The workshop echoed to hammer blows on hot metal, as Paul vented his anger and hurt. He wasn’t specifically forging anything, just working hot metal the hard way, by hand. He’d long since found that hitting something repeatedly with a big hammer was therapeutic.

Inari had no right to throw his loss in his face like that. He’d thought they were friends but the moment they’d disagreed on something, she’d whipped out the ‘You forget your place’ card. So, she was a former-maybe-still goddess and he was her Herald, that didn’t mean she was better than him.

Paul was furious. Not just with Inari, as such, but with the culture that shaped her attitude, with whatever asshole had turned her memory into Swiss cheese, and with Japanese society that allowed people to be discriminated against based on appearance or nationality.

He was also pretty furious with himself too, for mishandling matters.

He hadn’t quite been out of hearing range when Inari had crumpled sobbing. He hated himself for the fact that he hadn’t turned around and gone back to her then. But his hurt had been too sharp, too blinding then. He knew at the time, that turning back would have only resulted in bitter angry words that couldn’t be later unsaid.

Now… he didn’t know what to do, and he hated that too.

He knew he should say sorry… but as time sped onwards it just became harder to imagine doing so. How could one say sorry to a Goddess, even as you knew she was wrong?

Paul shook his head. Inari wasn’t right, he still felt it was wrong to keep Shoko a virtual prisoner, even if it was supposedly for her own good. The problem with safety was that without risk there could be no growth. He even understood why Inari had said what she had… however, one didn’t need to have fathered a child, to feel like a father, and he’d been something between a big brother and father to the children he’d cared for in that Romanian Orphanage.

He’d left in the end. It had closed down… and he’d seen the last of those children off to their adoptive parents, despite their disadvantages. Not that he could claim all the credit there, they’d had angels and miracle workers a-plenty finding them loving homes. He’d just been one of many that kept the lights on, the heat going and the children fed and happy.

Shoko sort of reminded him of some of those children.

Of course, she was a lot healthier, less emotionally scarred by events. But that didn’t mean she was without problems. Chiefly because she’d grown up without other children around her.

Paul paused in his work for a moment, all his attention consumed by thought.

By rights actually, Shoko ought not to be as cheerful and outgoing as she was. She’d spent eighty years isolated with only Inari for company! Paul thought to himself that she ought to be a lot more damaged than she was… either she’d had other company, other than casual and fleeting contact with human children, or Kitsune didn’t have quite the same reactions to isolation.

Now that he thought of it, the latter seemed more likely. It seemed more probable that despite his firmly held belief that Others were more alike than different, that there were still differences in the ways they thought and felt, over and above cultural differences that is. Perhaps Shoko was more resilient due to her biology, simply put.

Still, none of that invalidated his point. Shoko needed to get out and go to school and be with others of her own emotional and mental age..

Which led to a problem, that as wrong as it was for Inari to stop her… it would be equally wrong of him to circumvent Inari and help Shoko go anyway. Inari was her mother after all, while he was… actually, Paul thought, what was he here?

He was Inari’s Herald. Which said damn all about how he stood in relation to Shoko. But Shoko herself seemed to have informally adopted him, placing him somewhere between big brother and father-figure. For that matter, didn’t heralds have helper spirits? Ok, Shoko wasn’t a spirit, as such, but then neither was he, and he still had Aimi-chan too.

Paul shook his head, metaphysical relationships aside, he was here to help Inari, to act as her conscience, her intermediary and sometimes aide. Looked at in that light, it would be well within his remit as Inari’s Herald to be at least prepared for the possibility that Shoko would be going to school. She’d need paperwork, and an explanation for her non-attendance beforehand.

He stared ahead, musing, while steel heated in the forge. Paperwork wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. He’d discovered years ago that his talent for storytelling, and fairly decent skills as an artist, made him quite good at forging whatever documents were necessary but unavailable. However, there was the hitch that this being a Japanese school system, he was pretty sure most of it would be computer based. His skills at hacking were non-existent. He went back to hammering as he considered the matter.

Paul inwardly shrugged… well, all she needed was a story to explain where she’d been. Perhaps Shoko and Jiao would be the returning daughters of Japanese businessmen or diplomats, friends rather than family, who’d grown up abroad, somewhere like Russia, or maybe a Japanese enclave in Britain. That would explain the lack of computer records and so on. Incompatible systems usually meant that people resorted to literal paperwork. He thought about it as he worked the hot metal, shaping it as the fancy took him.

