by C. J. Anaya
She closed her eyes, looking as if she wished she’d never been given such an intense gift with such hefty responsibilities. I certainly couldn’t blame her for that. I knew exactly how she felt.
“He is going to die.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. I honestly didn’t get an exact feel for the time.”
“How?”
“Nekomata. It looks like a deserted area and felt extremely cold. The vision wasn’t very forthcoming.”
I sat there running her words through my brain, wondering how we could change his future, alter the path just a little. I shook my head in confusion.
“How cold?”
“Freezing.”
“But we’ll be in Japan by tomorrow. It isn’t freezing there, is it?”
Angie shrugged her shoulders and let out a tired sigh that sounded like more of a choked sob. Dark bruises under her eyes attested to the strain and exhaustion she felt. Her vibrant red hair and vivid green eyes made her pale skin appear even more translucent.
“Are you getting any sleep?”
She shrugged again. “I get some, but my mind is always racing. I’m afraid I’ll miss something, and I’ll lose someone like I lost your mom.”
“Oh, Ang.” I brought her in for a hug and squeezed tight, trying to give her as much love and reassurance as I could pack into one embrace. “That wasn’t your fault. You had no reason to monitor my mother’s mortality, and no way of knowing she would become a target like that.”
A soft sob escaped her as she held me close.
“I know that, but I imagine how different things would have been if I had seen her the day before. I would have known it was coming.”
How long had she been dealing with this guilt? It was a terrible, unnecessary burden to have to carry. It also explained why she spent so much time over at my house after that. She must have been checking up on my father.
“Even with your gift, Angie, none of us really know what’s coming.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Save him.”
“How?”
“Not in any way that Victor or Tie will approve of, not to mention my father and Ms. Mori.
“Yeah,” she whispered against my shoulder. “I was afraid of that.”
***
“We really need to explore the ways in which Tie might be able to assist you in healing the veil,” Victor stated.
Angie let out a mournful groan. “He’s at it again.” She’d seemed even more annoyed with Victor since waking up from that weird sleep I’d accidentally put her in.
Since there were nineteen seats within the large jet, most everyone had spread out to rest and relax. Angie had strategically placed herself across the aisle from Victor, while periodically peeking up at him from underneath her eye-mask. Being diagonally across from her gave me full view of the way she discreetly studied him as if she were trying to peel back his layers and lay bare the sensitive soul within.
Or maybe that was just all in my own head. Who knew what Angie’s motives were or what she was really thinking?
I looked across the aisle at Tie and allowed his scorching gaze to heat my insides and create small flutterings in my stomach. I’d probably never get used to the way Tie made me feel.
“We have to have a plan, Angie. The world isn’t just going to save itself.” Victor reached over and pulled the mask from her face.
She turned to him and gave him one of those flirtatious Angie looks, the kind meant to lull her victims into a false sense of security.
“You’re quite the micro-manager, Victor. It amazes me that the world spins on its axis without your help.”
Tie fought a smirk while Victor leaned forward in his seat, giving me access to the expression of annoyance on his face.
“Our First Parents gave that particular job to a different kami,” he stated.
A loud laugh erupted from Tie as Angie glared at the handsome Asian she was obviously trying very hard to not have feelings for.
My eyebrows rose as I saw the hint of a smile play at the corners of Victor’s lips. Victor cracking jokes?
Who knew?
At his continued insistence, our entire group awoke from their various naps and huddled in the seats at the middle of the plane in a strange oval shaped pow-wow.
“I’m concerned that we know so little about what Tie’s involvement in all of this is,” Victor continued. “How can we help him prepare if we don’t know what he must do?”
“I thought the prophecy was going to tell us that,” Kirby said.
Victor looked up at him hovering over the edge of his seat and reached out to tweak his chin. “We have no way of knowing if we’ll be able to retrieve the prophecy, or even if there is still a copy of the prophecy in its original form. We need to be prepared.”
“Well, just how exactly were you supposed to heal it? That is…when you thought you were supposed to…” my father awkwardly trailed off.
“It’s okay, James. It’s a fair question. The Grass Cutter sword was to play a major role in the healing of the veil…or so I thought. It can channel the millions of ki on the other side of the veil and use their energy to strengthen it. This is how I’ve been able to prevent it from completely failing. With Hope’s immortal strength, the purity of her own ki, and her healing capabilities, she was going to be that bridge between the sword and the veil, that boost of power that sealed the veil and kept it strong forever. It requires us both to be able to feel the veil around us and channel the power of The Grass Cutter Sword together.”
“But I never actually managed to do that before I died,” I said. “I definitely felt the veil during our lessons together, but only when I attempted to heal someone who was meant to die.” I thought of Cho and the way she had died in my arms after she fulfilled her mission and gave me that message from Akane. I shook myself as I noticed Tie peering at me questioningly. He always did see far more than I wanted him to. “Beyond that, I don’t feel anything. Even now I don’t sense anything.”
