Guardian, Saviors of Kamigawa

CHAPTER 7

Outside Minamo Academy once more, Toshi stood with his allies. Behind him, the borrowed battle-moth still burbled happily, securely lashed to its tree. Kiku and Marrow both faced Toshi, listening closely as he spoke.

“And that’s it,” he said. “If we can get in and get out quietly, we don’t have to worry about Hidetsugu and his yamabushi. Once we’ve got the disk, we can leave. I can dissolve the hyozan oath from anywhere once we’re done here. But we need it in place until we’re done, in case Hidetsugu finds us.”

Marrow looked in annoyance at the glorious moth. “I still don’t see why you don’t just go in there and carry the thing off yourself. You brought it here alone, didn’t you?”

Toshi nodded. “I did. But that particular avenue is closed. My myojin doesn’t want this thing in her domain.”

“Then why doesn’t she leave it here?” Kiku had been especially sharp and penetrating with her questions during Toshi’s little briefing. She was also supporting Marrow whenever possible, which Toshi guessed was a way to force more information out of him.

“Because she wants it to exist. She just doesn’t want it to exist in her territory. If we leave it here, something bad will happen to it. Someone will eat it or break it or try to use it, and that’s not what Night’s Reach wants. She likes things as they are right now, and she’s tasked me with keeping them that way.”

Buoyed by Kiku’s support, Marrow was still skeptical. “And you expect us to fight off the ogre and his yamabushi if things don’t go according to plan?”

“I expect the hyozan oath to keep Hidetsugu in check. He can’t attack us without endangering himself. As for the yamabushi … yes, I do expect you to fight if it comes to that. There may also be the odd oni to contend with, but I don’t think-”

Marrow’s fur stood up straight. “Oni?”

“One in particular. Hidetsugu sort of put his dog on my trail, so it’s possible it’ll come running as soon as I show up.” He turned to Kiku. “That’s your main job, by the way. If anything with four legs and horns shows up, I expect to see a bouquet of flowers in its eye sockets before it comes anywhere near me.”

“But I still don’t-”

“Hush, vermin.” Kiku strode forward past Marrow, her eyes hard. “The more Toshi tells us about this job, the more I’m convinced he’s not telling it all. The job is to grab the disk, get away, and break up the gang. If we have to fight along the way, we fight.” She beckoned the ratman closer, and they stood shoulder-to-shoulder facing Toshi.

“Let’s do it,” Kiku said.

“Okay,” Toshi said. “But there’s one more detail I haven’t mentioned yet ….”

Captain Nagao was even less pleased to see Toshi the second time around. He drew his short sword and stalked over to the new arrival with Silver-Foot close behind.

“See?” Toshi held up his hands in playful surrender. “Told you I’d be back.”

It was broad daylight, so most of the survivors were awake to see Toshi arrive, but the windowless room was as gloomy and the mood as bleak as it had been in the dead of night.

Nagao glared at Toshi, clenching his blade tight. “Are you going to help this time, friend, or just talk?”

Toshi shrugged. “I can start helping right now.” Behind him, his foot was still immersed in the shadowed corner of the room. With his hands up as they were, it was an easy task to reach out, grab Nagao by the shoulders, and haul the heavier man backward into the darkness.

Off-guard and overbalanced, Nagao grunted as he tumbled into the black expanses. Toshi held fast to Nagao’s shoulders, concentrating on his chosen destination. It was far easier to travel alone, but it helped when he knew where he was going.

After a breathless lurch through the void, Toshi and Nagao erupted from the base of a stout cedar tree. Toshi recovered first, but Nagao was breathless as he clutched the dirt, trying to locate his sword by touch. He winced with each breath and clutched at his chest. Toshi saw blood seeping through a ragged bandage under the officer’s chest plate. He realized Nagao wasn’t just disoriented by the trip and the sudden change of scenery; he was also recovering from a serious wound.

They were in a lush, healthy forest of evergreens, the smell of moss and damp wood thick in the air. The sky was clear and sunlit, but the thick canopy of boughs and needles allowed only thin river of light to reach the ground.

“This is Jukai,” Nagao said. He had found his sword and now struggled to his feet. “This is where the kitsune led by Lady Silk-Eyes came after the goblins attacked their village. Where we were before we went to Minamo.”

“And it’s probably just the way you left it,” Toshi said. “The kitsune villagers are still living wild and loving it. You’ll recognize more than a few familiar faces.”

