by Amanda Sun
But Tomo was bending his knees, lowering himself to the ground.
I shook my head. It was too much. The tears blurred in the corners of my eyes as my veins lit with anger. “Tomo, don’t.”
Tomo pressed his hands against the cold soil, and touched his forehead to the grass. I blinked my tears back.
Ishikawa smirked. “It’s easy to bow when it doesn’t mean anything,” he said. But I saw the resentment burning on Tomo’s face, the humiliation and the bitterness. I saw it as he sat back with the notebook on his knees, as he clicked open his pen and held it to the empty page.
Anger is something Tsukiyomi knows well, said a whisper in my thoughts. If his wrath bursts forward, the world will flood beneath it.
Jun took a step back, the fabric of his hakama skirt rustling as he clasped his hands in front of him. Ikeda stood beside him, a ghost of the Amaterasu who’d visited me in my dreams.
In the distance, the sky glowed orange and purple as the sun set behind the mountains.
“Now draw,” Jun said.
The moment Tomo’s arm arced across the page, I knew I’d lost him. His eyes grew vast and alien, like pools of ink. The whispers of kami gathered on the wind. He drew the arch of the monster’s back first, and the long tails of a dragon or a snake. He outlined the first of the heads in a pale gray scribble, adding long horns and spines and stretched sinew around the mouth. But the sketch didn’t look vicious until he drew in the eye, a sharp lizard eye that darted back and forth to watch as Tomo drew the rest of it.
The slender, draconic necks slithered around the page like tethered snakes. I wondered why he didn’t draw it to look a little friendlier. I mean, did he have to draw teeth so sharp they tore the edges of the paper? And what happened to the chains he was supposed to draw in, or the tubs of sake to drown the heads in? But Tomo had lost himself in the sketching, and wasn’t thinking straight. How could he? He’d never drawn anything this primal, this close to the truth. It was like all those other drawings had been leading up to this one sketch, like all this time, he just hadn’t been able to put a shape to his nightmares.
Look at him, the whisper inside me said. This is who he really is. This is the full truth of him.
I saw the smile on his face, the dark pride at creating something so terrifying. Maybe this what Amaterasu had been talking about. To truly know himself...to know that part of Tomo relished the darkness. He’d told me before how he loved the feeling of the current of the ink sweeping him away, that he didn’t care if it drowned him.
I hadn’t believed it then. But seeing him now, as he jumped into the black ocean willingly, I knew it was true.
You see now the threat that Takahashi Jun saw? This is who Tomo is. He’s fought it all along, but if it wasn’t true that he was darkness at his core, he wouldn’t have needed to fight.
I do see, I thought to myself. He was kindness and human, but he was just as much darkness and demon. I could see the threat. I could see it now so clearly.
Feathered raven wings oozed their way down Tomo’s back as he drew. Horns pushed through his hair, spiraling around the copper spikes.
He will consume the world, the voice warned. And I finally believed it. After all this time, he truly frightened me.
A low moan echoed through the clearing. It was sunset, but dark clouds gathered to block out what remained of light. The world began to shake, and I could feel the vibration in my heart.
Ikeda pulled her white stole tighter around her shoulders. “Jun,” she shouted over the rumbling. “He needs to stop drawing.”
“It’s not the drawing that’s causing this,” Jun yelled back. “He’s finally acknowledging the truth to himself. Tsukiyomi is taking over. I only hope he can finish the drawing before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” I shouted, the gathering moan of cries on the wind drowning out every sound. Ishikawa bent over Tomo’s shoulders, his palms black as he tried to shake him out of his trance.
“If Tsukiyomi takes him over before we get the Kusanagi, we won’t be able to stop him,” Jun yelled back. “He’ll destroy the world.”
Ishikawa’s eyes bulged. “Are you serious? I know you guys talk big, but...for real?”
“He must finish the drawing,” Jun said, wrapping an arm around Ikeda as she stumbled on her geta sandals in the trembling earthquake.
The low moan grew into a horrible hissing sound. Eight behemoth snakes hissing at once. I could see the shadow of Orochi in the distance.
