Storm (5 page)

“You guys are freaking me out with your synchronized weirdness,” Ishikawa murmured. We were sitting on the couch, watching Tomo sleep on the floor. We’d discussed carrying him up to his room, but figured it was better to put a blanket over him and watch him for now.

I sat with my feet pulled up, my toes curled over the edge of the cushion. “It’s the Kami blood,” I said. “Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi warring in him for control.”

“Creepy,” Ishikawa said. “Like, real
kami
? As in he’s possessed or something?”

“I don’t think so. More like awakening to the destiny he can’t escape. He’s Kami
and
human. He’ll become the whole person he really is.”

Ishikawa sneered. “Don’t be an idiot. I know who he is. He’s Yuuto. That’s all.”

I blinked. I’d never thought of it like that, but he was right. Tomo had spent his whole life creating his own identity, becoming who he was. To suggest he was some other person, some time bomb that would destroy the world...that wasn’t him.

I must have stared into space too long, because Ishikawa frowned as he looked at me. “What, Greene?”

“I was just thinking that you haven’t bleached all the brain cells out of your head.”

“Hidoi,”
he complained.
That’s cruel.

I ignored him. “What we need to do is silence Tsukiyomi. That’s all we need to do, and Tomo’s suffering is over.”

“That and stop Takahashi.”

Tomo grunted and we stopped talking, watching as he slowly turned onto his side and continued to sleep.

“It’s getting late,” Ishikawa said. “Don’t you need to get home?”

I pulled out my
keitai
and checked the time. “Crap!” I’d missed text messages from Diane asking if I was coming for dinner. We both had so many late nights at school—it was common in Japan for students and teachers to stay for after-school clubs until even eight or nine—that we didn’t have the chance to eat dinner together as much as we had when I’d first arrived.

“Go home,” Ishikawa said. “I’ll stay with Yuuto and make sure he’s okay.” I hesitated, but he just smiled at me. “The worst is over, yeah? And you need to stay on good terms with your aunt so she doesn’t stop you guys from seeing each other. As much as that would make my life better, it would make Yuuto’s suck, so get going already.”

He had a point. “But you’ll tell me if something happens, right?”

“Of course. Now get lost.”

I texted Diane to let her know I’d eaten and that I was on my way home. It didn’t feel right to leave Tomo lying there, but Ishikawa tried his best to look reassuring. Maybe he’d finally listened. Maybe he was straightening his life around. I took a last look at Tomo, who really did look fine now, and headed out the door toward Suruga.

I pulled the ends of my scarf tightly around my neck as I headed home. The streetlights lit the concrete paths of Shizuoka City, autumn leaves crumpled in piles around the lamp poles. It was safe enough to be walking home at this time alone, but I saw nothing but shadows in the darkness, possible Kami in every corner, waiting for me. Or maybe Yakuza. They knew what I looked like, and I was pretty much the only American girl in the city. If they wanted to find me, it would be easy.

I ran down the last few streets, clutching my
keitai
in my pocket. I knew the emergency number now. I’d asked Diane. The one for police was 1-1-0, and for medical and fire stuff it was 1-1-9, which kind of made me mad. Reversed, of course! That made so much sense. I’d told Tomo, who’d just laughed and asked why
we’d
reversed it to 9-1-1. Good point.

I ran up the steps of our mansion—that’s what they called certain apartment buildings here—and the automatic glass doors slid away. It was still cool in the lobby and the elevator; our building didn’t have central heat like some of the newer ones, so we relied on our heated
kotatsu
table and lots of sweaters to stay warm. It was only late October, though. I remembered how cold that February had been when I’d first arrived in Japan. It felt so long ago now.

I leaned against our pale green door and it opened into the
genkan
with a quiet snick. I opened my mouth to tell Diane I was home, but she was talking to someone, and the tone of her voice made me hesitate.

“No,” she said loudly, “I don’t think it’s for the best. She’s just settling in. It’s been hard for her.”

