Koushi soon lost sight of the Tree People child, but all paths they could take would lead the child to the nearest residential area, so he wasn’t too worried about losing them. He’d received maps and blueprints from Yuoshichi for his research and knew the city pretty well from studying those. He knew where the quarantine area was, where the Garden of the Gods was, and where all the nearby factories and residential areas were.
For all his familiarity with the city, however, Koushi had never seen a Tree Person before. This was his first time encountering one, and the timing wasn’t exactly convenient. He was with the girl who’d returned Kanata and his father’s things to the capital… because his father was dead.
His father being dead didn’t seem real. It hadn’t really hit him yet. His father had been gone for over a year, but part of him had always been waiting for his father to come back.
The girl wore light red clothes and had her hair up in a ponytail. She carried a bag over her shoulder and cradled a wrapped Fire Hunter’s sickle against her chest with both arms. She appeared to be somewhere between ten and twelve years old: no older, possibly younger. She was quite thin, but whether that was from life in her village or the journey to the capital, he couldn’t tell. She’d traveled to the capital more recently, and Koushi guessed that the journey had been difficult.
Kanata hadn’t changed much. His eyes were both sharp and gentle. His whole body was covered in thick, gray fur. His tail was long and bushy, and his legs were strong: powerful enough to leap over Koushi in a single bound. He was very dirty, but that wasn’t uncommon; he was always dirty when he came back from hunting with his father, too. He was also thinner than he’d been since Koushi saw him last.
Kanata walked in front of Koushi and the girl from the village. The pads of his feet whispered over the path. He looked back at them occasionally, his dark eyes flitting between Koushi and the girl.
My father died in the forest…
Koushi shook his head lightly, scolding himself. Of course his father died on the job; that was how most Fire Hunters died. But Koushi thought that his father was just as skilled a Fire Hunter as Roroku, if not more so. He hadn’t ever really thought that his father would be killed by a Fire Fiend.
His father had been the strongest of all the Fire Hunters that Koushi knew, and he was still dead. Dead far from home, in a part of the forest nowhere near the capital. Why had he been there? He’d rescued a stranger, and that was good—it was good that the girl was still alive; Koushi was certain his father would be glad of that.
Kanata seemed to know where he was going. After passing through a winding alleyway, he came to a canal. It was the largest canal in the capital, separating the city’s main residential area from the largest factories. Light rain fell from a gray sky as Koushi and the girl walked forward, with the dog at the front.
By the time they reached the canal, there was a gap in the clouds: the rain was letting up.
“Did you make it rain just now?” the girl asked. She stopped to squint up at the lightening sky as if she were trying to read hidden words in the clouds.
“No. I think only the Guardian Gods can do that.”
The girl gripped the sickle to her chest as if it were a precious, living thing.
“Maybe you did cause it, though? I saw a bright light after you showed up,” she said.
Koushi looked down and scratched his forehead. Sometimes, rain was just rain.
As the sky overhead brightened, a shaft of sunlight fell on a rusted iron pole sticking out of the roof of a house. The city was bathed in a golden glow. As Koushi and the girl passed by houses, movement caught his eye, but it was a crow he saw, not one of the Guardian Gods’ guards.
“I didn’t make it rain,” he said. “That was lightning fuel. When struck, it gives off a flash of light, just like you saw.” He showed her the bottle of lightning fuel that he carried. “Some Fire Hunters use it to blind Fire Fiends when they hunt at night. It’s dangerous if the bottle breaks open, though, so it’s not exactly convenient to carry around.”
“Lightning fuel? It must be valuable.” Her eyes widened.
“The thing that attacked you is a spy for the Guardian Gods. I learned about them from a Fire Hunter I know. The Guardian Gods control those things, but if we disrupt their control it would just go back to being an inanimate object. Like a tiny statue of a warrior. I wasn’t sure if I could disrupt their control with lightning fuel… but I think it worked. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
Koushi squared his shoulders and kept walking. Kanata walked ahead of him. He’d been thinking about the brave and clever dog ever since Kira had told him that she’d run into a girl with a dog that matched Kanata’s description. That was why he was in this part of the city today: he’d taken some painkillers and decided to pay a brief visit to his childhood home. When Hinako had asked where he was going, he’d told her that he was hoping to find signs of their father. Perhaps he’d returned or sent a message. He also wanted to look for the dog.
Kanata, of course, found him.
“My name is Touko,” the girl said.
“What?” Koushi asked.
Kanata stopped moving. They were in a dead-end alley with a wide canal in front of them; it flowed into the sea. There was a bridge nearby. Kanata wasn’t agitated—there was probably no danger here—but he’d stopped walking for some reason. What was it? Maybe another of the Guardian Gods’ spies was nearby.
Before he’d seen the tiny paper spy on the roof of a house when he’d chased after Roroku, he’d never seen these small servants of the Guardian Gods before. Now, he’d seen another. Did these sightings mean something? Enhanced security, maybe, since the Spiders were coming? Roroku had told him that the spies watched over the Fire Hunters’ movements in the capital.
“Kira said you were good at remembering people’s names,” Touko said.
They came to a canal that had a wide bridge leading over it. The railings were wrought iron, delicate and decorative. Touko’s eyes widened at the sight of the bridge and the industrial area that lay beyond it. Smoke rose into the sky and the metal clanged as the factory machines hummed along and people did their work. Touko bent her knees so that she wouldn’t fall over and took it all in.
Koushi thought that she looked like Hinako. Not in terms of physical features—Touko was tall for her age and tan and Hinako was small and sickly—but the look on her face was like Hinako’s when she was curious about something.
“Let’s go. Deep inside is the area where the Tree People live. The child from before should have returned there. What are you going to do when we get there?” Koushi asked.
“I was wondering if I could get some medicine. I came to the capital with a man who was seriously injured.” Her voice was nearly drowned out by the ambient machine noise of all the factories operating at once.
An injured person? Koushi paused to consider. He knew that Touko would never have reached the capital alone, but he reflected that aside from that, he knew almost nothing about her journey here.
“Where I live—in the villages, I mean—Tree People trade for better medicine than what we have. They have knowledge we don’t. I think it’s older than ours. Maybe the Guardian Gods know about it, but… well, I’ve asked the Tree People for help before, and they’ve helped me,” Touko said, speaking at least as much to herself as she was to Koushi.
Koushi now understood that the green eyes he’d seen in the Black Forest belonged to a Tree Person. He should have figured that out before. He hoped that he hadn’t hallucinated that; blood loss and his injuries meant he might have been seeing things.
“Do the Tree People that you’ve met know much about, um, ‘Flickering Flame?’” Koushi asked.
“Why would you ask something like that?” Touko’s villager accent came out stronger when she asked questions; it took Koushi a moment to parse what she’d said.
“You know what it is?” Koushi asked.
“I’ve heard of it. Why?”
How could this girl who had taken Kanata through the Black Forest and barely made it to the capital know anything at all about the Millennium Comet? It wasn’t widespread knowledge in the capital. Koushi had needed to go to a restricted section of the Central Archives to discover that information.
“It doesn’t matter right now. Let’s go. It’s this way.”