God, I didn’t want to look. A nightmare come to life.
It was at least three stories high, slithering toward us in a mound of papery coils that dripped ink all over the clearing. Its sixteen eyes glowed with a strange white light as it neared, each of its eight mouths open and snapping with fangs the size of people. I couldn’t stop myself—I let out a horrible scream. The sight of the monster sent every thought I’d had reeling. I wanted Tomo to cross it out before it got too close.
Ishikawa and Ikeda screamed, too. Even Jun looked startled. He’s underestimated Tomo’s power again, that the creature he’d draw would be this monstrous.
And then Tomo cried out, but it wasn’t in horror like us. He cried out because the ink was flowing through his veins, because Tsukiyomi was taking over.
“This is it, Yuu,” Jun snapped. “If you give in to the ink, it’s over.” He held out both hands, his palms open. Ink trailed down Jun’s arms and collected on his outstretched fingers, the blackness dripping in a slow waterfall, carving itself into glossy weapons. “We are kendouka,” he said, “trained in the shinai used by samurai for practice. But practice has to end sometime.” Instead of flat bamboo swords, the liquid dripped into the shape of sharpened blades, two katanas made of ink.
Armed with one in each hand, Jun turned to face the towering monster. “I know you!” he shouted. “I banished you from the earth once. Today I will destroy you again!” He looked over his shoulder at Tomo, still on the ground. “Get up and fight!”
Tomo gritted his teeth, his body shaking. “I... I can’t...”
“Get up!” Jun shouted.
The tangle of snake heads snapped at the air as they approached us. I had to fight every instinct in my body to run.
Ink dripped down the sleeve of Ikeda’s purple kimono as it formed into the shape of a yumi, a Japanese longbow that stood even taller than she was. An arrow formed in her other hand, which she notched into the bow as she bent down beside Jun. She wasn’t a kendouka, I knew, but the sight of the yumi surprised me. I didn’t know anything about her, I realized. She played piano, she owned a motorbike and now I knew she did Japanese archery. But I’d only labeled her one of Jun’s dumb goth followers, never as her own person. The remorse flashed through my mind as she pulled back the bowstring, ready to follow Jun into battle.
I grabbed Tomo’s arm and pulled him to his feet. His body shook with the effort to stand, even as the ink dripped down his arms. “Come on, Tomo,” I said. “Let’s get the Kusanagi.”
He nodded, sweat rolling down the sides of his face. The ink pooled in the palm of his hand, the liquid twisting and shaping into the blade of a katana, the hilt shimmering with golden dust. The wings on his back molted feathers everywhere, new ones constantly growing in as the old melted away. One wing was featherless, angular and leathery like a demon’s. It was like his body couldn’t decide which direction it was going, which way to manifest the ink. He gripped the sword, his hand shaking.
Orochi’s hissing slithered through my thoughts and I turned to see it towering above Jun, its heads weaving between one another as they eyed him hungrily. The center one lunged at him, its long neck flexing, its fangs dripping with black ink. Jun rolled out of the way and its teeth sunk into the earth like two daggers, shaking the whole valley. I stumbled backward into Ishikawa, who had seized up in terror.
“What have you drawn, Yuuto?” he said quietly to himself, his voice near my ear.
I wanted to tell him this was the Orochi of legend, that Tomo had only sketched what had existed once before. But long ago, Tomo had told me his drawings were an extension of him, that his own spirit lived, however briefly, in those drawings. They aren’t alive, he’d said. They’re part of me.
Which meant this monster, this rage and desire for destruction, lived inside him. It always had, or he wouldn’t have been able to call it forward.
Oh, Tomo.
Ikeda loosed an arrow and the beast roared as the shaft lodged in one of its jaws. The struck head swayed back and forth before hurdling toward her. It snapped its jaws shut as she ran out of the way, another arrow forming from the ink in her hands.
Tomo shouted out the same loud kiai he used in his kendo matches and raced toward the monster. He sliced into one of Orochi’s necks, ink gushing from the wound as it oozed down the creature’s scales. The heads turned their attention to him, and Jun raced to the other side, whirling his two katana into the creature’s side one after the other. The beast cried out, knocking Jun into the air with its powerful neck. He flew through the air and crashed into a cypress tree before crumpling beneath it.
