CHAPTER 28: THE STRANGER

Takayubi legend said that a Matsuda had never walked away from a duel without first spilling his opponent’s blood on the ground. Takeru and Misaki broke that tradition that day.

She caught the drops of blood before they could fall and placed a gentle hand over the cut on his neck. He didn’t push the hand away, even as her jiya tugged at his open wound, knitting the liquid into a scab.

“You’re stronger than I thought,” Takeru said.

Misaki made a dismissive noise in her throat. “It was a fluke. I’ve been in far better shape.”

“I wasn’t talking about your swordplay. I always knew about that.”

Misaki blinked in surprise, snow fluttering from her eyelashes. “You did?” Then she sighed. “I suppose I underestimated your powers of perception.”

“No. Your father mentioned it when he first described you to us.”

“You never said anything.” Misaki paused. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I don’t know...” That thoughtful crease appeared between Takeru’s eyebrows. “I’m sorry, I never asked.”

“I never offered.” Instead, she had boarded her real self up behind a stiff façade, hoping that somehow she could turn herself into something else. “I’m sorry.” Misaki rubbed her open palm over Takeru’s neck one last time before letting it trail down to rest against his chest. The cut had scabbed over, stopping the bleeding.

“Thank you,” Takeru said, “for offering now.”

He lifted his hand to touch the cut on his neck—not the one Misaki had just scabbed over but the one Mamoru’s ghost had left during that last nightmare.

“I think I should stay a while,” he said, “and say goodbye to my brother and son.”

Misaki nodded. “Of course.” But she found that the thought of leaving Takeru alone on the mountainside upset her. He had spent too long alone in the snow, hadn’t he? Meditating the humanity out of himself, sinking deeper into a refuge that was now stained with his family’s blood.

“Would it be alright if I stayed with you, Takeru-sama?” she asked softly.

Takeru was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded. “Please.”

……..

The sky was darkening by the time the two stood to make their way back home. Misaki had frozen the two pieces of Siradenyaa’s sheath together to hold the blade. It was cold enough that the ice would stay strong, but eventually, she would need a new sheath.

“I asked Setsuko to watch the boys while we were gone,” Misaki said. “I told her I might be a while, but I hope she hasn’t gotten worried.”

“I think she has,” Takeru said. “She seems to have sent someone to find us.”

“What?”

“Someone is coming down the mountain toward us.” Takeru cocked his head as though listening. “Two people.”

“We should go to meet them,” Misaki said, brushing the snow from her knees, “let them know we haven’t vanished.” It was bizarre how she still didn’t feel any physical pain, even after fighting and then sitting with her legs folded beneath her for so long.

They had barely started up the southern pass when Misaki’s eyes landed on a figure carefully shuffling down the mountain toward them. Kwang Chul-hee had gotten better at keeping his footing on Takayubi’s slopes, but he still made his way around more slowly than the native villagers.

“Oh!” the boy said when he caught sight of Misaki and Takeru through the falling snow. “It’s you.”

“Kwang,” Takeru said, effortlessly covering the distance to the stumbling boy with his smooth stride. “What are you doing here?”

“Setsuko-sama said you had both been gone a long time and she was getting worried. She asked if I would go looking for you.”

“We are well and on our way back, as you can see,” Takeru said, though Misaki noticed Chul-hee’s eyes brush uneasily over the fresh cuts on Takeru’s neck.

“Alright. I—” Chul-hee stopped short. His eyes had fallen on the sword at Misaki’s hip. “What is that?”

“That is my wife’s business,” Takeru said a little sharply. “As a lady of a noble house, she can bear a sword if she—”

“No, I’ve seen women with swords before,” Chul-hee clarified, “just not swords like that. Matsuda Misaki-dono-sama...” he fumbled his Shirojima honorifics in his excitement. “Is that what I think it is?”

Misaki glanced down at Siradenyaa. “You have a good eye.”

“You mean... that’s...”

“Zilazen glass?” Misaki said. “Yes.”

“You’re joking!” Chul-hee exclaimed, slipping into his native Kaigengua in his disbelief. “Kotetsu said there were no Zilazen katana!”

“Do you want to see for yourself?” she suggested in Kaigengua.

Chul-hee looked breathless. “Could I?”

With a smile, Misaki untied Siradenyaa and handed the sheathed weapon to Chul-hee. He bowed, accepting it with both hands.

“Careful,” she warned as he gripped the handle and slid it partway out of the sheath. “It’s sharper than most swords, but it doesn’t rust, so you can touch the flat without worrying about leaving finger oils.”

“Oh,” Chul-hee said as he turned the blade over. “And the sheath must be Zilazen glass too?”

“Um...” Misaki hesitated but realized that would be hard to lie to the boy while he was holding the sheath in his hands. “Yes, on the inside.”

“So, what happened to it?” Chul-hee asked, resting his fingertips on the ice Misaki had used to repair the sheath. He might not be a Takayubi warrior, but he was still a competent jijaka; he could almost certainly feel that the sheath had been severed.

She glanced at Takeru. “Unfortunately, it got damaged,” she said.

Chul-hee’s fingers were still resting over the ice on the sheath, his brow creased in confusion. “It feels like it was cut in two.”

“Isn’t that interesting.” Misaki smiled, taking the sword from him and sliding it back into the belt of her hakama.

