Revenge of the Akuma Clan

by Benjamin Martin

  “Really?” Takumi asked as his foot slid into the familiar fighting stance his family had used for generations.

  “Yes,” the man said, biting off the word. “Japan has people who have devoted their entire lives to its protection. Japan has me.”

  He turned his back on them and walked down the road. A second later David heard a motor rumble to life, followed by the grind of pebbles spraying from spinning tires. Natsuki pulled the others out of their individual thoughts. They were late.

  Takaeishi, of course, reprimanded them at school. He gave them extra cleaning duties for a week. Although he ignored David’s glower throughout the rest of first period, even Mizuki started looking between Takaeishi and the samurai. As soon as their teacher left the room, Naoto was in front of David’s desk.

  “What was that all about,” he asked.

  “Huh? Oh I don’t know,” David replied. “He must have had a bad vacation or something. Speaking of, how was Okinawa? That’s where your family went right? And new shoes?”

  The tension throughout the class broke down as friends grouped together to hear about the various adventures over the last week of vacation. No one bothered to ask the twins about their vacation since they did the same thing every year. After meeting Manami again, David was quite interested in hearing about Okinawa and encouraged Naoto go on in detail. An occasional question kept him going until Aramoto-sensei walked in to start math.

  “Let’s uh, start shall we?” he said. “Why don’t you, mm, open your notebooks, so, uh, I can check your homework, ok?”

  ‘He sure talks a lot for a fifty year old man.’

  ‘Can he not say one sentence without useless words? He hurts my ears.’

  ‘You mean he hurts my ears. Yours are … hey where do you go when I’m here.’

  Aramoto began walking around to check everyone’s homework. Even with a class as small as 3B, the time it took their teacher to say even the simplest phrase meant it would be quite a while before David’s turn would come.

  ‘They go the same place your body goes when I come forth, the same place where the Seikaku and your armor go. Everything exists, but not everything exists in the same way.’

  ‘Wait. You mean like dimensions? Like my body flies off to some other earth when you show up?

  ‘Yes and no. When you humans see something out of the corner of your eye, but you look again and there is nothing there… that is you catching a glimpse past this existence into another. This reality is where humans and animals exist. Long ago, the kami banished spirits, ghosts, and monsters past the barrier, a veil. Unfortunately, like most barriers there are ways around them. It is the reason most people cannot see obake.’

  “David. David-kun,” Aramoto said. “Ah yes, I was uh, afraid you might have fallen asleep, right? Do you, uh, have, mm, your homework? This, uh, must be it, right? Ok then, umm good work and all.”

  Aramoto-sensei moved to the front of the class and began writing long lines of numbers on the board. The previous year’s material had been simple for David since he had already covered it in Arizona. Their new math, however, was different from anything he had done before, and Kou, while helpful most of the time, was no better at figures than David was. They abandoned their internal conversation to focus on the lesson.

  The rest of the teachers seemed just as interested in giving the third years headaches as Aramoto was. Every class they had contained new and more challenging material than they had ever had before. Every teacher gave the students stacks of new homework with promises of more to come. Even the English worksheets he got took him two or three readings for every question before he was certain of the right answer. In Japanese, David struggled to perfect writing the myriad characters that formed the basis of written language. His connection to Japan through Kou gave David the ability to speak and read even ancient Japanese, but Kou refused to use his indelible memory to help David memorize the difficult symbols.

  ‘Just as we practice with our bodies, you must practice with your mind. Else, you will be forever at my mercy rather than an equal partner. Besides, I have no interest in writing. Tail and tooth are so much more expressive. You must learn it on your own.’

  “I feel like my brain is dead,” Takumi said after school. The others were even worse off than David was. In English at least, David could already write, and he had an internal god to translate his thoughts for him.

  “At least we can blow of some steam at badminton,” David said on their way to change.

  “Blow off steam?” Natsuki asked, confused.

  “It’s an American saying,” Shou said, jumping into the conversation. “It loses something in the translation. Anyway, we have badminton for now, but after second semester they are going to make us quit to study for our high school entrance exams.”

  “I can’t believe it’s so soon,” Rie said.

  “We still have at least one more competition before summer,” Takumi said. “Maybe there will be another in the fall.”

  “I don’t know,” Shou said. “No one is going to keep you from killing at the competition in doubles this time… It’s too bad it’s not a mixed competition. You and Natsuki can beat any of our boys’ teams. Even me and Shouki.”

  “I can beat Shouki,” David said with a laugh as they entered the gym.

  They were sore and tired when the group returned to the Estate, but in far better spirits than they had been around Takaeishi. As soon as they were past the trees, Takumi transformed and Reimi took wing above them through the cool twilight. Natsuki sighed and then ran after, trying to follow as Reimi dived among the high tree branches. David caught her fingering a lighter she kept with her most of the time now, just in case she had to lure Reimi back down to the ground.

  That night, though he was sore and tired after a long evening practice, David took the time for a video chat with Jessica. She was getting excited for summer as her classes started winding down toward the end of semester. She spent most their chat talking about her summer plans and where she wanted to go to junior high, dropping hints that she might try for the same exchange program David had landed.

