LIN
Caught off guard by the surprise attack the soldier spider brought one of her wrist guard up struggling to wheel aside as the naginata came crashing down with Kubi's full weight behind it. Silk and steal shrieked against each other in a flash of sparks as Shimizu screamed as well. The thick plate took the blow and held against the biting edge of the blade, but the jarring impact shattered what lay beneath. As the spider wheeled aside the stranger's blade continued down until it shattered the stone step where Shimizu once stood. But there were blade in her many hands as her injured arm dropped limp to her side. And she struck all at once, surging back to meet her aggressor.
"Traitor!" Shimizu's voiced thundered off the buildings, "I will kill you myself!"
Darting backwards along the edge of the step Kubi brought the thick shaft of her pole up over her head keeping the blade point low. The night hungrily swallowed her dark indigo clothing and the shifting lacquered lames of her armor so that all that remained of her was her dour moon face. Shifting her torso back and forth Kubi proved herself to be a formidable opponent, deflecting all of the spider's slashing blows only to dart and flick the cruel edge at Shimizu's calves and ankles. The spider had lots of hands, but she only had two legs. Deftly dancing around the flashing blade the soldier spider continued to advance until they spilled off stone into the weeds. Suddenly Kubi planted the blade the dirt and pivoted around the shaft with her whole body swinging up and slamming her bare foot into Shimizu's jaw. As her feet left the ground the spider back flipped, dropping her knives and catching herself with her many good hands before launching backwards to land on top of the stone frog. Furling her arms more and more appeared to ring her body as she rained a deadly deluge of short sharpened silk blades.
Standing in the listing boat Lin watched in horror as the stranger and the spider went to war. It all happened so fast and she wasn't sure anything of this was real. She wasn't sure who to be afraid for: Shimizu or Kubi. Lin startled Fumiko dragged herself up onto the stone steps coughing and sputtering. She waved her down pointing uselessly as the fighting God women.
"Do something!"
But Fumiko just gaped stupidly still trying to figure out what was happening. Dragging a plank of wood out of the weeds, Kubi hid beneath it and sprinted back. It was splintered and bristling with shards by the time she reached the stone frog. Throwing it at Shimizu, Kubi scissored her blade back and forth at the spider's knees. But Shimizu was gone, arching through the air and landing in her shadow swinging blades of silk so sharp they made the air scream. Wheeling her haft backwards over her head to protect her exposed back again sparks flew as silk met steel. Then Kiri stood and tipped over the side of the boat.
Cursing in terror thinking the human might drown Lin clambered over the edge. She gasped as she plunged waist deep into the frozen water. The kits squealed and protested loudly as the cold soaked through the silk. Hurriedly wading around the prow and up the slippery steps Lin came up short finding the human wasn't drowning at all. Still holding the oni collar in her thin fingers the human waded past her and up the steps. Rail thin beneath her plastered robes, the fat wad of silk at her stomach made a mockery of what she'd just recently lost. Standing in the ankle deep water her mismatched eyes stared endlessly back into the swirling mists of the night river. Her eerie white eye was incandescent in the gloom.
"She's almost here," Kiri choked between her chattering teeth, "And there's nothing he can do."
Suddenly a blast of wind screamed down from the restaurant district.
Lin cringed against it, hurrying out of the lapping waves as it nearly knocked her down.
Something lurched in her chest as it struggled to push back the heavy mists.
Rain. The wind smelled heavily of warm summer rain.
As Kubi shouted wrathfully again Lin threw her attention back to the spiders. They had backed Kubi against the granite frog. Fumiko had ensnared the stranger's fleet feet with a bolo of silk before the winds came. This the blade-eyed God woman sliced, darting around into the shelter of the granite frog as Shimizu hurled lance after lance of gleaming white silk. Caught in the suddenly screaming wind they shattered against the stone steps uselessly. Spiders cringed from the beating blustering air. Taking advantage of the gale Kubi sprinted out of the stone's shadow, knocking Fumiko backwards as she bolted by to tackle Shimizu. They all landed hard; Fumiko knocked her head as the other God women spilled down the wide steps in a scrambling thicket of arms. Lin's insides surged in horror as Kubi came to rest pinning the spider's many arms with her knees. Seizing Shimizu's helmet, the stranger wrenched it off so she could kiss the spider full on the lips. The soldier sagged visibly as Kubi pulled and pulled on her mouth as if sucking the life from her. As Fumiko sprang up from her stupor with a cry of outrage Kubi's head whipped around. With it came the long reaching length of her white neck. Kubi smashed her masked faced against the side of the Fumiko's head sending her spinning. As the handmaiden smashed down onto the stone steps the wind abated. Dizzily staggering to her feet Kubi lurched away searching for her pole weapon. Just as addled, Fumiko clambered up the stone steps to her sister's side.
