Lightning played over the surface of the helipad on top of the Tokyo Skytree. This was not unusual; as the tallest structure in the city it was only natural. This, however, was not natural. The lightning was a continuous crackling barrage of dazzling blue-white light and deafening sound, accompanied by a twisting wall of almost solid wind that scoured the flat surface of the helipad clear of everything that wasn’t bolted down.

Almost everything…

At the centre of the localised storm was a crouched figure, curled in on herself, oblivious to the primal chaos around her, heedless of the javelins of raw plasma arcing down from the heavens around her, untouched by the twisting vortex of hurricane strength winds which didn’t even stir a single strand of her long straight hair.

Suzue Nakamoto, Suz-metal or the Goddess Suz, kneeled crouching at the centre of the helipad. The purely elemental violence of the storm screaming around her was nothing in comparison to the emotional storm that raged within her.

She could hear and feel the cries and prayers of her followers… Every. Single. One.

Their prayers thundered in her ears like the sound of an audience at one of their concerts before the music started, chaotic, babbling and random. A surf-like susurration of thousands of overlapping voices. The thoughts and emotions behind the prayers poured though her, leaving her mind bobbing, weaving and spinning randomly like a ping-pong ball in a washing machine.

“Please..” she begged, although to whom she had no idea, “..please, make it stop! Make it stop! Oh please!”

Over and over she whispered her own prayer… as around her the air echoed her mental state.

Brokenly, her mind and memory careened from one thing to another, memories that weren’t hers filling her mind. She saw the police station where she’d been taken through a dozen different pairs of eyes. She remembered the concert, from a few hundred points of view, all eyes on her and the agents in black shooting at her with some sort of dart gun, before they were mobbed and almost torn apart by the crowd, before security pulled them out.

Whatever she’d been shot with burned through her veins, making her mind reel as it threatened to pull her down into the blackness that had almost engulfed her, drowning her in the mind’s night, burying her alive in a chemical grave.

The battle she’d fought inside the police headquarters she recalled solely from her own perspective; there’d been none of her own there to witness it. She’d been chained, manacled, to a metal chair bolted to the floor. They’d been careless of her, thinking her harmless as she mumbled, drooling, barely conscious due to whatever witches brew seethed in her blood, blanketing her mind in lassitude and dampening her power.

But then… the snarling fury of her outraged followers had surrounded her, pressing in against the walls of her soul until it broke through and the storm had filled her. She’d felt the rage of the crowd, the fans nearby outside and had screamed… and the heavens had answered her with thunder.

Lightning had blasted in through a window, striking her, melting the shackles from her wrists, setting the cheap nylon carpet ablaze as it freed her. She’d reached out and twisted the air, throwing a rope of storm-born violence down to herself, tearing the building open with a tornado’s vortex.

Events after that were hazy… there’d been a struggle, she thought, or perhaps that had just been within herself. Automatically she’d found the highest point around and came here, to where she could stand in the heart of the storm as she tried to master her new-born Goddess-hood, as she was flooded with the prayers of thousands of her fans.

Suzue thought of Moeka, her band-mate, her best friend, dearer to her than any sister… and without knowing how or why, she could hear Moeka’s voice repeating like a litany.

“Please be alright, Suzue, please come back. Please be alright...”

It was like seeing the pole star through storm clouds. A clear, steady, fixed point of reference in the whirling chaos that swirled around and within her. Suzue fastened onto it, held it in her minds eye, and gradually the storm calmed, drawing back, leaving her in the still centre.

Until a single shrieked word pieced her; “No!” as clearly as if it had been screamed next to her ear.

In her mind’s eye she could see it, a dark street, a young woman dressed in a costume that echoed her own stage garb, a group of shadowed male figures looming menacingly as the girl backed up against a wall.

Without thinking, Suzue held out a hand, and obedient lightning leaped into it, carrying her away.

