The Spirit Sorcerer

Chapter 1

They floated, they fell. The world twisted and turned in a whorl of colour and light, and Masanori clung to Ichika, intending never to let go.

Whenever he glimpsed the ground, the orientation of his surroundings changed, flipping him upside down. Then he and Ichika were jerked in the opposite direction, lugged through air, clouds, and water, and the process would begin anew.

Vomit burned Masanori’s throat as vertigo assaulted him, threatening to spew over. Before it did, their twisting stabilized, and then they were just falling.

Fast.

They hit the tops of narrow trees. Spindly branches attacked Masanori from all sides, cutting into his arms and legs. They grabbed his cloak, shredding the thick fabric and catching in other places. Momentum flung him from side to side, and his limbs caught in a net of boughs. Smacking into the branches forced him to brace himself, which tossed Ichika from his arms along the last stretch, no matter how desperately he tried to cling to her.

She crashed into the dry, rocky earth at the base of a nearby tree with a yelp. Masanori followed. He landed in a groaning heap, everything aching.

His head spinning, he marvelled at the violet and cloudy white, twisting sky and the fact that he and Ichika were still alive.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed in silence before he looked down to find Ichika staring at him. She was mouthing something, but his ears were still ringing from the explosion.

He knocked his head, shaking it, trying everything he could to get some of his hearing back. And then finally, very faintly, “Napeyu, napeyu, are you okay? Oh, Spirits, you don’t look good. Napeyu?”

He grabbed her arm, squeezing it in reassurance. “I’m okay,” he breathed. “I think.”

Everything hurt, but the pain wasn’t so severe that he couldn’t move. He’d experienced far worse, although that didn’t make him too keen on getting up just yet. The ringing still irritated his ears, and the grey, ashy trees hadn’t yet stopped spinning.

“We survived, somehow,” Ichika said. “I thought we were going to die, and then… bam, we ended up here.”

Travelling through the mirrors unprepared could have ended up just as disastrous, but Masanori had expected them to be their only escape from the dreamweed bulbs if one went off. Having used the mirrors in the heat of the moment to escape, however… he had no idea where they’d ended up. But wherever they were, they’d been spit out in an awful mess.

“Sagishi’s intent isn’t to kill us,” Masanori said. “It’s far worse. He wants to control us, perhaps take my Nightmare shard, too.”

I HAVE A SENSE THAT SAGISHI’S OBJECTIVES AREN’T AS SINISTER AS YOU MAKE THEM SEEM.

“Then tell me, why else would he want to join with my spirit like you and Tama? This isn’t the first time someone has tried to threaten bodily and spiritual harm on me and my loved ones to try and wrestle control of the Nightmare shard, and the mirrors, away from me. Or have you already forgotten Hana?”

OF COURSE NOT, BUT YOUR SISTER WAS A SPECIAL CASE. SAGISHI FUSING INTO YOU WOULD NOT NECESSARILY GIVE HIM CONTROL. I DO NOT BELIEVE HE IS POWERFUL ENOUGH TO USE SUCH COMPLICATED, BACKDOOR METHODS.

“Then what have you deduced, mighty spirit, as his true goal?”

HE IS INDEED INTERESTED IN YOUR SUI, BUT I DO NOT KNOW WHY AS OF YET. BUT LOOK AROUND. WE AREN’T IN THE DOWNWORLD ANYMORE.

The sky was not of any realm Masanori had seen before, that was for sure, but maybe he’d hit his head too hard when he fell.

“So?”

YOU WERE NOT THE ONLY ONE MANIPULATING THE MIRRORS. THIS REALM MAY BE OF SAGISHI’S DESIGN, AND IN THAT CASE, I SUSPECT WE WILL DISCOVER HIS INTENTIONS SOON.

Now that Masanori’s head stopped spinning, he did recall Sagishi making some vague threat about taking them to his domain.

“This is my fault, isn’t it?” Ichika’s voice broke. “If I hadn’t followed the phoenix—I—I only wanted to make it easier to capture him—”

Masanori brought her into his arms, and they huddled together under the thin tree. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. If I hadn’t kept pushing him, kept refusing him, or tried harder to finish him off, he would have left us alone long ago.”

Ichika sniffed. “But then what does he want?”

“I just want to be friends with your napeyu!” Sagishi’s voice echoed through the skies above the dead forest, eerily close and distant at the same time. “I don’t understand why he doesn’t like me. He won’t sit down to have a civil conversation. Can you convince him to talk to me, little fox?”

“Why would I convince him to do anything when you keep hurting us? You lured me out to the Channel of Stars, taking advantage of me to bend my napeyu to your demands.” Ichika growled, and her bright red tail and ears stood on end. “You’re the fool if you think you can push us around and still get what you want.”

“Doesn’t matter anymore. You’re in my world now, and the only way you’re getting out is by giving in.”

“We’ll see about that!” Ichika’s voice echoed through the skies, the persistent sound of her voice replacing Sagishi’s. It seemed as though the spirit had gone.

YOU TELL HIM.

Only a faint outline of Gensou appeared when she materialized in front of Ichika and Masanori. She was more ghostly than usual, more like the spirit creature that had haunted Masanori for months before he went to the Heartlands to meet her for the first time.