"Enough!" Lin thundered.
Startled by her shouts the kits began wailing. Ignoring their cries she stormed up the steps to stand between the warring women.
"Do you want to die, you dopes!? Do you!?"
Jerking away from her in surprise, Kubi and Fumiko froze as she snarled at them.
"I'm not going to die here! So stay any fight if you want! Or get your heads on straight and come with me! Because Shurui is coming and she'll kill all of us!"
Kubi frowned at her dourly. Then she snorted, smiling slyly revealing her lacquer black teeth.
"You must be Nigihayami's sister."
Knocked speechless by the stranger's knowledge, Lin gaped at her. Then they both turned and blinked overhead as the fog rolled back. It parted just in time for them to see the deadly meteor as it dropped from above. Silently the lance of silk fell in a blinding flash. Lin saw it. Kubi saw it. But too late.
It took the Kubi full in the chest at a speed so fast it ripped off her mask and helmet. Her long black hair flew out behind her as the bolt passed through in a gushing gout of red. As the lance splintered on the stones behind Kubi Lin cringed over her screaming kits. Whizzing shards pelted her back as the other God woman crashed to her knees beside her. Pulling a moue of annoyance, she touched the hole. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she toppled backwards.
As more hissing shadows arched overhead Lin caught the human, dragging her into the granite frog's shadow as a second and a third bolt of silk rained from the sky. Fumiko cut these down with uncertain strokes of short blades she held awkwardly. Wobbling on the step in front of her sister, she scanned the dark with determined red eyes. Until she saw the boats as the billowing fog parted and lifted. Lin saw Shurui perched on the prow of the front ship. She heard the black bell ring in the dark like a death knell. She couldn't even shout a warning even as her kits wailed.
Fumiko fell forward onto her knees as a blade of white turned red pierced her chest. Her blood ran down the edge, soaking down around her sister's hand. Shimizu stared incredulously as Fumiko collapsed forward yanking the knife from her fingers. Then Shimizu screamed. She screamed and screamed. Turning her back on the sight, Lin bent over her shrieking kits staring numbly.
She didn't stop the human as Kiri slipped down the stone steps. Lin watched mutely as Kiri cradled Kubi's head in her lap. The stranger raked the blades of her angry eyes over Lin's face. Then Kubi burdened her with words. They choked from her lips in lines of red that stained her pale moon face.
"Tell Nigihayami… My children are his now…"
Here Kubi drew the cutting point of her eyes overhead at Kiri. She stared at the human long and hard before she saw something. Then she softened with sorrow and the regret Lin couldn't begin to fathom. It took Lin a moment to see it as well. Kiri's eyes were a hawk's eyes; no longer the human's as she cried tears of bitter salt. Her tears couldn't save Kubi. Taking one of her shaking gloved hands, the stranger seized the gold cloth and ripped it from the folds of the human's wet white robes. Slowly they were staining red. Even the flashing gold silk was turning red as Kubi clutched the fabric to her chest. Then she lifted bloody fingers to caress the side of the human's face leaving long lines of red. Kiri breathed out a shuddering sob, clasping it to her cheek even as it wavered. Kubi's lids fluttered as her head drifted to the side, but she pronounced the words with grim strength.
"Finish… what… you… started…"
Then she was gone.
Lin stared uncomprehending at Kubi's white, white face. She was so numb she didn't cringe as the river soaked bat invaded Kiri's grief. Shoving the human away she smeared herself with Kubi's blood as she shook the corpse Bah Fuh rocked back onto her heels snuffling and gasping.
"You killed her! Shurui, you killed her!"
The bat was stricken.
"You stupid jealous fool! She needed to live! You've changed everything!"
Suddenly her milky eyes whipped up to stare overhead in abject terror.
"Now we'll both die at Garuda's hands!"
Lin froze as Shurui's shadow as it fell over them. Her cruel voice was quiet with disgust.
