“See it like fishing nets,” Himiko explained. “They cover the whole island and hamper the free will – and thus the memories – of anyone caught in it.”
“And we can’t wiggle free, I take it,” I said, as we sat by the fire.
“No, either we find a way to burn that net, or the one who cast it decides to retract it.”
“That’s kotodama?”
“Precisely,” she said, raising her finger. “Using kotodama is dangerous, and increasingly so the more complex your spell is. Asking for a tree to flower again, for a pelt to turn white, that’s small, that’s easy. To wipe the memory of almost a hundred people, to control them over such a large area, I have never seen anything like this.”
“How is it dangerous?” I asked, confused. “You seem to use it without fear.”
Himiko thought for a moment, her lips curling in a beautiful pout.
“It is hard to explain,” she said. “Kotodama is dangerous because one must understand – and I mean truly understand – every word you use for it to be effective. And even then, you begin to experience… side effects. The more you use that power, the more potent they are.”
“What kind of side effects?”
“You see frightening nightmares, you hear voices, you stop sleeping. Eventually, those who abuse kotodama without steeling their minds first lose it, they go mad or they take their own lives.”
The thought of it sent a shiver down my spine. I thought of Gin-san.
“That is why the spell over this island puzzles me so,” she said. “That Caretaker must be a powerful entity to maintain it, older and more powerful than any master of the Voice I’ve met. There are few gods left wandering this Earth, and even fewer who go without a court of followers and cover their faces.”
I noded slowly.
“Not just a monk then,” I said in a low voice as I stoked the fire.
“Not a monk indeed,” she said.
“And that’s why I can’t go smash that rock with a hammer?” I asked.
Himiko chuckled, smiling tenderly at me.
“You’re welcome to try, dear,” she said. “But if that Verdant Stone is so important to him, then I believe that there are defenses in place. Most likely, the villagers will swarm to it.”
I pictured Tsumugi charging at me with a knife. No, anything but that. We would break that spell, we had to find a way.
“I think you’re one of these defenses too,” she said.
“How so,” I asked, even more confused.
“I see two possible explanations as to why you are gifted with such a monumental ki. Either you are a powerful pawn to him, a child of his, perhaps, or he has gifted it to you with the same process that he uses to feed that stone. That is why you regained your senses so quickly; he needs you at the full extent of your abilities if you see anything out of the ordinary.”
“You…” I whispered, my eyes widening as I realized. “That was you! You’re not from here, even as a fox, the spell waned to let me deal with you!”
“Exactly,” she said, smiling as she saw the parts clicking in my head. “You said he appeared after you saw me, I think he came to check on you.”
My thoughts were blazing through my mind.
“He also looked into my mouth, like you did,” I said, excited by her insights.
“He was looking for eyes – they’re called eyes, but they’re really more like black warts in your mouth. They’re one of the side effects of kotodama – he was checking to see if you had broken free.”
“Do you have any?” I asked, morbidly curious.
“No,” she said laughing. “They appear only if you cross your bounds, if you use kotodama with a mind unprepared.”
“That’s what he said, he said I was unprepared.”
“He said you were chosen. Chosen as the Verdant Stone’s warden, I believe, and I think that Gin-san and Daisuke-kun held that role before you.”
I thought for a long while, staring at the crackling fire. Something did not make sense.
“If that stone is so important…” I said. “Important enough for him to maintain that spell for so many years. Why does he not stay to watch over it?”
“I don’t know,” Himiko said. “There is no telling how far his plan goes.”
“That stone, do you know what it is then?”
“Another question I cannot answer,” she said with a sad smile. “Manipulating one’s own ki is hard enough, but to steal that of others, I have never heard of anything like it. I do not know if that property belongs to the stone, or if it is another spell. Either way, it is a frightening power.”
The fire roared. I placed a piece of boar on a spit over it, and began mechanically spinning it while it roasted.
“What are we to do then?” I asked, looking at Himiko hopefully. “How will we repel witchcraft so far beyond our abilities?”
Himiko pouted again, and smiled.
“That is an answer we shall find with time,” she said. “In that search, we might be able to cure Gin-san too. For now, let us enjoy this fire, this food. No concern of ours will solve Umeshima’s plague overnight.”
I smiled. I liked the thought of that.
“And tomorrow?” I asked.
Himiko smiled too, with that hint of fox-like ferocity.
“Tomorrow we begin,” she said. “Tomorrow you take your first step towards becoming madoshi, a master of ki and kotodama.”
* * *
More dreams came to haunt me that night. There was that cold ocean again and its violent waves, that boy with dark hair holding my hand. “Imekanu!” I heard again. Was she calling to me, that distant woman? I turned around to see her.
