Rain slammed into Koushi’s face, making it difficult to even breathe. He was dragging a refrigeration unit that was out of fuel across the Okibi Estate’s outer courtyard. He’d dragged it all the way from Yuoshichi’s study.
Yuoshichi’s study door had been half-open when Koushi had first entered the room, but there’d been no sign of Yuoshichi anywhere. None of the doors were locked, but the estate was practically deserted. Koushi had hoped to find factory workers here—at least some of the people who’d been trained to use the lightning fuel cannons—but there was no one.
People from the Ibushi factories should have been here waiting for Koushi. What had happened to them? Koushi was supposed to come here, then go to an Ibushi factory with an assistant to help coordinate the counterattack against the Spiders.
Most of the refrigeration units containing lightning fuel had been stored in Yuoshichi’s locked study until the day of the attack—today. Some were already on the estate’s roof, primed and ready to be loaded onto a launch vehicle.
Koushi was loading the refrigeration units on his own. This was difficult, but not impossible. He’d requested refrigeration units that were light enough for one person to carry for logistical reasons.
The rain made it difficult to breathe, which also made it difficult to think. Koushi wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing or not. There was no one here to guide him, and none of his instructions for this battle had been written down anywhere. He felt lost.
The Guardian Gods’ shrine was visible from the roof, even through the thick sheets of rain. It gleamed a dull white, shimmering in the center of the storm. The Fire Hunters in the Guardian Gods’ service had cut down the Fire Fiends that had entered the city, but the battle with the Spiders was ongoing. The shrine appeared untouchable and unbreakable as it towered over the city under siege.
Takiguchi’s steelworks were involved with detonating lightning fuel. Perhaps Takiguchi would be at one of his factories now. Yuoshichi was almost certainly at a factory now, since he wasn’t here. He would have to give the order to evacuate all the workers not involved with operating the cannons. If Yuoshichi didn’t arrive in time, Takiguchi had the authority to speed up the evacuations.
And where was Hibari now? Koushi hoped the Guardian God was evacuating other factories in the city and leaving the rest of the situation alone. There were cannons mounted on the roofs of several factories, but all of them needed human operators to function. If Hibari cleared out all the factories completely, there would be no one left to operate the weapons.
Koushi kept moving mechanically and tried to stop thinking about things he couldn’t control. He’d reached a cannon; he was a human operator; he could do something here. He fired up the cannon, and the engine whirred to life. He loaded lightning fuel into the barrel. All he had to do now was aim, and the cannon would do the rest.
But aiming would be a problem. There was no one around to give him signals or tell him where to point the weapon.
The air above Koushi’s head caught fire and split open in a conflagration of sudden flame. The light and sound confused his vision and sent vibrations to his very bones. His ears were bleeding and useless.
Koushi glared at the sky, which was abuzz with afterimages and echoes. Another flash followed the first in rapid succession. If the steel mill and the agriculture factory didn’t coordinate the strike points and launch intervals based on the angle of the cannon barrel, there wouldn’t be enough lightning fuel bottles buried in the ground to react to when the cannons fired. The bottles of lightning fuel in the ground could only react and explode once, so every shot was significant. The Spiders could exploit that if enough of them waited out the initial explosions.
Dazed and stunned, Koushi looked out over the city. He was searching for signs of Spiders, but he saw none. Had Hibari shown him the truth, or had what he seen been an illusion?
The next flash of lightning fuel was many-pronged like a tree with thick branches. It was also much closer to the ground than the first flash. The area around the tunnel leading out of the city suffered repeated flashes and earthquakes as more and more cannon shots caused buried bottles of lightning fuel to explode. The air crackled in the aftermath. The sky was as black as ink. Rain fell with increasing intensity.
Koushi placed his arms over his head to protect it against any blowing or flying debris.
The lightning fuel explosions extended their branches of light out into the dark sky, illuminating Koushi’s surroundings with a harsh glow that was brighter than sunlight.
