But the sisters moved in flawless unison to use the serpent’s size against him. They were both small and fast enough to dodge his strikes out in the open, but they were even more effective in close quarters. Together they circled around his necks and zipped between his coils so that he could not strike at them without hitting himself. O-Kagachi was too old to do himself serious injury this way, but Toshi did see heads slamming solidly into coils and other heads as the serpent tried to crush these annoyances against his own body.
From the confusion of scales and coils, two of O-Kagachi’s heads struggled free. They both extended toward the central mass of the serpent, where Michiko and Kyodai buzzed around his body like bees around a hive. Michiko was managing her bow well as she flew, sending bolt after bolt of red fire into O-Kagachi’s hide. Kyodai was likewise attacking whenever her path took her close to the serpent’s skin, though Toshi could not see the method she was using. It was most likely her bare hands, or perhaps her teeth, for each time she skimmed the surface of O-Kagachi’s scales she left a wake of scintillating stars and long, ragged rents in his flesh.
While the sisters continued to nettle him, the wily old serpent struck. He lashed out at both women with the heads he had worked free, one lagging a second behind the other. Each sister dodged, but O-Kagachi changed the lagging head’s course and intercepted Michiko as the princess safely avoided the first strike.
It was a glancing blow but enough to shatter Michiko’s bow and send the princess soaring straight up. In a second she was gone from sight, hurled so high that Toshi wondered if she’d ever come down.
Michiko’s injury had an effect on Kyodai, though Toshi couldn’t tell if she felt the same blow as the princess or if she was simply shocked by brutality of it. Whatever the reason, Kyodai paused for a split second too long as she tried to follow Michiko’s upward flight. O-Kagachi hooked one of his necks below Kyodai and rose up with his jaws spread wide. Kyodai disappeared behind those terrible teeth and vanished into the serpent’s snapping maw.
Toshi stood completely stunned as the last, thinnest thread of hope snapped. The sisters had never posed a serious threat to O-Kagachi, but they had stood against him longer than anything else could have. While they were alive and active, Toshi could contemplate seeing another day. Now that Kyodai was being digested and Michiko was halfway to the moon, there was nothing to stop O-Kagachi from razing all of Kamigawa, starting with the patch Toshi currently occupied.
His worst fears were realized almost instantly. The head that swallowed Kyodai straightened, leveled, and then plunged down toward the forest. The rest of the serpent’s heads sorted themselves out from each other and the larger mass of coils, spreading out to surround the kitsune village once more. The battle must have quickened O-Kagachi’s blood, for he was descending disturbingly fast.
But the lead head that had swallowed Kyodai shuddered and stopped on its way to the forest. It jerked spasmodically, rolling from side to side, even shaking vigorously like a wet dog. Close as it was, Toshi could see the broad, winglike fins behind the serpent’s skull and the terrible vacant glare of its star-sized eyes.
The head twitched one last time and then burst open at the jaw. Kyodai fought her way clear, surrounded by more stars than ever. Toshi could hear her feral screams echoing across the sky. She left the serpent’s jaw hanging loose from one side of his mouth as his tongue lolled grotesquely across his throat.
A shiver of rage and pain flowed across O-Kagachi’s entire body. The maimed head danced and thrashed upon its long neck as the others all opened wide and roared. Even as he bellowed his injury to the world, O-Kagachi was recovering, orienting on Kyodai and beginning to stalk.
Kyodai did not wait. She flashed upward, shooting into the sky after Michiko. Toshi almost called after her, but he needn’t have worried. Now that he’d been wounded, O-Kagachi was focusing exclusively on his daughter. The old serpent wouldn’t spare the forest a glance until he had avenged that injury and prevented any chance of a sequel.
Ponderously he rose to give chase, but a moment later Kyodai returned with Michiko in her arms. The princess seemed limp and unconscious, but Kyodai hovered with her burden, defiantly staring into the eyes of O-Kagachi. For a splendid, terrible moment the combatants held this pose, a single one of O-Kagachi’s heads glaring fixedly at the sisters as Kyodai glared back. What exchanged between these two incredible beings was beyond Toshi, but it was clear that if O-Kagachi did not recognize his daughter before, he did now-as his mortal enemy.
Kyodai let out an inhuman scream and hurled Michiko skyward, clear of the coming charge. She rushed forward to meet O-Kagachi’s wide-open jaws, borne forward on a powerful storm of muscle and malice.
Toshi wanted to see the impact, but his eyes were drawn to the tumbling figure of Michiko-hime. He was enough of a faker and a trickster to recognize a ploy when he saw it. Kyodai had just abandoned the battle to recover her sister, so tossing her away in a fit of anger either meant Kyodai had lost her temper and her wits … or that she was up to something.
He was rewarded when Michiko snapped back to full consciousness at precisely the moment when Kyodai and O-Kagachi plowed into each other. The former Taken One punched into O-Kagachi’s face like it was made of soft dough, and the serpent’s neck was compressed back on itself behind the head. The fierce woman took the worst of it, as O-Kagachi’s mass was unfathomably larger than hers. She broke two of his teeth and drew blood from his nose, but Kyodai herself was propelled backward at tremendous speed.
Toshi saw that everywhere the sisters had struck was covered in stars. O-Kagachi’s broken jaw, the slashes on his necks, and the gaping holes in his hide were all wreathed pieces of light and void alike, but the stars were prevailing. Like the scab that forms over a healing wound, the stars seemed to patch and protect the damage done by the sisters. Was this part of their plan?
Half-mesmerized, Toshi shook his gaze free and quickly looked back to Michiko. The princess hung suspended by her nimbus of white with her bow arm extended. The gauzy star-fire around her flowed into her open hand, thickened, then solidified. The mist sparkled, and then Michiko was holding a new bow made of white wood. She wasted no time in putting the new weapon to use, drawing an arrow and firing it in one smooth motion.
This time the arrow converted into a gleaming bolt of white energy. The glowing missile slammed into the top of the head Kyodai had just immobilized. Instead of tearing the serpent’s skin or burrowing into the meat below, the bolt seemed to spread out along the surface of O-Kagachi’s scales. The growing white stain stiffened and calcified the serpent’s body as it went-Toshi could hear the scales creaking and hardening even from where he stood.
In seconds the entire head and most of the surrounding neck had been covered in a sheath of stone. Toshi saw the muscles below the petrifying mass straining to keep the head aloft before they were engulfed by the shroud of white. Undaunted by the fate of their fellow, the serpent’s other heads now surged forward to attack Michiko.
Kyodai returned before they could strike, flashing like a lightning bolt into the calcified head. She was a screeching bird of prey as she flew once more into the face of the serpent.
The impact sounded like an entire mountain shattering. Great plumes of white dust shot out from a cloud of force-driven debris. Within the cloud of grit and dust, millions of distant stars flickered. Every one of the serpent’s other heads shot straight out and howled, filling the air with an indescribable wail of pain and fury.
Toshi picked himself up off the ground. For some deep, instinctual reason he felt he was unworthy to look at the aftermath of the sisters’ attack. It was like a kind of blasphemy, seeing something mortal eyes were not meant to see. Then he looked anyway.