10

I've slept longer than I thought, and I wake up foggy-headed. The dream about Takaya felt so short, but maybe it pulled more of me in than I realized. Even so, my first thought when I wake up is Shinjiro. Not just the name, but everything it means, everything that changed in the space of a month. And I hesitate before getting out of bed, pressing my forehead into my knees. I am not going to be like this. I am going to do what needs doing.

At least being in the Velvet Room hasn't wasted time. Koro and I walk the streets, I listening for hints from Thanatos. Finally it's evening, the city under a mottled pink and gray cloud cover. I'm roaring hungry now, and Koromaru's nose whiffles as we pass a restaurant, wax entrees placed in the windows. (Stop eyeballing the cheese, Koro, you only get cheese if you've been good, and seeing as how you chased me down, you don't get cheese.)

I sidestep into the first convenience store and buy cheese. Koromaru's happy, but it hardly takes the edge off my hunger. We keep rubbernecking past any place with food, and that's undoubtedly why I bang into the old man and spill his groceries.

After we rebound off each other and I land on my butt, apples bouncing to my left and a cold packet of chicken breasts across my legs, I struggle back to my feet, holding my hand out to the gent. There isn't much to see until he's batted the half-empty paper bag out of his face. He's even older than Bunkichi, bald and flappy-skinned, bent so that he's not much taller than me. As I'm apologizing, Koromaru canters back over, a can of tomato paste in his teeth. He sets it down and goes tearing after the jar of peaches, which is rolling towards traffic.

"Nah, nah, that's enough!" The man shakes me off and yanks the peaches out of Koro's mouth without a thank you. One of those crotchety types; the only thing to do is to help him with his groceries as fast as possible and then get out of his sight. No thank you as I pop the apples back into the bag. Okay, bow, apologize again, leave – no, wait.

He stumbles as he steps away, dropping to his knees, bag falling and capsizing. He's already getting back up, swearing as I grab his shoulder. "Hey, sir, do you want me to call anyone? I can – "

"Get off, you little minx!" Standing, he tries to put weight on his right foot and winces. "Damned ankle. Must've twisted it right around."

"If you sit down, I could look at it." Akihiko gave me a crash course in that once, the difference between twisted ankles and sprained ankles and how long each ruined your training. "Or I could call a – "

"Give me your arm, if you're just going to stand there yapping!"

What he needs to do is sit down, lift the leg and put some ice on it. Does filial piety mean you don't call out your elders when they're being idiots? Better not waste time arguing. The sooner he gets where he wants to go, the sooner he can have that ankle seen to. He's old, and even little hurts like that shouldn't be dismissed. I regather his groceries, straighten and let him put most of his weight onto my arm, driving pain through my shoulder. Thanatos stirs, and tenses.

Dude. Thanatos. Wait.

"C'mon," the gent growls, pulling on my arm. I walk automatically.

Thanatos. Seriously?

I glance at Koromaru. He's trotting alongside me, and he only looks up when he notices me watching. He's more inquisitive than concerned.

Thanatos, this guy isn't triggering Koromaru's Dog Senses Good People From Bad People Alarm. You sure about this?

"Another block." He's puffing. "You nearly killed me on my doorstep."

I apologize and tighten my arm around him, offering support and trying to gauge how strong he actually is. His back is bony, no fat or muscle, not even sinew that I can tell. Yeah, I'm secretly feeling up an old guy's muscles.

Or a ker's muscles, if Thanatos is on his game.

The man tugs me to a stop in front of a store – no, there are apartments above it, accessible by a fire escape. We clatter up it, the man half-hopping up the stairs. If he's a ker, is he only faking a twisted ankle?

If he's a ker, is he luring me into some indefensible place?

I'm so golden-hearted. I just play along, standing patiently, shoulder supporting him, opposite hip balancing the groceries, watching as he unlocks a door.

"I suppose you want money."

