Touko could see nothing, but the noise around her was deafening and overwhelming. She was wet all over but couldn’t tell if the liquid was blood from the Fire Fiends she’d killed or rain pouring down from the sky. She was terrified, but lacked the strength of will or purpose to cry out for help.
Her fear coiled in the pit of her stomach, unreleased, as a chill settled into her hands and feet. She was freezing cold and too tired to move so much as a single muscle.
Someone was yelling, but she didn’t recognize the voice. She tried to shake herself into motion, but it was no use: she remained as still as a statue. The stench of blood and sweat commingled in the air, making her want to gag.
“You should be ashamed of yourself!” Touko recognized Akira’s voice. “Beating up a little kid like that! I bet that makes you feel like a real man, huh?” Her anger traveled through the air with the force of a punch. As Touko listened, she felt the rain lessen as if she’d been placed under a roof. She hadn’t felt herself move, though, so she assumed that the rain was letting up.
I wonder if this is how my grandma perceives the world, Touko thought.
Touko had been sighted for her whole life. She’d rarely considered what her grandmother’s perspective was like at all. She’d assumed that her grandmother saw nothing, but this chaotic darkness was not nothing. She saw no light, but the sensations on her skin and the sounds that reached her ears were heightened. She could imagine the world around her even though she couldn’t see it. The air, the temperature, the vibrations of sounds… the amount of information at her disposal was incredible, and she had trouble processing it all.
I can’t help Akira like this… When I get home, my aunt will surely be angry with me.
Touko didn’t think she would be able to continue her daily work in the village if she was blind. Even getting home from here would be a serious challenge. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking of things like that. She wanted to see Kaho’s face—her bright, clear eyes like pools of still water. At least one more time, she wanted to see that.
“Hey. You asked me to treat him, not hurt him worse! You’re being too violent,” Kiri said sternly.
Kiri was here? Why? Had she come after Shuyu to make sure he would be safe? Did she already know he was dead? Her voice was harsh and low.
Numb all over, Touko couldn’t even tell whether she was sitting or lying down. Kanata remained next to her: a fixed presence. He’d made it back to his family, and now he was at Touko’s side again. She’d fought so many Fire Fiends. Kanata must be exhausted from fighting with her. Was she still allowed to pet him? She was going to do it anyway. Petting the dog would be a familiar experience to her senses… but she couldn’t lift her arm to touch the dog. She was still too weak.
“Next, treat Kun,” Akira said, presumably to Kiri.
A wall of sound from the city moved over Touko in a wave. She knew that sound: it was the engine hum of a black cart. Touko had spent months on a black cart and wasn’t likely to forget the experience. She wondered what had happened to the black carts she and the others had left behind, deep in the Black Forest.
“This one’s a Spider,” Kiri said dismissively. “He has the same constitution as the Guardian Gods. As long as he’s still breathing, he’ll recover just fine and probably outlive you.”
“Is that so?” Akira asked with a mocking sort of laugh. “Good.”
Temari let out a low growl of disapproval—whether it was directed at Kun or Kiri was something Touko couldn’t tell.
The rain kept falling in sheets, washing the air clean of blood and chemical smells. Rain was always a welcome thing in Touko’s village, since it meant the trees and the crops would grow. It should be like that in the capital as well, right? But the barrier protecting the capital was broken now. Were the Fire Fiends still coming, still attacking? Would they reach this place? What about the factory workers? If the Fire Fiends got into the city, who would protect the people there?
Touko tried to remember what the Fire Fiends she’d fought had looked like, but she couldn’t. All she could remember clearly was the red fire behind their eyes dimming and flashing out.
“Can we use this? Lucky for us, the black cart was loaded with supplies already. Clothes, medicine, and clean water,” Kiri said. “Mole, come and help me.”
Kiri had called Koushi “mole” before, since it had been his idea to bury lightning fuel around the Well of the Old Tree.
Koushi bowed his head to Kiri and the others, then said, “Please don’t let Touko use that sickle again. She’s had to kill too much with it. She should never have used it at all.” Koushi stopped speaking as he sensed the presence of Hinako standing near him.
