The Fox's Quest

by Anna Frost

  “Before I came along, he’d have them just anywhere,” Marin said. “In the forest, on the floor of his cave… You should have seen what he looked like after one of those!”

  “Hence the cushion,” Domi said dryly. “I believe I can get up now, love.”

  It was slung between Marin and Aito that Domi returned to his cave house. He was laid near the fire to dry off, for his clothes had soaked in the water on the ground. Tea was served and rice put to cooking while Domi rested, eyes half-closed, occasionally grumbling about the “demon party” in his head.

  When Sanae felt she had waited sufficiently long to satisfy politeness, she asked, How can you hurt people with spiritual energy? I thought it was a healing sort of energy.

  “When gathered gently, it heals. But I compress the energy so tightly it becomes physical for a brief moment. In that time, I can hurl my little balls forward at such speed they penetrate any matter in front of me. If I could throw a knife with this kind of strength, it would penetrate armor the same way.”

  I see. I suppose it’s similar to when I make myself solid and bite people. I’m made of the same neutral energy, but I can use it to harm. Interesting.

  “Is someone going to help me or not?” Jien complained. He was busy with their hand-tied prisoner, trying to coax answers from the uncooperative man.

  “Your methods are too soft.” Marin pushed her bangs aside and, with a whip-fast motion of her hand, threw a tiny dart at the prisoner. “There. He’ll talk or he won’t get any antidote.”

  The man did, screaming all the while. Through his babbling, they gathered the mercenaries had been told to recover a sword and bring it to an inn in Kyoto.

  “He knows nothing else of interest,” Marin said after the man began to repeat himself. She cut the man’s throat and did not flinch as blood gushed out. Afterwards, she dragged the body outside.

  Sanae stared after the shinobi. Killing a person should rate more expression than killing a bug, shouldn’t it?

  A voice from within her questioned, Who is the worst person, the woman who kills without feelings or the woman who kills and enjoys it?

  But it’s the fighting I enjoy, not the killing, she argued. And killing on the battleground isn’t like killing in cold blood!

  Yet... maybe the voice had a point.

  “We could go to the inn he mentioned with the sword,” Jien said, “or perhaps with a copy, and see who approaches us.”

  “We might have no choice,” Aito said. “If men were sent here, it must be because they know we took the first sword. They would also have sent men to the place Akakiba and Yuki are investigating. If those men arrive first…”

  I better go check on them, Sanae said, shocked out of her self-doubts. They might need me.

  She crossed over and sought the beacon she wanted. In a hurry, it was easier to use Yuki’s spiritual signature to track down her brother. Yuki’s aura in the spiritual realm was stronger, less contained, and therefore acted as a bright light to guide her.

  When she popped in, she was perplexed, for her brother’s aura was nowhere near.

  Yuki, where’s my brother? The human slumbered before a low fire, even though it was the middle of the day. Hey, are you sick? Yuki?

  She found Drac sleeping in a cold room, but no sign of her brother anywhere. She could have popped back into the spiritual realm to seek him, but it seemed easier to demand answers from the little girl who was brushing Yuki’s horse outside.

  Hey, kid. Where’s the tall samurai who travels with the man sleeping inside your home?

  The little girl fell over. “Demon!”

  I’m a fox spirit, she said with strained patience. Where is he?

  “He went to stop the curse that’s killing the forest.”

  What? Her brother had gone after the sword alone?

  Why didn’t Yuki go with him?

  “Because he has to sleep. Dragons sleep when it’s winter, so he sleeps too,” the girl said solemnly. “We have to warm up the dragon to wake him up, but not right now. He said later.”

  I see. Thank you.

  Sanae returned to the house, went physical, and grabbed hold of the dragon’s horns with her teeth to drag him to the fire in the other room. Drac was several times her size, but she had strength to spare. The hardest part was getting the door open.

  Wake up, you idiot! Up!

