Chapter Fourteen
Mom stayed at home for the end of January and the first week of February. She spent each of those days with me. The razor-sharp chill of her tone warmed in degrees. She corrected my Japanese without snippiness, taught me three new katas, and gave me books that were full of difficult kanji and concepts. When she touched me with calloused fingers, it was gently.
I was growing quickly, growing more proportional. Sometimes I woke up aching all over. I could no longer lean back and touch the lip of my shell with the back of my skull. In fact, it was like the weird turtlish part of me wasn't growing at all. There were narrow, translucent divides between the plates of my plastron. When I slapped my chest it no longer had the resonance of hardwood, but had a slight hollow sound, and I could feel the impact through to the muscle. It wasn't that I couldn't feel through the bone before—scrubbing my shell with a bath brush had always been one of my favorite pleasures—but that the impact was far more raw and intense than it had been in the past. The new sensitivity was a little frightening. I'd taken a baseball bat to the shell once and all it had done was knock me down. If it had hit me in the chest now, I was sure it would crack my plastron right open.
That was one of the only days I ever considered not taking my medicine. But I was too in love with my hair, so down the pills went with a cup of water.
One day Mom took me with her to a skyscraper for a day of meetings with rooms full of neatly-dressed executives. I understood almost nothing they discussed; the Japanese was polite to the point that it was another language entirely. I wondered what kinds of deals I was sitting in on and examined each unimpressive suit out of the corners of my vision. None of them looked like the kinds of people to sell weapons or drugs, I thought. They all looked so prim and proper and bored.
When we traveled between board rooms and buildings, I trotted half-behind her, holding her briefcase. I felt like Akemi's ghost was striding beside me. Sometimes, if I caught myself in the window glass, I even thought I saw her.
On April 30, Mom left for Japan. She leaned down to look me in the face. She had never leaned down for me before.
"Tomorrow, you'll meet your team," she said. "They will not be gentle with you for my sake."
"Good," I said.
Her smile was cold and angular, but it was for me, not against me. I felt like I had passed a test.
March 1st fell on a Saturday. The meeting time was at eight. I practiced my katas alone at five, had my shower at five forty-five, and ate breakfast at six. My hair had grown enough that I didn't have to wear my wig, and we'd had it clipped to frame my face. Fujita-san packed a bentou box for me, complete with onigiri and takoyaki, and gently laid her soft, papery hands over mine.
"Go, Saya-chan," she said. "Put on all of your armor. Be a devil."
I felt that each step grew lighter the closer I grew to the elevator. I met Mr. Sugar in the foyer by six thirty. I had no idea how long he had been standing there. He wore a navy blue business suit with a perky orange flower in his lapel, and stood at attention until I walked up to him.
"Good morning, Watanabe-san," he said.
"Good morning, Satou-san."
His expression never changed. As always, I felt a pang of misgiving. I wasn't sure if he was a bad person or if I just mistrusted the lack of emotion on his face.
As we rode down the elevator, he crossed his arms behind his back and did not move. I couldn't help but stare at him out of the corner of my eye. I'd never seen him in a suit; it made him look like a whole different person. I was used to seeing him in full Elite regalia, complete with the conical farmer's hat. It was more of a symbol, he'd told me. Not only a reminder of where you had come from, but a harsh rejoinder: no matter how far up you climbed, it wouldn't take that much to fall back down again.
When the elevator doors opened, a well of fresh air swept up around me.
How do I describe this? As though the wind caught a great heaviness clinging to my soul and winged it away. The breeze smelled like oil and cold cement, but in my imagination—or perhaps because I was that sensitive to its fresh newness—I could smell growth and greenery, and hear the whisper of leaves. Northampton, a memory I had kept half-shuttered from fear it would be seen, suddenly flashed open to me in blazing color. My tread was light as we approached the car—a black car—a car I felt would open up and be the same one that we had commandeered in Texas, with Dad sitting in the driver's seat.
But the fancy was brief. We got in the car, which was empty and still smelled new, and Mr. Sugar made sure only that I had put on my seatbelt before turning to the steering wheel and twisting the key.
"Big day," he said.
"Yes," I said. "Uh. Thank you."
"You're joining a good squad." He waved at the person sitting at the booth and we rolled out of the parking garage slowly. "They're going to give you hell."
"Oh."
He crept out into the street. "Consider this a challenge. One of the greatest skills we can learn as ninja is how to work with our surroundings and manipulate those around us. You've had more practice than most. Hide your shell. Use your old persona. Use slang. These will be children your age, and all of them want to be Elite someday. If you act up-tight or closed off, they'll eat you alive."
"So... become friends?" I asked.
"No, no, no. No one in the Foot is your friend." He was concentrating on switching lanes and never looked at me. "Well. Maybe friendship is possible for those in the lower ranks. But you are sitting on a throne and there are people who covet that. You cannot trust anyone."
"Even you?" I asked.
"Even me."
"That sounds horrible."
"You should ask your mother how well it has turned out for her," he said.
We pulled into the parking lot of a boxy building without a sign. The original color was difficult to pinpoint; its present state was a chipped and faded cream, and there were big blocks of white where graffiti had been painted over. The property was surrounded by a wire fence with barbed wire on top and we had to hand papers to a guard in a box before he would open the gate. The cars that filled the parking lot were all glossy new models; if I hadn't known better, I would have thought we were pulling into a sales lot.
Mr. Sugar swiped a keycard at the door and we stepped into an oversized genkan. A humid cloud of varnish and sweat hit me in the face. Well-worn getabako, or shoe cupboards, stood sentinel on our left and right. Past the chokepoint of the getabako was a gym. All the walls were sheeted with glass, and dummies and punching bags hung at even intervals. I saw a weight room down a hallway, and past that, cardio equipment lined up in militant rows. The ceilings were high and brightly lit, hung with thick yellowed ropes for climbing, and the floor was solid wood. It would have looked mundane except for the narrow corridors, at least five, which spidered away in every direction.
The room was completely empty except for the woman standing at the front desk. She was Japanese, middle-aged, dumpy, with a broad smile and a cane. Rising from her chair with a grunt, she bobbed her head at us. I was wary of her immediately. Every now and then you meet a person who wears the weight of the people they've killed.
"Satou-san!" said the woman. "So this is Watanabe-san. We have heard so much about her."
Her eyes flicked over me from head to toe. She was drinking me in, memorizing my shape. My shoulders squared up.