Together with Kanata, the two of them made their way through the industrial area. Factories towered over them on both sides. There were workers in small transport vehicles, porters standing on metal decks inspecting instruments, cleaners carrying tools on carts… It was already lunchtime, so there only a few people outside. Still, Koushi chose an out-of-the-way side street as they continued their journey.
Touko was completely captivated by the mechanized world around her, and especially by the giant tree that stood majestically in the middle of the area. Koushi grabbed her hand so that they wouldn’t get separated, but Touko didn’t look at him or pay attention to him much. She was soaking in their surroundings. Canals ran under the factory area, but there weren’t many bridges, just iron grates that were suspended over the water. If they weren’t careful, they could trip over the edges of the grates.
“Is… is this the land of the gods? The world beyond death?” Touko asked.
Koushi gripped Touko’s hand tighter.
Touko looked around in a daze. She felt very small and very insignificant. Had she really made it all the way through the Black Forest, as tiny and weak as she was? She had done it for Kanata—for Kanata, and the Fire Hunter’s family. She hadn’t expected them to ever forgive her.
“It’s not the afterlife. It’s a factory area. People call it the Garden of the Gods. There’s a tunnel leading into the Black Forest not too far from here. Fire Hunters and black carts leave the city through the tunnel. The capital’s protective barrier extends about halfway through the tunnel so that nothing bad can come inside.”
He pulled his hand out of hers. Touko looked toward him, appearing lost.
“And you can call me Koushi. That’s my name.” He offered his hand to her again.
Touko scratched her forehead, then took his hand.
Kanata looked between them, unimpressed, and snorted.
***
The location of the Tree People’s residences in the capital matched the map of the area around the Guardian Gods’ shrine and the factories that Koushi had memorized as part of his research. The entrance was at the base of one of the giant trees planted as a memorial for a major fire that had happened in the past. The tree overlooked the roofs and chimneys of the factory area and was closest to the cliff that the Guardian Gods’ shrine was built into.
During his schooling, Koushi had learned that the first Tree People originated here, in the capital, in the isolated corner that he and Touko were heading toward.
They stood under the tree for a moment. Koushi felt like if he took his eyes off of Touko, she would find a way to get lost, so he kept holding her hand. She really was just like Hinako… but the reason he needed to hold Hinako’s hand was because her illness made her physically weak and prone to falling, not because he was worried that she would wander off.
Kanata looked back at Koushi, sniffed the roots of the giant tree for a while, then settled on a spot and scratched the ground with his front paws. The soil was slightly damp from the earlier rain. It was a similar color to the dull pavement of the factory area’s roads.
“Um… Isn’t that tiny person from earlier going come after us?” Touko asked as her eyes darted back and forth. Koushi was still holding her hand, but that didn’t prevent her from feeling anxious.
Koushi followed her gaze, then returned his eyes to Kanata’s back. He nodded. “Those spies do keep watch, but I think their numbers are too few to watch over everything at once, especially with everything that’s been happening lately. There was an incident lately where some Fire Hunters sustained a serious injuries in the forest. It wouldn’t surprise me if the spies were investigating that. I wouldn’t worry too much about them chasing us right now.”
Koushi’s voice had become deeper without him realizing. He was getting older.
Earlier that morning, Yuoshichi had told him that all four of the Fire Hunters who had been torturing the Spider would have permanent scars, and that they might lose their jobs as Fire Hunters because of how much their injuries debilitated them.
Events had progressed with astonishing speed since the night when Roroku was hired on by Yuoshichi. Yuoshichi was lobbying other factory managers and trying to get more funding for research and materials. Production of weapons made with lightning fuel had already started, albeit in secret.
Yuoshichi knew that the Guardian Gods were keeping a close eye on him. One of the injured Fire Hunters had revealed that Yuoshichi had hired him on to them. Rather than be angry, Yuoshichi used the fact that some of his plans had been leaked to misdirect the Guardian Gods as much as possible. Their eyes were on him, but he could control what they saw, at least to a certain extent. They weren’t paying attention to Roroku at all, and he’d managed to bury bottles full of lightning fuel in a lot of places already.
“What is that, Koushi?” Touko asked.
Touko’s voice brought Koushi back to reality. She leaned closer to Koushi and squeezed his hand. Koushi held his breath, almost forgetting to blink.
He saw eyes: two clear jade-green eyes peering up from the base of the giant tree. There was a hole under the tree where the Tree Person was hiding, looking up at them.
A foul stench hung in the air, different from the usual bad smells of industrial living like smoke and factory chemicals. The smell was bitter and astringent; he felt like it would burn the inside of his nose if he breathed it in too long.
Kanata appeared unconcerned. Touko slumped her shoulders in relief. Koushi didn’t understand why. More eyes peered out from underneath the great tree as if they had risen out of the earth. The sight was eerie and ghost-like, but the eyes were too bright and clear to belong to spirits.
Tree People…
Koushi had certainly seen eyes that were the same color in the forest.
Touko knelt down to the eyes on the ground. “You are the Tree People, right? My friend… he is very injured. Is there any way I could get some medicine from you?”
Through the tangle of roots, eyes blinked repeatedly, many of them open wide.
The giant tree towered majestically over its surroundings. At its base, there was a large hole that looked like an entrance. Koushi sensed something faintly unnatural about the soil surrounding the tree. It had been pressed flat and even by the passing of many Tree People, and he could see nothing wrong with it as a glance. Still, it was unsettling. He sensed that there had been some kind of disturbance here, and that this disturbance had been covered over and concealed.
The hole in the base of the tree was a short tunnel that cut underground like a rabbit’s warren or a wolf’s underground den. A young Tree Person lingered inside the hole, gazing out at Touko and Koushi without saying a word. It was impossible to tell if they were male or female. Their face was round and filthy with dirt, and their sandy hair gleamed in the low light. A tattoo of leaves and branches marked one cheek. They clutched something in one hand—the bird they’d caught inside the city. Koushi could hear the bird’s muffled chirping.
The child turned around and went deeper into the giant tree without saying a word. They vanished in the darkness below.
Kanata flicked his tail, then looked back at Koushi and Touko. Touko nodded at Kanata, much as his father had often done. Then she looked up at Koushi, biting her lower lip. She pointed toward a sort of platform in the entrance hole made of wood. When Koushi squinted his eyes, he identified wooden stairs that descended all the way down, so far that he couldn’t see the end of the staircase. He was reminded of the long set of stone stairs that led to Yuoshichi’s basement laboratory.
“We should go down there,” Touko said.
Koushi nodded because Touko seemed to be expecting some kind of demonstrative answer from him.
Kanata descended the staircase first, snuffing at the ground all the way. Koushi considered the size of his body and how to position himself so as not to cause harm to his dressings and bandages. He urged Touko to go ahead of him, but she shook her head stubbornly.
Koushi had no choice but to go through before her. But they were very near the Guardian Gods’ shrine. If he did this, it was likely that he would be observed, either going in or coming out.
Koushi took a deep breath, then went down the stairs after Kanata.
The smell of the earth and the tree mixed together, making the air stuffy and suffocating. Koushi passed through the entrance as quickly as he could, checked his footing, then reached out to Touko, who was peering down at him from above. Touko grabbed his hand. She looked like she was about to cry.