  She almost rolled the dragon in the fire in her haste. Her brother could be in deep trouble right now but she couldn’t help because she couldn’t go anywhere near the cursed spirit-energy-eating object he was after!

  When the heat began to induce twitches in dragon and human, she bounced on Yuki’s chest. Wake up!

  “What, whoa—ow!”

  Oh, good, you’re awake. Listen. That stupid brother of mine went to get the sword alone and Jien and Aito met a bunch of bandits sent to get the other sword and we think there must have been bandits sent here too and now my stupid brother is either too late to get the sword or in time to get in trouble. He can’t even bleed red if he gets in trouble!

  Yuki looked at her with sleepy eyes. “What?”

  “She says bad men are going to hurt your friend,” the little girl said. She was near the front door, sitting there as if she were watching a play. “Because he went alone in the cursed forest.”

  “What!” Yuki sat up and Drac hissed. “Why would he go alone?”

  “Because it was very cold today and you were sleepy,” the little girl said again. “You have to sleep when it’s cold, but it’s dangerous.”

  “I…He…I can’t believe he left me behind!” Wide-eyed, Yuki thrust his two swords in his belt and stumbled to his feet. “Is my horse still here? I’ll go after him. Not you, Drac. Stay near the fire so we won’t fall asleep again.”

  The dragon began to protest but Yuki gave him a long hard stare and he subsided near the fire.

  “I’m going,” Yuki said, and left.

  Sanae hoped she was wrong to worry Akakiba had fallen into an ambush. She wanted to help, but… If she went in the forest where the cursed sword and her brother were supposed to be, she would lose part of her life force.

  Yet how could she do nothing? She could at least look for her brother’s spark on the other side and keep an eye on it. If her brother’s spark weakened, she’d try to go in and help anyway. So what if it killed her? She’d already died once and it hadn’t been so bad.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mamoru

  Badly wounded, drugged, and left near-naked in an unheated cell, the Fox samurai stayed alert longer than Mamoru would have thought possible. “Cell” was admittedly a fancy word for what was essentially a pit dug in stone under the clan house and closed with metal bars thick as a man’s arm. During summer it was a storage room for food items best kept cool. During winter the cold made it a death trap.

  There came an hour when the fox could raise his head only with difficulty to meet their gazes, his eyes glassy with exhaustion because he would not sleep while they watched him. The injuries he had sustained during his capture had partly healed but yet dripped blood, a sign he had no spare energy left—or so said Yoshio.

  “That should do,” Yoshio said. “Possess him.”

  Mamoru recoiled. “Me? I already have a body.”

  “I have no one else who knows how to do it. Get in there and squeeze their clan’s secrets from his mind.” Yoshio frowned at him. “If you’re so attached to that body, you can return to it later. You did expel the original soul?”

  “Yes.” It would have been more accurate to say “no,” but since there remained a single mind where there had been two previously, the difference was inconsequential.

  “Leave the body in your bed while you’re away. It will be safe. I do it often, to no ill effect.”

  Mamo
ru remembered seeing it happen, but he still didn’t like the idea. Unlike the creature that called itself Yoshio, he was attached to his body.

  He’d learned a great deal over the last couple days, especially about magical swords and the true powers of fox samurai. Now he was poised to increase his knowledge, through stealing the fox’s secrets. Not that he expected it to be easy—or even possible. There was already a spirit in there, wasn’t there? Could one body fit two spirits?

  “If I do it, can I go to the city?” Where Usagi was waiting for him. “I’ve recovered sufficiently.” He’d just spent a long, exhausting week helping Yoshio turn the forest into a death trap. He deserved to go.

  “That depends on your performance.”

  “Why don’t you do it? I’m nowhere as experienced as you.”

  “Do as you’re told,” Yoshio snapped.

  Was Yoshio afraid of doing it himself, afraid of what might happen?

  Ah well, a mission was a mission. There was always danger involved anyway.