Half a city away, down by the docks near the ferry terminal, the darkness was rent asunder, banished as a figure materialised in an actinic column of crackling lightning. Four drunken young men scrambled away from the enraged Goddess that had appeared between them and their prey… but not quickly enough to dodge the Leven bolts that blasted them into unconsciousness, branding a furious deity’s wrath across the skin of their backs in a starburst of fractal-like forked burns centred on the three characters for ‘Gōkan-sha’ or rapist etched in their blackened skin.

Turning her back on the four piles of smouldering human trash, she walked over to the young woman cowering curled up and crying against a shuttered shop window.

“Hey… Suska, it’s ok now.”

“How...”

The woman, no, Suzue thought, the girl looked up at her, and her eyes widened. She scrambled to kneel at her Suzue’s feet, head bowed.

“Goddess Suz! You heard me! You came!”

“Of course I did, your need was genuine.”

The girl, Suska, genuflected.

“I am not worthy...”

“Nonsense! Stand up, be proud. You are worthy.”

“Oh! Thank you..”

Suzue waved that aside.

“C’mon, let me take you somewhere safer. We’ll find a police box and make a report.”

“Ah...must I?”

Suzue studied Suska for a moment, then shook her head.

“No, those vermin have been punished, and I can see you don’t want everyone to know, even though you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Suska nodded slowly.

“My..my parents wouldn’t understand. No-one would...I.. I lied to them about where I was, so I could come to the concert. They would say it was my fault, for being out so late dressed like this...”

“The One… the other fans will understand. There are forums, support groups. This need not be your burden alone. You can talk to others, and find help. You can be strong and whole.”

“Yes. I understand! I will do that!”

“Good. See that you do. I know who you are, I will check up on you and see if you are doing well. If you need my help again, I will be there. Now, let’s find you a taxi. Make sure you get home safe.”

“Thank you Goddess! Thank you! I don’t know how to repay..”

“No need. What’s the point of being a Goddess if I don’t look after our own?”

“Ah… yes. Thank you.”

“Tsk. No need to keep thanking me either. I did what anyone else should do. Now, come on.”

Suzue held out her hand, and if a small spark jumped between her and Suska when she hesitantly took it, neither acknowledged it.

One of the louts groaned as they walked past, and Suzue paused, then shoo’ed Suska a bit further away before bending down and twisting the lout’s ear painfully, making him squall in pain, coming fully awake.

“Hey you, pig! Listen to me.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Wha..you bi..”

Suzue sent a crackling jolt of lightning racing down his nerves, making him jerk and writhe in pain as he was, in effect, tazered.

“Shut up and listen, filth! I am the Metal Goddess of Storms, Suz. I’ve marked you, and I’ll be watching you from now on. You step even a hair out of line, and I’ll make you a smoking grease-spot on the ground!”

Suzue clenched her fist in front of the terrified youths face, allowing a crackling nimbus of spitting blue-white plasma to form around it.

“Understand?!”

“Yes! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Shut up, worm. Your apology is worthless, your words are hollow and empty. Prove it instead, scum. Tell those other dung beetles what I said when they wake up, and then turn yourselves into the police. Confess everything and take your punishment like the men you aren’t. Then live virtuous lives from now on. Because if you don’t, I’ll blast you so hard your ancestors will feel it! Got it?!”

“Yes!”

Suzue stood up, and walked away from the sobbing, grovelling man… and she and Suska went to find a taxi rank.

Once Suzue was sure Suska was on her way safely, she listened for Moeka… and smiled as she found her pole star. Thrusting her arm into the air Suzue called upon her powers and rode the lightning once again.

Moeka, in the meantime, was kneeling in front of a small Inari shrine near the Tokyo dome. She’d given their security detail the slip with ease during the chaos and blindly walked until she saw familiar red torii gates and the fox statues with their red bibs.

She’d been kneeling, praying, ever since.

A clap of thunder half-deafened her, as the park and the shrine were lit up by lightning. Moeka’s heart jumped, and she stood, turning to look.