“But it’s cut!” Chul-hee said in confusion. “Nothing can cut Zilazen...” he trailed off, looking up at Takeru. His eyes flicked again to the cuts on Takeru’s neck, then to Misaki’s disheveled hair and clothing, and back to Takeru. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, but all the questions on his tongue were undoubtedly inappropriate to voice.

“We should get back to the village.” Takeru motioned Chul-hee and Misaki after him and they continued up the mountain. “Let’s find the other one and head back.”

“Other one?” Chul-hee repeated.

“There were two of you who came down the mountain to look for us, were there not?”

Chul-hee shook his head. “I came alone.”

“No…” Takeru stopped in his tracks, suddenly wary. “There was someone behind you.”

“Are you sure, Takeru-sama?” Misaki asked. Sometimes an exhaustive use of jiya like a fight affected a theonite’s senses. “Maybe...”

Her words trailed off as movement caught her attention on the path ahead. A figure stood blocking their way, Matsuda blue kimono blowing gently in the wind, a teal-wrapped sword at his hip.

Mamoru.

Misaki screamed, her hands flying to her mouth. Terrified that something had made her start hallucinating, she looked to Takeru and Chul-hee, but they were also frozen where they stood, disbelieving eyes fixed on the apparition.

“H-h-how?” Chul-hee stuttered, shaking. “Why is he here?”

Mamoru drew his katana—and that was the giveaway. Just for a moment, brightness flickered across him, like dappled light across a forest floor. Misaki had seen bright ripples like that before and knew exactly what they meant.

That was not Mamoru, nor was it his ghost.

As the imitation Mamoru came at them, Takeru took an uncertain step back, an arm out to shield the other two. But Misaki stepped forward, gathering her jiya into an ice spear. Even knowing it wasn’t really him, she couldn’t shoot ice directly into her son’s heart. She couldn’t kill his image.

Chul-hee let out a cry of alarm as she fired her projectile. The ice struck the pretender in the shoulder, knocking him backward and shattering the illusion. Freckles scattered across Mamoru’s cheeks, black hair turned brown and the blue kimono turned into a flapping gray cloak. The katana spun out of his hand and hit the snow as a long Hadean-style knife.

Even in his shock, Takeru reacted prudently, raising ice to freeze the stranger’s arms and legs in place where he lay.

“What is that thing?” he demanded, more shaken than Misaki had ever seen him. He would be, having never met Elleen Elden. “Some kind of demon?”

“That’s no demon.” Misaki was striding toward the fallen creature. “It’s a littigi.”

“A what?”

“A type of sub-theonite,” Misaki explained as she came to stand over the man. “They look like powerless adyns but they have the ability to manipulate light to create illusions. I knew a few in Carytha.” But what the Hell was one of them doing here?

The man glared silently up at Misaki, but they both knew there was nothing he could do against her now. Littigiwu like himself were dangerous only in what they could make a person see; he would not have the physical strength to break himself out of Takeru’s ice. An intense flash of light might leave Misaki temporarily blind, but she fought better without the use of her eyes anyway.

Secure in her safety, Misaki took a moment to survey the man. He appeared to be in his twenties or thirties—she had always found it difficult to place white people’s ages—with dull green eyes and brown hair cut in a short Hadean style. The lines of a tattoo made a strange, swirling pattern through his smattering of brown freckles. She searched her memory for someone like this man, but she couldn’t recall ever encountering a green-eyed littigi, let alone one with such strange tattoos. Even the tattoo ink was unlike anything Misaki had ever seen—shiny and metallic.

With a sweep of her hand, Misaki cleared the snow that had fallen on his face, just to be sure she wasn’t imagining the silvery glint. He had something in his skin. It looked like metal threaded through his tattoos but when Misaki reached out with her jiya, the shining substance felt almost like liquid.

“You’re very skilled,” she said. That replication of Mamoru had been on par with one of Elleen’s illusions. Nearly perfect. “Who are you?”

Takeru, who had most likely never seen a white person, approached more cautiously, Chul-hee trailing just behind him.

“It’s alright, Takeru-sama,” Misaki said. “He’s just a human, like you or me—only weaker. Watch.”

Putting a tabi to the man’s arm, she applied a bit of pressure, and the bone snapped. The white man’s body went rigid and his face contorted, but he didn’t cry out. The only noise he made was a valiantly smothered grunt. Misaki raised her eyebrows. That sort of ironclad composure spoke of intense training, though she could feel his heart pounding rapidly in distress.

“Alright, I don’t know how good your Shirojima Dialect is, so let’s try Yammaninke,” Misaki said. “Who are you and who sent you here?”

Normally, she wouldn’t have taken any pleasure in torturing someone weaker than herself, even one who had tried to kill her. But this man had stolen her son’s face. She would happily break every bone in his body.

“Don’t speak Yammaninke, you piece of xuro? That’s fine.” She switched languages again. “I speak Lindish too. Now, talk to me. Who are you? Did you come here from Carytha?”

Robin had always worried about his old enemies pursuing him, but Misaki had never personally made many enemies in Livingston. Sure, she had sliced quite a few people, but that had mostly been as backup to Robin and Elleen. Most people thought of Firebird and didn’t recall his Shadow.

The hooded gray cloak immediately brought to mind Kalleyso and his followers, but for all Kalleyso’s bizarre and horrific gimmicks, Misaki had never known the gang lord to give his followers facial tattoos. Maybe that was a new practice? Or maybe the markings were some sort of native Hadean adornment that had nothing to do with the man’s other affiliations?