On a dune of white sand, instead stood a man. Black robes, wicker basket covering his head, walking stick resting against his shoulder. He was holding his flute, and slowly raised it to his lips. Out came that voice. “Imekanu! Imekanu!” it said, as he kept on playing it.
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Flowers sprouted from the sand at his feet, one half on his right blossoming into pink plum petals and the other into purple thistles. Soon, brushes, roots and trees grew too, all with white bark. We were surrounded by a pale forest, filled with flowers but devoid of leaves and life.
“Dost thou remember?” the man in the black robe asked. “Thou hast drunk this wine before.”
He let down his flute, and raised one of his hands towards the brim of his basket. It looked slow, solemn, and terrifying. He would take it off, and the thought of what it might hide filled me with dread.
I woke up suddenly, shaking terribly, which awakened Himiko too. She was laying beside me on the furs, human, her legs rolled up against her chest. She looked up with sleepy, worried eyes.
“I’m alright,” I whispered to reassure her.
Satisfied, she pulled some covers back over herself and plunged back into slumber.
I could not tell the time, but it felt like I had slept only a couple of hours. I took another look at her, and smiled. Heavens and earth I would move to keep her and her coming child safe, to keep her sleeping peacefully.
I stood up, and slipped outside, trying to be as quiet as possible. It was still the middle of the night, and the stars were out again. I pictured that falling star, blazing through the sky again. I smiled in melancholy. Perhaps, one day, my grasp would reach up there too. It felt cold out there – I had left my fur coat and my covers inside – and I wrapped my arms around my shoulders for warmth.
The moon had grown, and basked the island in its dim light – I could just barely make out the shapes of the mountain in the distance and the shadows of the village, the fire of a few torches dancing in the darkness.
I felt a peace, calm. It was a beautiful, quiet night. Yet, I found myself crying.
It was just a few tears, at first, that surprised me. Then they started flowing, uncontrollably. I sat down, shivering, not of cold, but of a strange feeling I could not describe. I tried to calm myself, but I just kept on sobbing, holding my knees tight around my chest, my eyes closed and my head held down. It was overwhelming, like a tornado of thoughts within me, swirling by so quickly that I could barely make sense of them.
I did not notice Himiko when she came to sit by me, but I reached towards her instinctively when I felt her arm around my shoulder. She shushed gently, stroking my hair and rocking me against her chest.
“Talk to me, Akira-kun,” she said, when my tears eventually died down.
I took some time, listening to her slow heartbeat, before sitting back up.
“I don’t know,” I said, weakly. “Everything’s falling apart.”
I chuckled as I wiped my face clean with my arms.
“It’s like you said. I was in a daydream, where everything was fine. I knew nothing, I had no worries, and now the illusion’s breaking. I was content, following the orders in my head, like a worker ant going about its day. It was all lies, but now that they’re gone, I don’t know what to do.”
I looked at Himiko, towering over me even as we were sitting down, and felt tears flowing back again.
“I’m… scared,” I said, my whole chest trembling. “I’m scared that I’ll fail. That Gin-san won’t get better, that Daisuke will get hurt, that you will get hurt. There’ll be more of them, won’t there? More soldiers, and they’ll take you away. I’ll fail, like I’ve failed Gin-san, I…”
I choked on my own words, my throat closing at the thought of it. Himiko stayed silent, her hand gently taking mine and squeezing it tightly.
“You had nothing,” she said, after a while. “All was taken from you, even your thoughts, and then returned at once. Now you feel the dreadful weight of responsibility as the only person here to have claimed even parts of your mind back. It must feel frightening.”
She turned my head to face her with a gentle nudge. In the darkness, her eyes reflected the moon, like two bright mirrors.
“You are strong, Akira-kun,” she said assertively. “Together, we will not fail.”
I smiled, and let my rest against her shoulder once more, as we stared at the stars together. She held me gently, pulling me softly against her. Under the pale moonlight, her skin looked even clearer, like porcelain.
“How did you know?” I asked after a few minutes in silence. “That I needed you just then?”
“Well, let this be your first lesson then,” she said. “Ki can be felt. It’s like another sense, and when you’re a priestess, like me, you learn to sense emotions through it. It’s a skill that few choose to hone; most warriors only care about how much ki an opponent has, to measure their strength, or they want to be able to sense the ki of ambushers and assassins.”
“How do you… feel, mine?” I asked, curious.
“Well, first off it’s strong,” she said with a smile. “If you imagine it with colors, then yours would be bright, orange and red like a fire in a hearth. It feels warm, protective. You are willful, you are earnest, and any emotion you feel only makes it stronger. From inside the cabin I felt your doubts, your sorrow, your fear. It is the second time I’ve seen you like this, I was worried.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Her face was so close to mine. I heard her breath, and mine, both trembling.