This is too much, too fast, Koushi thought. If all the lightning fuel was detonated now, there would be none in reserve for additional attacks. He wondered if he should send a signal flash with a bottle of lightning fuel to tell the nearby cannons to stop shooting.
Before Koushi could send any kind of signal, a sour smell stung his nose. He’d never smelled it before, but it was deeply unpleasant. He covered his nose and mouth to help dampen the noxious scent.
Koushi looked to the west, in the direction of the shrine, and saw a wriggling mass moving below the cliffs at the edge of the city in a thick dark line. The line was not a uniform color. Black and red mixed together in the mass like the embers of a fire—or like blood and ashes.
The mass moved through the factory areas. The industrial areas of the city were almost never lit at night. They weren’t lit now, and the red-black line swept through the empty streets like wildfire.
Fire in the rain.
This was natural fire. It had to be. The Spiders could touch it and use it, but humans and the Guardian Gods couldn’t.
The Spiders were marching towards the shrine, carrying torches of natural fire. The sight reminded Koushi of the primitive lighting devices he’d seen in the books in the Central Archives. They weren’t covered by glass like lanterns. The flames were entirely exposed atop thick, long sticks. Koushi guessed that they’d been soaked in oil or something similar; otherwise, the rain would have doused the torches by now.
Koushi felt his throat close up. It was hard to breathe. Natural fire could cause humans to combust, and he was nothing but an ordinary human. A unpleasant, tingling heat suffused his hands and moved inside him like a living thing. It hurt, and he couldn’t stop it from hurting.
Calm down, Koushi told himself. The fire that the Spiders have is far away. It won’t burn you from here.
The risk of combustion would be greater the closer Koushi or other humans came to the Spiders’ torches. Past records of human combustion and pathogens had been lost, so the exact distance at which combustion occurred was unknown. For obvious reasons, no one was willing to perform experiments to test this.
I wonder if the Fire Hunters who were fighting in front of the tunnel are still alive? Koushi thought. He hoped Roroku was.
The King of the Fire Hunters… Koushi had read about that in the hand-bound book that Akira’s brother had made. Akira was trying to become the King of the Fire Hunters. Perhaps Koushi’s father had been striving for the same thing. Koushi stared at the line of red fire, tracing its trajectory.
The King of the Fire Hunters would hunt the Millennium Comet, the Flickering Flame and rule the people without relying on the power of the Guardian Gods.
Was there really room in this world for the King of the Fire Hunters? Koushi thought the idea of the King of the Fire Hunters was just that: an idea, a convenient fiction.
A flash of exploded lightning fuel hit the ancient tree where the capital’s Tree People lived. The tree swelled up as if bursting with light from within, its trunk breaking into pieces from the impact. The upper half of the trunk fell to earth, smoldering with bright light. It transferred its great weight as it fell, crushing the roof of a nearby building.
The lightning drew a line between the falling part of the trunk and the part still in the ground. The destroyed tree shed water, scattering raindrops everywhere. The air thrummed with electric discharge as the lightning faded. Another bolt of lightning lit the sky above in stark black and white. Each beam of light left a unique pattern in the air before fading away.
The area below the Guardian Gods’ shrine was illuminated by the Spiders’ sparking torches. The torchlight commingled like one huge light—like the sun rising in darkness. Unlike fire fuel, which was harvested from Fire Fiends and could then be safely used, natural fire moved like a living beast. Some of the torches sputtered out, reducing the amount of natural fire the Spiders wielded. But what remained was more than enough for their purposes.
The line of fire crept up the cliff like a lightning bolt arcing through the sky. It would reach the shrine eventually, even as slowly as it was moving. The light pulsed like a heartbeat. The torches were a line of blood pumping up the cliff to the shrine.
Koushi stood still, alarmed and floundering. The Guardian Gods can control the rain… can the Spiders control the fire from their torches? They must be able to.
