by Carly Chase
Sure, Ikari's friendship with the kitsune had lead to this situation, but that wasn't his fault, or the fault of the fox yokai. It was, when all was said and done, the fault of the humans who had taken Yuki. It wasn't known who had done it, or how or why, but Ikari's closest friend had had something done to her by the people in that town. Why shouldn't the kitsune of the forest want to know the answers and take revenge, and why wouldn't Ikari be eager to lead them in that? Why was Kiba’s own clan of proud, brave tiger yokai so conservative and paranoid? What had become of them in the last century?
Yet, the burden of leadership weighed heavy on Kiba’s heart, and in the fierce eyes of the concerned tiger-men around him, he saw that his approach of doing nothing and letting things play out however they would, was not going to be one they would accept from their leader.
He weighed up his options in that moment, with the flames of the fire highlighting the intensity in the gold flecked eyes of his human form. If he didn’t go after Ikari, then it was most likely that Ryokan and the other men – the next tier of fighters after himself – would. They would not go easy on Ikari. As a yokai who had never really fit in with the ways of the clan, they’d always seen him as a loose canon, and probably wouldn’t feel too bad about causing an end to him. He was a threat – just like everything unknown was a threat in the minds of these men, for some reason. Well, Kiba couldn’t allow that. He was the strongest, he was the alpha, and he was sworn to protect his brother, not just in his words to his father but in his own feelings. He loved the kid.
“I have taken on board your concerns, Ryokan, and I understand that you are all in agreement that action needs to be taken here. My decision is this. I’ll go and find my brother, discover what exactly he is doing, and see that there is... a resolution that will negate any threat from the humans to this community.”
Their belligerent attitudes didn’t seem entirely placated by his words. The other yokai around the fire had probably been hoping that Kiba would order them to go and take care of Ikari, or that he’d say something very decisive like ‘I’ll stop him even if it means killing him myself’. But what he had said, well, they couldn’t argue that it meant he was taking action. And if they did, he’d have recourse to bare his claws if he had to to make them back down. Sometimes, uncivilized as it was, he had to remind them why he was the alpha: his unrivaled physical strength when in his tiger form.
After a beat it became apparent that that wouldn’t be necessary. Ryokan nodded noncommittally.
“Well, good luck on your travels, then,” he muttered without affection, as if to say ‘what are you waiting for?’.
Chapter 4
Kiba traipsed on further down the rocky path. It would have been faster and easier to travel in his tiger form – pounding down the mountain on four legs like an unstoppable avalanche, feeling where he needed to go with his senses and racing on, untroubled by any less instinctive thought – but he wanted to think as his more civilized self as he walked.
It was mid afternoon, and through the clear air, at this point on the mountain, he still had a broad enough view to see the town that was at the center of his problems. Human houses, human-farmed fields, the woods where humans gathered their resources, he could see everything that that little town depended upon. Including the barrier.
Every human settlement had a barrier like this – one that was only visible to yokai, because yokai were the only ones who needed to worry about it. To humans, the barriers just looked like posts erected around the perimeters of their little worlds, with painted words and sometimes sacred flames. These were wards, created by the priests of each place (or in more rural places, by those who had studied to some degree how to make them) and were imbued with magic that repelled yokai. Weak yokai would be so easily hurt by the wards that they would stay far, far away. Stronger yokai may, if they wanted something from the humans, get closer, maybe even close enough to tamper with a ward temporarily and reduce the power of the barrier. But the cost was incredible pain, and wards could also make yokai simply lose consciousness, leaving their undefended physical forms around the barrier where humans could easily destroy them. The humans would always maintain their barriers, too, so any damage the yokai could do would quickly be undone.
The very strongest yokai, however – tiger yokai, or kitsune, for instance – could, if they really had reason to, suffer the effects of the wards long enough to cause significant damage to them. They could even, with enough intention, break down a barrier altogether, allowing yokai of all different levels and motivations unimpeded access to a human town, for as long as it took for the humans to recreate their wards. There was seldom a good reason for one to do this, and it did still mean enduring significant pain. Yet, in whatever the humans of this town had done to Ikari’s friend Yuki, they had presented a reason why one very angry tiger yokai might. And now, because of the will of the clan, that was Kiba’s problem.
The barrier looked to Kiba like a translucent red mist that encircled the town. Not just around the edges like a wall, but like a kind of dome that even those yokai with flight would be held off by. He had heard other yokai say that the barriers looked different to them, some saying they were like an unbearably bright light that stopped them from even seeing the town within, others saying they looked solid, like a thick curtain. Kiba supposed that how a barrier looked represented just how much of an obstacle it would be for a yokai to get past – and how much danger going near it represented. Being a high level, powerful yokai, Kiba only ever saw mist. This mist though, was undeniably thinner at one side of the town. Yes, something was depleting the power of one or two of the wards, and diminishing the barrier’s effect. It didn’t take a huge leap to surmise that that something was his brother.
