十八Part 18 (Knife)

The next day was choked with rain, though it did little to slow Shichi and Chiyo’s course. The kitsune looked fairly pathetic as she settled down beneath the ledge of rock they had chosen to rest beneath. Her fur was matted, dripping behind her bitter frown. Rain continued to pour outside of the ledge, but for the moment they were shielded from the storm. Shichi sorted through the satchel, knitting his brow in disappointment.

“We’re running low on soy,” he said, examining the last handful of dried soybeans that Kumi had given them.

“Oh no.” Chiyo slumped onto her side. “What will we do without a cache of flavorless vegetables?”

Shichi ignored her tone and passed her a few carrots; hopefully eating would make her speak less.

“Tengu monks need it this time of year,” he said.

“What for?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Shichi replied, not in the mood to explain the instinctual drives of his people or the libido-stifling qualities of the bean. He ate them one at a time as he listened to the rain. It fell in a light patter over the surrounding trees, deceptively cheerful for the dead of winter.

“I’m probably twice as old as you,” she said as she gnawed the carrot between her paws. He could hear her teeth crunching around the crisp orange flesh. It seemed that she wasn’t used to eating raw carrots, and the kitsune grunted as she swallowed in unseemly chunks.

“For some reason, that makes me sad.”

Shichi quickly finished eating, resisting the urge to have just a bit more. He still lacked any kind of currency and wasn’t sure how much longer their provisions would last. If Chiyo complained about their options now, he certainly didn’t want to hear her thoughts on eating tree bark.

“We’d better keep going.” He hung the bag over his shoulder. “Our day is up and it won’t take him long to catch up to us.”

“So why is this guy after you, anyway?” Chiyo asked as she reclaimed her position around his neck.

“I made a mistake,” he said, leaving the shelter of the rock ledge to continue their trek. “I angered someone enough to put a price on my head. Zaisei took the challenge.”

“A bounty? Doesn’t that mean others might be after you, too?”

“I really don’t want to think about that right now.”

“So, how exactly did you anger this person?” She flopped her tails absently. The wet fur batted the side of his face and he swatted it away with a sigh.

“You’re asking an awful lot of questions today.”

“Fine,” she said. “You ask me something.”

“ . . . where do you keep your possessions in your fox form?”

“Okay, no more questions.”

“That’s what I—” Shichi started to say, but was cut off by the swish of a knife. It flew past his face, snapping into a tree trunk with a hollow thunk. He stumbled backward, his staff rattling as he clutched it with both hands. Before he could regain his balance, Chiyo jumped down to the cold ground, her teeth bared toward the tree line. A snarl bubbled low in her throat, rising as the fur on her shoulders bristled. A moment later, Zaisei showed himself.

“I’m not after you, kitsune,” he said with a smile, pulling another knife from the strap across his chest. “Run along.”

Chiyo responded with a snap of her jaws, keeping herself positioned between Shichi and the hunter. The rain hadn’t stopped, wetting her flared white fur and dripping off of her nose. The tengu wondered what she hoped to accomplish—despite her ferocity, her fox form was rather small.

A different, deeper growl broke into the clearing as Bou caught up, announcing his presence with a gravelly bark. In an instant, Chiyo dropped her ears, darting behind the tengu’s feet. Her eyes were white, trembling saucers, staring between his legs in disbelief.

“A dog?” Her tails swelled in size as her fur puffed. “You didn’t tell me he had a dog!”

Bou barked once more, his black lips curling over his teeth. The kitsune couldn’t take anymore, shaking as she ran off between the trees. The dog gave chase, his paws kicking up dirt as he ran after the terrified fox. Shichi looked after them, but his attention was drawn back by the hunter’s voice.

“Finally, some privacy.” Zaisei’s feet moved over the earth in slow, deliberate steps. “So tell me, little bird . . . how long did you think you could run from me? Forever?”

“As long as it takes,” Shichi said, positioning his staff with both hands.