"For once you're right, bat, but that's because I am Garuda's hands."
Silk sang, blood splashed, and the bat's head tumbled from her shoulders. Lin jerked aside as a familiar white foot shoved the hideous creature's twitching body away. Suddenly the world was full of screams. Shimizu's screams. Her kits' screams. Lin stared as the world went cold and clear. Her hand reached for her obi. Then the wind came again like an explosion. Again it smelled of rain.
The squall detonated around her screaming its vicious tearing voices. Lin was dreaming again as Haku fell from the sky and landed at her feet. The stone stairs smashed under her folded knees under the force of his impact. It bowled her backwards onto the bloody stones. Even as he leaned over her, gently lifting her against him, instinct screamed in her face. Lin grabbed Kiri's wrist. The fingers of her only hand tightened like a vice. Weightlessness flooded through every corner of her body as the iron bar of his arm tightened. It spread through her hand into the human. Together, and with the bloody gold kimono furling beneath them, they launched into the sky.
HAKU
Suzume was right. Waiting would be the death of him. All he could see in his mind's eyes was the tiny flash of yellow in a sea of churning black. He had left his sister adrift in the flood of spiders. Sick with the sight and humming with worry, he took up the fox's preoccupation with pacing. No doubt the God was somewhere below pacing a rut into the floorboards.
The curling wind of his passing chased him back and forth along the top floor veranda. Unbothered by wind undoing her knotted hair, the spider sat with him. Kuromi perched on the edge of the balcony swinging her feet over the side, otherwise Haku was sure Okesa would have come to joined him. He would have asked her to play him music because the thick silence was sharp and cutting. Haku, however, could not tell the spider to go. He did not want to think about her sitting somewhere alone in the dark. As he passed Haku glanced at the piece of silk she worried in her many hands. Bracing it against the rail, she burnished the pale white filaments harder and harder. She had etched sheaves of rice across its ivory surface. As the spider worked she smiled and hummed to herself.
Haku knew it was a flute for Suzume.
He could not bring himself to tell the child the fox would not want her gift.
He did not want to see the light of happiness go out in her luminous red eyes.
Behind him he heard Sen's light steps and he smelled the ink on her fingers.
"We finished. This is all that's left."
As she held up the single sheaf of paper Haku forced himself to stop. Turning, he found that the ghost had come as well. Tomoe floated beside Sen like a thin shadow melting away into nothing at the floor. His drooping shoulders told Haku that the spirit had no luck making amends with the cat. Kuromi scrambled up to kneel and bow politely as they approached.
"Good evening, Lady Sen. Good evening, Mr. Tomoe."
The ghost bowed to her twice as Kaonashi always did.
"Good evening, Miss Kuromi."
At least the specter and the spider seemed to have reached an accord. Coming over to sit and swing her feet beside the spider, Sen pulled the kerchief off her head and scratched her silver hair. It was growing long. Haku frowned as he found it full of tangles. Wishing he had a brush, he refrained from picking out the snarls with his fingers.
"You can just call me, Sen. Okay?"
Flashing Kuromi an easy smile, Sen made the spider blush. Haku craned his neck to see nothing but the dark hall behind them.
"Where are the cat and fox?"
Sen tossed a hand in a meaningless gesture barely hiding her annoyance.
"Sulking and being pissy."
Pretenses of the pleasantries they had exchanged died as her face went hard. Her iron gaze burned across the churning mists below.
"Anything yet?"
Glaring at the fog he half considered chasing it away.
"No. Not that I can see anything."
It had thickened until the point he could barely see the roofs of the dark rotting restaurants. The night river had turned completely white. Distantly the clock tower's glowing eye tinged the nearest mists moon yellow. There was no moon in the sky to comfort him tonight so the clock would have to suffice. Here Kuromi timidly offered important information, rekindling all the anxiety he felt earlier at the sight of the black host filling the streets.
"There will be more than what you saw. The rank accompanying the parade was probably a fourth of the garrison. Shimizu-sempai would never betray their full number. She's smarter than that."
Their number: Haku did not miss the change of frame in the spider's words. She no longer counted herself among their rank.
"How many then?" Sen was frowning.
"At least a hundred," Tomoe whispered evenly, "They filled nearly five train cars."
At once his insides were cold again as he gripped the rail. One hundred soldiers. One hundred spiders. The thought threatened him with the loss of his meal. As if reading his mind Sen waved away his panic as if shooing a fly.