“There it is again,” she said as she laid a tender finger on my chin. “This intense emotion that stirs in you. Why don’t you tell me, my brave huntress, what is it that you feel?”
I felt that fire, rising from my stomach to my chest, that had taken over when I was bandaging her wounds and she looked at me over her shoulder. I felt my heart beating, like every time she touched me. Like the first time I had seen her, lying in the snow.
My hand moved on its own, reaching to her nape to grip it tightly. My lips found hers, gently, timidly at first, before devolving into animalistic furor. She held me tightly in her arms, as I felt my own limbs failing me. She kissed me back, passionately, and I felt a febrile ecstasy take over me. For a second we stopped, catching our breath and expiring wisps of mist into the cold air. She was smiling tenderly when stood up silently and walked back inside the cabin. I followed, as if entranced.
The fire in the hearth – which had died when I woke up from my dream – was roaring again. She was lying in the furs, naked, looking at me, her arms spread open like waiting to embrace me. I fell to my knees in front of her, my whole body trembling, and leaned in for another kiss. She dodged away with a playful chuckle, and pulled me down, pinning me down in the furs where she had just been laying. She leaned down, laying gentle lips over my neck. I was like paralyzed, my hands aimlessly caressing any part of her they could find.
I dared open my eyes when I felt teeth nibbling my throat, and saw that she had turned into a fox. When our eyes crossed, she flew into a run, around my head, my chest, over and under my legs, her soft fur brushing gently against my skin.
She jumped on my stomach, and there she was again, my hips locked tightly between her legs as she grabbed my chin firmly. She leaned in close, her face up against mine.
“Now say it,” she whispered, her voice trembling from the effort.
I swallowed with difficulty, my mind cluttered by swirling thoughts of desire.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you,” she repeated.
From her back, a flurry of gigantic fox tails sprouted. They waved, like grass in the wind, gently caressing me, and wrapping my whole body in a warm embrace.
“There’s the nine-tailed fox you wanted,” she said with a devilish smile.
And we kissed, as I felt myself sink into the warmth of her. Like stepping into a hot spring, like drowning in ecstasy, I held her against me as tightly as I could, every inch of myself trying to find her body in this swirl of passion. I felt her hand, reaching lower and lower, until another burst of fire passed through me. I laughed in pleasure, before diving even deeper in her embrace. I tried to roll over her, but she pushed me down as soon as I tried to sit up. She held me down firmly with one hand, her teeth locked around my neck as I writhed under her. I heard sounds come out of my mouth that I had never heard before, more than the words of love that flashed through my mind and no less powerful.
“Let go,” she said in my ear. “Let yourself be.”
I was too weak to protest. I held on to her as I felt my senses abandon me, and pleasure overwhelmed my body. My fingers sunk into her back as I felt it finally overtook me, blasting through every nerve like lightning. I was shaking, my legs trembling wildly, when Himiko finally let go of me and sat upright. She smiled.
“All those muscles, and for what?” she asked with a smirk.
I started laughing uncontrollably, to the point of tears, and Himiko laughed too. I pulled her back down, close to me, but we kept on giggling like children.
It went on throughout the night, the two of us profoundly wrapped around each other, seeking comfort, warmth and pleasure in the other. When the fire in the hearth eventually died down, an untold time later, we fell asleep together, still entwined. The first lights of dawn were peaking through the window, but nothing in the world would have made me let go of her at that moment.
I slept soundly, without terrible dreams for the first time since I had been ripped away from my reverie. I awoke satisfied, content, still wrapped into Himiko soft and gentle tails. Her eyes were already open, gazing tenderly at me while her fingers played around my shoulder and breast. She leaned close for a slow kiss when she noticed I was awake, and all of the previous night’s memories came rushing back. I was smiling wide, and I could not stop myself, nor did I want to.
Himiko stood up, her tails lingering around me for a last caress, and picked her kimono off the ground. For the hundredth time, I stared in awe at her flowing red hair, at the grace of her arms and the delicate movements of her fingers as she slipped into her dress.
“Come,” she said, suddenly serious. “Now is the first day of your training. Your real training.”
I grunted in protest, my sore body aching as I struggled to sit up.
“Oh don’t look so miserable,” Himiko said as she knelt down in front of me. “Our business in this bed is not done yet.”
I chuckled as she helped me up.
She led me by the hand when we stepped outside. A bright sun shone high in a blue sky and the cold wind was blowing in our hair. I looked at her, her bright amber eyes, and we smiled at each other. I was feeling content, I was feeling confident, and happy.
For the first time in forever, I was feeling brave.