Storm

“I agree,” the headmaster said, leaning forward and resting his folded hands on his desk. “But part of growing up is learning there are consequences to your actions.”

Tomo’s dad nodded like he approved, but he kept sneaking peeks at his watch.

Yoshinoma let out a slow, whistling breath between his teeth. “To be honest, some of the teachers have called for expulsion.”

A small gasp escaped Tomo’s lips, his eyes round and horrified.

Tomo’s father wasn’t checking his watch anymore. “Yoshinoma-sensei!”

Yoshinoma’s voice was grave and monotone. “This isn’t the first time he’s caused trouble. He’s been in many fights since his first year.”

Tomo’s father blurted out, “Because his mother passed away, and...”

“That was seven years ago, Yuu-san. And there have been rumors that he fathered a child with a girl from Kibohan Senior High. Is that the kind of student we want to represent our school?”

So, the Shiori rumor had reached the teachers, too. Tomo clenched his hands into tighter fists as his father’s face went white. “That’s not true,” he said, looking down until his chin pressed against the knot of his uniform tie.

I could remember it now, when that knot had been loosened around his neck, his top button undone. Tomo looking up at the wagtail birds as he spread out on the warm field of Toro Iseki, when I’d first stumbled on his secret drawing place. I wanted to take his hand in mine, to pull him to his feet and run back there where we were safe, where no one could reach us. Where we could fly.

Yoshinoma sighed. “Even so, your friend Ishikawa Satoshi was shot this summer, Tomohiro. Yuu-san, do you know what kind of life your boy is up to?”

I looked away from Tomo’s dad, frightened of the emotions he tried to rein back on his face. His voice came out shakily. “Kouchou, I assure you, Tomo is not involved in the way Ishikawa is derailing his life.”

“However,” the headmaster continued, “Yuu scored the highest out of the Third Year boys in the first term exams. And he’s earning quite the spotlight for himself in kendo. It’s good for our school to gain such national recognition.” He cleared his throat. “So I am going to override the teachers and ask Tomohiro to stay at Suntaba.”

The relief washed through me, and I let out a breath I hadn’t even known I was holding. Tomo’s dad bowed his head to the headmaster.

“He will have to be suspended, of course. You understand this cannot go without punishment.”

“Of course,” Tomo’s dad mumbled.

“One month, Tomohiro,” Yoshinoma said, and I flinched. A month?

“But his entrance exams,” Tomo’s dad protested.

“He will have to spend the effort at home if he hopes to pass them when he returns. This was a serious offence to this school, Yuu-san. And a month will give him time to refocus on his work and forget any distractions.”

Oh. They wanted to separate us, thinking that time apart would make us grow apart. I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. It wouldn’t work. They couldn’t stop us. We were something greater together than they could ever understand.

Tomo’s face was blank, unreadable. “What about kendo practices?”

“You’ll be back in time for the serious training for the tournament, Tomo. But in the meantime, Watanabe-sensei and Nishimura-sensei have recommended you do your exercises at home. They don’t want you to be out of shape when you return.”

“And for Katie?” Diane said. Her hand was still on my arm, and she squeezed it to reassure me. I was glad she was there with me. Even if she lectured me later, I knew she loved me. Did Tomo feel that way about his dad? They seemed so distant as they sat side by side, as if they were worlds apart, as if they couldn’t really see each other at all.

“Katie hasn’t given the school any other trouble,” Yoshinoma said, “and we believe she was likely dragged into this. She—I apologize, but—she lacks the skill to have written those kanji on the chalkboards.”

My own illiteracy had saved me. I guess I should’ve felt relieved, but mostly I just felt annoyed.

“We just think it best that she be...separated from Tomohiro for a while, so they can both refocus on their futures.”

There it was again, that patronizing we-know-what’s-best jab. You’re just kids. You don’t know what love is. You’re blind. You’re wrecking your own futures.

We bowed to Yoshinoma-sensei and parted in the hallway. I tried to catch Tomo’s eye, but he didn’t look up. He just stiffly followed his father out of the school. It didn’t matter, though. I could feel his thoughts as if they were my own.

They didn’t know us, not at all. They didn’t understand what we had. We belonged together. What I felt was real, and I felt it with every fiber of my being.