"Yes." He pushed me toward her. "I bring you a message. Do not treat her any differently than you would one off of the street. Push her hard."
"Of course!" said the woman with a bow. "If you will take off your shoes, Watanabe-san?"
I quickly kicked them off before pushing them and my bentou into the offered getabako. Mr. Sugar handed me a pair of soft-soled shoes when I had stepped up out of the genkan, but did not remove his own shining Oxfords. I gave him a plaintive look.
"This way," said the woman as I slipped on my workout shoes.
I glanced back at Mr. Sugar, but he gestured after her. I grudgingly followed her through the open gym area down a hall filled with row after row of closed doors. I could hear dull impacts and loud commands through the wood. Far away, someone was crying. The dumpy woman marched me along with her unchanging smile.
"Where have you been all this time, Watanabe-san?" she asked.
"I was traveling," I said.
"Wonderful! Where?"
"Oh... just... all over the United States."
"How interesting," she said in a lyrical way. "You must know so much!"
We stopped in front of a nondescript door. A scratched ivory sign signified that this was training room A-17.
She turned her glittering eye to me. "Are you afraid, Watanabe-san?"
I looked her in the face. Hers was a cat's face, clever and blood-thirsty. I could see the younger ninja there, someone smaller and nimbler, someone terrifying.
"No," I said.
"There's no need to lie," she said. "My name is Tomoe, by the way. I oversee the training here."
"Nice to meet you, Tomoe-san." I bowed.
She bobbed her head. "Your Japanese is very good," she said. "You will fit in very well."
And then she opened the door and bowed deeply.
"Excuse me!" she called out in a sing-song way. "Watanabe-san is here!"
I heard rustling, and peeked over her shoulder. The room was a smaller version of the main gym, with tatami mats and mirrors on the walls. Standing against the wall were two women, one black, the other Japanese, both wearing black uniforms with the Foot emblem over their hearts. They had obviously been dragged out of a conversation. The black woman's head had been shorn short, with lightning bolts shaved over her ears, and the Japanese woman's hair was spiked with hair gel. The memory of Shadow's messy black hair sent a pang through my chest.
I looked from side to side. No one else was present.
"Where are all the students?" I asked.
"Not here yet," said the black woman. "Come in."
"Thank you," I said, and squeezed past Tomoe-san. She smiled at me the whole time. I realized that there was a knife in her pocket, and that she was rubbing her thumb on it.
"Have a good day, Watanabe-san," sang Tomoe-san, and then she had closed the door, and I was alone with strangers again. I stood as tall and straight as I could.
"Good morning," I said.
"Good morning," said the black woman. "I'm Flynn, and this is Sugawara-san."
Flynn had an American accent, too. I relaxed a little.
"Flynn-san. Sugawara-san. It's nice to meet you."
I bowed. They bowed. Flynn looked amused. Sugawara didn't look like she felt anything.
"What do we do here?" I asked. "Should I start stretching?"
"Don't do anything yet," said Flynn. "Sit down there." She gestured at the wall.
I found a place against the wall and knelt. The tatami was fresh and clean, but against the wall, there was a dark and curious stain, and head-high, there were pricks in the wall, as though from darts. I glanced from Flynn to Sugawara. Sugawara had barely moved, and her expression hadn't changed at all. She reminded me of a piece of blank paper.
"Are you wearing something beneath your shirt?" asked Flynn softly. "Because we don't allow extra gear in these early classes."
"No," I said. "That's just… part of me."
"Ah."
She knew already. I could feel it. Frustration flared up in my chest. I could tell that she knew more than I did about myself, somehow. And that was irritating as fuck. More of those boundless bundled histories, details hidden inside of details, rumors and whispers that both defined and were denied to me.
I ground my teeth together and glared at my reflection.
There was a knock on the door. Tomoe-san opened it. Her eyes were lost in friendly crinkles.
"Excuse me!" she said. "The Yamaguchi brothers are here."
The Yamaguchis were twins, both standing about a head above me. They moved together like a unit, bumping shoulders and glancing from side to side like a pair of curious geese. After cursory introductions with Flynn and Sugawara, they plopped down cross-legged beside me. I glared over at them and was immediately disarmed. They both had friendly, open faces. A little curious, but not maliciously so.
"Who are you?" asked one in Japanese.
"Watanabe Saya," I said.
"Watanabe?" asked the boy. "You mean like..."
His brother elbowed him.
"No," I said. "It doesn't matter."
"It does too," said the first boy. "I'm Yamaguchi Daichi."
"I'm Yamaguchi Eiji." Eiji brightened. "Can you believe we made it to the Elite groups?"
"No," I said, too quickly.
"Wait a minute," said Daichi. "I don't remember seeing you at the try-outs." He was starting to look sour.
"Believe me. I tried out."
"I would have remembered you," said Daichi.
"Forgive my brother. He's a dumbass," said Eiji, rolling his eyes. "Everyone knows that Watanabes are never second-rate."
"If I'm a dumbass, you're an ass-kisser," snapped Daichi.
The door opened again.
"Excuse me!" sang Tomoe-san. "Nakamura-san is here!"
Nakamura turned out to be a girl, her long black hair tied back into a tight braid. When she stepped into the room it was like someone had turned on a light. She was pretty like a doll; long-limbed, dark doe eyes framed by thick lashes, smooth unblemished skin. She moved with the practiced elegance of a dancer. Her training uniform was spotless, white, and tailored, loose around her joints and flaring out as she strode. She greeted Flynn and Sugawara by bowing low. Her Japanese was impeccable. Both of the Yamaguchi boys turned and brightened up immediately.
"Hi, Natsuki-chan!" said Eiji, patting at the tatami. "Sit over here!"
She turned and eyed us for a long, long second, then sashayed to the other side of the room.
"Oh my god," Eiji said in disgusted English.
"Nakamura-san," said Flynn, drawling lazily. "Any reason why you've decided to separate yourself from your teammates?"
Nakamura hesitated. She had just been about to lower herself to the mat opposite us. Without saying anything, she walked back over to us and descended airily beside me. She smelled like vanilla.
"Good morning," I said quietly.
She did not answer.
"Perez-san is here," sang out Tomoe.
Perez was a short, stout Latina who was missing one of her front teeth and part of an ear. Like Nakamura, she had braided her hair tightly; but unlike Nakamura, she had a limp and a natural swagger. Her workout uniform was new, but the legs and sleeves were far too long, and she'd had to roll them up. We met eyes immediately when she entered the room and had a secret understanding.
