by Anna Frost
He went to kneel at his mother’s side, placing Yuki beside him.
“You brought a guest,” his mother said, her voice betraying curiosity and shock.
“This is Yuki, my apprentice. Jien didn’t mention him?”
“Your apprentice!” Something suspiciously like hope colored her words. “Jien mentioned no such thing.”
It was Akakiba’s turn to be shocked. “He didn’t?” Jien, the man who didn’t know what discretion was, hadn’t shared this bit of gossip with all willing ears? The monk had, after all, told Sanae.
Akahana’s usual frosty expression was gone, like snow melted away by the sun. “Jien must have wanted it to be a surprise.” Clapping her hands in a manner disturbingly similar to Sanae’s, she moved to peer at Yuki and sketch a bow in his direction. “Forgive this informal introduction. I am Akahana of the Fox clan, mother to Akakiba. Pleased to meet you.”
Yuki returned the quick bow. “I am Yuki. Pleased to meet you.”
“Tell me, have you been with my son for long?”
“Nearly three years now.”
“Is that so? How interesting!” She shot an accusing look at Akakiba. “His father and I were worried about his solitary habits. I’m glad to see he has found companionship. Has he taught you the blade, then?”
“Yes. I hope to be of help to him in his work.” Yuki’s eyes flicked around. “Ah, is your husband not here today?”
Akahana shared a quick look with her fox-shaped husband, who was sitting on her other side. Akakiba cringed, expecting disaster, but she only said, “Yes, my husband is here, somewhere.”
“I see,” Yuki said slowly, blinking. “Ah, you have so many foxes here. I’m surprised.”
“Are you?” Akahana smiled. “Well, we are the Fox clan.”
The conversation, along with every other conversation in the room, ended the moment the gong rang. It was beginning.
The blade master appeared first, dressed in white. Opposite him, Sanae appeared in her red attire. She now had a sword at her side. Meeting in the middle of the room, they bowed to each other without a word. Drawing their swords, they fell into defensive stances: feet apart for balance, knees slightly bent, sword held forward.
It was Sanae’s role to take the offensive. She threw herself at the blade master with a sudden cry, and the sound of metal on metal echoed in the large room.
Akahana was fidgeting like a young girl. Finally, she whispered, “Is he your lover?”
Akakiba was only surprised that she’d waited this long to ask. “No.”
“No? But surely, in three years—”
“Mother, please, not now.” Or ever. There was no good time for his mother to inquire about his sex life, or lack thereof.
There was a collective gasp. His gaze sought the red of his sister’s clothes. He was startled to find her holding her blade to the blade master’s throat as he lay sprawled on the floor.
Urgent murmurs rose.
“What happened? How did she do that so fast?”
“Didn’t you see? She tripped him!”
“Is that a lawful move?”
The blade master rose from the floor and put his sword away. The dojo grew quiet. The blade master decided what was allowed or not. He had the right to demand a rematch.
“There are no rules in a fight to the death,” the blade master said, voice clear and carrying, “only defeat and victory.” He bowed to Sanae, deeply. “Victory is yours, young one.”
What followed was painful. They had to stand with Sanae and wait while everybody crowded round to congratulate her. The foxes clustered close too, which drew a curious look from Yuki, but no one volunteered an explanation, and he didn’t ask. His iron politeness could be useful at times. Akakiba didn’t like lying to him, but the truth would be too difficult to swallow.
Jien eventually waved off the crowd. “Shoo! Sanae needs peace and quiet before we leave for the big test!”
“The demon fight?” Yuki inquired.
Jien looked at Yuki, then at Akakiba. “Ah, he knows about that?” He confirmed, “Yes, the demon fight. We set out today.”
“I see.” Yuki looked doubtful.
Akakiba understood, because he too found it hard to envision sweet, adorable Sanae going on a demon hunt. He slid a glance at his sister. “Are you satisfied with your second?”