“Is this about Livingston?” She ground her foot down, extracting another pained grunt from the supine littigi. “Had a run in with Sirawu fifteen or sixteen years ago? You don’t look like you’re missing any appendages… though I’m happy to fix that for you.”

“Do you recognize him?” Takeru asked, unable to understand Misaki’s Lindish.

“No, Takeru-sama. Do you?”

Takeru shook his head and then turned to Chul-hee. “Kwang?”

“D-don’t look at me, Matsuda-dono,” Chul-hee stammered. “I’ve never even met a littigi before.”

“Well, this one must have been here for some time, spying.” Misaki narrowed her eyes at the restrained intruder.

“What do you mean?”

“Littigiwu aren’t magic. They have photographic memories, but they can’t just pull faces out of the ether. They can only reproduce what they have observed, which means...”

“This man watched Mamoru when he was alive,” Takeru said in quiet horror, “weeks ago. Why?”

“That’s what he’s going to tell us.” Misaki looked down at the foreigner and switched back to Yammaninke, the language an international spy was most likely to understand. “Isn’t that right, littigi? You’re going to tell us everything we want to know while you still have four limbs and a tongue.”

“Oh,” Chul-hee said warily. “M-Matsuda-dono, I’m pretty sure that’s against the international codes of—”

“Good thing those only apply to military operatives,” Misaki said. “I’m a civilian.”

“But—”

“Quiet, Kwang,” Takeru ordered shortly.

“So?” Misaki prompted, glaring down at the littigi. “Do you want to talk or do you want me to cut you?”

Light flickered. The man’s hair turned black and for a moment, Mamoru’s face overlaid his, a pleading expression in his eyes. Agony lanced through Misaki and she stomped down hard. Her heel broke through the man’s femur and his cruel illusion in a single crunch.

This time he did scream.

“No, no,” she said sweetly as Chul-hee cringed. “You don’t want to waste your concentration on manipulative illusions right now. No, you’re going to want to concentrate very hard on telling me what I want to know before this gets really unpleasant.”

The man set his jaw, agonized breaths coming fast through clenched teeth. His heart was racing, but he didn’t answer.

“Now, don’t be like that.” Misaki drew Siradenyaa and Chul-hee covered his eyes. “If you won’t talk to me, you can’t tell me which body parts you’d rather part with first. I’ll just have to guess...”

The man did speak then—in the most bizarrely accented Yammaninke Misaki had ever heard.

“Voice activation.”

Misaki’s heart dropped. “Get back!” she cried.

“Detonate.”

The reflexive ice wall Misaki formed between herself and the littigi never would have held against the blast, nor would her legs have propelled her far enough to escape. But Takeru’s jiya surged up alongside hers, tripling the size of the wall and an arm around her waist swept her back. They crashed to the snow together as the explosion shook the mountain.

When the ringing in Misaki’s ears faded enough that she could think straight, she lifted herself up onto her elbows and shook her head. Her back bumped into something colder than the snow beneath her and she realized that she was under Takeru’s arm. He had braced his body just above hers to protect her from the falling debris.

“Are you alright?” she asked, her voice sounding warped and distant.

Takeru responded with something that sounded affirmative. Under his other arm, Chul-hee was groaning, his hands over his head. Worried that the boy was injured, Misaki reached out with her jiya to see if she could sense any bleeding.

“He’s fine,” Takeru said in exasperation, just as Chul-hee’s groans solidified into words the words ‘So loud!’

Leaving Chul-hee curled up on the ground, Takeru stood and helped Misaki to her feet.

“What in all the realms was that?” Misaki asked, turning back to where the littigi had lain in the snow.

“I was hoping you might tell me.”

Nothing remained of the man except a crater and a few shreds of flesh and gray fabric flung across the mountainside.

Misaki shook her head. “I’ve never encountered anyone like him. Other littigiwu, yes. Other people in gray cloaks, yes, but never anyone with tattoos or an accent like his.” She went to retrieve Siradenyaa where it had stuck in the snow after flying from her hand.

“Were you really going to cut him?” Takeru asked, pulling a shaking Chul-hee to his feet.

“Only if he kept being uncooperative,” Misaki said and carefully returned her sword to its sheath.

There was a pause.

“You enjoyed that.” It wasn’t a judgment; Takeru just seemed to be making an observation.

Misaki shrugged. “This is the sort of thing I used to do with my friends back in Livingston.”

“At school?” Takeru looked confused.

“Well, after school,” Misaki said, “at night. We didn’t get much sleep.”

“Matsuda-dono!” a voice called and Misaki and Takeru looked up to find Kazu’s men and some of the Ameno koronu running down the slope toward them.

“We heard a sound like a bomb. What happened?”

“There has been an attempt on our lives,” Takeru said as the men came to a stop at the site of the explosion. “My wife’s and my own.”

“What?”

Calmly, Takeru told the men what had happened, which of course sounded ridiculous.

“So, you think it was an assassin?” one of the Ameno koronu asked.

“It was definitely an assassin,” Misaki said.

A littigi didn’t put himself up against two powerful theonites unless he had a plan to end the fight quickly. This one had most likely hoped that his illusion of Mamoru would immobilize his targets for the moment he needed to kill them with that knife of his, which might have allowed him to escape with his life. The bomb had been his backup plan.

