–Part of a journal recovered
from the ruins of Nanboku Island
Kou ran just inside the tree line as he circled the lake. From between the brown blurs of tall tree trunks, David and Kou could see the campground on the edge of the eastern shore. Movement around the site made it look as if the teachers and students were still active. Even with Kou’s excellent vision, they could not see anything to warn away the ōkami. As they ran, their tail stretched out behind them, helping to balance their lithe movements. David was still surprised how much Kou relied on it. Their tail was one of the reasons David had yet to master moving as a tiger. Kou used it almost like a rudder, and the human had yet to adjust to the extra appendage.
A shadow to the left caught Kou’s attention and they veered toward it. David grinned at the power he felt coursing through Kou’s lithe limbs. Within two lengths of his body, as Kou counted, they realized the shadow was Takaeishi and turned back for the campsite.
‘Just let him try…’
“To keep up,” Kou said, finishing David’s thought. Despite his pace, they both took pleasure in the brief moment of clarity as their thoughts aligned.
They made a quick circuit around the campsite to check everyone’s positions. Tsubasa, Hidemi, Natsuki, Rie, and Takumi were all back and manically running around to keep up the appearance a party was going on, all the while arranging themselves around their classmates to protect them. The effect was enhanced by what seemed to be about ten of each of them. Copies of Hidemi seemed to stare around bookishly while others of Tsubasa jerked around with quick inquisitive movements. Ryohei floated over the mayhem, his face twisted in concentration.
‘It must be almost impossible for him to maintain his aura at just the right level. Powerful enough to keep everyone asleep, but not so much as to horrify them or draw on their souls,’ David thought. Seeing Rie smile at him as he shot past, Kou flicked his tail at her in greeting. ‘I don’t think she reads tail yet.’
‘Then maybe you should teach her to read tails. I had no idea she could copy humans with her paper trick. I wonder how they taste. Fine. No humans.’
‘I still don’t know what all your twitches mean. Well I do, because I can feel it, but it’s not like I can see our tail when you think those things.’
‘Not my problem. It is not as if you help me with all the strange hand signs or face twitches you make.’
‘What. A thumbs up? You so know what that means.’
Their internal conversation continued right up to the point when the light shifted in the trees ahead. Kou slowed so that instead of barely touching the ground as he passed over it, at least three paws connected at any given moment. Ahead, there was a single fallen tree, leaving a space in the canopy through which sunlight flowed. Below, a small area around the trunk of a once proud tree was awash in light. In the very center, balancing on top of one of the massive roots was a handsome boy with long black hair, stylish shirt, and a satisfied grin.
Kou’s fur rippled from his head to tail in the two seconds it took for David to exert control and revert to his human form. Summoning his Seikaku, he stepped into the light and strode toward the feral boy above him. In the months since he had last seen Chul Soon, David noted he was thinner, less the innocent and outgoing boy David had counted as his friend. His cheeks were higher, his face more angled, and his eyes were dark and wild. When he spotted David in the trees, he smiled as if he had just received a present. He took no note of the blade that had impaled him the previous year.
“David, my old friend,” Chul Soon said in his sonorous voice. Every inflection was full of charm. “It’s so nice of you to come to me alone. I was afraid this was going to take most of the afternoon, and well, I have other priorities of late. In fact, if it was not for the fact I spent so much time getting to this point, I would have just left things be. Well, no, you are quite right, that was a lie. The Akuma Clan can’t have an actual Jitsugen Samurai running around, now can it?”
David ignored the words. His focus was tight on Chul Soon, though he did not ignore his surroundings. He saw the three other ōkami lurking in the shadows behind his old friend, even though they were trying to hide. As multi-opponent scenarios ran through his mind, David opened himself to Kou, merging his human and animal side. He could feel the orange and black striped fur begin to grow from his body, but he ignored the strange sensation. The physical change was insignificant compared to the sense of mental strength and confidence Kou imparted. Kou seemed to encompass him with his strength and speed even as his knowledge and tenacity came out from within. As their anger and desire to hunt grew, they took another step.
