by Carly Chase
“Until she turns on yokai and uses her so-called magic to wage war against us.”
“She is certainly not of a mind to do that, and in any case, experiments using her abilities so far have not found any uses of her magic that can directly hurt yokai. The only way the benefits of her magic could lead to yokai being harmed is if one were to use them to make himself stronger, and then attack other yokai himself. We need to avoid this kind of weaponization, which is why we will only trade magically imbued items that can do anything other than healing with clans or individuals who are not engaged in violent disputes with other yokai. The human woman has been very clear about what she will allow her gifts to be used for, and causing suffering is off the table.”
“And what about violent disputes with humans, since you and your brother seem so intent on bringing those to our door. Will your human priestess or witch or whatever she is be able to stomach having yokai using her powers to triumph over her own kind?” Ryokan hissed.
“Her focus there would be on protecting the yokai from the humans, rather than enabling yokai to kill them. She is very much aware that we can kill them just fine on our own if we have to. She would rather avoid that. She is already working on ways her magic could be used to protect yokai from priest magic, for instance purification spells, and wards. She believes that if we can feel safe, and priests learn that we can no longer be destroyed by their magic, it will force a dialog between humans and yokai. Force us all to find better ways to share the world. The ‘solutions’ of destroying each other or sealing our communities away wouldn’t have any viability anymore. We’d need to forge a real and active peace, where everyone would be a lot more free. Especially you. It is all up to you now, though, whether or not you want that peace. I am leaving my position as head of, and as a member of, this wretched clan. That was truly all I came here to say, other than that Ikari is leaving too, though I suspect you’d already worked that out.”
“Your idealism has always been beyond redemption, Kiba. You were never fit to lead us – I don’t know why you were blessed with such strength that we couldn’t choose somebody, anybody else. You’ve never had the best interests of this clan at heart, and now, you see fit to create trouble for us with humans, and then run off with your crazy brother and your fox people and your human witch, and leave us undefended against an enemy that never needed to even know we existed. And you come and preach to us about peace. You’ve created chaos for this clan, and you don’t even intend to see it through.” Ryokan said, impassioned.
“The enemy is imagined, Ryokan! Think, for crying out loud! The priest doesn’t even know about you. If he seeks any kind of retribution he’ll know where to look, and it’s to the kitsune village. The kitsune do not live in secret. He knows they are connected to what happened to his sister, and he’ll be expecting to find Ikari and I there. Which he will. We can defend the village if it comes to it, and the kitsune also have their own illusion magic, along with the help of our human ally. We also know everything there is to know about the priest, as we have his sister on our side. He is even weaker than we thought. I’ve faced him, he is the very definition of cowardice. Nothing is going to happen to you. Forget your paranoia. Take the clan, be the new alpha if they want you, and carry on your miserable lives up here in secret, surrounded by people who don’t especially like each other but are too afraid to live any other way. Or, do what I’d recommend, if you can swallow one last piece of guidance from me as a leader. Disband the clan. Disperse. Take your wives and your children and go out into the world and find a place for yourselves that makes you actually glad to be alive!”
“We are at an impasse, I think we can all see that,” Akira spoke up, “we will hold an emergency election, replace you as leader, and try and work out what comes next on our own.”
He looked to the men standing beside him for agreement, and they each grunted in lackluster assent.
“But Kiba, if any loyalty to us remains in you, you should vow to resolve things in that town. If we don’t have your strength on our side, it is, as Ryokan and Katsuo say, unfair of you to leave this situation as it is. We don’t share your confidence that nothing will come of it, and you took on certain responsibilities when you accepted leadership. Clean up the mess you and Ikari have made, and then, well, we can probably just cut you loose. Maybe with time we will be open to negotiations about your human woman’s magic – we would be foolish to rule out even exploring such a possibility. But for now, it’s really a choice between whether we separate with you and your brother in disgrace, or as people we can at least tell everybody did what they could to keep us safe, despite conflicting interests.”
Kiba hadn’t really spoken much with Akira before, and was fairly surprised by his rationality, when Ryokan and Katsuo just seemed to want to complain and stonewall him. His words had revealed too, that none of these men had entertained a plan that involved a violent confrontation with Kiba – perhaps a pleasant side-effect of them knowing about his enhanced tiger form. He’d wanted to keep it a secret for now, but since they’d seen fit to have a spy watching him, that ship had sailed, and he may as well take advantage of the intimidation advantage that word of his even bigger and more powerful tiger form would have provided.
In their minds, all that is at stake for me here is honor. I can either do as they ask, and leave with my reputation untarnished, or I can walk away a betrayer. Well, it’s just as well their request aligns pretty well with what I wanted to do anyway. We had already been discussing what to do about the priest, and with Yuki-Shiro and Anya keen to find a peaceful resolution…
“OK. Sure. Ikari and I will handle it. You don’t get any say in how we get it, but we will ensure that there is, in words, an agreement that no retaliation from that priest for the things we did will occur.”