They were talking about me. I closed the door quietly and slid my shoes off, sitting on the edge of the raised floor to listen. I didn’t hear anyone respond before she started in again—she must be on the phone.

“I know, but this isn’t about you. It’s about her right now.”

I’d never heard Diane so worked up about anything. She was always smiling too much, even when she was nervous. I’d never heard her sound angry, not like this.

“You’re not hearing what I’m saying, Steven. It’s not a good time.”

Steven. The name froze me as I leaned against the wall. My father’s name, the one who hadn’t stuck around to even meet me when I was born. The one who’d run out of town after Mom had eaten the Kami dragon fruit, after she’d nearly lost me before I’d had a chance to live. Steven had walked out after the doctors had warned them that I might never talk or walk as a result of the food poisoning.

Was Diane... Was she talking to my dad?

“It’s been a year, Steven. Where were you?” she said. “When Katie needed you, you weren’t there.” A pause. “No, I know you didn’t know, but...Yes, I get that, but...” Diane suddenly appeared from behind the corner, the phone clutched to her ear. I stared back into her wide eyes, both of us surprised to be caught out.

“I have to go,” Diane said. “I have your number...Yes, I know. Okay.” She clicked the off button as the phone slowly dropped from her ear.

My mouth was dry, my words thick. “Was that...my dad?”

“Oh, hon,” Diane said. Her eyes crinkled up, the corners of her plum-lipsticked mouth crumpled in a frown. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t going to trouble you with it.”

“What did he want?” I asked. “How did he even find you?”

“He phoned Nan and Gramps. He got my number from them. He found out about your mom a few weeks ago. He didn’t know you were here with me.”

“What does it have to do with him, anyway?” I wasn’t trying to be snarky; I meant it. He hadn’t been around for me ever. Him surfacing was like someone suddenly digging into the soil of my life and uprooting me, tipped on my side, exposed. Why now?

“He’ll be in Japan for a business trip in a couple weeks,” Diane said. “In Tokyo. He wants to see you, but I told him I don’t think that’s for the best.”

I felt like my heart had crystalized. I thought I didn’t care what happened to him, but I could feel the whisper of it circling through me. I did care. I wanted to know why I hadn’t been worth staying around for.

It would be no good getting involved with him, that much I knew. He’d destroyed Mom’s life; he’d destroy mine, too.

“Thanks,” I said, my voice shaky. “I don’t want to see him.”

Diane nodded. “I thought so.”

But part of me wanted to ask him why he had run off, and why he wanted back into my life now. And part of me wanted to cling to it, because with him, I wasn’t an orphan anymore. I’d have a parent again. But that was too idealized. It wasn’t going to be some kind of soppy reunion. It would be awkward and painful, and I had more than enough of that going on right now.

Diane rested a hand on my shoulder and attempted a smile. “I picked up some chestnut cakes from the
depaato
on the way home. Want to have one?”

“Yeah,” I said, giving her a fake smile back. She nodded and hurried into the kitchen. I could hear the clink of plates and the fridge door opening, the little cardboard flaps on the cake box popping open. Food as a source of comfort—that was Diane’s specialty. But after today, it sounded like the best idea ever.

I could bury the idea as soon as it had surfaced. I didn’t need to think about my dad right now; I could forget about it, erase it like it had never happened. If only I’d stayed with Tomo a little longer tonight. I would never have known about my dad being in Japan.

It didn’t matter, though. Steven could be in the same room as me, and it would feel like the farthest corner of the world, a wall of emptiness between us that couldn’t be scaled.

I sat down at the table, smelling the sweet cream on the chestnut cake as Diane hurried around the kitchen.

She was all the family I needed now.