When Flynn greeted her in Japanese, Perez hesitated.
"What?" she asked.
"We speak Japanese here," said Flynn in English. "Learn it or you won't go very far."
"Shit," said Perez, blanching. "Where am I gonna learn that?"
"I'll help you," I said.
She looked to me, then back at Flynn. Flynn nodded.
"I did it, she did it," Flynn said. "You can do it, too. Just use it every time there's an opportunity and you'll be fine. Sit."
Perez flopped down beside the Yamaguchis.
"How'd you make it?" asked Daichi in English. "I thought you broke the instructor's hand."
"That's exactly why I made it," Perez said. She looked at me a long time. I looked back, unashamed for once.
"Watanabe Saya," I said, extending my hand behind the boys' backs.
"No shit," said Perez, grabbing my hand and firmly shaking it. "Angel Perez. Are you related to the Watanabes?"
"Yes," said Nakamura from beside me. "She is."
We all turned toward Nakamura at once. She was still facing straight ahead, but she was smirking a little.
"And it's just like they say," Nakamura said. "She's not human."
The hair bristled on the back of my neck.
"Fuck off," I said.
Perez and Eiji began snickering. Nakamura turned to us, looking straight down her nose. Her cheeks flushed a patchy red.
"What did you say to me?" she asked.
"Shut up," said Flynn. "Face forward. Don't make me send Sugawara over there."
We all faced forward at once. Eiji had bitten his lip in an attempt not to laugh out loud; Daichi was focused on the ceiling, looking embarrassed. Perez gave me a pleased side-eye. Flynn didn't look happy. Her eye wandered down the line, settling on each of us in turn. It ended on the clock. Five minutes 'til eight.
"Dickens-san is here!" Tomoe sang out.
"Dicks?" whispered Daichi. "Dicks-san? Did I hear that right?"
"I hope so," said Perez.
A thin, dark-skinned boy sped into the room, skidded to a stop, and drooped into the sloppiest bow I'd ever seen.
"Hajimemashita, Dickens Kenton desu," he panted, also in the worst Japanese I'd ever heard. It sounded like he had a mouth full of pudding. "I couldn't find the building. I'm so sorry."
"Tardiness won't be tolerated," Flynn said in English. "This is your first and only warning."
He whipped a finger up toward the clock. "But I'm not late!" he said. "I'm right on time!"
"Sit down, Dickens-san," Flynn said in Japanese.
He squinted at her for a moment. "Oh-kay," he said, and slumped down beside Perez.
"Is there anyone else coming in?" asked Nakamura in a lofty voice.
Flynn did not look at her. Nor did Sugawara. I saw Nakamura's fists tighten and wondered what the hell her deal was.
Flynn and Sugawara watched the clock. Soon the rest of us were staring at it, too. The hands staggered over minutes and seconds. The silence was an overwhelming mass. By the time the hands struck eight, I felt like I had lived a lifetime. Flynn rose languidly from the wall and slapped her hands together.
"Well," she said. "Ohayou gozaimasu, minna-san."
Perez and Dickens both looked horrified. I thanked Mom in my head; this could have been me.
"We are going to speak Japanese only in this class," Flynn said in English. "It is your responsibility to learn it. I will help you learn important vocabulary, but I'm no language teacher. If you want to become an Elite, you will have to learn. There is no other way."
"Fuck," said Dickens softly.
Flynn continued in English. "I am your jounin, or head. Sugawara is my chunin, or middleman. You are all our genin, or working ninja. If you are here, that means you're the best in your classes. We expect that you have a moderate knowledge of ninjitsu. This is where we test and refine your teamwork. We are only as strong as our teams." She stared straight at Nakamura and jumped into Japanese. "Nakamura-san, you were about to separate yourself from your team. What reason did you have for that?"
Nakamura blanched. "Eh... I..."
She fell silent.
"Well?" Flynn asked.
"I don't know," Nakamura said.
"She thinks she's better than us, that's why," said Eiji.
"I don't recall asking you any questions, Yamaguchi-san," said Flynn.
Eiji clamped his mouth shut.
"'I don't know,'" Flynn said slowly, as though rolling the words around to taste them. "'I don't know.' Nakamura-san, are you saying you don't understand why you do what you do? Are you an animal, just acting dumbly out of instinct?"
Nakamura lowered her head. "No, Flynn-san."
"Then why did you separate yourself?"
"Because I want to be the team jounin," she said softly.
Eiji coughed.
"You do, huh?" Flynn cracked her knuckles. "At least you're honest. Well. Get up here, Nakamura-san."
Nakamura hesitantly rose to her feet.
"Come on, now. We already know you aren't shy. Stand here in the center of the room."
Nakamura took a deep breath and strode to the center of the room, then pivoted to face us. Her hands were balled up into fists, and her eyes flashed challenges.
I looked at Flynn. Do we get to punch her?
"If you were to face all five of these in your team at once," said Flynn, "do you think you could take them?"
I saw a flash of interest in Nakamura's face. Her cold eye lingered on me a long time.
"Maybe," she said.
"You understand they're all here because they're good," said Flynn. "Or did you think you'd get to lead them if you set yourself apart? Because some of them look eager to beat the hell out of you."
Nakamura shrugged.
"What exactly did you want from this assignment, princess?" Flynn asked. "Servants to bow and scrape? Because that's not the Foot. That's not ever been the Foot. We're all part of the same body here. When you lose an eye, or break a bone, you feel the agonizing pain. You're marked by it. If you can't feel that pain, if you can't display that mark, you're no good to us. You're a limb without a body. You're a face without an eye. You're a weak point for our enemies to drive a wedge into."
Nakamura looked momentarily startled, but her expression smoothed out quickly.
"Here's the challenge," said Flynn. She nodded to Sugawara, who picked up a bin full of balls and lugged it to the center of the room and let it fall at Nakamura's feet.
"For this first exercise," said Flynn, "Nakamura will work by herself. The rest of you will work as a team against her. You will take as many of these balls from her as possible."
"Excuse me," I said, raising my hand. "But do we get some time to talk about how we're going to take them, first?"
"Of course," Flynn said. "You can go out into the hallway."
We bunched up outside the door and it clicked behind us.
"So you know this Nakamura chick?" I asked Eiji in English.
