Kitsune releases my shoulders and takes my hand.
“Come on!” she says.
I stare at her blankly.
“I—I—”
“Follow me, Raymond-sai!”
I nod in understanding and allow Kitsune to pull me toward a winding forest trail leading down the mountain side. We enter the woods just as the last of the sun disappears beyond the far ridge. The roars that always accompany nightfall in this inhospitable place begin and we quicken our pace.
Chapter 8
Often called the Excalibur of Japan, Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (also known simply as “Kusanagi”) is an infamous samurai sword said to be one of the Three Imperial Treasures. According to legend, the warrior Susanoo found Kusanagi in the corpse of the eight-headed dragon, Yamata no Orochi, after slaying him. It is said that the sword held magical properties, and continued to hold sway over beasts and monsters due to its former association with the dragon.
The whereabouts of Kusanagi are currently unknown. It is rumored that a replica of the blade was commissioned by the Emperor Sujin after the original sword was stolen by a Chinese monk during the sixth century. However, the story goes on to claim the monk’s ship sank at sea. Considering the fantastic nature of the tales associated with Kusanagi, one has to wonder if the sword ever in fact existed at all.
—Excerpt from The Three Sacred Treasures of Japan, by Haruo Yamada (1958). English translation, Katey Alegre (1964)
Kitsune is unbelievably fast and it’s all I can do to keep up with her.
In my defense, I’m more than a little tuckered out from the constant running for my life that I’ve had to do since my plane crashed in this land of monsters!
As we flee down the mountain side in the fading light, I trip and fall constantly. But every time I stumble, Kitsune returns from her place out in front to haul me up and get me moving again.
Our surroundings darken and pairs of hungry, luminous eyes begin appearing in the foliage along the trail. The animalistic grunts and growls sounding all around us creep in closer, drowning out the fading song of the forest cicadas.
We reach the valley floor just as the blackness becomes total. I stand there, a trembling statue, frightened beyond belief. Between roars, I hear Kitsune rummaging in the darkness, taking forever to do who knows what. I would ask her, but I’m terrified the sound of my voice would draw the attention of all those things going bump in the night!
I feel Kitsune’ small, cool hand take mine and I step forward as she gives it a tug. Her other hand comes to rest on my shoulder. I stoop as I feel her pushing down on me, urging me to do so.
I take a few more steps in this hunched position, then pause, feeling the air change around us, noting how the echo of sound is different here.
“Sit,” she whispers, and I do. “We will be safe, here.”
I hear her fumbling in the dark, and then the flash of a small spark almost blinds my dilated pupils as I hear two pieces of rock knock against each other.
Another strike. Another spark.
Then another.
Then a tiny fire ignites within the small mound of moss and twigs resting on the ground before Kitsune. She leans over and blows on the fire, giving it life. The blaze takes and begins to grow. As it does, she piles on more twigs and broken timber until we have a full-fledged camp fire burning.
For a moment, I gaze at Kitsune and see her eyes burning as they reflect back the fire’s light. The effect is exactly like when the headlight beams of Mom’s car shine into Bear’s eyes when we enter our driveway at night. I rub my eyes and look at her again. This time, her eyes carry only their normal darkness.
I don’t know if what I saw was merely my imagination playing tricks on me. But I take in the pensive way Kitsune is staring at the fire and I begin to think its light is more for my benefit than hers.
I shake my head to clear it, then I take a look at our shelter. The first thing I notice is that it’s man-made. The walls at our sides and the low ceiling overhead are all made of rotting, wooden planks. I see several circular iron bands that might have once ringed wooden barrels. There are several rusting, metal tools littered about, including the frame of an antique, hand-held lamp. But it’s not until my gaze falls upon the deteriorating wooden-spoke steering wheel that I realize our shelter is actually the remains of an capsized boat—probably a galleon of Old World Europe. The smoke of our fire rises into the night through a chimney hole bored into its up-turned belly.
How the ship came to be here in the middle of a freaking forest is way beyond me.
“Do not be afraid,” Kitsune says. “It is as I told you. We are safe in here.”
She must have misread the shock in my eyes. After a few moments, I regain my composure.
“Are you from America?”
She frowns in confusion.
“Forgive me, Raymond-sai” she says. “I do not know this amr-eet-ka.”
“America,” I say with emphasis.
“Amreetka,” she replies.
I smile. “Close enough. It’s the coolest place! There’s Xbox and movies and best of all, music! Not like this dump!
“But what about you?”
“I was born here on the island. I’ve lived here my entire life.”
“But you speak English—?”
“Yes,” she replies. “As well as Japanese, Portuguese, and dongsk tunga, what you might call Old Norse.”
For a moment, I’m bursting with excitement.
“So you do have contact with the rest of the world, then?”
She shakes her head and I deflate like a leaky balloon.
“Then...how...?”
She gestures at our shelter. “You are not the first outsider to shipwreck on the island.”
“You mentioned an island before. So that’s where we are? On an island?”
“Yes. One of the largest in a chain. We Toho refer to them collectively as the Kaiju Islands, or more simply Kaiju Island, in honor of those who rule them.”
“Excuse me? Toho?”