They couldn’t break us. Nothing could.

The dream began with a soft sigh, a whispering sound in the distance like the swell of the ocean. I’d seen glimpses of the edge of the sea that lapped against Japan, once in Miyajima with Yuki, and once looking over Suruga Bay with Tomo. But long ago, Mom and I had visited the shore of the Atlantic when we’d traveled to see friends in Maine. The sun had beamed down on the water, glistening so brightly that I’d had to squeeze my eyes shut, to make the scene almost vanish completely in order to see it at all.

“Look at that, Katie,” she’d said with a smile. “Stretching on like it has no end. Sparkling and full of life.” It had looked limitless and inspiring, warm and vibrant and blue.

This ocean was nothing like that one. It was dull and opaque, gray-tinged as the shore came into view. It looked as if it bordered on nothing—limitless—but the idea was frightening, like the whole world had drowned. There was nothing left but this earthy coast I stood upon, the sand gritty and sharp against my bare feet.

I was dreaming, I realized. The vague feeling that something wasn’t quite right overwhelmed me, like I was squinting to see the whole picture.

Everything was pallor and faded. The shore behind me seemed to stretch on for miles, but I knew it was the last refuge of earth—the seas were empty and void. The land was gone.

I began to walk along the shore. The sighs carried across the waves toward me, whispering in discord, some voices carrying so that I could almost make out the sound of them. Almost, but never quite.

Wreckage lay along the shore, pieces of bent wood that once curved around the bow of a ship, nails stuck into them that no longer attached to anything but air. A cracked turtle shell, belly-up, with kanji carved into it. The waves lapped through it like a tunnel, spilling through the other side like a fountain. Pieces from a distant storm, scraps that had lost meaning.

A bright orange torii appeared from the shadow, the Shinto gateway towering above as though the grayness had just lifted away and left color in its place. The sighs were louder now, except they sounded mournful, like wailing.

I wasn’t alone in this strange place. Someone was crying.

I fought the urge to run. Fear prickled down my spine; I didn’t want to disturb whoever it was. I didn’t want to be involved.

I turned my head to look back at the shore I’d walked along.

A beast stood in the shadows, his angular ears pressed tightly against his head. His eyes gleamed with a ghostly green.

A wolf. No, an inugami, the vengeful wolf demons that hunted Tomo, that had mauled his friend Koji and nearly cost him his eye. The inugami crouched, watching me, a challenge in his eyes.

I couldn’t go back, so I turned once again to the bright orange torii. The grains of sand stuck to my soles as I walked, miniature daggers that pricked me with their warnings.

“Machinasai,” a voice said, ordering me to wait. I stopped.

I heard the sound of fabric scraping over sand, and looked to my right. She wore a kimono of gold embroidered with elaborate phoenixes, an obi red as blood wrapped tightly around her waist.

Amaterasu, the kami of the sun. She looked like she had in the clearing with Tomo and Jun, but different somehow. Larger, more real. She exuded power about her. She smiled, and yet somehow it was terrifying.

Her headdress of beads jingled as she tilted her head, speaking in a haunting voice that seemed to echo in the vast and empty space. It sounded like Japanese, but I couldn’t make sense of it. Her speech was too formal, too ancient.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

“I have tried to speak to you for so long,” she said, “that my voice is dry from effort.” She was speaking modern Japanese now, graciously but with a subtle distaste, like someone who pretends to be glad to accept a gift they already have.

“Who’s crying?” I asked, looking toward the gateway.

“The kami have need of tears,” she said. “We have cried so long that we have drowned the world.”

I tried to grasp the questions I’d had when I was awake. It was my chance to ask, but my head was hazy from sleep, barely able to remember the real world or the fact that I was dreaming.

“Tsukiyomi,” I managed. Was that it? It didn’t sound quite right asleep. “How can I stop him?”

“Tomohiro is the heir of calamity.”

“What can I do?”

“There is no hope for you,” she said, like she had said over and over to him. “There is nothing to be done.”

I looked over toward the torii, toward the back of a figure on her knees in the sand. She wore a kimono of white, the black obi draped in an elaborate bow across her back, and her body shook with the quiet sobs.

I hesitated, watching for a moment.

