Kagami looked up at bright green of the forest canopy and squinted at the midsummer sun. A drop of sweat tickled her forehead and then cheek, then followed the curve of her neck until it was wicked away by the damp collar of her yukata. As she walked, she imagined that the insect net she held before her was a sword, that she was fighting in the service of a great lord. It must have happened a long time ago, in the world of her father’s stories, when people still used weapons to settle disputes. After generations upon generations of peace the few that did own swords, like her father, never used them anyway. She had seen the relic on a pair of pegs near a similarly unloved set of armor, but never the mirror of its shiny blade. She took a practice swing with the net, in the manner she often saw her brother use that wooden pretend sword of his.

Her traveling companion, another young girl named Amagi, had stopped to rest in a clearing where the mountain path flattened out. Her silky black hair was tied back into a ponytail, and though they were both eight it was already decided by Heaven which was going to be the prettier one. She wasn’t jealous of the girl, necessarily. She might have a few words with the gods. As Amagi stood there with her serene smile and the rays of broken sunlight falling on her sky-blue yukaka, Kagami imagined her as a princess or some heavenly messenger. Amagi held at her side an empty jar of clear glass which glinted here and there where it caught the light. It was sealed by a plug of tapered cork.

“A wandering swordsman.” Amagi said as Kagami huffed up the slope, “I’m on a dangerous mission. Will you protect me?”

“With—” Kagami said, between pants, “With my life, my lady.”

“That’s great, Kagami. We’re looking for a giant hornet. They call it a sparrow bee.” Amagi said.

This was the first Kagami had heard this particular piece of information. It inspired some reflection.

“This bee.” Kagami said. “Is it really as big as a bird?”

Amagi held her thumb and forefinger apart with an impish sort of smile. It was no sparrow in size, but its size was no comfort either.

“Why don’t we get another butterfly?” Kagami said.

“I’m bored of them.”

“I’m not.”

“Aw, Kagaaa!” Amagi said, unsealing her pet name, “Every great scientist needs an assistant.”

“What is a scientist?” Kagami said, exaggerating her ignorance only slightly. “Someone who collects bugs?”

Amagi had always been full of strange ideas. Her father was a scholar. Kagami wasn’t interested in Amagi’s fancies, but she liked seeing her happy.

“Hmm. I knew I should have asked Tosa.” Amagi said, the corners of her lips turning upwards.

“Then go ask him!” Kagami said, clutching the insect net.

“I would, but—” Amagi said, biting her lip, “Your eyes don’t miss anything. That’s why I need you.”

Kagami flitted her eyes to the side. It was true that her eyes had often been invaluable in Amagi’s pursuits. It was not just a matter of having unusually sharp vision, although she certainly possessed that. She perceived things that others did not.

“Alright. Let’s go.” Kagami said, to Amagi’s delight.

Kagami spotted the fabled bee later that morning. The little creature was now buzzing angrily in the jar, bouncing off the walls, loud enough to hear even through the glass. Amagi, who had been stung once, would occasionally lift up the jar to gaze upon it adoringly as if it were a puppy. Kagami, who had been stung more than once, wore a pained expression. Still she had her insect net resting on her shoulder and was taking great strides back into Kanagawa like a dragon-slaying hero. The thin mountain path emptied out onto the well-traveled dirt road that led from Kanagawa to Edo, the eastern capital. The heat of the midday sun opened up on them with full force when they stepped away from the forest canopy.

“Let’s stop at my house for lunch.” Amagi said. “I’ve got something to show you.”

Kagami was intrigued. Not by the prospect of Amagi’s mysterious something-or-other, but by the bottomless store of rice of her comparatively more wealthy household. After exchanging their shoes for house slippers in the entranceway, Amagi led her by hand deeper into the house. Farther from the table, Kagami noted sadly, into her father’s study. Sunlight streamed in through a grated window, illuminating a low table and the pair of bookcases which flanked it. It struck her as a place they should not be. There was a curious ball resting in a crescent-shaped brass cradle near the center of the table. It had a map of the world on it. Kagami had seen a world map before, although she’d never looked at it very closely.

Amagi knelt at the table and invited Kagami to do the same.

“Is this from Holland?” Kagami asked, realizing quickly how pointless that question was. It had to be from Holland, since that was the other end of the slender thread connecting them to the West. Amagi nodded.

She spun the globe around in its cradle and put a finger on it, stopping it in a familiar place. Kagami could read none of the foreign script on it, which she thought rather ugly, but the place under Amagi’s finger was undoubtedly their home, Yamato. It was a series of valleys nestled between two protective mountain ranges. To the west was Celes, once a great Empire. To the east was a great semiarid desert called the Pacific. It was also called, more poetically, the sea of grass. Though the scale of the map was quite large, Kagami was never the less impressed by how accurately those Holland-people had captured the geography of her country. After all, even they’d never been inside it.

