The Fractured Soul

by Nicolette Andrews

  “What is that?” Akira asked; he could feel her disgust through their bond.

  “Does it matter? They all fall to my sword in the end,” Tsuki said as he drew his blade.

  The fumbling monstrosity rose from the flames and took a few staggering steps toward him, clutched in the disfigured hand was a fishing spear.

  It was all so obvious now. These pathetic creatures used to be the villagers. It swung its spear at Tsuki, which he dodged. He would have mercy and make its death swift. With a single swipe of his sword, he beheaded the monster. Its head rolled along the ground, wide, surprised eyes stared up at the smoke-filled sky, while the body slumped forward, the black and red blood staining the ground.

  “Whose making these things?” Tsuki asked.

  “It doesn’t concern us. We need to find the missing piece,” Akira replied.

  She was right, as she always was. Tsuki found his way out of the burning village and onto the beach, which was covered in ash and stray pieces embers. Where the shore met the sea, Suzume stood on the end of a dock as three hybrids closed in upon her, and behind her, the ocean rose up to unnatural heights.

  “It’s her, I can feel Kazue’s energy!” Akira shouted in his mind.

  The wave crashed down upon Suzume and the hybrids, sweeping them off the dock. He had to save her, she was a terrible swimmer. But Noaki was already there diving into the water to save her.

  “Don’t worry about Suzume, Father will protect her. We need to find the soul piece before it escapes again.”

  “Where are they?” Tsuki asked as he scanned the beach, and the rise just beyond. At the top of the hill, a group of humans had clustered together. None particularly stood out, but someone had to have made the waves rise up that way. It couldn’t have been a coincidence.

  “Close, maybe just over that rise, but they’re getting away. We must hurry.” Tsuki didn’t need to be told twice, and he raced up the hill past the group of humans who felt the breeze as he zoomed past them, but saw not a hint of them. Humans could not see them unless they wished it, and rarely did he care to. As he crested the hill, he spotted a woman in a priestess haori and hakama running for the forest which bordered the beach. As she looked behind her, their eyes locked. She turned and ran faster toward the forest.

  “That’s her!” Akira said.

  Picking up speed, he bolted down the hill catching up to her with ease and grabbed her by her bicep. She spun around to face him. The face was that of a stranger, but the eyes peering into his were all too familiar. She did not struggle or try to break free, and instead, a faint smile curled her lips, and he was transported back to that day all those centuries ago. Back then, he thought he’d caught easy prey, when in reality, it was he who’d fallen into her trap.

  “It looks like you’ve caught me, Tsuki.” The voice was wrong, but the words were the same. The past and the present had collided and become one.

  On reflex, his grip slackened, but Akira used his hand and grasped her tightly before she could slip away. If she hadn’t taken charge, he might have stumbled backward to escape her. It wasn’t possible, Kazue had split her soul apart. She was effectively dead, and yet it was her, back from the dead.

  “Don’t let her rattle you,” Akira chided.

  “But how does she know my name?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We have her now, and it’s time to bring her back to the others.”

  “You know my name, that’s surprising. I guess we can skip introductions then, and you’ll come with me,” Tsuki said as he tugged her along. She gave no resistance and walked calmly beside him. Which was only that much more suspicious.

  “I know much more than your name.” She canted her head to the side. “You and Akira were Akatsuki’s deadliest assassins. You with your blade and Akira with her charms. The two of you drained the spiritual power of your targets and sold it to desperate yokai hungry for power.”

  It had been centuries since then, but it was possible their reputation had preceded them. Tsuki squeezed her arm tighter. She was trying to get under his skin, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “You think you’re clever? There wasn’t a yokai alive five hundred years ago who didn’t fear us. Everyone knew we had skills no one else had.”

  “But did they know who you saved a portion of that power for?”

  Tsuki froze mid-step. No one knew about that apart from Akira, Tsuki, and Kazue...

  “It was a lucky guess,” Akira said but with less certainty. He could feel it. Was it possible a soul piece had memories the others didn’t?

  “A lucky guess, or you remember more than the others.”

  “I remember everything. You were ordered to kill me by a yokai by the name of Hiramoro. He wanted my power for his own. But in the end, I absorbed him, like all the rest.” She smiled faintly, the innocent smile that had lured him in when they first met. He’d underestimated Kazue, not realizing what danger lurked beneath that sweet exterior.

  It was possible she had some of Kazue’s memories; the others had a few, though none detailed as this. She was more cunning than he gave her credit for.

  “Impressive, perhaps when we get back to the palace, you can tell us more about what you remember from the old days.”

  The soul piece threw her head back and laughed. The sound made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and he reached for the hilt of his sword with his free hand and gripped her tighter with the other.

  “You haven’t changed a bit, have you? You’d make the same mistakes all over again, that cost you your mother.” Her eyes flash a sky blue as she smiled.

  Tsuki drew his blade and pressed it to her throat. He should have killed her that day, the moment he met her.

  “Careful. We need her, remember?” Akira warned.

  Tsuki took a deep breath and let the anger fade from him. “Do not test my patience; vengeance has a way of honing a blade,” Tsuki said, meeting her gaze.

