For the first time in living memory, I feel fear.
I dash, thrash through the thick forest, crashing through bushes, crushing the underbrush. The shell of my shattered watch dangles uselessly at my side. Stumbling, tumbling, I flee for my life.
The killers close in. Another shot whizzes by my ear. "Almost got her!" cheers the child. "Shoot again, shoot again!"
Suddenly, to my horror, a copse of close-knit trees looms ahead of me. I skid to a stop. Trapped, I glance around like a cornered animal.
A flash of pink!—I roll to the left, and a massive mallet slams down on the spot where I was standing. The blow rattles the forest. Trees shake; rocks break.
The child pouts. "Hmph. I missed."
"I won't."
Hair gleaming in the moonbeams, the girl in the pinstripe suit strolls toward me. She points her index finger at me, her thumb cocked. Red sparks fly from her fingertip.
I throw three knives her way. She jerks her handgun aside—the scarlet stream fires into the sky. I spring and sprint at her with my knives extended.
Again, movement!
I duck a lethal lateral swing of the child's mallet. As she misses, she he rides the momentum—I sidestep her upward swipe. Luckily, I shove her aside in time. I deflect another shot from the tall girl's handgun. I catch her energy-bullets with my knives. The shots glance off the enchanted blades.
Flinging a few fistfuls of knives at her, I break for the woods. It's harder to hit a moving target. A chorus of stinging scarlet shots sings past me.
The trees spread out into a clearing. In the open, I'm practically, tactically naked.
Trees give way to walls of bamboo. The hard rods slap my face and snag my skirt. But for a moment, I actually believe I can get away.
A bullet bursts through my gut.
Gasping, grasping at my stomach, I tilt and trip. I collapse to the ground. My pursuers are upon me in seconds. The child dances over me, chanting, "We caught her, we caught her!"
The tall girl sighs.
"Sorry for the trouble, Miss Elinor," she says. "We only really wanted directions. To the real Scarlet Devil Mansion, if you please. Then you started running. We had to stop you, so we did." Her radiant red eyes rest upon my pocketwatch. "What's that?"
I hide it in my hand. "N-nothing—it's nothing." The oldest, laziest lie.
The child—stronger than she seems!—pries open my fingers. "It's got a moon on it!" she exclaims. "What's that mean?"
Stiffening, the tall girl steps back from me. "That means we've found our target. Look away, Tewi. You shouldn't have to watch this." She levels her handgun at my head. "So you're the one. Yes, I recognize the family resemblance. The same face, the same unearthly beauty." The glow grows on her finger. "Goodbye, Miss Imposter. Tell the underworld that the deathless princess sends her regards."
She fires—
And a blazing inferno blooms in the night. The ring of fire surrounds us, swallowing the clearing. My startled assassins scatter. I gaze in frozen awe. Amid the inferno, a human shape emerges, wreathed in flame, eyes smoldering. Undeterred, the tall girl points at her and shoots. A writhing whip of fire smacks the shot aside. The hot, dry air cracks and crackles. Slowly, step by step, the fiery shadow advances. The moon-girl's courage evaporates. Clutching one another, the assassins run away like scared rabbits. They vanish into the flames.
On the ground, I recoil from the heat kissing my face. Fiery tongues lick my feet and fingers. My every breath rasps weaker than the last. I fade…
When I wake, I'm warm and snug.
"You up yet?"
I stir. My belly hurts. My head aches. Still, my eyelids creak open.
A face flickers into sight, pale and passive as the moon. A glimmering cloud of airborne embers surrounds her.
I'm on my back with my head laid in a strange girl's lap.
As I move to stand, she lays her hand on me. "Relax." Her fingers grasp a thin, thorny twig. Red droplets dribble from her pricked wrist. A metallic taste lingers on my tongue.
I must ask. "Who…are you?"
She heaves an exasperated sigh. "Always the same stupid question," she mutters. "You people never change."
Soot smirches her otherwise flawless face. Pure white hair spills halfway to her waist. A tight white shirt clamps around her chest, the collar flapping loose, the top four buttons undone. Red suspenders. My ears rub against her coarse red britches, which are pasted with fire-resistant charms. Other such charms hang in her hair, tied behind her head in a bow or in the twin tails that frame her face.