“Yamato isn’t very big, is it?” Amagi said. She flicked her pale fingers and set the globe spinning. Perhaps, Kagami thought, some great god did the same thing, in the beginning. She was less clear about where he might have standing at the time.

“It’s big enough, I think.” Kagami wound up saying. “We have everything we need. We even have things nobody needs, like those giant bees.”

Amagi hummed, considering.

“They’re hornets, not bees.” she said. Kagami furrowed her brow.

“What’s the difference?”

“Bees are peaceful, they dance and build and feast on flowers, and they’ll sacrifice themselves for their hive. Hornets invade their hives, tear them apart, steal their honey, and eat them.”

Kagami leaned forward and put an elbow on the table. The globe slowed to a stop. A growl from her stomach interrupted the quiet of the room.

Later in the afternoon Kagami returned home. She found her brother Tosa, who was her elder by two years, in the small garden out back. He was writing, and had an ink-well at his side. Like Kagami, he was tall and somewhat plain looking. He had short black hair and dark brown eyes. The advancing footsteps of his little sister motivated him to close the book he was writing in, although Kagami had already seen enough of the shape to know what it was.

“Is that a poem?” she said.

“No.”

“What’s it for? Or who is it for?” Kagami said, eying his expression.

“No one. I mean, it’s not a poem.” Tosa said. “What have you been up to?”

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Kagami puffed herself up.

“Amagi and I caught a giant hornet.” she said. Tosa stood up and patted her on the head.

“Very nice. Did you get stung?” Tosa said. Kagami nodded. Tosa winced in sympathy, then began to walk into the house. Kagami followed him.

“Amagi did too.” she said. “Say, brother, have you ever seen father’s sword unsheathed?”

“The big one or the little one?” he said, turning around and giving her a perplexed expression.

“Either one.”

“I haven’t seen either.”

“Then why did you ask me which one?” Kagami said.

“Why,” Tosa said, “do you care at all?”

“I had a dream.” Kagami said.

“I guess, in the dream, you had some need of a sword, and it wasn’t there.” Tosa said, settling back on his heels. Kagami nodded. “Everyone has dreams like that. It’s nothing, though—there’s nothing to worry about.”

“I just felt like I couldn’t do anything.” Kagami said. Tosa sighed and put a hand on his sister’s shoulder, leaning forward and speaking more quietly.

“What are you afraid of, sister?” he said.

“Hornets.” she said, with a lopsided smile.

Tosa raised his eyebrows.

That evening Kagami awoke in the middle of the night and lay awake in the summer heat, gazing at the ceiling. Her father and brother must have been asleep for hours. The moon was full that evening and her eyes adjusted in due time and threw the whole of the room into clear, deep blue and black relief. Moving slowly and quietly, she crept out of bed and slid the door open, inch by inch, soundlessly. She tread on the tatami mats lining the hall with the tips of her toes. Certain floorboards would creak, even with the lightest step, and thanks to previous misadventures she had them all mapped out in her head.

She came to the foot of the wall where the two swords were hanging. One short, and one nearly as tall as she was. Cradling the hilt and scabbard both, she silently lifted the short sword out of its cradle. She put her small hand on its hilt and gave it a tug. It resisted coming out of its scabbard, at first. She gripped up higher on the scabbard and wedged her thumb against the blade guard.

When she dislodged the stubborn hilt from the scabbard with strong pressure from her thumb, she found there instead of a blade was a wooden shim. It had been jammed into the place where the blade had once been and then into the scabbard to present the image of an intact weapon. Kagami knew that some heirlooms had vanished over the years, knew they weren’t wealthy at all, and it had all passed without comment from either her or her brother. Selling the blade, though, seemed to her like a step beyond. Shame welled up in her like a bubble of air rising from deep within a pond. When it reached the top she couldn’t stop herself from gasping for air. Feeling that enough had been done already, she left the longer one where it was and quietly replaced the smaller where it had been.

All through the morning she felt tense and agitated. Her eyes normally glided over the worn-out tatami mats, the odd tears in the washi paper. Her meager breakfast, which was the same as always, now left her hungry. There was decay everywhere she looked. It wasn’t as if she’d never noticed it before. Nothing had changed since the previous day, she reasoned, for all the good that did. Her strange mood hadn’t escaped the notice of her brother. He found her in the garden sometime after lunch.

“There’s a nice breeze today.” he said. There really wasn’t.

“The air is still. The world is sweating.” Kagami said.

“Another bad dream?” he asked.

“Yes.” Kagami said. Tosa took a moment.

“Why don’t we play a game of shogi.” he said.

“Even I can beat you at shogi.”

“I know. You’ve been distracted all day, so I figured could win one if I played you right now.”

Kagami couldn’t help but crack a smile.

“Sort of dirty.” she said.

“A win’s a win. I’ll get the board?”