If rain could be controlled, why not fire?
All Koushi knew for sure about Spiders was that they had some power over insects. That was a natural power that most Spiders possessed in some capacity. As far as Koushi knew, only the most powerful of the Guardian Gods had any control whatsoever over fire. And that control couldn’t be used on natural fire. The Guardian Gods would combust in the presence of natural fire just like humans did.
Fire burned in the heavens and on the earth as the Spiders’ advance continued. Lightning forked overhead while torches burned below.
Looking at it all from a distance, Koushi felt a tinge of worry. All the Spiders’ attacks were focused on the shrine. Akira would almost certainly be caught in the crossfire, and so would Hinako. Koushi didn’t know where she’d gone, but he knew she wasn’t safe. The entire city wasn’t safe right now.
Koushi regained his balance by clinging to the cannon’s control panel. If he aimed well enough, he might be able to extinguish some of the Spiders’ torches and scatter their forces. He could target more Spiders that were coming in from the Black Forest. The Spiders didn’t belong here. This wasn’t their place. The fire of their torches belonged to an ancient world that was long dead.
The cannon roared to life as Koushi fed it more fire fuel. The black metal heated up under his chilled hands. He fired off shot after shot, detonating the lightning fuel that was buried near the shrine. The line of red flame broke in places as Spiders scattered to avoid the shots.
Then the cannon jammed and stopped. It had only been tested with blanks firing at regular intervals. Koushi’s barrage had damaged the cannon, which hadn’t been designed for such hard use.
Koushi checked the angle of the cannon’s barrel and caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. There was something moving on top of a nearby water tower. He tracked the movement…
..and his mouth opened in shock.
It was Hinako. Hinako was climbing the water tower, moving faster than he’d ever seen her move. Her wet hair was plastered to her forehead. Some of the rain Koushi felt on his face might be water that Hinako was shaking off above him.
Hinako saw him. She’d seen him before he’d noticed her. She dropped down from on high and landed on the rooftop of the factory without a sound. She jumped up on the cannon, resting her small hand on the control panel near Koushi.
Her other hand was wrapped around their father’s Fire Hunting sickle.
Koushi’s heart leaped to his throat. He wanted to say something—to call out to his sister—but he remained mute. He’d feared that he would never see her again. He hadn’t thought that she would come back to him of her own accord.
Hinako was looking at him, but he didn’t recognize the expression on her face. Her eyebrows were so close together they were nearly touching. Her eyes burned with fury. She seized control of the cannon from Koushi, breathing deeply from the exertion. Her skin was pale and bloodless, her eyes bloodshot and leaking tears. She was obviously feverish. Dressed in nothing but a filthy nightgown and drenched to the skin, it was a wonder she hadn’t collapsed.
Where is her medicine? Koushi patted himself down looking for it. He cursed himself when he remembered that he’d left it back at Okibi Estate.
Holding on securely to the barrel of the cannon with both feet and one hand, Koushi realized that Hinako was no longer the little sister he remembered. She’d changed in fundamental ways.
Hinako’s piercing eyes fixed on Koushi, clutching the Fire Hunter’s sickle close to her body. She looked wild, like a mad beast. The Hinako that Koushi knew couldn’t use weapons. She would have been terrified to even lift their father’s sickle.
The moment stretched. Koushi and Hinako stared at one another without saying a word.
The Spiders were still gathering at the base of the Guardian Gods’ shrine with their torches. They had to be stopped, or many more Fire Hunters would die—and die horribly via combustion. Killed by fire. And Hinako would die with them. Koushi couldn’t let that happen.
“You can’t go,” Koushi said. “You can’t fight.”
Hinako frowned at him, her eyes colorless and emotionless. The old tree burned behind her, its thunderstruck body falling to pieces and crackling in the night air. There were no open flames, only brilliant white light like pure sunlight. The light devoured the branches and what remained of the trunk.