“Who do you think sent him?” one of Kazu’s men asked. “The Ranganese, or...” he couldn’t say it aloud, but everyone was thinking it: the Empire.

“This man was not from Namindugu,” Takeru said. “He was white.”

“There are white people who live in Namindugu, in the Ranganese Union,” Chul-hee pointed out. It was something most Dunians didn’t even know.

“Really?” Hakuyu said in surprise.

“They live far in the west,” Misaki said, “near the border with Hades. They have their origins in a Hadean tribe called the Malikovish, but politically, they count as part of the Ranganese Union. I’ve never heard of any littigiwu among them, but it’s possible.”

Then again, it was equally possible for an organization to hire a foreign assassin to throw someone off their trail. But if the man had been sent by the Ranganese...

“Who is with my family?” Takeru voiced the question that had just leaped to the forefront of Misaki’s mind.

“Your sister-in-law is with the children,” the head Ameno said. “I have a few of my men helping work on the house. They should be safe.”

Misaki was already running up the slope.

“Stay on the alert,” Takeru told the men. “Report back to the village as soon as you’ve investigated to your satisfaction.” And he was running alongside her.

Everything seemed normal when they reached the village, and they shared a breath of relief to find Setsuko and all the children safe in the Matsuda courtyard. Setsuko stood and rushed to meet them immediately.

“Is everything alright?” she asked urgently. “We heard a sound like an explosion and—Takeru—Matsuda-sama, you’re injured!”

“We’re fine,” Takeru said. “Ameno-san,” he addressed one of the men working on the house, a volunteer named Ameno Kentaro. “Run to the rest of the houses. Tell everyone to check that every person in their household is safe and accounted for. Have each volunteer leader do the same with his group. If anyone has spotted a suspicious person, have them report here immediately.”

“What—”

“There will be time to ask questions later,” Takeru cut him off. “Go!”

“Yes, Matsuda-dono.” The man set down the beam he had been lifting and ran.

“What is going on?” Setsuko asked as Misaki took Izumo from her sister-in-law and bounced him gently on her hip.

“There was an attempt on our lives,” Takeru said as Hiroshi and Nagasa gathered near the adults to listen curiously. “Neither of us is seriously hurt but we need to confirm that no one else in the village has been targeted.”

“What? Who tried to kill you?” Setsuko asked.

“The details are unimportant for the time being,” Takeru said. “For now, I’m just relieved that my family is safe.”

Misaki would have expected Setsuko to ask more questions, but the other woman had stopped, staring at Takeru. Evidently, she had noticed the change in him, the way his voice carried a modicum of emotion. Her expression of confusion turned to one of shock when Takeru stooped and picked up Nagasa.

To Misaki’s memory, Takeru had never held one of his children. Nagasa himself looked disoriented at suddenly finding himself so far from the ground.

“I’ve just been to see your brother, Nagasa-kun,” Takeru said.

“Mamoru?” Nagasa said in a small voice.

“Yes.”

Nagasa still looked profoundly confused. “Tou-sama... see Mamoru?”

“I did.”

“Where is he?” Nagasa asked, his hands clutching his father’s shoulder. “Where is Mamoru?”

“He’s in the Laaxara now,” Takeru said. “He promised that he wouldn’t come to bother you anymore. He wants his little brother to be able to sleep.”

“I can sleep?” It wasn’t clear if Nagasa completely grasped his father’s meaning, but the words seemed to calm him.

“You can sleep,” Takeru said and placed Nagasa back on his feet. “He also wanted me to remind you one other thing.” He took Nagasa’s little chin between his thumb and forefinger. “A warrior doesn’t cry.”

Nagasa nodded.

“Mamoru doesn’t want you to cry.” Takeru rested a hand on Nagasa’s head, ruffling the boy’s hair before turning to his second son.

“Hiroshi...”

“Yes, Tou-sama?”

Takeru studied his secondborn for a moment, the little boy who stood with enough tension in his shoulders to break an adult. He didn’t take Hiroshi into his arms—even as a little baby, Hiroshi had never much liked being held—but he knelt down to his eye level.

“I refused to teach Mamoru when he was your age. Did you know that?”

“No, Tou-sama.”

“I regret that now,” Takeru said evenly. “He was powerful, like only a Matsuda can be, and he needed a Matsuda to train him. You are the same, aren’t you?”

Hiroshi stared at his father for a moment and then, as if a terrible pain were bleeding out of him, breathed, “Yes, Tou-sama.”

“I can teach you to control this.” Takeru put his fingertips to Hiroshi’s chest. “This cold power that seems too big for your body. I can train you to control it and use it if you are ready. Your brother, Mamoru, your Uncle Takashi, and myself—we did not get proper training as small children. You are strong as we were, but I will make you stronger, if you are ready to learn from me. I will make you the strongest Matsuda who ever lived. Are you ready, Matsuda Hiroshi?”

“Yes, Tou-sama.”

“Then I will see you in the dojo tomorrow morning before the sun rises.”

Misaki watched in astonishment as the tension melted from Hiroshi’s shoulders. He still stood unnaturally straight for such a young boy, but he no longer looked like something in him might snap.

“Great Nagi, Misaki,” Setsuko whispered in Misaki’s ear, her eyes wide. “What did you do to that man?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Misaki said with a smile.