Ms. Mori let out a frustrated grunt. “This is impossible. Tie has no ability to sense the veil whatsoever, and Hope only senses it when she’s working against it.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Tie said.
All eyes turned to him.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He was silent for a moment. I sensed his dread even before he spoke the words.
“I’ve always been able to feel the veil.”
“What?” Victor barked in disbelief.
“Everyone has a distinct energy signature that their ki lets off. As the god of love and marriage, I sense a person’s energy or ki through the veil. When a person is ready and waiting for their soul mate, when the timing is right, I use their energy to find the person with that identical energy signature. I can sense anyone no matter where they are, just like you can, Victor.”
Victor’s mouth hung open in shock. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
“Honestly, it never came up. I never asked you how you fulfilled your calling and you never asked me how I fulfilled mine. We just accepted who we were, what our roles were, and did our jobs.”
“Seriously? You guys never discussed your jobs or went into analytical detail surrounding the events of your day?” Angie asked in disgust. “What the hell did you two talk about over the centuries?”
Victor and Tie looked at each other with smug smiles before both of them said, “Women.”
Kirby snickered in his seat. “I can’t believe you guys talked about girls when you could have been talking about sports.”
“In all honesty, Victor did all of the talking. I never had a woman until Edana.” Tie said, and then looked as if he wished he hadn’t. The plane became very quiet as Edana’s name, spoken aloud, managed to make the stillness of the air feel entirely too oppressive.
Victor cleared his throat, “Moving on. Is that how you finally found Hope? You were able to sense her energy signature? Why couldn’
t I sense it then?”
“Oh boy,” my father muttered under his breath.
Tie appeared uncomfortable with this line of questioning, but there was no doubt it was time to come clean and share his involvement in my disappearance.
“I always knew where Hope was located. I always knew exactly who she was in her reincarnated state.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Victor said. His voice held a menacing undertone, and I prayed Tie would tread carefully with his confession.
“I was at the temple when Hope was born. I had to make certain that the family she was born into were good people.”
“Why, when she was meant to stay in Kagami with us?” Ms. Mori asked.
“Because he planned on letting her leave,” Victor whispered. “He helped James and Julia leave Kagami.”
“Now listen,” Tie interjected in a consoling tone. “It was too dangerous for her stay there in that monastery, and you both know it.”
“Hachiman enchanted the area. There were no threats to her safety,” Ms. Mori protested.
“Amatsu’s minions were relentless in the beginning. They would have found a way to breach the enchantments eventually had she stayed.”
“You are the one who masked her from me, aren’t you?” Victor was on his feet now. He clenched his hands at his sides and looked down at Tie with fury burning dark within the depths of his eyes.
Tie sighed and sat back in defeat, apparently accepting that this conversation had no way of going well for him.
“As long as Hope was in Kagami she wasn’t safe. The place is run by Amatsu’s henchmen. We fended them off well the first several years, but after a thousand years there were no guarantees. No enchantment in the world would be strong enough to keep them from breaking through. Amatsu would have found a way for them to get to her, and we had no way of knowing if all of the monks at the temple could be trusted.”
“Quit trying to justify your actions,” Victor ground out. “You hid her from me. You sat back and watched me search for her for years like an idiot. I did everything I could to find the woman meant for me and all that time you knew where she was and you never told me.”
Tie rose to his feet. “You’re damn right I didn’t tell you. Hell, Victor. This isn’t even about you. I shielded her presence from everyone. From Amatsu, from his servants, from anyone capable of getting to her and destroying her childhood, her opportunities, and her life. She was a pawn in her first life. She was beaten and abused with no one to love and look out for her. Did you really think I was going to let her childhood play out like that again by handing her over to the very mother who failed to shield her from all that suffering in the first place?”
Ms. Mori balked at this, but Tie didn’t seem to notice. He was too intent on getting his point across, while Victor fought to gain control of his temper. I, on the other hand, stared at my soul mate in wonder, more than amazed that he had loved and cared for me so much that he had done all he could to make my second life better than the first.
Tie continued, pointing a finger in Victor’s chest.
“Do you think you would have been enough for her? A man incapable of ever being faithful to any woman he’d ever been with?” I saw tears glistening in his eyes, matching the moisture in my own as he defended me in a way I had never been able to before. “I saw the aftermath of Fukurokuju’s abuse. I watched her struggle to come to terms with her own power and sense of worth, and I sat back for months withholding my love and strength from her due to the poison laced within my own heart. She deserved to be happy, she deserved to be loved and cared for and protected, not treated as if she was valuable simply because she was The Healer. A normal childhood filled with peace, love, and happiness was the only thing I was capable of giving to her after I failed her in every other way.” He turned his piercing gaze on me and his eyes softened. “I gave you that for as long as I could, Hope—until it finally wasn’t safe for you anymore.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I nodded my thanks, too choked up to even attempt a single word of gratitude.
Victor’s jaw remained stiff as he grudgingly accepted Tie’s explanation. “I guess I can understand your motives, though I don’t approve of your methods.”
