a ship and we had sailed for what seemed like forever, only stopping for a short time before moving on. How he kept me in bird form for so long that I hadn't even known what year it was when he finally let me become human again, and how stunned I had been to learn that we were in Canada. How we'd ended up in a massive country with seemingly endless wilderness, and brutally cold winters. I told them of how I learned the way of life, and eventually made friends who had come to mean the world to me.

  I told them how Daichi slowly allowed me to be human for longer periods of time, likely realizing that I was of much more use
to him that way. He hired me a tutor to learn English, though he'd never deigned to learn it himself. How he adapted to technology over the years and spent more and more time on his laptop, never allowing me in on his desires until the time came that suited him. I became his go-between for our North American life. I was not permitted to ask him questions, nor did he ever ask for my opinion. Eventually, likely because I'd grown bored running errands for him, he'd allowed me to register in high school, and there I had made my first friends. I'd been commanded to lie to them, to tell them some fictitious story about how my parents had died from a contagious disease that had swept through our village, and that we'd come to Canada because I was half-Canadian already. The lies Daichi wove around us trapped us both into a life of solitude. Targa, Georjayna, and Saxony had become the only spots of happiness in my life, and I was only allowed to see them when it suited Daichi.

  The sun arched over us as my story spilled out, pouring from me in waves of emotion until I was all used up and out of words. The three of us sat huddled close together, Toshi's arm wrapped around my shoulder and Aimi leaning into my side, until Toshi took a breath. Dread for what I knew he was going to say filled my gut like lead.

  "It's time I returned this to her, don't you think?" Toshi said, holding out the red silk bag containing Aimi's tamashī. I looked at it, and fresh tears rolled down my cheeks, soaking my lap and Aimi's fur. She craned her neck to look up at us, her ears perked.

  I pushed my tamashī down my arm and brought the star to my right palm. I held it out to Toshi and looked at him. "Please," I said, my voice breaking. "I only just got you back. Stay with me."

  Toshi's face melted with love but he shook his head. "You know that I would never take your freedom from you, Akiko." He curled my fingers tightly around my tamashī and it melted back into my skin.

  We hugged one another fiercely and he kissed me. He brushed my tears away and held my face in his palms. "Sometimes we know from very young what we were born for. Even when I was throwing bugs in your hair when we were children, I knew that I was put here for you."

  I choked back a sob as he held the red silk bag in front of us and opened it. The yellow glow sat in the puddled fabric, edgeless and bright. Aimi stepped over me and into Toshi's lap, licking his face. He laughed and said, "Goodbye, my companion. I wish you an eternity of happiness now that our task is completed." He closed his eyes and pressed the yellow star to the fox's fuzzy forehead. It melted into her, glowing from deep inside before fading away and disappearing. She backed up with a whine in her throat.

  Toshi's form froze and lost all color. I could still see the smile playing at his lips as a breeze kicked up and then he dissolved into dust. He swirled around us in a spiral and was swept into the sky and out over the ocean, his clothing collapsing into a pile next to me. I put a hand on the soft fabric, the shell that had held him only a moment before. The blood that had stained the front of his shirt turned dark and looked decades old. Ash and dust puddled in the clothing and I picked them up and freed Toshi's remains.

  "Good-bye, my love," I whispered, watching the last of him disappear.

  The sound of a footstep made me turn. Aimi stood there with only Raiden's suit jacket draped around her. Her long, slender legs poked out from the black coat and her hair, black once again and hanging long to her waist, blew around her in the wind.

  "Hello, sister," she said.

  Chapter 26

  As I got to my feet, the skin all down my left side began to prickle. I frowned and rubbed up and down my arm to try and get rid of the feeling. The prickling intensified and swept to the other side of my body. A humming like a swarm of bees only much deeper and darker sounding filled my mind. I grimaced and put my hands to my head.

  "What is it?" Aimi's voice sounded far away and slow, like an old recording.

  "Wait," I said, shaking my head.

  My gaze darted to Raiden's still form. I had forgotten his body was even there. I clenched my teeth as the humming in my head increased. Like a shark could smell blood in the water, I could sense the rotting sulfurous presence of evil. I clenched my teeth against the roiling in my belly. The Oni.

  "Come on." I seethed with anticipation. I barely recognized the sound of my own voice. Instinctively, I phased into a falcon and climbed free of my clothing. The moment I had my Hanta vision, a second dimension opened up before me, peeling back like a thin layer of onion skin. The membrane between the material dimension and the one I could now see was as fragile and yet as strong as a spider's web.

