Rain (21 page)

Shiori took a step toward Tomo, taking his hand with hers. “Tomo-kun, come back with me. I would never put you through any of this.” She looked down at her stomach, the bulge of it. “We can be happy.”

“I don’t want to be happy, Shiori,” Tomo said. He pulled his hand from hers, his eyes burning into me. “I love Katie. And if that means I have to suffer to keep her safe, then that’s what I’ll do. If it means I have to stand aside so someone else can take care of her because I can’t...I will stand aside. That’s what love is.”

“Tomo,” I whispered. I felt fluttery and barely there, a mixture of guilt and shame and bliss.

His voice turned dark and mean. “I’m not interested in someone who would blackmail and betray her way into a relationship. That’s ugly, Shiori.”

The tears brimmed in her eyes.

“Tomo-kun, I just—”

“Don’t call me that,” he said. “Yuu will do.”

The tears spilled over and she ran from the clearing, tipping from side to side with her heavy belly as she went.

“
Hidoi
,”
Jun said, turning his head to watch Shiori go. I agreed—that was cold of Tomo to do. But I couldn’t blame him. The pain on his face was horrible, but I was scared to reach out to him. What if he refused?

“Get out of here, Takahashi,” Tomo warned. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“I came to make sure you’re okay,” Jun said. “Katie told me about the ink on the chalkboards this morning. Anything you want to tell me?”

“Like?”

“Blackouts? Weird drawings you can’t explain? Nightmares getting worse?”

Tomo’s voice was like stone. “No.” He was lying, but I didn’t blame him. After seeing Jun and me kiss, he hated him even more.

“Denial won’t help, Yuu.”

“I’m not going to join you, so fuck off.”

Jun shifted his weight as he looked at me, his eyes cold and gleaming. “Right now my concern is Katie. You’re putting her in danger.”

Tomo narrowed his eyes. “I never asked her to come here.” The words stung, even though I knew he meant it as a way to protect me. I wanted to be here with him. I should’ve come by myself right away. “You might not be past using her to get to me, but I would never hurt her, so you can piss off.”

“Using her!” Jun laughed. “Is that what you think? No, Yuu, you wouldn’t knowingly hurt her. But you can’t ignore the warnings written on the chalkboards. What if you kill her?”

“They’re just threats!” Tomo shouted, rising to his feet. He curled his hands into fists at his sides. “Just nightmares.”

Jun’s voice thundered, “They’re not. We both know that. You’re a weapon, Tomo. You were created for a single purpose. Judgment. Retribution. That is all.”

Tomo shook his head. “I won’t accept your lies.” He uncurled his hands and looked up, his eyes lit with flame. “I. Won’t. Kill.”

Ikeda spoke up. “That’s what Jun said, too.”

I whirled around to face her, and so did Jun.

Ikeda looked down at the ground, her eyes soft. “He knows, don’t you, Jun? Why don’t you tell Katie how you know so much about what Kami can do?”

“Ikeda,” Jun said. “Not now.”

“No,” Ikeda said, balling her hands into fists. “I think Katie should know what happened, don’t you?”

The blood in my ears hummed. What the hell was going on here? More secrets?

“Why don’t you ask him, Katie? What happened to his dad? Then we’ll see where your loyalties lie.”

“That doesn’t matter right now!” barked Takahashi.

“They need to know,” Ikeda shouted. “I have stood by you through everything, Jun. I can’t stand by anymore and watch everything fall apart. Yuu needs to know what the ink can do to those you love.”

“What happened, Jun?” I said. Tomo flinched beside me, but said nothing.

Jun stood, heaving deep breaths into his lungs. His blond highlights almost glowed in the darkened clearing. His eyes were cold and distant. He was remembering something awful. I almost didn’t want to know.