“Then I don’t think there is much more we have to say to each other for now,” Akira said, quickly, before the others could reply,
“Akira, I suggest you consider putting your name forward in the vote for the new alpha yourself. You’re the only one who has said what they wanted and aimed for a resolution, rather than just airing grievances,” Kiba said, looking meaningfully at Ryokan.
With that, he turned his back to the men and set off back down the mountain. The tiger drawing Anya had done on his arm had vanished when he had transformed back into a man, and so he planned to wait until he was far out of sight to turn into a tiger again, lest they notice he looked like his usual tiger form once more.
Well, they’re probably spying on me even now, so what does it matter? Still though, if there’s the potential for an advantage I’ll take it. I don’t need them knowing I can’t use that form every time.
Their spy wasn’t watching Kiba, now though. In fact, there had been two spies – twin sisters Reina and Takara, Ryokan’s teenage cousins. Reina had been the one to relay the information that Kiba was tearing his way up the mountain in an all-new form, and she was now having dinner inside the caves with her mother. Takara, however, had been watching the human town, and was now racing back towards the mountain as fast as she could. She would later break up the emergency election assembly where Ryokan was just being voted in as leader, with terrifying news.
Chapter 17
It was the middle of the night, and the room was in total darkness when Anya was woken up by Kiba sliding into bed beside her.
“Welcome back,” she murmured, reaching out to put her arm around his bare chest, “did everything go OK?”
“By and large, yes. But let’s rest now, I’ll tell you about it in the morning.”
She drifted easily back to sleep, reassured now that he was home.
In the morning, Kiba did tell Anya that he had agreed to go and hold a discussion with the priest, to gain an agreement from him that he wouldn’t go after any of the yokai in the region as retaliation for them taking Yuki-Shiro. She was generally supportive of that idea, but had some ideas about how it should be handled.
“I think, before w
e even discuss how we are going to approach this, we should get Yuki-Shiro involved. We can’t convince Mamoru that his sister is safe, well and happy without having her with us.”
“True, but it’ll be most dangerous for her – what if he tries to purify her yokai side again, or something?”
“I have been working on some magic for that which should enable you to protect her to some degree, and her own illusion magic should also work on him because he’s human. But I’m guessing that if she is to be put in any danger at all…”
“We’re not going to be able to stop Ikari from wanting to come too.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go and find the pair of them then!”
“While you do that, I’ll put the finishing touches to some gifts I’ve been preparing for you all.”
An hour later, Kiba, Anya, Ikari and Yuki-Shiro were gathered around Anya’s rickety kitchen table, looking at the three items she’d laid out there for them. Two long white bandages, and one pastel pink ribbon, each of them glowing with various blue images.
“So, for Kiba and Ikari, these bandages can be worn like the hand wraps fighters wear, and they have every spell I could think of that might be helpful to us on them. The bird should allow you to pass through wards. The shield will offer physical protection from wounds. The castle protects against some priest magic – I don’t know how powerful it is yet but Mamoru doesn’t have strong purification magic anyway, so it should suffice in keeping you from any ill effects if he does try and fire any of that stuff off at you. The tiger will boost your powers if you transform.”
“Cool!” Ikari said, immediately wrapping one of the bandages around his hand.
“I don’t know how long the spells last, so I’ll be carrying some spare ones of these, as well as various healing pictures just in case.”
Kiba nodded approvingly.
“Now, for Yuki-Shiro, since I know you don’t want to look like some kind of cage fighter, you can tie this ribbon around your neck or anywhere else you like, and it has the fox drawing on it so it’ll let you use your illusion magic. Again, I have spares if it wears off – I am still not sure how that works. In the case of the tiger drawing, it lasts for one transformation, but since you stay transformed all the time, I’m really not sure what the limits are. I do also have blue ribbons, which have the human drawing on. I know you don’t want to use priest magic, but I just think it’s going to pay to be prepared for any eventuality, so I’ll have those in my bag too.”
Yuki-Shiro nodded earnestly, accepting that that was a reasonable approach, before gleefully tying the pink ribbon around her neck in a big, cute bow.
“So, now we’re all powered up, let’s think about strategy,” Kiba said.
“The best plan would be to simply walk into the town and confront him there – that would show that we can pass through the wards, and give us the upper hand in the negotiations,” he continued, “but as Anya rightfully pointed out to me earlier, to get anywhere with him we need him to see Yuki-Shiro and know that she is happy and safe under our protection. Since Anya’s magic doesn’t work on Yuki-Shiro, aside from to boost her fox-magic powers, she can’t use the bird picture to walk through the wards.”
“I could try, but I’ll be likely to faint again, and then he’ll probably think you’ve all done something bad to me...”
“I could go into the town and get him, and bring him to a place just outside the barrier where we could hold the meeting?” Anya suggested.
“Do you think he would trust you enough to follow? Most people would assume that was a trap of some kind. And he might try and keep you there, in which case we’d naturally go in and rescue you, but it would definitely not be a good step towards getting him to agree to leave all the higher yokai in the region alone…” Kiba said.
“Well, I’m the only one he’s not scared of…”
“True, and you probably are best placed to start the talks with him for that reason, but I just can’t see any sane person following someone out into the woods like that…”
“Good point. So what else could we do? Cause some kind of commotion outside of the barrier and wait for him to come out and see what is going on?” Anya said, wondering if she could use her magic to create fireworks or something.