"Don't fixate on numbers. They have no idea what they're about to walk into."
Glancing at her from the corners of his eyes Haku watched a curl of smoke lift from the thin dour line of her mouth as her terrible iron eyes glared into the distance. Here Kuromi dropped her head and began anxiously polishing the flute. Her tiny voice was thin with dread.
"Will you kill them?"
Blinking rapidly, Sen went perfectly still. Haku continued to study her furtively. It was not lost on them that Kuromi knew the spiders. At once time the girl had called them sisters. But she had abandoned her loyalty to Shurui in exchange for a promise she did not realize was false. As Haku squirmed miserably again Sen burned him with her cold fire, making him shift uneasily and shrink from the edge of hardened resolve in her voice.
"Only if I have to."
Kuromi nodded. She wore a haggard expression no child should ever be forced to bear.
"I understand. I will do the same."
Haku cringed from her dutiful acceptance. Could he do the same? Terrible doubt filled his heart with shards of ice as uncertainty quaked in his weakling knees. They all startled as Tomoe glided up to the balcony peering into the distance.
"Kohaku-sama! Something moves in the fog!"
At once he whirled with his heart in his throat. But as he scanned the shifting vapor as it offered up many fantastic twisting shapes.
"Where!?"
The ghost pointed with a long thin black finger.
"The harbor at the stone stairs!"
Haku, however, could see nothing. Cursing his weak mortal eyes he backed away into the empty room still glaring at the fog.
"Apologies," he announced shortly, "Please hang on to something."
Wafting and arching his arms round and round over his head Haku sank low over his heels. A wind coiled in their wake as he blew a breath between his pursed lips. At once he caught it with his fingers. Soon the air churned at his call and he whipped it into a flurry spinning away on the tips of his toes. The wind whipped with him, happy to follow. It throbbed and frolicked wickedly, making mischief as the sliding doors at his back jump and shimmy in their tracks. Again and again he blew, dancing and whirling in the empty space filling it with the now raging screaming gale that tore the sliders open as it surged around him. His feet barely touched the ground as it lifted him, surging in his humming blood and thundering in his pulse. Haku gasped ecstatically as it blew out of him; dancing almost for joy as it billowed his armor bound sleeves and hems, making his long hair into a snapping pennant. Spinning and spinning, almost lost in the fervor of the invisible twists, he hauled the massive current forward giving it free reign.
It whistled and shrilled around him dragging him with it. Panting and gasping he slammed against the balcony banister as it towed and pulled. The wind wanted to take him with it, but he could not go. Hands had him, anchoring him to the boards at the wind of his making screamed by. If not for Kuromi Haku was sure he would have been dragged over. Haku did not look at her. He watched anxiously as his wind poured down onto the restaurant district. It crashed against the lip of fog. Like a wave in reverse, the vapor peeled back in a wall of white. Still the gale parted and dragged the mists with thousands of its invisible fingers. Slowly it rolled back the obscuring vapor and revealed distant writhing figures.
"There is a boat, Kohaku-sama!" Tomoe cried in dismay, "On the harbor steps!"
Haku jerked bolt upright as he caught flashes of metal in the dark as well. Distantly the crack of metal on metal ricocheted off the dim walls below. As the fog continued to divide and dissipate he could see more boats approaching. And a scream echoed from afar; a woman's scream. It struck him like a thunderbolt sending another gust of wind curling out of his body. Then Sen stood bolt upright wearing an expression of stark terror. Silvery white fire erupted from her hands. It crawled up her arms, snatching her hair into a dazzling flickering halo around her head. The boards beneath her feet, the banister in her hands, and the low eve all scorched black. Fantastic blossoms of white red fire blew from her lips in licking tendrils as she spoke.
"It's changing!" She intoned in horror, "Everything is changing!"
Haku knew she had afflicted herself with foresight but never had he seen them come upon her. It was a terrifying sight. He threw himself away dragging Kuromi with him as she showered them with embers. Shaking with every word as the ghost of her premonition hummed in his blood. Stupidly he stared as she scrambled at her waist in a panic and ripped out Sengen's mirror. It took him a moment to recognize the spiteful circle of silver.
"Sen, no!"