“Oh, come now, none of that.” Chul Soon twitched his head and two other human shapes stepped into the light. They both wore loose, comfortable clothing that could have passed as a casual outfit for any of his classmates. Like the others he had dispatched earlier, these ōkami looked to be about his own age, which meant they were young by the wolves’ standards, but much older than David. The female had pink hair, her almond skin shining in the patchwork light around the fallen tree. The male beside her was similar, but with spikes of black hair. Their faces revealed little. A fourth shadow stayed hidden among the trees, though slight, restless movements gave it away. David took another step.
“Fine, have it your way.” Chul Soon jumped from the branch, landing behind the tree. When he came back into view, he dragged the fourth hidden figure forward with a tight grip. She was taller than Chul Soon, and her long blond hair had leaves and pine needles stuck in it. Chul Soon smiled as he pointed a gun at Jessica. David stopped.
David’s hands fell, his sword limp in his hand beside him. His sister was dressed as stylishly as any Japanese student, which was extremely odd for him to see. Just two years younger, she had changed in the few months since she had last visited Japan. There was a gag in her mouth and her sad eyes seemed to plead with him. David sighed in relief, though his anger was kept hot by Kou.
‘Her skin is still normal. They didn’t make her into a yūrei.’
‘David. We can’t let them get away, and we can’t let them kill us.’
‘She’s my sister.’ David tightened his grip on the Seikaku. Though his ears were not as good as Kou’s, even he heard the unnatural brush of leaves and branches in the forest. Several bodies were moving in behind him.
“Ah, good, the rest of them are here,” Chul Soon said, smiling as he jerked Jessica closer to him, his fingers digging into her arm. “If I were you, I would wait right there unless you want to set my finger off. It is very twitchy. My friends are coming up behind you right now. They all came for the same thing. To watch me have my revenge on you, to watch me kill the scary gaijin who plays at being a warrior. With you out of the way, the Akuma Clan will have its first taste of revenge on the Jitsugen Samurai. The Master will reward me very well. Though, to be honest, I’m already satisfied on our personal score.”
David’s mind whirled as he tried to figure a way out for him and Jessica.
‘Three ōkami in front, how many behind? Didn’t we get them all? The others should at least be able to ward off any strays we missed from the west.’
‘What if they are not ōkami?’
David smiled and readied his Seikaku. He brought it up before him, Jessica’s eyes widening as she followed the blade. David wondered what she was thinking, seeing the ferocious tiger mask and armor, her older brother holding a very long, very sharp katana.
Chul Soon growled at the woods behind David. His two fellows, drawing close, pulled wicked looking claw gauntlets from bags by their feet. In a semicircle behind him, Rie, Masao, Takumi, and Natsuki entered just within the barest edges of the light filtering from the hole in the canopy. Chul Soon let loose such a howl of anger that the very trees themselves seemed to vibrate at the power behind it. David smiled.
Chul Soon’s calm assurance, so pervasive just a minute before, was gone. He looked among the faces advancing before him and growled again.
“How?!” he shouted.
“Simple,” Rie said. David could just imagine her smiling sweetly as she spoke, though he dare not look away from Chul Soon.
“Chul Moo,” David said aloud. “Your brother decided to warn us about your visit. If you were expecting help, well…” The ringing of metal matched his shrug as the others drew their blades.
Chul Soon’s face was as bestial as his wolven form. His arm with the gun quaked and his eyes blazed with more hate than anything David had seen before. He cocked the gun.
“I might not get to kill you this time, but I’ve already had my revenge. I killed your father myself, David. I took away from you what you took from me. You can have my brother. He’s no loss, though I doubt you would think the same of your little sister. If you value her life, you will stay right there, or else my friend here is going to shoot her in the head.”
Chul Soon moved to toss the gun to one of the other ōkami, but with a swift movement, Jessica snatched the gun from the air and turned it on the ōkami.
“The Master is angry,” she said in Japanese. As her head turned, the gun began firing. The entirety of her attention fell on David and there was more hatred and fury on her face than he had ever witnessed before. All directed at him.
