Yokai Calling

10. Masanori

5

Masanori

Hidekazu, Masanori, and Aihi stared at Torra as she rose from her crouch, apprehension written in her every muscle. No one spoke, either waiting for her to explain or, like Masanori, had no idea how to respond to Torra’s statement.

“I don’t understand,” Aihi said. “You knew a kan’thir was near Tsukiko and said nothing? That a similar attack had happened before?”

Though she didn’t raise her voice, the accusation was explicit: Torra had kept the truth from them. Why didn’t she say anything when Hidekazu and Masanori brought the incident to their attention at the tamashii tree?

“Not a kan’thir, no. But a similar attack, yes.” Torra twisted her hands together, pulling at each of her fingers. “A strange event occurred last month, shortly before your birthday celebration. I encountered the Tsukiko Guard clearing similar sludge in an alleyway leading out of the market one morning. I didn’t think much of it at the time, only that I wouldn’t forget the stink, like rotten cheese and sulphur.”

“So you never saw the kan’thir,” Masanori said. “That’s a relief.”

“Of course not,” Torra snapped. “If I witnessed anything substantial, I would have reported it.”

“But there’s more than what you’ve told us so far, isn’t there?” Aihi stepped closer to confront Torra head-on. “If the woman taken last night wasn’t the first victim, who was?”

“You know Imai Fuyuko, don’t you?”

Aihi looked taken aback. “Of course I do. She is training as a priestess.”

Masanori knew her, too. Unlike the Kairese in the south or Tajidains in the east, Seiryans didn’t particularly value chastity in their young women. Their Goddess got around, so why not her priestesses? Needless to say, the devout and shy Fuyuko wasn’t so shy behind closed doors, at least in Masanori’s experience. But she did her six-month mandatory training in Nagasou, the capital city, a long time ago. She had to be approaching full priestess status by now.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Torra said.

“She was supposed to attend the Dragon Month Celebrations, but she fell ill days before. I received a very apologetic letter.” Aihi’s brows crinkled, and she crossed her arms. “You’re not saying this is related, are you? She was sick, that is all. I am certain if we sought her out, she would be perfectly fine, but we don’t have time to waste.”

Torra’s gaze dropped. “The last time I saw her was two days before the incident in the alley.”

“But if she was missing,” Hidekazu piped in, “everyone would know by now. She must still be unwell—it happens. Doesn’t she and her mother have brittle bone disease?”

“Yes, but, it doesn’t add up. A whole month? Imai Fuyuko is a sociable young lady. She wouldn’t lock herself up for so long. Even bedridden, she would invite friends over. And it’s not just me. No one has been able to see her.”

“Perhaps she’s cloistered for her training. It is not uncommon for young priestesses and monks to have extended periods of seclusion to commune with the spirits.”

“Other young women have been acting strange in Tsukiko. Missing social engagements, corresponding only through letters, and have become absent from the public eye. It’s not only Imai. Satō Manami, among others, are all but missing.”

Masanori was familiar with Manami, too, though through less exciting means; her family were water crystal artisans, so he met her on occasion when running errands for the Jyutsu Laboratories.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he considered the information Torra presented. “We’re ignoring the most important part. Torra saw the Tsukiko Guard cleaning a similar residue a month ago. If multiple young women from Tsukiko are acting strange, there is a pattern, even if we don’t know what it is yet.”

“But if something has happened to Imai, Satō, or anyone else for that matter, I still don’t see why it wouldn’t be common knowledge by now,” Hidekazu said. He used Fuyuko’s and Manami’s clan names instead of their given names because, like Masanori, he wasn’t a close friend of either. “Why would their families be complacent in their disappearance or injury?”

“Shame, perhaps, that they could not protect their blood. Our oldest customs encourage our people to obscure their shortcomings, not announce them.” Aihi gazed at the violet sludge on the cobblestones. “Or, if a kan’thir is truly in Seiryuu, perhaps fear.”

Masanori couldn’t hold back his cold remark: “Archaic traditions that would have our people isolate themselves instead of banding together during times of need.”

“Regardless,” Aihi continued, “the most obvious pattern is that the Tsukiko Guard has something to hide.”

