“So it is.”
Akihito was pale as old bones by the time he finished reading the orders. He drew a deep breath, stared at Yukiko for a long, silent moment, then screwed the scroll up in his fist. Blotches of color bloomed at his cheeks.
“The Shōgun is sending us after an arashitora? A godsdamned thunder tiger?”
A trio of passing sararīmen shot them curious glances as the big man’s temper flared. Yukiko took the crumpled scroll from his hand, rolled it up as best she could and tucked it back inside her breast pocket. Akihito scowled around the street, lowered his voice to a furious whisper.
“Why is he doing this? Is he angry with us?”
A shrug.
“He wants a thunder tiger, Akihito.”
“Well, I want a woman who can touch her ears with her ankles, cook a decent meal and keep her opinions to herself. But they don’t fucking exist either!”
Masaru groaned as Akihito shifted him to his other shoulder.
“Do you feel better now?” Yukiko folded her arms. “Got it all out of your system?”
“We can’t hunt what doesn’t exist, Yukiko.”
“You don’t think I know that?”
“And what do you think is going to happen if we fail Yoritomo-no-miya?” The big man punctuated his questions with his free hand. “What do you think will be waiting for us when we come back empty-handed? Orders for Masaru to commit seppuku, for starters. You want to watch as your father is forced to disembowel himself? Who knows what they’ll do to the rest of us . . .”
“Maybe you could tell the Shōgun how you feel. I’m sure he’d understand.”
Akihito drew breath to retort, blinked and swallowed his words. He gritted his teeth and ran one hand across the back of his neck as he glanced about. The streets around them overflowed with people; layers of the social strata heaped one on another, brick upon cracking brick. Neo-chōnin merchants with fat bellies and fatter purses; sararīman wageslaves with their modest lives and honest coin; sweating farmers with half-empty wagons; gomimen with their salvage carts and recycled wares; traveling pedlars with their lives and livelihoods stacked on their backs; beggars in the gutters, fighting with the rats for the tablescraps the rest had left behind. Countless figures jostling in the oily haze, none of them paying anyone else the slightest heed.
Yukiko’s expression softened, and she reached up to lay a gentle hand on the big man’s arm.
“Every word you’re saying is true. But what choice do we have?” She pulled her goggles on and shrugged. “Try to deliver the impossible, or defy the Shōgun and just die right here and now. Which would you prefer?”
Akihito exhaled, shoulders slumping like a flower wilting in the scorching heat.
“Come on, let’s go.” Yukiko turned and began walking toward the docks.
Akihito remained motionless as the girl slipped away into the throng. Screwing his eyes shut and juggling his unconscious friend, the giant pinched himself on the arm hard enough to leave a bruise. He waited a long moment, then opened one eye, glancing around the street. Against all hope, the world remained exactly as he’d left it.
“Izanagi’s balls,” he muttered, and hurried after the girl.
4 Purity
Kigen city was awash with sight and sound; a thrumming, sweltering hive peopled by two-legged insects in rainbow colors. A pall of lotus fumes hung in the air, bubbling in dozens upon dozens of oily black streams from the exhaust pipes of the sky-ships floating above.
Cigar-shaped canvas balloons with rusted metal exoskeletons filled the sky. Their inflatables were under-slung with the long hulls of wooden junks, their holds full of gaijin prisoners of war, trade goods and precious blood lotus transported from the clan fields. Each balloon was painted with the totem spirit of the zaibatsu that owned it, and the skies seemed full of clashing tigers (Tora), snarling dragons (Ryu), blazing phoenix (Fushicho) and even the occasional nine-tailed fox (Kitsune). Each hull also wore the distinctive kanji symbols of the Lotus Guild, painted in broad brush strokes along the keel. Shima’s roads were not made of brick or dirt, but of red, choking cloud.