“I’m a member of the Toho clan. Once we roamed everywhere, our number equal to that of the stars in the sky!
Kitsune slumps her shoulders.
“But the outside world changed and we found we no longer had any place in it. We retreated back and back until our only foothold in this world is here at the labyrinth’s edge.”
She falls silent and I grope for a reply equal in magnitude to her story.
“Uh...that...sucks?”
Stupid! Stupid!
“Forgive me,” the girl says. “I do not understand.”
“I mean, I’m sorry.”
Kitsune nods.
“But we Toho have a prophecy. It is foretold that three warriors will reopen the way to the out-world and return our race to its former glory.”
“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”
Prophecies? This girl is absolutely nuts!
“The first warrior has already come.”
Her gaze moves to the sword strapped across my back.
“You carry his blade, Kusanagi.”
At her mention of the sword’s name, the scabbard at my back becomes hot for a moment, as though it were a living creature radiating body heat. But the sensation quickly fades, and like the sight of the fire-light reflecting in Kitsune’s eyes, I chalk it up to my frazzled imagination.
“A shooting star foretold of the warrior Kintaro’s coming an age ago,” Kitsune says, her eyes fixed on mine. “And then, two nights ago, another star fell from the sky to crash on the island—the one you arrived in.”
“Wha-wha-what are you trying to say?” I stutter. “You mean that—I mean, you don’t think that I—?”
Kitsune scowls.
“I can hardly believe it myself. I mean, if you acting cowardly back in the cave was just a trick—”
“A trick? Newsflash, Kitsune! The Oni were going to eat us!”
Kitsune shakes her head in disgust.
“Please, drop this pretense of fri
ght. It is unworthy of an heir of Kintaro.”
“Hey, you look here now, Missy—!”
An especially loud roar sounds outside our shelter, reverberating through the ship’s hull. Dust and dirt rain down on us as I scramble around the fire to huddle in fear against Kitsune.
Chapter 9
While the word daikaiju (pronounced die-ky-joo) has been adopted as pop-culture slang for the giant monsters featured in the endless stream of B-movies heralding from Japan, the term has a much older and more spiritual origin. The daikaiju, or dragons, of Japanese myth were the children of the dragon god, Ryuu (pronounced Rie-you). Like their father, the daikaiju were enormous creatures whose corporeal forms were equal parts flesh, bone, and magic...
—Excerpt from Dragons of the East, by Seth Thompson (2008)
“Why do you cower so?” Kitsune whispers. “I told you to carry on this joke is cruel and dishonorable. Besides, I have marked the symbol of Gryphina outside the ship.
“And if the kaiju outside our shelter is foolish enough to disrespect it, you have Kusanagi to protect us.”
I’m less than convinced by Kitsune’s words. Sword or no sword, she will have to pardon me if the influx of monsters trying to kill me since I crash-landed on this island has me a little jumpy!
I hear whatever is outside sniffing around the over-turned galleon serving as our shelter. The sniffing abruptly stops and I hear the pounding thuds of something large retreating into the forest. When the thuds grow silent, I allow myself to breathe.
“See,” Kitsune says. “The kaiju found the symbol of Gryphina and left in fear. We are perfectly safe.”
I release Kitsune and scoot away from her. But not too far. That thing might come back!
“Look, Kitsune,” I say, “I’m getting the idea you might think I’m one of the warriors in your people’s prophecy just because my plane crashed. But trust me, you are wrong. Obviously.
“I’m no warrior, just a snot-nosed kid from California. Before I crash-landed on this island, I’d never spent a night alone in my life! Heck, I’ve never even kissed a girl, other than my mother and grandmother, and a few pecks from girls in elementary school, but those don’t count.
“I don’t know how to use a sword. I certainly don’t slay kijoes—”
“Kaiju.”
“What?”
“Kaiju are the little ones—monsters like the Oni.
My jaw drops.
“The Oni are the little ones?”
“Daikaiju are the great old ones—the arms and legs of Ryuu. His children.
“They are the what of who?”
“They are dragons.”
I swallow hard, thinking of the dark shapes I saw in the clouds outside my plane.
And the eye.
I will never be able to forget that eye.
“It is the daikaiju who truly rule these islands,” Kitsune continues. “In fact, we Toho worship one of their number, the dragon called Gryphina.”
“What?”
“Gri-feen-na,” Kistune enunciates.
I close my eyes and rub the place where the bridge of my nose meets my brow.
“But you see, Kitsune, that’s just what I’m talking about!
“I think it was some of your daikaiju or whatever that attacked my plane.
“Everyone died but me. And you know what I did?”
Kitsune stares at me in silence.
“I ran, Kitsune. I got the heck out of there as fast as my legs would take me. And I just happened to stumble upon the sword—”
“Kusanagi.”
“I just happened to stumble upon Kusanagi in the process. It’s not mine. I stole it. I lifted it off some corpse—probably this Kintaro you are so off the chain over.
“So you see, Kitsune, I’m no warrior. I’m a coward. I don’t slay dragons—”
“Daikaiju.”
“Dai-kai-ju! I run from them like any good coward worth the pee in his pants!