Kiba had been traveling for a few hours now – running where he could, moving cautiously when he had to – and he was already feeling some degree of joy at having left the clan behind him. Being away from the community, the expectations on him as a leader, it always allowed him to feel a lot more like himself.
I suppose that’s why dad left as soon as it was clear I was ready to be voted in as the new alpha… Did he feel like this too? Like the weight of the clan wasn’t worth the cost to his own spirit?
Feeling reflective, he sat down on a rock and took out some dried pieces of mountain goat meat that were in his leather bag. Brushing his long black hair out of the way of his mouth, where it was trying to flap in in the summer wind, he chewed on a piece and gazed out over the vista in front of him. Still a third of the way up the mountain, it was all there. The red-mist-shrouded town that was his goal, the forest where the kitsune had made their home, other towns out in the distance with their own misty barriers, roads with tiny carts traversing them, more red mist showing that these caravans had their own protection from yokai. So much of what he saw was about separating one group, or person, or community, or idea from the others. It was like a map of isolation that stretched out as far as his keen eyes could see.
And the only way my people think they can get by is by staying as separated from all of this as possible. Maybe they’re right. Ikari just wanted to be friends with another group and that has only caused him anguish… But what freedom are we struggling to keep? We no longer have the freedom to be alone, let alone to be among whoever else we want. What does it mean to be the leader of a clan that wants to stay insular? Should I be protecting these ways or trying to lead them out of it, toward whatever real freedom might feel like?
Realizing that his philosophizing was doing absolutely no good whatsoever, he put away his food and resigned himself to pressing on to find his brother. One option in his mind had been to stop by and talk with the kitsune first, in case they had any idea what the situation was, but the very clear weakness in the barrier was enough to indicate it was best if he went straight for the town and tried to find Ikari sooner rather than later.
He was just about to start moving in that direction again, when suddenly, he clutched his chest, and f
ell back on the rock he had just risen up from, panting.
Something had knocked the wind right out of him.
It wasn’t an external blow, or something an unseen enemy had sent at him with yokai magic. It didn’t even hurt. It just made every hair on his body rise, his heart pound, and his lungs gasp for air. His eyes even stung. This was something from inside himself, but something that had never troubled him before. It had always been there, just out of the corner of his mind’s eye, but he’d been able to go about his life ignoring it. It was the loneliness of being without his mate.
Unlike for most of the other men his age in his clan, she just hadn’t appeared – the yokai he was destined to love, and fight for, and spend his life with. He’d known she was out there somewhere, and paid it no heed. As a leader, he had other things to worry about, and besides, the whole point of destiny was that they’d meet eventually. That providence was something all of the higher yokai relied on when it came to choosing mates. In fact, they didn’t choose their lovers at all, they just knew them when they found them. Not like the humans, who seemed to have rather more complicated and unreliable ways of finding partners. There was a saying that every one of them had an invisible red string tied around a finger, that on the other end was tied around the finger of their one true love. That was the way that life always made sure they were brought together somehow, when the time was right.
As he clutched his heart and emotion welled through his body, he glanced at the town below. Something had happened there. A beautiful multicolored light, pulsing through warm colors like a sunset, shone within the town, its radiance powerful in his vision even through the mist of the barrier, and even in the afternoon sun. He knew that that light was something only he could see. He had heard tales of this since he was a child, in speeches at marriage feasts celebrated by the clan.
She wasn’t near, but now she is. Somehow, my destined love has appeared in that town…
But how could this be? Tiger yokai couldn’t teleport – Kiba knew of no yokai at all who could do that. Plus, the barrier wasn’t weak enough for any but the strongest yokai to just be staying there inside like that. Also, given there were no other tiger yokai clans in the region, how could the yokai who was destined to be his mate for life be right here without him ever having seen her before?
Were other clans attacking this town? Was his destined mate some wandering, lone tiger yokai? Was she another type of yokai entirely?
It wasn’t unheard of, though it was rare, for yokai of different kinds to belong together. Equally it was possible for destined partners to be of the same sex, though Kiba had always known in his soul that his true love would be female. He hadn’t, if he thought about it deeply enough, necessarily been as sure she’d be a tiger yokai as about her being a feminine yokai. He’d really just assumed she would be, as that had been how it was for his father and so many of his peers. Well, he knew that whatever she was, he would be happy about it – how could he not be, when they were fated to belong as a pair?
He knew now that the proximity of his destined mate, even though she was miles away, was what was causing him to feel all of these strange effects. He also knew that, as unexpected and dizzying as these emotions and symptoms were, they were a wonderful thing to be welcomed – a herald that soon, so much sooner than he had hoped, he would be with a partner who would be by his side and make all of the confusion and struggle in his life lessen. Whoever she was, he was already willing to fight at his strongest to keep her, and this feeling, and his renewed hope for his future, safe.
With adrenaline lighting his every nerve on fire, he took off the scraps of leather he was wearing and stuffed them in his bag. Then, naked in the sunlight, he let out a euphoric yell and transformed into his other form – anything to get him to the town, to her, to his brother, to his answers sooner.