Why is she so worried? Koushi thought. She really was like Hinako in personality. Was she concerned about what he thought of her? There was no need for that; he was proud that his father had died protecting a child, like the hero he’d been. Yes, he was an orphan now, but he and Hinako had been living as orphans for quite some time. He had to focus on the future if he and Hinako were going to have one. Getting stuck in the past wouldn’t help him or anyone else right now.
Koushi gave Touko’s hand a reassuring squeeze and noticed callouses on her fingers. She was a villager, and a worker.
The staircase was incredibly long, and once they were past the main straight part it curved into a cylindrical spiral. The farther down Koushi looked, the darker it got. Kanata, Koushi and Touko were swallowed up in the darkness like children who’d fallen down a well. Egg-shaped lanterns lit the walls at irregular intervals, but most of these were dim—the fuel in them was low, and some of the lanterns had burned out completely.
The staircase had no handrails. As they descended, Koushi thought about the possibility of falling and removed a portable lantern from his bag. He turned on the lantern, bathing the staircase in a golden glow.
The child was there, in the light, standing not too far ahead of Kanata. The child looked askance at Koushi’s light: they were curious, not afraid. Then they turned away and loped down the stairs like a monkey running on all fours over uneven ground. Ornaments or jewelry jangled as the child moved. The bird in the child’s hand had ceased struggling and chirped feebly. The bird’s call echoed off the cavernous walls. Large tree roots supported the staircase, fully visible in the new light.
Koushi never knew that such an enormous open space existed beneath the main factory area. There were passageways connecting factories to each other underground, but he’d never seen anything so elaborate before. The stairs went on and on, deeper and deeper into the earth. The stairs were now stone, and so were the walls that he could see. The walls were worn and cracked and covered in moss and tree roots. It couldn’t have been more than a hundred years since the capital was first founded, but this underground structure was clearly much older than that. The Tree People had repurposed a building from the ancient world.
“About what I said before… how do you know about ‘Flickering Flame?’” Koushi asked Touko. The scents of wet packed earth and young wood were so strong that he nearly gagged on them.
Touko’s shoulders twitched.
“You know about the Millennium Comet, and how the Spiders regained natural fire, maybe.” Touko didn’t contradict him. “How did you find all that out? Did my father tell you?”
Touko shook her head vigorously. “N-no, that’s not it. The Fire Hunter was… I mean, we couldn’t talk. He fought the Fire Fiend and it killed him. He told me Kanata’s name, but nothing else. I’m sorry.”
Koushi looked back at Touko, who was looking down. The child of the Tree People stopped moving. They were close to the bottom of the stairs now.
“Don’t worry about that. Thank you for bringing Kanata all the way here. Your village even buried my father. Don’t apologize again. Right now, I’m looking for a way to protect myself and others from the Spiders’ attacks.” His mouth snapped shut; he’d told Yuoshichi that he wouldn’t spread information about the Spiders around and he didn’t know how much Touko already knew.
Kanata stared down at Kanata’s back in half-dark. Now that the Spiders had appeared in the Black Forest near the capital, weapons production was increasing and things were coming to a head. Koushi doubted that telling one girl what he knew about the Spiders would change much.
“In the course of my research, I discovered that the Spiders had rediscovered how to use natural fire, and that there was a celestial body called the Millennium Comet, the Flickering Flame.”
Behind him, Touko nodded.
The Tree People child used the weight of his tiny body to bend tree roots that were stretched out like ropes, causing the egg-shaped lantern hanging from the roots to swing wildly. There were other lanterns nearby, too, but most of them were burned out. In the light of the swinging lantern, Koushi identified another plant interwoven through the roots: a plant with broad green leaves. The leafy plant wound around all of the roots and extended up and down for as far as Koushi could see. The air was wetter here and tasted cleaner.
“I learned about all this from Fire Hunters in the capital and from books, but how did you know about it? Does everyone in the villages already know?”
Again, Touko shook her head. Tension made her shoulders shake as she followed behind Koushi. When she spoke again, the words came slowly, as if she had to drag them out of her mouth one by one.
“Um… Mr. Koushi, could you please not tell anyone about this?”
“I promise I won’t tell.”
She took a deep breath, then said, “I was on one of the black carts with Kanata. My friend who’s injured worked on the black cart. Another girl, a bride who was sent away from her home village, traveled with us. She said that the soil all around the country was going… wrong. Bad. Dead. She doesn’t know why and I don’t either.”
What Touko revealed made Koushi feel cold through. His head spun. He’d been thinking about the problems in the capital and hadn’t even thought about problems in the wider world.
Even after Touko had finished speaking, Koushi was unable to respond. Not right away. He had too much to think about. Touko said Koushi’s father and the Fire Hunter Akira might have the same goal: to used blessed paper to write a letter to the Guardian Gods. This matched what had been written in his mother’s letter. His father had left the capital, heading for the village where Touko lived. Koushi scratched his head, desperately searching through his scattered memories.
Teyurihime wrote a prayer… a song of praise to this world. The prayer must have been written on the blessed paper from Touko’s village.
“Miss Akira said that a letter written on blessed paper could catch even the Guardian Gods’ attention,” Touko said. “She wants to find the Millennium Comet. And then…” Her voice trailed off.
There were no more stairs: Touko, Koushi and Kanata stepped onto level solid ground. Lush green leaves surrounded them and shushed underfoot. Koushi couldn’t tell how large the space they were in was, but it was likely larger than Yuoshichi’s garden. As they walked, the garden took on a tamer appearance: there were paths made of sand and differentiated plants growing in different places, all obviously tended and well-cared for. Koushi wondered how such a variety of plants could grow here, since there was no sunlight. Branches and leaves grew wildly, as if the plants were frenzied—or angry. The vines and creepers that hung down from above were cut inexpertly and looked sick, not like the rest of the healthy vegetation. The vines were like torn fabric or wire; they did not appear to be alive.
The sickly-sweet rotting smell of the Black Forest permeated here, though it was muted, as was the scent of the chemical that Tree People used to ward of Fire Fiends. Koushi instinctively covered his nose and mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. He never would have thought to come to place like this in order to get medicine.
Kanata looked up and let out a quiet bark. Koushi looked where Kanata was looking and identified the child that had led them down here. The child clung to a flexible branch and looked down at them. Their wide, round, jade-colored eyes were fixed on Koushi with great interest. The small bird was perched on the back of their hand, appearing quite tame. Koushi’s face stiffened as he looked at the child, clad in shabby clothing. What he saw fluttering about its arms and legs were not ornaments, but plant leaves—a plant was growing directly under the child’s skin. The child’s skin was very pale, almost the same color as the stone walls of the staircase, but the plant was a deep, healthy green.
“A guest? A guest? We never have guests. Shuyu has brought us something rare.” A husky voice echoed from beyond clumps of plants that blocked Koushi’s view. He quickly turned his head in that direction, but there was no one to see. He heard leaves rustling. Touko gasped and hugged her bag, stepping back slightly.
Koushi had no idea what Touko had sensed and quickly looked around.
One of the trees moved—moved in an unnatural, windless way. There was no wind underground. A pair of bright green eyes popped up from behind the branches. Kanata stiffened, though he appeared confused, not frightened.
More trees moved all around them, and there was at least one Tree Person staring down at them in each tree. Koushi saw tattooed cheeks and long hair. He never stopped paying attention to the child that had guided them here.