Haku barely heard himself shout as he reached to stop her. But Sen did not listen. Turning the mirror over in her hands the polished surface filled her face with reflected light so bright it washed away her features. Her fire guttered loudly and hissed as if someone had tossed a wave of seawater had broken through its surface to douse her in the face. But that was the last he saw as he screwed his eyes shut. His teeth snapped together in dread as the angry sapphires eyes of the dragon writhing on the raised silver relief of its back plate winked and blinked before turning to glare right at him. His breath blew up from his lips in a plume of frosty white as he gasped. Sengen's jewel burned against his chest. It froze as the marrow in his bones turned to ice, pinning him in place robbing the world of warmth. More icy sludge pumped through his veins as his heart slammed against the roof of his mouth. Clamping his hand over Kuromi's eyes he pulled her with him.
"Do not look!"
Back into the bath house interior they fled the mirror; away from the searing heat of Sen's flames. The spider's fingers were tightening vices of pain as they gripped every inch of his arms.
"What's happening!?"
Kuromi's voice was shrill with confusion but she held him up as he stumbled blindly. He had no time to explain. He had no time to think as Sen shouted the names.
"Lin and Kiri!"
In that moment he knew. He knew and he responded. Turning his back on the balcony he sprinted away chased by terrible premonition. Confused, Kuromi lost her hold on him and he ripped free of her hands.
"Kohaku-sama!" Tomoe shouted after him in distress.
The springy boards vibrated beneath his feet as he pounded past Suzume and Okesa.
"Dragon! What is it!?"
As the fox called after him he ran faster and faster. He sprinted through the empty rooms heading for the thick rounded pillar. Haku caught it with his hands and whipped round its center using it like a fulcrum. His wind chased at his back as he vaulted out the side windows into thin air. Haku's eyes watered with speed he punched the point of his umbrella ahead of him. It opened with a snap at once caught in his curving gale. Pointing his toes Haku swung his body hard, arching wide and soaring toward the harbor. His stomach surged into his throat as weightlessness jerked him skyward.
The screaming wind spiraled him higher and higher. So high no one below would be able to see him; so high he could barely see himself. Hovering there like a hawk Haku searched the place where the hills met the river. But whatever Sen had seen in Sengen's mirror did not betray them. He lifted higher on a spike of wind as he caught sight of the tiny dot of yellow. Had she been any other color Haku was not sure he would have seen her. He was sinking now. Falling faster and faster driven by the iron cold vice clamped around his heart. Red was spreading around the tiny spot of yellow. He watched in horror as it ran in a curtain across the granite steps. Free falling now he let dread pull him from the sky. But in the last moments he set another burst of vicious screaming wind free. It compressed beneath him, absorbing and transferring his impact. Still, the ground shattered beneath his hands and feet as a shock wave ricocheted outward.
Time stood still as if he had compressed the button on the strange watch Onsen gifted him. Sound and feeling went with it as Lin lifted her face to stare up at him. Her burned features were spattered with gore and bits of shredded spider silk. She was haggard and haunted by such suffering and feral terror they bordered on madness. But her face cleared as she saw him. Amazement wiped her twisted brow perfectly smooth. Her autumn colored eyes went round as her mouth fell open in awe. She had never looked more beautiful to him.
Then he saw Kubi.
Long and slow the air hissed from his lungs between his clenched teeth. He stared and stared and stared. There was a hole in her chest as there had been in Karasu's. A hole he could not fill and make whole. The pale blades of her empty eyes stared overhead endlessly. They would never see him again. He, however, could still see. Haku cut his gaze across the stunned rank of spiders he had sent sprawling to the ground. Then he found the one he sought right at his feet. Sprawled backwards on the bloody stones Shurui was staring up at him in utter shock. In that moment Haku knew with absolute clarity the choice that lay before him. In the slim seconds that remained to him he could save his sister. Or he could kill this spider and put to rest all her terrible machinations.
In the end there was no choice.
Lifting the umbrella over his head Haku bent and wrapped his other arm around Lin's middle. As he did he brought his face down to the same level of Shurui's. He was so close his breath stirred her wild hair making the spider queen cringe. Dread eroded the spider's pale and strangely beautiful face as he stared silently. Haku was not sure what she saw in him that frightened her so. He was not afforded any more time to consider it. His vicious wind came screaming back. It climbed his body with its shredding talons. Up it ripped him, back into the endless black sky out of reach of every spider. As he did he took back what was stolen and more. Haku learned in that moment he could carry more than one, but barely.