Setsuko’s eyes passed over Misaki’s tangled hair, her borrowed hakama, and the black sword at her hip. If she was able to infer what had happened, she didn’t pry. Instead, she lifted a hand and poked a finger into Misaki’s cheek—into her dimple.

“Welcome back, pretty girl.”

The men who had responded to the explosion returned shortly after. If they had thought that Takeru’s story was crazy, their doubt had disappeared as they discovered the bloody chunks of the littigi scattered across the mountainside, and they were now eager to hear the story recounted in more detail.

However, before Takeru could respond to their barrage of questions, Ameno Kentaro came scrambling back into the courtyard.

“Matsuda-dono!” he said and Misaki could see on his face that something was wrong.

“What is it?”

“We’re missing someone.”

“What? Who?”

“A child,” the man said, “a five-year-old girl named Ginkawa Yukimi.”

Yukimi was one of the children orphaned in the Ranganese attack. Her young father and younger uncles had died trying to hold the northern pass. Her mother, one of Yukino Dai’s cousins, had been hit by one of the bombs during the airstrike.

“Have everyone search their dwelling,” Takeru said. “Mobilize the men to fan out and search the mountain—only the men,” he added, “and only fighters. Blacksmiths, monks, and women are to remain in or near their own homes until we have confirmed that our assassin has no allies lurking on this mountain.”

“What about the girl’s parents?” one of the newer volunteers asked. “Where are they?”

“She has no parents,” Takeru said, “but she is family to all of us. Ginkawa Yukimi’s father died defending this village. Her mother was one of Lightning Dai’s cousins, from the same branch of the Yukino family as my own mother. This child is our blood. She belongs to all of us, and it is our responsibility to find her safe.”

“Do you think she was taken by the same person who set off the bomb?” one of the Ameno men asked. “Or do you think he had associates who took her?”

“I can’t say.” Takeru glanced for a moment toward Misaki, possibly thinking that she might have some idea, but she was as lost as he was.

What if the bomber hadn’t come alone? What if there were more littigiwu? She had a sudden, sickening image of a stranger putting on the face of Ginkawa Yukimi’s mother or father. If the tattooed man had watched and memorized Mamoru’s features, he had almost certainly done the same to other residents of Takayubi. Takeru and Misaki had nearly fallen for their attacker’s illusion; a traumatized five-year-old wouldn’t stand a chance.

“The person my wife and I encountered earlier used illusions to take the form of our son,” Takeru said. “My wife has experience with his type of sub-theonite. She will explain how to see through one of these illusions.”

Misaki told the men to watch for flickering or ripples of light, like those on the surface of water. “Be wary of anyone who doesn’t speak,” she added. “Littigiwu can’t imitate voices. As long as members of your search parties exchange words every time you cross paths, you should all be fine.”

As the men scrambled to organize a search, Takeru sent Setsuko to gather the women and children so that he could conduct a second count and Misaki could instruct all of them on seeing through a littigi’s illusions.

When all the men were gone, Takeru knelt outside the Matsuda compound and put his palms to the snow.

“What are you doing?” one of the women asked.

Takeru closed his eyes. “I’m going to find Ginkawa Yukimi.”

He stayed there, perfectly still, for nearly a waati, leaving Misaki to try to explain to confused villagers and volunteers what he was doing. Some of them looked skeptical, but none of them were willing to question Takeru’s abilities, however bizarre they might seem. When his eyes finally opened, he was frowning.

“Call the men back,” he said quietly.

“What? Why Matsuda-dono?”

“The intruders are no longer on the mountain, and neither is Ginkawa Yukimi.”

“What do you mean? Is she dead?”

Takeru shook his head. “I didn’t sense any bodies in the snow or in the lake, and if she was exposed—up on rocks—our scouts would have found her. She is no longer on the mountain.”

“So, someone just took her away?” one of the women asked, clutching her own little girl closer to her chest. “Why would anyone do that?”

Theories raced like flurries through the village through the rest of the evening. In the past week, the people of Takayubi had begun consolidating their food supplies in the wrecked remains of what had once been the Matsuda sitting room. Come spring, the half-room would not be structurally sound enough for occupation, but for the moment, Takeru’s ice reinforcements made it a decent cafeteria, with the icier half serving as a refrigeration unit while the wooden half, open to the rest of the village became a cooking area.

Every night, Misaki would gather a handful of women and they would cook together in a few large pots. With no electricity to run a grill or the single remaining rice cooker, it was more efficient to prepare the food for the whole village at once. Tonight an unprecedented number of women showed up to help with dinner, nearly half the women in Takayubi. Some came to talk. Some came for companionship. All made their hands busy helping.

“Do you think this is the government’s way of trying to intimidate us?” Mayumi asked, passing Misaki the ladle she had asked for.

“First, it’s dangerous to say things like that,” Misaki said. “You want to be careful about who hears you. And second, I really doubt it.”

“But Matsuda-dono, you were the one who suggested that the Emperor might send assassins—”

“I know,” Misaki said, “but there are certain tactics a tyrannical government uses to intimidate its subjects. For one thing, they like to make themselves known for what they are—soldiers in uniform, not foreigners in weird costumes. I also think that if this was an attempt at intimidation, the kidnappers would have taken a child with living parents. That’s what...” That was what the Yammankalu used to do to the Native Baxarians to keep them in line, but Misaki decided that she had spoken enough treason against the Empire without dragging their closest allies through the mud as well.