Not too far ahead, a Tree Person sat on the ground, hunched over themselves with their knees raised almost to their chest. Their tattered clothes revealed their wrinkled body, but it was impossible to tell if they were male or female, just like the child Koushi had seen. Koushi wasn’t even sure if this Tree Person was human. A tree was growing from out of the side of their skull.
Koushi endured the strange smell and steadied his breath. He knew that the ancestors of the Tree People came from the capital, but he’d never seen them before. He knew that in the villages, people relied on medicines made from herbs that Tree People made.
Touko’s behavior was strange. She’d claimed to know about Tree People, but she was acting just as confused as he was.
Suddenly, Kanata’s hackles raised, and he put himself between Touko and Koushi and the Tree Person. He growled softly at the Tree Person.
“A guest. Two guests. And a dog. Don’t bark, dog. En shall do you no harm.” The Tree Person’s voice was husky and leathery, but good-natured. They tilted their head, tugging the tree attached to it along with the movement. A twisted smile spread over the Tree Person’s face. “Be welcome. We shall light the welcoming fires for you. The welcoming fires will bring the Flickering Flame home.”
Koushi frowned at this. There was no fire anywhere, and only dim light. And what was this about the Flickering Flame? What did the Tree People know about the Millennium Comet?
“Um, well, medicine,” Touko mumbled. She held up her bag in both hands, then asked, “Can I have some medicine? One of my friends is seriously injured and won’t wake up.”
Heavy footsteps echoed in the vast garden. Another Tree Person, huge and hulking, emerged from the lush cover of the green leaves and stared down at Touko and Koushi with extreme indifference.
“Medicine,” the new Tree Person said. Their voice was muffled. Their skin was toughened and appeared to be made of wood. Even their eyelids were stiff, and their lips didn’t move much at all when they spoke. They had no hair. Like all Tree People, their eyes were jade green. They wore no clothes; wood and bark covered their entire body.
“Call Kiri,” the wood-skinned Tree Person said in a harsh voice like flakes of rust.
Ten or twelve little birds chirped in the branches above, flying from tree to tree. They were all about the same size as the one that the child had caught. Koushi looked up at the birds in alarm.
The Tree People who lived in the capital weren’t supposed to leave this place. There was no direct prohibition in the capital’s laws, but everyone knew that Tree People who left the safety of their trees quickly withered and died. Koushi didn’t think the child had gone into the city to be willful; they’d probably gone to recapture an escaped bird.
That was one mystery potentially solved, but Koushi still didn’t know which Tree Person he’d seen in the Forest the night he was attacked. Were there more Tree People living in the Black Forest? Why wouldn’t they live inside the barrier, where it was safe? How many Tree People lived in the capital, exactly? There were floor plans for the Guardian Gods’ shrine and the city’s industrial areas, and even a rough plan of the underground quarantine area. He could make a guess based on how much space the Tree People were able to occupy, but he felt like he needed a lot more information.
“I come, Gomoju. What’s all this fuss about?” Another Tree Person, likely Kiri, appeared from behind tree cover. Kiri was clearly female, with distinctive feminine features and curves concealed by a simple shift. Her sandy hair and papery skin were like most other Tree People’s. Her proportions were roughly human. A bundle of thin, spindly branches stretched from her left forearm where a hand should be.
Kiri looked from Koushi, Kanata and Touko to her companions. Her frown reached her vibrant green eyes as she considered their presence here. “Humans? Why have they come?”
“They are guests. Shuyu has brought them to us,” the Tree Person with the tree growing out of his head said.
“What do they want?”
“Medicine.”
Kiri’s long hair flowed down her back. She furrowed her brow and ran her right hand through her tresses, then said, “This is why I told you not to keep birds. That child… why doesn’t he find a better way to kill time?” she spat.
Touko’s back stiffened in shock. She hadn’t expected to hear dissension among the Tree People, clearly.
A Tree Person with a thin branch stretching out from their left forearm to a height higher than their head walked towards Touko on bare feet, glaring with open hostility. The child, Shuyu, curled up on the stone steps, watching developments unfold. The leaves fluttering from their arms and legs swayed as Shuyu breathed in and out.
Seeing that Touko was tense and frightened, Koushi stepped forward. They were in foreign territory with low light, surrounded by strange smells. It was perfectly natural for her to be nervous. He felt the gazes of many Tree People on them and reminded himself to stay calm. Some of the Tree People might not like humans, but they did seem willing to talk. Koushi decided to try talking.
Kiri was still berating Shuyu and the humans to the other Tree People as Koushi made his decision. Her face was objectively beautiful, but the sullen expression on her face marred the symmetry of her features.
“This girl asked for medicine,” Koushi said. “I’ve never spoken to a Tree Person before and was curious to talk to you. That’s why we came here.”
Kiri raised an eyebrow. “Talk?” She leaned closer to him, and Koushi caught a whiff of the bitter chemical that Tree People used to keep away Fire Fiends.
Koushi frowned, then said, “A conflict will soon break out in the city. The Guardian Gods have not told us about it. Have you heard about it?” Koushi asked. He chose to speak politely because Kiri was still glaring daggers and she was almost certainly older than he was. Whenever she moved, her arm made of thin twigs twitched in a way that made him uncomfortable.
Kiri looked closely at Koushi, Touko, and Kanata before frowning again and clicking her tongue in disapproval.
“The Guardian Gods? The Guardian Gods would never tell us Tree People what was happening. We’re nothing but their test subjects. We’re not like the people who were sent into the forest to help the villagers. We’re prototypes, failures. They’re embarrassed and don’t want us to be seen, so the Guardian Gods have isolated us here.”
Kiri’s eyebrows drew together in irritation as she spoke. She looked down her nose at Touko and sneered. “We have no medicine to give you. Only the adapted individuals sent into the Black Forest were given knowledge of herbs and medicine. You want news of what’s going in the capital? That’s a shame, because we don’t know. We’ve been locked up at the bottom of this well for so long that we don’t know anything about it. You should return to where you belong.” She exhaled on a long breath, then fixed her disapproving eyes on little Shuyu. “Shuyu! You will never go outside again. Don’t ever bring any humans with you back to the well.”
Shuyu wilted and shrank into the shadows of the staircase leading out of the well.
“Excuse me,” Touko said quietly. She looked up timidly at Kiri, holding her bag close to her chest. A Fire Hunter’s sickle poked out of the top of the bag. “Miss Tree Person, ma’am. I’ve heard that the Guardian Gods altered people to create Tree People. Is that true? Why would they do something like that?”
Kiri’s eyes narrowed sharply at the question.
Koushi clenched his hand near the wound in his side. “Why are you trapped here? On maps, this is designated as a residential area. Some people call it a quarantine area, but it’s not locked down or protected. We could just walk in here. Why can’t you all just walk out? People in the capital believe that the Tree People were blessed by the Guardian Gods. I never knew you were… uh, did you say ‘test subjects?’ What does that even mean?”
Kiri shook her head, annoyed, and pushed her sandy hair over one shoulder with her intact right hand. “I don’t know what kind of propaganda they push up there, but we are certainly not blessed by the Guardian Gods.”
“… The mole.” The voice was soft and hard to make out. Koushi thought that Gomoju had said it. Kiri’s brow furrowed even more.