“Absolutely. I told Mother I didn’t want you to do it. You’d fret. Jien is fine.”
“Sanae needs to rest,” Jien said firmly, herding her away before Akakiba could frame a reply to the insult. “Tonight, she hunts. Go eat, both of you. I understand that they’ve laid a feast in celebration.”
The feast had been conceived to please foxes and humans alike: miso soup with pieces of the rare shiitake mushroom, bowls of rice flavored with vegetables, fish raw or grilled, meat in strips or on sticks, sweet buns in prodigious quantity.
Those who could use chopsticks did, and those who couldn’t use them put their muzzles in their bowls. Akakiba treated his dishes like he would his worst enemies, leaving none alive.
“What happens now?” Yuki inquired between two bites. “Do they leave right away?”
“There’s a short meditation period first. It’s meant to give youths time to reflect on whether they’re truly ready to face the challenge. In theory, they can still back out and ask for an extra year’s training time. Nobody ever does that, however.”
“I’ll have a last sweet bun,” Yuki said.
“That’s the fourth time you’ve said that,” Akakiba said, but Yuki had already gone.
When Sanae reappeared, she looked different. With her hair bound and hidden under a wide straw hat, a flat chest, and men’s clothing, none would suspect her true gender.
“I go forth today to slay a demon,” she announced to the gathering. “I shall not return until I have succeeded. May Inari watch over me.” Having spoken the traditional words, she spun on her heels and left in Jien’s company.
If things went according to plan, the pair would be back late the next day. If they could not locate the demon meant to be the target, it could take longer. Demons were given to territoriality, often stalking a specific area until forced out, but they possessed enough intelligence to leave if they felt threatened.
Akakiba reached for the sake. “I suppose we had better tell my mother about the possessed man…”
If there was one thing he admired about his mother, it was her ability to keep her expression under control in delicate situations. As Yuki related the “incredible” intervention of a red fox at the White Lady’s pool, no sign of amusement crossed her face.
He knew quite well that on the inside, she was laughing.
Within the guest room assigned to them, they found futon, yukata, and a pot of freshly brewed tea. A lamp sat on the table, providing soft light, and the garden door was open, giving onto a pool in which koi swam sedately. The carps’ colors were varied: yellow all over, white with black spots, orange and black, red and white, or even red and white and black together.
Somewhere in the garden, someone was playing the lute, the melancholic sound rising above the usual noises of nocturnal bugs and small creatures.
As they both lay in the comfortably dark room, Yuki’s voice pieced the silence. “You’re tossing and turning. That never happens. What’s bothering you?”
“My sister.”
“You told me she’d be fine.”
“I’m not always right.”
“I know,” Yuki said, sounding amused. “But I believe you are this time. Busy your mind with a different subject.”
“Such as?”
Silence. Then, “Your mother thinks we’re lovers, doesn’t she?”
Akakiba didn’t bother replying. Nothing he could say would make the situation any less awkward.
“You never seek womanly company…”
“Or any other kind,” he snapped. He shouldn’t have to point out the obvious! “I have no interest in strangers. You know that.”
&nb
sp; “Ah. I understand now.” Yuki fell quiet.
What did that mean? Sometimes he couldn’t understand his human at all.
The distraction did its job well, for he did not remain awake much longer.
He dreamed of blood and his sister screaming.
Chapter Nine
Akakiba
AKAKIBA POKED HIS HEAD out of the room early in the morning, looking right and left. Pond, fish, trees, birds…there was no one in the garden. No motherly ambush. Good.
“I’m going to the dojo to train. Are you feeling up to it?” He phrased it to sting Yuki’s pride, because he didn’t want him to stay behind. What if his mother came by and found him alone here? She might decide it was a perfect opportunity to spill their secrets and bully Yuki into agreeing to marry into the Fox clan.
“Exercise would be welcome, but I’d like breakfast first.”
“Very well.”
