Yoshi spit into the deadlands, watching the fumes roll and eddy like a full moon tide.
Got me to thinking. The Guild is run by the Inquisition. They set the policy on yōkai-kin, order the Purifiers to burn folk with the Kenning. But they’re also the ones trying to split the island down to the Hells. So what if those purposes dance hand in hand? What if this vendetta against “impurity” was just a grift to stitch the only folks who could stop them for real?
Buruu watched the boy, eyes narrowed, saying nothing.
You heard of Tora Takehiko?
A STORMDANCER.
That’s right. Flew inside the hellgate during the last war, sealed it closed.
AND?
Doesn’t it make sense every stormdancer had the Kenning? How else could they tame thunder tigers? Ride them to war?
SO?
So watch.
Yoshi reached to his hip, to a tantō he’d lifted from one of the bushimen. He drew the blade, gleaming with the distant city flames, then glanced at Buruu.
Best to step back. Not sure how impressive this is going to be.
The thunder tiger growled, stood his ground. With a small smirk, Yoshi pressed the knife to his forefinger, a few drops of blood pearling on the blade’s edge. And running his hand over the stubble on his scalp, he lifted the tantō and flicked the scarlet into the wind.
The blood glittered as it fell, a dark, somber red in the bitter night. It sailed five or six feet, fell through the fumes hanging above the scar and hit the ashen earth.
Nothing.
Yoshi scowled, praying under his breath.
YOUR SHOWMANSHIP NEEDS—
White noise.
That same inversion of sound, as if someone had reached inside his skull and turned it inside out. Yoshi put his hand up to what was left of his ear, gasped, the thunder tiger staggering as if someone had king-hit him. Yoshi felt a fist in his stomach, spitting breath, the stink of char and ash on the back of his tongue. Blinking hard. Shaking.
The earth trembled; a tiny earthquake for his feet only. And with that same utterance that was not so much a sound as an absence of it, the deadlands exploded.
Not enough to split the island apart to be sure, but enough to knock him off his feet, send him sailing back into Buruu, colliding with the arashitora’s broad chest and tumbling earthward in a knotted heap. White smoke snaked up from the deadlands, filling his lungs with that same momentary sweetness—as if the spring breeze were reborn in winter’s depths. Black fumes peeled away, a rumbling seeping from ashen earth. Yoshi staggered to his feet, a soft growl uncurling in Buruu’s throat.
The pair stood awestruck, mouths agape as they stared at the deadlands. A circle of good, dark earth lay where once there had been only smoking, scarred soil. An impact crater, ten feet in diameter, forged by a single drop of Yoshi’s blood.
IT IS TRUE.
The boy nodded.
The Way of Purity. The Burning Stones. All of it created to wipe out the blood of yōkai—the one weapon we can use to alley-fuck the Serpent’s soiree.
MAKER BE PRAISED.
Not ready to praise him just yet. But I might stop swearing about his balls for a while.
Buruu blinked, the frost wind ruffling feathers at his brow. He tilted his head, looked the boy up and down, understanding dawning in his mind.
THEN TORA TAKEHIKO …
Now you’re starting to see, Mockingbird.
Buruu looked back at the distant lights of Yama city. The thousands of lives within those walls, his Yukiko and her unborn babes among them.
NOW I SEE.
Yoshi stared back at the deadlands scar, licked the ashes from his lips and spit.
Doubtless.
*
Patient as cats and quiet as mice, he waited in the dark for his mistress to return.
Curled up in the blankets, still rich with her scent. His belly was growling, his bowl was empty. But he knew if he waited long enough, and quiet enough, she would come. She liked it when he was quiet. When she knelt by the wooden thing that was not a tree, and put black marks on the flat thing that smelled like rice but was not food. He didn’t understand it. But he understood she liked quiet. So he stayed quiet and waited. Hoping she’d come soon.
He heard footsteps outside her door. Too heavy to be hers. But still, it was someone, and he’d waited in the dark and the quiet for so long. So he pounced from beneath the blankets and ran to the doorway, dancing in delighted little circles as it was dragged wide. And he stared up at the man who was not his mistress, and growled with his little puppy voice.