Paul sighed, and put down the hammer he’d been using. With a pair of tongs he picked up and examined the work piece he’d been forging out. He hadn’t really been making something, he’d just been hammering with nothing in mind but now as he looked, it resembled a twiggy branch. It would need tempering and heat treating to harden the steel and make it less brittle though, otherwise bits would snap off far too easily.

Paul frowned, only just realising as he noticed the subtle whorls of a Damascus pattern, that he’d accidentally picked up the billet of steel he’d used half of to make the compression chamber. Which meant it would have some ‘interesting’ properties. Then, in his minds eye he saw the potential hidden in the steel… he’d have to fabricate some tiny cherry blossoms, small thin discs of steel hammered and carved into delicate petals, welded into pentagonal flowers with tiny wires as stamens. It would require delicate, precise welding.

Turning over the branch of cherry blossoms, recreated in steel in his minds eye, he saw other possibilities. He had enough tiny fragments of the clear crystals to grind into dust and make an enamel paste with; adding red glass dust wouldn’t affect it’s esoteric properties he thought, and would give it a proper not-quite-white pink tinged colour, as well as acting as a binder when it was heat fused.

Paul frowned… there had been other minerals in that cave too, now that he thought of it. And he had no idea what, if any, magical properties they had. Well, he’d time enough to conduct some experiments while the steel was slowly heated up and cooled, and then etched in ferric chloride and finally in strong coffee to bring out the bark-like twisted Damascus pattern. Not to mention making and firing the enamels afterwards.

Paul shrugged to himself, maybe along the way as well as finding out if any other crystals had ‘interesting’ properties, he might come up with an answer to his personal problems too. He wasn’t too sure what he was making here, but he thought to himself that he’d figure it out as he went along.

Paul shook his head, and went to select a piece of round stock to slice up into blank discs, to make a few dozen tiny flowers out of. With luck, he should have something he would feel comfortable calling a done piece. That is, with another twelve to eighteen hours work perhaps. What he was going to do with it afterwards, he had no idea… but making art was better than just randomly hammering.

Who knew, maybe it could serve duty as an olive branch, so to speak.

Inari was still curled up under the plum tree when Kiko came to see where she was, although by then Inari was dry eyed. She looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps, and Kiko almost stumbled at her emotionally hollowed out expression.

“Inari-sama what is the matter?!”

“I have said an unforgivable thing.”

“To Paul-sama? Surely not?”

Inari nodded slowly, mournfully.

“I… have used my knowledge of his heart, and used it to pierce him through. I fear I have turned him against me Kiko-san!”

“I don’t think he’d be that easy to dissuade. What did you two argue about, that led to this?”

Inari shook her head.

“A foolish thing.”

“Inari-sama… let’s go and take tea.

Inari tilted her head up, and regarded Kiko, and then sighed.

“We shall then… but only so you don’t use my own words against me.”

“Something about how it clears the mind, wasn’t it?”

Inari rolled her eyes, but allowed herself to be led away.

Inari explained what had happened over tea and sticky rice buns, eventually concluding with;

“.. his eyes reminded me of the stars in the winter skies above Hokkaido. Then he just bowed, and walked away, so formally.”

Kiko shuddered.

“Brr… surely not. No one could be that cold!”

“He’s English... you know how cool their blood is said to be, and he is a strong willed man, who has chosen to bury his heart alongside his late wife.”

Kiko sighed.

“He could almost be the hero of a hiren novel!”

“A sad love novel? What is that?”

“They’re stories where two characters are in love but there are difficulties such that they can never be together, or one character loves another who does not or can not return that feeling, or is unaware of how the other feels...”

Kiko blushed scarlet, belatedly realising what she was saying.

“I..I mean, so I’ve heard…”

“You read these?”

“No!..I mean yes, maybe… I might have read one or two, you know, just a little.”

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Inari leaned a little forward, a faint smile playing about her lips.

“Ki-ko-san! Are you, what they call, a fan?”

Kiko blushed harder than before, muttering in a very small voice.

“I.. I.. Maybe...”

“Kiko-san, would you lend one of your sad love novels to a friend perhaps?”

“I may have, accidentally, packed one, or two. So, yes… if my friend promised to never tell anyone ever that I had them.”

Inari looked puzzled.

“Are they illegal, or immoral..?”

Kiko-san shook her head.