  He went to his room and, after barring the door, lowered himself in bed gingerly to spare his still-healing burns. Leaving the body that had become his home was distressing; leaving it unprotected where Yoshio could get at it was worse. It took time to pry himself out of the body because the human parts of him didn’t want to leave.

  Upon achieving success, he hovered above his body, watching it until he was certain breathing and other automatic functions critical to survival hadn’t stopped. Being freed from physical sensations for a short time wasn’t entirely unpleasant. While he would willingly sustain worse wounds in Usagi’s defense, he didn’t enjoy suffering through the long recovery phase inherent to injuries.

  Mind on business, he told himself. The faster he got the information Yoshio wanted, the faster he could return to his own body and plan his trip to the city. He’d run away if it came to that. Usagi was waiting.

  He zipped through the hallway, brushing against a shinobi who, evidently alarmed by the faint contact, spun round. He almost apologized, but that would have made it worse. Yoshio wouldn’t be happy if he caused rumors the clan house was haunted.

  At the back of the clan house, there was a hole in the floor and a staircase leading into darkness lit by a pair of torches. There was the cell and the rope-bound samurai who huddled within, his eyes darting back and forth as he no doubt considered potential escape plans. He must know the uselessness of it, yet he tried.

  Mamoru threw himself at the fox’s mouth. It was kept partly open by a device of Yoshio’s creation, the same one that had been used on him back when he’d only been human. He had no idea why it was necessary. What reason was there for mere skin to stop his entry? After all, he could penetrate skin layers from the inside to reach the whole of the body. Yet there was a difference and he couldn’t explain it. He spread out from inside, meeting the expected resistance.

  Tired the fox might be, but broken he wasn’t. They waged war, shoving at each other, grappling for control of the body. Yoshio stood above, watching impassively as the samurai’s body twitched and kicked, out of control.

  Listen, Mamoru told the fox. You’re weak and tired and you can’t keep this up forever. Can’t you make it easy for me? I’m afraid he’ll hurt me if I don’t get what he wants.

  The fox answered with a terribly rude mental snarl. He was following orders; it wasn’t his decision to do this. If the fox would simply cooperate, they could end this painlessly.

  Hours must have passed, for the clan leader left and returned several times to look in on his progress—or lack thereof.

  “I begin to wonder if you can win,” Yoshio said, in a tone that renewed Mamoru’s fears for his physical body. He didn’t want to return to his room and find out his body had a slit throat!

  I’m terribly sorry, he said, and pushed harder, harder. He wouldn’t let the fox hide. The fox would be assimilated, whether he liked it or not.

  Information began to filter to him: names and faces. Akakiba: that was his self. Akahana, Kiba, Sanae: those were his family. Yuki: his lover? Not quite. Something complicated, but warm.

  The fox clamped down, but he couldn’t hold. He tried to flee, but there was nowhere to go.

  Don’t think you’ve won, the fox snarled. Then, he disappeared.

  Confused, Mamoru searched everywhere. He found no other mind sharing the body with him. He searched within himself, too, but couldn’t find any evidence he’d absorbed another mind. If there was no mind left, he could not get any information. Insofar as he could tell, there was nothing “inhuman” left either, not even the ability to become a fox. What was left was a human shell weakened by hunger, cold, and lack of sleep. It was an unpleasant shell to be within.

  Yoshio listened to his report with an air of surprise. “He left his body rather than be taken? Hm. How samurai-like. They’re ever so fond of suicide.”

  “May I return to my own body now?” Mamoru asked, eager to escape the nagging hunger and bone-deep exhaustion. “I can’t become a fox. I tried. This is a useless body.”

  Yoshio paced, a human habit he didn’t seem to use consciously. “No, no, not useless. We shall keep it. I’ll bring food for you to feed it and get its strength back. It is nearly time for humans to sleep; I will go and consult an ally. There may yet be a use for this empty body. His clan has connections we may be able to use. You have his name, at least?”

