Revenge of the Akuma Clan

by Benjamin Martin

  ‘It’s a gift,’ David thought. ‘Natsu is pretty creepy sometimes.’ Kou growled a chuckle.

  Unassuming, Yukiko entered, the picture of Japan’s past. She was graceful, with intelligent eyes that surveyed Tsubasa, but did not warn him of the skills she possessed. The spiraling steam from a teapot sent a warm scent of green tea through the chilly room.

  “Natsuki-chan, be nice,” she said. “Relax. No one is going to do anything to you. You are our guest. Masao will be along. He was working in the Dojo and needs to put away his knives.”

  Tsubasa relaxed as a smile touched the edge of her mouth. The atmosphere in the room turned more comfortable as the students warmed their hands around cups of green tea. Natsuki smirked and sipped at her tea. After an interval long enough to throw the boy off, the head of the Matsumoto Family entered in a thick winter kimono and sat at the end of the low table across from Tsubasa.

  “Well, tell me what you know, and then I will judge what to do with you,” Masao said. David noted a bit of Grandpa in his words. Although he sounded stern, there was an undercurrent of amusement that Tsubasa missed.

  “Um,” Tsubasa said, swallowing a surge of nervousness. “Well, I know there are ghosts and ōkami. I know David can call a sword out of thin air, and can turn into a tiger. I saw Rie make a rabbit appear out of thin air. They can all see ghosts, and without the technology Kenta and I used. I think David had something to do with the warehouse fire too. Now I know you must have destroyed some ōkami since the statue they found matches the ones I saw. The thing I don’t get is how he,” Tsubasa pointed to David, “went from super gaijin to cool in less than a year. Whatever it is, I want in.

  “Besides, I think I can help. I still have the obake mirror. Kenta and I started working on adapting it to see kami and other things, but we never got a chance to test it. I was the only one to see an obake in it, so even Kenta doesn’t think it works. Maybe I could try to make it see other stuff.”

  Tsubasa was so excited he seemed to miss the implied threat in Masao’s words. The drop in temperature was enough to warn David of Ryohei’s impending appearance. Beside him, Natsuki stiffened a little before the sliding door opened again and Takumi came in, followed by Ryohei, the Matsumoto Estate’s resident ghost.

  “Wow, they’re like twins,” Tsubasa said.

  “So I keep hearing,” was Ryohei’s wavering reply. Masao arched a single brow, looking between the boys and the empty space from which the voice had come.

  “Good, you found him,” Yukiko said, welcoming Takumi and Ryohei.

  “Very well, one last thing before we break all the rules,” Masao said with a sigh. “I assume you brought your mirror?”

  With a smile, Tsubasa withdrew a clunky mirror with wires and a control knob on the side.

  “I know it’s not very pretty, but it’s just a prototype. We were trying to make x-ray glasses, but stumbled on this. Then we started modifying it to try and see kami after Yuuto asked us to.”

  “May I?” Masao asked. Tsubasa jumped up and started adjusting the controls.

  “Ryohei is it? Nice to meet you,” Tsubasa said, bowing to the ghost, who smiled and bowed in reply. “Would you mind standing behind Masao-san?”

  After Ryohei was in place, Masao held up the mirror, turning it in his hand to see behind him.

  “Nothing,” Masao said with a frown.

  “Here,” Tsubasa said, pressing a button on the side of the mirror. With a crackle of electricity, the image on the pane shifted, Ryohei’s translucent visage appeared next to Masao’s solemn face. Masao lowered the mirror and turned. There for the first time, Masao saw the ancient Matsumoto ghost.

  REBIRTH

  From one cage, one prison, to another. My escape from the bondage of the wooden statue led me straight back into the service of my dear brother. After that hell though, I was only too happy to play the role he wanted of me. We began preparations to leave…

  Waking up in the pre-morning darkness had once been the bane of David’s existence on the Estate. The long runs and kendo practices were still demanding but he was adjusting. He was familiar enough with the Matsumotos’ martial arts basics that he could focus on perfecting each muscle movement instead of worrying about which move came next. The repetition of punches, blocks, kicks, and sword strikes helped center and prepare him for the day.

