Prologue
Seven years passed more quickly than Ayato had expected. Seven years had seemed so much longer when he was ten-years-old, looking back at when he was seven and thinking about how long it had taken to reach seven years of age. Now that he was seventeen, it seemed like hardly any time at all had passed since he’d come to the Ryujin no Tani. Though that could be due to the timelessness of the place, he supposed. With zero influences and contacts from the outside world, the Tani seemed trapped in time, unable to progress forward; merely existing.
On the eve of his eighteenth birthday, the Tengu threw a party for everyone celebrating a birthday that month, as was their custom. It was a night full of drinking and dancing beneath the moon and stars. They roasted a large boar over an open fire pit, and everyone brought some food to share. It was a village-wide affair and everyone participated.
The celebration culminated with a mock battle between those celebrating their birthdays. The martial dance tonight would reenact the birth of the Kishin god Tatsumi and his defeat of his twin brother Ryota, who was evil and had introduced the sins of old age, disease, and death into the world. The pair that got the most votes from the audience won the coveted tenderloin cut from the roasted boar.
Ayato knew the tale well, even before he came to be in the Tani, but the version the people of the Tani told seemed to be an older one. In the one Ayato remembered from when he was a boy, Ryota had been the Kishin of greed, power, and lust. Their battle lasted for seven days and nights, until Tatsumi finally banished Ryota to the lowest level of the Makai, trapping him beneath a frozen lake. Ryota’s powers were still strong though, and they would leak through cracks in the ice, spilling out into the world, freezing the hearts of people it encountered. That was why people who are exceptionally greedy, power-hungry, or lustful were said to have had their hearts frozen by Ryota.
In the Tengu version, however, the battle between brothers lasted for forty years. And though Ryota was eventually killed and dismembered, his power lingered in the world. His blood ran into the rivers and carried the powers of disease with it. His flesh was eaten by wild animals, allowing old age to stay in the world, and his bones were buried in the ground, which was why all dead things eventually returned to the soil.
Living here, Ayato found that every story he had heard as a boy had greatly changed over the years. The original tales as the Tengu told them often lacked the morality that had been added to the versions he knew, but he enjoyed comparing the two and had made a hobby of it.
For the mock battle, Ayato was paired with Jin, a boy who would be ten-years-old this month. They played a simple hand game to decide who would be Tatsumi and who would be Ryota. Ayato lost and had to play Ryota. Jin was excited to get to play Tatsumi. Ever since he was five and was first allowed to participate in the ceremony, he had always lost and gotten Ryota. Ayato just smiled and patted the boy on the head. He’d lost on purpose.
“You should throw fireballs at me!” Jin mimed throwing fireballs like they were punches. “I’ll dodge them real fast, and then I’ll pour a bucket of water on you from the well so you can’t make fire anymore.”
Ayato nodded, even though water didn’t put out flames controlled by magicks. “That’s a great idea. How are you going to take me out?”
“Um,” Jin turned in a circle on his talons, thinking for a moment. “Oh! You can make me a sword like Tatsumi had, and I can fight you with it.”
Ayato swept his hand over the ground. There were enough minerals present to make it happen, but a real sword could be dangerous. Usually, the person playing Tatsumi pretended to knock the person playing Ryota unconscious and that served as their ending. “You’ll have to be very careful with it, Jin.”
“I will!” he cried defensively. “I’m not going to really hit you with it!”
Ayato closed his eyes and focused on the energy humming in the ground from the elements in the dirt. Before getting sick with the akuma plague, Ayato had only been able to use the wind and metal elements in yosoki magicks, and only about as well as the average human mystic. Since being sick, Ayato could use all four elements, wind, water, metal, and fire, and to an extent far beyond human capabilities. He had heard of okara who came from powerful yokai, born with magicks like this, but kaji were supposed to be weak. That sort of magick wasn’t supposed to be available to him until his transition.
The elements in the ground responded to his persuasion and wiggled free of the dirt and dust to join the growing ball of metal at his fingertips. There was plenty available to him to make a whole sword, but perhaps a dagger would be less painful if Jin struck him with it. Ayato capped off the flow of raw materials from the ground and shifted his attention towards making the prop. If the blade could be made to collapse into the handle, then Jin could stab him with it without actually injuring Ayato in the process.
“Hey, Jin,” Ayato stabbed himself in the chest with the dagger.
Jin’s raven wings fluttered excitedly, “How did you do that!”
He showed him how the blade moved smoothly in and out of its handle. “It’s a trick blade.”
“That’s awesome!” Jin took the dagger from Ayato and tested the blade on his own chest. “We’re going to win the tenderloin for sure!” His wings beat the air as he gasped with a new idea, “Can you turn into a big fox, just like the real Ryota?”
Just to humor him, Ayato decided to try. His transition would be starting soon now that he was eighteen. For all he knew, shapeshifting saraki magicks were not far beyond his reach.
