Kin held one of the severed feathers, running his fingers along the path of the sword blow. He could sense a faint discharge of electricity from it. The broken plume was reflected in his rectangular eye, heavy as stone in his gauntlets.
“I am sorry, Buruu.” The arashitora glared, motionless, curled around the twisted metal stanchion he was chained to. The arena floor was littered with cut feathers, shifting in the noxious wind. The skies overhead rolled with dark, threatening clouds.
The black rain would begin falling soon, skies spitting toxin back onto the people who had poisoned them, turning all to pitted, hissing scar tissue. Kin found it strangely reassuring; nature’s ability to cleanse itself of the filth they pumped into it. He was sure that, if the planet were somehow rid of its bipedal infection, it would right itself eventually. He wondered how long it would take for the world to muster anger enough to shake them from its skin. Quake and flood, disease and storm. Open the fault lines, let it rain, flush all of it away.
Farewell and goodbye and goodnight, everyone. Remember to shut off the light when you’re done.
Buruu stood abruptly, claws clicking across the stone, staring into the dark with his head cocked to one side. Kin turned, and she was standing there in the black, pale and perfect and beautiful.
“Yukiko,” he breathed, his voice a choir of flies.
“I’m glad you came, Kin-san.” Quiet. Lips barely moving.
“I didn’t see you there.”
“Kitsune looks after his own,” she shrugged. “But do you see what they did to him?”
“A blind man could see that.”
She moved past him in the gloom, across the arena floor. Padding softly along the straw, hands clenched, hair hanging over her face. He could see she had been crying. She reached out with trembling fingers. The arashitora stood, pushed his head into her arms, enfolded her in his crippled wings. He purred; deep thunder rumbling beneath a cloak of warm, white fur. She hugged him fiercely, face crumpling like it were made of paper, sodden with tears.
Kin watched them mutely, wondering what passed between them. He couldn’t help but feel jealous of the beast, to know the inner workings of her mind and heart, to speak volumes without ever saying a word. What a strange thing for the Guild to want to exterminate. What a wonderful gift. To never be alone. To know the truth of another’s soul. Maybe that was why they were afraid. Truth in the Guild was a dangerous thing.
Yukiko sniffed, swallowed thickly. She turned to Kin, scraped the hair from her eyes, one arm still resting on Buruu’s neck.
Gods, she’s beautiful.
“I can’t stay long. They will be looking for me.” Her voice was so small and fragile it made his chest hurt. “Can it be done?”
His boots rang on the stone, skin spitting chi smoke into the warm, sticky air. Walking across the arena floor, he had an almost overpowering urge to tear off his helmet, to see her again with his own eyes.
“I think so.”
“And will you help us?”
“There is nothing in this world I would not do for you, Yukiko.”
She smiled at him then, so sad and flawed and perfect that he almost cried. She flung herself around his neck and he wanted nothing more than to hold her in his own arms, to smell her sweat, feel her hair on his face. If he could have given up every day of his life at that moment, for just one minute with his flesh pressed against hers, he would have done it with a smile on his face.
She drew away, and it was all he could do to let go, to hold back from squeezing her as tightly as he could, fusing them into a single, breathing—
“How long will it take?”
He blinked, shook his head. The mechabacus on his chest spat and chattered, a voice in his head, wheels and numbers and probabilities. He could see the apparatus in his mind’s eye, felt metal being shaped beneath his hands in the stuttering light of the cutting torch amidst the smell of smoking solder. A creation for the sake of something more than destruction. Not a war machine. Not an engine to drive a slave ship or chainkatana. A gift. A gift for the one he loved, for the one she loved.
He would not sleep until it was done.
“A week,” he finally replied. “They have me working on Yoritomo’s saddle. Perfect subterfuge. I can come and go here as I please. I told them I was taking measurements to night.”
She couldn’t see him smiling behind his mask. His heart ached.
“A week.” She smiled, tears in her eyes.
“Will you be able to get away? Won’t they be watching you?”
“I have friends in the palace. Even guards have to sleep sometime.” She shrugged. “And Kitsune looks after his own.”
“Well, let’s hope he looks after me too.”
“I know what you’re risking to do this. Thank you, Kin-san.”
“Thank me later. When we are far from here.”
“We?”
“We,” he nodded, dropping the severed feather to the stone. “I am coming with you.”
32 A Knife in the Chest