“My dad was bringing in a lot of money from his Yakuza work,” Jun said, his voice soft, younger somehow. “Until the accident. One of the guys they sold guns to didn’t like the merchandise, so he came to get his money back. There was a struggle...my dad was shot.” He ran a hand through his hair and leaned against his motorbike. “They didn’t want to send him to a hospital because the police would get involved...so they assigned him private care from within the Yakuza chapter. A nurse. She took care of him, came into our house while Mom was at work and I was at school.” His hand balled into a fist and his eyes flashed with...sadness? Anger? I backed up a step. I didn’t like where this was going.

He stood up and walked past Tomo and me, standing at the edge of the little bridge over the two pools of water. Mount Fuji gleamed in the distance.

“She fell for him,” Jun said at last. “And that bastard snuck around with her for months before we found out. I came home from school early one day...I’d found out that I’d passed my entrance exams for junior high.” He lowered his head and then crouched down in the grasses beside the water. He shook his head, as if trying to get rid of the memory.

“Shortly after, his father ran off with her,” Ikeda said.

Jun grabbed a stone from the side of the pool, flipping it over and over between his fingers. “Mom cried for months. We didn’t have enough money because he spent it all on that bitch while we scrounged for bills. Do you know what it’s like to try to study for exams while your mom is sobbing in the next room? Do you know what it’s like to consider working for the Yakuza just to pay for your school fees?” He whipped the stone at the water and it splashed loudly. The water sprayed around him, beads of it catching in his bangs. He stood, turning to face us.

This was the worst part. I knew it.

“What did you do?” I whispered.

Jun’s shoulders hunched over as he stared at the water. “It was an accident.”

“Thought you didn’t have accidents,” Tomo said. “So I’m not the only unstable Kami after all.”

Ikeda sat on the edge of her bike. “He was doing his homework. His mom was wailing in her bedroom. And everything boiled over. I’ve seen the notebook, Katie. It’s still in his room. Pages and pages of scribbled kanji in every direction. Scrawls and torn paper. Everything underlined, smudges in dark black ink and pencil.”

Jun’s voice shook. “I couldn’t take it anymore. What he’d put Mom and me through.”

My throat was dry. I didn’t like this story. I didn’t like it at all. “What did he write, Ikeda?”

“‘Bastard. I hate you. I want you to die. DIE. DIE. DIE.’”

“And he died,” I whispered.

Jun was silent, so Ikeda spoke up. “He collapsed while shopping in Ginza in Tokyo. When the police came they recognized the nurse and arrested her for past Yakuza crimes.”

“It was the Yakuza who did it,” Jun growled. “If he hadn’t got involved with them, he’d still be alive.”

“Oh god, Jun,” I said, shaking. “You...you killed your own father.”

He looked at me, his eyes cold and his fists at his sides.

“
They
did,” he said. “I wasn’t responsible. How would I know writing a word in my own notebook would kill him? He drove me to that point!”

I raised my hand to my mouth.

“You need to know,” Ikeda said, “what Kami are capable of. Go back to America, Katie. There are dark places here where you don’t belong.”

“You’re wrong.” I shook my head. “I belong here. I’m part Kami. This is my world, too.”

“No, she’s right,” Tomo said, and I glared at him. “My drawings could kill you. Even my words.”

“Did you forget Ikeda is on their side?” I said. “Of course she’s going to say that. This whole story is to drive me away from you.”
No,
I realized as I said it. Her story was to keep me away from Jun. It was her own form of manipulation, just like Shiori had done with Tomo. Ikeda wanted Jun to herself; that was all. She wanted to scare me off him.

It was working.

“Katie,” Jun said, turning to face me. His eyes were warm, his hand outstretched. I could barely look at him; I was terrified. He’d killed someone. He’d killed his own dad. “Please don’t be afraid of me,” he said. “I would never hurt you. I’m not the same as I was then. I’ve learned to control the ink better.”

He took a step toward me, and my stomach twisted. “Stay back.”

The warmth in his eyes blinked out. He stood for a moment, saying nothing. Then he threw out an accusatory hand at Tomohiro.

“This is your fault,” Jun snarled. The wind gusted around us, his blond-and-black hair tangling around him.

