Chapter Two
After their tasty meal, Yuichi wanted to start training right away. Wiping food from her mouth, Chizu reluctantly followed him as he ushered her to the woods. "Ghenzi, Yuichi, we just ate, don't you want to let your food digest for a little bit?"
"Nope! Too excited." He skipped ahead of her, being annoyingly adorable as usual.
"I wanna come too! How come you get special training from Chizu?" Kitsune whined, scampering after them.
"You could, but Karasu-Tengu said it should be one-on-one training with each person who teaches me, so I can really focus. She says I get distracted easily or whatever."
"Fine, go have your special ninja training." Kitsune crossed her arms and stood sullenly. "But my special training is going to be way better. I'll teach you how to steal things!"
"That's not honorable!" Yuichi chirped without looking back.
"It is if you're doing it to a bad guy!"
Gen had followed them some ways as well. "Come on, Kitsune, someone better help Mrs. Usagi and Hana wash the dishes. Maybe they'll give us some treats if we do a good job!"
"Fiiiiine."
"Sweet! We even got out of dishes duty!" Yuichi said, picking up his pace. Spot dashed around his legs and then Chizu's. She almost tripped on his tail as he danced underfoot.
"Careful, you dumb tokage! You're just as jumpy as your master!"
"Hey, be nice to Spot! He likes you," Yuichi said, smiling at his little companion. He tickled Spot's chin as the tokage pattered beside him. "What's wrong, is Chizu being grumpy again?"
"I'm not being grumpy," Chizu huffed, following the cheerful duo deeper and deeper into the woods. She knew she could be standoffish at times, but she didn't like it when others pointed it out. Part of her wanted to change her personality to see if it would make the others like her more. But part of her had the feeling that Mrs. Usagi was right; they loved her just the way she was.
Yuichi led her deeper into the forest than she had ever gone with the group. As she followed him along a small, barely-worn path, she could tell he was trying to find a particular place.
"Where are we going? You better not get us lost."
"Um, when have I ever done that?"
"I'm just saying, it sounds like something you'd do."
Spot startled her as he weaved through her legs and pounced on a fleeing beetle. It buzzed desperately into the air and he snapped it up. A smile tugged at the corners of Chizu's mouth as Spot bounced around her feet, looking up at her pleadingly with his beady black eyes.
"You want to perch on my naginata, don't you?" She crouched, allowing Spot to hop onto the slender weapon resting on her shoulder, and then stood. When she looked ahead into the tunnel of green, Yuichi had disappeared, but she could hear him yelling and grunting.
Is he okay?
She shouldn't have worried. As she ran closer to the sound, she could see him in a clearing, punching and kicking the air stupidly.
"This is a perfect place for training, don'tcha think?" he asked, pausing for a second before returning to punching the air. "My aunt - ergh -used to train me here - uhgh - when I was younger."
"Did she teach you to do that?" Chizu tried to keep the scorn from her voice, but Yuichi picked up on it like he always did.
"No, actually, I came up with the moves all on my own." He smirked and aimed a dexterous kick at an imaginary villain above his head.
She tried to keep a straight face and ignore the adorableness of Spot nuzzling her chin. "I can tell."
"Admit it, you think my moves are cool."
"I definitely don't." She gently placed his tokage on the ground and flicked her tail expectantly. "Are you ready for training?"
He froze and whirled to face her like an excited child. "Yes! Can we start with stalking? Like cats are so good at doing?" He dropped on all fours and crawled through the grassy meadow, contorting his face into a fierce scowl.
"First of all, we don't stalk like that, second, that's not what we're starting with. You've got to start with the basics."
"Like what?"
"Like how to not be so loud."
"I can totally do that! I'm so quiet, even-"
He stopped, noticing her pointed stare. "Ok, ok, I'll start being quiet now. Like, right now."