She shook her head. “If they wanted to maximize the psychological impact, they wouldn’t have chosen an orphan.”

“But she wasn’t just any orphan,” Fuyuhi protested, looking wounded. “She was a child of Takayubi, our blood. It’s as your husband said: she belonged to all of us.”

“But the government wouldn’t understand that,” Misaki said. She paused, midway through stirring the soup, a handful of spices poised above the bubbles. With the heat from the boiling water rushing over her skin, she remembered something Robin had said to her a long time ago, on that rooftop, when she had questioned whether the North Enders of Livingston were worth saving.

Everyone in this part of town has been oppressed or abandoned by theonite powers the rest of the world depends on. But they don’t give up. Instead, they’ve made a life and a culture here for themselves. It’s not perfect, but it’s worth protecting, even if the ruling theonites, and the politicians, and the police have all decided otherwise.

She had never expected to understand that part of Robin, never thought those words would make so much sense to her.

“Matsuda-dono?” Fuyuhi said. “Are you alright?”

“Fine.” Misaki opened her hand, dropping the spices into the soup. “Just remembering something...” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, you saw what Colonel Song and his men were like. The way our village works, the way we care for each other, is something they wouldn’t understand. This just doesn’t have the hallmarks of a government trying to scare its people into obedience.”

“Then do you think it’s the Ranganese?” Fuyuko asked.

“I don’t know,” Misaki said, “and I really don’t know why you ladies expect me to have all these answers. You know I’m a housewife, not a spy, right?”

Fuyuko shrugged. “You talk like one sometimes.”

“And a lot of the time, you’re right,” Hyori said.

Misaki shook her head. “My husband and the other men will keep doing everything in their power to find out. In the meantime, all we can do is keep each other safe.”

Yukimi’s disappearance had the effect of making the village pull closer together. In another town, a missing orphan might have gone unnoticed, but this was Takayubi, and the loss reverberated through every parent and every home. Kotetsu Katashi and his children fashioned a set of standing torches, which the koronu then placed throughout the village to keep the space illuminated through the night, hopefully discouraging intruders. Mizumaki Fuyuko and two volunteers moved into the orphanage to make sure there were extra eyes on the children, a pair of Ameno men climbed to the Kumono temple to guard the monks who had taken up residence there, and sleep schedules were rearranged to ensure that at least three people were on watch at different stations throughout the village at all times. Except for the few men Takeru sent to inquire after Yukimi in the nearest fishing towns, everyone—residents and volunteers alike—stayed in or near the village.

Misaki had not known Ginkawa Yukimi or her parents, but she still felt an ache for the little girl as she put her own children to bed. Everyone in the village felt it—like the failure belonged to all of them.

When Misaki slid open the door to the bedroom, she found Takeru kneeling on the tatami, his back to her.

“Sorry,” she whispered, recognizing the stillness of meditation. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“It’s alright,” he said. “She’s gone.” He shook his head and turned to Misaki, his face looking hollow and tired in the lantern light. “There’s no point.”

“You’ve kept trying to find her this whole time?”

“I promised you that I would keep all of us safe.”

“You did everything you could,” Misaki said softly. “No one could have predicted this.”

Kneeling before the wooden plank that now served as her dressing table, Misaki pulled the pins from her hair and let it down over her shoulders.

“So, you haven’t had any ideas about what might have happened?” Takeru asked as she ran her fingers back through her hair, easing the tension from her scalp.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Takeru-sama.”

“Who is Kalleyso?”

That question made Misaki pause, her fingers still in her hair. “Sorry?”

“You asked the littigi about someone called Kalleyso,” Takeru said. “The name sounds familiar.”

“You probably heard it on the TV at some point. He’s a Livingston crime lord. He was well known in Carytha when I was—when I was a teenager. His followers wore gray robes, but they never had facial tattoos... or voice-activated bombs.”

“But you thought to ask about him almost immediately,” Takeru said. “What business would a local crime lord from the other side of the world have with Takayubi?”

“Well, it’s possible that it’s not Takayubi he has business with.” Misaki’s fingers slid to the end of her hair to fiddle with a knot there. “It’s me.”

“Why?” Takeru asked. “What is your relationship to this crime lord?”

Gathering a breath, Misaki turned from her makeshift dressing table to face her husband. “I spent my final year at Daybreak Academy fighting him.”

“What?”

“Well—not directly fighting,” she amended, fingers working at the knot in her hair. “I think we only had the one physical confrontation. Mostly, my school friends and I fought his followers and tried to prevent him from overrunning Livingston’s other gangs.”

Takeru blinked at her with the blank look of a man absolutely oversaturated with new experiences for the day. He had been assaulted by his own subconscious, his wife, an illusionist, and a bomb all within the past twenty waatinu—that was to say nothing of all the talking he had done, which had to be taxing for a person who was most comfortable in the silence of his study or dojo. He was probably at the end of strange things he could absorb.

“It’s probably not important,” Misaki sighed. “Kalleyso was the first suspect who came to mind when I saw the gray cloak, but the rest doesn’t add up. Sekhmet—Kalleyso—shouldn’t even know my real identity. The only time we fought, we were both masked.”

“You fought this person?”

“Not very successfully. He threw me off a building.”

“You were... a crime-fighter?” Takeru said.

“Assistant crime-fighter,” Misaki said. “My friends did most of the work.”

“Your friends.”

“Yes. Um… you’ve met one of them actually.” Misaki looked into her lap, not meeting Takeru’s eyes.