“It’s always someone’s fault but yours, isn’t it, Takahashi?” Tomo said.

Jun’s face darkened. “You know nothing. Don’t you dare bring judgment on me. You killed your mother, too.”

Tomo look like he’d been slapped, his eyes filling with pain.

Jun laughed. “Oh, yes, you think I didn’t look up your history, Yuu? You blame yourself, don’t you? She was bringing you your lunch. If you hadn’t forgotten it, she wouldn’t have crossed when the truck pulled out. You’re just as guilty. And you nearly murdered your friend Koji by summoning
inugami.
And now your next victim.” He raised his hand to me, and I shivered. “She chooses a demon over me. A dirty bastard child of Susanou’s.”

Tomo shook with every breath; he was pain, he was fury. “You’re crazy,” he whispered.

“Everything in my life has always been taken from me,” Jun said. “I won’t let you take Katie, too.”

“She’s not a thing to be taken,” Tomo said. “She makes her own choices.”

“You can’t deny your attraction to her,” Jun said. “I felt it, too. The ink flowing in her veins.”

I pressed my lips together, narrowing my eyes.

“That’s why you pursued her, isn’t it?” Jun continued.

Conflicted expressions flashed on Tomo’s face. I knew that had been a part of it, at first. The Kami blood calling out to itself. But we were more than that now. Trying to turn us against each other wouldn’t work.

“She’s an amplifier to the power,” Jun said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it.”

My heart nearly stopped. The cold way he talked about me, like I was just an object. It started to make horrible sense—he barely even knew me. Why would he ask me out for coffee over and over? What made him so interested in me when he had someone like Ikeda who worshipped the ground he walked on?

My lips trembled as I spoke. “You didn’t care about me at all, did you? You only cared about the ink in me.”

“You can’t be blind to the power you radiate,” Jun said.

Nerves fluttered and clawed at my sides. “You used me.”

Jun shook his head. “Every prince is adorned with a crown jewel. We need each other.”

“I don’t need you,” I spat.

Jun smiled darkly. “You’re wrong. You’ll see when Yuu finally submits to his true lineage. It’s time to face your destiny.”

Tomo’s voice was as dark as night. “I will never submit.”

“Then I’ll force you,” Jun muttered, and there was a rush of ink. I could hear it, could smell its sour metallic scent. I felt like the ink inside of me lit on fire. Blackness spread across Jun’s back, dripping down to the grass as it twisted and shaped into feathery raven-colored wings. The wings flapped back and forth, spraying his arms with inkblots that trickled down to his palms. They pooled in his hand and poured into the shape of a black kendo
shinai,
which he held out toward Tomo.

“You’re falling apart at the seams,” Jun said. “You’re going lose your mind to the Kami side of you, and there’ll be nothing left to do but break you.”

“You can’t stop me,” Tomo said, his voice growing deeper, louder. “I have the power of Yomi at my fingertips. You think you can stand against me?”

I caught a whisper on the wind, like a crowd of voices speaking at the same time. It had been a long time since I’d heard it last. It gathered, louder and louder. A flash of lightning lit the clearing, and the thunder rumbled closer than before. The rain started to leak from the gray layer of clouds.

“You can’t stop me,” Tomo said again, and his voice had changed. His eyes were flooding with blackness like pools of ink. I was losing him.

“Tomo,” I said. “Stop it. You’re losing control!”

“I’m sorry, Katie,” his strange voice said, his eyes on Jun as he started to circle him. His voice echoed as if many others were saying the same words, their timing just a bit off. The ink dripped into his hand until he held a
shinai,
too. It dripped, drop by drop, into wings on his back as black as night. “This is what I am. This is what I will always be.”

“Please,” I pleaded.

“I will rule this world,” Jun said, and his voice, too, was darker, larger. My breath caught in my throat. I’d never seen Jun lose control before, never heard him sound like that. I flashed a look at Ikeda, her face crumpled with worry, but she made no move to stop them.