  ‘Just think. It used to be just Takumi, Natsuki, and us here,’ he thought to Kou as he moved a wooden practice sword over his head.

  ‘Yes, now Rie has returned and Tsubasa is joined with the samurai,’ Kou growled. David stopped the heavy sword, working to control its most minute movement. ‘That bit of wood used to move you. Now you have the strength to put it where you will.’

  ‘They are, aren’t they? Samurai? Masao calls me a Jitsugen Samurai because of you, but all of them work just as hard to protect us and the rest of Nakano.’

  ‘To protect Japan.’

  Beside him, Tsubasa tried to copy David’s movements. Where David could stop precisely, the newest student often slowed his wooden stave until it stopped or over shot his target. When they finished with individual practice, Tsubasa and David faced one another to begin one-step fighting drills. After bowing, Tsubasa attacked with a basic over-head strike and David used a basic defense.

  “The point of these one-step fights,” Yukiko said for Tsubasa’s benefit, “is to work on spacing, footwork, and on bringing forms into a less ritualistic practice.”

  Beside David, Takumi and Natsuki worked together, while Rie practiced with Masao. It was a rarity to have Masao train with them, but with Tsubasa, the numbers had become uneven. Since Takumi was the senior student, he gave the commands for each drill.

  As Takumi called the next encounter, a sudden shock raced from the center of David’s chest. The metal form of his Seikaku appeared in the air before him even though he had not willed it into existence. By habit, his hands moved to catch the gleaming blade. Pain, like a wave of fiery heat, ran from his fingertips as he gripped his sword. The fire grew in intensity as it raced toward his chest. The agony of an inferno drove him to his knees, even as Tsubasa’s un-checked practice sword swung over David’s head. His own wooden sword clattered to the ground.

  With everyone standing over him, “Chul Moo is back,” was all David managed to gasp through the pain. Every fiber of David’s body knew the truth of it, even as the shock receded.

  ‘We did expect Chul Soon to find a way to reanimate his brother,’ Kou added, still growling at the pain. ‘Perhaps not quite so fast, but ever since the theft it has been inevitable.’

  Even Masao was baffled, however, at the pain the connection between David and Chul Moo had caused. It took the elder Matsumoto days of sorting through the library to find instances of Jitsugen Samurai being aware of the return of a previously defeated foe. Past Jitsugen Samurai had long ago learned to destroy the statues resulting from the banishing of an evil spirit, and over time the details of what could happen to the statues left intact faded from collective memory.

  “When you banish a spirit with the Seikaku, your sword retains a link with the physical statue you create,” Masao said at evening practice a few days later. “Converting it to your elemental form gives you a power over it. What you felt may have been the last vestiges of that connection. When Chul Moo was brought back to his human form, the connection broke.”

  “So will David retain any power over him? Or is it gone now that he’s no longer a lump of wood?” Tsubasa asked, fascinated by the powers and connections surrounding the Seikaku. The idea of the metal acting as a conduit between human and kami seemed to give him endless theories to test.

  Although it was unprecedented to have so many aware of Japan’s true past, so too was David’s situation unique. After two days of thought, Masao had introduced Tsubasa to the secret history of the first Emperor, Ninigi. The condition of the introduction to their secret world was that Tsubasa had to train just as diligently as the other samurai did. Young as David was, Masao
and Yukiko had decided to err on the side of having too many allies. The benefits of secrecy they had so impressed on David were limited since at least one ōkami pack already knew of David’s existence.

  In the evenings, Tsubasa worked at improving and developing new technologies to help the Matsumotos. Ryohei often floated along with him, standing in as his test subject. Occasionally, David left his work transforming the Estate’s trees to help him develop a kami detector. Their original version, the one that Jahangir and the Jeong brothers had hoped to turn to their own use turned out to detect variations in obake, rather than kami. Though useful for detecting ghosts that had recently fed, and thus how friendly they might be, it was far from practical in a fight.