“The mole? Oh, you mean him. He’s burying bottles of lightning fuel near the tree. You can tell by the roots. It would be bad if he was found out, right?” She turned to Touko and Koushi. “If you don’t want the Guardian Gods to know about things down here, then you should go back and never return. What happens in the world above is none of our business. Make sure your friend stays away from this place, too.”
My friend? Koushi thought, confused. He thought Kiri might be talking about Roroku, but he wasn’t sure. “I saw a Tree Person when I went to the Black Forest. They were watching the Fire Hunters I was with. Do you know who they were?” he asked.
Mutterings of something that sounded like “Noibara” echoed around him.
“We won’t answer your questions,” Kiri said. “Have En chase them out.”
Kanata bared his fangs and growled.
Touko gasped, and this time Koushi knew why. There was a creature approaching—not a Tree Person. Something else. Koushi remembered the Fire Fiends he’d seen and held his breath. He wanted to run, but he felt like his feet were frozen to the ground.
The creature stood atop a stone wall and looked down, silent. The creature’s shadow was like a dog’s. Kanata growled louder. Koushi and Touko watched the dog-like creature descend to their level of the well. As it drew closer, Koushi noticed that the creature had the same triangular ears as Kanata, a pointed nose, and fur with a rough-looking texture. One of the ears was slightly misshapen, as if it had been cut or burned. Its legs were longer than Kanata’s, and the creature was larger overall. Its fur might have been white once, but its coat was matted with filth and debris. It burned with an inner light, glowing faintly golden around the edges. Its eyes fixed on Koushi.
Touko bit back a scream. She stood near Koushi, her hands moving restlessly over her bag as she tried to free the Fire Hunter’s sickle. She never looked away from the creature.
Though the creature’s body and eyes were limned in pale golden light, the expression on its face was as cold as ice. The creature looked as unthinking and unfeeling as a machine.
“En’s a violent one. He’s also a discarded test subject,” Kiri said with a poisonous smile.
“The dog was a test subject?” Koushi asked before remembering that the Tree People weren’t about to answer any more questions. Why were the Tree People—and this strange dog—trapped down here? He was forming a theory, but he needed time to think.
“A guest. Two guests. And a dog. Shuyu brought then. En will not chase them out,” the Tree Person with the tree growing out of his head said slowly, grinning like an idiot.
“Shut up, Mukuge.” Kiri’s flensing stare settled on the tree-headed Tree Person. “This is a dumping ground for failed laboratory specimens, not a place for humans to visit. Leave now of your own free will, or En will make you leave.”
En let out a short, loud bark that echoed in the cavernous space. The green leaves on the lush plants shook, and so did some of the Tree People.
Kanata replied with his own bark, and En stared at him with a blank expression.
En was not an ordinary dog, for all that it wasn’t mutated like many of the Tree People were. Koushi sensed a great potential for harm in En. As En glowed brighter in response to Kanata’s challenge, Koushi wondered if En could create fire. Natural fire.
Touko finally managed to remove the sickle from her bag. She gripped it defensively in front of her with sweat dripping down her forehead.
En and Kanata circled one another once, but didn’t leap at each other. Not yet.
Koushi turned toward Kiri and asked, “What is that dog? Why is it a test subject? Why are you test subjects? Are Fire Fiends test subjects, too? Did the Guardian Gods create them?”
Kiri shook her head. “You’re an idiot. I told you we won’t answer your questions. Now leave, before you all get hurt.”
No, no: Koushi couldn’t leave now. He was so close to understanding why the world was the way it was. He wanted answers, and he thought the Tree People had them.
Gomoju, the hulking Tree Person, spoke slowly through stiff lips. “They aren’t running, even when faced with En.”
“Then En will attack them,” Kiri said, her voice tinged with anger.
She raised her intact hand and was about to order En to attack when another Tree Person spoke.
“The girl has a Fire Hunter’s sickle. En will get hurt.”
This Tree Person’s voice reverberated in the air, shaking the cavern. Koushi saw a giant head—and only a giant head—emerge from shadows. The head had not moved, but other Tree People had moved around it, revealing it. Like the other Tree People, the head had a tattoo on one cheek. A single, supple branch from the Tree Person head stretched towards Koushi.
Touko took a step backward and bumped into Koushi.
“Perhaps the birds were not a good idea,” the Tree Person said with a sigh. “They eat the insects, which cuts into what we can eat. Shuyu, I think that Kiri is right. Even if the birds escape, you must not chase them outside. If we stray too far from this well, we will die.”
The Tree Person head spoken in a measured voice. Their eyes shone with intelligence. The branch extending from the head stretched out in front of En, creating a barrier between En and Kanata.
“My name is Willow. Kiri has told you what we are,” the Tree Person head said. “Most of us would not be able to survive in the Black Forest, though I believe Kiri and Shuyu wouldn’t have too much trouble.” He gave Kiri a sidelong glance that Kiri reluctantly returned.
Kiri looked down at her left arm, which was nothing but a messy collection of thin branches. “No matter how many times I cut it off, it grows back. And it hurts like hell. Shuyu won’t ever grow; he’s stuck as a child forever. If he goes into the Black Forest, the other Tree People wouldn’t understand. They’d abandon him or kill him, same as me.”
Willow’s expression sank into sadness. He looked to Koushi, then said, “You have been to the Black Forest. I scent one of our number, who drew near you. I am sorry that we have no medicine to give you, children.”
Touko took a brave step toward Willow. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it.
“What is it that you wish to say?” Willow asked. When Touko said nothing, Willow looked to Koushi again. “You have many questions, and it seems you will not leave until they are answered. I am willing to speak with you, but I warn you that I may not know all that you wish to, boy.”
Willow’s eyes narrowed into slits like a snake’s. “I will speak of crimes from long ago.”
Mukuge extended a branch-like arm to Willow. “No, I will speak.” He caught a bug in his hand and ate it. Then he said, “The world died. All know this. The Guardian Gods sought to harness fire by placing it into the animals that survived this death. There are old myths of humans who were given the secret to fire by wild creatures—birds and deer, monkeys and tigers, even insects. So many stories. Most of them deal with the theft of fire. Fire is rarely freely given in these tales.”
Willow tilted their enormous head to listen.
“What the Guardian Gods did was reverse the events of these myths. Humans and Guardian Gods alike would combust in the presence of natural fire, after the world died. And so, the Guardian Gods performed a ritual to return natural fire to the wild creatures that humans supposedly stole it from. Natural fire would thus be contained, and the Guardian Gods would never seek to approach wild animals. The barriers would make sure that all within them would be safe.”
“Such a ritual sounds impossible,” Koushi said.
“It could be a story,” Mukuge said, “but it is all we know. The world only died two hundred years or so ago. No one knows if the Guardian Gods did it, or if they were the survivors of some catastrophe. But we know that the first Fire Fiend walked in the Black Forest after the world’s ending. If the Guardian Gods are not responsible for this, then we know of no other explanation.” Mukuge let out long sigh.
Kiri moved over to the wall where the large dog-like creature, En, stood. She leaned against the wall, cradling her branch arm and staring at Koushi.
“The other beasts were all killed,” Mukuge said. “Just like humans, the Guardian Gods will combust if they come close to fire. But they couldn’t simply destroy natural fire, so they made beasts carry it instead. En is a survivor from those experiments. He was a failure—imperfect, like the rest of us.”