All eyes settled on Torra again.

By the emperor’s decree, the Benri clan—Torra’s family—maintained the lands around Tsukiko. The Captain of the Tsukiko Guard, Todoroki Akihiro, reported to Benri Yui, Torra’s mother.

“If there is anything wrong with the Guard, your parents must have noticed,” Hidekazu said.

“I asked the Guard about the foamy sludge when I found them cleaning. They wouldn’t breathe a word, and usually they’re not so tight-lipped because I’m heir to my clan. So I asked my mother...” Torra bit her lip. “She told me not to worry; I had no reason to second-guess her. But with the guard acting strange, and now this, I don’t know what to think.”

It pained Masanori to see Torra tied into knots over this; she looked up to her parents. Even Masanori, whose adherence to authority was questionable at best, admired Benri Yui because, despite her humble beginnings and not being a warrior, she held her grip on Tsukiko. However, if the Tsukiko Guard was covering up the kan’thir’s existence, or anything about the missing women, Yui would also be held responsible by Aihi.

One day Torra would wear the mantle of Benri clan leader, and such a stain would remain with her. To Masanori, that was worse than the controversies surrounding the Genshu clan’s decision to withdraw from all acts of warfare and combat except where necessary. As much as he loathed the change, his parents believed the choice was for the betterment of Seiryuu. What justification could the Benri clan provide?

It would only be a source of shame.

But Masanori, like everyone else, was jumping to conclusions.

“The Benri clan is implicated in a potential cover-up, but we don’t have any evidence that they know much more than we do. Benri Yui and Benri Kazue are honourable people,” Masanori said. “I can’t imagine them participating willingly.”

“No involved parties will be spared”—Aihi flicked her narrowed eyes at Torra—“for their part in this.”

“We don’t have time to be pointing fingers.” Hidekazu moved as if to touch Aihi’s shoulder but then withdrew his hand at the last second. “As you said, the first twenty-four hours are the most important.”

“Yes. Time is not a luxury we possess, nor is my patience for those who withhold important information.”

Masanori winced at the jab intended for Torra. He had plenty of secrets—ones he was content to hide from Aihi. The tapper around his throat, for one. He’d designed the device using royal funds and resources, but he hadn’t yet reported his success at linking the device to the human body’s natural energies. In other words, the tapper gave him a limited capacity to cast minor spells when he had no potential as a majyu otherwise.

A device the founder of the Jyutsu Laboratories—Furahau Mika, Aihi’s mother—would be very, very interested in learning about.

“You want us to investigate by ourselves?” Torra said. “This is a kan’thir we’re talking about, Aihi. We can’t run into this blind or without backup, whatever we think of the Tsukiko Guard.”

“We do not need to fight the kan’thir. Our mission is to save a single life.” Aihi moved from the group, back toward the violet splattered over the cobblestones. The longer the essence of corruption stayed in the sunlight, the substance became more iridescent and the darkness within more concentrated.

“What about the others—Imai and Satō?”

“Torra, if they have been gone as long as you suspect and are not merely bedridden with an inexplicable illness, they are almost certainly walking amongst the stars.”

Wind rustled through the trees, and the echo of another muffled conversation in the garden droned in Masanori’s ears. Fuyuko and Manami, gone. They didn’t yet know the kan’thir’s intentions, so the young women might not be dead, but it didn’t feel right to wish for the alternatives, either.

He bowed his head in prayer. “O, Goddess, protect them wherever they are, for those responsible for their care failed them dearly.”

The others copied him, murmuring similar phrases. While Aihi’s reaction to the suspicion around Torra’s family frayed the edges of their group, which was usually solid as steel, their determination to find the woman taken last night held them together.

“Let us begin with a simple tracking spell.” Aihi lifted a hand over the corruption on the ground, and a spark of crimson blossomed in her palm. She wove the energy into the ancient symbols, kigou, to form the spell.

Masanori never had a reason to memorize the thousands of complex symbols that made up the Old Language—the tongue of dragons and the Goddess—which gave majyu unparalleled power to shape the elements to their will. He learned some back when he’d been overzealous about proving that he could be a majyu like Hidekazu, but most since faded from his memory.