He sensed the worn parts of her that had been warped by the explosion. The dreamweed bulbs had done less harm to their physical bodies than the fall from the sky into the trees, but Masanori’s spirit was a different matter. It felt like his spirit had been shredded by oni claws. They’d only avoided severe spiritual damage because of the mirrors.

Had Sagishi planned all of it, right down to the details of the escape?

“Sagishi is a trickster, not a malicious spirit,” Tama said. “It seems as though he has a different motive for trying to acquire your attention, but it could be as simple as him wishing to observe the human world longer rather than returning to exile in the spirit realms.”

“His tricks haven’t been funny.”

“I thought the shinchū was funny,” Ichika said.

Masanori glared at her.

“What? It was. You looked like a mud monster covered in goopy green demon blood!”

“You’re underplaying how dangerous it was for us to fight and kill a kami—”

“And you’re so obsessed with how dangerous everything is! I don’t remember you caring when you charged off into battle every other day when we lived with Ryoka. And I sure don’t remember you being so careful when you abandoned Kira and me for months to find Gensou and then go to war in the Downworld.”

“That was different. I was—”

“It wasn’t, Masa! You were living your life, just like I want to! You’re still treating me like I’m a child. Shouldn’t you know better?”

He sighed, running a hand through his damp and dusty hair. He had too much of a headache for this conversation. “I am, and it’s wrong. I’m sorry. I’m still adjusting to you… not needing me all the time, I suppose.”

Ichika crouched beside him again, wrapping him in an awkward hug. “I do need you all the time, napeyu. But now I need you to guide me, not keep all conceivable harms away. How else am I going to learn?”

“You’re right, as usual. I didn’t listen to my parents at all, either. What’s the point?”

“Does this mean you’ll stop treating me like the lost little fox you pulled from the shrine ruins?”

To Masanori, she would never stop being that lost little fox. But Ichika had stopped being a helpless girl years ago. Perhaps Kira hadn’t been the only one struggling to reconcile his drive to protect her with the self-sufficient young woman she’d become.

“I’ll do my best,” Masanori said. “But how about we get out of here before making any more promises?”

“Fine.”

While unwrapping her arms from Masanori’s neck, he noticed a b****y scrape snaking down Ichika’s bare arm where her shirt had been torn. Masanori dabbed the injury with a clean part of his cloak.

She whimpered and pulled away. “Owie.”

“You’ll live. Hurt anywhere else?”

She shook her head, so Masanori tore a strip off his shredded cloak to wrap around her wound. It wasn’t ideal, as they had no water to wash the cut with, but the bandage would do until they found a way out of the trap Sagishi had lured them into.

“Do you see anything familiar around us?” Masanori managed through his banging headache. “Or any significant landmarks?”

Ichika worried her lip and spun around. Masanori didn’t dare lift his head again yet. Gensou’s injuries had become his own, draining him from the inside out, even if his physical body had only endured scratches.

Was this Sagishi’s plan, to weaken him, Gensou, and Tama to the point that they had no choice but to agree to his terms?

“No,” Ichika settled on after a moment. “We’re not in the Nightmare anymore, but I don’t recognize any of our surroundings from the Downworld. Some of the trees look like the parts of the thicker, untamed forests around the Seika Shrine, but…”

She glanced up at the sky, and Masanori followed. The purple, winding vortex wasn’t a sky that either of them recognized.

It didn’t even look like they were in the same world.

SAGISHI IS SHIKA, A SPECIES KNOWN FOR HAVING INDIVIDUALIZED, UNIQUE POWERS, THE SUI. BUT WHEN THE GODDESS CURSED THEM, MANY OF THEIR SUI BECAME TWISTED. Gensou was occupied with scratching behind her ear with her hind paw. If she was relaxed despite their circumstances, Masanori could only assume that they weren’t in any more immediate danger. YOURS IS CONTROLLING THE NIGHTMARE. TAMA’S IS PLAYING WITH TREES.

“That is, once again, a very reductive description—” Tama protested, but Gensou went on unimpeded.

SAGISHI’S IS TAMING OTHER SPIRITS. USEFUL, BUT IT MAKES HIM UNPREDICTABLE… UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT CREATURES HE HAS UNDER HIS COMMAND.

“I’m guessing one of his spirits is responsible for creating this realm, or at least for bringing us here.” Ichika’s ears shot up and wiggled when she caught on to Gensou’s train of thought. “If we can figure out what spirit that is and defeat it, we can go home, can’t we?”

“In theory, but I can make mirrors, too,” Masanori said. “If we can find enough water, then we don’t have to play Sagishi’s silly game at all.”

Gensou sniffed the dirt at the base of the nearest tree and clawed at the ashy trunk, leaving deep, dark gouges in the bark. It was as though the tree had died years ago, without a speck of water left inside. Every tree had suffered similarly.

IT LOOKS LIKE HE CONSIDERED THAT ALREADY.

Masanori planted a hand on the nearest tree trunk, using it to pull himself to his feet and get a better look around.