“Sounds miserable,” Zaisei said. The hunter had barely finished his last word when his smile dropped. He covered the space between them in an instant, lunging at the tengu with a knife in each hand. Shichi took a quick step backward, knocking aside each swipe with the shaft of his shakujo. Zaisei didn’t waste a moment attacking once more, backing the tengu up against a tree with each arc of his blades. Shichi dodged, letting two lashes of steel slice into the skin of the tree. Slivers of bark fluttered down as the tengu sidestepped, panting as he attempted to keep up with Zaisei’s astonishing speed. The human was fast—he wasn’t, however, as fast as Sagiri.

The song of metal on wood rang throughout the forest as they fought. Shichi struggled to keep up, noticing that the hunter was barely winded. Even if he could maintain his endurance, Shichi wouldn’t be able to take the man down without a different strategy. Parting his feet, he flipped the length of the staff, allowing the rings to clank as they aimed toward the human. Rain continued to patter over their bodies, falling off of the iron head in droplets.

Shichi stood waiting, eyeing his opponent as they both caught their breath. There was a frightening gleam across the hunter’s features. Shichi tensed; he had seen that look of delight in the man’s eyes before. Zaisei’s body dipped low, his fingers tightening hard enough to crack his joints. He grinned, then lunged.

There was a whack as Shichi’s staff met the human’s throat, robbing him of breath. Zaisei gagged, doubling over to clutch the red mark across his neck. Only a moment later, the staff swept forward once more, the metal rings meeting his face with a brazen crack. Shichi cringed as the hunter toppled backward onto the forest floor. He hadn’t expected the impact to be so loud, nor had he thought there would be so much blood. Red poured from the human’s nose, dripping down over his lips and unshaven chin. Oddly enough, the look of elation on Zaisei’s face remained. His smirk dropped, however, the moment he looked up.

Shichi’s hands were trembling on the staff. It was not the fight that he feared, but the thought of causing harm once more. Each strike to the human had been a strike on himself, leaving his heart aching with shame. The rings of a shakujo were a powerful tool in battle, commonly used for blinding one’s opponent with a strike to the face. He had always hoped he would never have to use them.

“Please, stop this.” Shichi held his position, resisting the urge to step backward. “Let me be.”

This drew a gritty chuckle from the hunter. He pulled himself to his feet, spitting out the blood that had settled on his lower lip. The smile returned as his eyes locked on the tengu before him. Something seemed to snap in the human’s gaze—something that unsettled Shichi to his core.

In a flash of steel, Zaisei attacked. His body moved faster than Shichi could follow, his knife no more than a glint in the air. The swipes came one after another. Only a few were parried before the blade found skin, sending a splatter of blood onto a nearby tree. The cut ran across the back of Shichi’s hand, painful enough to loosen his grip on the staff. The falter lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough for Zaisei to swipe his elbow upward, knocking the tengu hard between the eyes. Shichi’s vision flashed. The trees, the sheen of metal, the hunter, they all blurred together under the sting in his skull.

Before he could gather himself, Shichi was thrown to the ground, pinned on his stomach by the hunter’s weight. His arm had been twisted behind his back—Zaisei’s grip was tight enough to cut circulation, causing Shichi’s hand to throb with pressure. Just as he began to struggle, his eyes snapped open.

The knife had sunk deep into his side, slipped neatly between two ribs. Shichi shuddered, his mouth dry as he felt the tip of the blade inch further into him. His breath caught in his throat, choking out in a faint gasp. He could only stare forward, his vision white with the burn of pain.

It was then that the tengu realized the extent of the hunter’s skill. The knife had been placed quite precisely, not piercing any vital organs, yet deep enough to paralyze him. It would only take a simple turn of the wrist to end his life. The decision, the power—it all lay in Zaisei’s whims.

“Thank you for the hunt,” the human whispered against his ear. “But I’m afraid it ends here.”

Shichi closed his eyes. Every breath stung; the expansion of his chest let the blade caress his insides. He dared not move, fighting his own body’s shivers as the hunter’s weight pressed harder on his back.

Master, he thought, barely able to put words together. You were wrong. I wasn’t ready.

Just as the thought began to fade, a roar filled the air. The pressure left as Zaisei was thrown to the ground, throttled by a great white figure. The knife remained steady in Shichi’s side as he turned to watch, staring in disbelief at the spectacle before him.