Jun’s voice echoed with a tone that wasn’t his, the discord of the hundred voices whispering in my ears. “This is your last chance to earn my allegiance, Yuu Tomohiro. If you don’t yield, I will take you down.”

A sinister smile curved on Tomo’s lips. “Try it.”

Jun leaped at him, swinging the dripping
shinai.
Tomo’s
shinai
cracked against it, and the ink splattered around them.

I backed away until the sharp bark of the tree pressed against my back.

“Jun,” Ikeda finally called out. “Leave it.” He didn’t answer her. “Your wrist!”

Tomo heard her and struck at his weak wrist, but Jun pulled his arm back before he could hit it. He swung at Tomo and the
shinai
smacked him in the back, knocking him forward onto his knees. Ink feathers tumbled from his back and caught on the wind, lifting up into the clearing.

Jun swung his
shinai
to hit him again, but Tomo rolled out of the way and kicked at Jun, knocking him backward.

“Guys, cut it out!” I said. “This isn’t going to solve anything.”

“They won’t listen,” Ikeda said. “You said Yuu is descended from Susanou, right? And Jun from Amaterasu. That means the
kami
haven’t stopped fighting for thousands of years. The warriors change, but the fight doesn’t.”

The
shinai
cracked together and lightning forked through the sky, followed by a loud crash of thunder. The rain started to pour from the dark clouds, smearing the ink in trails down their faces.

Jun smashed his
shinai
into Tomo’s leg and he collapsed into the mud. I gasped, running forward to help him.

“Stay back!” Tomo shouted, lifting his arm up to me. Jun’s
shinai
slammed into his back and he fell forward into the mud, his arm still outstretched.

“Stop it!” I shouted at Jun and pulled at his shoulder.

The moment my fingers touched his shoulder, a shock went through me like I’d touched an electric fence. Every nerve in my body alerted, like I was seeing things more clearly, more sharply than before. The rain sounded louder. The echoing voices thundered in my head. The touch jolted Jun back, too.

The ink in me was awakening. I could feel it, like noticing someone who’d been sitting quietly in the corner, watching. Waiting.

Tomo was on his feet and he dropped his
shinai,
shoving Jun back with both hands. Jun was still stunned from the shock between us and he fell easily, thumping hard against the ground.

Tomo fell on top of him and punched him in the jaw.

Jun cried out, and the falling rain turned to ink. Lightning struck the top of Mount Kuno beside us, where Tokugawa’s shrine stood. Tomo looked up at the inky rain, and Jun took the chance to shove him off and get to his feet. He stretched out his empty hand, and the ink collected in it like a pool of dark water. It stretched out until he held two
shinai,
one in each hand.

“Is that it?” Jun taunted, his body hunched as he heaved in breath after breath. “I was expecting better from the Demon Son.”

“I’m not finished yet,” Tomo said, the ink stretching into a second
shinai
in his left hand. “You’re still breathing.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Jun said. And then he flapped his inky wings and lifted into the sky.

Tomo bent his knees and yelled out the loudest
kiai
I’d ever heard. He pushed off the ground and they were both in the air suddenly,
shinai
cracking against each other like some kind of synchronized movie fight.

I knew there was a style of kendo that involved a
shinai
in each hand, but I didn’t know either of them knew how to do it. And maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were going on pure instinct. Each crack of the swords against each other caused a flash of blue lightning and a rumble of thunder. The rain drenched the clearing, leaving puddles of ink everywhere.

“They’re going to kill each other!” cried Ikeda through the bursting rain. Would they go that far?

Jun would. He had.

Oh god. We had to stop them.

Tomo’s copper hair was slicked to the sides of his head, the ink running through in streaks of black. The feathers on their backs melted and reshaped under the relentless pelting of the rain. Jun shrieked at Tomo, and Tomo yelled back, and they crashed into each other again, their wings beating hard against the sky. The grasses below me bowed over from the storm.

