USE MY EYES.
The boy complied, stepping into the warm dark behind the arashitora’s eyelids, feeling his own lashes fluttering as the world snapped into shimmering brilliance. He was overcome with sensation; the vibrant predator rush, the thrill of the wind beneath his wings. Fear-tinged. And as he focused on the horizon, he felt it swell in his own gut—cold and slick and overshadowing the exhilaration of their brief victory.
A sky-fleet. So far away as to be mere specks, but Izanagi’s balls, so many … A wall of black dust thrown up by the horde marching below. And there, towering above the ground, eyes aglow like vast ghost lanterns, a giant. A giant of black smoke and blacker iron.
EARTHCRUSHER.
Izanagi’s balls …
The combined airpower of the Phoenix clan, a swarm of Guild ironclads—all of them looking like children’s toys beside it.
… I MUST RETURN TO YAMA. TELL YUKIKO.
Think you better had.
YOU ARE STILL SET ON REVENGE? YOU WILL NOT STAND AGAINST THIS HOST?
What the hells is one gutter-rat going to do against that?
IF YOU DO NOT TRY? NOTHING AT ALL.
I owe a debt. And old Yoshi pays what he owes.
YOU COULD BE MORE, BOY.
Yoshi shook his head.
Not cut out to be a hero. I think this story has a few too many already.
They set down beside the railway tracks, a few hundred yards from a battered little station of corrugated iron. An old man in a broad hat was dozing against the cranks of his handcart, starting awake at the rumble of too-close thunder. He watched wide-eyed as the arashitora alighted on the bluestone, the boy hopping down lightly, the side of his face painted in blood.
You take care of yourself. Look out for my sister.
I WILL. IF YOU CANNOT LET IT REST, I WISH YOU LUCK IN YOUR HUNT, BOY.
Like I said there’s can’t and there’s won’t. Hope you can see the difference now. Or at least be honest about which is which.
The beast and the boy stared at each other, dirty rain filling the space between them.
PERHAPS WE WILL MEET AGAIN.
Never can tell.
FAREWELL, MONKEY-CHILD.
Fly safe, Mockingbird.
And with a creak of iridescent metal, the rush of a hungry wind, he was gone.
21
SLOWLY TO SCARLET
Her arms around his neck felt like coming home.
As if he knew what coming home felt like …
Gods, I was so worried, Buruu.
NOTHING TO FEAR. YOU ARE MY HEART, REMEMBER? I DIE WITHOUT YOU.
Yukiko held him tight beneath the palace eaves as black rain sluiced down from above. He was soaked from his flight, eyes stinging from the tar. She pressed her cheek to his, heedless of the poison clinging to his quills.
Aren’t I usually the melodramatic one?
NOT SO, LATELY, IT SEEMS.
I’ll get some clean water. Wash this filth off you.
WE HAVE LITTLE TIME, YUKIKO. HIRO’S ARMY MARCHES. I HAVE SEEN THEM.
She licked her lips, nodded.
We have time enough to get you clean.
The girl padded away toward the kitchens, and Buruu stared at the storm raging above, lighting reflected in his eyes. Great Raijin, father of all arashitora, was busy on his drums, windows shaking with each rumbling peal. The chemical rain tumbled from darkening skies, slowly stripping all beneath it; poison pumped into lungs and earth and sky.
How completely it ruled this place. To think something so innocuous—one tiny flower—could transform the shape of the land so utterly. The engines and machines and treasures spitting tiny puffs of poison into once blue skies, turning slowly to scarlet. Killing the land one breath at a time, wrapped in a bow of blood-red petals.
Yukiko soon returned carrying buckets of almost-clean water from an underground Iishi spring. She began washing him down, black running through to gray and finally to pristine white again. He wasn’t sure if the rain would eat at his feathers like everything else it touched, but his eyes felt full of sand, and Kin’s device would surely be suffering.
I was worried about you, you know. When you flew away.
SO YOU SAID.
Where did you go?
YOSHI WAS HEADED SOUTH. I TOOK HIM PART OF THE WAY.
Hana told me he left. She never said why.
SOMETHING HE NEEDED TO DO.
It seems a selfish thing. To leave right when Hana needs him the most …
KAORI MIGHT SAY THE SAME ABOUT YOU.
… That’s not fair, Buruu.
I THINK IT NEVER IS, STANDING ON THE OTHER SIDE.
Yukiko said nothing, scowling as she heaped more water over the contraption on his back. Black pooled around his feet, smelling vaguely of dead flowers.
I MUST GO ALSO.
Go where?
WHERE YOU ASKED. EVERSTORM.
Oh my gods! Truly? How far is it? How much food should I pack?
YOU ARE NOT COMING.
… The hells I’m not.
TOO DANGEROUS.
As opposed to staying here with the Earthcrusher and gaijin army?
YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. IT IS FIRE AND SCREAMING WIND. WHERE SUSANO-ō PLAYS THE STORM ETERNAL TO KEEP THE GREAT DRAGONS IN THEIR SLUMBER. NO PLACE FOR YOUR KIND.
You’re not leaving me. Not again. Don’t you dare.