Somehow he kept them aloft, struggling to control their fall as Aburaya loomed large. Blowing gust after puffing gust he robbed his lungs of breath as he fought the pulling plunge. Wet red banisters ran beneath him as if guiding him to safety on the wide planks of the bridge. But they foundered as Lin lost her hold on Kiri's arm. Haku and Lin cried out a duet of dismay as gravity reclaimed the human. But as she plummeted without a sound shadows ripped across the bridge. Tomoe surged up out of the dark and caught the human. Haku gasped again as they jerked high only to sink on the spike of his panic. Blown off course, they wheeled wide and the bridge disappeared below them. It was replaced by a swallowing black drop into nothing.
Unsettled by the change of weight, Haku lost his grip on the gale and Lin as well. He cried out again as she slipped right through his grip until his desperate hand caught her wrist. Staring at her through his wiping hair, his insides went cold at the look of terror on her face. But as her only hand tightened on his wrist something kindled in her maple leaf eyes. Her face cleared as she gazed up at him suddenly unafraid. Even as they hung precariously in thin air she looked up at him with eyes full of faith.
Such a spark of strength surged in Haku's heart knowing this. But still, he could not breathe. His chest burned and ached. He knew with terrible certainty he had given his all to the wind and they were about to fall. Again with perfect clarity he knew he could not carry them both. So he took his umbrella and closed her fingers around it. Then he let her go as the black green tiles of Aburaya's roof loomed behind her.
She screamed and shot aloft even as he fell like a stone into the swallowing dark.
SEN
As before, at first nothing happened as she stared at the glassy silver surface. The face that reflected back at her was a stranger's. The foreboding glare of the angry woman she found in the mirror frightened her. But it wasn't Sengen. It took Sen a moment to realized she was looking at herself.
Then the blinding flash hit her eyes like sharp shards of shattered glass.
Sen recoiled as it threw her backwards, but this time she didn't scream. Her feet left the ground as she fell and kept falling. Back she plunged through open air at a dizzying speed until she smashed through the surface of the ocean. Stunned by the shock, the salty and frigid water sucked her down, pulling her under. Again the pressure of the angry water crushed in on her, stinging inside her nose, filling her lungs with heaving fire. All the while the light remained inside her eyes, angrily twisting, digging deeper and deeper into her head; until it exploded into a flood of shapes, smells, and unimaginable impressions so intensely vivid it felt like her head was going to burst open under the pressure from the searing burning seething pain. Then the merciless sea rushed in to consume everything it'd showed. There wasn't enough room in her head for the ocean and the visions. But then they popped like sea foam. The visions ripped away leaving her with nothing but cold cavernous dark.
Frantically Sen fought to hold onto them even as the mocking waves surged away. Whereas she failed to retrieve the visions she caught the water instead. Like a wild thing it took off dragging her with it. As the ocean rolled her sideways into a churning spin, smashing her back against the familiar sandy bottom, she forced herself upright and broke the surface with a heaving gasp. Coughing and gagging, Chihiro sat up in the surf as the waves hissed backwards sullenly. She ignored them as they lapped and surged around her knees snapping with effervescent curses. Stunned, she rocked back onto her heels staring madly at the bow of stars in the indigo sky because the inside of her head was utterly empty. In the terrible cold moment she decided not knowing was worse than knowing.
Scrambling upright she stared stupidly at the hidden Cove at the foot of the old village. It was blanketed with thick drifts of freshly fallen snow. But even as she was faced with the frozen sight steam billowed out of her body. Her sight blurred as she screwed her eyes shut against the burn of salt. As she foundered in the water searching for him, he spoke from directly behind her.
"You never learn, do you boss?"
Whirling and falling into the splashing shallows, Sen stared at Hidé. She cringed, shielding her eyes from the iridescent seashell flash of his hard white skin and the unnerving glow of his sparkling effervescent sapphire eyes. He was a God after all. And he was so beautiful looking at him hurt. Again his mild voice echoed inside her head.
"I told you nothin's set in stone."
She ebbed and flowed, towed breathlessly on the whispering surf of his voice. Shaking violently, she flinched as his frozen hands pulled her upright. His touch burned worse than the fire inside her head even as he gently smoothing her tangles hair from her face. All the same Sen forced herself to choke the words in a hoarse gasp.