  ‘Why the smug smile on her face.’

  ‘I can’t ask her, she knows I’m horrible at catching details.’ David yawned. He was curious, but instead of questioning her, he relayed Natsuki and Rie’s thanks for her presents, and then signed off so he could run with Kou.

  MOTHERS’ DAY

  This part of the plan, at least, I could not complain much about. I had expected Chul Soon to do it, but instead he took charge of the rest. Perhaps because they called for more violence. There was such a draw to my job, yet the challenge made me nervous. I was unsure if I could keep up the act for so long, after all these years. She made it surprisingly easy to smile, as long as I did not think about her future. In the end, I convinced myself it would be good practice…

  On Saturday, David went through his normal morning routine. One of the days they had gotten off for Golden Week was repaid as they donned their uniforms for school. As part of the Mother’s Day celebrations, the students had regular classes in the morning, with the mothers invited to visit later in the day. Yukiko came in with Natsuki’s mother during third period English and watched. After lunch, many of the mothers returned so they could play volleyball with their children. David’s group was one of the few that won their game.

  ‘I can’t believe how good they all are.’

  ‘They are fierce indeed. Maybe not so surprising when you think they used to be students like Rie and Natsuki.’

  After school, the students all went home instead of staying for after-school practice. The teachers and PTA hosted a dinner and party for all the mothers while the fathers took responsibility for their children. Masao was so impressed with David and Rie’s dinner that he let the samurai choose their own training for the night.

  “Let’s play hide and seek,” Rie said a sly smile touching the corner of her lips. David and Takumi smiled in return, but Tsubasa just looked confus
ed.

  “What rules?” Takumi asked, a bit of his school excitement leaking out.

  “No buildings. Estate boundaries. All else goes of course,” Natsuki said with a grin to match Takumi’s. Tsubasa started looking through his ever-present bag of gadgets. “The seeker has to wait five minutes before starting.”

  With everyone agreed on the rules, they settled for their usual decision making tool to see who would be the first seeker.

  “Jan, ken, pon!” they shouted before throwing out their hands. David lost with scissors. David and his classmates used the classic game for most decisions. They avoided letting Kou play since he always won. It was hard to convince a tiger that fang or claw did not beat any of the usual three, especially since said claws would be so close to their hands. Since he lost, David closed his eyes and began counting as the others shuffled off.

  ‘So what do you think? Nice or Tiger?’

  Kou smiled, his fangs exposed as they transformed and slunk into the darkness. Kou proceeded to stalk through the Estate. Tsubasa was the easiest. He did not know the Estate as well as the twins or Natsuki, and so was at a disadvantage. Kou spotted Tsubasa behind a tree as he tried to fiddle with a new version of the Eye. Using the darkness around him, Kou scaled one of the trees nearby and then jumped from branch to branch until he was above the oblivious boy.

  Moving slowly, Kou sunk his sharp claws deep into the old pine. He could smell the rich sap as well as he could smell the boy below him. When he was above, he pushed out from the tree and spun, careful to retract his claws. Tsubasa let out a whoosh of air as Kou landed in his lap. With one big paw, he bonked him on the forehead.

  “Dead,” Kou said to him before he sprang away into some nearby underbrush.

  He found Natsuki by scent. As he slid through the forest, he picked up her familiar trail. Kou heard her heart pounding beneath a thick layer of pine needles. With another fanged grin, he padded over to the pile, stopping right on it. To Kou’s surprise, she did not move or let out a sign he was there. Kou carefully unsheathed his claws until Natsuki gave.

  “Okay, okay. You got me, put them away before you stick me,” she said wiping away the needles over her face. “You’re getting fat you know.”

  Indignant, Kou sat back on Natsuki’s stomach, making her groan and swat at him before he took off after the others.

  Rie was far more difficult. She was always on the Estate so Kou could not rely on trying to track her by scent alone. Kou searched the vegetable garden with no luck.

  ‘Try the Japanese garden, under the bridge,’ David thought to him.

  ‘But that is your favorite place on the Estate. Would she hide there?’

  ‘I bet she thinks we wouldn’t check there because I know she knows I like it.’

  ‘What do I get if you’re wrong?’

  ‘More time to hunt her if you’re right, either way a good deal.’

  Together they slipped off toward the bridge. David wanted Kou to go around behind one of the islands and slip into the water to surprise Rie, but the tiger would have none of it. While Kou liked the water just fine, he refused to get his fur all wet and mangy looking for just a game. Instead, he trotted into the garden and sat on the bridge. He let his tail hang over one edge, and then pointed the tip at Rie’s face.

  “Uh, no fair,” she said from below. “How’d you know?”

  “It seems David knows you better than you thought,” Kou said as he bounded away to find his last prey.

  Time was almost up when Kou jumped out of the tree and tackled Reimi mid-flight. The two kami tumbled through the branches and hit the ground, but not before the little phoenix erupted into flames. Kou growled at her for singing his fur again but could not help laugh as Reimi’s flame abruptly went out as she started coughing up little hairballs that ignited in puffs of smoke.