“But Tsukiyomi,” I said. “Tsukiyomi is trying to take control of Tomo.”

Amaterasu tilted her head to the side, her eyes deep pools of blackness. “Tsukiyomi is dead. Long ago he left this world.”

I saw another figure beside the crying girl—a boy on the ground in front of her, slumped with a leg bent strangely to the side.

“The mirror has seen it,” Amaterasu said. “It cannot be undone.”

I stepped toward the girl and the boy, walking slowly as my bare feet slipped in the sharp sand.

The girl wore a furisode kimono, with long sleeves that draped over the body of the boy and into the sand, the ends of the soft white fabric stained with ink. The girl had tucked her arm under the boy’s neck, and his head lolled back unnaturally, his copper spikes speckled with sand.

My stomach twisted as I looked down at the familiar face.

“Tomo,” I breathed, falling to my knees in the sand. Trails of ink carved down his face and across the elaborate silver robes he wore, collecting in the fabric like pools of dark blood. His eyes were closed, his face expressionless as he rested in her arms.

The girl looked down as she wept. Her long black hair had come out of the coils she’d tied them in at the base of her neck, and they tumbled in a tangle over her face. She looked up to take a breath and I realized she, too, was Amaterasu. There were two of them. I looked past her to see the Amaterasu in gold, and she stood there, watching, as she clasped her hands on the rim of a huge bronze mirror that stretched from her hips to her feet. I’d seen that mirror before, the one she’d held up to Jun in the clearing to show him the truth of who he really was.

The girl let out another sob, and black tears ran down her cheeks. Tears made of ink. I reached a hand toward her.

“Katie!” a voice shouted. I jumped, frightened to be recognized in this strange world. I wanted to wake up. I pinched my arm, twisting the skin back and forth. I didn’t want to know any more. “Katie,” the voice said again, and the shadowy fog pulled back.

It was Jun, hunched over on one knee and adorned in broken armor, his face streaked with ink. He wore a helmet on his head with golden horns, but one had broken off in a jagged cut and lay in the sand and tangle of brush grass at his feet.

No, that wasn’t the horn in the sand. It was the wrong shape, too...too sharp.

It was a sword, stained dark on the blade.

My blood turned to ice. My world turned black.

“Katie,” Jun said quietly. “Gomen.” I’m sorry.

No. It can’t be.

“Abunai,” Jun warned. “Look.” I heard the sound of sand shifting under paws. I looked up to four pairs of glinting eyes, four mouths filled with sharp and angry teeth. Inugami had advanced while I was looking away; they’d found us. They growled and crouched low to the ground, ready to spring, ready to destroy us all.

I reached for Tomo, stroked my hand through the copper spikes of his bangs, the ink sticking to my fingertips.

This was the end of everything. I closed my eyes, unwilling to see any more.

The inugami pounced.

* * *

I screamed into the darkness of my room, so disoriented that I barely heard the slam of my door sliding into the wall as Diane stumbled in and threw her arms around me.

“It’s okay, hon, it’s okay,” she soothed as my scream turned into sobs. My arms burned like fire; I could still feel the wolf teeth sinking into my flesh, like I’d been torn to pieces. “It was just a dream,” she said, smoothing my hair as I tried to calm down. “It’s not real.”

But it had felt more real than anything I’d dreamed before. Were these the kind of nightmares Kami had? Did Tomo suffer with these every night?

I gasped in air, trying to focus on Diane so the room would stop spinning.

“Do you hear me, Katie? You’re safe. You’re okay.”

I nodded, wanting to believe her. My heart pounded so hard against my chest it ached. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the room, but Diane reached for my lamp and clicked it on, banishing the gray shores of the dream to the corners of my mind.

“Thank you,” I said, tears streaming down my face.

Diane frowned, her lips pursed together, her hair a disheveled mop on her head. “Was it about your mom?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” I wanted to forget everything. The sound of the lapping waves, the sharp grains of sand digging into my knees. The smell of inugami ripping into flesh...

“It’s probably the stress from all this school nonsense. Getting suspended when they don’t have proof he did it.” She shook her head. “They just want someone to blame.”

I smiled a little. If only it was just that. Diane was always on my side, no matter what. I was so glad to have her here with me.