The tree was like a beacon in the dark night. The usual lights of the city were all off, and even the emergency lighting was spotty. The Guardian Gods’ shrine itself was dark except for the Spiders’ ring of fire around it.
The idea that there was natural fire inside the city terrified Koushi. The Fire Hunters gathered at the shrine were at risk, yes, but so was everyone else. He’d learned that close to half the city’s inhabitants had died in fires in the past at the Academy. How could such a great cost of lives be borne? Who would bury the dead and rebuild after so many had been swept away by terrible fire?
Records of disaster in the city existed, but Koushi had never read the name of a single victim of natural fire. If that kind of information was recorded, it wasn’t shared with the students at the Academy.
People were going to die tonight, and there was a good chance that not even their names would be remembered.
The Spiders were on the move. Koushi could see their shadows from here. He had to keep firing at them—had to get them to leave. They didn’t belong in the city.
“Get down from here,” Koushi said to Hinako. “You have to get away, where it’s safe.” He reached for Hinako, wanting to say more, but the words caught in his throat.
There was a hissing sound from below—the sound of burning or frozen destruction. Hinako used the distraction of the sound to leap up onto the cannon beside Koushi. The sickle she held was poised threateningly above his head.
“I’m sorry,” Hinako said quietly as she brought the blade of the sickle down on the cannon’s control panel. A Fire Hunter’s sickle could slice through the tough hide of a Fire Fiend with ease. The unprotected control panel suffered swift destruction.
The sickle was too thin and precise to destroy the entire control panel in one hit. Hinako kept slicing up and down in a frenzy like an aggressive animal.
Hinako tried to cut away other parts of the cannon with less success, but that didn’t matter. With the control panel broken, the cannon couldn’t be used by anyone.
Koushi backed away as much as he could without falling. Hinako’s assault was relentless. Rain flew off her and the sickle as she single-mindedly sought the cannon’s complete obliteration. The control panel was no longer recognizable as a piece of machinery, but she still didn’t stop. She was gritting her teeth, as she often did when she was ill or in pain.
A week ago, Koushi would have said that his sister wasn’t strong enough to even lift the sickle, never mind destroy heavy machinery with it. He’d never seen her face so distorted. Sometimes she gritted her teeth when the weather changed suddenly or her health took a nosedive, but she’d never looked so angry before.
Was this what Hinako had turned into? How? Why?
The low hum of the machine finally fell silent. Hinako stood still with the sickle in her hands, taking shaky breaths. She wasn’t crying, though it looked like she wanted to.
The sickle was in perfect condition. There wasn’t a nick or a scratch on it. It moved through the air, affected by the violence of Hinako’s harsh breaths.
Hinako held her breath for a moment, then raised the sickle and plunged it deep into the control panel. The sickle passed through it like a knife through butter. She had killed the machine.
At the same time, a rock slide shook the city. The cliff holding up the Guardian Gods’ shrine peeled away, falling on the Spiders gathered below. Koushi had seen no flash, so he didn’t think the rock slide had been caused by buried lightning fuel. Perhaps the Guardian Gods had caused it themselves.
Hinako turned around at the roar and vibration. Her gaze passed through Koushi like he wasn’t even there.
A chill went up Koushi’s spine.
Hinako let go of the sickle. It remained stuck in the ruin of the control panel. She leaped at a shadow behind Koushi with her teeth bared.
Koushi felt hopelessly slow as he spun to look at the shadow. It wasn’t a Fire Fiend—it was human-shaped, but wearing Fire Fiend hide. A Spider. They appeared to be alone on the roof. They weren’t carrying a torch.
Koushi swallowed. He’d given away his position by firing so much from this roof in rapid succession. One of the Spiders’ scouts had tracked him down. They were here to destroy the cannon or kill him. Or both.