"Know her!" he said. "She's my cousin." He glanced at Daichi. "Our cousin."
"She used to be cool," Daichi said. I realized he hadn't smiled since Nakamura had entered the room. His face had crumpled and his eyes were wet.
"I don't know what happened," said Eiji. "She was gone for the last six months for special training and poof. Total bitch."
"Okay, well," said Perez. "How hard can this be? What if four of us take her and then two of us just grab the whole bin and, y'know, leave?"
"Sounds fine to me," I said. "I think the four strongest should take her, though."
I immediately realized I had fucked up. Everyone glanced sidelong at one another, unwilling to admit that they might be less skilled than their neighbor.
"Oh my god," I said. "Okay, fine. Me and Perez will take the bin and the rest of you can punch her."
Daichi looked even more sour than before.
"Never mind," I said. "Daichi and Perez will take her balls. The rest of us will keep her occupied."
Eiji and Dickens, whose faces had turned red, burst out laughing. Soon Perez had joined them. Daichi's melancholy had progressed until his eyes were as big and dark as a puppy's.
"Gross," he said.
"Are we going to do this or not?" I asked.
"Let's jump her the minute we go through the door," said Dickens.
"Yes! I love it," said Eiji.
We threw the door open and swarmed in shrieking. Nakamura, who had grown restless, whirled around to face us with a scream of her own—this one because we'd shocked her. With sloppy, hilarious abandon, we all jumped on top of her, including Perez, who had clearly decided it would be more enjoyable. Daichi glumly dragged the basket to the other side of the room while we pummeled her. Someone accidentally kicked me in the face and pulled my hair; I don't think that Nakamura got a single hit in. I had never laughed so hard.
"Stop," Flynn said. "Back to the wall." She had a curious voice; the kind that didn't have to shout, but could still pierce through a cacophony.
Panting and giggling, we all rolled off of Nakamura and limped away. Nakamura lay groaning on the mat and rose slowly, holding her head. Her perfect white clothes were mussed.
"So, Nakamura-san," said Flynn. "That went well."
"Nnn," she said in a grumbling voice. There was a goose egg growing on her forehead. It pleased me terribly.
"Would've been nicer if you'd had a team, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, sensei."
"Go back to the wall," said Flynn. She looked at us as a whole again. "I have never heard such loud ninja in my life."
The snickering died.
"Do you think this is a game?" she asked. Her eye fell on me. "Watanabe-san?"
"Uh... no, sensei."
"'Uh'?" she repeated. "You hesitated. Why did you hesitate?"
First a chill ran over me. Then a flash of anger. What a pointless, shitty thing to get upset about.
"Because you surprised me," I said. "That's all."
"Such a rude tone," said Flynn. "Do you think I could be doing better, Watanabe-san?"
"No, sensei."
"Perhaps you think you could do a better job?"
Oh my god!
"No, of course not, sensei." My face was heating up.
"Perhaps you've been spoiled, living up in that tower with your mother," said Flynn. "Nakamura-san isn't the only princess here, eh?"
I couldn't hide the boiling rage that flashed up in me. I had to bite down on my lip, hard enough to draw blood. I forced myself to stare straight ahead, but I knew it hadn't worked. A smile was creeping over Flynn's face.
"Let me make something very clear," said Flynn, lazily drawing her eyes from mine. "This is not a game. This will sometimes feel like a game, because we're practicing with simple props and goals. There are no men with guns here, or alarms to be tripped, or ways to die. But I expect you to pretend that there are men with guns, and alarms to be tripped, and ways to die. Unless I say otherwise: you will act in complete silence. Do you understand?"
Perez and Dickens looked lost. I realized that if we didn't help them, they wouldn't make it.
"This isn't to say that sometimes we won't use sound or bright light to frighten or distract our enemies. But the main goal is to remain unobserved, for the eye to float over us, for the ear to ignore us. Of equal importance..." Her roving eye flashed. "I think I heard every single one of you speaking English out in the hallway."
Eiji and Daichi reddened.
"We only speak Japanese," said Flynn slowly. "At all times. We do this for three reasons: one, because most of our enemies can't understand it. Two, because it connects us to the foundations of our art. And three, because we are a Japanese organization."
Eiji raised his hand slowly.
"Yes, Yamaguchi-san?"
"How do we explain this to Perez and Dickens if we can't talk over you?" he asked.
Flynn smiled. "You will find ways if you want to."
Those ways turned out to be furtive whispers between sets, quick run-downs of common phrases and verbs. Thankfully, Flynn's speeches seemed to be over, to be replaced by teamwork exercises. Our first order of business: performing katas in perfect synchronization. Every time someone moved too fast or too slowly, we had to start over. We barely got into the second kata before we had to switch gears again.
In an adjoining room, there was an obstacle course built out of tall foam pads, rock-climbing walls, ropes, and tires. Flynn marked our goals with a laser pointer and explained that we were to hit each set point under a certain amount of time. The courses could only be surmounted by teams—letting a friend stand on your shoulders, for example, or reaching down to help someone up on a high ledge. Everyone immediately hated lifting me; I was small, but dense.
"Geez, Watanabe-san!" Eiji grunted. "Are you wearing bricks under there or what?"
My face was red by the time we reached our final goal, and it wasn't because of the exercise.
"Terrible," Flynn said conversationally, looking down at her stopwatch.
Lunch came afterward. We sat in a sweaty circle in our training room, quietly eating our boxed lunches and drinking out of thermoses. Flynn and Sugawara sat behind us, eating their own meals. Mr. Sugar had brought me my bentou box, and lounged against the far wall, his knee cocked up. I savored my onigiri with closed eyes. Knowing that Fujita-san had made it gave me a surge of strength. She had cut the nori into attractive little geometric shapes and shaped the rice balls like octopi.
At the end, Mr. Sugar took my box, looked me in the face as though willing me to know something, and left.
"Is that Satou-san?" Eiji whispered to me when the door shut.
"Yeah."
"The Satou-san?"
I paused. "Uh…"
"She doesn't know!" Daichi hissed.
"What… wait. What don't I know?"
Eiji grinned. "He's crazy good. Dad says that when he was young he'd do all kinds of crazy things, like break into a bank vault and leave a herd of origami pigs behind and then only take $20…"
"He robbed a casino by himself once," said Daichi. "He dressed up as five different people to do it. Dad says that during the part where he dressed up like a woman, he hit on the male guards and got their phone numbers."