“You must think I made a bad choice, but he’s not like that,” I said. “He’s not like that at all.”

“Well, you need to bring him here so I can meet him for myself, okay?”

I wrapped my arms around her tightly and she took a short breath. I’d startled her. “You can stay home today if you want,” she said. “No need to face school right away after that.”

“That’s okay. I think I’ll get up.” I didn’t want to risk going back to that dream, that world drowned in kami tears.

Diane stroked my hair for a bit and nodded. “I’ll start on breakfast,” she said. “Come on out when you’re ready.”

She slid my door shut, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed, pressing my feet against the cool tatami floor.

It had seemed so real. The mirror has seen it, Amaterasu said. Did she mean it would happen, no matter what?

That ancient sword that had lain at Jun’s side in the grass, the blade covered in ink. Did that mean Jun would... Would he kill Tomo?

Had he killed Hanchi?

I padded across the cold tatami and opened the drawer of my dresser, pulling out a pair of dark kneesocks and throwing them on the bed.

I didn’t want the ink to dictate my life. I wanted us to choose for ourselves. But were we really free to choose? Tomo had always said he didn’t have a choice.

It was just a dream, anyway. A frightening one, but nothing more.

I grabbed my navy uniform skirt and slid the drawer shut with a thud.

I hesitated, the dream still living vividly in the corners of my mind.

Amaterasu had said Tsukiyomi died long ago. That must mean there was a way to stop him. He had been stopped before.

I looked at my fingers, remembering the slick feel of the ink spreading through Tomo’s hair, pooling on his lifeless body...

I had to figure it out. I was running out of time.

* * *

I knew Tomo wouldn’t be at school, but it didn’t stop me from scanning all the students as they entered the front gates. They entered in groups, laughing and chatting through the chill of the crisp autumn morning. I tugged on the end of my fuzzy plaid scarf, my breath turning to fog in the air. It wasn’t like Tomo and I had any classes together, but knowing that he was at home, that he wasn’t welcome at school, made the crowded space seem empty.

“Katie!”

I turned, and saw Yuki darting toward me, clutching her book bag to her black wool coat. She pressed the bag against my stomach and I folded my hands around the handles without asking. Hands free, she grinned and leaned over, tugging at the kneesock that had coiled around her ankle on the way to school.

“I’m glad to see you here,” she said, straightening again. “I thought you might get suspended!”

I handed back her bag and she smiled. Our shoes crunched the momiji leaves that had fallen off the courtyard trees.

“I’m sorry,” I said, pressing the tips of my fingers together. “I should’ve called you to let you know how it went.”

She waved her hand back and forth and pursed her lips. “I know you’ve been busy,” she said. Truthfully, it wasn’t that. It was that I had so much on my mind I’d become forgetful about the people that mattered.

“I am really sorry,” I said, and her smile brightened. “I didn’t get in much trouble, which is fair because I didn’t do anything.”

“But Yuu-senpai,” she said. “I don’t see him here.”

“Ohayo!” Tanaka pressed his face between ours suddenly, and we jumped back, Yuki screaming as my book bag dropped to the ground.

Yuki sighed. “Tan-kun, you can’t go around terrorizing people on a Monday morning.”

“I’m only terrorizing my favorite people.” He grinned. Yuki shrunk into the coils of her scarf and looked away, her cheeks blazing.

I reached down for my book bag but someone else grabbed it before I could.

“Greene,” Ishikawa slurred. He scratched the back of his bleached-white hair with a hand, the other lazily extending my leather bag to me. “Just the person I wanted to see.”

“Ohayo,” I said, rolling my eyes. Morning. But part of me felt just a little relieved. If I couldn’t see Tomo, at least I could see his best friend. Ishikawa was in on the Kami secret now, and as long as he stayed away from the Yakuza for good, maybe he could be someone we could rely on.

His eyes gleamed. “It’s only my second week back. Did you miss me?”

“Not sure,” I said, pulling open the door to the school genkan. We squeezed past the dozens of students placing their outdoor shoes in the stacked cubbies. “Maybe if you go away again I can let you know.”

“Funny,” Ishikawa said. “But I won’t go away until you tell me what you’ve done with Yuuto. I called him five times yesterday, and he didn’t answer.”

