Storm. Amanda Sun

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СКАЧАТЬ is only one fate,” she said.

      I looked down, my clothes soaked in ink.

      I woke to my own screaming, to the sound of Diane thumping across the floor to hold me tightly in her arms.

      * * *

      “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Tomo said, his eyes wide and filled with concern. We were hiding inside one of the Yayoi huts at Toro Iseki. His dad was asleep at home, after stumbling in from overtime work sometime in the middle of the night. Considering the whole separating-us-for-a-month business, this had seemed the best place to meet without anyone knowing.

      “I didn’t want to worry you,” I said. “Anyway, I was pretty sure these were just typical nightmares. I mean, they don’t mean anything, right?”

      Tomo pulled me toward him, wrapping me in the warmth and smell of him as we held each other. “They don’t,” he said gently, his voice against my ear. “I’ve been fighting them my whole life. Don’t listen to what they tell you. I never have.” But that was only half-true. He fought against it, sure, but he believed it, didn’t he? He believed he was a monster, that he only had a short time left, that in the end, there was only death.

      I hadn’t told him everything about the dreams. It sounded stupid, but I was scared that if I said it out loud, that Tomo had died, that it would come true. I didn’t want to tell him Amaterasu had said I was the one who would betray him. Maybe she’d only meant the stupid mistake I’d made kissing Jun? But Tomo had forgiven me, and, anyway, Amaterasu’s face had looked like the topic was a whole lot more serious than a kiss.

      Instead, I’d told Tomo about the castle and the dead samurai, about Tsukiyomi dead beside Amaterasu. “What did she mean by the Magatama?” I said as Tomo and I sat on the packed dirt floor, our backs pressed against the wall of the straw hut. “What is that?”

      “It’s a curved jewel,” Tomo said. He lifted his hand palm-up, and I could see the ribbons of scars peeking out from under his soft wristband. “I’ve seen it before in my nightmares, too. Like glass in my hand...” He closed his hand slowly, remembering. “It shatters, and the shards dig into my skin. Kuse, they burn like fire.”

      “It was broken in my dream, too,” I said. “There were sharp pieces all over the floor.”

      “The Magatama is one of the Imperial Treasures,” Tomo said. “But I don’t get what it means. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it’s just kami memories, from when they ruled Japan.”

      “Imperial Treasures?” I wrapped my arms around my knees. “Like mythical, or real?”

      “Real,” he said. “Well, sort of. They’re called the Sanshu no Jingi. They’re real, but I don’t know if the myths surrounding them are. There are three of them—the mirror, the sword and the jewel. I think they’re kept in the palace in Tokyo. The mirror is linked to Amaterasu. Not sure about the sword and Magatama.”

      The large brass mirror, the one the paper Amaterasu had held in front of Jun in Nihondaira—it had revealed the truth about all of us, that we were tied to some kind of awful tragedy that kept repeating itself with the kami’s descendants. Jun and Tomo would always be enemies, because Susanou and Tsukiyomi were. And Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi, in love until...until what, exactly?

      I shivered in the morning cold. “What happened between Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi?”

      Tomo pulled the top of his knit hat until it snapped off his head, his copper spikes flopping around his ears. I felt the warmth from the hat as he gently pressed it onto my head, smoothing it over my hair and pulling it down over my ears. “Better?” he said. I nodded, and he grinned. “I don’t know what happened, Katie, but it doesn’t matter. They aren’t us. They’re long gone.”

      “You’re right,” I said. “But we still have to deal with their drama.” The mirror, the sword and the jewel. The sword...was it the one I had seen beside Jun? How did these treasures tie into all this? Were they really just fragments of kami memories?

      Tomo took my hand in his and pulled me up from the ground. “We’ll beat this,” he said, his deep eyes searching mine. “You’ll be just fine.”

      “So will you,” I said, and he smiled, but I saw the sadness in his eyes, the disbelief. Amaterasu’s threat echoed in my thoughts.

      I will never hurt him again, I thought as I pulled him toward me, as I pressed my lips against his. We will make our own future.

      * * *

      I grabbed Yuki’s arm right when the bell rang. “Yuki-chan, I need a favor.” She looked at me, surprised.

      “Everything okay?” she said.

      I nodded. “I just... I was wondering if Niichan is still in town.”

      She raised an eyebrow, puzzled. Behind her, Tanaka started fake laughing, flipping his chair on top of his desk before walking over to us. “Hu-hu-hu,” he said in an over-the-top voice that the drama club could probably hear from here. “Does Tomohiro have a rival?”

      “Ew,” Yuki said, smacking Tanaka in the arm. “My brother? He’s, like, six years older than us.”

      “Maybe she’s seen enough of Tomo-kun’s immature side,” Tanaka grinned slyly. “She wants an older man.”

      I flushed with awkwardness. “Chigau yo”, I stammered. “Not even close.”

      Yuki put a finger to her lips and blinked slowly, looking thoughtful. “He has a point, though. Boys our age are totally immature.”

      Tanaka’s face drained of color. “O...oi! That’s not...” His shoulders slumped and he headed toward the blackboard, grabbing a cloth and starting to clean. Poor guy. He’d been asking for it, though.

      “Niichan’s back in Miyajima,” Yuki said, “but I can give you his number. Everything all right?”

      “I just wanted to ask him something about my history assignment,” I lied. “He knows a lot about kami myths.”

      “Oh, yeah, he knows all that stuff. Here.” She took out her keitai and sent the number to me.

      “Thanks.”

      She grinned. “No problem.” I helped her push the desks out of the way while our classmates mopped the floor, and then I dashed to kendo practice. I’d call Niichan as soon as I had a chance, I thought. He’d be able to help me understand how the Imperial Treasures were caught up in this mess.

      “Oi, Greene!” Ishikawa drawled from across the gym as I opened the change room door. He wore his gray hakama skirt, the dou chest plate already tied overtop. The colorful swirls of his tattoo slipped from sight as he slid on his kote glove. “Still taking kendo when Yuuto isn’t here?”

      I reached for his other kote, still on the floor, and smacked his arm with it before passing it to him. “I don’t take kendo for Tomo, baka.” Maybe at first I СКАЧАТЬ