"Lin and Kiri?"
All of a sudden angry waves crashed against his back. She gasped and shivered as they broke around her welling up under her chin and lifting her feet from the eroding shifting sand. But the iron grip of his cold fingers moored her in place. Hidé's voice cracked like the distant roar of the waves thundering on the shielding sea cliffs at her back.
"I don't know. She won't let me see."
Reluctantly he returned the mirror to her hands face down. He trapped it between her fingers as if he wanted nothing more than to take it back.
"This is yours now. I won't let her hurt you. But you know what she'll do if you look."
Sen stared blankly for several heartbeats as the echoing nothing in her head ached like a wound. Then she turned over the mirror and looked into the waiting spiteful blue eyes. With a gasp she folded forward into the singing premonitions. Simultaneously she was yanked through the past, the present, and the future. They came upon her with hideous half clarity making absolutely no sense.
Out of the smoke a train charged by in a screaming hiss on chugging steel wheels.
It dissolved into curling ashes crawling with the beetle black bodies of thousands of spiders.
The bits of cinders pulled long into great shuttling looms rattling under fleets of white hands.
The humming threads warped overhead rebuilding Aburaya looming red walls.
Then the bath house rippled and curved as it crashed over her like a wave.
Yanked forward by an unseen hand the tips of her toes burned against the boards of the bridge.
Blue curtains billowed as the front arch snapped closed around her like a hungry mouth.
As it swallowed she smashed through familiar doors and skidded across the bloody floor.
A heavy corpse fell across her back reeking of death making her gag and scramble to get away.
Another and another body fell on her, grinding her cheek into sticky red soaked boards.
She was drowning in the dead bodies as blood was in her mouth.
Then yellow green fire detonated all around her filling her eyes with stinging smoke.
Sen burned as well, fighting and clawing at the ground as she struggled uselessly to free herself.
Then Kiri walked past through the flames in Yubaba's office wearing a white funeral kimono.
Her white eyes was on fire too as she burned and blistered.
Dragging a gleaming gold garment out of the flames she held it up high.
The fantastic flashing fabric billowed and spread in the heat.
Then she tore it in two.
Blood welled out of the split seams in a gushing welling torrent that turned the fire to smoke.
Then the smoke became swirling mists as the blood splashed against the gray granite stone.
As Kiri toppled forward onto her knees Sen could see through a hole in her chest.
Behind her was the stolid stone frog that kept watch over the night river's harbor.
It was chipped and pitted, plastered with whipping tendrils of spider silk.
No longer trapped, Sen scrambled away as Kubi seized her by the throat with sharkskin gloves.
The eerie God woman glared with dagger eyes through the dour oculars of her moon mask.
Red ran from its porcelain lips as she squeezed and squeezing with her blood stained fingers.
The lips of the mask moved mouthing words Sen could barely make out as she choked.
Then her hands released as Kubi sagged back, pulled away by two three thin shadows.
Gasping and scrambling away, Sen stared stupidly up at the sad solemn faces she knew.
Reika; Manami; and finally Chihiro.
Startled and astonished, Sen stared at the frightened face of the girl she'd once been.
As they led Kubi, Chihiro turned back and pointed as her brown eyes welled with tears.
That girl was always crying; crying and sniveling and whining.
She mouthed the words Kubi had spoken soundlessly.
They were the same words Kamaji once barked at her down in Aburaya's boiler room.
Finish what you started.
Turning trembling with terror, Sen glanced over her shoulder from the corners of her eyes.
All at once a monstrous wheel bore down on her too huge to see.
The bass roar of its thunderous voice rattled her very bones shaking the whole world.
She stared in disbelief as it smashed against a massive stalagmite tree of white limestone.
The Wheel of Yamanote obliterated the spreading pillar and got lost in swirling clouds of dust.
All at once the distant domes ceiling of the cavern fractured in monstrous spreading cracks
Sen threw herself backwards clawing at the stone floor as it buckled and dropped to crush her.
But she kept falling and falling and falling until she landed hard.
All the air wheezed out of her lungs as she stared overhead at the strange twilight sky.
A massive network of wooden pillars curve up into the sky beside her.
They were familiar. She knew them and she didn't.
Gods of every shape and size cavorted across the lofty veranda taunting her rudely.
They hooted and haunted the massive structure's sweeping gables and eaves.