Hinako faced the Spider without hesitation, but her legs wobbled as she landed. She lacked the reach to break past the Spider’s defenses. The Spider’s short sword and long arms gave them an advantage against her.
The Spider’s short sword swept sideways, slicing through the rain. Hinako ducked underneath the blade, coming closer to the Spider. She struck the Spider’s hand with her own, causing the Spider to panic in reaction. He sliced down, and Hinako flew backward from the force of the blow.
Koushi tried to run to Hinako, but he couldn’t force himself to move. He inhaled the noxious smell of the Spider and nearly gagged. He’d never been so close to any Spider except Kun. Like Tree People, Spiders used chemicals to ward away Fire Fiends, though their smell was not the same as that of Tree People.
Stumbling and trying not to retch, Koushi put himself between the Spider and his sister. He remembered the Spider he’d seen in the Black Forest—the one being tortured by the Fire Hunters. The spy. He wondered if he was facing the same man now. He couldn’t tell. The Spider, like the ones he’d seen in Hibari’s vision, was wearing a mask.
The Spider raised his short sword to Koushi and took a step forward. Koushi couldn’t afford to run or dodge. If he did, the Spider would hit Hinako.
Koushi grabbed a bottle of lightning fuel from his bag without thinking. At the very least, he could blind the Spider temporarily. That would give Hinako an opportunity to escape.
While the Spider was distracted by Koushi’s intervention, Hinako pounced. She soared over Koushi’s head with the sickle in one hand and Koushi’s arm in the other. She blocked the sword with the sickle with enough force to send the Spider stumbling back a step. Hinako jumped off the flailing blade and landed both feet in the hollow of the Spider’s throat. She kicked with all her might.
The Spider’s black mask fell away as Hinako wrapped her hands around their neck. The Spider spasmed and gasped as Hinako bit through their clothes. Shock made the Spider drop their weapon. The Spider tried to shake Hinako off, dropping and rolling to try to dislodge her, but Hinako kept holding on.
Hinako slammed into the roof, screaming and clawing at the Spider. Momentum made her roll to the very edge.
“Hinako!” Koushi cried out.
Hinako caught herself before she fell off the roof and jumped to her feet.
The Spider retrieved their short sword and faced Hinako head-on.
Koushi reached out to grab the Spider as a distraction. He couldn’t just let his sister be killed. The Fire Fiend hide slipped under his grip as the Spider spun, glaring at Koushi. The short sword slashed at him now, and Koushi ducked.
The sword missed him by an inch, but the next strike was coming. Before Koushi could put more distance between himself and the Spider, Mizore barked sharply to draw the Spider’s attention.
Mizore? When had Roroku’s dog gotten here?
Mizore ran across the rooftop in long leaps and bit into the Spider’s right hand. Mizore growled low in her throat as the Spider let their sword hand drop. Instead of fighting off the dog, the Spider used their free hand to rummage around in their breast pocket.
Koushi guessed that the Spider had insects they could command, like Kun. He gripped the Spider from behind and tried to trip them. If the Spider failed to free the insects under their command, he was certain that Mizore could pin the Spider down long enough for Roroku to arrive.
As the Spider fumbled to free their supply of poisonous insects, Roroku climbed up to the roof. His face was painted black and blended into the darkness like the rest of him. Only his eyes flashed white.
Roroku jumped over his dog and plunged a dagger into the Spider’s exposed throat.
There was no scream. Koushi heard a high-pitched ringing in his ears and tilted his head. He might be deaf for awhile. He’d caused a lot of explosions and he hadn’t worn any ear protection.
Roroku kicked the Spider off the roof. Their body flailed through the air before landing with a splat on the street below.
Roroku took a deep, shuddering breath. His bloody dagger hung limply from a loose fist. He noticed Koushi, and then Hinako.
“So she did it, huh?” Roroku said, head jerking toward Hinako. “She destroyed the cannon with the sickle. Your sister’s a real bitch, Koushi.”
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