Hinako gazed down at Touko silently, barely seeming to breathe.
Touko felt a small, cool hand wipe her face with what felt like a clean cloth. She was curled around herself in a ball and lacked the strength to stand.
Why were Hinako’s hands so cold? As Hinako cleaned Touko’s face, she felt as if she could hear the sound of Hinako’s tiny heart beating.
Hinako dried Kanata with a towel, then hugged the dog. Kanata remained still and quiet. After clinging like that for a while, Hinako let go and turned her attention to Touko’s borrowed sickle, which rested in front of Touko on the ground.
Ah, that’s right. It was Hinako’s father’s weapon.
Hinako didn’t blame Touko for using it without permission. She bent to retrieve the sickle, then placed the handle carefully in Touko’s hand. All of this happened very slowly, as if she was forcing herself to touch the sickle. Touko had no way of knowing that her father had forbidden her from touching it, worried that she would injure herself with the sharp tool.
Touko sensed some of Hinako’s hesitation and sadness. Hinako was grieving the sickle’s original owner.
How could Touko sense so much even though she could barely see?
Touko held the sickle up over her head. Her eyes lit upon the crescent moon overhead, which was visible, as was Hinako, who looked like a young shrine maiden worshiping the moon. Hinako’s dark eyes carefully traced the sickle that Touko held.
“You look just like my sister.”
Touko heard the voice but couldn’t see the speaker. Hinako hadn’t said this. The voice was clear and high and vaguely familiar.
“But Princess Tokohana is no longer in this world. She is no longer with us.”
Touko knew that voice. She frantically searched her memory, trying to remember who it was. Kanata’s ear twitched.
A high-pitched keening sound whited out Touko’s hearing, leaving her temporarily deaf as well as blind. She lost track of Akira and Kanata vanished to her senses. For a long moment, she wasn’t even sure if she was breathing.
As Touko drowned in the void, something grabbed her as if it were scooping up a tiny frog. Touko recognized the voice of the Guardian God as she looked up…
…and witnessed the death of a star.
A dark spheroid shone cold along the horizon line, shattered and half-destroyed. There was a shadowed figure standing on the rooftop of a building in front of her, motionless, silent. The figure tilted their head at Touko, who was still clutching her borrowed sickle.
Even with the sickle, Touko had proven herself to be nothing but a burden to Akira and the others.
The figure had long, tendriling white hair that reminded Touko a little bit of the white dragon Guardian God that had attacked the black carts.
“I knew it would be like this when I returned. The world has not changed,” the figure said. The figure hopped down, approached Touko and reached for her hand. Close up, Touko saw that the figure was a woman. The woman’s hand was a small one, only a tiny bit bigger than Hinako’s. To Touko’s odd senses, the hand appeared brittle and fragile and very like her own. The first touch of that hand made her feel like she was walking in a dream. It melted the boundary between the world of waking and the world of sleep.
Sudden terror made Touko freeze.
“I, too, was frightened when I left my usual orbit. But now I have returned.”
This figure, the Millennium Comet, was breaking down the boundaries of reality. if Hinako or Akira noticed that the Millennium Comet was here, they showed no sign of it. Not even the dogs seemed to notice.
Touko looked up at the Millennium Comet, who was still holding her hand. She could see the Millennium Comet clearly despite her blindness. The Millennium Comet looked like a young, frail woman—not much older than a girl—with her eyes sunken in and limbs like dead tree branches. A hazy white light shone around her body in a thin corona like morning mist. Her hair was long, longer than her waist, and it fluttered behind her in the night breeze. Beneath her hair was a neatly folded pair of silver wings.
The sound of the rain went quiet.
Touko sensed nothing nearby but the Millennium Comet, who was crying like a little child. Their bodies floated in an expanse of featureless darkness—or perhaps not entirely featureless. Light was coming from somewhere above, distant and faint like starlight. Touko couldn’t identify the source of the light. The air carried the suggestion of snow; it was sharp and cold.
