Raiju: A Kaiju Hunter Novel (The Kaiju Hunter) (12 page)

One evening I had drunk too much sake, and he caught me stepping too close to the shrine. He became agitated. I apologized. And in return, he gave me this story to bear and made me a Watcher.

Long before humans walked upon the earth, the Kami crawled and slithered across its surface, and swam in its oceans, and flew across its skies. This was their world then. And it was idyllic, for there were no wars to fight, no famine, and the Kami never took more from the earth than what they needed. They never poisoned it in any way, because the earth is the body of Amaterasu, the goddess who gives birth to all life.

But the Kami, though peaceful, were also proud creatures. Like gods everywhere, they desired creatures who would worship them, so they gathered together one day and said, “Let us create man.”

And so it was done, and men were created to live in the green fields of the earth and to care for and worship the Kami, and all was well for a while. But men, who were as proud as the Kami that have created them, became angered when they realized they existed for no other reason than to amuse the Kami. In time they gathered and said to one another, “It is we who labor and suffer. It is we who should be served by the gods. It is the gods who should listen to our prayers and requests.”

They were clever men, and instead of rebelling, they would meet in secret and devise their plans. “Let us wait and listen, and record the names of all the Kami on metal seals,” they said one to another. “Because when we have written all the names of the Kami on the ofuda, we will then have power over them. We can lock them away in the womb of Amaterasu. And then the earth will be ours.”

This took many generations, as you can well imagine. But with time and perseverance, the men gathered all the names of the Kami on a great treasure of ofuda. Then came the uprising, swift and brutal. They used the ofuda to strike down the Kami and drive them from the face of the earth. For, you see, to know the name of a god is to have power over it. Some went deep into the sea and became mountains; some went into the sky and became the stars. Some dug deep into the earth and became the foundations of the greatest cities in the world. And others, the fiercest and most temperamental of the Kami, were driven into hell, the only place that could contain their terrible rage.

Raiju the Lion of Fire was one such beast.

The ones who were confined to hell were the most dangerous, for they would have ripped the heavens apart in their fury. They would have destroyed all that came before to keep it from the hands of men. And there they seethed and the earth felt their wrath in the forms of great storms and lightning.

10

“
Do you think any of this mythology stuff is real?” I asked Mr. Serizawa.

And Mr. Serizawa said, “Do you?”

He had a point. I wasn’t very good at determining reality anymore, so I shut my mouth and just listened.

11

Thousands of years passed, and men became great, far greater than the Kami, for their hands tamed not just the beasts of the earth, but the very elements, as well. And after some time had passed, some of the Kami allied themselves with men in order to gain their freedom. They became like tame household pets, serving the very men they themselves had created. That is why we pray to gods and call them by name.

But this angered the fiercest of the remaining Kami, and a great war erupted between the Kami who had come to worship mankind and those who walked the Old Ways and desired to end their own creation. There was much famine and unhappiness in that time. The War of the Kami nearly upset the balance of the earth before Amaterasu intervened and put the fiercest Kami into a deep sleep within her womb.

But before they slept, the Kami who had given themselves to anger and darkness promised to rise once more, when the time of mankind had begun to wane. In those end times, they swore, after the body of Amaterasu had become polluted and unsalvageable under the ministration of men—and they promised that it would!—they vowed to rise, and to take back the earth, or else to destroy it utterly.

12

Mr. Serizawa stopped speaking and only looked long and hard at me. I didn’t like that look. It said he believed this stuff a little more than was healthy. But I had to ask it.

“
What does all this have to do with me?”

“
After the evil Kami were put to sleep, mankind decided it was much too dangerous for the ofuda to remain on earth, where anyone might use them for evil purposes—and yet, they could not be destroyed, either, lest they be needed once more to control the angry Kami. So they were ritually burned and mixed with a potion that was then drunk by the purest of maidens. The ofuda—and thus, the Kami—became part of each of the maidens’ wombs and was passed down through countless generations in preparation for the end of days, when the evil Kami would awaken again.”

Mr. Serizawa took a deep breath. “The men who had mixed the potion were the high priests, the Watchers who eventually became the tellers of the tale. They—we—wait for the end of days. We know that in the last days the ofuda will each come alive within a child wizard of pure spirit—a Keeper—and that Keeper will have eyes as silver as the seals with the names of the Kami written upon them, and they will see the wind and call the elements to their aid. They will be burdened with the difficult task of summoning and taming the ancient Kami. And this, then, will be the final war. The evil Kami will wish to battle the tame Kami for control of the earth. The rest is left in the hands of the gods—and the children who can summon and control them.”

This I so didn’t need to hear, though I figured I was an idiot to think it would end any other way. After all, Japan is not exactly known for its cheery, fairytale endings.

I had to ask it, of course. “Why…why did your grandfather tell you this story? Why did he make you a Watcher?”

Mr. Serizawa looked at me earnestly. “It was to be my burden to carry for the lives I had taken in the war. And because the end of days is upon us, Kevin Takahashi. The dark Kami wake. And the Keepers wake with them.”

Stupid question. Why do I ask these questions, anyway? Of course it was something crazy and complicated like that.

Mr. Serizawa said, “You have manifested the sword of fire, yes? You have called Raiju with its sigil?”

I considered telling him everything that happened tonight. It might even make me feel better. But I chose not to speak of it. Not now. To speak of it would make it all real. And I wanted to go on pretending this was a nightmare, at least for a little while longer.