En lay down on top of a ruined wall, relaxing in the half-darkness. It looked like he had been relieved of his duties and was exhausted. He looked just like a big old dog—very old.
“But then… why would the Guardian Gods create the Fire Hunters and sickles?” Koushi asked hoarsely. Birds twittered overhead, their voices echoing in the well.
A hand-bound book in the Central Archives claimed that the first Fire Hunter was one of the Guardian Goddesses—a woman named Tokohanahime. She forged a golden sickle while setting her own body on fire. Why would Tokohanahime, or any Guardian God, do such a thing? Guardian Gods possessed superior survival abilities and long lifespans. There should be no need for them to recapture or harness the power of natural fire.
Willow’s narrow eyes widened in amusement. “Just like you humans, the Guardian Gods also feared the death of the world. The Guardian Gods are supposed to watch over humans and protect them. Even after losing natural fire and having their homes and cities destroyed, many humans still survived. Humans were shown to be more tenacious and resilient than the Guardian Gods, who fear death and shun fire.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Why did Tokohanahime make a sickle capable of killing Fire Fiends?” Koushi asked.
Willow smiled wide. Their mouth was like a cut made by a well-sharpened blade. Koushi half-expected blood to seep out of that cut and was relieved when it didn’t.
“Ah, yes, Tokohanahime. She discovered that inside the beasts of the wild, fire transformed into something that would not cause people to combust. She forged a sickle to harvest the fire, so that humans could live after the world died—after losing natural fire. I do not think the Guardian Gods anticipated Fire Fiends. That is, they knew that placing natural fire inside wild beasts would cause a change, but not could not predict what that change would be. Perhaps it was the strength of the humans who survived and tried to live that ignited Tokohanahime’s desire to help. She believed that humans would not make the same mistakes with fire as they had before.” He shrugged painfully. “There are some things I know and some I do not. I believe this body allows me to feel the Guardian Gods’ intentions in the area around the capital.”
Koushi felt cold through.
Fire was a tremendous gift. Fire fuel and lightning fuel allowed society to function. Fire Hunters and Fire Fiends had a strange synergy. Did the emergence of Fire Fiends necessitate the invention of Fire Hunters, or had they come about simultaneously via the same cause—the Guardian Gods’ interference?
Tokohanahime had immolated herself to create a Fire Hunter’s sickle. Why?
“So then, did the Guardian Gods orchestrate all of this?” Koushi asked quietly.
Willow lifted their head, causing their light-colored hair to flutter on a nonexistent breeze. “‘All of this’ is broad. Ancient humans caused the world’s destruction, not the Guardian Gods. The Guardian Gods treated natural fire as an abomination after that and performed the ritual to displace it from its original source. Then the Guardian Gods interfered again so that humans would be able to harness fire in a different way. My people and I are but one result of his interference. We would not exist had the Guardian Gods not intervened.”
“I saw a Tree Person when I was in the Black Forest,” Koushi said. “They had eyes the same color as yours. I don’t know who it was, since I only saw them for a second.”
Willow let out a short chuckle, then nodded, leaves and hair rustling as they moved. “We can hear things that travel up the roots of the trees. We can’t detect things that are very far away, but we heard through the roots that there was lightning fuel buried in bottles nearby. Whoever you saw probably wanted to make use of that power. My guess is Noibara, who left with a few companions some days ago. Since you saw him in the forest, wasn’t he quite weak? Once we pass through the tunnel, we are usually far from any living trees. Our bodies are fragile to begin with. It is possible that Noibara was already dead, or close to it.”
Koushi felt his temple twitch. On his way down here, in the entrance tunnel, he’d noticed that some of the soil on the ground was disturbed. Tree People had certainly passed that way recently. He’d thought that Shuyu was responsible for that displacement, but Shuyu was small and light on his feet. It made more sense for Noibara or other adult Tree People to leave such traces.
“What happened to Noibara? Was he supposed to come back?”
“Yes. And he knew not to go past the tunnel. It is puzzling why you would have seen one of us so far away.”
Not to Koushi. The Fire Hunters he’d seen in the forest had captured and interrogated a Spider. Why wouldn’t they do the same thing to one of the Tree People? He didn’t like to think that Yuoshichi would go that far just to secure information, but he honestly couldn’t be sure.
It was true that Yuoshichi was no stranger to using people. Koushi and Hinako were being used: Koushi to create weapons, and Hinako to keep Koushi in line.
Touko stepped back, her shoulders shaking violently. With one hand over her heart and the other clenched hard around a Fire Hunter’s sickle, she faced Willow. “Um, excuse me.” Her voice came out loud and reverberated off the stone walls and floor. Her face was pale, but set in determined lines. She was angry and struggling to contain her emotions.
“I can’t believe it,” Touko said, and she managed to keep her voice even. “Why would the Guardian Gods do anything like that? It sounds completely crazy! I always thought that Tree People lived in the forest and were friends of the Guardian Gods. Why would the Guardian Gods create Fire Fiends and lock all of you up down here? It makes no sense.” She hunched her shoulders as if she wanted to hug herself, then stopped speaking.
Willow kept looking at Touko with a curious glint in their eyes, as did many of the other Tree People. Kiri frowned and looked back at En, then at Touko again. The moment stretched, silent and intense.
Willow broke the silence. “You say it is crazy, child. I suppose it is. I never said that it was not. But it is true.” Willow shook their head, making their hair swish in all directions. “Those who discover the secret are silenced to prevent problems. Humans are easy to kill, ever since the pathogen that made them combust near fire spread across the surface of the world like a curse.”
Touko’s mouth hung open from fear—or disgust. Koushi wanted to ask Willow to stop speaking, but before he could say anything, the earth moved below them. Touko looked around in alarm. Kanata scrabbled his paws frantically on the ground.
The sound and the shaking were signs of an impending collapse. But it didn’t seem like the stone walls of the well were collapsing, from what Koushi could see.
“Shuyu, lend me one of your birds,” Willow said.
Other Tree People called out to one another in raised voices, but Koushi couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying over the dull roar of the earth shaking. He thought he heard something like, “Put an amber eye in there to keep it from rotting.”
Willow stared up at the stone steps. “These are humans and a dog. If they fall here they cannot be remade again as they were. Can they?”
Behind the moss-covered stone walls and dense vegetation, two large, luminous eyes opened. They were the same jade green as the rest of the Tree People’s eyes, but they were unfathomably large.
“These children are not test subjects. They are from the wide world. They followed Shuyu and got lost here,” Willow said to the eyes, speaking calmly.
Touko clung to Kanata’s neck. Koushi watched the eyes in the wall with a dissociative detachment, as if his soul was somewhere else and only his body was here. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.
What is that?!
Huge eyes, as huge as the nose and mouth that were partially hidden by branches and leaves. What Koushi was looking at was not a wall, but Tree Person who was as tall as the walls of the well. The staircase that he, Touko and Kanata had traveled down passed diagonally across the Tree Person’s bark.
“That’s Kunugi,” Kiri said. “The name means ‘sawtooth oak.’ Sawtooth oaks are among the tallest trees. Mixing one with a human resulted in a titan. The researchers really should have seen that coming,” Kiri said with a bitter expression.