  “You’re no less arrogant than you were back then, Tsuki. Haven’t you realized you’ve already walked right into my trap.”

  “She’s put up a barrier!” Akira said.

  Tsuki scored her neck with his blade, and bright crimson blood welled up running down her neck. “Perhaps I have learned a thing or two. I’ve learned not to let my guard down for an innocent face.”

  Once more, she didn’t struggle against him, or try to break free. And why would she? They were within her spiritual barrier. “I thought with a new life, we could start over.” She grasped his wrist that held her blade and pressed it harder against her own neck.

  “Is she insane?” Tsuki asked Akira through their shared bond.

  He tried to pull the blade back, but she held it close.

  “I do not fear death, but you need me alive.”

  “Don’t do anything hasty,” Akira said. “She knows we need her, let’s see what she has to say.”

  “What is it you want from us?” Tsuki asked, and dropped his blade to his side. She had called his bluff, he couldn’t kill her. Though his hands itched to do so.

  “I want you to help me reunite the pieces of my soul.” Not Kazue’s soul. Her. What arrogance was this for a fragment to think she owned the pieces of Kazue?

  “That’s what we want to do, Suzume and the others have been looking for you. We don’t need to fight...”

  She shook her head. “No, I mean all, including Hisato. We all belong together, the five of us.”

  He should have known Hisato was behind this. No wonder they’d spent ages looking for the missing piece only to come up empty-handed, he had beat them to her.

  “If they are reunited, we can be freed at last,” Akira said.

  “Are you insane? We trusted her once and look where it got us,” Tsuki replied.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Tsuki said, before Akira could try and do something reckless. This last piece was too like Kazue for comfort.

  She sighed heavily. “I was hoping we could do this the easy way.”


  Her song pierced the air, and the notes vibrated all around him before it struck him like a blunt object, propelling him backward. He landed on his feet, but just barely and wobbled for a moment as his head spun. She’d caught him once with that trick, but she wouldn’t catch him a second time.

  “I didn’t want to do that.” She shook her head solemnly.

  Tsuki smirked as he gripped his blade tighter. “And I don’t want to have to do this.” Kazue might have defeated him, but this woman only had one-quarter of her power, he would defeat her with ease. He rushed toward her.

  A funnel of water shot at him, drawn from a jug she kept at her hip.

  “Watch out!” Akira’s warning came a second too late.

  The force of the water pinned him to the ground, as he thrashed and kicked in an attempt to muscle his way back onto his feet. Past the thunder of water in his ears, the dissonant sounds shook inside his skull and made his skin crawl. It only grew stronger, intensifying and manifesting in a ringing in his ears and a buzzing in his head. Wave after wave of blinding pain rolled through his body, it felt as if his body were being torn apart limb by limb.

  Then without warning, the water was gone, and so was the worst of the pain. But the ringing of his ears faded much more slowly. Tsuki sat up, clutching his aching head as he saw double. A figure stood over them. They were saying something, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was.

  “Are we hurt?” The voice was Akira’s and his own overlapping each other. The flesh of his arm bubbled and writhed, as his fingers grew long then receded. Who was in control of their body? It wasn’t Tsuki, but he couldn’t feel Akira nor could he make sense of the jumbled images in his mind or the clashing of voices fighting for control. The lines between them had blurred to where they were indistinguishable; there was no Tsuki, and there was no Akira, there was only them. They grasped at their face, clawed at their nose, their mouth, their ears, which were all unfamiliar and half-formed bastardizations of their individual selves.

  “Why can I not hear our voices?” They tried reaching out to find the divide that marked their individual personalities. But it wasn’t there, it was only them. Two voices ringing together, panicked, angry, and afraid.

  Kazue stood over them, a smile curling her lips.

  “What have you done to us?” Their voice was a cross between one or the other.

  “You have a choice, help me or become of one mind and one body.”

  “Anything, just stop the pain!” Their throat was raw, their entire body throbbing from the constant shifting.

  She pressed her thumb to their forehead, a warm trickling feeling spread throughout their body, and in a few moments, they were back to normal.

  “Akira, Tsuki! Where are you?” Suzume shouted over the rise.

  Kazue glanced in her direction then back to them. “Tell her nothing of what happened today. I will summon you again soon.”

  Her barrier fell, and she bolted for the forest before disappearing from sight. Whatever she had done to them, it had completely drained them of energy, and Akira, who had taken control of their body once more knelt on the ground gasping for breath.

  “What did she do to us?” Tsuki asked. It had felt like when Kazue sealed them together, only much worse.

  “I do not know. A fragment of Kazue’s soul should not have this sort of power on her own. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Suzume crested the hill, with Noaki beside her. Her clothes were soaked and clung to her skin, and her hair was hanging in wet strings around her face. She hurried down the hill toward them.

  Akira stood as she approached, wiping the dust from her kimono.

  “We say nothing to Suzume, understand?” Akira told him.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? We’ve been looking for so long, perhaps together we can find her before she gets away.”

  “No. We’ve already underestimated her once. We won’t do it again. Can’t you feel it, the dissonance remains, even now.”