"Are you serious?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah. Satou-san is a legend."
This man had just brought me my boxed lunch. He drove me everywhere. He hit me with a bokken every day. I could only stare at them, bug-eyed.
"Ask him for stories!" said Eiji. "You've gotta ask him!"
"What are you saying?" Perez asked in clumsy Japanese. She and Dickens stared at us in jealous fascination.
"Wait," Daichi said. (This was the first word we'd had to teach.) And then he painstakingly began to explain, in mingled Japanese and English, the story he'd just told me.
"I thought he was… uh… a helper," said Perez, with some help from Eiji.
"Me too," I said.
"How could you not know this guy?" asked Dickens in hushed English.
I shrugged, dragging my tongue against the back of my teeth, uncertain of what to say. Sorry, I was out wandering the United States with my paranoid mutant dad for the last ten years?
Daichi raised his voice. "You really weren't in the Tower," he said.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
Daichi turned red and his mouth clapped shut.
"What he means to say," Nakamura said coolly, "is that you weren't locked away up in Watanabe Tower or you'd know about Satou-san. Everyone thought you were dead, or an experiment, or locked up somewhere. You were always a rumor. I never believed you actually existed."
"What?" Dickens and Perez said at once.
"Later," hissed Eiji.
There was a pregnant silence, Nakamura staring me down viciously. I ran through a list of acceptable responses.
"Okay," I said at last, and started picking loose fibers out of the tatami mat beneath me.
"Then if you weren't in the Tower, and you weren't in the Bunker, where were you?" asked Daichi.
"With my dad," I said at last.
"Who's your dad?" asked Dickens. He had clearly not understood the entire gist of the conversation, cherry-picking the words he understood, so he still looked relatively pleasant. I would've been proud of him if it wasn't so fucking awkward. Focused on my mat, I swirled the loose fibers into whirling portals and imagined falling through them.
"Her father is a mutant," said Nakamura softly.
Eiji gasped. "Ohhh! So it's true! Your dad is one of the kappa!"
Daichi sat straight up. "You mean they really exist?"
I shrugged. "Yeah. Don't you guys talk about them? I mean, two of them worked for you, and they… they kinda fought you guys all the time."
"'You guys'?" asked Flynn.
I whipped around. Flynn was standing just behind us, her arms crossed.
"Oh no," said Nakamura in my ear.
Flynn squatted down in front of me. I don't think she blinked the entire time. My throat closed up.
"If the Foot are 'you guys,'" she said, "then who are your guys, Watanabe-san?"
I took a deep breath.
"Kappa," I said.
She blinked. "What?"
"Kappa," I said flatly, and slapped my chest. The sound was hard, like I'd hit my palm against a countertop. I was gratified to see Nakamura jump.
"Are you wearing armor?" Eiji asked, and slapped me on the back. His mouth opened into an "oh" and then he slapped my shell again.
"Stop it," I said, and knocked his hand away.
Flynn cocked her head, eyes narrowed. "I asked who your 'guys' were, Watanabe-san."
"I'm a kappa, and I'm… I'm Foot, too," I replied. I dragged those words straight out of the pits of hell and they burned when I said them.
Flynn's eyes ran from my face down to my misshapen hands. When she raised her gaze again, she held my eyes for a long time. My heart banged against my breastbone.
Finally, she rose to her feet. "Come with me, minna-san. Leave your lunches here."She gestured at Sugawara, who had been standing behind Nakamura.
With Flynn and Sugawara leading us, we left the room, quiet and unsettled. Flynn started taking turns in the warren of hallways. The halls were very strange—only wide enough for two people standing side-by-side to walk through, with high ceilings and tight alcoves around blind corners. After two turns I had completely lost my sense of direction. She announced the directions as we went. Her voice didn't carry very far, as though the walls swallowed it up.
"Left at A-12," she said. "When you see B-34, pass two corridors and turn right."
"What's in all of these rooms?" Daichi finally asked.
"Brooms," said Flynn. "They are all broom closets."
"I think she's lying," Eiji said.
We finally took a turn into a short corridor with two doors standing across from one another. They were big thick steel ones with retinal scanners and keypads, the kind I'd only seen in movies. The hallway went on beyond them and terminated in a poorly lit dead end. The corners were dusty and it smelled of disuse, but down the center of the floor was a worn, shiny rut.
Flynn and Sugawara each went to one of the keypads, typed something in, and bent forward to have their eyes scanned. They did it at the exact same time, without talking, without hesitation, and just watching it gave me a chill. I realized that at one point they had been us, and suddenly I was hungry to be that skilled, that synchronized with someone else.
As they leaned away from the scanners, the far wall slid away into the floor.
We all gasped, even Nakamura.
Flynn and Sugawara both pivoted in place toward the dark mouth in the wall.
"Turn," Flynn barked. "And bow."
We all bowed together toward the dark gap in the wall, glancing at each other in confusion.
When we rose, Flynn looked up at Sugawara and raised her hands, signing something to her. Sugawara nodded and swept into the dark entrance first. Flynn waited at the opening and waved us through. One by one, we slipped through the egress. When I started to move through, Flynn shoved me against the wall. Nakamura, who had been last in line, sneered down her nose at me, then ducked under Flynn's arm and was gone.
"What is it?" I asked. "What did I do?"
Flynn looked me in the face.
"Are you Foot, Watanabe-san?" she asked. "Because I would hate to have to report that you had second thoughts about your allegiance."
"I'm Foot," I said.
"Say it again."
"I am Foot," I said loudly.
"You are about to be allowed into our heart, Watanabe-san," said Flynn. "These other children gave their allegiance to us long ago. Some of them have abandoned their families or given up traitors they once called friends. They are trustworthy. What about you?"
"I am Foot!" I snapped. "What will make you believe me?"
"Right now? I'm not sure."
My heart thudded. I looked back through the corridor. Suddenly I realized what this meant. Flynn had opened more than one door for me. I could back away. I could run. She wouldn't stop me. Down that hallway, the lights were bright, the fresh clean spring day beckoned. I didn't have to be here. I didn't have to be anywhere I didn't want to be.
I didn't want to be Foot. I didn't care about their heart.
Oddly, I had no thought of Northampton at that time. I don't know why it didn't come up. Perhaps because I knew that if I went down that way, there could be no Northampton for me, either. Whatever that way was, it led to a place only I could know.