“Jun!” Ikeda shouted. She loosed another arrow, this time into one of its eyes. I nearly retched as I heard the squelch, the beast shaking the head violently, the arrow lodged deep inside its eye socket.
“What can we do?” Ishikawa said. He reached to the nearby cedar tree and yanked off a branch as thick as he could manage, brandishing it toward the creature.
A tree branch wasn’t going to cut it. “You’ll get killed, Satoshi.”
He flung the stick at the ground so hard it flipped over when it hit. “Well, what am I supposed to do? Yuuto’s going to get killed out there! I don’t have any Kami powers. All I have is a pocket knife.”
“I don’t know! Get behind it and cut the sword out of its tails?”
“Are you an idiot? You think this knife is going to cut through that hide?”
Ikeda ran toward us as she notched her bow, pulling the long string back. How could she use a bow that huge? But the arrow flew, and bounced off Orochi’s chest to the ground. Ikeda swore. “Do something!” she snapped at me.
“Like what?” I shouted back. “Can’t Tomo just scratch through the Orochi drawing? That would kill it.”
She shook her head. “It would dissolve before we could get the sword. Your presence makes Yuu and Jun stronger. So get moving already!”
She was right. Ishikawa couldn’t do anything, but I could.
Yes, the voice whispered inside of me. It’s time now.
I raced toward Tomo’s notebook, lying open and ripped in the grass. The small sketch of Orochi snapped at my fingertips, the wounds on its neck oozing ink that dripped over the sides of the page. My fingers were drenched in it as I tried to flip the oily pages to a clean one. I grabbed Tomo’s pen and wiped the dirt off it before pressing the nib against the page.
My mind blanked.
Orochi lunged at Tomo and I heard him cry out, saw him grabbing at his shoulder as blood dripped down the back of his black wings. “Tomo!” I cried. Tomo dodged the next of its heads, racing around the back of the creature toward its tails. Another of the heads darted out and grabbed at his back, throwing him straight up into the air. Panic choked me—Tomo couldn’t survive a fall from a distance like that. He’d die. But halfway down his wings started flapping, enough to slow him down so that he only landed with a thud. He’d feel it, but he’d live.
I thought of the giant raven that had protected Ise Jingu. Couldn’t that fight a monster like this?
I quickly sketched an awkward, angular raven. That was the messenger of Amaterasu, wasn’t it? But my bird didn’t move on the page or appear in the sky above. The cold wind swirled around me, and the raven’s feathers lifted slightly on the page. And that was it.
I screamed at the page, scribbling the lines of the raven darker. Tears began to pour down my cheeks. What was the point of being a man-made Kami if I was so useless?
I tried to calm down, to think about what Ikeda had said. Don’t try to do it on my own. Lend my ability to Tomo and to Jun. But how?
When I’d called down the power of Amaterasu to stop Tomo and Jun from fighting, I’d needed Ikeda to trace over my drawing. Maybe I could trace over Tomo’s. I flipped the pages, looking for something I could use.
There. A Yatagarasu, the one that had tapped on my window and attacked us on the train. I traced its lines darker through the scribbles Tomo had crossed through it. Maybe if I colored the raven darker, it would be strong enough to break through the bars of the cage he’d sketched around it.
On the page, the raven’s eyes lit with a deep blue light, like the jewel I’d seen on the kirin’s antler. It was working.
Thunder rumbled in the sky, and the piercing caw of a raven echoed through the air.
Ishikawa swore as the giant bird swooped above him, its shining blue eye gleaming like a flame.
Orochi cried out as Tomo struck another blow to its severed neck. The final cut lopped the head off and it hit the ground with a thud, its eyes dull as it rested in a pool of ink. Seven left.
The raven reached out with its talons, all three sets of claws digging deeply into another of Orochi’s necks. The beast shrieked and its remaining heads honed in on the bird, lunging at it in a flurry of fangs and feathers. It shook the bird off, but the central head flopped unsteadily, barely attached to its neck anymore.