  The buzzing increased and became a long, low never-ending hum. The Oni faces tattooed on Raiden's skin began to stretch and distort, like they were painted on plastic wrap and concealing a nest of snakes. Roiling under the surface, the Oni pushed, and holes burst through the warped tattoo images. Through the holes, dark amorphous blobs of spirit strained to exit. Six Oni leeched from Raiden's form, stretching and pulling to extract themselves from their fleshy tomb. Shifting shapes of demonic intent, the Oni writhed and stretched, seeking to escape and find a new host.

  In the distance, in every direction of land, I could see thin columns of spinning light reaching up from the earth to the sky, so far up that they disappeared from view. It wasn't the time to figure out what I was seeing in the distance, though. I had Oni to unseat. I spread my wings and took off, climbing straight up into the sky. From high above, I could see shape of the demon spirits growing and increasing in size. I screamed a shrill cry and pushed all of my bulk outward. My wingspan expanded in both directions and I circled the cliff looking down at my own massive shadow.

  My eyes caught Aimi's form, staring up at me and shielding her eyes from the sun. I was a flesh and blood bird, huge and impossibly loud as another piercing cry tore across the sky. But my prey was not flesh and blood.

  The first spirit broke free of Raiden's body. Morphing as it spiraled, its shape shifted from an evil yawning face to two sharp curved claws, and then melted back into a formless shadow.

  With a scream I dove toward it, my massive talons outstretched. The moment before I clutched the Oni, my body shimmered and warmth swept over me. My flesh and bone transformed as it passed from the earthly dimension into a spiritual one. I understood in that moment what Yuudai had been talking about when he said Hantas hunted by faith. The spirit form was given to me, just when I needed it. My talons closed around the demon in a death grip, puncturing and holding fast as it writhed and fought. An otherworldly scream of anger sounded off in my mind.

  Aimi's eyes widened and she began to call my name, frantically searching the skies for the colossal bird who had been there a moment before. I was there all the same, the Oni yanking and jerking in an effort to free itself from my Hanta talons. Wraithlike screeches filled my mind and made my head throb.

  Another Oni demon pulled free of its tomb and became a long, thin worm, making its way down the cliff toward the beach where fishermen were pulling up to the dock with their catch. I dove again, reaching my other claw out and snapping it closed around the Oni. It thrashed like the other, whipping and screaming and wrapping its long body around my leg. Both Oni were twisting and straining to free themselves. I swooped upward, realizing my disadvantage as the four remaining Oni struggled, nearly free from Raiden's corpse.

  I dove again. Pinning my wings back against my body, I shot straight down at the demons. I impaled the two Oni in my claws deeply with a single talon, jamming them on firmly as the ground swelled up to meet me. My talons opened wide for the others. I sank my nails into the remaining spirits.

  Everything went dark as I flew down into the earth. I felt my claws puncture the demons in multiple places and drag them from Raiden’s body. They stretched and screamed until they snapped free, and the impetus from their release flung me even deeper into the earth like a slingshot.

  Down, down, down I flew, my spirit wings flapping and my talons holding the Oni fast. My Hanta body jerked as the Oni struggled against me. I doubled my efforts. All down through the rock and
minerals and layers of sediment, I felt no material barrier. I could smell the oxygen even in the earth, and I noticed when the oxygen began to thin and when the heat began to increase.

  Through groundwater and layers of compressed earth and oil my spirit wings took us, my talons locked shut with my prey. The demons cried a sound I had never heard before, like a rusty scream with a thousand whispers inside it. As the oxygen here thinned, my wings began to tire. We passed into deep subterranean earth where the heat would be unbearable and there was no life. Not even bacteria lived here. Still I continued to fly straight down with everything that I had in me, my massive spirit wings pounding a smooth rhythm.

  When my body was crying out for oxygen and I felt I could go no further, I banked upward and opened my talons, throwing the Oni deeper into this Æther-deprived wasteland. Violent screams of frustration echoed around me and grew faint.

  I turned upward and began to climb. As I went through the layers of soil and could sense oxygen returning, my strength grew. My wings pounded, gaining energy and increasing my speed. The moment I exploded up from the ground, my flesh and bone form returned to me, a shift that was not in my control but was given by the Æther.

  I gave a piercing cry and shrank down to normal size, spiraling over the cliffside.

  Aimi spotted me and the worry in her face disappeared. She closed her eyes for a moment in relief. I descended to the clifftop and landed, ruffling my feathers.

  I phased back to human, my chest heaving. I fell to my knees and then to my side and rolled over onto my back, naked in the dust and pebbles. I squinted up at the blue sky and sucked in deep breaths. Slowly, my heartbeat went back to normal. I turned my head and saw Raiden's body. I sensed nothing, just a quiet corpse encrusted with dried blood. The Oni tattoos on his chest were dull and unremarkable.