Flynn leaned down until her face was only inches from mine.
"Are you running, Watanabe-san?" she asked. "I was warned that you might."
I swallowed and forced myself to face her head-on. Her nose had been broken once, the bridge flattened out, and once I was up close I could see that her jaw was slightly off-center. Her eyes were intense, searching.
"Watanabe-san," she said slowly, tasting the name, drawing each syllable out. "All you have is your name. You have never once had to prove yourself. Here, we know too well what a weak link will do. They break down. They give up. They endanger our missions, our rituals, our secrets, our lives. And you are weak."
I closed my eyes and dredged up what truth I could.
"I'm sorry, okay?" I said. "I don't know what to do."
"Huh."
Through my eyelids, a shadow shifted. Flynn had leaned away from me. When I opened my eyes again, she was relaxing against the wall, looking down at me.
"Why?" she asked.
"What did they tell you?" I asked.
One corner of her mouth turned up, but she said nothing. Neither did I. How could I possibly show Northampton to her, a stranger with uncertain motives?
Sugawara stuck her head through the egress and scowled at us before signing to Flynn rapidly. Flynn signed back curtly. Sugawara glowered at me, and was gone again.
"Just trust me," I said at last. "I have to do this."
"You have to?" said Flynn. "And when the conditions for your temporary alliance with us are gone, what will you do?"
"If I don't do this," I said, "they'll kill everyone I love."
Flynn's expression was noncommittal. Her index finger tapped slowly on her forearm.
"And if the opening was given to you?" she asked. "You would run. If your kappa friends were killed? Your allegiance would disappear. Is that what you are telling me, Watanabe-san?"
I bowed deeply to her from my waist.
"Just let me go," I hissed through my teeth. "I swear that I'm not weak."
"Words mean nothing," she said.
My heart dropped out. I stood before her utterly transparent.
"What are you going to tell my mother?" I asked softly, peering up into her face.
I hadn't meant this to be a prod. I expected a lecture, or to be sent back to the classroom, or made to wait outside. But when I said this I saw a flash of fear. It was very quick, and had I blinked I never would have detected it, but it was there.
"Like I said," she said, straightening up and gesturing through the door. "All you have is your name. Go."
I ducked through and waited nervously in the dark. I could feel her presence just behind me, like the pressure of a breeze. There was a single beep and the door closed, plunging us into pitch blackness. And then her fingers lightly pressed against the back of my neck... as well as the faintest prick of a kunai. A reminder.
She drove me through the darkness, directing me with her fingers. Left. Right. Left. Left. I couldn't see the corridors, but I could feel the narrow walls and breezes when we passed by forks in the path. At last, we came to a stop, and Flynn reached over my shoulder and pressed a button. Another beep, and a door in the wall opened. The light blinded me. I was shoved through without ceremony.
"What kept you?" asked Eiji.
"Stuff," I said, my arm over my eyes.
We were standing in a dimly lit foyer paneled in dark wood. Everything smelled old and musty. On either side of us were stone troughs of clean, flowing water, cups with long handles balanced cup-down. There was a getabako in the wall, but unlike the heavy-duty one at the front door, this one was a simple affair crafted with carefully-fitted planks of wood. Grooves had been worn into the centers from years of use. One small, dark door with a gleaming brass doorknob stood before us.
"Here, Watanabe-san," Flynn said curtly. "Purify yourself."
She picked up a ladle with her right hand, pouring it over her left, then grasped it with her left hand and poured it over her right. Scooping water into her left hand, she swished it around in her mouth and spat beside the trough, then cupped water in the ladle once more and spilled it over the handle.
I stumbled along beside her. She wasn't happy with it. She made me do it again.
"You don't have to do all of that," Eiji said. "You can just wash your ha..."
Flynn turned slowly to face him. Eiji's mouth went slack.
Flynn signed something to Sugawara, who signed back.
"Back to the trough, everyone," said Flynn. "Do it right. This is no tourist trap."
Quietly, everyone assembled again and followed Sugawara and Flynn's instructions. Pour with this hand, then that hand. Don't drink out of the cup. Don't swallow the water. Dickens-san! This is not mouthwash!
"Remove your shoes," Flynn said. "Put them in the getabako. Line up. Stand in twos. Here. Here. Here."
As she arranged us, she put me at the very back and bid Nakamura stand alongside me.
"Princesses belong together," she murmured between us, and patted our shoulders.
Then she strode up to the head of the group and faced the door so that all we could see was her back.
"This is the heart of everything," she said. "You are about to stand in the presence of the kami that blessed our forefathers in Japan. You will speak of this to no one outside of the clan. Only the Foot may behold it; only the Foot may speak of it. It deserves your absolute devotion and respect. Do not speak once we go through the door. An important reminder: you will not come here if you have killed, if you are wounded, if you are grieving, or if you are sick. We will discuss what to do in those cases later. Now bow!"
We bowed altogether toward the door. Then she twisted the knob and we followed without sound.
We passed beneath arched vines into an honest-to-god garden. Unlike the greenroom at home, it was allowed to run wild, mostly with flowering bushes and nodding wildflowers. It had been walled into the center of the building; the only entrance and exit lay behind us. The roof was sheer glass, illuminated by the spring sun until it shone a pale green, and golden motes of light drifted around us in vague currents. The air was still, humid, warm; the stones beneath our feet were cold and damp and smoothed by the hundreds who had passed there before. In the middle of the room, a vermilion torii stood guard. Except for the hum of the lights, all bright white grow lights of some kind, there was no sound at all.
Near the back of that womb-like room, couched in the worshipful leaves of a gnarled tree, was a pillared crimson shrine with gilt eaves. Looping from its pillars was a fibrous rope hung with curiously folded white papers. Twin rat statues flanked it, staring sightlessly at us. One of them perched on top of an orb; the other one clutched a scroll. Lichen flowered on their shoulders.
We stood in baffled wonderment. Speaking seemed completely impossible there. There was something alive there, something very old, quiet, sleepy… aware. I was struck with a desire I had never had in my life: to worship, to pray. Not knowing exactly how to acknowledge it was a physical pain.