Kagami considered and nodded her assent, forcing a smile. As her brother was fetching the board, her father stormed in through the front. He was in his early 40s, had a close beard, and was somewhat soft around the middle. The last of the hairs on the top of his head had disappeared within Kagami’s memory. He still had patches of hair on the sides of his head, which he tended after like a frail child.

“Tosa!” he yelled, “Where is Kagami?”

Kagami leapt up and trotted over to the veranda where the sword and armor were kept on the wall. Her father was there, taking down the longsword and short sword both from where they rested. He was also sizing up the dusty armor, imagining if it even fit him. Tosa shortly thereafter appeared over her shoulder, still holding the wooden shogi board. Her father knelt down and clutched her shoulder, looking as serious as he’d ever been.

“Find Amagi. She’s out gathering insects. Take her back to her house and wait there with her.”

“What’s happening, what’re you planning to do?” Kagami said.

“There isn’t time to explain, Kagami. Do as I say, and quickly.” her father shot back sternly.

It was a tone that he’d never taken with her. Kagami gave a stiff nod and broke into a run, heading down the main road towards the hills that Amagi loved. On the streets she found she wasn’t the only one in a great hurry. Men of all ages were rushing to and fro, some of them carrying whatever arms they had on hand. Kagami could only imagine that some dominion had mounted a surprise attack. Though her knowledge of politics was elementary, she couldn’t imagine how such a thing could happen. From nearby Edo the Shogunate controlled everything, and had for hundreds of years. Even if some stupid rebellion was happening somewhere in Yamato, surely it wasn’t in Kanagawa on the doorstep of the Shogun.

If climbing the mountain the previous day was tiring, it was nothing compared to doing it at a sprint. Kagami’s heart had finally reached its limit on the landing where she and Amagi had rested the previous day. She was slowed to a stumbling jog, leashed by her the pounding sensation from under her ribs. She might have gone faster, but she wasn’t sure if she would collapse and be unable to deliver her message. Mercifully, near the second landing, she heard Amagi’s sweet voice.

“Hey, Kagami!”

“A-” Kagami said, and choked out a gasp. Amagi rushed over to her. “Ama—”

“Calm down! Kaga.” Amagi said, holding onto Kagami’s shoulders, almost motherly. Now with another person holding her, Kagami realized she was trembling.

“Something’s going on, maybe a war, I don’t know. Father told me to bring you back to your house and stay there. I don’t know anything else.” Kagami said, in fits. She felt ashamed she didn’t know anything, and couldn’t control the visible signs of her panic.

“Is this a joke? Did Tosa put you up to this?” Amagi said. She looked around, as if the boy was behind a tree nearby.

“I don’t tell jokes.” Kagami said. Amagi shook her head, then looked to Kagami with renewed concern.

She hurried down the slope with Amagi and the pair burst out onto the main road. She had been on the mountain for less than thirty minutes, and the main road was now the site of pandemonium the likes of which she had never seen. She had never heard or read about anything like it either. The only possible touchstone she had was hazy imaginings of catastrophic events that were so dryly recorded in history. Such and such clan takes such and such castle, massacring some outlandish number of people. These events surely were accompanied by scenes exactly as she saw before her:

The road was shoulder-to-shoulder with people, more than she even imagined lived in Kanagawa to begin with. Women were carrying children in their arms, men were carrying beloved elders on their backs. There was a constant din of voices, as each one engaged in conversation was forced to raise his voice over those who were also speaking nearby. This high murmur was pierced by shrieks from women, crying from children and babies, shouting from men. Though Kagami trusted the people of Yamato to a fault, she felt a distinct danger that if she got underfoot the crowd might trample her without even noticing.

She thought of her father. What would he do against some opposing partisan? He’d be cut down without a thought. Amagi, who must have seen the look on her face, took her hand reassuringly. The simple act calmed her, if only just enough to weave through the crowd to the other side of the road and skirt the current of people. At Amagi’s house they found her older brother, Akagi. Like Amagi herself, Akagi possessed some mysterious reservoir of imperturbable serenity. She had always liked seeing him, and that was doubly so now. The present apocalypse had managed only to knit his brow in concern, as if he’d noticed a stain on his clothing.

Akagi was currently in the process of flipping through various books that Amagi’s father had in his possession. She and Amagi didn’t disturb him, and only watched from the threshold. He seemed to be searching for certain things in particular, Kagami noted. Books on military matters, all related to the West. One book about something that happened in the Celestial Kingdom, also related to the West, and also a military matter. Kagami’s knowledge of the world beyond the Celestial Kingdom would have been sleight in any measure, and it was further thinned by lack of interest. Never the less, the dark shape of the threat was finally coming over the horizon.

“I’m gathering books for father. The red hairs have come to visit.” Akagi said to his assembled audience, without even turning to them.

“Visit?” Amagi said. Even Kagami knew the West had visited many times. Of course, visitors were forbidden, so they were politely turned away.

“Yes, with an army.”