There, just outside the entrance to the shrine, stood a figure as familiar as her own… wreathed in smoke and mist from where the lightning had hit wet grass. Moeka started to run, as Suzue strode up the path between the gates.

Heedless of the tiny prickling bolts of energy coruscating around Suzue, Moeka threw herself into her dearest friends arms, and wept into her shoulder for the sheer joy at her return.

It was some time later, long enough that the unexpected storm had blown itself out and only occasional mumbling rumbles of thunder echoed across the sky from over the horizon, barely loud enough to be heard over the city’s ever-present noise. Moeka and Suzue sat on a stone bench, Suz’s arm around the shorter Moe’s shoulders. They looked for all the world like a pair of young women coming home from a party.

“Hoi, Moe’ … fancy being my Herald?”

“Me?!”

“Um. Who else would I ask?”

Moeka thought about it a moment, then nodded.

“Ok. How?”

“I don’t know… maybe we should ask Mother Inari?”

“I don’t think she’s answering her calls right now. I tried, Suz.”

“I’ll try, Goddess to Goddess.”

Suzue washed her hands at the cleansing station, stood before the shrine and bowed, then clapped twice before bowing again, framing her prayer in her mind.

Nothing happened.

After a moment, Suz bowed again, and backed away.

“Hm. I think she’s busy. I felt… something. Like a pat on the head, but so softly I’m not sure I imagined it.”

“I felt that too. I think she’s listening. But you’re right, maybe she’s busy. Now what Suzue?”

Suz thought a moment, her eyes shadowed, then she nodded, once.

“I think I know. Come here..”

Moe took two paces to stand beside Suz in front of the shrine, Suz turned them both so they faced each other, side on to the shrine. Moeka giggled, struck by how much like bride and groom they looked, then with a conscious effort put her serious face on.

Suzue spoke.

“Before Mother Inari, do you promise to serve me faithfully, to be my Herald?”

“I promise...”

“Then let it be so.”

Suzue bit her left thumb drawing blood, then pressed it against the centre of Moeka’s forehead. Light spilled forth from the mark, as it glowed like a hot coal. Moeka hissed as she drew a sharp intake of breath, and then breathed it out in a sigh as the light faded, leaving her skin stained red in a Kami mark, where the blood had been

“So it is done. You’re now my Herald.”

Moeka nodded, then tilted her head, listening.

“What...what is that noise… it’s almost like, voices? Whispering?”

“They’re prayers, all our fans, or at least, the ones that truly believe. I can hear them all the time, so can you I suppose. It.. it almost drove me mad. But I think I’m learning to filter them out.”

“Oh… that’s my job isn’t it? To listen for you? To tell you which ones you need to do something about.”

“Umhm. Yes. Although we share it, it’s almost too much for one, even if she is a Goddess. But a Goddess and Herald...”

“You think Mother Inari and her Herald do this?”

“Maybe...maybe it’s different for each one. It can’t be any harder than answering fan mail.”

Moeka nodded, they tried, but they got thousands of letters a week… the record company’s staff screened a lot of them. But still, there were hundreds that they read and answered. The more Moeka thought about it, the more it seemed like it was the same, really. Prayers or fan mail, it still all needed to be read and answered if possible. She wondered if a ‘form letter’ answer to prayers was possible? Then another thought struck her, making her frown.

“So, now what do we do? What is a Goddess’s job?”

Suzue shrugged.

“Same as before I suppose, we have our mission from Inari, but she told us to use our judgement. I.. I’ve already answered one prayer. One of our fans was being attacked. I defended her. I’d like to keep doing that when it’s needed. I have power now, I should use it to defend the powerless. But… I think we need to focus on the human touch too.”

Moeka groaned.

“More pop-up gigs, right?”

Suz flashed her grin, a spark blazing in her eyes for a moment.

“Yeah! At least we don’t need to worry about security!”

Suzue poured a river of crackling light from one hand to another, causing Moeka to giggle as she answered.

“Or power if you can harness that Suz!”

“You’re not plugging a stack of amps into me! I know where Asagi would say we stick the cables!”