“The boy who came here for you,” Takeru said. “Robin Thundyil.”

Misaki winced. “Yes.” Her shoulders tensed but Takeru didn’t comment further on Robin.

“I thought you had just trained in the sword with your father,” he said instead. “I didn’t realize your practical experience went so far.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” Misaki said, too tired to hide her annoyance but also too tired to muster genuine anger. “You told me never to speak about my time at Daybreak Academy.”

“Ah, yes. I think… given the circumstances, we might revisit that order.”

“Why did you do that?” she asked before she could stop herself. She wasn’t sure if she was pushing her luck. She was unfamiliar with this new Takeru and how far his patience with her would extend, but it hurt, and she had to ask. “Why wouldn’t you let me talk about my past?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured, stern eyes studying her in the lantern light. “Perhaps I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I don’t know.”

“My mother... whenever she talked about her life before us, it would make her sad... or angry.”

Misaki didn’t think she had ever heard Takeru speak about his mother. He looked troubled.

“Are you alright, Takeru-sama?”

“Just tired.”

“You should get to sleep then,” she said. “Remember, you promised to train Hiroshi before dawn.”

“Oh.” A vaguely miserable expression crossed Takeru’s face. “That’s right.” He paused for a moment, frowning at the opposite wall. “He really killed a man with your sword?”

“Yes.” Misaki looked at the floor. “I wish he hadn’t—things had gotten out of hand. I’m sorry—”

“You’re not the one who should be sorry. I should have been there to protect all of you. And even without me there, you had no reason to think a five-year-old would leave the safety of his hiding place to join the killing. No normal five-year-old would attempt that, let alone succeed. It’s not your fault that boy turned out too much like me.”

“Like you?”

“Not completely human. I think it can be dangerous, mixing powerful bloodlines the way we do in this family. Breed too strong and offspring start to become less like humans, more like gods.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Misaki asked. “To bring out that precious gods’ blood, make the strongest offspring we can?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s dangerous—for the children and their mothers. I’m only thankful that Hiroshi didn’t kill you.”

“What?”

“Not with the sword,” Takeru clarified. “Before that…”

“Takeru-sama, what are you talking about?”

He stared off somewhere she couldn’t see, the ripples of lantern light accentuating the circles under his eyes. “You know. Even a strong woman doesn’t fare well trying to birth a god.”

“I’m not following, Takeru-sama.”

“My mother, Yukino Tatsuki, was an uncannily powerful jijaka. Of course, as a woman, she did not have much occasion to use her jiya on a large scale, but... I do remember that she could clear the courtyard of snow with barely the wave of her hand. The women talked about a time a small child fell in the river and was pulled under by the current. Before the boy’s mother could dive in after him, my own mother lifted the river, placing him back on the bank.”

“Great Nami, Takeru-sama,” Misaki said jokingly. “You’re making me feel very inadequate.”

“No.” Takeru shook his head. “It can be a mistake, I think, to marry Matsudas and Yukinos. Creatures of such great power—the same sort of power—can have disastrous results.”

“But your father wasn’t—” Misaki stopped herself before the disrespectful comment could pass her lips. This new practice of conversing honestly with her husband might have confused her sense of propriety, but she had to remember that this was Takeru she was talking to. She couldn’t speak ill of Matsuda Susumu.

“My father was not a master of the Whispering Blade,” Takeru conceded, clearly knowing what she had meant to say, but he didn’t seem angry, “nor did he ever achieve greatness as a jijaka, but he still carried the blood of the Matsuda line. Paired with my mother’s power, that produced offspring so unnaturally powerful that even she struggled to carry them—carry us.”

Takeru looked down, a shadow of guilt touching his features. “It almost seems that human limitation resists our existence, that maybe… the Gods are the sort of parents who do not wish their descendants to exceed them.”

Misaki studied her husband for a moment. She had traced the lines of his perfect face so many times, wondering if there was really human flesh and blood to him, when he seemed like a creature sculpted by the Gods from pure winter. She had never thought to wonder how strange it would feel to be that creature, to know what a bizarre creation you were.

“I’m told that Takashi-nii-sama’s birth left my mother weakened and sick. My birth nearly killed her, leaving her bedridden for a year. She miscarried late in her third pregnancy, while I was still very young. She might have been alright after that, but my father insisted they try again. She died a few months into that fourth pregnancy.”

“I’m sorry, Takeru-sama. I didn’t know any of that.”

All anyone had told Misaki of her mother-in-law was that she had died of a persistent illness. She hadn’t realized that miscarriages and death were commonplace in the Matsuda household. She wondered if her father had known. If he had known, would he have married her to this house? She shoved those thoughts away. It didn’t matter. It was all done now. It had been done many years ago. And Misaki was still alive in this moment with her husband. That was all that mattered.

“We didn’t talk about it,” Takeru said. “If Takashi or I mentioned it—if we talked about our mother—Tou-sama would beat us.”

This too was a new thought to Misaki. For years, she had viewed Matsuda Susumu as her tyrant; she never really considered what Takeru and Takashi would have suffered as his sons. And she had never thought to be thankful that neither of the brothers had carried on their father’s violent tendencies.