"No, that's – " The door swings open, and I feel my eyes go wide. Koromaru yelps. I shut my mouth, trying not to crinkle my nose too obviously, but – that smell – I can't tell if it comes from food or dirty clothes or mold. Is someone dead in there?

I glance at the old man – old ker?

Igor did say the keres would come to Thanatos, but – old men? – carrying groceries?

"Don't dawdle, get me in here."

I lurch into step with him, crossing the threshold, Koromaru pressing close to my calf. Magazines, take-out boxes, bentos, clothes, newspapers, books, a bead set with a grimy plastic cover – everything is piled up like badly-made skyscrapers, toppling on a low table, heaped on a sofa. There are only thin, meandering avenues to walk through, showing a carpet the same light brown as a coffee spill. Walls are the same and peeling in places. The smell is stronger as we head in, closer to the kitchen area. I try not to think this, because it's probably not his fault – it's someone's fault for not coming over and making sure –

Thanatos' anger rolls against my thoughts, and I glance at the guy again. He's huffing for breath. Below my pity, huh? You want me to just decapitate him now, Thanatos? Another of his thoughts seeps into my own – the apartment, on fire. That'd probably take one Maragidyne, but what about the adjacent apartments, and the store?

Then I get a swift, panoramic, whirling look at the ceiling as I'm thrown to the side and into a pile of laundry and books. My shoulder hits the wall at an angle, pain rocking up my neck, and I land on my hip, books sliding under me as I try to get to my feet. Koromaru is a storm of growls, leaping and sinking his teeth into the old man's throat. The man thrashes, whipping Koromaru off of him, throwing him into a floor lamp. There's no blood, his throat a snarl of ripped skin and tissue. Blackness slops out of his eyes, his shoulders rising.

It's a quick choice on my part, not fully formed, and the force of Thanatos surging out almost throws me forward to my feet. Thanatos connects just as the ker transforms, clothes splitting, skin blanching, white and dry as dandruff. He's spindly, taller and thinner than any human I've ever seen, wrinkles and jutting ribcage. He doesn't fall under Thanatos' attack, twisting his body with pain, mouth open. It's dry and tongueless.

Koromaru hasn't wasted time watching. He latches onto the ker's leg, ripping, pulling up shriveled brown muscle. I back up to the wall, papers sliding under me, but even with Thanatos dispersed, there's no room to swing my naginata. The ker throws Koromaru off again and lurches towards me, claws coming forward – I duck my head, bring up my haft to block, and he jerks it down, one hand –

I open my eyes. The fingers of his left hand have cupped my chin, like the bars on a birdcage. His face is level with my mine, his features all so shriveled his head looks more like a skull. His eye sockets still trickle darkness, and I'm staring into them, trying to find the eyes in the deep hollows. Thanatos pants, but I can't grab him, can't free him from my soul.

There's a long stretch of road, empty sky, empty plains of softly waving grass. My vision jumps to the left – a blanket on the grass, a picnic basket. An old couple sits on the blanket, spreading out food – no there are more people, all old, bringing more food over. They move cautiously, but they're exchanging jokes, wrinkled eyes wrinkling deeper as they laugh.

Coward.

Sound comes gradually, through a haze of static. One of the old women throws back her head and laughs, thin shoulders bobbing. "And then I – then I remembered I'd left the sugar cubes in my medicine cabinet!"

"You could've just sweetened the tea with aspirin," one of the old men says, rangy with a short thick beard. "It's more than your grandkids deserve, after how they treat you."

"They don't mean anything by it." The lady sets out some plates, reaching to tuck her dark graying hair behind her ears. "Kids today aren't raised as well as we were."

Where is the honor in dying young?

"We were bad enough." Another old man is lying on his back, staring up at the clouds. He reaches to take a plate of food, and I can see there are old scars on his knuckles. "Sometimes it feels like we wasted our time, back at school. Staying out all night, running ourselves ragged. We did good, but we could've done more."