  For the next rounds, they instituted a human only rule and rotated so that everyone got a chance to seek. By the end, they were all sore and tired.

  The next morning, David met Rie in the kitchen well before the usual four AM. It was far easier for him to make the appointment than in the past since he had stayed out most of the night as Kou. Doing so allowed him to meet his sleepy-eyed host-sister full of energy. She scowled at his perkiness then together they began breakfast for Yukiko.

  Instead of their usual routine, the family ate together, and then practiced in the Dojo. Soon after eating, David and the twins left for Sunday badminton practice. With a week before their next badminton competition, they could not miss practice, even for Mother’s Day. Natsuki met them at school. She had taken the morning off from Matsumoto training to spend a rare morning with her own mother.

  At practice, the way the younger students treated him still confused David. Though he had been playing badminton for less than a year, they talked to him with almost as much deference as they did with the coach. Whenever he tried to help clean up or pick up a few shuttles, a first year would run over and take over for him. He had improved since his first days of stumbling around the court, but not enough he thought, to warrant such attention.

  “It’s because you’re a senpai now,” Rie said as he stared off at one of the new first years.

  “Huh?” he asked.

  “You might have been able to find me on the Estate, but I’ve gotten to know you pretty well too. You lower your eyebrows and your eyes squint every time you’re confused by something,” she said with a smile. “The differences between years are important, most of all in club activities.”

  “Is that why they don’t let me help clean anymore?” he asked. “I thought I was doing something wrong.”

  “Nah, well, you’re making them look bad because they’re supposed to get to it before you do. It’s their job to take care of stuff so we can focus on practicing and winning the competitions. At the same time, they get to learn from us. It’s about mutual respect and tradition.”

  “It’s going to take me a long time to get used to that,” David said.

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go show the newbies a thing or two,” Rie said as she took off for a court. Smiling, David trotted after, swinging his racket to loosen up a few tight muscles. Though he would prefer to swing his Seikaku at Chul Soon’s beady black eyes, he’d settle for a badminton shuttle.

  Rie’s insistent practice after recovering from her time as a yūrei had turned her into the best female player at Nakano. As they finished warming up, a first year student came over with a clipboard to record their game. It was as fierce as their sparring match had been that morning. David’s physical improvements and daily drills were still having a great effect on him. Practicing with Rie all the time and their work in the forge also gave him insights into her strategies and body language, plus Kou was there to help him focus on multiple aspects of the game. His longer legs and arms had begun to give him a distinct advantage on the small badminton courts. In the end, it all served to put him on a nearly equal footing with his host-sister, despite her years of practice.

  David and Rie were sweaty and tired after their long game. She had just managed to score the last two points needed to beat him, but it had been a near thing. With Kou’s help, his reactions were quickening.

  “Careful or I’ll have to summon another rabbit to win next time,” she whispered as she slid by him to towel off.

  The next morning, Takaeishi walked into Class 3B, with a huge smile and a large pile of papers. The students’ faces fell as he began to describe their upcoming schedule. Most of the students were still tired from their busy vacations and the news their workload was about to double was far from welcome. His smile never wavering, Takaeishi told them about the upcoming standardized tests. While “optional,” he showed them completed applications for every student.

  “Any student who does not pass their tests, including the Eiken English tests, will be required to end their involvement with any extracurricular activities,” he announced to a groaning audience. He dropped a pile of application receipts on David’s d
esk. “Those of you who have neglected to take the previous levels will take every level up to the current grade. David will take Eiken level one.”

  Even Mizuki watched with something approaching pity. The level one tests, were late high school level and were notoriously difficult, even for native speakers. Takaeishi stood in front of his desk, daring him to complain.

  “So what level Eiken did you say you passed, Takaeishisensei?” David asked, his voice loud enough for the entire class to hear. Their teacher’s gaze turned to David, but he continued handing out the massive stacks of worksheets in every subject.

  While Takaeishi was the most brutal about it, the rest of their teachers soon proved the increase in their workload would not be from a single teacher. The warnings from the first day of class were proving prophetic. The third years were about to be very busy.

  At home, David and his friends had more than just their schoolwork to keep them busy. They began a detailed internet search for the Jeong brothers. Thanks to Manami, they knew the ōkami had been in Okinawa and that they were moving about. Using software obtained from the Imperial Guard, they began trying to trace the ōkamis’ movements based on bits and scraps of intelligence and news. The hard part was that although they had access to government databases, none of them tracked ancient monsters. Instead, they had to try to separate the ōkami from intelligence gathered on known terrorist networks.

  “You’d be surprised how many of those religious cults have a pack of ōkami at their center,” Masao said as he helped David and the twin’s research. “What better way is there to drain away someone’s spirit over long periods of time without anyone noticing?”

  Tsubasa was the most helpful in the search and enjoyed having something at which he could best the twins and David. He scoured news sites, blogs, Facebook, and Twitter for anything matching the two brothers. Tsubasa’s first hit was a local story about the pair’s disappearance and the related animal attacks in Nakano. The wider Japanese news had played the story, but it fell into the background.