The instances in which Takeru had raised a hand to Mamoru were few. Perhaps there had just been the once—that strange day Mamoru had called into question his Empire and everything he lived by. Of course, there was the dojo, where Takeru would hit Mamoru’s side or his knuckles in training, when he left an opening, when there was a lesson to be learned. But Takashi and Takeru had learned their superior swordplay from their grandfather, Matsuda Mizudori. Susumu had never had any lessons for them. Only resentment.

“I think,” Takeru said very slowly, “he was not a good father. He was certainly not a good husband.”

Misaki looked at Takeru in complete shock.

“What is it?” he asked, seeing her eyes go wide.

“I just... I don’t think I’ve ever heard you criticize your father.”

She hadn’t intended the look of shame that crossed his face. “I shouldn’t disrespect him. I know. But...”

“But?”

“He hurt my mother.”

That was no surprise to Misaki, especially if Takeru’s mother had been as powerful as he described. If there was one thing Susumu had hated over anything else, it was being reminded of his own inadequacy.

“She hit him as well,” Takeru continued slowly, as if reaching far back into his memory for things he had probably never articulated, things he had probably tried to forget. “They were always fighting. With other people, my mother was alright, she was a kind person, but she and my father could never agree on anything, and they made each other miserable. If he spoke to her, he was yelling. If she spoke to him, she was crying. Takashi-nii-sama told me much later that she had a wonderful smile.” He shook his head. “I have no memory of her smiling.”

“I’m sorry,” Misaki said quietly. “I didn’t know.” But why was he telling her this now? He seemed so tired. Surely, he had dredged up enough pain for one day.

“It was obvious when you married me that you didn’t want to be here,” Takeru said, “so I tried to keep a respectful distance from you. I was certain that if you spoke about your life before coming here and all you left behind, that we would fight.”

He was right. If Misaki had let herself dwell on Livingston and Robin, let herself speak about it, she would have fought him. But would that really have been such a bad thing? Would it have been worse than fifteen years of utter loneliness?

“I didn’t want things between us to be like they were between my parents,” Takeru said. “I didn’t want our sons to grow up as I did… not quite human.”

As Misaki looked at her husband in the lantern light, everything started to make sense. Takeru had never witnessed a marriage without violence. He had been trying to keep them from that the only way he knew how. With silence. In a twisted way, it all made sense.

“When you first miscarried, I was worried that you were heading toward the same fate as my mother. I thought that I was killing you.”

“But you didn’t,” Misaki said, at once touched and confused by the idea that Takeru would blame himself for the weakness of her body. “That was my failure, not yours.”

“Not a failure,” Takeru said. “You’re still alive.”

“I...” Misaki blinked. “I lost your children.”

“As I explained, that is common among Matsuda wives. It is less common for a woman to miscarry even once and survive. You must have been protected by the Gods… or perhaps by the blood magic that gives your family such strength. Perhaps your subconscious blood manipulation purged your dangerous offspring before the pregnancy could kill you both.”

“You think I killed your children,” Misaki said, “like your father always said.”

“I think you saved my wife,” Takeru said. “Your Tsusano blood helped you survive where my mother could not. In that way, I suppose, our fathers made us a good match.”

Misaki breathed out with a twisted smile. “That’s a bit morbid, Takeru-sama.”

Takeru didn’t return the smile. He was still wearing the pained, repentant expression that was so new to Misaki, so hard to look at, even if it was long overdue.

“I knew you were in pain after losing those children,” he said, “the way my mother was in pain before she died. But I admit, to my shame, that I didn’t know what to do. I still don’t...”

“You’re speaking to me,” Misaki said. “All I wanted then was for you to speak to me, so I wouldn’t be alone.”

Takeru shook his head. “I thought that if I tried to put myself close to you, you would push me away. I thought that if I spoke to you, it would turn into a fight.”

“But there are worse things than fighting,” Misaki said. “I like a bit of fighting. It’s silence I can’t stand.”

“Then I am the worst husband in Kaigen.”

“No...” Misaki said softly, “I could have broken the silence too.” She just hadn’t had the courage.

So much of her anger had spawned from Takeru treating her like a doll, but she hadn’t been much better. She had treated him like a human-shaped mass of ice without considering that there might be entirely human reasons that ice had formed.

“I’m sorry I left you in silence all this time,” Takeru said. “I don’t know if I understand it... but I am glad we fought today.”

Misaki nodded. “Me too.”

Men like Matsuda Takeru the First existed only in legends, because of course, there were no real men who could end the troubles of a kingdom with a stroke of the sword. Misaki and Takeru’s fight hadn’t magically imbued them with love and understanding. It didn’t heal the pain of Mamoru’s absence. But it was something, like the beginnings of a scab. It was the first sign that things could get better.

When Misaki and Takeru lay down on their futon together, a wave of their cold extinguished the flame in the lantern, leaving only the gray-blue mix of moonlight and shadows. The darkness didn’t threaten nightmares now that Misaki was no longer alone in it. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world when Takeru moved to touch her—then he paused.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“You hate it when I touch you,” he said—not an accusation but a simple fact. “You’ve always hated it.”

Misaki didn’t try to deny it.

She didn’t know if she could make herself like his touch, but she leaned in and brushed her cheek against his fingers. Then she reached out and held him. Cold. But what did that matter? So was she. Nestling closer, she rested her head on his shoulder. He would never have that hot spark that set her desire to a boil, but when she closed her eyes, no nightmares came.

In her husband’s embrace, wrapped in the sound of his steady breathing, she slept soundly for the first time in a month.