The Taken One hissed and sprang out of Michiko’s arms. “Father,” she said. “Where?”
The princess tried to soothe the Taken One with her voice. “He is not here. I do not know where he is.”
“She means O-Kagachi,” Toshi said. Mentioning the old serpent only made the Taken One more agitated, so Toshi added, “He’s not here, either, and we’d like to keep it that way.”
The Taken One shook her head angrily. “Father,” she said, pointing at herself. “Father,” she pointed at Michiko. Then she opened her green lips and hissed.
“I don’t like them either.” Toshi stepped forward to the two women. “Michiko,” he said, “it’s important that you find out what the Taken One wants. That way-”
The Taken One hissed again, and Toshi stepped back. “What is it?”
The serpentine woman bared her fangs. “Father called me ‘Taken One.’”
“She objects,” Michiko said. She reached out to stroke her sister’s face, but the newcomer pulled away like an angry cat. “She does not wish to be known by the name my father gave her.”
“That’s easy to fix. Does she have another?”
Michiko stared at the naked double of herself for a moment. “No,” she said. “She never needed one before she was brought here.”
“Well, let’s keep it simple then. How about ‘Kyodai?’ It means ‘sibling.’”
“Kyodai,” Michiko echoed. She stepped in front of her twin and touched herself on the collarbone. “Michiko,” she said. Then the princess reached out and touched the other. “Kyodai. Sister.”
The serpentine woman stared at Michiko for a moment. Then she nodded and touched her own chest. “Kyodai.” The entity smiled for the first time, clearly pleased with her new name.
“Please.” Michiko took her outermost layer of kitsune linen from her own shoulders and draped it around Kyodai. “A gift for you, my sister.” Kyodai eyed the fabric suspiciously, but with Michiko’s help she was able to put the garment on. She was not ready for a formal dinner, but the simple kimono did make her less distracting … at least to Toshi.
“So, back to business.” Toshi bowed. “Welcome, Kyodai. Michiko and I would like to help you, and we will. But first you have to understand our situation.” Here Toshi faltered, for he had no idea how to sum up everything relevant in a way Kyodai would understand.
“Michiko,” he said at last, “can you tell her what we’re up against?”
“I don’t think I have to,” the princess said. “She isn’t comfortable speaking yet, but I’m sure she knows far more than she can say.”
Toshi glanced around the training area. “Does she know why we’re the only ones awake?” he said. “I don’t mind, but your friends have been asleep for quite a while now.”
“You,” Kyodai pointed at Toshi. “Me. Michiko. We speak now. Alone. They.” She gestured at the sprawled, sleeping bodies of the kitsune villagers. “Later.”
Toshi smiled as his stomach went cold. “You’re keeping them out?”
Kyodai considered his meaning for a moment and then nodded.
“Very wise,” Toshi said. “I commend your judgement. But what I’m getting at is this: Both your fathers are coming here. Konda wants you back as his trophy, and O-Kagachi … well, I don’t know what he wants. But it definitely involves finding you and wrecking the landscape. What do you want to do? Should we run? Fight? Bargain?”
“Slow down, Toshi. You’re just confusing her.”
“This is the price of freedom, princess. The burden of making decisions. She has to understand that all of us … you, me, her, everyone here is in danger. I don’t know if she can die, but I can. You can. We all can, and some of us would like to take steps to avoid it.”
“What would you have us do?” Michiko said. “You’ve been running for weeks and it’s changed nothing. Fighting seems equally pointless. We can do very little against the great serpent or my father’s army.”
“Speak for yourself,” Toshi said. “I saw Kyodai slap a major spirit aside with no effort, and that was when she was an inanimate piece of rock. I’m hoping she can do a lot more now that she’s got a body.” Toshi allowed himself another glimpse of that body, still tantalizing him with flashes of colorful flesh from beneath the sheer kimono. He had always appreciated Michiko’s beauty, but it was somehow even more intoxicating on Kyodai.
Michiko crossed her arms firmly. “I would rather the first thing we asked of her wasn’t combat.”
Thunder boomed high overhead, freezing Toshi where he stood. Tentatively, he lifted his head up and saw the terrible dark bank of clouds that had formed.
“So would I,” Toshi said, “but I think we no longer have a choice.”
In seconds the sky went from bright and clear to black and ominous. Great flaming eyes winked open across the horizon by the pair, six becoming twelve becoming sixteen. Inflamed by his daughter’s sudden release, O-Kagachi at last manifested fully, the great and terrible eight-headed serpent in all his awesome splendor. The tangled mass of heads and serpentine necks filled the entire sky in all directions, blotting out the sun, the clouds, and everything else. The only break in the field of crushing coils was directly at the center, straight up from where Michiko and Kyodai now stood.
The rest of the world literally stopped. On the distant horizon, clouds hardened into sky-bound stones that hung heavy in the air. Falling leaves froze in midflight, birds’ wings stopped between beats. The great spirit beast’s manifestation seemed to draw all other life and motion from the world, from the sky above to the treetops directly over Toshi’s head.
Toshi’s knees buckled as all eight of O-Kagachi’s heads roared down in brute fury. He experienced overwhelming dread and a sadness so profound it made him feel like a single drop in an ocean of tears. The world wasn’t ending, it had ended, and its final destruction was little more than a formality. Toshi steeled himself and swallowed his panic. He couldn’t run and he couldn’t fight, but he would at least meet his end with his eyes open. Toshi planted his hands on his hips and stared angrily, defiantly up at O-Kagachi.
Come on, he thought. Nothing in either world has ever been able to resist you before. He glanced over at Kyodai. But she is something new.
Then, like some malevolent fog, the great old serpent descended.
Kyodai bared her fangs and hissed angrily at the titanic figure. Michiko stared up in abject awe. All her previous encounters with O-Kagachi had been through visions and dreams, and in those only a few of his heads had appeared. Toshi shared the princess’s shock but not her paralysis. He ran to Kyodai and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Call him off,” he said. “You called him to you before, so now you have to send him away. Do it now, or your sister dies.”
Kyodai tore her yellow eyes from O-Kagachi and locked them onto Toshi. She opened her mouth and her forked tongue shot out, stopping a hair’s breadth away from his face.
“Let go,” she whispered.
Michiko found her voice. “Do as she says, Toshi. She will never allow herself to be restrained again.”
Toshi held on for an extra second, unblinking as the sharp tips of Kyodai’s tongue flickered in front of his face. Then he relaxed his grip and stepped back.
“Forgive me.” He bowed. “But what I say is true.”
The princess stepped between Toshi and Kyodai. “It is as Toshi says, sister. You would be justified in letting your father destroy me. It would balance what my father did to you. But I do not wish to die. Especially not now.”
Kyodai’s fierce eyes softened. She extended her hand and took hold of Michiko’s.
“Come,” Kyodai said. “We will prepare.”
The air blurred around the sisters. Toshi blinked rapidly to clear his vision, and when he looked again Michiko and Kyodai were gone.
Overhead, O-Kagachi continued to bear down on him. Scattered around the training area, the kitsune elders, mentors, and soldiers continued to sleep. There was nowhere to run. He couldn’t fade away and he couldn’t escape into shadows. The Myojin of Night’s Reach had completely ignored all of his prayers since he’d arrived in the kitsune settlement, and she certainly wasn’t answering them now.