“I could do that – my illusion magic will work on him, so I could create some noise or something strange in the sky, something that would draw him out.” Yuki-Shiro suggested.
“That could work. Could you make it so he sees something interesting enough that he will investigate, but not something that will make him think the town is under attack?”
“Like thousands of butterflies? Sure!”
“Well, something like that, maybe not that…” Anya said, remembering the oh-so-real feeling of all those wings flapping around her face.
“When I was staking out the town, I got to know the surrounding area really well. There’s a little clearing in the woods that would be a good place to meet. We wouldn’t be bothered there – it’s too close to the barrier for lower yokai to be hanging around, but you can’t see it from inside the town so whatever happens, nobody will know…” Ikari said.
“Yeah, when you say stuff like that it sounds scary, Ikki – we’re just going to go and persuade my brother that everything is OK, and get him to promise not to do anything to the yokai around here as retaliation for you taking me away. You can’t hurt him. He’s still my brother, even if he is stupid.”
“Sure, sure, but if he attacks you and tries to purify the Yuki out of you, I might have to take the throat out of him, and it’s best if there are no witnesses.”
Kiba nodded at this, but Yuki-Shiro and Anya scowled at the two tiger-men.
“There won’t be any cause for ripping out any throats, I’m sure. But Ikari is right that that is the biggest risk we face in doing this. Mamoru can’t hurt me, unless he tries to physically beat me up, in which case, well, he’s clearly insane, given you guys will be there. He can’t really hurt Kiba or Ikari either – even if he’s powered up his magic since we last saw him in anticipation of this, my spells should keep you both safe. But since they don’t work on Yuki-Shiro, we do need to think about how to handle that. I’d say it’s best if he doesn’t know she’s with us at first, and then, once we have established that it is a peaceful negotiation, we let him see her.”
“Yeah, that seems safest,” Ikari agreed, though Anya could tell he still wasn’t entirely convinced it wouldn’t be better all round just to kill the man and be done with it.
“Can you make yourself invisible with your illusion magic?” Anya asked Yuki-Shiro.
“Not quite invisible, but I can make myself look like something else, watch!”
In a strange flash, Yuki-Shiro was gone and there was just a tiny white mouse sitting where she had been.
“Awwwwwww!” Anya exclaimed.
“What did she do? Is it cute? Damn, I wish I could see her illusions!” Ikari said.
“She’s a little mouse!”
Yuki-Shiro turned off the illusion, and Anya saw her reappear as a fox-girl.
“I can go smaller than that even, but once you go smaller than a mouse, the animals stop being cute and start being all gross and crawly, so I don’t like holding the image of them in my head to do the illusion. Still, he won’t notice anything awry about a mouse in the woods, and even if he does, he won’t be able to aim at me properly.”
“And you can keep that illusion up and cause something to bring him outside at the same time?”
“Oh sure. Illusion magic uses up hardly any energy at all, since none of it is actually real.”
“That… makes sense I guess,” Anya said, remembering how Sakura had cast an illusion over the entire village and kept it up for days, just to make it look nicer to her.
Kitsune magic would be scarily powerful if they seemed to want to use it for anything other than having fun… in some ways, I can see why Mamoru and other humans feel the way they do. How can
you trust somebody with the power to make you see and believe whatever they want you to, if you don’t know their nature and what they draw the line at? And why do they even have a power that only works on humans? Were they supposed to evolve as enemies, or friends? There must be a reason why kitsune and humans are linked like that.
But there were enough complexities to deal with in her own small circle of friends, without coming up with more things to try to understand about this world. Anya returned to the matter at hand.
“So, it seems like we have a plan… Is there anything we’re missing?”
“Only thing I can think of is that we should be prepared that Mamoru might not come alone. He might bring Reo,” Yuki-Shiro said.
“Ah yes, your other boyfriend,” Ikari said with a smirk.
Yuki-Shiro punched him playfully on the arm.
“You know it was never like that – Shiro-me was good friends with Reo, he was almost like a second, less crazy brother. And he likes boys so you don’t need to be jealous at all!”
“From the short time I spent with the pair of them, I honestly think Reo might be smarter than Mamoru, possibly easier to reason with. I don’t think it would even be a bad thing if he was there too. If we’re not scared of Mamoru’s magic, then there’s certainly no need to be scared of his assistant’s, anyway,” Anya said.
“Seems like we’ll just deal with him if he shows up, it doesn’t alter the plan, really,” Kiba said.
“No, but it’s an extra person for you to absolutely not hurt,” Yuki-Shiro warned.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ikari said.
“How long will it take to walk to the place you suggested by the barrier?” Anya asked Ikari. She was the only one with no sense of how far away the town was, having been unconscious the only time she’d made the journey.
“A couple of hours, walking at the speed of the slowest ones,” Ikari said, trying to be courteous about the fact that Anya and Yuki-Shiro, who couldn’t turn into fast animals, were the ‘slowest ones’.