Koushi couldn’t fathom Kunigi’s hugeness.
An enormous hand reached out from the opposite wall and snatched the bird from Shuyu’s grasp. The hand twisted sharply, breaking the bird’s neck. Shuyu let out a low sob.
The Garden of Gods. Koushi remembered the name for the industrial area that bordered this place. Perhaps this well was the original Garden of the Gods—a place designed by the Guardian Gods for their own purposes—and the area the label pertained to had grown. Or he was wrong, and there were secrets about the industrial area that were just as explosive as those he’d learned here.
The Guardian Gods control things I never would have thought about. He had gained a better understanding of the world as it was, but he still had so many questions.
Suddenly, Koushi remembered his mother’s funeral. Her body had been treated with chemicals to prevent rot and the illness she’d died of from spreading. Koushi always thought that her illness was caused by factory pollution; her skin had blackened as if it were covered in soot even after she cleaned herself.
What if she’d died of the pathogen that caused humans to combust? How did those first humans feel, the ones who had spread the disease across the world? Had they even known what they were doing? What would they think of the world now?
Even after the terrible devastation of the last war, the Guardian Gods exerted their power and influence to keep humans alive… but at what cost? Did the Guardian Gods think that the world was good the way it was? They had lost natural fire, and humans were scattered—splintered across the dangerous landscape of the Black Forest. They clung to existence, relying on the Guardian Gods for protection. Their crimes against the Tree People imprisoned in this well were not known or guessed by anyone outside.
“If the Millennium Comet came back… could we make the world a better place?” Koushi asked. He wasn’t asking Willow or Kunugi or Kiri; the question wasn’t for anyone in particular. It was just something he wanted to know.
Koushi stared at Kanata’s back. Touko was still clinging to the dog. Kanata stood with his paws firm on the ground, ready to pounce at any danger and protect Koushi and Touko.
“The Millennium Comet…” Kunigi’s voice sounded louder than it was at the bottom of the well. “It would be angered if it knew the state of things here. Teyurihime, sister of Tokohanahime, sends missives full of half-truths to calm the Millennium Comet and keep it away. If it should return, the world will burn again. The Guardian Gods are afraid of that.” The sound of his voice was like an earthquake in slow motion: ponderous, yet shattering in its intensity. “I know. The Tree People know. The King of the Fire Hunters is about to appear. Just as Tokohanahime wished. Humans will beg for forgiveness from the Millennium Comet on behalf of the Guardian Gods. The King of the Fire Hunters will be a human.”
A thunderous roar rose up from the depths of the earth. Koushi realized that Kunugi was laughing.
“The humans will not succeed in begging forgiveness. The Millennium Comet would ignore even the King of the Fire Hunters. The Millennium Comet will have its own way. Let it burn the world, as it wishes. Prepare the way for the cleansing fire. The fire that calls to the stars above—for all stars burn.”
***
Koushi’s memories of how he climbed the staircase and returned to the light were vague. The sky was gray and washed-out; the sunlight was muted. Kanata shook vigorously, then sat down next to Touko, who’d collapsed on the ground near the large tree. Koushi had fresh scratches on his forehead from the branches he’d passed through. He didn’t know how long he’d spent underground, but it felt like a very long time. He tried to put his memories in order so that he wouldn’t forget anything important. If Kira had been here, she would have remembered all of the Tree People by name.
Koushi pitied the Tree People in the well. They hadn’t chosen to become like that. How long had they all been there? Even the lamps in the walls weren’t maintained. They stayed down there in the dark, abandoned. No one took care of them. Few people even knew they existed.
The entrance at the base of the giant tree was silent, opening into the bottomless darkness below.
Kanata licked Touko’s cheek repeatedly until she snapped out of her stupor. She patted Kanata’s head, then pointed the dog’s nose toward Koushi. Kanata sprinted to him and sniffed him over, letting out a short woof that sounded approving.
“Um… thank you very much for bringing me all the way here,” Touko said. “It’s too bad they we weren’t able to get any medicine, though.” Her knees knocked together as she stood up. Koushi offered her a hand so that she could steady herself.
Koushi’s thoughts drifted to the pathogen that the Tree People had told them about. A pathogen created to efficiently kill others. That pathogen had spread across the entire planet, after the world died. Now all humans carried it, and it was why humans combusted in the presence of fire. Fire Fiends were beasts cursed by the Guardian Gods to carry natural fire within them. Tokohanahime immolated herself to create a sickle capable of harvesting natural fire safely in the form of fuel. The Spiders were in conflict with the Guardian Gods, and he was gaining a better understanding of why. He didn’t understand why the Spiders wanted to harm humans or destroy the capital, but the actions of the Guardian Gods were arguably evil, and it wasn’t surprising that people would oppose them.
Right now, Koushi’s actions had created a situation where natural fire wielded by the Spiders would be pitted against lightning fuel bombs. Which would be stronger in a conflict? What would happen next?
If Yuoshichi’s plans came to fruition, the Guardian Gods and the Spiders would fight to a standstill, leaving only humans behind to govern themselves. But how would the capital function without its gods, or without a ruler that was recognized by everyone? Did Yuoshichi know about the King of the Fire Hunters? Or was he planning to rule himself? The Tree People knew about the Millennium Comet and the King of the Fire Hunters, but Yuoshichi had never mentioned either one.
“To the Guardian Gods, we’re not people. We’re just like the crops that get harvested in the fields. We have our uses, but without supernatural abilities, we’re not terribly important.” That was what Yuoshichi had told him. Koushi’s stomach churned in distress at the memory of his words.
Yuoshichi was right. The Guardian Gods treated Tree People as less than human and used them to assist humans out in the villages. It was hard to say who had it worse under this system, humans or Tree People—though those in the old well certainly had it worst of all.
Koushi felt the stirrings of a cold disappointment spread through him. The Guardian Gods trampled on others, seemingly without a care. They killed people they didn’t need, or people who discovered secrets they didn’t want known. It was true that there were people just as cruel who were capable of similar acts, but those people weren’t in power. The Guardian Gods were.
Koushi clenched his hand into a fist. He opened his palm, then smacked himself on the forehead. He quickly adjusted his glasses. Touko looked up at him worriedly. Her face was pale, her expression uncertain.
Kanata licked Koushi’s hand. Koushi leaned down and scratched the dog behind the ears. “Kanata… I’m glad you came back. Let’s go and see Hinako soon, okay?”
Kanata just stared at him, concerned.
Koushi shook his head. He had a headache. “I know you weren’t able to get any medicine from the Tree People, but there’s a good doctor at the estate where my sister and I are staying. You could ask for medicine from him, or maybe he could come and examine your friend.”
Touko bit her lip and shook her head. “No, that’s too much. I couldn’t possibly—”
There was no time to say more. Kanata sensed something; his ears went up. Something cut through the air with a whoosh, slicing through the space between Koushi and Touko. A thin blade no taller than a human hand was stuck in the bark of a tree just behind them. Koushi looked up, took Touko’s hand and ran behind the giant tree. The only thing they could see from here was the roof of a factory that was adjacent to the cliff that the tunnel leading out of the city cut through.