The quality of the light changed when Touko focused on it. Instead of one light source, there seemed to be several, all burning at different intensities. There was a strange kind of flickering effect that made it even more difficult for her to take in her surroundings.
Did I die? she asked herself. She was floating in a place with no water. She could see the Millennium Comet even though she was certain she was blind. She raised her head to gaze upon the Millennium Comet again.
The same vast horizon she had seen before stretched out above her. Behind the Millennium Comet was a crescent moon, a point of brightness in the surrounding dark.
The Millennium Comet lowered her eyes, her long lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. “I’m not dead.” Her voice was very like the Guardian God’s that Touko had heard earlier. “It was our sister who died. And many other humans. Almost every species. Not you.”
“Who are you?” Touko asked. Her body tensed and her heart pounded loudly in her ears. She was restless; she wanted to move but there was nowhere to go. When she tried to move, it hurt so much that she stopped trying.
Touko had been thinking of the Millennium Comet as a girl like herself or Hinako, but she wasn’t sure if that was really the case. Her white hair might be a sign of age. Her expression was older than her light, high voice suggested. She was a fragile creature: brittle enough to break. Touko guessed that she was unfathomably old. Maybe hundreds of years old, maybe millions.
As Touko looked the Millennium Comet in the eyes, they flashed silver. The irises were silver with motes of light dancing in them. The centers were dark but not black, like a deep pool of clear water at night. They reminded Touko of the ocean where she’d met Hakaisana.
“Hakaisana… When I was in orbit, that was called a soul ship. A water-borne tombstone in the shape of a whale. It was made in a distant land that no longer exists. For a fee, people could write the name of a dead person on the whale’s body. There don’t seem to be many real, living whales left.’’ She floated up, rising in front of the crescent moon.
“You’re the Millennium Comet.” Touko was sure that was who this person was, but she hadn’t said the name out loud before now. She had spoken about the Millennium Comet to Akira and Koushi before.
A robot. Akira had said that the Millennium Comet was an artificial construction created by ancient humans and the Guardian Gods.
The Millennium Comet gave her a sad frown. Her eyes were a dark color, rich and deep. Her white hair was tied in two ponytails to either side of her head. It moved around her, sinuous like an independent living thing. Her body was so wasted and thin that her skin shriveled. Her voice was like a song.
Touko’s heart beat faster and faster, like a bird rattling a cage. There was no way out. The void around her was complete and unchanging.
“Enough people have died already. People are still killing each other.”
Touko saw the Millennium Comet in profile, her face half-hidden by the void, her thin and fragile neck shining white. She had seen a black moon in her dreams, and the Black Forest with its faint rotten scent. The Black Forest, which people were forbidden to enter because of the danger.
The Millennium Comet’s neck looked so easy to break. Touko might even be able to cut through it with her sickle, as weak as she was herself.
Touko wanted to ask her name, but she couldn’t make a sound.
The Millennium Comet turned toward her and gave her a faint smile. Or maybe she was crying and trying not to let it show. She looked like a starving orphan.
But how can I see her? My eyes are like my grandmother’s.
Maybe this was a dream. That would explain everything. She didn’t think Akira would be able to kill the Millennium Comet when she looked like this—just a weak and helpless creature.
But then there would be no King of the Fire Hunters, and Akira wouldn’t be able to achieve her goals. Touko didn’t want that to happen.
She told herself that all of this was just a dream.
***
“If her eyes have been damaged, this medicine might heal them.”
Faint voices drifted into Touko’s awareness. She swam up out of a deep dark sleep, still exhausted and hurt. A hand touched her face, roughened and smelling like Tree People chemicals. She was still blind, but guessed that the person touching her was Kiri.
Her memory of her dream was as vivid as if it had really happened to her. The Millennium Comet’s voice echoed in her ears. Her heart was beating too fast. She lay on a hard floor on her back with her head resting in someone’s lap. Akira’s, probably. The mingled scents of blood, rain, and disinfectant stung her nose.
“Maybe it’ll help,” Koushi said. He sounded lost and bewildered.