He pictured a fox in his mind; a huge, bear-sized one with seven tails. He had never seen a real kitsune, but he knew the older ones had multiple tails. Ayato fully did not expect anything to happen. There were other kinds of magick. He could start his transition with any one of them; fujuki visions of the future, chiyuki healing powers, ajiki illusion magicks, or seiki spirit powers. But he wished it would be saraki. Then he could help Jin have the time of his life on his tenth birthday. What a great present that would be.
“You’re doing it!” Jin squealed with delight. “You’re doing it!”
Ayato opened his eyes to find his entire body covered in dense reddish-orange hair. He halted the change there. If he continued on to become the size of a bear, he would destroy his vailo. “I’ve started transitioning,” he realized.
Ayato licked his fingers and swiped them at the air. He was unable to open a portal. But he was so much closer than he ever had been. One day he would try it and it would work, and then he would cut his way out of the protective dome surrounding the Tani. That was the plan, anyway. He was confident that once he could wield the power that only adult kaji wielded, he would be able to use it to finally go and reunite with Kazuma. It was the hope that had kept him going all this time.
Ayato didn’t show Jin his disappointment. “Let’s finish planning our battle.”
They performed the mock battle when it was their turn. Their audience chuckled at first to see a short Tatsumi going up against a Ryota who stood several heads taller than him. They crowed with surprise when Ayato blasted magenta-colored flames as Jin flew figure eights in the air. Then, when Ayato stripped off his vailo and shifted into a huge seven-tailed kitsune fox, they cheered. The Tengu could not shapeshift, so the sight of him changing into an animal before their eyes was a first for them. And finally, when Jin plunged the dagger into Ayato’s back, there was an audible gasp and rapt silence.
The villagers cheered thunderously when Jin and Ayato took their bows. It had been a performance of a lifetime, and it won Jin that tenderloin cut he had wanted.
Every day after that, Ayato flew to the border and attempted to open a portal to the other side. He had tried to go alone at first, but his friends wouldn’t hear of it. Sayaka and Goto were Ayato’s same age, and they had all attended school together in the village; schooling consisted of mostly memorizing the important oral tales of the Tani to preserve them for future generations.
Sayaka had beautiful, blue and green wings like a hummingbird. She was probably the prettiest girl in the whole village, and she had her sights on Ayato. Goto was the only other boy their same age in the village, so he was their friend by default, even though he was kind of quiet and awkward and would have preferred if Sayaka didn’t insist he be included in everything they did.
Sayaka put herself between Ayato and the barrier. She spread her arms and wings wide, “Why are you in such a hurry to leave us?”
“I’m not.” Ayato considered swiping his fingers in her face. “I just want to reunite with my sister.”
“Why can’t you stay here with me?”
“She’s my sister.”
Goto took Sayaka by the hand and gently pulled her aside, “Just let him do it. It’s not like he’ll succeed.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy.” Ayato licked his fingers again and swiped his hand. Nothing.
“No problem.” Goto flashed a rare grin.
Ayato slumped against the barrier, “I’m going to get through one day, and I’m going to finally see my sister again.”
“She won’t even recognize you,” Sayaka insisted. She ran her fingers through his long, wavy hair, “Look how long your hair has gotten. It was cut short when you came here. We didn’t even know you had these fine waves.”
“Kazuma will recognize me,” Ayato pulled her fingers free of his shoulder-length hair. “She’s my twin sister. We look nearly identical to each other.”
“Well you certainly aren’t dressed to go out there,” Sayaka picked at the cloth belt wrapped around his hips to keep his vailo closed. “Didn’t you say that these clothes are old-fashioned now? What will people think?”
“I can change my clothes,” Ayato reasoned. He stepped away from her before her roaming fingers could go elsewhere.
Sayaka was not his entama, the one with whom he was destined to spend his life. He knew this because he didn’t have that feeling about her. Mama had told him about the feeling when she found her entama, his father, and he didn’t feel it or anything like it for Sayaka.
She had too much fear. It wasn’t her fault; all she had ever known about the world was this village in isolation. She imagined all sorts of evils beyond the barrier wall; evils that made it easier to accept her fate of never going beyond the forest and being trapped in the village for life. But Ayato had come from beyond the forest. He couldn’t be satisfied with living out his life here; not when it meant never seeing his sister again. Kazuma was the only family Ayato had left.
“I have to keep trying,” he told his well-meaning friends. “I have to find my sister.”
“Take me with you,” Sayaka said the words, but her brow knotted with anxiety, betraying her true feelings.
“That’s not what you really want.”
“I don’t want you to go!”
Goto put his hand on her shoulder, “Let it go, Sayaka. He’s always been an outsider. He’ll always be an outsider. He can’t care about us the same way we care for each other.”
“Now that’s not fair,” Ayato protested. “I care about you. You’re my friends.”
“You’re yokai, but not Tengu,” Goto reasoned. “Friendship can only take us so far.”
Ayato hung his head. While his gaze was down, he heard a rustle of wings and looked up to find that they had taken flight, heading back to the village without him. Ayato swiped his hand towards the river, sending a satisfying spray of water up into the air.