“So if you are expecting me to swoop in here and fight through kaiju and daikaiju alike to lead your people to the outside world, you are in for a huge disappointment!”
Kitsune sighs in frustration.
“What about your defeat of the oni?”
“That was a fluke! Somehow, the sword—Kusanagi sliced off the oni’s arm coming out of its scabbard. I don’t even know how it happened!
“What are you grinning at?”
“I see what you are doing now, Raymond-sai. You are merely honoring the tradition of the reluctant warrior.”
“It was no different with Kintaro, Raymond-sai. And that is well.
“So I will play my part and assure you my people would not ask you to do—or slay—anything against your will. At least, I doubt they would.
“Besides, we Toho are already well protected by Gryphina.”
Her smile still dividing her face, Kitsune lies down and rolls away so that she faces the ship’s up-side-down parapet.
“Get some sleep, Raymond-sai. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
I stare at her, my jaw on my chest, my eyes twin boiled eggs in their sockets.
“Did you not hear a word I just said? I’m not one of your warriors.”
Kitsune’s only reply is a series of faint, girlish snores. She is already fast asleep.
I’ve been dismissed.
“Unbelievable,” I whisper.
Having little choice, I also hunker down to sleep. I remove Kusanagi from my back and take a spot against the ship’s hull.
Images flicker in rapid succession across my mind’s eye: the pale man, the giant red eye, the plane’s wreckage, the dead samurai’s tomb, the river and its giant gator, the Oni, and awakening in the cave to see Kitsune’s immaculate face.
My stomach rumbles and I realize I’ve not eaten since this morning. But then sleep overtakes me and I’m spared my hunger pangs.
I awake to the sound of cicada song and the fleshy, sweet smell of roasting meat. My eyes flutter open and I see that I’m alone beneath the overturned, landlocked boat. It sends memories of the previous night’s confrontation with the Oni rushing to the forefront of my mind.
For a moment, I’m convinced that my would-be savior, the girl Kitsune, has abandoned me. But then I hear her humming softly outside and I breath a huge sigh of relief.
The sound of her humming is sweet. It makes me long for Glee Club, school, and every other simple, routine thing I took for granted back home.
But you make do with what you have, I suppose.
Kitsune is the only kind face I’ve seen since my plane crashed on this island of monsters, and to say I would hate to lose her is the biggest understatement of the century!
I sit up and rub sleep’s aftermath from my eyes. I stand as high as the low ceiling of the ship’s overturned deck will allow and take the sword Kusanagi in hand. I push away the tangle of creepers serving as the shelter’s door and walk outside.
The trees here are every bit as tall and thick as those I encountered beyond the beach. They crowd in around the shipwreck’s remains. In the daylight, the wreckage looks like little more than a mound of earth rising from the forest floor. Like the giant hand in the swamp, the ship is covered by creeper vines and other shrubbery.
It makes me ponder what other ancient wonders might lie hidden just beneath the carpet of the forest’s vegetation.
Kitsune squats beside a cook fire not far from the ship-mound. A deadfall the size of a subway tunnel lies at her back. She is roasting something akin to rabbit on a stick skewer.
“Just in time,” she says. “Your breakfast is ready.”
I come around and sit across from her as she removes the skewered animal from the flames.
“What about you?” I ask.
“I already ate,” she says.
Kitsune reaches up and uses the back of her hand to wipe away what might have been a smear of blood from the corner of her mouth. The gesture is completed before I can see for sure.
I shrug and take the skewer
in my hands. I bite into the meat and it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted in entire my life. Even better than Mom’s homemade chocolate cake!
I tear greedily into the rest of the food. When I finish, my face and fingers are slick with greasy fat. My stomach bellows in approval. I belch in return.
“Oh! Excuse me.”
Kitsune shakes her head.
“Less manners than the Oni!”
We clean up after ourselves, finishing by disassembling the stones Kitsune used to form what looks to me like Japanese kanji spelled out in characters several feet across. I’m guessing it was whatever symbol of safety she claimed she made the night before—something about a griffin-monster? I forget.
“So what now?”
“Now we get cleaned up.”
We leave the boat and head deeper into the forest. As we trek inward, I begin to hear the sound of rushing water in the distance. Then the forest opens to reveal the edge of a small waterfall dumping into a crystal blue pool not far below us. It’s a gorgeous, exotic place the likes of which I’ve only seen on TV.
“I’m not going in there!” I say.
“But you stink!”
“I would rather stink than become breakfast for some dino-gator!”
Kitsune giggles. “There is nothing here that will hurt you. At least not right now, while the sun is shining.
“Come.”
Kitsune begins to disrobe before me. Apparently, the Toho harbor no taboos where nudity is concerned. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same.
Embarrassed for both of us, I quickly look away and shield my eyes with a hand.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t see a thing.”
A soft splash echoes from below. I look down and see Kitsune dog-paddling in the blue pool at the waterfall’s base.
“Take off your clothes and jump, Raymond-sai,” she calls to me.
I mentally calculate the distance from the ledge I’m standing on to the pool below. It’s only about fifteen feet, but it’s still enough to frighten me as bad as the first time I had to sing a solo in Glee Club!
Dragon Island Page 4