“Oh, no, nothing like that! Just... embarrassing! If any of my colleagues knew, I would be teased without mercy! They’re the sort of novels that teenage girls like...”

“Ah, and not sensible and mature senior experts or nieces of head priests, yes?”

“Yes!”

Inari smiled a small mischievous smile, which quickly faded as her mind wandered back to her present predicament.

“Ah… do any of these sad-love novels have a happy ending?”

“Sometimes, rarely… but it’s always doomed. The hero is found to be dying with only a short time left for example. They wouldn’t be sad-love novels otherwise.”

“Any happy love novels, where difficulties are overcome?”

“I… ah... Inari-sama… is it really appropriate to be discussing your Herald this way?”

Inari flushed bright scarlet, and stammered out..

“Ehhh! I..I..wasn’t! I didn’t mean…. I only wanted to..to.. lighten his heart...as a friend!”

Kiko regarded Inari over the rim of her tea cup as she took a sip from it..

“As you say Inari-sama… I’m sure you didn’t mean anything inappropriate.”

“No! I just... want to find a way back to where we were.”

Kiko sighed, and shook her head.

“Inari-sama… I know you know that’s never possible. That one can only move forward, not back. You cannot un-say what has been said. But you can wash away that stain with other words.”

“You… you think I should apologise to him? For the hurt I dealt him?”

“That would be a good start yes… but they do say actions speak louder than words. What can you do to show him you are sorry?”

Inari sighed.

“I don’t know. I’m sure I should… but it’s been a long, long, time since I’ve had friends! And all this feels... new, again.”

Kiko sat looking at Inari for moment or two. Inari found something fascinating at the bottom of her tea cup to stare at, as her cheeks reddened. Eventually, after the small eternity of a second or two, Kiko shook her head slowly.

“Ok… well first things first… do you think he was right?”

“About?”

“Shoko-san, and going to school.”

Inari bit her bottom lip, frowning and then sighed.

“Not… exactly… but I think he has... had a point that Shoko needs to be allowed to take risks in order to grow. I would be a poor mother if I tried to keep her as a child forever.”

“Ok, that’s a start. So Shoko will be going to school then?”

“...yes…”

Kiko sighed, and reached over to pat Inari’s hand.

“I know, you’re scared for her. My mother is just the same every time I go abroad. She says it’s a mother’s duty to be afraid for her children, but it is also her duty to smile bravely and wave them goodbye.”

Inari nodded in whole-hearted agreement. Kiko laughed slightly.

“You look just like her right now… maybe it’s something all mothers have in common.”

“Perhaps.. so.. what can I do?”

“Well, Shoko is going to need school supplies isn’t she? So, shopping! We need to find out what her schools requirements are, and where we can get them.”

“Umm...”

“It’s ok Inari, most of it we can buy on-line now. I can ask my mother, without going into details, what is needed I’m sure she has a checklist.”

“Is there… a lot of things…? Only, well, we are rather short on funds. Paul-sama would not be happy if I spent money on frivolous things that he needed for more important things.”

“I am not sure he would see it that way, but no matter. Shoko is the same size as my little sister was last year. I can ask mother if she can make a package of whatever can be reused… backpacks for example.”

“What’s a backpack?”

“Oh...Oh Inari… this is going to take longer than I thought...”

It took Paul two whole days of work and a night to complete the cherry blossom branch. He ate and slept, when he slept, in the workshop. Throwing himself into his work head-long. He had a vague notion that Ash had been and gone a couple of times, and food had appeared on workbenches at intervals…

He’d also discovered a lot more about how different sorts of crystals reacted to mana. Most did nothing, despite what the new-age community maintained. However, one important discovery he’d made was that single crystals of the common mineral Selenite polarised mana, and by placing two of them in sequence one after another, they’d only allow a flow of mana through if their polarities were aligned. Rotating one of the crystals stopped the flow. Which allowed him to create a simple on/off switch… which meant it was possible to create logic gates based on mana.

Paul wasn’t sure how that could be useful, but then, he mused, the person that invented the transistor had no idea the uses that would be put to either.

Not all the ideas he’d had were as beneficial. There was one set of notes, an idea he’d had sometime in the dark of night, that he decided to put away safely. He’d been tempted to burn them, but firstly he was loath to throw away any research, and secondly he might need to come up with a defence someday. But for now, the world had enough guns, it didn’t need another one, especially not this one.