“
Why now?” I asked instead, standing up. “Why not a few years from now?” I sounded so bitter. “Why
now
, for Chrissakes? Couldn’t I have at least a
few
more years of normalcy?” Really, I thought, was that too much to ask?

Mr. Serizawa looked infinitely sad, as if he could read all my emotions in my desperate face. “You don’t understand,
Mago
. You have encountered another Keeper, and it has awakened the Keeper within you. It has awakened the ofuda which dwells in you. You will be drawn to this person. This person will be where you are. The two Kami will now seek each other out, no matter the cost, no matter what you do, or where you go, and battle to the finish.”

I glared at him. Another Keeper? I took a quick inventory of everyone I knew who had silver eyes. It didn’t take that long. I mean, I had only met one other person in the last few days with pale eyes like mine, and he was currently contemplating kicking my face in. “Snowman?” I nearly shouted. “Snowman controls Qilin? You must be kidding me!”

I couldn’t have a
normal
bully like Troy, or even Bryce, oh no. Not me. Not Kevin Takahashi. Nope. My bully had to be a super-powered freak of nature in charge of a giant, city-smashing slime-o-rama monster with death breath and an even worse attitude problem. Sort of like his master.

I decided then that my life sucked on so many levels I couldn’t even
count
them all anymore.

13

I was late to Biology and had gotten turned around in the school corridor somehow. I had no idea where I was going, but I spotted Aimi up ahead, her plats echoing hollowly in the empty corridors. I started hurrying to catch up to her. At least I could ask her where the classroom was.

“
Greetings, Master.”

I stopped. Slowly I turned around.

The Asian woman from my dream stood behind me. She was tall, statuesque, and dressed in a bright red ceremonial kimono flocked with gold, hand-painted flames and birds. She was standing behind me, her hands linked together in front of her wide black obi belt. As I watched, the flames on her kimono seemed to move, to absorb the birds fleeing from them. She was smiling at me with ruby red lips and searing blue eyes.
Laughing
at me, like I amused her. She was Japanese, yet her hair, done up in hundreds of braids and beads, was as red as my mom’s had been, bright fire-engine red.

I opened my mouth to say something, to ask what she wanted of me, but she moved forward with lightning speed and reached for me, the elongated, blood red tips of her fingernails brushing my cheek. I noticed there were kanji and other ancient symbols engraved on her nails, each of which was as long and curving as the blade of a short sword. I wanted to back away, but I hit the wall of the corridor. I wanted to cry out, but before I could, her hair burst into a halo of crackling flames that enveloped the entire school corridor—and me.

I lunged awake in bed, panting and heaving with sweat running down my chest under my T-shirt. I took a deep breath and fell back onto the pillows, shaking, my fists bunched up in the bedclothes.

My jaw clenched compulsively as a spike of childish indignation raced up my spine. I didn’t
have
to be a Keeper if I didn’t want to be, I thought. It was more like a job than anything else, like being a doctor or lawyer or soldier. It wasn’t like someone was pointing a gun at my head, making me do these things. This was America; despite what Mr. Serizawa had said, I could do anything I wanted.

I didn’t have to summon the sword of fire.

I didn’t have to use the sigil to summon Raiju.

I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do.

In that moment, I made the vow.

Unfortunately, I must have been more upset than I thought, because the pillow my hands were clenched around went up like a bonfire. I was up in seconds, using the pillow to beat at my hands until the fire was snuffed out.

I didn’t feel a thing and my hands didn’t seem to be burned, but my heart was racing like a well-tuned V8 engine in my chest. Jesus, I was turning into that chick in the Stephen King novel on top of everything else, the one who set everyone on fire whenever she freaked out.

The pillow was pretty useless when I finished with it. I stuffed it under the bed, hoping my dad wouldn’t notice the crispy aroma of fried linen wafting in the night air. To make sure, though, I got out of bed and cranked open one of the industrial windows even though it was a chilly night.

I couldn’t sleep. After that, who could?

I locked myself in the bathroom and smoked a cigarette down to a small nub, my hands shaking. I kept expecting to spontaneously combust, but nothing that exciting happened. Finally, I crept out into the hall and visited the kitchen for some potholder mittens. I didn’t know if it would actually do any good, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.

I curled up under the covers, my mittened hands buried under me in an attempt to snuff out any unexpected nocturnal conflagrations.

Then
I was able to sleep.

C H A P T E R F O U R

MONSTER MAGNET

1

Kevin’s list of ways to avoid the end of the world:

1. Clean up the environment.

2. Disarm all nuclear weapons, even those we “don’t” have.

3. Avoid all other Keepers at all costs.

4. Start a hug-a-Kami campaign.

I sat at the desk in my room and went over each point with a highlighter. I figured the first two were doable. I just had to become a high-ranking military leader or the President of the United States, whichever came first. Number Three—not so much. According to Mr. Serizawa, Keepers had a weird magnetic attraction to each other, especially now that we were facing the end of days, which pretty much explained why Snowman was like American Express—everywhere I wanted to be. The Kami were actively seeking each other out now, which posed a bit of a problem. I mean, I couldn’t exactly run screaming from every person I met who had blue eyes, right?
Right?

That left Number Four, and I just didn’t think the Kami were the cuddly types. And no, I wasn’t being serious with that last one, but I
was
starting to feel desperate.

“
Kevin?” my dad’s voice rose up from below. “Where are you?”