Nagao had completely recovered by now and he had regained most of his bluster. “Take me back to the academy,” he said. “I’m the last one to be rescued, not the first.”

“You’re the leader,” Toshi said. “I had to take you first so you can convince the others. You’ll have to do it fast, though, because I don’t know how much time we’ll have.”

Nagao hesitated. “Who is in charge here?”

“Hm? Oh, I don’t know. There’s a trio of old foxes everyone seems to listen to. And Princess Michiko is here, along with her kitsune minders. Oh, and that big dog is here, too.”

The captain considered this. “And all are safe?”

“So far. They’ve been here for weeks with no troubles. I don’t think even the kami have bothered them.”

Nagao sheathed his sword. “Take me back at once,” he said. “And then start bringing the others here as quickly as you can.”

Toshi cocked his head, his voice cutting. “I need you to tell me that. Listen, soldier, that was always the plan,” he said. “If you’re done making conditions, how about we go to work?”

Ferrying the survivors from Minamo to the forest took longer than Toshi had hoped, but at least it went smoothly. Once Nagao convinced Silver-Foot that Toshi could do what he’d promised, the rest of the survivors were only too willing to trust the stranger.

Toshi could only take three people with him at once when he started, but soon he was bringing seven or eight at a time. It was strenuous work, but it was like running long distances-once he’d established a pace and a rhythm, it was just as easy to keep going as it was to stop and rest.

He said a silent prayer of thanks to his myojin for keeping Hidetsugu and the oni off his back while he worked. Between the ogre’s nose and Toshi’s connection to the oni dog, he had expected them to pounce within moments of showing up. He guessed that they hadn’t because he never stayed in Minamo for long. Once the captains had the survivors lined up and ready to go, all Toshi had to do was show up and collect them.

Kiku stood quietly behind Toshi, never addressing or acknowledging the survivors, even when they tried to thank her for rescuing them. She was focused on the room’s only door and the hallway outside it. If a challenge came, it would come from there.

Toshi had left Marrow-Gnawer on the roof of the academy to make sure the moth was not discovered. The nezumi had never flown before and he was as giddy as a schoolgirl when the great insect carried them up into the clouds. Toshi couldn’t bring the Taken One into the realm of shadow, but he could cause it to fade as he did. Once they were both immaterial, all Toshi had to do was guide the stone disk up to the roof, where he could lash it to the moth. From there, he could take it anywhere in Kamigawa.

After half an hour of steady, nerve-wracking work there were only a dozen civilians and a handful of soldiers left to rescue. Toshi signaled for the next party of eight to approach him, but Nagao and Silver-Foot interrupted him.

“Captain Silver-Foot will stay with the others in Jukai,” Nagao said. “But my men and I need to get back to Eiganjo.”

Toshi shook his head. “This isn’t a ricksha service, Captain. And if it is, no one’s tipped the driver yet. I agreed to get you to safety, and I will. Where you go after that is your problem.”

Nagao reddened. “I am a captain in the daimyo’s army,” he flared. “My country is at war and I have been here, helpless and besieged. Do you understand duty, friend? Obligation?”

Toshi inhaled to answer, but Kiku spoke first. “It’s coming,” she said. She casually sniffed the camellia on her shoulder and drew her fuetsu throwing ax.

A low, panicked murmur rose from the far end of the room. Three sets of black jaws had already appeared, snapping at empty air as they floated purposefully toward the remaining survivors.

Silver-Foot and Nagao quickly charged across the room and positioned themselves between the retreating survivors and the growing flock of hungry mouths. There were over a score of them now, with more appearing every second. The officers gestured to the other soldiers and these brave fighting men formed a line that stretched all the way across the center of the room.

One of the soldiers cried out as a savage set of teeth clamped onto his sword arm. With inhuman precision, Silver-Foot sliced the set of jaws in half from the rear, bringing the edge of his sword within a hair’s breadth of the stricken soldier’s skin. Separate, the upper and lower rows of teeth stubbornly clung to their morsel before they evaporated into smoke. In response, the other mouths oriented on the bleeding man and drifted toward him.

Under Silver-Foot and Nagao’s careful command, the soldiers carefully deflected and avoided the floating jaws away from the occupied side of the room. It was a good idea not to antagonize the All-Consuming Oni of Chaos any further, but Toshi feared it was an idea that had come too late. The demonic spirit had been struck, and now the smell of blood seemed to tell it there was prey to be had. The far corner of the room soon filled with hungry mouths that seethed and buzzed like a swarm of angry bees.