Flynn and Sugawara stopped just before the altar and bowed twice, deeply, from the waist. Then they clapped and bowed their heads over their clasped hands. We echoed them. Our claps followed theirs like staggered sixteenth notes. The distinct impacts echoed around the room in sharp staccato bursts, growing progressively fainter and fainter. I glanced at my squadmates, not sure what to do next. Eiji, Daichi, and Nakamura had closed their eyes, touching their hands to their lips. I followed suit. Was this praying? The fountain sang softly behind us. The humidity was a pressure, almost a living one. My breathing seemed too loud.
Where do I go from here? I asked in my head. I miss my dad. I miss my uncles. I miss Shadow and April. I just want to feel like I did in Northampton all of the time. How do I get there?
Air puffed on my forehead, just like someone had blown on me.
My eyes flew open. I was the only one looking. I was sure I saw a pale yellow light between the pillars, just before the dark shuttered doors in the honden itself. And then it was gone.
Before I could think about what I had just seen, Flynn and Sugawara bowed, one after the other. So I bowed. I bowed as low as I could. It seemed like the right thing to do.
When we got back to our training room, all we did was continue the synchronized katas. Flynn did not talk to me directly for the rest of the session. I was grateful for it. There was room for me to think on the quiet room with its quiet kami. I felt like it was still with me, a golden warmth and security in the center of my body.
At 5:00, we were led to the genkan. Mr. Sugar was waiting for me, my bentou box under his arm. Flynn immediately went to speak to him in low tones. I didn't dare look at them. As I pulled out my shoes, my squadmates began drawing phones out of their cupboards. They began scrolling through their feeds.
"We should get each other's phone numbers," said Eiji.
"Yeah!" Perez said.
"You have Snapchat?" Dickens asked.
Soon they were bunched together, phones touching, heads tilted toward one another. Even Nakamura slid over into the group. She had been rather quiet lately, I thought.
"Watanabe-san!" said Eiji, waving at me. "What's your number?"
My stomach sank. Just as I was about to say that I didn't have one, Mr. Sugar came up behind me. He reached into his pocket and drew out a thin black phone, then slipped it into my hand. It was the phone that Mom had bought for me months ago. There was a bit of paper taped to the front, and in his handwriting was my phone number.
I looked up at him with an open mouth.
"They're waiting for you," he said.
I rushed over into the group. Their shoulders knocked against mine. We bent together over our glossy screens.
"I got a new phone," I said dumbly, swiping the screen left.
"Nice!" said Eiji. "Is that your phone number? I'll text you."
My phone began to chime and vibrate in my hands. I pressed my hand up against my mouth. One new text message. Two new text messages. Three. Four. Five.
"We need a name for our squad," said Dickens. "Something with Oni. Dark Oni Six. Yyyyeaaah!"
"Oh, please, no," Nakamura said softly.
"I'm adding you as Dicks-san," Eiji said.
"Yeah? I'm adding you as Assface-sama."
Eggplant and peach emojis swarmed our group chat.
"Can we meet outside of class to go over Japanese?" asked Perez.
"Sure," Daichi said. "You're still living at the Clubhouse, right?"
"Yeah."
"We can go after to the Pavilion after this, if you want."
As I added my teammates to my address book by their proper names, I looked up. Nakamura was staring at me. She had sent me one text with her name in kanji and hiragana and nothing else. No greetings, no emoji, not even punctuation. I realized that although her thumbs were moving, she was scrolling through her Facebook feed while not looking at it at all. I felt sorry for her all of a sudden. She looked lost.
When we got in the car, Mr. Sugar started driving without saying anything. I didn't notice at first as I was totally wrapped up in my phone, adding apps, replying to the group chat. Eiji and Dickens were in the middle of a meme-war. I laughed into the screen more than once. I hadn't laughed in so long that it both hurt and felt intoxicatingly new at once.
When the car finally pulled into the garage and groaned to a stop, I looked up at Mr. Sugar.
"Thank you for the phone," I said.
"Don't thank me," he said. "Thank your mother."
He looked so solemn that for a moment I forgot that I was happy.
"Did I do something wrong?" I asked.
He pressed his lips together. "No."
"I like my squad," I said quickly. "They seem like good people. I like the Yamaguchis best."
"Good family," he said, unhitching his seatbelt. "They've been in the Foot for generations."
"They told me about you," I said, and waited.
"Is that so."
"Did you really dress up like a woman and get guards' phone numbers?" I asked.
"Yes." He stepped out of the car and opened my door.
"Did you really break into a bank and only steal $20? Why?"
"To cover the cost of origami paper."
"What else did you do?" I asked, hopping out.
"You should ask the Yamaguchis," he said.
"Why won't you tell me?" I asked, trotting after him.
"Because secrets are powerful," he said. "What did you tell them about yourself?"
"I... that I was traveling with my dad before I came here. That's all."
"Good. It's general enough. Don't tell them any more. It is for your safety. Every piece of yourself that you give can be turned back onto you here."
"Then what are we supposed to talk about?"
"The craft, our language, our goals. Or start a conversation about what your friends like. They'd like that. There are many things you can talk about without ever talking about yourself." He turned smartly on his heel to face me. It was so quick that it startled me. There was a fresh new flower in his buttonhole, I realized suddenly. It was yellow. I wondered when he had gotten it.
"Watanabe-san," he said, "do you know why I waited for you in the genkan?"
"Because you're my bodyguard?"
"Partly. But also to watch your belongings to make sure no one puts poison in your food, or slips a needle into your shoe."
My mouth fell open. I thought of Tomoe-san.
"Think forward," he said. "What kinds of people will your friends be in ten years?"
I paused. I thought of Sugawara and Flynn, signing to each other and moving like one unit together in the hallway.
"Will we be training new recruits?" I asked. "Or on missions!"
"I said what kinds of people, not what kinds of jobs."
"I don't understand," I said.
"The person your father was, ten years ago," he said. "He is not the same person now that he was then. Likewise, the person I was, ten years ago. He was different. The person your mother was: different. All change is a series of little deaths. None of us are the same person we were as children. And for children, that process is so much faster. There is no way you can know how safe these friends will be. This is, in many ways, the most dangerous part of your life. I am telling you this in the hope that it will save you."
There were tears in my eyes.
"Listen," he said. "Some of them won't be your friends anymore in ten years. Some will die. Some will learn to hate you. Most dangerous: some will make alliances they treasure more than yours, and you won't understand it until too late. Right now you may be arming your enemies. Each truth you give them is an arrow for their quivers. Hope that they think well of you, but don't expect it."
"I have an enemy now," I said softly.
"Oh?"