Susanou was the
kami
of storms. The harder they fought, the worse the storm would get, and I didn’t know how to stop it. The clearing was flooding, and with this much ink around, what if Tomo lost his mind? I had to stop Susanou’s blood from awakening in Tomo.

Ikeda was right. Susanou and Amaterasu would never stop fighting. I couldn’t stand against Susanou alone. I needed an ally.

Tomo’s drawings lay scattered and torn in the mud, blotted badly by the rainfall of ink. I grabbed the nearest one, but it was too smudged to be of any use. I reached for Tomo’s notebook and opened the cover. All the drawings inside flailed in the storm and ripped at the pages, trying desperately to get out. The crossed-out koi were biting each other’s tails in a chain, trying to form themselves into a long, sleek dragon. The horse we’d ridden in Toro Iseki was bolting and rearing, whinnying in terror. The wagtail beat his wings so hard that he flipped the pages of the notebook back to the beginning. I saw his sharp talons pressing through the layers of paper as I forced my way through the pages.

I grabbed one of the Amaterasu drawings and slammed the notebook shut. I reached for the pen hooked over the cover page.

Nervously, I traced the final line from my ear to my chin to make the drawing complete.

Nothing happened. As usual, my Kami power was too weak to do anything but send Tomo’s and Jun’s powers spiraling out of control. Just like I couldn’t destroy the dragon Tomo had drawn, I couldn’t complete his drawings either.

Jun slammed Tomo in the sky and he fell with a crash into the pool. Water sloshed up in a fury of white foam and murky ink. I crumpled the drawing in my hand and raced over. I reached the edge of the water just as Tomo came up sputtering for air, his wings melted and drowned. The pond was only chest deep, but Tomo slipped and stumbled in the pool, his energy gone. His eyes had returned to normal; the human part of him was in control.

Jun hovered above like a dark angel, watching, a black
shinai
in each hand.

I helped Tomo out of the water and onto the shore, where he collapsed.

“He’s strong,” he panted.

“You’re stronger,” I said. “You just need stay in control.”

“Get away from him, Katie!” Jun yelled from above. “He’ll only bring more sadness and destruction.”

“
Urusai
!”
I shouted at him. “Enough, Jun!”

He shook his head slowly. “I should’ve finished this the last time,” he said in the voice of many, holding his two
shinai
out at angles away from his body. “He’s an abomination. There were never meant to be Kami like him. He’s unnatural.”

Unnatural. He didn’t fit in, like me. Neither of us belonged. But that meant we could carve out a space where we belonged. I didn’t believe he was dangerous. I knew there was more there. Potential lay before us. Possibility and choice.

I grabbed Tomo’s right arm and wrapped his fingers in a fist around the pen. I placed the paper underneath, just as Jun pulled back the
shinai,
ready to descend on Tomo.

Jun flapped his wings once, backing up higher into the air for the assault.

Holding Tomo’s arm, I drew a shaky line connecting the sketch’s ear to her chin.

The lightning and thunder pulsed at the same moment. It boomed in my ears so loudly I screamed.

Jun plummeted from the sky and into the second pool of water, sending angry caps of foam spitting onto the grassy edges.

The rain slowed, and it took a moment for the blinding bright light to fade. Ikeda raced to the pool where Jun had fallen, reaching into the dark waters and pulling him out.

The ground started shaking violently, the sound of it like thunder.

“Earthquake,” Tomo said. “Come on!” We limped away from the giant tree in case it decided to heave itself over. Everything shook and I lost my footing, stumbling into the mud.

The earthquake stopped as Jun leaned forward on the edge of the pool. He coughed the water out of his lungs. His wings had dissolved in the water like Tomo’s, his eyes clear as he regained control.

Tomo helped me upright and then stared back at Jun. At the edge of the water, the black ink that had seeped from Jun’s back twisted upward, wriggling as it formed the body of a snake.

“Oh my god,” Tomo said suddenly. “I’m not the descendant of Susanou.”

“What?”

He slowly raised his pointed finger toward Jun. “He is.”