Jessica fired at close range into Chul Soon. He stumbled off the tree, howling in pain. Then Jessica turned and unleashed the rest of the clip at David. With each bullet strike, David fell back from the force of the lead on his armor. When the gun clicked empty, Jessica disappeared. In her place, a white wolf with deep blue eyes snarled back at them with the hate of centuries and then sprang away.
The howl of pain and rage and loss poured from two throats as the other ōkami attacked. Rie and Takumi met the ōkami’s clawed gauntlets, but even as David stepped to follow his sister, a swarm of possessed souvenirs flew into the clearing and blocked the way. Looking around, Chul Soon howled again, this time changing into the familiar form of a black-haired ōkami. He lurched after Jessica but a giant kendama toy that looked like a crazy cross between a ball catch game and a hammer smacked him back into the clearing.
‘An ōkami. They made her into an ōkami. She’s one of them and she hates me. He did this. Chul Soon.’
David convulsed and transformed, even as the rest of the Matsumotos engaged the ōkami, miniature statues, and flying rice balls around him. He lunged at the black-haired wolf, but despite obvious injuries, Chul Soon proved he was not going to give up. He snarled and bared his fangs as Kou’s heavy paw lashed out with claws extended. They rolled out of the clearing, a snarling growling mass of fur and sharp points.
Rie’s sword sparked against the male ōkami’s gauntlets while Natsuki and Takumi wove in and out of each other’s paths as they advanced on the snarling pink-haired ōkami. Masao spun, striking with Matsumoto steel at every stray souvenir that crossed his path. A pair of glass pipes smashed into him and exploded in a shower of glittering shards.
Rie sliced down with her sword, energy and focus returning as she let go of the myriad spirits she had summoned at the campsite. Her foe was young and lithe and caught her sword between the claws of his gauntlets. Rie cringed, worried her first blade might snap, but it held. She let the monster pull against her, then let go. As he fell off balance, she quickly drew two smaller blades from her side and stabbed them into his sides.
Takumi ducked as Natsuki leapt high into a badminton smash, except instead of a racket, she held the blade Takumi had made for her. Half the girl’s long pink hair fell away. Below, Takumi’s blade caught her in the knee, driving halfway through her kneecap before she spun and ripped the leg away. As soon as they were away from the main fight, Chul Soon tried to flee. He raced off through the underbrush, but Kou would have none of it. Overcoming the wiry but beaten down wolf was easy compared to playing hide-and-seek with Reimi. Kou sprang from a tree branch, and they transformed again mid-air. David summoned his sword, but at the last instant, Chul Soon spun, his wiry doglegs knocking David off target enough that the tip of David’s sword hit the ground. Immediately, it disappeared. With a growl of hate, the wolf snaked its jaws past David’s arms inside of the flared helmet to bite at his neck. The armor protected David from the teeth, but a snap from the wolf’s powerful muscles sent David flying into the nearest tree.
Dazed, he slumped against the tree trunk. Chul Soon glowered and shook himself, turning his black-furred face to his foe.
“You are a pathetic thing to fear,” he said. “Your father was so easy to take. Your sister so willing. She’s a wily one. Didn’t you like how she shot me? Revenge lives in her blood. The Master must want her more than I thought he did. Perhaps he has taken her for his own. My brother did such a good job with her.”
David looked with hate and rage as the dark wolf spoke. His mind was as blank as when he ravaged the Matsumoto Forest, yet he could not move. Something had gone wrong with his legs. They jerked beneath him, yet he could feel nothing. The lack of feeling jerked him out of his anger as fear flooded through him.
‘We will heal, but we need time. The forest is our home, it will help us.’
“You see, David. Even if somehow you get rid of me. There are always more. We are the Akuma Clan. We have planned for centuries to return. Our Master will have his revenge.”
Chul Soon stepped forward again, a big black paw kicking leaves off an old root.
‘A root.’
David closed his eyes and called forth his Seikaku. As he caught it again, Chul Soon paused, suspicious, and then as if realizing David’s legs were useless, he growled an evil wolf laugh and lunged.