What was he supposed to do? Give up and live out the rest of his life here in the Tani? He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. And it was unfair of them to expect that he would. Goto had said it himself; Ayato was an outsider. It was time for him to go back outside.
He sat down on the river bank and began meditating to calm down. When he felt ready, he did his magicks exercises. He had to continually practice and strengthen his magicks during his year of transition to make sure it went smoothly. He set aside time every day, sometimes twice a day, to go through the exercises. He made steady progress, too. Within two months of his birthday celebration, Ayato could use yosoki, saraki, and seiki magicks.
Despite his quick progress, it was another six months until he successfully opened a portal. In that time, Ayato had continued his magicks routine, while distancing himself from his friends and the people in the Tani. Even from Grandfather Mao, who had taken him in as a child. It was just going to be easier that way.
To that end, he spent the last month alone in the forest, just training. His hair had picked up a single, magenta stripe at first, but now it was completely purple. Every strand. He didn’t know what had caused the change in the color of his magicks from the typical kaji blue to magenta, but it was probably linked back to the akuma plague.
When he finally did open a portal for the first time, his nails permanently changed from regular, human nails to the thick dark claws that were the hallmark of a yokai. Ayato was eight months into the transition now; over halfway there.
So excited to have finally opened a portal, Ayato nearly dove straight through it, but he closed it. He owed Grandfather Mao a goodbye first.
When Ayato landed in the village center, the Tengu shied away from him and hid their eyes. He sighed. That attitude was what had prompted him to go live in the forest for the last month. The Tengu claimed his tama had become too powerful; that it was difficult to look at him, but he suspected that distancing themselves from him, ostracizing him from the community, was preparation for the inevitable. They knew it was only a matter of time before he left them.
Sayaka and Goto were together on the balcony of her house, overlooking the village center. He knew they were there, but did not look up as he passed. He was searching for Grandfather Mao.
The old buzzard, which had become an affectionate nickname over the years, was seated in meditation before the village shrine to the Kishin, Arashi. As flying yokai, appeasing the storm God was important to their livelihoods.
Ayato sat next to Grandfather Mao as if to join in the meditation.
“You’ve finally done it, haven’t you?” Grandfather Mao shifted on his ancient knees. He could only stay seated with his legs folded beneath him for so long.
“Yes.”
“Oh, my boy, look at you.”
Ayato opened his eyes to find Grandfather Mao gazing back at him lovingly.
“Your hair,” he smoothed one of the magenta strands between his fingers. “And your hands.” He took Ayato’s hands between his. Their nails were the same dark color now. Grandfather Mao squeezed his fingers. “You’re finally grown up, aren’t you? Your parents would be so proud.”
Ayato shook his head, “Mama wouldn’t be proud. I abandoned Kazuma for seven and a half years. I was supposed to take care of her.”
He lifted his brow, causing mountains and valleys to race across his forehead, “That was in no way your fault. Besides, what’s past is past—”
“And we can’t undo the past,” Ayato finished, “I know.”
“Let go of what was supposed to be and learn to live with what is.”
Ayato always struggled with letting the past stay in the past and living in the present. “I’ll try my best.”
“Then go.” Grandfather Mao released his hands with a smile. “Find that sister of yours and start a new life.”
Ayato wanted to offer to free the whole Tani, but he knew what Grandfather Mao would say. They couldn’t leave, even if it were possible. It was their sacred duty to stay in this ancestral land. They were protectors of the forest and the secrets held within. The barrier just made things easier for them.
“I’ll be back to visit,” Ayato promised.
“Not until you have a wife and kids. I want grandchildren.”
Ayato chuckled. The man already had several great-grandchildren. “Yes, sir.”
Grandfather Mao kissed Ayato’s forehead, cheeks, and chin, murmuring a blessing for safe travels. Ayato thanked him and flew to the barrier. Now or never.
Standing in front of the invisible wall, Ayato licked his fingers. He held his claws up overhead and cut deeply into the unseen force before him. Like the team of kaji yosei who had needed to work together to open the portal to Nakaba, Ayato needed to lick his fingers and swipe seven times, one for each year he had been trapped here until he finally created an opening to the other side of the wall.
The opening was narrowing and rapidly resealing. Ayato squeezed through it as quickly as he could. He felt it closing around his leg. His foot popped free with a crunch, leaving one straw-woven sandal behind in the dome.
He felt around, but the wall was seamless and solid once more. So he had one less shoe? So what? He could weave a new shoe. He was free! He was finally free!
Ayato shot up into the air, as high as he could go, and extended his senses outwards, searching. For the first time since he had developed the technique, he could feel the people who lived beyond the dome. Ayato cast a glance back at the village, but there wasn’t a trace of it from this side of the wall. He couldn’t feel their presence, just as he hadn’t been able to sense anyone outside the dome before escaping.
He felt a pang of sadness, but Kazuma was waiting. Ayato closed his eyes to focus on locating the unique signature of his sister.
“Huh?” Ayato opened his eyes nearly an hour later. “What the Makai is she doing in Koliska?”