They stopped for miso soup and plain rice before heading for the dojo. They would have peace there, because it was considered dreadfully rude to interrupt practice for anything less than an emergency.
They began by practicing moves alone to stretch their muscles. Yuki proceeded slowly, his free hand constantly touching his side.
“It feels a bit stiff,” he reported, “but there’s no pain. Sakura said there was dragon eggshell in the salve she gave me. It must have sped the healing.”
Their blades slashed the air again and again, metal flashing in the sunlight flowing through the open garden doors. The blades often returned to their scabbards to be drawn again in swift motions. Demons and bandits had no interest in honor and would attack without warning if the opportunity arose. A sensible man had to practice drawing his sword in a manner that allowed him to defend himself in a split second.
Occasionally, he practiced moves with his wakizashi—the second, shorter sword—in his left hand, pretending to block a second strike from his invisible opponent. Samurai usually fought with a single sword, but demons fought with all their appendages.
After a time, they turned to each other. They were alone in the training room, the birds in the garden their sole audience.
Two yipping fox kits suddenly ran past the open door, one chasing the other. Hmm, whose kids were those?
He almost failed to notice the sword slashing up at him. It was pure reflex that allowed him to angle his own sword to block it. He frowned at the impudent attacker.
Yuki grinned. “What is it you like to say? Distraction in a fight is an unforgivable mistake?”
“It’s true. Distraction is almost as bad as overconfidence.”
He let his mind go blank, allowing his partner’s blade to become the center of his world. He moved around it and against it, dimly aware of Yuki’s body language, which he instinctively used to predict the next attack to counter. The shifting of weight from one foot to the other, the move of a shoulder backward or forward, the flickering of the eyes in one direction or another—everything was a clue, a sign to read.
Practicing with a human while using lethal blades required all his skill: to fight well and smoothly, yes, but also to fight safely. Yuki’s body language told him when to block, when to push against a good defense, when to hold back against a clumsy parry. It wouldn’t do to wound his apprentice.
“Break,” Yuki said, disengaging with a backward leap. He went down on one knee, breathing in gasps and massaging his side. “I wish I could understand how you do it, fighting on automatic like that. Your eyes grow so intent.”
Akakiba studied his sword, embarrassed he’d let himself get carried away. It wasn’t right to push a recovering man. “I’ve been sword fighting for longer than you have. Keep working on it.”
A raspy voice rose from the doorway. “Why encourage him? He has no more skill than a radish. It’s like you to keep bad company.”
He didn’t turn, knowing what he would see: a tiny, gnarled man who hardly seemed related to the living. In the past, he’d held his tongue against such insults lest the old man decide to use his right to delay his coming-of-age ceremony. But now, what reason did he have to hold his tongue? None.
“Yuki, this man is named Sora. He used to be our greatest samurai and our blade master. Now he’s a bitter man who likes to insult those he sees as having replaced him. That is to say he dislikes everybody with a sword and the will to use it. I advise you to pretend he’s no more than a ghost. Come, we deserve a soak in the baths.”
They retrieved their sandals and left, ignoring Sora’s indignant squawks and shrill insults about their parents’ child rearing skills. Coming from that ill-mannered man, such insults were laughable.
It was no secret that the people most sorely in need of a bath were those fresh out of practice. The dojo had therefore been built close to the bathhouse and was linked to it by a walkway with a roof but no walls. Such walkways connected various buildings together, making it easier to move from one to another. It was quite useful during the rainy season.
They removed their sandals again at the bathhouse’s entrance and placed them on the footwear rack. Before them were two doors, one featuring the kanji for “woman” and the other the kanji for “man.”
They passed through the second one and came to a changing room where wicker baskets were lined against the walls, awaiting their clothes and belongings.
In the room beyond was found not a bath, but a hot spring limited on all sides by large rocks. The floor around it was stone. The hot spring had been there long before the clan house, and the bathhouse had been built over it. The thick mist in the room warned the unwary bather to proceed carefully.