Come mid-morning Paul stared at the completed cherry blossom branch. It glowed with a subtle inner light, at least to his eyes. The folded steel branch acted as a mana battery, although he hadn’t managed to charge it all the way up yet so he had no idea of it’s capacity, other than ‘a lot’. Each bloom was coated in an enamel paste which would accept a pre-formed spell or magical construct pressed into it, giving the whole thing thirty-three ‘slots’ that could hold a spell of any sort.

Paul sighed, and wrapped the branch in a silk cloth. He’d run out of excuses for hiding away in the workshop, it was time to face Inari.

When Paul-sama did not join her for breakfast the day after their argument, Inari had been hurt. She’d retreated to her hall and lost herself in dreams, not stirring out from among her furs and silks.

The second day, she had sat at their usual table, well into the afternoon. Shoko had fearfully approached her mid-afternoon and told her that Paul-sama was working on something in the workshop, and he’d not come out or even stopped except to nap briefly. Inari had nodded, and gotten up and gone into her hall… and she did not emerge until mid-morning the next day.

Inari had been sitting at the breakfast table, a pot of tea cooling in front of her, food untouched, when a dirty, dishevelled figure stumbled onto the terrace. Inari’s eyes widened as she took in the unkempt sight of her Herald.

She started to her feet, shocked. He looked like he’d gone without rest for far longer than it could’ve been. His eyes were bloodshot and red, his face was grey where it wasn’t black with soot, and his hair… his hair had gone white mostly.

“Paul! What has happened to you?!”

Paul opened his mouth, and coughed. Inari quickly poured him a glass of the iced lemon tea that Kiko favoured, and pressed that into his hand, which he drained in one, continuous, swallow. With a gasp he came up for air, and ruefully smiled at her.

“Thank you Inari… I hadn’t realised how parched I was.”

“You… look awful. Your hair’s gone white!”

Paul frowned, and took a step back, bent, and ruffled his hair with his hand, producing a cloud of dust. Revealing that his hair was still mostly black, save for the touch of silvery-grey at one temple.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to worry you, it’s just dust.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Using scraps of crystal to create enamels, experimenting to see if other crystals have unusual properties, and making this…. Mostly just this.”

Paul produced a silk wrapped something, and laid it in her hands. Inari was surprised at how heavy it was as she began to carefully unwrap it…

A gasp escaped her lips as she saw what the silk hid.

It was an astoundingly life-like branch of cherry blossoms. Each tiny petal hand made and painted in a silk-like enamel of the most delicate pink hue. The bare steel of the branch was textured and shaped like wood, darkly burnished and etched to resemble bark

But most astoundingly, it sang with power under her finger-tips. She could feel the eager void of each flower, waiting to be filled with orderly magic, and the way the steel, of all things, thrummed with raw mana!

Inari turned wonder filled eyes towards where Paul had slumped at the breakfast table.

“Paul-san! How?!”

“Accident, at first. I picked up a billet of steel to take my temper out on. Wound up with something that looked a bit like a branch, and realised I’d used the same sort of steel someone had used long ago to make the core to that staff. So, I looked at it… and saw that. After that it was just as case of continuing to fiddle with it, trying to make it look more like how I imagined.”

“But… the blooms?”

“Crystal dust in the enamel paste. Worked fairly well.”

“But... why?”

Paul shrugged.

“Because I could, and because I thought you’d like it…. And because I owe you an apology.”

“Oh Paul-san! If anything I owe you one, I should NOT have said what I did! Can you ever forgive me?”

Paul smiled tiredly and shook his head slowly, disturbing a small plume of dust.

“Inari, Inari, Inari… of course I do. You were right, I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent. I do know what it’s like to care for a child though. But I transgressed too. I made you cry, bad enough... but then I walked away. I left you hurt and alone. Which is something one should never do to someone you care about.”

“I hurt you too...”

“Yeah, you did… and I forgive you. But I acted badly as well. I should’ve gotten over my hurt, and stayed with you, instead of storming off like some kid having a temper tantrum. At the very least I should’ve come back when I’d cooled down enough to think straight.”

“You were angry?”

“I was furious… I, ah, run more towards being cold and very polite, when I am that angry.”

“I hope never to see that again! It was… terrifying!”

“I can’t promise I’ll never get that angry ever again, but I can promise to try and do better and not direct it at you.”

“And… and if I deserve it?”