“What I have here is a sample. When the first Tree People were created, this was given to me by the Guardian Gods. They wanted to see if even failed specimens could create medicine. This medicine is quite old, so it won’t be as effective as it would be if it was new. If you don’t trust it, you can take her to a decent human doctor. But it’s probably worth a try.”
Kiri’s voice grew louder as she leaned closer to Touko. Touko tried to shift her shoulders and felt stiff and sore all over. Kiri’s hair brushed against Touko’s cheek as she crouched down.
“After all, it’s a medicine made by the Guardian Gods. The Fire Hunters’ wounds are mostly healed already. Even if it doesn’t work, we wouldn’t be wasting anything. And she tried to help Shuyu. I’d like to help her,” Kiri said.
“Thank you,” Akira said. She patted Touko’s shoulder. “We can’t just leave her like this.” She didn’t sound too worried. Temari approached Touko and Akira and curled up near Touko’s arm. Temari licked her hand roughly; it tickled. Kanata growled low in his throat.
“Don’t move,” Kiri said. “I’m going to give you a medicine that will help your eyes.” Her fingers pried Touko’s eyelids apart.
Is there a medicine that can fix blindness? Touko wondered. Maybe in the capital, medicine like that existed. When she’d gone into the Black Forest near her village, the Tree People hadn’t had any medicine that could help her grandmother see again.
“I’m sorry,” she said out of a parched throat. If she’d never ventured into the Black Forest, then Koushi’s father, Haijuu, would still be alive. He would have been safe in Touko’s paper-making village. What she had done had resulted in his death. Did she wish she’d never gone into the forest? It was hard to say. She regretted her actions, but if she hadn’t gone into the Black Forest on that day, she probably would have on another day.
Touko had gone to see the Tree People before. She remembered walking through a cluster of paper mulberry trees near the fields where Rin and her friends worked. Her aunt had gestured for Touko to follow her.
Akira’s hands wrapped around Touko’s head on either side to support her.
In her memory, Touko recalled her aunt saying, “This medicine that the Tree People gave you is useless. It’s poison, and I’ll die if I use it.” Her aunt was missing one eye.
Poison… I wonder what kind of poison it will be. Is it really fatal?
Kiri’s hands joined Akira’s in supporting Touko. Temari kept licking her hand until it tingled and went vaguely numb. Touko’s sense of vivid and immediate connection to the Millennium Comet didn’t fade even though she’d been awake for at least a few minutes.
She was scared. The Millennium Comet had seen the state of the world and had been frightened just like she was.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this. This is the last of the medicine the Tree People were given. Once it’s used up, there won’t be any more.”
“No. We’re doing it,” Kiri said.
Liquid fell into Touko’s eyes, thick and cloying. She closed her eyes on reflex and tried to rub them.
“A battle between the Spiders and the Guardian Gods was inevitable,” Kiri said. “Now that the Spiders are here, there’s no safe place in the capital for rejects like us. Perhaps it was better for Shuyu to die in battle. After the Spiders complete their invasion of the city, we’ll have nowhere to run.”
A hand stroked Touko’s hair to comfort her; she couldn’t tell if it was Akira’s or Kiri’s. Or maybe Hinako’s?
No. It wasn’t Hinako’s hand. Touko couldn’t sense her anywhere. Where had she gone?
Touko’s borrowed sickle was gone as well.
“What will you do now, Koushi?” Touko asked.
“What I planned to do before. I’ll attack the Spiders using the cannon that Yuoshichi made. I’m heading over to the smokehouse near the agricultural factories next.”
“That’s close to the Guardian Gods’ shrine,” Akira said. “I’ll go with you.”
The voices that had drifted into Touko’s consciousness gradually faded away. Touko relaxed into herself; her blind eyes closed.
It was still raining outside. Rust and dust and metallic smells wafted around her, carried by the wind. Someone lifted her up; Touko stayed still and quiet so that she wouldn’t be too much of a burden.
Before she slept, she thought about the Millennium Comet. Should she have told her friends what she had seen? No, it was just a dream. But why had she dreamed that? What did it mean?
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