"Nakamura-san."
"Hmm." He nodded. "Temperamental family."
He swiped his card at the elevator and we stepped into it.
"She doesn't like any of us," I said.
"She was probably told not to."
Suddenly I felt very sad. I stared out of the glass window as we broke out of the roof of the parking garage. My pocket had buzzed nonstop with the group chat the entire time. In only a few minutes it had been transformed into signals both unanswerable and unattainable.
"I don't want to be friendless for the rest of my life," I said in a small voice.
"It is a necessity," he said.
I understood my mother then. I understood her in a flash. I understood her angry little face in the sepia photograph: standing there, all alone, because she had to, not because she wanted to. I thought of how much the bushes and bamboo and shrine had filled the picture, and how small and alone and pale she stood beneath them. I understood then why she would go to my father, why it didn't matter what he looked like. He was not Foot, not really; he was outside, and that meant that he was free. When they were together, she could pretend she was free, too.
When we got to the apartment, I kicked off my shoes at the genkan, feeling numb and depressed.
"Tadaima," I called out. There was no heart in it.
"Okaeri nasai," Fujita-san sang to me from the kitchen. "How was it?"
I paused and looked back over my shoulder. Mr. Sugar nodded from the doorway.
"Thank you," I said.
For the first time, he gave me a smile. His eyes were emotionless, and he was missing one of his canines. Saluting me, he backed away and shut the door. I shivered a little.
"Saya-chan! You are talking too quietly. I cannot hear!"
I took a deep breath and stepped up over the threshold.
"It was great!" I said. I held up my phone. "I got a phone! I really like my squad."
"Oh, I'm so proud of you, Saya-chan. Come here. I made you some mochi."
I trotted into the dining room and plopped down at the table, setting the phone beside me. It was still buzzing. All I had eyes for was Fujita-san, who shuffled up beside me with a white plate. Mochi lined up in rainbow rows. I picked up the kinako one with my fingers and bit off a piece, then began to suck on it. Kinako is roasted soybean flour and tastes reminiscent of peanut butter. As an added bonus, there was sweet red bean paste inside. This was one food nobody had had to ram down my throat.
"Tell me about your day," said Fujita-san, sitting down at the table.
So I told her about the group, and how much I liked the Yamaguchis and Perez and Dickens, and how Nakamura seemed so rude. I warmed up as I told her. Mr. Sugar's advice grew fainter with the re-telling. I could only imagine skullduggery from Nakamura, and even then, I wasn't afraid of her. Wouldn't any violence on me reflect back on her? I was Watanabe. She only wished she could be me.
Then I came to the shrine. My voice faltered.
"Fujita-san," I said, "can you tell me about the shrine?"
"They didn't tell you?"
"No. We just did synchronized katas again."
"Very strange." Her tone was disapproving.
"They didn't trust me," I said quietly.
"You are a Watanabe," she said. "You should be allowed to know. Even your father was allowed into the shrine."
My eyes widened. "Really?"
"Yes. The kami is everything," she said. "The kami is in everything. The kami is why we are here at all, and why ninjitsu is not merely a memory."
"A kami is a god, right?"
"Yes. Or it can be many gods. Or it can be the energy that empowers life, a flowing vein through all life here on Earth, reaching up to the Emperor and beyond him to the gods themselves. For the Foot, we had a single kami. His name was Nezugami. He was a rat kami of prodigious size. The legend was that he had come to the poor farmers in Iga Province and said, 'Let me show you how to sneak in the darkness, how to kill and steal without a sound, how to use flame, how to become anyone you please and manipulate men with your speech and dress. In this way, you can make a fine living and your children will no longer starve. If you respect me properly, I shall always bring you prosperity.'
"And so we built a shrine to Nezugami and he taught us his ways. For a while he lived among us as an old man with a walking stick and long whiskers. A rude child pulled his whiskers and poof! He was a great rat in a yukata, and scurried away into the forest.
"Back in the old days, the fathers of the Foot Clan lived in one village of several villages in Iga Province. Each village had its tutelary shrine. Some were taught their arts by kami; we shared freely with our brothers, and they shared with us. For a time we were unassailable, and warlords bought and sold our services. Just as Nezugami had promised, our children grew strong and tall.
"Although we had countless enemies, we were safe for many years. You see, Iga Province lay between mountains, and was difficult to assail. Narrow passes meant that we needed few defenders. Many had tried and failed to eradicate us. Eventually, the warlord Nobunaga, weary of our mischief, sent thousands of troops through each and every pass at a single time. He destroyed us almost utterly. Much art and wisdom was lost. Castles, villages, and shrines were set aflame. The valleys shone red.
"It is said that the night he began his attack, a dream came to the people of our village. Nezugami stood in every doorway and path. He stood as tall as a man and he had eyes like the full moon.
"'Doom is coming,' he said. 'Get up. Come with me into the mountains. Get up. Take the sacred palanquin. Get up. Do not bring fire. My people will show you the way.'
"Each and every man, woman, and child rose from their futon. They took only what they could carry. Soon they were walking up into the thick forest. No one brought fire. Before them were the priests carrying the gilded palanquin within which Nezugami rode. Far ahead, they saw yellow lights, which faded as they were reached. On every side there was a whispering and a rushing sound, for they were accompanied by waves of rats.
"That night they hid in mountain caves. They watched as their village went up in flame. The soldiers swept up into the forest to look for the villagers, but every time they grew close, the rats would jump out of the trees and shake branches together, thereby leading them away into the darkness. The soldiers never found their hiding places. The villagers watched and they were not afraid. They ran ahead of Nobunaga, and they were never found. That is why we were called the Foot; we were always running."
I was still chewing on my second piece of mochi, staring at her in wonderment. "A rat," I said softly.
"Yes. Perhaps he is not as charming as the fox, or as wise as the turtle, but in his quiet cunning he is the most skilled."
"When you are praying before a shrine, what does it mean if you feel a puff of air?" I asked.
She smiled. "It could mean many things. I am sure it means that your prayer was heard."
I looked down at the mochi.
"Can you bring the kami an offering?" I asked.
Fujita-san nodded. "Of course you can."
The next time my squad went to see the shrine, I brought three hundred dollars in twenties, rolled up and bound with a rubber band. It went into a locked box that hung alone in a dark recess. When I bowed to pray, I saw nothing out of the ordinary, but I felt that there was a kind of understanding between the kami and me.