A survivor in academy robes moved up and clutched Toshi’s arm. “Come on, man, what are you waiting for? Take us away from here.”

Toshi shrugged the man off. “Wait,” he said. “Try to keep still. It hasn’t done any real damage yet, and it won’t if we all just keep quiet.”

The academician moved back, his eyes still wide and fearful. Kiku sidled up next to Toshi.

“How do you know that?” she whispered.

“I don’t,” he whispered back. “But I think the only reason they lasted this long was because that thing is in here with them.” He pointed to the Taken One. “I think Hidetsugu’s oni is afraid of it.”

Kiku and Toshi watched together for a moment as the cloud of mouths rose up to the ceiling. Some of them turned and pointed themselves directly at the Taken One. Slowly, menacingly, they began to float towards the stone disk.

“Not anymore,” Kiku said.

Silver-Foot appeared in front of Toshi, startling the ochimusha once more. He’d have to learn how the foxfolk did that trick without the blessings of a major myojin.

“Take as many as you can and go,” the fox captain said. “We’ll cover your retreat.”

Toshi looked Silver-Foot in the eye. “No good,” he said. “Anyone who doesn’t make this trip will be dead by the time I get back.”

“We are willing to make that sacrifice.”

“But I’m not. If this place is overrun by the oni, I’ll never get that thing out of here.” Even as they spoke, the oni’s ravenous jaws were encircling the stone disk, testing and biting the air around it.

Toshi had spent more time with the kitsune lately than he ever had before, so he was accustomed to reading their blank, inscrutable expressions. Silver-Foot’s short muzzle crinkled and his eyes flashed. He was furious.

“Thief,” he growled. “Is your treasure worth your own life? For I will cut you down where you stand unless you take these people to safety right now.”

“Then we all die.”

“So be it. I will not let you choose an inanimate thing over the lives of my charges.”

Kiku stepped forward, sniffing her flower again. “That’s not a decision you get to make, kitsune.”

Simultaneously touched and disturbed by Kiku’s sudden protective streak, Toshi considered his options. Silver-Foot’s sword was out and Toshi glanced down at its glowing edge. He looked back at Kiku, then up at the kitsune, and then he smiled.

“What if I offered you a third option?”

“I would listen. Do it quickly.”

“My treasure and your people are threatened by the same thing. Stand aside and I’ll take care of both our problems.”

“How can you do this?”

Toshi twirled his jitte. “Just pull all your people back … over there, away from the disk and the oni. I’ll take it from there.”

Silver-Foot paused. “We can help you.”

“I don’t need you to help. I need you to watch.”

Visibly unconvinced, Silver-Foot made an angry clicking sound in his throat. But he turned and quickly went back to the line of soldiers. In a matter of moments, Silver-Foot and Nagao had herded their men and the remaining survivors into the safest corner of the room.

Kiku sheathed her axe. “Good luck, Toshi.”

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean it. If you die, I’ve got no way out.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose that’s all right, too. I suppose a kiss is out of the question?”

Kiku glowered as she withdrew to the far wall.

The oni’s mouths had filled the far end of the room from floor to ceiling and they were still expanding, still increasing in number. A smaller cloud now encircled the Taken One, though so far none had been bold enough to test their teeth against it.

Toshi took a deep breath. He cleared his thoughts, picturing the vast expanse of darkness and void that housed his myojin. He pictured the Myojin of Night’s Reach as he had always known her: a bone-white mask of a woman’s face framed on a field of luxurious black fabric. The curtain of black was held by a pair of disembodied arms and was attended by pale, ghostly hands that followed her like servants.

Night’s Reach was one of the oldest and most powerful spirits known. In fact, some of Kamigawa’s religions believed that Night and Chaos were the first spirits, from which all other spirits drew their substance. Toshi knew for a fact this wasn’t true, but he was heartened by the comparison. If he were going to pit his patron spirit against Hidetsugu’s, at least they were of the same high pedigree.

O Night’s Reach. Toshi’s thoughts were as focused and urgent as a desperate whisper. Grant a humble acolyte your blessings once more. In your name, I act. For your glory, I call for your aid.

