… We haven’t spoken … about what we plan to do …
I THOUGHT YOU HAD DECIDED. YOU WILL FLY INTO THE HELLGATE, AS TORA TAKEHIKO DID BEFORE YOU. DESPITE THE FACT THAT IN THE LEGENDS, HE PERISHED. AND THOUGH YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW, YOU WILL SEAL IT CLOSED.
I have to try, Buruu.
WILL YOU SPROUT WINGS? PERHAPS MANEUVER ONE OF THESE CLUMSY SKY-SHIPS THROUGH AIRBORN SWARMS OF YOMISPAWN?
Obviously I need an arashitora to fly me there. But it doesn’t have to be you.
DOES IT NOT?
Buruu, Tora Takehiko died when he closed the Devil Gate. Whoever goes in there … I’m not sure they’ll come back alive …
AND YOU WOULD HAVE ME SEND A PACKMATE IN MY STEAD? YOU CANNOT ASK YOSHI OR HANA TO STAND IN YOUR PLACE, BUT YOU WOULD ASK ME TO— No. I just …
She sighed, looked toward Sukaa flying off the starboard side. The thunder tiger had refused the armor the Kitsune smiths made for him, making him faster, more maneuverable; a black blade, cutting the air to ribbons. Shai flew in wide circles around the fleet, sleek and effortless, speeding past the Kurea every few minutes, Yoshi clinging to her shoulders like a terrified child. Yukiko swore she could feel a vague jealousy in the dam’s mind, a distrust, perhaps even anger. But despite it, the girl couldn’t help but be awed at the sight of her.
She’s beautiful, Buruu.
The Khan turned to watch his mate, swooping up and over the Honorable Death’s inflatable. Yukiko could feel the smile in his mind.
SHE IS.
You have a family. Shima is my home. But you have your own home now.
I DO NOT DO THIS FOR SHIMA. I DO NOT DO IT TO BE REMEMBERED IN SONGS, FOR A FUTURE OR AN IDEAL OR EVEN BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT.
He turned to look at her, and she could see her reflection in the bottomless black of his pupils, ringed by circles of molten gold.
I DO IT FOR YOU.
She put her arms around him, wrapped in the warmth radiating from his body and mind. The home, the brother, the life she’d lost. All of it, she’d found inside him. This soul tied to her own, so far entwined she could no longer tell where she ended and he began. Part of her always.
Forever and always.
I don’t know what we’ll find in the hellgate. I don’t know how we’re supposed to close it. But no matter what happens, whatever comes, we’ll face it together.
TOGETHER.
Do you promise?
I PROMISE. TOGETHER.
He stared southward, black reflected on black, the darkness staring back.
UNTIL THE END.
*
They marched through sunlit hours, Lady Amaterasu’s light dying as they drew farther south. The ashfall grew heavier, tumbling drifts coating everyone and everything in gray. The flies were legion, clustered on each soldier’s back, so thick on the kerchiefs over their mouths it seemed every man had grown a beard overnight.
When darkness fell along with the temperature, the flies would mercifully flee, and they’d bivouac down, huddling around roaring fires and listening to the dark. They could hear things moving beyond the fleet floodlights; a shapeless gibbering and a broken clock rhythm, snatches of a dark tongue no man could understand. Some swore they could hear voices of people they knew to be dead, bidding them leave the firelight and come out into the dark. The gaijin marked their foreheads with the sigil of their goddess—a circle drawn in blood on every brow to keep the evil at bay. The Shimans burned offerings in Lord Izanagi’s name, begged him to stay his wife’s hand in the battle to come. Prayers and pleas and grim vows.
Just words in the midst of that freezing black.
The sun would rise each morning, each dawn fainter than the last, and they’d discover more of their number missing—seemingly vanished in the night. Nerves were stretched to breaking beneath the corpsefly hum. Morale unraveling one thread at a time.
The warband leaders met on the Kurea—Ginjiro for the Kitsune, Hiro for the Tora, Misaki for the rebels, Kaori for the Kagé, Aleksandar of the Morchebans, the Khan of the arashitora, and the stormdancers themselves. It was decided to march through the night, so they’d arrive at the Stain mid-morning and fight with whatever advantage lay in daylight.
Every face was smeared with ashes, every hand trembling from the marrow-deep cold. Yukiko looked over each one in turn, even the Daimyo of the Tiger clan, watching her with his sea-green eyes. She wished them luck, bid them remember what it is they fought for.
As the meeting concluded and the members drifted away, Hiro caught Yukiko’s gaze, opened his mouth as if he wished to speak. He stood motionless, staring at the girl staring back at him, the space between them filled with flies.
“I wish…”
His voice faltered and he stared at his clockwork arm, the iron hand clenching and unclenching. He met her eyes again, tongue frozen to the roof of his mouth.
He shrugged helplessly.
The ice in Yukiko’s stare cracked. Just a hairline. Just a sliver.
“They’ll know,” she said. “It’s all I can give you. But they’ll know, Hiro.”