The hunter was wrestling with a beast, a flurry of gnashing teeth and fur. It was enormous—the size of a tiger with fangs twice as long. Powerful jaws tore at the human’s body, ripping cloth and hair alike. It was only when he saw three long, silver tails that Shichi realized what he was seeing.

It was Chiyo.

Her body, normally an unassuming ball of white tufts, had grown tremendously in size. Muscle wrapped along her limbs, tightened beneath a coat of long, flowing fur. Her eyes glowed with vicious intent, narrow and lined with crimson. Zaisei had left several long cuts along her body, but they went ignored as she pinned him by the arms. He trembled with effort, only pausing at the sight of blood on her gums. The red liquid stained her teeth, dripping onto his chest as she snarled.

“ . . . where’s Bou?” the hunter said, locking his sight on her fangs.

“Why don’t you go find out?” she said, her voice low and reverberating.

Forgetting himself, Zaisei scrambled from beneath her, rushing toward the edge of the clearing. She let him go, following his motions with narrowed, twitching eyes.

“I’m not finished with you.” The hunter wiped his arm across his mouth before hurrying off into the woods.

Once they were alone, the kitsune’s breathing slowed. She tore her eyes from the trees, turning her attention to the tengu.

“Chiyo,” he said as she approached, barely able to believe it was truly her. She didn’t speak, only nudging the side of his face with her nose. Hesitantly, he lifted his hand, touching her muzzle with his palm.

“Stronger than you look, huh?” he said, smoothing back the fur behind her long, pointed ears. Silently, she glanced down, her eyes falling on the knife in his side.

“It’s all right.” He gingerly wrapped his fingers around the handle. Taking in a deep breath, he tugged the blade from his flesh, letting it drop to the ground with a clatter. He worked quickly to stop the bleeding, applying pressure with the cloth of his shirt. “It didn’t hit anything vital.”

It was then that his eyes caught the number of gashes running over her body, left by the hunter in his desperate attempt at defense. They ran over her limbs and chest, slowly staining her fur a deep red. Guilt crept through him, realizing that it had all happened for his sake.

Once again, the rock ledge provided them shelter from the winter rain. Upon reaching safety, the kitsune returned to her normal form. She remained silent, limping into his lap once he had bandaged his wound. He immediately began to tend her, removing Kana’s ribbon from his wrist to wrap a deep cut on her leg. She closed her eyes, simply breathing as he used moss and rainwater to clean and poultice the damage.

“Chiyo,” he said, his tone soft as he wrapped her paw. “I don’t want you traveling with me anymore.”

“Why?” she asked, barely audible over the sound of the rain. Her presence in her normal form was quite different, to say the least. He still found it hard to believe that the tiny fox in his lap could have been so monstrous.

“You know why.”

“Because it’s dangerous?” She looked up at him with a grin. “That’s more of a reason to stay. Don’t worry—I’ll protect you.”

“I don’t want you to protect me,” he mumbled, fastening the bandage with a tuck and a knot. Chiyo snorted in response.

“You’re really making it easy for this guy, aren’t you?”

“Chiyo . . .” He sighed, covering his eyes with his hand. He shouldn’t have let her come; he knew that it would be dangerous. His sole intent was to help others—to make up for the pain he had caused and the lives that had ended for his sake. Now it was happening all over again. Someone had cared for him, and they were suffering because of it.

“All right.” He shook his head. “Let’s get some rest, then. You need time to heal.”

“I’m fine,” she said with a yawn. “You’re the one who needs rest.”

By the time the moon rose, the rain had stopped. Shichi had not slept, only watching the forest beyond the ledge and waiting for the kitsune’s breath to slow. Carefully, he eased her onto the ground. Her exhaustion had ensured a deep, consuming sleep, keeping her from waking as he shifted to his knees. Silently, he gathered his bag and staff, grasping the rings to keep them from chiming.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, leaving a few vegetables at her side so that she might have some breakfast. “I know you don’t like to be alone.”

He gave her one last look, ignoring the ache in his chest as he slipped out into the woods. He walked on, reminding himself that whatever fate Zaisei would bestow upon him, he would have to face it himself.