  Rie spent most of her evening practices trying to learn to control the latent effects of her time as a yūrei. She roamed the forest for hours alone trying to summon even an insignificant creature. Despite her best efforts, no new animals popped into existence.

  Yukiko also worked to find out what had happened to her daughter. Every night that Rie practiced summoning, Yukiko searched the Matsumoto Library.

  “Kou’s size jumped because he absorbed the energy contained within the spirit Rie summoned,” Yukiko said after emerging from the library one evening. “Unlike the oni David killed, the rabbit did not come through a Devil’s Doorway. Since it was not an evil spirit sealed away, Kou was able to draw its power into himself.”

  “So if Rie learns to control her summoning, Kou will be able to keep eating spirits?” Takumi asked.

  “A giant tiger would be a lot more noticeable than Kou is now,” Tsubasa said, gesturing to the tiger that was still only about as tall as his knees.

  “I do not think just any spirit would give itself up to me. The rabbit was a natural prey, it knew it had lost, and surrendered itself to me. The same might not be true of others. Either way the point is moot, unless Rie stumbles upon some key that will let her access her power,” Kou said, his bright orange eyes looking to Rie.

  ‘She looks troubled. I’m sure she’s been trying to summon something, but can’t. It must be frustrating, like the first couple times I tried to summon the Seikaku,’ David thought. Kou’s eyes changed to blue as David took control of their body. He winked at Rie.

  With the new information, they continued their evening practice. Rie concentrated on finding some way to summon a spirit, while Takumi transformed so that Kou and Reimi could race through the forests. Tsubasa followed Masao back to the workshop, already adjusting wires in his mirror.

  While everyone on the Matsumoto Estate worked to improve their skills, their normal lives moved toward the end of the school year. Before the end, however, they still had one last major event. The cultural festival in early February was a culmination of the year’s work. Every subject put out displays and the students began preparing performances so parents could see what they had learned. Some classes, like English, made them fill out their notebooks and hand them in. Other classes had specific projects that they had to complete.

  “I wish I could just whip out my Seikaku. I’d have this box done in no time,” David whispered to Takumi as they worked on a Monday afternoon.

  “I think the lack of joints and nails might give you away,” Takumi said laughing.

  Together they used traditional Japanese tools to try to shape stiff pieces of wood into the proper shape. The saws were tricky to work with. The wide, double sided blade attached to a short pole seemed better suited to cutting down a small tree than on such small pieces of wood. The whole process was a pain. Nonetheless, all the students worked to try to get the perfection Tsukasa-sensei demanded. Just like on the badminton court, he settled only for their best.

  Each homeroom class also had to put together a performance for the presentation part of the festival. The teachers would select the best performances to perform, but they all had to prepare. During one of the homeroom periods, Class 2B met to discuss who would do which part for their assigned skit.

  “This year for the cultural festival, we will be doing an adaptation of Momotaro, also known as Peach Boy. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, it is an old legend where a couple asks the gods for a son. One day, a peach appears and out pops a boy. That boy later leaves to go fight monsters on Demon Island. We have enough parts for ten of you, with one director, and the rest working on sets and props,” Moriyama said from the front of the class. “I’ll let you select the director and the lead. The rest will be by chance.”

  As the classroom exploded in murmurs, David sat back and relaxed. Momotaro was a Japanese fairy tale he already knew. During his first month in Japan, David had been essentially illiterate in Japanese, but during a lonely foray into the school library, he had found a very small selection of books in English. Most of them were children’s books since the language would be easy enough for the level of the students studying English at the school.

  ‘Maybe I’ll be one of the monsters on Monster Island,” David thought to Kou while the rest of the class started talking about who should direct.

  ‘As long as you’re not the dog. Having to pretend to be a dog would be an embarrassment. At least you know something about how monsters fight. You could portray one pretty well,’ he replied.

