“Try it on!” Eika grinned and her smile was so radiant that it melted the ice-cold tension in Yabona.

“Azami will be back soon,” Yabona said, and she jerked a nervous glance at the sliding door decorated with a pink flower. Azami's chambers were nice, but sparsely furnished. There was the brass mirror on its little stand in the corner, the futon now folded, and the rich and dark wood of the series of boxes that the girls were presently rifling through. It had been Eika's idea. She had said Yabona would look so pretty in the emerald necklace that Azami kept.

“Try it,” Eika pleaded and she tried to loop the necklace around Yabona while she wasn't looking. Yabona acted out of reflex, she grabbed Eika's wrist like Miyo had shown her and already began the sharp twist that was meant to cause an opponent to lose their sword. Eika yelped and Yabona let go and scurried away.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean it,” Yabona said at a little distance, and her eyes were dark underneath, and her gaze was a little distant.

“Geeez,” Eika said rubbing her wrist. “You're really doing it aren't you? Practising martial arts.”

Yabona nodded. “And I'm tired, my dojo is all the way up in the temple quarter, and I have to work all day. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“That's so cool!” Eika, seated on her knees, leaned in so quickly it startled Yabona.

Eika had chubby cheeks, baby fat that had not yet went away. Her bangs were cut straight just above her eyes and the rest of her black hair just barely brushed the green of the shoulders of her dress. “I didn't really believe you, you know. I thought maybe you were working somewhere else too. But you were so quick! Like,” and here she clumsily acted out the grapple and giggled. “Can you teach me too? I know girls aren't supposed to learn how to fight but I don't want to be a maid forever and there's no way Azami will choose me for an understudy.”

“Of course she will! You're so pretty and you know all the manners and you work really hard, of course Azami will pick you, hasn't she already?”

Eika shook her head. “I can't write poetry or play any instruments, so there's no way I can work as an entertainer.”

From above the sharp and pleasant twang of Azami's playing drifted through the floorboards. A pause, and then laughter, clapping. The music started up again. The crowd tonight seemed lively, Azami might not be back in her chambers until the morning from the sounds of it.

Yabona was silent, thoughtful. Eika had been kind, almost overbearing, since Yabona had started at the Inn. It was to Eika first that Yobana went when she was unsure of where an amenity might be kept, how to sit when attending guests, where to place her hands on the wine jugs, how to remove the charred black remains of fish skin from a skillet. The girl had seemed born here, she knew everything, and Yabona had assumed that everything with her was fine. But now her normally cheerful expression was cloudy. Maybe Miyo could teach her too, maybe the could grow closer, maybe she could count herself another friend.

Eika wasn't a martial artist, but she knew her moment. She sprung, placed the necklace around Yabona and they both fell and wrestled, laughing. When they sat back up Eika looked cheerful again.

“See! It suits you, I knew it!” Eika wheeled Yabona by her shoulders to turn to the brass mirror.

Yabona touched the emerald necklace and it glinted in the candle light. She could hardly recognize herself. The piece of jewellery was the nicest thing she had ever seen, and her now worn-in though far-from-worn out clothes, and her clean hair tied back, it was almost as if she were home again. Eika grinned over her shoulder.

And then a shout, distant, but sharp.

Again.

The music upstairs stopped and the patter of feet on the floor could be heard.

“Fire, fire!” The shouting was closer now, more distinct.

Yabona ran over to the screen door and flung it open, crossed into the common room where the other children were already down to bed. Some of them were roused now, rubbing their eyes. She ran to the window and on the balls of her feet peered out. Somewhere above the wall and roofs of neighbouring buildings she could see a bright orange glow. There was more shouting now, and co mixed with the call of fire and danger were the unmistakable cries of people in pain.

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Eika was close behind, she leaned on Yabona's back. “What's going on? What's going on?”

“I don't know.”

Junko began to sob. Eika ran over to the little girl and tried to sooth her, but Eika was just as afraid and only further agitated the child.

“I will go and get Master Gin,” Setsuko said and she left the room at a brisk walk.

“You should step away from the window, Yabona,” Kyou said, and she turned to look at him. In the murk of the room, in the little light cast by some distant burning building, she could see he was putting on a brave face, and failing. The noise outside only increased in volume. There was now violent crashing, like walls were crumbling.