Once he had finally stopped talking, she began her lesson. "First, we're going to start with learning how to walk softly. You place your foot like this…"
The time passed quickly. Chizu had always enjoyed teaching the younger ninja how to move stealthily, but they had never been as messy and enthusiastic as her new rabbit pupil. He was undeniably graceful and athletic, but being a rabbit rather than a cat, stealth didn't come as intuitively to him. She found she enjoyed the challenge of helping him improve his abilities.
Above their heads, the sky changed from pale blue, to orange, to lavender, and finally a dark indigo-green in the light of the full moon and shimmering stars.
"Alright, Yuichi, I want you to try landing from that tree as quietly as you can." She stood in the center of the field, facing away from the tree in whose branches her friend perched. "Pretend I'm a guard that you're trying to get past." She closed her eyes and focused on listening.
Her ear twitched at the sound of soft footsteps approaching in front of her.
"Wow, Yuichi, I didn't hear you land or move around at all!" Her eyes flicked open, revealing a fox instead of her friend.
"Hello, Chizu," the fox said in a silky voice, crossing her arms and smiling like a riverwhip. "You've grown since I've last seen you." Her fur was mostly dark gray, with silver and black highlights. She was dressed in traditional black ninja garb, but it looked fancier than most uniforms Chizu had seen.
Chizu's chest tightened with anxiety and her mind raced wildly as memories sprang up.
"Mi-Miyako?"
"That's right," the fox said condescendingly, as though speaking to a young child that had answered a math question correctly. "The last I remember you, your foolish mistress Lady Fuma had tried to raid one of our clan's weapon strongholds. Last mistake she ever made with us." When she smiled, all of her needle-sharp teeth glistened in the moonlight.
Yuichi landed a few yards behind her with a thump. "Who's this? One of your friends?"
Chizu didn't take her eyes off the sneering fox. "I never had friends."
"But what about Kaiyo? Wasn't she-"
"Shut it!" Chizu snapped. "Now is not the time for chatter! This fox is Miyako, of the Ninetail clan. Her clan members have killed many of my ninja sisters."
"Relaaax, Chizu, I have no plans to harm you," Miyako said, mock kindness dripping from her voice. "I have great respect for you. I've heard how you rebelled against your mistress and ruined her plans for Neo Edo. You would make an excellent addition to our clan, despite being a cat."
"Uh, Chizu, there's more of them," Yuichi warned, moving closer to her and moving his hands to his katana. Spot crouched by his feet warily, tail lashing from side to side.
"I know," she muttered to him. "We're surrounded." Her eyes darted from one silent, glowing-eyed fox to the next as they emerged from the trees.
Miyako was still talking. "…Maybe, if you begged our Lady Hikaru to have bestow grace upon you, she might let you join our ranks. Your fighting skills are impressive."
"I'm not interested," Chizu said through gritted teeth. "Go back to your lady and tell her to find someone else."
Miyako laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you think I was here for you?" A sharp edge slithered into her voice. "I don't need you. I'm here for the rabbit."
"I'm not interested in working for your clan either," Yuichi said loudly. "I already have a clan of my own, and they're actually my friends, so they're better than a clan, well, they're also like a clan but they actually care about me, and they aren't forced to stay with me like in a clan, and-"
"Yuichi, you're rambling again!"
"Oh, sorry."
The gray fox laughed again and swished her tail. "My, aren't you adorable. Unfortunately, we aren't here to request your services. You will be of use to our Lady in a different way."
Yuichi and Chizu were now standing back-to-back as the axe-wielding foxes tightened their circle around the duo. Spot huddled between them, whimpering. Yuichi's katana and Chizu's naginata gleamed in the moonlight.
"What the hell do you mean by that?" Chizu snarled, every muscle braced for the battle to come.
"One of his ancestors murdered our Divine Lady Kitsune-Mari when she tried to claim her property from a greedy shogun who stole her sacred garden, and someone must pay for his crime."