  ‘Kenta and Tsubasa should work on props. I bet they could pull off some pretty good special effects-’

  ‘You know, David, you really need to get better at paying attention to the outside world when we talk… or should I call you Momotaro?’

  David growled Kou’s growl as he walked the corridors of Nakano Junior High. After a brief discussion, his class had elected Mizuki as director. She had then suggested Daisuke for the role of Momotaro, but a bloc of girls had shot her down. With a majority, they had quickly started putting their own plans into effect, electing David to the role before he had finished talking to Kou. The rest of the period had been a blur of selections and rewrites to the script. The girls seemed determined to make it into a romance, and the new director seemed to be the only one with less say in matters than David had.

  “We should be spending our time looking for Chul Soon and Chul Moo rather than worrying about some stupid play,” David said once they were away from their classmates.

  “There wasn’t time to tell you this morning, but mom says we got another note from our ‘friends.’ They suggested the Jeong brothers skipped the country since they’ve had no luck tracking them since the sighting in Kyushu,” Takumi said. Though it was serious enough, he could not help smile at David’s plight. All he had been stuck with was a role as one of Momotaro’s animal helpers. “Anyway, I have to pick up the scorecards from Tsukasa-sensei’s room. Later.”

  “What friends,” David grumbled, annoyed that no one had warned him, and that he still did not know who the cake lady was.

  ‘You’re mad because you’ll have to spend every free period preparing for the play and follow Mizuki’s direction. If you think about it, I’m sure you’ll figure out who the woman was.’

  David stopped. Of course, with Kou in his head it was easy enough to see the connection. “The Crown Prince. He has people searching for Chul Soon,” David said. “And I have every right to be annoyed. The twins, Natsu, even Tsubasa all voted for me.”

  It might have been a voice, sound, or some other sense, but David turned, aware of something wrong with the world. His long training with the Matsumotos had refined his understanding of how his body interpreted things. With Kou’s help, he stalked animals, and like when they walked as a tiger, there was an unnatural silence about the place. He was about to come up on the secluded area behind the gym, where only a lone forest road gave the area any utility. It was the place where he had once broken his hand trying to punch Koji.

  Things might have ended when they succeeded in humiliating him, when they beat him up, but then he had become a Jitsugen Samurai. Still, Masao had been clear. David was only supposed to use his new skills to defend. He knew, though, that things would not fade away. Koji was too
wrapped up in his own rage. Like an ōkami, he was stubborn, strong, and none too smart.

  ‘You’re wrong. The ōkami are cunning. Don’t tempt us to underestimate them by grouping that bully with them.’

  “Hello Koji-senpai,” David said as he stepped around the corner and mentally acknowledged Kou at the same time. He bowed respectfully. The boys and lone girl around Koji came from the toughest family situations. Most rarely came to school, but none was as vicious as Koji. David’s avoidance of Koji’s last plot had stripped away most of the other third years’ support, leaving Koji with just a few lackeys left. One of the boys seemed to deflate a little. Koji’s anger only flared warmer.

  “Your condescension won’t help you now. We don’t want you here. Go back to America,” Koji said. David heard the fast footfalls coming and frowned. The others heard as well, and moved to intercept the newcomers. Three of the larger boys backed Rie and Tsubasa against a wall. It was then David realized he was the tallest, biggest there. In the months since coming to Japan, he had grown and developed in an impressive way. “Awww look. David’s girlfriend and boyfriend showed up. I wonder if this is their little love spot.”

  The other boys chuckled, but backed away from Rie. Those who knew her reputation were wary. The twins never flaunted their abilities, but most students knew about the Matsumotos’ athletic and martial skills. Others whispered because of her disappearance during the time when so many of their fellow students had been attacked. Rie had supposedly transferred to a school in Hokkaido, only to return soon after. She came back more driven, and for those who were honest with themselves, scarier.

  “Why don’t we just leave them out of this? Koji-senpai, you wanted to have a private discussion right? How about we go over into that forest and you can talk,” David said, eying Rie. She gave him the slightest shake of the head, but it was enough for Koji.