I must've looked for a tad too long. She turns away. "You're fine." She stands up, upsetting my headrest—my head slumps onto a cushion of ash.
"Walk," she commands.
Back turned to me, she shoves her hands in her pockets and plods down the path.
As if bewitched, I follow her.
While I'm walking after her, I trace the tear on my stomach. The moon-girl shot me. I touch the smooth skin where the wound once was. "Did you…"
"Immortal blood." She never looks back. "Has healing power."
Recognition strikes me like lightning. "You're that girl from the folktale!" I exclaim. "Kaguya's eternal rival, Fujiwara no Mokou! But you'd have to be hundreds…over a thousand years—"
"Old?" She chuckles. "Suppose I am. Not dying anytime soon. Well, neither is she." Mokou pauses to gaze up at the moon, now nearly full. "Lately, we've given up killing each other."
We move in silence for a while.
Mokou pauses a minute. "Let's rest."
I sink to my knees. Though I won't admit it, my feet are throbbing.
Mokou leans back against a bunch of bamboo and rolls a cigarette. She lights the tip with a snap of her fingers. When she catches my strange look at her, she shrugs. Not dying anytime soon.
Unable to resist, I ask. "Why did you save me?"
"The Moon's goons were after you. You can't be all bad."
I share her thin, tinny laughter, but the feeling soon vanishes. I purse my lips. "I've never met Princess Kaguya," I murmur. "And I've never done her any wrong. But she wants me dead."
Mokou sniggers. "Sounds like her."
"What's she like?"
At first Mokou doesn't respond. She draws a deep drag from her cigarette. "Otherworldly," she finally replies, exhaling smoke. "Proud. Cold. Dark. Elegant. Devilishly clever. Prettier than you can imagine." She stares at her cigarette. Grimacing, she pinches out the flame. "At least, my father thought so." She flicks the butt away and returns to the path. "Lose the shoes. You're slowing us down."
A bit miffed, I part with my genuine-leather heels. I proceed as barefoot as she is. As I remember my days of dignity as head maid of the Scarlet household, I want to cry.
I don't bother Mokou with any more questions. She saved my life—I won't test her patience.
Instead, I look around me. Dawn light filters through the morning mist. Even in autumn, the forest flourishes. Browning bamboo spears shoot into the sky, some stalks as thick as my wrist. They rattle in the lazy breeze. Dead brown leaves crunch underfoot in the soggy, squidgy dirt. Birds—or rather, bird youkai—warble in the woods, calling out their morning songs.
With my duties at the mansion, I've never had much chance to go outside. Clean air, vivid colors and sounds, the slower pace of a place forgot by time. Still, I sense an urge to tidy it up with a broom and dustpan.
"How far are we going?" I finally ask. As I relax after my near-death experience, fatigue hammers me harder than any assassin's mochi-making mallet.
"Not far." Mokou turns off the trail onto an overgrown side-trail. She points ahead. "Look. There."
Secluded in a bamboo grove, a weathered western-style cabin juts from a hilltop. At this point, I welcome any semblance of civilization.
Behind the worn wooden door, young voices mumble. Mokou raps twice before striding inside. "Morning, Keine. I've brought someone."
I peer in. Over a dozen dazed children, each around ten years old, huddle at desks decorated with textbooks. At the front of the room, a kind-looking woman in a plain blue dress points to various points on a map. Once she sees me with Mokou, her pointer clatters to the floor.
"Class…dismissed," says the teacher, eyes locked on me.
A girl in the front row shoots up her hand. "But we haven't even had lunch yet!"
"You may go home early. Tell your parents I said you could."
Whooping, the students gather their books and spill out the door. Mokou and I part to let them pass. Humans, I detect. But the teacher emanates a different aura.
She certainly emanates an air of authority. When she has me sit in the front row, I comply without complaint.
"You're here early," she remarks to Mokou. "I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow night." She glances at me. "Who's this?"
I open my mouth to speak, but Mokou interrupts—"A friend. A fellow rebel, actually." She leans close, grinning. "The true heir has come."