David drove the sword down between his useless legs into the root beneath him. As his Seikaku connected with the wood, David called forth his powers to shape the living wood to his will. As his will began to change the tree, his back arched as his advanced healing began to reknit the nerves in his spine. David shrieked in pain, but Kou joined him and together they willed the root to grow in a spark of thought. Even as Chul Soon attacked, the root shot tendrils up into the wolf. Chul Soon’s howl echoed with David’s scream of pain as shoot after shoot of sharp new root drove through the ōkami and branched into new leaves above him.
Though it seemed like he hung in a world of pain for an age, David recovered and stood. Chul Soon hung thrashing several feet above the ground in the midst of a newly grown tree. A thought entered his mind then, to leave him there to suffer, but David remembered his brother.
“You won’t ever be coming back,” David said. Chul Soon foamed at the mouth and tried to bite him.
‘We must hurry. Turn him so that we can check on the others. Perhaps Reimi can track your sister.’
With a shudder, David cursed himself for allowing Chul Soon to distract him for so long. He took hold of his Seikaku, and with the knowledge that Kou would always be able to replay this moment, drove the point in between the two dark pits of evil.
When he made it back to the fallen tree, David had to dodge a smiling cat statue with a paw like a slot machine lever that kept trying to whack him. He analyzed the scene as fast as his Matsumoto training allowed. His heart nearly stopped when he saw the blood covering Rie. David leapt, his jump taking him clear through the air until he was atop the fallen tree.
His leg buckled, but he managed to stand. His mind blanked by rage he grabbed the male ōkami’s head with his gauntleted hands and twisted. Far stronger than any human, the neck did not snap, instead, under the massive force, its whole body spun to the ground. Rie followed up with a quick strike, which did little against the tough hide.
“It’s not all mine,” she said. Despite failing to stop the wolf, Rie’s presence brought David out of his rage. She cleared his mind like a fall into the Matsumotos’ pond.
David took the barest instant to calm himself and reconnect with Kou. It was all the time the ōkami needed. Seeing her partner fall, the pink haired ōkami whipped out another gun and shot a quick succession of bullets at Takumi and Natsuki, forcing them off the attack long enough
for her to lunge at David with the sharp, glimmering blades of her gauntlets.
Rie tackled David, pulling him out of the way. They spun through the air together, ripping the clawed gauntlet from the ōkami’s hand as it stuck deep in Rie’s back.
David summoned his sword as they rotated through the forest air and smashed into the nearest tree. The wood form of the Seikaku anchored them into place and stopped their roll. An entire branch of the tree disintegrated into a shower of splinters that drove themselves into the ōkami’s hide. While the ōkami were distracted, David had one of the roots grow up and envelop Rie to keep her safe. Standing, David swept his gaze around the clearing. Masao was just outside the light, fighting a latecomer. Like the other two, the ōkami was young, but had light skin and brown hair. Instead of quick movements, the foreign ōkami hacked at Masao with a broad double-edged sword.
“Reimi, go after Jessica please,” David shouted as he stalked forward. Takumi disappeared in an instant and took wing. Natsuki tried to shout to the little grey bird, but the pink-haired ōkami attacked again. She raised her sword in defense.
“I.” David sliced viciously at the flailing male ōkami. The boy had several wounds from the tree, and his legs seemed to have been damaged by Rie’s attack. “Have.” Ducking, David slipped inside his opponent’s guard. “Had.” The sword, containing part of David and Kou’s very beings sliced deep into the ōkami’s joints, disabling him even as he tried to attack. “Enough.” David whirled, changing his blade with the speed of thought into its wood form. As his eyes met the ōkami’s he plunged his blade deep. A howl rent the thick forest air as a small wooden statue replaced the human shape.
Within minutes, David had helped dispatch the remaining two ōkami. As soon as they were all statues, they made short work of the few remaining snacks and statues. He returned to the tree where he had stashed Rie. Furious pounding sounded from the thin but hard surface of her enclosure. He had to stop. His arm trembled, and his warring emotions made it dangerous for him to attempt her release.
Revenge of the Akuma Clan Page 28