With a clang, a pair of wooden clogs landed on the ground in front of them. It was another tiny spy, dressed in clothes black as ink. The spy’s face was covered in white cloth. Koushi looked at Touko, who stayed close to him, and Kanata, who stood in a threatening stance in front of him. He decided to use lightning fuel to confuse the spy’s senses. They were close to the main shrine of the Guardian Gods, which meant that Roroku would have buried lightning fuel nearby. It also meant that Koushi’s activities might be discovered by the Guardian Gods, but he would worry about that later. He was improvising; the circumstances weren’t right for him to create a solid plan.
There was no point hiding behind this tree when they were already caught. They couldn’t run, either; the spy would catch them. Confusing the spy was the best idea he had.
Koushi looked up at the cliff, his back pressed up against the giant tree. Roroku should be nearby, working on burying bottles of lightning fuel. If he could somehow call for help—
As he put his hands into his bag, a long, diamond-shaped metal weapon whizzed past his head. Koushi knew the name of the weapon but couldn’t remember it in his panic. He thought he had at least one bottle of lightning fuel in his bag; if he could get to it, he could use it.
The spy above them moved, as elusive as a shadow. The spy had retrieved its blade from the tree and leveled it at Koushi.
“You idiot! Touko, what the hell are you doing all the way out here?!” a young woman in a Fire Hunter’s uniform called out from behind them. She lobbed a thick iron object at the spy with an expression of disgust and watched the spy jump to avoid the projectile.
The iron lump hit the spy in the elbow, causing them to drop their weapon. The blade clattered to the ground. A dog that wasn’t Kanata barked frantically.
Touko wilted. “I’m sorry, Miss Akira!”
A small white dog blurred as it chased after the spy. The Fire Hunter—Akira—rushed up to Touko and Koushi.
Kanata let out a cavernously loud bark and triangulated on the spy with the other dog, chasing them into a corner.
“I told you to take care of Kun!” Akira said. “I’ll hear your excuses later, but for now we need to deal with this guy. You and your friend, get over there where Temari and I can cover you.”
“Y-yes, Miss Akira!”
Touko tugged at Koushi’s hand, pulling him away from the spy and the dogs and the giant tree. They hid behind an iron dumpster that was big enough for an adult to fit inside.
The spy’s left arm was gone—removed or crushed from the impact of the iron projectile Akira had thrown—but that didn’t slow them down. They drew out a new weapon, blocked Akira’s next strike and tried to kick her in the head with a wooden-sandaled foot. Akira dodged narrowly and swept the spy’s feet out from under them with a sideways kick. The spy leaped high in the air and came to rest on one of the branches of the giant tree. They threw something round and spiked that exploded in midair.
Akira yanked her white dog to her chest and rolled away from the sharp spikes as they ricocheted off the ground below her. She avoided fatal injury, as did the dog, but she bled from half a dozen shallow cuts.
“Yeesh, who even is this guy?” Akira asked Touko as she continued to dodge blows.
“We’ve seen one of these before,” Touko called out to Akira. She gripped Koushi’s arm.
“We have to help her. If things go on this way, she’ll get hurt worse.”
As Koushi tried to run into the battle, Touko held him back. Kanata kept his eyes on the fight, but he never left Touko’s side.
Touko pointed at something in midair and ducked.
Before Koushi could focus on what Touko was pointing at, he went numb all over. His panic had caught up with him. He wasn’t terrified like he’d been when confronting the Tree People, but he was afraid, and this was worse. Something unknown and alien was approaching. Something big.
No, not big: just powerful.
Koushi’s mind caught up to his eyes as he found the figure standing in the branches of the giant tree, above the spy they’d been fighting. The person—was it a person?—appeared to be about his height, male, and dressed in old-fashioned clothing dyed with an intricate pattern. They looked similar to the spy in some ways, albeit life-sized. Koushi had never seen this figure before, but he knew instantly what he was looking at.
A Guardian God.
The Guardian God wore a bun on each side of their head: this hairstyle was called mizura and was restricted to those of the highest social rank in the capital. The long ends of their hair swung free of the buns and fluttered in the breeze.
Koushi had never seen a Guardian God in person before and was briefly overcome with awe. He remembered his anger at the Guardian Gods quickly, however, and that allowed him to snap out of his stupor.
“You must not shed blood here,” the Guardian God said in a voice as bright and high as a young girl’s. “You shall not defile the name of our princess.”
The spy looked down and kicked at a branch, seeming ashamed of itself.
Silence all around. Koushi couldn’t even hear the usual ambient sounds of the factories working.
The small white dog looked up and growled at the Guardian God. They were still in Akira’s arms.
The Guardian God smiled down at them all. Koushi could see their face clearly even though they were so high up.
“That’s a good dog. White beasts are favored by our princess. You should leave, and leave now. This is the princess’ domain. Blood and fighting have no place here.” The Guardian God’s tone was calm and even as they vanished into the shadow of the tree. One moment they were there, and the next they were gone—along with the tiny spy. It was as if they’d melted into thin air.
Air manipulation? Koushi wondered. Everyone knew that Guardian Gods could use elemental magic.
Koushi found the bottle of lightning fuel in his bag, but the battle was over and he no longer needed it. He lost his grip on the bottle briefly in his relief, but didn’t drop it. He put the lightning fuel back where it belonged.
“Miss Akira!” Touko shouted. She ran past Koushi toward the Fire Hunter.
There was no sign of the spy’s sword or other weapons. Akira moved over to Touko, her red hair piled high on top of her head and secured with pins. Red hair was rare in the capital; she must stand out wherever she went.
Koushi remembered the circular cipher he’d discovered in the book bound with Fire Fiend hide in the Central Archives.
“Miss Akira, you’re hurt!” Touko said. She reached for Akira’s shoulder, but Akira shied away from her touch.
Koushi knew that Akira was injured; he’d seen it happen when the spy threw that spiked sphere that exploded.
“I should have brought one of my homemade gourd bombs,” Akira said. “We could’ve dealt with that spy easily, and then the Guardian God would have patched me up.” She rubbed at her shoulder—which Koushi was certain had been injured before—and saw that she was entirely healed. All of her injuries had been erased by divine power.
The white dog barked around Akira excitedly.
Kanata stalked behind Touko and Koushi, then tilted his head and ran to Akira to make introductions. Kanata looked between Koushi and Akira and wagged his tail with his tongue hanging out.
The sound of the factories working and some birds singing in the trees came back to Koushi now that the Guardian God was gone. He approached Akira and saw Kanata nudge her and Touko with his head.
Akira’s sickle was attached to a belt at her waist. She raised an eyebrow at Touko, then at Koushi. Koushi had never seen a woman Fire Hunter before. The job was dangerous and required strength, so he’d always assumed that only men did it. Akira also had a hunting dog, though her white beast was so comically small that he never would have mistaken it for a working dog on the street.
Kanata looked between Koushi and Akira and let out a short, friendly bark.
Akira smiled softly at Koushi. “Ah, I see. Kanata, you found your family. I’m glad. Good job, Touko.” She patted Touko on the head to praise her.
Koushi should feel relieved, but he was still uneasy. He looked around and saw a dead insect near the roots of the giant tree. It was a large red centipede—a venomous insect. The centipede lay belly-up, clearly dead. Koushi noted the warning markings on its skin and shuddered.
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