To my amazement, Keine brightens. Instantly, she transforms from a hostile host into a motherly caretaker. "You must be tired!" she says. A guiding hand on me, she leads me toward a closet. "We weren't expecting guests, but we can put you up in the spare room. There's a bed and a clean dress you can use, and if you work hard, we'll feed you just fine." Keine pauses. "Can't you talk? What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Y-yes," I stammer, "my name's Sakuya."
"Wonderful," she says, beaming. "You'll help me with tomorrow's lessons, won't you? These schoolbooks don't teach themselves." She throws open the closet door, reaches inside, and starts heaping humungous books into my arms. I stagger under their weight.
"History, geography, biography, psychology, theology…we have a busy lecture period tomorrow, don't we? Yes, that should be good. Oh, wait!" She picks out one last hulking tome and plops it on top of the stack. I sway but stay upright.
Keine giggles. "There we go. Could you also grade yesterday's essays? They should be in the front cover of—yes, that's the one! Thanks so much. You'll be living here, so you might as well help."
I gulp. I never agreed to anything. Nevertheless, she seems determined to take care of me.
Meanwhile, Mokou lingers by the door, hands in pockets. "Sakuya, let me see your watch."
I put down the books and show it to her. Keine watches over Mokou's shoulder. Keine murmurs, "So this is—"
"The Luna Dial, yes." Hypnotically holding the watch at eye level, Mokou swings it on its silver string.
I speak up. "It won't work. It got shot."
"So I see." Mokou bounces the watch in her palm then slips it into her shirt pocket. "But I know someone who can fix it." She must sense my reluctance. "It's worthless to you broken," she adds. "You can't always trust Nitori, but I promise I'll bring it back by tomorrow night."
Though loath to lose my last possession, I nod.
The door creaks—my nerves jolt.
Keine sticks her hands on her hips. "Come on out, children," she chides. "Let's not be rude to our guest, mm?"
Three small shapes peek and peer through the doorway. They shuffle inside, scuffing their feet on the floor. Their wings flutter bashfully. Not human children—fairies.
"They live with me," says Keine, "my star students." She chokes back a chuckle. "Why don't you introduce yourselves, girls?"
A blue-haired tomboy steps forward. "I'm Cirno!" she announces. "I'm the strongest fairy!"
"Sunny Milk," quavers the smallest.
"Aw, I wanted to go first!" whines the third. At Keine's prodding, she grumbles, "Luna Child."
"Good," says Keine, smiling. She gestures to me. "Meet Sakuya. She'll be staying with us for…awhile. You be nice to her."
They all bob their heads. I offer them a little wave. Eagerly, the fairy children scramble over me, tugging on my braids, counting the roman numerals around the hem of my skirt—"I counted up to SHEE!" brags Cirno, but Luna retorts, "Idiot, that's XII, twelve!"—and Sunny pokes my bellybutton through the hole in my dress.
Keine laughs to watch me struggle. Even Mokou allows herself a small smile.
The fairies and I spend the remainder of the daylight gathering wood and food for dinner.
That evening, while Keine stir-fries bamboo shoots, she puts me on bath duty. It's my job to chase down three screaming, squirming fairies; strip them; shove them in the tub; and scrub them clean.
I can't help thinking, Water, water everywhere.
"You can't do this to me!" bawls Cirno, squinting from the soap in her eyes. "I'm the strongest!"
"You're also the filthiest. Stay still."
Luna gripes, "No fair! She turned the water cold!"
I wipe my forehead, groaning. They're like three of Flandre, except with squeaky squealing instead of vicious murder.
That night, I sleep in the guest room with the three fairies. I get the bed. Mokou and Keine talk in the other room. I can't understand what they're saying. There's a horrendous snoring from someone snoozing on the floor.
I'm drifting off to thoughts of Lady Remilia, when I sense a rustling. Sunny crawls into bed with me. Luna soon follows, snuggling against my back. Cirno, sprawled on the floor, sleepily rolls all the unoccupied sheets around herself into one immensely satisfied lump.
It's happy here. But I know I can't stay. I must leave again.
If only I knew how soon that would be.