Angie let out a derisive snort, but wisely remained silent when Victor’s glare landed on her. He turned back to Tie.
“What I don’t understand is why I can’t sense her energy even now.”
“I’m still shielding her,” Tie said. “I’m still trying to throw the nekomata off her trail, but Amatsu has latched onto her energy signature and his ability to sense her whereabouts has become stronger over time. How he’s managed to do this is a mystery to me, but we have to keep moving.”
Something Tie said created a sense of unease within me. I felt like I already had the answer to that mystery, but the answer eluded me, nudging my memory just at the edges. Yet the actual details of whatever I felt I knew remained fuzzy and out of focus.
“Once we are in Kagami it will be even easier for Amatsu to detect our whereabouts, even within the walls of the Temple,” Ms. Mori stated stiff-lipped.
I didn’t want to care whether or not Tie’s accurate assessment of her involvement in my life had bothered her, or dare I say given her cause for some well-deserved guilt burgers, but the fact remained that I remembered her as my mother in my first life. I considered this an unfortunate consequence of my recent coma. Being indifferent to her had been wholly attainable when I couldn’t remember having shared a lifetime with her. Now, every time I looked at her I felt more than indifference. Interesting how hatred stems from love sometimes. I think I hated her more for always making me wonder if she’d ever actually given a damn.
“Then we need to get to the temple as quickly as we possibly can, locate the prophecy, and get out of there before Amatsu can organize an attack,” Victor replied.
The thought of our party becoming an easy target for Amatsu’s minions reminded me of my previous goal with Angie.
“Speaking of possible bodily harm to our persons, Ang, do you remember your time spent with Tie?”
Her face took on an angry scowl. “And then some.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Victor grumbled.
Angie’s enigmatic smile said it all. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t narrowed down her experiences with Tie to a specific time period which was probably why she’d passed out for a little bit. She’d downloaded every memory she ever had of Tie from all of her lives combined, and I was willing to bet that Victor had been present in some of those memories. She remembered Tie falling in love with her while she fell in love with Victor who fell in love with me and lost me to Tie. And now we were all sitting on a charter plane together just shootin’ the breeze.
Awkward much?
And then craziness happened.
Angie stood up, moved in front of Victor, and exploded into a series of punches he barely had time to defend himself against. Her movements were fluid and precise, especially in a place where full movement of body wasn’t really an option. I stared at her and Victor in wide-eyed fascination as they remained about a foot apart and sparred with one another as if they had been doing it for years. Up and down the aisle of the plane they moved with intense precision until Angie used some of Victor’s momentum against him, stepping into him and twisting left, swinging him to the floor of the plane where she took up residence on his chest and threw a punch that stopped right at his throat.
The way they locked eyes with each other as she straddled him made me feel as if the rest of us needed to find ourselves a different plane.
Angie broke the tension with a throaty chuckle and said, “Good thing you’re a deity, Victor, because I just kicked your immortal butt.”
He grabbed the fist she held against his throat and slowly moved it away. “I have a beautiful girl sitting on my chest. Who says I’m not winning?”
My jaw dropped and my eyes flew to Tie who gave me an amazed grin. I knew what we were
both thinking. Who knew Victor was capable of flirting?
Very promising. I had to still my legs before I jumped up and celebrated with a preemptive, matchmaker happy dance.
“I’d tell them to get a room, but their options are kind of limited to the plane’s bathroom and the small cabin in the back,” Kirby whispered in the seat behind me. We chuckled softly as Angie got up and then assisted Victor to his feet.
“Okay,” I stated, “seems like that was a success, which means our group is less vulnerable now that Angie has basically remembered the fact that she used to be a samurai commander.”
“And I’m hot to boot,” she said, plunking down on a seat across from me and leaning back with a smug smile on her face. “Geez, even I want to date me.”
“So now the only liabilities you have are me and Kirby,” dad said self-deprecatingly.
“No way. We can totally fight like they can,” Kirby said with some excitement. “All Hope has to do is transfer all of her ninja memories to us. Right?”
I should have known Kirby would jump to that conclusion.
“That’s an interesting idea,” Ms. Mori said.
“We should exercise caution here, Hope,” Tie said. “We don’t know what all of this activity will do to you physically. What if there are side effects?”
I crinkled my brow in confusion. “My body is constantly healing itself. I’ll be just fine.”
Tie didn’t look convinced. “Even if they do download these fighting skills into their brains like some computer app, their physical abilities will have to play catch-up to the knowledge they receive. You and Angie are going to need some intensive sessions of training just to get your bodies into the shape they need to be in.”
“He’s right. I’m probably going to be feeling my little sparring session with Victor tomorrow,” Angie chimed in with a grimace as she rubbed her right shoulder.
“Still, any knowledge is going to be better than no ability to fight and defend at all,” I argued.
“Well, I’m not completely helpless. I took boxing for several years when I was in college,” my dad said.