There was no reply, not in his mind or in the vast ocean of darkness he saw in his mind’s eye. But a familiar sense of something huge began building inside him, like wave about to break or a bubble about to pop. He felt as if he had held his breath for an hour, and his lungs were screaming to exhale, like his sinuses were packed with ragweed and the upcoming sneeze would blow his head to pieces.

You honor me, acolyte. Go forth with my blessing.

Toshi opened his eyes. He grunted in savage triumph, intoxicated by the power suffusing him. It was all he could do not to throw back his head and laugh.

Nearby, the first set of needle-like teeth touched the surface of the Taken One. Pure white light flashed from the points of contact.

The oni’s mouths went mad, chattering wildly and swarming toward the stone disk. If the oni hadn’t recognized the power of the daimyo’s prize before, it did now. The storm of jaws surged forward.

Too late, Toshi thought. For once, someone else is too late.

He raised his arms and felt the power of his myojin surge through him. Circles of black light bubbled around his hands, and then Toshi did laugh, raucous, mocking laughter in the face of this terrible foe.

The black lights coalesced into a cloud around his wrists as the oni’s hungry mouths streaked toward him. When the first was only a few yards away, the cloud of light let out a terrible flash and a stream of pallid, cadaverous hands.

The river of palms and fingers blasted into the cloud of snapping jaws. Toshi directed the stream back and forth across the Oni of Chaos so that the demon’s jaws were fully opposed by the grip of Night’s Reach. The hands emerged identically: flat, straight, and with all the fingers pressed together, but they moved like living things once they touched the enemy.

Each pale-skinned hand clamped onto a pair of oni jaws and squeezed tight. When positioned correctly, they completely neutralized the voracious little beasts. If they missed the mark, they lost fingers to the insatiable appetite of the oni. Even these maimed hands continued to fight, however, pushing the invaders back to the doorway they’d come through.

Still laughing, still spraying the cloud of mouths with his myojin’s attendant aspects, Toshi slowly advanced across the room. The oni’s jaws could easily shred anything that came within range of their teeth, but the myojin’s innumerable hands continued to clamp them shut and move them back.

As one, the oni’s jaws opened and let out an enraged, ear-splitting shriek of anger and frustration. Untouched in the center of the swirling mass of hands, mouths, teeth, and fingers, Toshi raised his arms high and brought his palms together.

The impact boomed like a black-powder bomb. The concussion cleared a wide space around the ochimusha, which then quickly filled with disembodied hands. Safe behind a wall of the myojin’s power, Toshi pressed forward, driving the oni mouths up against the far wall and the closed door. He gathered his strength, cried out in ecstatic spiritual frenzy, and then forced the last of the oni mouths from the room.

He stood for a moment in the gently swirling cyclone of hands, breathing heavily. Then Toshi pitched and fell to his knees, wincing as his arms, legs, and stomach cramped.

Kiku was there to help him up. “You did it,” she said. The mahotsukai seemed impressed … but Toshi suspected that he was misreading her expression. Kiku was probably only surprised and perhaps a little put out that he had survived.

Toshi stood under his own power as soon as Kiku got him to his feet. “You bet I did it. I just sent Hidetsugu an engraved invitation to come slaughter us. That was his oni I just beat back. He’s not going to be happy about it.”

Kiku’s eyes widened a bit. “What should we do?”

“Get them all ready to go. I’m taking everyone in one trip.” He raised his voice. “And you, Nagao. You and your men will follow me to Jukai, now, without further discussion. Once we’re all safe and alive, I’ll consider taking you home.”

Nagao glanced at Silver-Foot. The kitsune nodded and Nagao said, “Agreed.”

Toshi stretched his arms, working the kinks from his muscles. “Line up, people. The last boat to Jukai leaves as soon as you’re all on board.” Kiku tapped him on the shoulder, and Toshi turned.

“And then?” she said.

“And then,” Toshi answered, “we see if Hidetsugu will let us dissolve the hyozan reckoners without a fight.”

Kiku nodded, her face calm. “That’s not going to happen, is it?”

“No,” Toshi said brightly. “But it’s worth offering him the chance.” He leaned in close and spoke into Kiku’s ear. “I’ve got something in mind.”

“I expect no less,” the mahotsukai said. “Go on, Toshi. Get these sheep to safety. The sooner we’re done here, the better.”

The survivors all stood in a long line with their hands clenched. Toshi reached out to Nagao at the front of the line and offered his hand.

One by one, the survivors of Minamo crossed into the shadows, finally escaping the bloody slaughter of the hyozan’s final reckoning.