  “Yes. He is named Akakiba.”

  Warm clothing and food helped to make the samurai’s body comfortable, but Mamoru was happy to leave it behind. After all, he couldn’t move around in the clan house in the body of a man the clan had supposedly captured for ransom. Now no more than a puppet, the samurai’s body rested on a cushy futon. If any of the human shinobi asked, they’d say the fox was drugged.

  Watching the empty body’s chest rise and fall, Mamoru couldn’t help but have the unpleasant feeling it might rise and walk at any moment. He was nowhere as certain as Yoshio that the fox had died. It hadn’t felt like the fox meant to kill himself, it’d felt like the fox had a plan.

  He began to float away, looking forward to a good night’s sleep in his own body and his own bed, but a faint noise made him zip back, fearing— No, the samurai’s body remained unmoving. For now.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Yuki

  In the middle of the dead forest where the sword—and Akakiba—should have been, there were traps camouflaged under the snow. After his first near-fall, Yuki had taken to using a long branch to test the ground ahead before putting his feet on it. Following a trail consisting of triggered traps and fox tracks, he found an expanse of snow stained with crimson.

  Something twisted in his guts. A human could survive the loss of this much blood, but a fox was much smaller.

  “Sanae, do you see him?”

  The fact Sanae was still with him was proof the sword was no longer in the vicinity. There was a good chance the sword and Akakiba were in the hands of the same people.

  Sanae had been flicking in and out of existence for a little while now, crossing to the spirit realm and back again.

  That stupid sword, she said, exasperation thick in her voice. It must be hiding my brother’s life spark. There’s no other reason why I couldn’t find him! I can’t pinpoint the sword either. It doesn’t pull on me when it’s not amplified by the energy sink.

  “Keep looking. We’ll find him.”

  Yuki didn’t voice the far more logical possibility Sanae couldn’t find her brother because his life spark was too weak to stand out from the naturally small sparks of humans and animals. Or, worse, because there was no life spark left. He’d rather pretend it was the sword’s fault, too.

  Using the last of the day’s sunlight, he set up camp in an area of the dead forest burned down to ashes. Camping here made it less likely his fire would start a secon
d blaze, there being nothing left to burn. He ate dried fruit taken from his bags and tried to sleep while it was an option.

  He groped for his link with Drac, finding the distance had stretched but not broken it. He could barely make himself “heard” as he projected worry, could barely feel the faint reassurance that came back. It was enough; Drac was waiting for him in safety.

  Akakiba might be waiting for him, too, but not in safety. Sanae would find him. He had to believe that.

  He must have fallen asleep because a voice woke him.

  I don’t find this state as pleasant as Sanae claims it is, Akakiba’s unmistakable cranky voice said. The voice did not come from the battle-scarred and hard-eyed man Yuki knew, but from a fox remarkably alike to Sanae’s stylized fox form, aside from the color—a bright gold instead of a bright red.

  “I never did figure out why your aura is yellow and your sister’s is red,” Yuki said stupidly. Then, waking up for good, he pitched forward on hands and knees to be at eye-level with Akakiba. “You’re here! Like this! Are you…” He swallowed, dreading to ask but unable not to. “Are you dead? What happened to your body?”

  My body is fine. Where’s your dragon?

  “Drac stayed at Chiyako’s home. I’m fine as long as he keeps warm.” Thinking about that resuscitated his anger. “What were you thinking, leaving me behind? Did you expect I’d insist on bringing Drac along and fall asleep in the middle of a fight? We’re not glued together!”

  You always act like you are. There was sulkiness in there, lurking under the surface.

  Sulkiness meant…jealousy? Yuki put this interesting bit of knowledge aside for later consideration. There were more pressing matters to address, like where exactly Akakiba had left his physical body.

  Sanae appeared out of nowhere, gasping, Brother! What happened?