Something shifts in my eyes, and I can see that he has his head in the lap of yet another woman. She has wavy white hair and is giving him a hard little smile. "But you were the worst out of all of us."

He returns it with a fond grin. "But you encouraged me."

I twist away – his fingers are still on my face – and I shut my eyes tight but I can still see it.

You died young. You never had to see your flesh rotting over you, your bones and muscles fail, the world reduced to blurred confusion. Two sets of fingers now, pressing into my jaw and forehead. You are so beautiful, so healthy, and such a waste. Warmth dribbles over my eyelids, indistinguishable from tears. The first old woman – Fuuka – laughs, leans forward to tell a joke about how Junpei used to rib us when we were in our swimsuits, and Junpei guffaws and says he wouldn't be ribbing us now, he'd be clawing his eyes out. Seventeen years. What can you accomplish in seventeen years? Try sixty. Try seventy. See all the treasure-horde of memories and good deeds you can claim then. I'm pressing myself against the wall, searching for a way out, unable to open my eyes, unable to see anything but them, my friends, who knows how many years in the future. The ker's silent now, pressing on my forehead, waiting until I thrash myself into stillness, panting for breath.

This day will come. They will be together. They will be old. They will be so different from you that if you met them, you would have nothing to say to each other. They will be greater than you in knowledge and dignity, they will have lived decades without you, and you will be nothing but a childhood dream, a faded countenance in a corner of their memories.

Pain bursts up my calf – teeth – Koromaru? – And my eyes open and I swing my naginata up, wood shattering ribs and vertebrae. The ker stumbles back, wrenching himself free of my blade. I shake the blood out of my face and lunge forward, punching the blade into his open mouth, Thanatos rushing out of me.

There's a crunch, dry and hard, and then Thanatos rears away from the ker, one leg in his jaws. I force myself to watch. It's not something I want to see, but Death is mine. I give him his chance to do this, so I own up and watch.

When he's finished, both Thanatos and the ker's remains vanish. I've fallen to my knees somehow, shaking and cold with adrenaline. Koromaru presses against me, panting. His snowy coat is flecked with blood. My face is stiffening with it, and blood beads down my leg from where Koro bit me.

"Thanks." Swallowing the hoarseness in my voice, I give him an ear scratch. "You are the best dog."

Sirens shriek in the distance, coming closer. I sit up and look around me. Junk lies toppled everywhere. Nothing's broken, but there must have been crashes, barking, screaming – blood lies splattered. There's shouting in the corridor outside.

Igor? If it's not too much to ask – ?

The Velvet Room appears not two feet from me. I'm really going to regret owing him so much.

Koromaru's hurt worse than me, holding one foreleg up, so I ask Elizabeth to see to him first. I hover in silence as she cures him, feeling Igor's eyes on me. "Which was that?" I say eventually, just to say something. "The ker."

"Geras," Igor says. "Age. Not evil of his own accord, yet humans fear him so greatly."

I look away, trying to calm my breathing. Not something I'd tell Igor, but I felt much more of a rush destroying Geras than I did Eris.

"He was right," Igor says. "They will forget you."

"I – "

He waits, and sees that I can't go on. "It's true that you will live in their hearts," he says momentarily. "They will remember your name, and that you were their friend. They will remember what you did." I can't look at him. I wish I couldn't hear this. "But someday they will forget exactly what you look like, or what it felt like to talk to you, or the sort of jokes you made. They will forget what exactly made you their friend – which of your qualities were their favorites. In a way, they'll forget that you were a living person and that you could have lived to be as old as them. It will become impossible for them to imagine what you'd be like if you'd lived. You will always belong to the past, a past that will grow farther and farther away, and have less and less to do with the present. Their minds will grow infirm, and may break, and all memory of you might vanish."

"Igor – "

"But," he says, "they will have still loved you."

"Let me see your face," Elizabeth says after a moment, and gently pulls my hand from my eyes, shiny with blood and tears. She finger-combs my bangs away from my forehead. "Ugly, but not deep. This will only take a moment."