Birds and simple yokai screeched into the sky in alarm as a majestic sunset-orange-and-black big cat, bigger than a bear, raced down the mountain at full pelt, his powerful muscles propelling him closer and closer to the destiny he craved.
Chapter 5
As she dutifully washed Shiro’s face with the bowl of warm, soapy water Reo had prepared, Anya had never felt so alone.
Earlier that evening, Mamoru had insisted that she stay with them at his house, around the dinner table with the fish that tasted just like fish from her own world. Are we by the sea, then, she had wondered, but not asked, because the graveness Mamoru had been exuding ever since she had announced that she wasn’t able to help in his situation made her feel uncomfortable probing him for more answers – especially about the mundane features of where she had found herself.
“You belong here, whether it is because of Hime-sama or not, and we brought you here...”
Reo had looked away a little here, as if to imply that ‘we’ actually meant ‘Mamoru’.
“I can’t do anything to send you home, but since this is all my responsibility, you can stay here. It is the safest place in the town, thanks to our skills at wards, and over time, maybe you can learn some skills – housekeeping or something.”
“But… But I had a career in my own world. I had people who will miss me!”
Anya had realized, with those words, that they were not strictly true. She did have a career, but there were hundreds of other designers who would be clamoring to fill her shoes. She did have people who would miss her, but really, she saw her parents only on the holidays and called them seldom in between. Her sister Maya probably missed her, given they spoke most days online, but Maya was at college and Anya barely knew what was going on in her life now. Anya knew that she had been replaced as Maya’s main confidant, by new friends with similar interests and goals. And while Anya had plenty of people one could call friends in New York, she was single, and her usual cohort of other designers she went out with would probably just assume she’d ghosted away with some great job offer somewhere else. She’d known it happen with some of the people she had once called friends, and never really questioned it. Were they, too, suddenly snatched to another world, or did they just get an invitation to a job in LA or London and forget to say their farewells in their excitement?
“I’m sorry if that is the case, Anya. I truly can’t even fathom how horrifying it must feel to be stuck in this world you don’t know, and I’m genuinely sorry that it was my attempts to make things better here that caused this for you. I will take as much responsibility as I can for giving you a life here, as I said. But I am sure that soon, your reason for being here will become apparent, and you will find your own path in this world. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t supposed to.”
Anya poked listlessly at the undeniably tasty white fish in her china bowl with the chopsticks she wasn’t especially good at eating with. She wanted to make the best of things somehow, and aside from the monsters, this world did seem incredibly interesting. But living in this mysterious, expansive house with these two guys, with no way of helping, no role to fulfill, how was she supposed to even get started in finding out what her purpose was here?
After dinner, she had been shown to a guest room where there was a futon waiting on the floor, and little else.
“I’m not tired yet… I don’t think I can sleep,” she had said to Reo as he’d moved to leave her there. No books, no phone, no laptop to entertain her, the idea of being alone in the dark with nothing to stimulate her mind had been oppressive.
“Well, Mamoru and I sleep in watches, so that if any yokai attack the town one of us is always awake. We just assumed you would want to sleep in the darkest hours, like most people...”
“Well, I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like a full day has passed for me. I’d only just woken up when you summoned me, and that was only a few hours ago. Maybe I have summoning jetlag…”
Reo squinted in confusion, and Anya realized that ‘jetlag’ was one of those ideas that would be alien here, and her joke had gone over his head.
“I mean, I think maybe my sleeping times
will need to adjust in this new world. Can I stay up with whoever is on watch, or do something useful? Please?”
Reo looked skeptical.
“Since you don’t know how to do anything against the yokai you’d probably be more of a liability than a help if you were on a watch with me. I have to go out and check all of the wards around the town, and see if anybody has seen any yokai activity. Mamoru will just be in bed. Oh, but, I guess you could keep Shiro company? I know she doesn’t say much, but I think having someone around is good for her.”
Anya looked sadly at the futon, and decided that the company of the comatose teenage girl was better than a blank room with nothing at all to keep her mind occupied.
“Sure.”
And now here she was, washing Shiro’s face and brushing her hair.
“I wonder what I’d design the box for a doll like you like,” she said sadly, thinking how awful it was that poor, cursed Shiro had been reduced to something Anya had been basically given to play with to keep herself busy by the priest’s young assistant.
“It’s a bit unfair, me moping around about being stuck here with Mamoru and Reo, when you’d probably give anything to be having dinner with your brother and your boyfriend, huh? Well, trust me, if I could help you, I would. Unfortunately, all I’m good for is drawing...”
Really, Anya was just speaking to fill the silence. But those words did give her an idea.
“I suppose, if I could find something to draw with and something to draw on, maybe I could at least brighten up this room with some artwork. I know you won’t be able to see it, but hey, it’ll give me something to do. And maybe when you wake up you can ask me about the stuff from my world in the pictures… Maybe that’s my purpose, to give people here the idea of, I don’t know, building a car or something. Although, I guess anyone from the 20th century onwards could do that...”