The bird was enough distraction—Jun managed to cut through another neck. Two of the heads now lay on the ground, forked tongues lolling out between the huge, sharp fangs. Ikeda loosed another arrow, and it struck in the narrow gap between the tottering neck and the head, enough to dislodge it from the body. The remaining five heads shrieked and hissed. Behind me, Ishikawa retched into the grass. I barely held back as I darkened the bird, hoping to give it whatever power I could.
The raven curved in the air, lifting its wings high in the sky as it swooped down again. Jun sliced his two blades into the side of the monster and it shrieked into the air so loudly I covered my ears. The katanas stuck in the monster’s flesh, and Jun pressed his foot against its scaly hide to pull them free. They wouldn’t budge. His arms strained with the effort as he pulled, the blades inching forward, the ink pouring down the creature’s side.
The five heads wove among themselves as they lunged for him.
“Jun!” Ikeda cried out. She shot an arrow as she ran, but it flew too high, right over the targeted head. Her bow clattered to the ground as she cast it aside, stumbling in her kimono toward him. The ink pooled into a spear in her hand as she ran.
“Ikeda!” I called out. I pressed my pen against the wing of the bird, and the raven in the sky veered toward the heads plunging toward Jun. It dug its claws into one, but the other four kept moving.
Jun tumbled backward as the blades slid out of Orochi’s skin. I screamed as I saw the fangs of one mouth bare, as the ink dripped from them into Jun’s hair.
It happened in an instant. Jun raised his katana and thrust it toward the open palate of Orochi’s mouth. But Ikeda lunged in front of him, her spear plunging through the beast’s cheek, and before Jun could stop himself his blade pierced through her.
I screamed as the thunder cracked around us.
Ikeda’s eyes widened as she collapsed on Jun. The snake head drew back, shaking the ink spear from its cheek. The Yatagarasu clawed at the eyes of the multiple heads with its three legs as Tomo leaped onto the beast’s back and started carving through its hide, searching for the Kusanagi.
I dropped Tomo’s notebook as the cold wind swirled the scent of blood and ink through the field. Orochi moaned and roared as Jun cried out, Ikeda collapsed in his lap.
“Naok
i!” he shrieked, his hands tangled in her hair.
Another of Orochi’s heads slithered toward him.
“No!” Ishikawa grabbed his tree branch and lunged at the head. “Over here, you big ugly!” He swung the branch and the head snapped toward him. Ishikawa rolled through the packed dirt out of its reach, stumbling to his feet and swinging again.
I raced toward Jun and Ikeda. “Get her out of here!” I shouted, pulling on her limp arm. Her startled eyes stared up at the sky, her white stole stained with ink and blood and dirt.
“She’s gone,” Jun moaned, clutching at Ikeda as he pulled her close to his chest.
The hot breath of Orochi wafted against my back, and I turned to see its sharp fangs looming in front of me.
I was helpless. I had nothing to fight it with. The anger and powerlessness surged through me as I stared at it.
The head dropped to the ground beside me, rolling sideways as the fangs tipped over. Tomo straddled what was left of the neck, the stump of it wriggling with nerves.
“Naoki,” Jun sobbed as the ink spread out in wings on his back. He brushed his fingers over her face, leaving trails of ink like tears on her cheeks.
“Takahashi!” Tomo yelled as Orochi thrashed underneath him. “I need you!”
“Go,” I shouted at him. “I’ll take care of Ikeda.” Jun looked dazed, like he couldn’t control his own arms and legs. I grabbed his wrist, the spikes of the bracelet sharp against my palm. “Get the Kusanagi,” I said, and Jun stumbled forward, his wings flapping.
The raven let out a twisted cry, and I looked up to a waterfall of feathers spiraling around me, black ink pouring from a jagged bite mark in its side. Its lifeless body slumped to the ground and began to dissolve, lifting like golden fireflies on the bitter wind.
I looked down at Ikeda’s lifeless body, her elegant purple kimono stained with darkness. The Orochi was destroying everything. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.