“Five times?” Yuki said.

I swore Ishikawa’s cheeks tinged pink as he offered her a sour smirk. “So? I worry when my sparring partner doesn’t show up for practice. Especially after a nasty prank has been played on him.” His eyes caught mine, and I knew what he was really asking. Was the ink his fault? What had happened with Jun? But it wasn’t safe to talk about it here.

“He’s been suspended,” I said. “For a month.”

Ishikawa’s eyes widened. “Ee”? He reached down and pulled a shoe off, even though the Third Year cubbies were on the other side of the room. “A month? Do you know how out of shape that shrimp is going to get in a month? He’ll lose the nationals!”

“Suntaba’s never placed in the nationals,” Tanaka said. He tapped his toes against the floor to fit on his school slippers. “That’s nothing new.”

“Yeah, but this is Yuuto we’re talking about,” Ishikawa said. “I want to see him beat Takahashi to a pulp.” But he kept looking at me, and I knew he wasn’t talking about kendo.

“You should be careful, too, Ishikawa-senpai,” Yuki said, pulling on the end of her pink scarf until it tumbled down from her neck into her waiting hand. “I heard you almost got suspended for your injury this summer and the fight outside the kendo match.”

“That’s none of your business, First Year,” he sneered, and looked at me. “Do I even know this kouhai?” he asked, hooking a thumb toward her.

“She’s my best friend,” I said, “and she’s right. You’re treading a fine line yourself.”

“Maa, whatever,” he said, running a hand through the white spikes of his hair. “I don’t need to be lectured by juniors.”

The school bell chimed, and Tanaka and Yuki headed down the hallway toward our class. I turned to follow them, but felt Ishikawa’s warm fingers tug on my sleeve.

“Hey,” he said quietly, his voice a hot whisper against my neck, his eyes deep brown and gleaming. “Is Yuuto okay?”

I hesitated. Was he? The nightmare flashed through my mind, and then thoughts of what had happened a few days earlier—fighting Jun in the sky with a rain of ink falling, learning he was linked to Tsukiyomi, that Jun was out for vengeance. I pressed my tongue to my lips, the knowledge of it swirling together in the pit of my stomach. “I don’t know.”

“Let me know what I can do.”

“Hanchi’s dead,” I said.

He looked surprised that I knew, his fingers stiff for a moment before they relaxed their grip. “Yeah.”

My voice was barely there. “I’m scared it was Jun.” I’m scared Tomo is next. I didn’t say it, but Ishikawa looked like he knew, like he was thinking the same thing. His other hand slipped into his blazer pocket. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to bring his switchblade to school, would he? But this was Ishikawa, after all. He would be stupid enough.

“Meet you here after class,” he said, and then he was gone down the hallway, and there was nothing for me to do but get to my homeroom and start the school day. I slid in the door just before the class rose to bow to Suzuki-sensei, my thoughts whirling.

How could I stop Jun, if it was him? And how could I stop Tomo if Tsukiyomi headed down the same destructive path that Susanou was leading Jun?

My phone buzzed in my bag, startling me out of my thoughts. When Suzuki-san turned to write on the board, I smuggled the phone up and behind my textbook.

Still in my pajamas. I think I got the better deal.—Tomo

I grinned and slid the phone back into my bag. With all the darkness closing in around us, I was glad to see Tomo still shining.

* * *

Ishikawa was slumped on the floor, one leg bent with his arm draped over it, the other leg stretched into the hallway, forcing students to step carefully around him. The spikes of his hair were pressed flat against the wall, his eyes closed.

I stepped forward, kicking at the calf of his outstretched leg. “Rude,” I said, and he turned his head to look at me. “You’re tripping everyone up.”

He grinned, his teeth as white as his hair, and rose to his feet. “Your fault, Greene. If you’d gotten here sooner, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep waiting.”

“How’d I get stuck hanging out with you, anyway?”

He smirked, sliding open the door to the genkan so we could put on our shoes and coats. “That would be Yuuto’s fault. As always, he’s the source of all my problems.” He zipped up his dark green coat, the dark fur trim around the collar looking a little ridiculous around his pale face and hair. “What?” he asked, and I realized I was staring.