  Not telling Suzume felt wrong. All that stood in the way of defeating Hisato was getting the remaining soul piece on their side. In the hands of Hisato, she was already too powerful. Their connection was weakened; even now, he felt something inside them that wasn’t there before, a darkness that might consume them both if they didn’t obey.

  5

  There was someone in Ryuu’s quarters. He reached for his blade, Tetsuyama, which hummed, eager to be free of the sheath which contained its energy. With a steady hand, he slid his door open, and then let it drop. His neko spy lounged on the tatami, his back to him. The neko’s blue flame forked tail twitched back and forth as he speared morsels of fish with his claw. Without turning to greet him, the neko popped a morsel into his mouth.

  “I see you’ve helped yourself to my dinner,” Ryuu said dryly.

  “You should have found your father sooner, the food here is much better than at the shrine.” He polished off the last of the fish and moved onto the bowl of miso soup next to it, tilting it back and drinking it all in one long gulp.

  Father. It was impossible to see The Dragon as a paternal figure. Sire felt more appropriate, The Dragon had not done much more than provide his seed. The fearsome Dragon of legend, who’d conquered and ruled over Akatsuki, was a surprisingly jealous and arrogant fool. In his innocent and lonely youth, Ryuu had hungered to eclipse his sire, to prove his worth. It was fortunate he’d long ago abandoned such naive dreams, or he might have been disappointed.

  The neko slurped the soup as he watched Ryuu from the corner of his yellow cat-eye. Though the neko was bound to serve him. He was never quite servile and delighted in any chance to annoy Ryuu. At first it had gotten under his skin, in that first century he’d tried to break the neko. But as time went on, he learned that respect could not be forced. And so they remained bound together for eternity in this vaguely antagonist servant and master relationship. At least he was a competent spy.

  “Since you’re back, I’m assuming that means you’ve found more information for me?” Ryuu asked as he picked up the jug of sake from the tray. Empty. Of course, it was. He set it back down again with a subdued sigh.

  Smacking his lips, the neko set down the empty bowl. “I have, but there wasn’t much to find.”

  “What did you find?” Ryuu asked

  The neko fanned out his hand and examined his nails. “A shrine in the center of a valley. I descended into it and was overcome by a blinding fog. I stumbled around for a while, and when I came out of it, I was miles away. I made additional attempts, but the results were all the same. The closest I got was following some human carrying supplies, but once he passed through the torii arches in the pass, I could follow him no further. As far as I can tell, there are multiple layers of barriers around it. As a yokai, I couldn’t get close enough to confirm anything, but they don’t put that many obstacles around some rural shrine without a reason.” His whiskers twitched as his cat ears swiveled toward the door.

  Ryuu drummed his fingers on his knees. A hidden shrine in a valley under numerous protective seals. As the neko could not get closer, it was clearly of human design. It could be nothing but more likely it was hiding something, perhaps this is where Izume and her father had hidden away the last piece of Kazue’s soul after they’d stolen it from him.

  “Were you expecting company?” The neko asked seconds before the knock at the door.

  “You could have warned me sooner,” Ryuu said.

  The neko shrugged as Ryuu headed for the door and picked up Tetsuyama on the way. Though he was among allies, old habits were hard to break. A half-breed like him was resented for simply existing. And given his uneasy place in The Dragon’s court, he would take all precautions.

  One hand on the hilt of Tetsuyama, Ryuu slid the door open. Suzume awaited him, her hair was damp, and her haori singed, and yet she smiled brightly. A smile which was too much like her mother, Izume’s.

  “What happened to you?” Ryuu asked, as he stepped aside to let her in.

&n
bsp; “I’ve found them, the last soul piece!” she said as she rushed inside, leaving wet sandy footprints on the tatami.

  At last, the pieces of Kazue’s soul were reunited. But this was only the beginning; with the soul united, they would need to learn to resonate before they could hope to defeat Hisato. “Where are they? I am eager to meet them.”

  Suzume frowned. “Well, there’s a slight problem… they kind of ran away.”

  “Then you haven’t really found them?” The neko asked, raising a single whiskered brow.

  “I have, they’re close by, I can feel it.” Suzume placed a hand over her heart. It pulled at her burned clothes and exposed the blistered flesh of her shoulder. She’d been injured, and yet she was smiling, excited even. How she had changed…

  There was more to this story, and he would rather not have an audience. Ryuuu caught the neko’s gaze and jerked his head toward the door, indicating he should leave.

  “I know when I’m not needed.” The neko rose up with an exaggerated stretch, before sauntering toward the door, his forked tail swishing as he walked.

  “Please, sit,” Ryuu said to Suzume as he extended his arm, Ryuu gestured toward the cushions beside empty dinner plates.

  Suzume took a seat on one of the cushions and drummed her fingers on her thigh, as she stared at the door. “We shouldn’t be wasting time, she might be getting away as we speak.”

  “You’ve been injured, seeing to your wounds should come before anything else.” Ryuu went to fetch the medical kit he kept just in case. Once he found it on the top of a nearby trunk, he brought it over to Suzume. “Let’s see that shoulder burn.”