“Well, I know where to find hot metal, a hammer and an anvil. It’s very therapeutic.”

“If this is the result, I cannot disagree… but I hope never to give you cause to do that again.”

Paul smiled tiredly.

“Hey Inari?”

“Yes Paul?”

“One friend to another, are we alright now?”

Inari put the cherry blossom branch down carefully and put her arms around Paul, resting her head against his chest.

“If you say we are, then we are.”

“Oh good. Because I think I need food, and a bath… and then about a week’s sleep.”

Inari took a step back… and made point of holding her sleeve over her nose.

“You are NOT wrong about the bath Paul-san.”

Paul raised an eyebrow and dryly remarked.

“Thank you for that Inari-sama.”

“Inari!Inari!Inari!Inari!Inari!”

Shoko’s voice echoed around the terrace as she hurtled though the round moon door in the wall around the shrine.

“Paul-sama’s not in the workshop any... Eep!! Oh! Hi Paul-sama!”

Paul turned, and blinked in surprise. Shoko was dressed in a smart school uniform, with a traditional sailor-uniform like top, a warm fuzzy cardigan jacket and a white skirt with a broad blue band half an inch above the hem.

“Hello there… I see things have been going on while I was busy.”

“Mmhm! Kiko took me shopping! Do you like it?! I’m wearing it in!”

“Yeah, it’s very cute. Smart too… ah. That reminds me.”

Paul put a folder in a jacket down on the table. It looked well travelled, and a bit battered.

“Shoko’s papers, school records, and so on… I wasn’t sure of her academic grades so I’ll fill those in later. Her cover story is that she’s the daughter of a Japanese businessman, working abroad in England. She’s been attending a Japanese cultural school while in England, but her father is concerned about her grades and degree of cultural assimilation, so he’s sent her back home. She’s living in the care of his young wife, that’s you Inari, and his personal assistant, which would be me.”

Inari stared at the folder, wide eyed. Shoko slipped the packet of papers out of the jacket and leafed though them.

“He’s right, it’s all here! It looks old, how does it look old?! It even smells old! Hoi! I don’t have a perfect attendance record?!”

Paul shook his head.

“Don’t want it to look too good. I looked up what the average was, and pitched a bit above that. People never believe something if it’s perfect. You have to leave flaws. If you look through you’ll see that they spelled your name wrong on one of the sheets, crossed it out and initialled it. It’s details like that, that really sell something.”

Inari finally recovered her voice.

“Paul-san… is there something you’d like to tell me? Like a criminal past perhaps?”

Paul shrugged.

“It’s not something I’m ashamed of. I forged travel papers for refugees, passports so they could claim they were citizens of neutral countries, that sort of thing. I even managed to ‘steal’ an entire convoy of trucks, plus armed escorts, by forging orders from the regional commander. Kinda felt sorry for the base commander when he handed in his report, but we were long gone and three countries over by then.”

Inari giggled, shaking her head, while Shoko stared wide-eyed at Paul.

“Paul-sama...that’s Cool!”

Inari nodded agreement with Shoko.

“It seems there is much I didn’t know about you, my Herald… I look forward to finding out what else you have not told us.”

Paul smiled, and then sighed.

“That’ll have to wait, I’m about ready to fall over.”

Inari looked faintly alarmed, and contrite.

“Oh! Of course. We’ve been keeping you… Sorry! Shoko-san run and make the bath house ready! Tell Kiko that Paul-san is ...”

“… not working himself to death now.”

Inari gave him a look, but carried on.

“That Paul-san is in need of food, and would she mind cooking?”

“I go!”

As Shoko dashed off, Inari slid in under Paul’s arm, propping him up as he’d begun to list rather to one side.

“Inari, I’m filthy dirty and I stink, you’ll make a mess of your robe.”

“Bother the robe! You look as if you are about to fall over.”

“I can manage...”

“Why are men always so stubborn? They can be dying, their entrails around their ankles, and they’ll insist they are fine and don’t need any help!”

Paul snorted in amusement.

“Sounds like some things don’t change much. Well, to prove evolution does happen, let me grab some toast to stop me from imploding and you can help me to the bath house. And if you get muck all over your robe, it’s your own fault.”

“And yet you still manage to make it sound as if you are doing me a favour by accepting my help. Argh! Men!”

Paul chuckled as Inari shook her head, although her expression belied her words, as they headed slowly and somewhat randomly weaving, towards the bathhouse.