She lay there hiding under her arms with her pulse still screaming in her ears.
Fireworks popped and burst in pale pink and green sparklers over distant spreading eaves.
Sen flinched from them and from the humans who suddenly leaned over her in a tight ring.
Kenka and Jae and Megumi. Fuu and Kana and Shouta.
They were all wearing summer yukata, pulling her to her feet holding her firmly as Sen sagged.
Suddenly they changed, turning into kami.
Gohan and Sumirei and Kitten. Grandpa Bean and Tsuke and Bozu.
The yokai turned her around and around in a dizzy circle as night soaked swiftly across the sky.
Suddenly hands crushed her fingers and it was Aki who danced her around in a frenzied circle as foxfires crackled above them.
Cracked and broken by endless war the face of her red chest plate bore a gleaming gold wheel.
The mad half-fox leapt and whirled dragging her with her until she could hardly keep up.
Suddenly spiders in armor joined the feral spokes of the wheel of their clasped hands.
Sen recognized Fumiko but not the horsey scar-faced giant of a God woman beside her.
Strangely it was Bozu who grabbed Sen, pulling her away from the dog and spiders.
His single eye strangely luminous as he shushed loudly making the kami flee.
Whipping her around and yanked her to stillness, Bozu pointed into the distance.
Fires burned on the dim mountains; bright points of red light twisting into eerie patterns.
The red welled and spread until the hands of her friends disappeared.
Lurching forward she staggered through the shading arches of thousands of tori.
At once she was running, running as fast as she could beneath the endless red gates.
All around her trees twisted and creaked in a violent rain soaked wing.
They turned pointing their branches up into the depths of the mountain.
A squat thatched roof of a house rose out of the parting trees beside a hissing waterfall.
Out front Zeniba sat at her spinning wheel pumping the whirring spindle with her foot.
Perched on its center plank the gilded skull from her geihobako chattered its teeth loudly.
Glancing at her slyly, the old witch pointed at the ball gigantic Baby Bo was bouncing.
But it wasn't a ball. It was a severed head.
Sen scrambled back in terror as it escaped and came bouncing toward her.
Shurui's head spat venom gnashing its needled teeth as it loped around her.
Then it burst into flames, floating up into the air to become the sun.
Still the spider's smoking body scrambled onward spilling and spraying blood.
Red spattered across Kohaku's face as he cut her down with the edge of Lin's flat sword.
He dropped the blade and fell to his knees at her feet staring in horror at his bloody hands.
The red turned black as it soaked into him.
The blot she'd seen on his finger spread up the veins in his right arm as he screamed.
It consumed him as he transformed into a monster she knew all too well.
The Forgotten reached for her with obsidian claws as golden wings lifted behind it.
Garuda seized it by the throat hauling the thing up off the ground.
Sen rang like a bell and knew the gold skinned God even though she'd never seen him.
Yellow green fire plumed as Garuda tore the Forgotten in two as if he was made of paper.
The Garuda was Kiri and her white eyes burned and burned in the dark.
Then her eyes were yellow ringed with red and silted vertically like a hawk's.
All the while the black shreds of what Kohaku had been lifted around her in ashes.
Only now after all the grisly sights she'd seen did Sen scream.
She screamed and screamed and screamed reaching for the embers as they died in her hands.
As the eagle ensnared her with its talons its predatorial eyes glared down at her wrathfully.
Then its eyes were blue and Sengen parted the bird's burning wings into crashing waves of surf.
Even as the fizzling frozen tide churned and welled up to overwhelmed her it subsided.
Spinning giddily in its pull Sen ebbed up into sandy shallows that suddenly boiled and steamed.
The reek of sulfur replaced the bite of salt as glowing eddying mushi popped into existence.
Massive mossy roots surged up out of the sand and pouring water swelling and dividing.
They carried her with them higher and higher until the sea faded into torrid mists.
Glossy emerald leaves shimmied and shivered as they spread overhead in a rustling chorus.
The spicy sweet smell of camphor twined around her body as the branches dipped to grasp her.
Lifting Sen onto her feet they turned her around to the bark faced Goddess with eyes of flame.
The green leaves of her hair burned in the heat of her gaze in gouts of sweet smelling smoke.
Inari's voice pealed inside her head like a great brass bell.
Sen rang from head to toe with the words, vibrating so vehemently she rattled apart.
Finish what you started.