* * *

The water was black this time, oceans of ink lapping against the stained shore. There was no orange gateway, no rolling dunes of sand. Instead, the ink waters ebbed against an inlaid stone path that trailed upward, toward a towering jumble of angled rooftops reaching toward the sky. On the distant edge of the black ocean, the ink tipped over in a waterfall that encircled the whole island, the spray sending up a fog of clouds. Were we high up in the sky, or on some cliff? I’d have to wade deep into the waters to look, and I was scared the current would drag me over the edge.

I looked back at the building—some sort of pagoda, maybe, or a fortress like Sunpu but as tall as Himeji Castle, layer upon layer of slanted tile rooftops and whitewashed walls, placed upon one another like tiers of a fancy wedding cake. Simple wooden steps led into the building; there was nowhere else to go on this tiny island surrounded by ink.

I stepped forward, and saw the first victim.

He lay at my feet, nearly buried in the grasses that sprung up around him. He wore armor, like some kind of samurai, but his eyes were empty, staring at a future that wasn’t there, his breastplate splashed with ink.

I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound escaped my lips.
A dream
, I thought. Another Kami nightmare.

I looked around the steps of the castle as I moved forward. Dozens of men lay slumped in horrible, lifeless heaps, ink soaking each of them as they lay beside their shattered weapons and snapped bowstrings. My feet moved toward the building against my own will. I didn’t want to see what was inside. I didn’t want to know what was responsible for this.

The stairs creaked as I went up them. Inside, the room was musty and dark, the only light shining from the windows near the raised platform at the end of the room, where great white curtains billowed out with a wind I couldn’t feel. The bamboo tatami mats were cold and hard against my bare feet as I stepped forward. There were fallen soldiers here, too; what horrible battle had taken place?

Wait, that one’s alive.
I looked and saw him crouched in the corner, a dark shape hunched over his bended knee, a sword on the tatami beside him.

His silver earring glinted as he tilted his head forward, his blond highlights slipping from behind his ears.

“Jun,” I said, and he looked up at me. He lifted the sword; it almost looked as though it was made of stone. It was a deep black, like the inside of a cave, and the blade of it dripped with a darkness that must be ink. Or blood.

“It’s over now,” said a woman’s voice.

I turned to the raised platform in front of me, where the voice had come from. A woman knelt on the floor, the folds of her crimson kimono stretching in a pool of red around her. The sleeves of the kimono layered in a dozen different colors, all variations of black, red, gold and silver. An elaborate golden headdress rested on her head, the strings of golden beads tinkling against one another as she tilted her chin to the side.

“Okami Amaterasu,” I said, stepping over a long smear of ink on the tatami. I glanced at the fallen soldiers in the throne room as I walked toward her. “Who did this?”

“You did,” she said, and the world went cold with fear.

I shook my head. “I could never do something like this. And I only just got here.”

“There is only death,” she said. “There is no escape.”

Tomo had said those words so many times. He heard them in his nightmares, too.

“No escape from what?” I said. “Fate as a Kami?”

Amaterasu smiled sadly. “No escape from the past.” She twisted her knees to the side, the fabric of her red kimono swishing as she moved away slowly, and I saw one more body beside her.

“Tomo,” I whispered. I wanted to throw up; I wanted to wake up. I pinched my arm, hard, to remind myself this wasn’t real.
It’s just a dream.
But there was no comfort from seeing him there, lifeless, drenched in ink.

“Tsukiyomi,” she answered, and I saw then that his hair wasn’t copper, but black. I’d thought it was ink staining his hair, but he looked different—older, more worn and...less human than he’d ever looked, an almost angelic beauty that left me feeling terrified. He looked like a trickster fairy, the kind that was too beautiful to trust.

He was, and wasn’t, Tomo. I couldn’t explain it, except that dreams are strange and never quite right.

“I don’t understand,” I said. Was this all meaningless nightmare stuff? Why was I seeing this?

“I loved Tsukiyomi,” Amaterasu said. “And so I killed him.”

Ikeda had mentioned the story to me before, that Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi had once been lovers, before Tsukiyomi lost his mind.