"That's not how the story goes!" Yuichi protested. "I read all about that, and Miyamoto was actually saving him from her plans to-"
"Silence, samurai! I care not how your ancestor lied about the truth. All I care about is bringing justice for the slain blood of the Divine Lady Kitsune-Mari and peace to my Lady Hikaru. And I will do so, with your blood!"
Chizu held her naginata in a death grip. "Yuichi, get out of here. I'll hold them off."
"No way! I'm not letting anything happen to you!"
"Trag it, Yuichi, this isn't a game! Get out of here, now!"
He didn't move.
"Foxes, you know what to do," Miyako barked. "But make sure you leave the rabbit alive."
Their shadowy attackers lunged as one. In a moment Chizu's world was a blur of yells and shouts, flashing swords and axes, and cries of pain as her weapon sliced into flesh. She had always fought ferociously, but now that had even more reason to fight, she was unstoppable. Her lithe attackers met her vicious kicks and slashes one by one, and fur and blood flew in the frenzy.
She could tell Yuichi was fighting just as excellently. His frequent training with Karasu-Tengu shone clearly through as he leapt, whirled, and slashed with his blade. As usual, he was fighting as non-lethally as possible, but he still left heaps of unconscious bodies in his wake. For a moment, she felt a surge of confidence. They could do this; they could take out these creeps and return safely to the warm hut waiting for them.
But then everything went wrong.
It started with Spot squeaking frantically. He had been running around Yuichi's feet, doing his best to trip his companion's attackers, but one of the foxes had stomped down on his tail.
"Spot!" Yuichi cried, trying to maneuver past the foxes that blocked his way. Chizu flew forward as the fox's axe plunged downwards at the tokage's writhing body. Her naginata crashed into the blade, wrenching it out of the fox's hand. As her momentum carried Chizu forward, the fox deftly tripped her by kicking her foot out from under her. She rolled, reaching for her fallen weapon, but suddenly found herself grabbed from behind in a vise-like grip. Before she could even struggle, the cold, sharp edge of a blade dug into her neck.
Miyako.
Yuichi stood frozen, gripping his katana, and surrounded by 4 foxes.
"Rabbit, if you want your precious friend to live, you better do exactly as I say," Miyako hissed. "Put down your sword and surrender to us."
Yuichi stared at Chizu with questioning brown eyes. She could see that he was hoping she would do something, like kick Miyako and flip backwards to safety with a dramatic flourish like in the comic books he read. She knew better. In reality, she had no chance if she tried to move. Miyako's knife was a mere inch away from slicing her jugular and ending her life, and she'd seen what this fox was capable of.
"Yuichi, listen to me," she said, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. "I want you to run away, right now, and get help. It's not worth it-"
She cut short and yelped as the knife dug deeper into her neck, drawing blood.
"Shut up, cat!" Miyako's voice had lost all its softness. "My patience is wearing thin, boy. Surrender, and I promise your friend will live."
"Only if you let her go." She could see he was trembling, but his voice was firm.
"I'm not doing anything until you put down your sword, samurai. You have my word about your companion."
"And-and Spot. You can't hurt him either. He's just an innocent creature." She could see his eyes welling with tears as he glanced at his tokage huddling in the grass.
"Yuichi, please," she croaked. "Don't!"
"Fine, you have my word that we won't harm the tokage. Now, drop that katana!"
He stared at Miyako, avoiding Chizu's eyes, and dropped his sword. Immediately one of the foxes hit him from behind with the blunt side of their axe, causing him to crumple to the ground.
Chizu felt a surge of rage she'd hadn't experienced since she lost Kaiyo as a young child. "Don't hurt him!" she screamed, fighting Miyako's grip with everything she had. The blade was no longer at her neck, but something heavy hit the side of her head and she felt to her knees. Her vision started disintegrating into black dust, but she forced herself to crawl forward, trying to reach Yuichi. She could see the foxes dragging him away, half-conscious and bleeding. She thought she heard him call her name but wasn't sure because everything sounded muffled and far away. She fumbled for her naginata with one hand, desperate to do something. Then darkness overtook her and she felt nothing at all.