They had crashed into a thick forest of thin, lanky trees, but not all of them looked right. Their colours were mismatched and wrong, ranging from white to grey to black. Some were upside down, their branches clinging to the ground with their roots reaching for the sky instead.

The strange trees were all Masanori could see in every direction. However, the ground sloped downward one way. They were either on a mountain or a hill, perhaps somewhere they could use as a vantage point if they found the right spot higher up.

Or, following the downward slope, they might find water and a way out.

“All of the trees are dead.” Masanori kicked the dry, brittle dirt at his feet. “He’s either taken all the water away or brought us somewhere with very little. Tricky bastard. Getting out of here might be harder than I thought.”

“He couldn’t have created a world without any water at all. But my senses are confused, too, after travelling through that mirror,” Tama admitted. “I don’t know where we are, and the ki around us is… strange. Maybe we’ll find water if we continue downhill?”

Right now, that seemed like their best bet. Masanori would play Sagishi’s game if that was the only way to get home, but he sure wasn’t going to follow the rules.

Gensou diffused into Masanori so Tama—who had endured the ordeal mostly unscathed—could take her place while they limped downhill. However, even Tama’s keen senses were stifled in this place, and they strode through the dirt, ducking under trees, and came up with no leads as to where they were.

Before long, Ichika found a makeshift path through the trees and skipped along in front of Masanori and Tama without a care in the world. She so easily acted as if they weren’t trapped in a different dimension created by a malicious spirit. It brought a smile to Masanori’s face; somehow, despite everything she’d been through in her life, she was ever the optimist, finding positivity in everything.

“I still don’t understand what Sagishi wants from you,” Ichika said from a few paces ahead. “If he can command spirits to do his bidding and control their powers, what does he need you for, if not to take yours as well?”

“It’s not like I spend much time in the Downworld, either,” Masanori agreed. “Even if I allowed him to join with me, we wouldn’t be going on grand adventures, causing trouble for the poor folks in rural Seiryuu.”

Ichika looked over her shoulder at him, eyes glittering with mischief. “Now that I think of it, doesn’t that sound like a good reason for Gensou to want to make friends with Sagishi? They’re both chaos-aligned; they would have a grand time together.”

WE WOULD, BUT THAT’S… ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME THAT’S A BAD THING? Gensou’s voice came.

“It could be. You drive my napeyu crazy already.”

I BEG THE CONTRARY. I TOOK ALL THE CRAZY OUT OF HIM, AND NOW HE IS FAR TOO SERIOUS.

Masanori laughed. “You really do sound like Sagishi.”

NOT THE POINT.

They carried on along the narrow path, bantering back and forth about Gensou’s true motivations. Despite Masanori, Ichika, and Tama’s teasing, Gensou’s intentions were far clearer than any other spirit Masanori had met. She existed to consume void, to eat nightmares, and that was all. Everything else was an extension of that, even tormenting Masanori.

She didn’t play with mortals as if they were game pieces like either of the supreme gods who ruled over Yumihari.

But though Gensou’s chaotic nature had, from time to time, caused him a lot of grief, she’d never intentionally put him, or Ichika, in danger the way Sagishi had. At this point, it was hard for Masanori to believe Sagishi was merely neglectful and took his ‘tricks’ too far rather than using such excuses to hide his outright malicious behaviour.

There were no signs of squirrels in the trees or birds in the skies, no snakes or bugs in the grass. This land was void of life altogether, save for them.

Masanori tried to think of what kind of spirit Sagishi could have taken control of to create a lifeless realm like this but came up blank. His knowledge of spirits was extensive from the days he’d dreamed of joining the Tiger Reserves—the royal bushi in Seiryuu dedicated to defeating wicked spirits—but far from complete.

He hoped Tama or Gensou would know the answer, but if they did, neither of them bothered to tell him.

The fact that they did not outright discourage a potential union between Masanori’s spirit and Sagishi irritated him to no end. In this case, they both had ulterior motives: Tama, to return to the sacred tamashii tree where Masanori had first found them, and Gensou, to make friends with another like-minded chaotic spirit.

Neither considered Masanori’s position or the danger of fusing a malevolent spirit into him. A spirit which was quite functional now, thanks to Tama and Gensou.

Through the mirrors looking into the Downworld, Masanori had witnessed his twin brother, Hidekazu, face a similar conundrum. In an effort to heal his damaged spirit, he had taken in another; a dark dragon that ended up having far more malicious intentions than anticipated.

Hidekazu had survived the outcome, but at what cost?

Masanori was not in the position to ask, exactly, with Sagishi putting so much pressure on him. The decision would come to a head sooner or later, and he had the distinct impression it would be soon.

A scuttling sound came from the dry underbrush to the side of the path. Masanori and Ichika froze at the same time. Neither had been on guard as they were under the impression there was no one, spirit, animal, or otherwise, in this realm other than them.

But the face of a middle-aged woman crawling out of the dead bushes tested that theory.

She crouched low on the ground, moving much like an ape with mixed use of her feet and hands. Tiny black horns protruded from her forehead, and her features were twisted and grotesque.

Stooped low, she looked almost human until she smiled, revealing the fangs of a demon. “Taassssttyy mortals…”