Moeka giggled again as Suzue grinned, then sighed a bit.

“We’d better get back, they’re going to be worried.”

“Hoi, yeah! Last we saw you, you were out cold after those idiots darted you! Although security buried them under a pile of bodies for that, the police carried you off...”

“I know, I was held at the police headquarters. They’re working with the Hunters, or rather, the Hunters are the police… some of them anyway.”

Moeka’s face abruptly went serious, losing the cute little girl look she had when she smiled.

“Who do we trust? If we can’t trust the police?”

Suzue shrugged..and then paused and grinned.

“Who else... we trust our fans! How many of them do you think work security? Or could do? We could ask for volunteers. Moeka! We could raise an army if we tried!”

“You mean you could. We don’t need an army. Not unless you’re planning something...”

“And if I was?”

“I’d tell you to stop being silly. Concentrate on doing good instead. You’re a Goddess now Suz, act like one.”

“Maybe I’m a Goddess of war as well as storms.”

“Ha! You don’t even argue with the waiters when they you bring you the wrong order.”

Suz pouted, although the twinkle in her eyes indicated she was very far from being serious. Moeka was silent for a bit as they walked through the park, heading for the main road and hopefully either a bus stop or taxi rank.

Eventually Moeka spoke.

“I was wrong, we do need an army though.. sort of.”

“Oh?”

“Mm. An army of volunteers. To help protect the Yokai.”

“Oh! Yes. What should we do? Hold a press conference, or a web cast? Put out a letter?”

“Yes. All of those. More pop-up gigs and public appearances, reading or hearing that magic is real and yokai exist isn’t the same as actually seeing it!”

Suz skipped, and turned walked backwards, almost bouncing.

“Oh! Oh! Let’s tell everyone we’ll be playing in Yoyogi park tomorrow afternoon! Free!”

“What if the hunters turn up?”

“Just let them! I’ll be ready this time! Besides, would they dare?”

Moeka shrugged.

“I don’t know. They dared to try at the concert. We should make it hard for them to find you.”

Suzue shook her head.

“I’m not hiding, we never hide.”

“We’re definitely going to need that army then!”

“Mm… we need a castle too, or somewhere to stay that we can defend.”

“A castle? Oh! How about Chiba castle? It’s closed to tourists right now, but we could rent it. There was talk of playing a gig there, I looked.”

Suzue nodded, the replica Edo period castle was a tourist trap, but it was built like a real castle.

“Ok, there’s a concert hall there, and the park just outside. We can work with that. That’ll do. It’ll be safer than a hotel.”

Moeka nodded, and taking out her phone started typing.

“I’ll let everyone know to meet us there instead, and then tweet that we’re looking for fan volunteers for protection.”

“Ah! Me too.. let me borrow your phone Moe, mine got fried.”

“Better ask our manager to rent the castle first though.”

Suzue shook here head.

“No, I’ll do that. It’s not a band expense, it’s personal.”

Moeka looked at her friend quizzically.

“Personal? If something happens to you, again, that’s band business isn’t it?”

Suzue shook her head.

“No, this is to do with me being a Goddess, so it’s personal, not professional.”

Moeka shrugged.

“Not sure if there’s a difference, but alright. I’ll go half with you, then you won’t empty your account… you using your incognito account?”

“Yes, and thank you!”

“We’re in this together. Ok, money transferred.”

Moeka tapped her phone, logging out, and started to pass it across to Suz then hesitated, noticing the lightning still crawling across her skin.

“Um.. maybe I should type for you?”

“Oh! Yes… I’ll have to get some gloves.”

“You think?!”

Moeka giggled adding.

“Certain fans are going to go mad if you start wearing rubber suits!”

Suzue’s cheeks flamed red at the thought of wearing a latex bodysuit.

“Moeka!”

“Well…”

“I’ll learn to control it! Definitely! It’d be too embarrassing!”

Moeka’s girlish giggle didn’t sound at all innocent!