Coarse soap and buckets full of cold water were available to scrub body and hair clean from sweat, dirt, and other particles that shouldn’t be brought into the crystal-clear spring water.
Once clean, Yuki dipped a foot in. “Hot!” He gingerly went about easing himself in. “This must be wonderful during winter.”
Akakiba braced himself and sank in all at once, the water reaching up to his collarbone. “It is. The elders especially appreciate it. Pregnant women too. I’m told my mother took baths nearly every day toward the end, when she was bearing me. She called me her little fish when I was young.” Yuki was looking at him strangely. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Yuki averted his eyes. Was that a blush on his face or simply the effect of heat?
“Stop thinking about what my mother said.” He hadn’t meant it to, but it came out sounding accusing.
“I wasn’t! I was just counting your scars. I know what you said about them being signs of failure, but they look impressive.”
There was nothing embarrassing about that comment itself, but the idea of Yuki studying the many scars, big and small, that adorned his body made Akakiba want to avert his eyes too. “You’ll have a scar of your own soon.”
“Maybe.” Yuki’s right hand went down to the injury, tracing it. It started low on his side, running down toward the inside of his thigh.
Akakiba looked for any sign the wound hadn’t healed as well as Yuki had led him to believe, but saw nothing worrying. The skin that had torn during the fight at Sakura’s house had healed over again.
“You don’t have to stare,” Yuki said, sounding embarrassed.
“I wasn’t staring.” The water was extremely hot, but his face was suddenly hotter.
He looked away, closed his eyes, and pretended he was relaxing. This awkwardness was ridiculous and entirely his mother’s fault for speaking thoughtlessly.
The silence wasn’t as comfortable as he’d hoped.
Yuki broke it first, saying, “I was thinking that you’re unusually cheerful and talkative lately. Seeing your family is doing you good.”
“Good? I flee my mother, and I insult elders.”
“Your sister is fond of you. Surely you get along with some of the others as well.”
He grunted evasively. He’d spent most of his childhood trying to avoid his clan, running away to play with Sakura or stalking the woo
ds for small prey. If there was any clan member other than Sanae who liked him, rather than merely tolerated him, he couldn’t name them.
Yuki closed his eyes and sank deeper, barely keeping his chin above water. “This wasn’t how I imagined I would learn about your clan, but I’m glad for the opportunity. It’s nice here.”
Translation: why ever did you leave?
The good thing about indirect questions was that he didn’t feel obligated to answer them. At least now they were having a normal, non-awkward conversation. “The bathhouse is wonderful.”
Finally he was able to truly relax and let the hot spring do its work.
The heat was unrelenting, stripping bathers of pain as well as strength, leaving them boneless and light-headed. Before long they were both nodding off and in danger of drowning. Lifting themselves out with an effort, they returned to the changing room to use some of the many towels and yukata stored there. Belongings in hand, they headed back to their room.
They passed a fox. Recognizing her as one of his cousins, Akakiba gave her a nod—the fox version of a quick bow—and received one back.
Yuki stopped and turned, watching the fox continue on its way. “I could have sworn I saw it nod to you.”
“Of course you did.”
Yuki gave him a suspicious look. “Don’t laugh at me.”
They left their clothing at the room’s door, to be taken away and cleaned, before going in search of food to appease their growling stomachs. Families had their own cooking area, but clan members usually ate in a common area set next to a large and separate kitchen with several fire pits. The clan’s human women typically worked there, and children—boys and girls alike—were often sent to help so that they may, at the very least, learn to cook rice. Hunters on the road couldn’t always find someone to cook for them.
They each received a tray from the woman on duty and settled down on comfortable cushions to eat.
Yuki eyed his tray on which sat a bowl of miso soup, a bowl of seasoned rice, a grilled fish, and a heap of half-cooked meat slices. “What’s the meat?” he asked, sounding as close to revolted as a polite man could.