“It's an earthquake,” Fumihito said. “We should get outside.”

The ground wasn't shaking.

Upstairs the banquet guests were clamouring, they harmonized in a high sharp pitch.

Something climbed over the Inn wall, too quick for Yabona to see, it melted into the shadow between the inn proper and the outer wall.

Azami burst into the room, gasping. “By our guiding stars you all okay,” she rasped as she dashed to where Eika cradled the crying Junko, and the older woman bundled them up and rubbed her face into Eika's back, chanting “it's okay, it's okay.”

She looked up, counted the dim shadows of her charges, her children. “Where's Setsuko?”

“Azami, Azami we should get away, somethings inside!” Yabona said and she was backing away from the window and pointing at the dark outside.

“What's outsi-”

And then it was inside. It looked like a tangle of coiled fighting snakes. It rolled over the window, squeezing itself through the wooden slats and cracking the wood. It glistened in the dim light of the fire.

Fumihito was first to scream, and it darted at him. Fast, faster than Yabona could strike, faster than she had ever seen Miyo demonstrate. It wrapped a muscled appendage around the boy's neck, and then Fumihito fell in a single motion. There wasn't a crack. There was just his scream and then he was silent and on the floor. Head at an unnatural angle. Limp.

It was moving toward a stunned Yabona, it would have snatched her too, had Kyou not tackled her. The thing grabbed Kyou by the leg, flung him like a pebble against the wall where he tore clean through the rice paper and thudded along the floor in Azami's chambers, screaming. Everyone was. In the room, upstairs, outside. The whole world was shouting and dying.

The room grew brighter as more fires were joined outside, as the bonfire consumed more and more buildings.

The thing was white, like the eels dragged up from the bottom of the ocean where there was no sun. It flicked and whipped and was now poised to strike it's next victim. Yabona was scrambling on her back away from it, though it seemed to have changed its mind about her. It was heading for Azami.

The older woman stood, carrying both Junko and Eika who clung to her.

“Run!” Azami shouted, “Stars! Run!” and she barrelled straight through the paper door out into the court-yard, it followed. Yabona shouted as she used the wall to scamper upright, trying to get it's attention. It didn't work, the thing slithered and jerked outisde. A man was now in the door, coming from the kitchen.

“Gin! Master Gin help!”

But it wasn't him.

He was too slim, and his skin was the same as the creature. He had no eyes, and too wide a mouth that twitched and twitched. He was holding a knife, bloody. The kind used for gutting fish. He reached out a hand with too few digits toward Yabona. He was nude, with no defined musculature, no navel, no genitals.

Her swords.

She had wanted to take them home when Miyo had given them, but the old man protested. He said nobody would tolerate a little girl wandering around with a warriors tools, that at best she would have to cut off hands and arms to keep them, and at worst she would be imprisoned. Best to keep them at the dojo, until she was older.

If only she had them. She imagined the weight of them at her left hip, imagined drawing, she could shear his arm straight off in one motion and then she could run after that thing and save Azami and save Kyou and everyone except Fumihito.

She was crying.

Distant Azami shrieked.

Yabona ran.

The man thing tried to grab her but it was clumsy, she dodged around its legs and felt it swipe at her with the knife.

Get to the dojo.

Get to the dojo.

A big arm wrapped around her, knocking the wind out of her in her panicked flight. She had made it to the front desk. She bit the hairy arm and flailed. Another arm wrapped around her, gentle, both grips eased pressure. It was Gin.

“Where is everyone? I can't find Azami, I can't find Hiromi, Gods tit I can't find anyone, are you okay?” There was wine on his breath.

Yabona sobbed and tried to articulate what had happened, could not, and pointed behind her to the dorm and kitchen. Gin set her down, looked her level in the eye and placed his hands on her shoulders. He was facing away from the way Yabona had just fled. “We're going to be okay, I'll get everyone an-” he grunted, Yabona couldn't see beyond the immensity of him. Blood blossomed in the side of his shirt, her eyes went wide and she tried to push herself away. He wheeled. It was the man thing, still working it's mouth. The knife was stuck in Gin's side. Gin roared, wrestled with it, and for all it looked frail and weak Gin seemed to be losing.

“Run, run!” He barked and Yabona did.

Get to the dojo and you can save everyone.

She closed her eyes to the chaos of the streets, she ran to Miyo.