Now with the tapper at Masanori’s disposal, a tracking spell seemed appealing, but Aihi’s fingers moved too fast from one stroke to the next, and he couldn’t latch onto anything more than general shapes.

The scarlet light flared and dissolved into sparkles and flitted around the corruption like motes of dust in a windstorm. They whirled in intricate patterns, shimmering into tiny flames. Heat pushed against Masanori like a candle, then a fireplace, and then a bonfire. He hissed, backing away from the sudden, intense warmth.

The scarlet energy crackled. He caught the look of terror in Aihi’s eyes before the spell detonated a sphere of light around the corruption, knocking the four of them over.

Masanori’s shoulder hit the cobblestones. His legs twisted into the bushes, pushed back by the force of wind and energy. Aihi hit the ground and rolled, and he grabbed her hand to keep her from flying into the pond.

He squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers pinching Aihi’s hand as he prayed for it to be over.

A second later, the pressure from the spell died. The wind calmed, but it took a few moments longer still for Masanori to knock the shrill ringing out of his ears. He shook his head as he sat up, trying to reorient himself to the world.

The corrupted sludge had disappeared, replaced by a perfect circle of charred stones. The trees adjacent to the path were blackened but not burnt—the intensity hadn’t been dangerous enough.

“Anyone hurt?” Aihi said, though she looked at Masanori. He wasn’t sure whether to be glad or offended how her concern went straight to him.

After a chorus of no’s and a few more moments to collect themselves, Hidekazu asked, “What went wrong?”

That was the question Masanori wanted to ask, but it felt better coming from someone with far more spellcasting experience: whatever just happened wasn’t normal.

“I don’t know.” Aihi dusted herself off, inching closer to the spell’s remains. “The spell was supposed to locate similar traces of energy nearby. By using multiple variations, these trackers create a patterned network of ki that we can use to pinpoint the location of the target.”

“It looks like instead of searching the area, the spell fixated on this location and burnt itself out,” Torra said. “But how is that possible? Wherever the kan’thir went, there has to be a trail of energy left behind—the stink of corruption is difficult to erase.”

The night of the attack, the sorcerer hadn’t run off with the woman in question. He hadn’t gone anywhere. A vital detail he and Hidekazu both neglected in their rush to tell their story.

“The kan’thir used a portal,” Masanori said. “Dark purple, as if the corruption tore a hole in reality. Do we need a different spell to track that?”

True portals—the kind that could be made out in the open, like the kan’thir had—were rare. In Seiryuu, a more common practice was Mirrorcrafting, a type of enchantment placed on mirrors by a majyu specializing in wind, water, and earth elements. More notable was how those kinds of ‘portals’ only worked on specific mirrors and could not be summoned anywhere like a genuine portal.

Masanori didn’t understand the technicals behind the craft, just that like ki-engineering, majyu spent many years mastering their skills.

Aihi pursed her lips. “Portals complicate the process, but the spell should still paint a picture of a usable web. Not… this.”—She gestured to the burnt foliage around them—“It’s like the kan’thir deleted himself from existence before or after stepping through.”

“He must have confused the spell, made it too difficult to pick up on the traces wherever he came out the other side,” Hidekazu said.

“It doesn’t matter.” Torra sighed and looped her thumbs on her black obi sash. “We don’t have time to prowl the whole city hoping to pick up his scent. Chances are, we’ll find another dead-end.”

Which meant putting the search for the missing woman on pause—for now. Each second they wasted here, their chances of finding her alive became slimmer. And now that they couldn’t track the kan’thir directly, what were their odds of finding her at all?

A coldness crept into Masanori’s head, a resistance to giving up. He wouldn’t assume the worst so soon. While Aihi might be more realistic, he still hoped they would find the kan’thir’s victims, no matter how long it took.

“We will speak with Captain Todoroki first,” Aihi said. “Only once that lead runs dry shall we bring the Benri clan into the mix.”

Torra nodded her thanks, but one question kept returning to Masanori: what if no one had the answers to help find the kan’thir?