Miko's Chronicle

Foreword:
This story is a spin off from "The Book of Masks"  interactive.  Credit to Seuzz for providing the setting.  The story stands by itself, however.

*****

The tide of students swept through the main doors of Daigo Junior High School.  Their exuberance and excitement at the end of the school day distinctly at odds with the severity of their uniforms:  A whooping and laughing tide of thirteen and fourteen year olds.

Miko regarded them with a neutral expression as she adjusted her backpack.  It was laden with class work and the straps were digging into her shoulders.  She grimaced a little as she set out purposefully.  She had more important things to do than play in the late summer sun.

“Miko,” called out a voice from one of the loose clumps of students that had formed outside the door.  Miko resolved to ignore it but the voice called out again.  “Miko, are you trying to ignore me?”

Miko turned round.  “No Yuriko,” replied Miko, recognising the other girl.  “I was just in a rush to get home,” she added pointedly.

Yuriko pouted and nudged one of the other girls beside her.  There were eight of them in all, smiling and giggling, lost in their own conversations.  “Aw Miko,” whined Yuriko.  “Don’t you want to hang out with us for a while.  It’s such a nice day, it would be a shame to waste it stuck indoors doing your homework.”

“It’s not my homework,” sighed Miko.  “My parents are expecting me home.”

“We were going to go to the park,” replied the girl standing next to Yuriko, whose name was Hoshiyo.  Miko didn’t know her so well.  “Some of the boys were going to go there as well,” she added with a smile.

“Well I’m going home,” repeated Miko scowling.

“You are no fun at all sometimes Miko,” said Yuriko, sticking out her tongue and laughing.

Miko’s expression softened.  “I’m sorry Yuriko,” she said.  “You know how it is just now.”

“I sure do,” replied Yuriko breaking into a smile again.  “Hey, if your parents let you out you should come meet up with us.”

“I’ll do that,” replied Miko, forcing a faint smile.  She knew full well that she wouldn’t.  “If not I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The girls waved and exchanged their goodbyes, leaving Miko to adjust her bag again and walk out the gate.  The narrow street outside was surrounded by houses and Miko set off slowly up the hill towards her home.  The students were scattering in all directions, walking off at their own paces.  Miko was left to move at her own speed, not caring that she was walking all by herself.

Miko’s home was only a short distance from the school.  It did not take her long to reach it.  Once inside the porch, she kicked her shoes off and put on her slippers.

“Mother,” called out Miko, walking further inside.  “Mother, I’m home.”

“In here darling,” came a shout from deep within.

Miko followed the voice to its source, the kitchen.  Her mother stood at the cooker, dressed only in a simple silk robe.  The robe hung loosely on her slender frame, distended only by her heavily swollen belly.  Miko watched as her mother stirred the pot.  It smelled delicious.

“How long now,” asked Miko, moving in beside her mother.  She sniffed at the contents of the pot experimentally.

Her mother laughed.  “Still a few hours till we eat dear,” she replied, petting Miko’s hair with a free hand.

“I meant the baby,” replied Miko.  She looked up at her mother.  There was a timelessness about her mother’s face, making it impossible to judge her age.  As far as Miko was concerned, her mother was still the most beautiful woman in the world.

Miko’s mother smiled again, a warm and friendly smiled.  “I am eight months pregnant now Miko,” she explained.  “It will only be a few weeks now.  Your father insists that it will be a boy,” she added, cradling her stomach with her free hand.  “He hopes desperately for someone to carry on his line.”

“I can carry on his line,” interrupted Miko angrily.  “I’ve been training for it too.”

Miko’s mother gently stroked Miko’s hair again.  “And you’ve done very well,” she replied.  “Your father often speaks about your skill to me, but you know how he is:  Very traditional.  His wants a son to be his heir, just as he was his father’s heir, and his father was his father’s father’s before him.”

“Girls are just as good as boys,” shouted Miko angrily, stamping her foot.

“I know darling,” replied her mother.  “He is very proud of you, he just can’t say it that’s all.”  She paused for a second to think before reaching up and pulling out the comb that held her hair in place.  Her hair cascaded down around Miko’s mother’s shoulders like a waterfall.  “Take this,” she said, offering Miko the comb.  “For safekeeping,” she added with a smile.  “I know I can trust you with it.”

Miko looked at the comb as she took it from her mother’s hands.  It was a plain thing, crafted from wood and chipped with age.  A few stray hairs were still clinging onto the comb.  Miko’s mother closed Miko’s fingers around it.  “Put it somewhere safe for me Miko.”

“Yes mother,” smiled Miko.  She carefully put the comb in one of the side pockets of her backpack.  “Do you want help with dinner?”

Miko’s mother smiled again, this time with a little tiredness.  “No, I can manage here thank you dear.  Why don’t you go speak with your father.”

“Where is he,” asked Miko.

“Downstairs of course,” replied her mother, ruffling her hair.  Miko scowled a little and fixed her hair back in place with her hands.

The poky little basement of the house was cool when Miko climbed down the stairs into it.  The little windows set high in the walls were dirty and very little sunlight penetrated inside.  Miko found the cord at the bottom of the stairs and pulled it to turn on the light.  An elderly, unshaded light bulb buzzed on, adding its own weak illumination to the room.  Tools and paint cans and other odds and ends lined the simple shelves set into the basement walls.  There was no sign of her father, but Miko hadn’t expected there to be.

Miko moved one of he paint cans to the side, revealing a small brass representation of the sun set on the wall.  There was a rumbling sound behind her and Miko turned round to watch as several stones in the centre of the basement started to sink.  They formed a staircase leading further down.

Miko clambered down the steps, which were twice as deep as a normal staircase.  There was another brass sun set into the wall at the bottom, matching the one above.  She gave it a twist and behind her the staircase slowly moved back up into position.  Miko then followed the gently sloping corridor that down towards the bright glow of her fathers training room.

As she stepped out onto the polished wooden floor of the long training hall, Miko kept her head slightly bowed.  A figure stood in the centre of the room, dressed in a heavy dark blue robe and armor.  A mask covered his face.  Miko glanced upwards at him, her attention rapt at the movement he was making.

He would move fluidly, his leading foot striking the floor resoundingly as brought his practice sword round in graceful, impossibly swift, arcs.  Then, just as each movement ended, his stance would go from liquid to unbreakably solid steel:  His arms like a rock, his practice sword unmoving.  With each practice strike he would shout.  It wasn’t anything intelligible, just a raw release of energy.  The force of it gently buffeted Miko.  She couldn’t help but gasp in admiration.

The figure relaxed, his bamboo practice sword falling to his side.  With one hand he pulled of his mask, revealing his face.  Short, closely clipped hair that was turning to a steely grey framed a stern face.  He looked at Miko and raised an eyebrow.

“Father,” said Miko curtly, still looking at the floor.

“Raise your head Miko and look at me,” replied her father, rubbing at his beard, it was a closely clipped as the rest of his hair, if a little whiter.  “How were your lessons today?”

“Good,” replied Miko.  “We are learning about the Warring State Period in history.”

“Good, good,” replied her father somewhat distractedly.  “You are showing your teachers the proper respect?”

“Of course father,” replied Miko a little irritably.

“Excellent,” he boomed.  “Your mother probably needs help in the kitchen.”  Miko’s father didn’t wait for a response.  He slipped his mask back on and resumed practicing his strikes.

Miko stood for a few seconds, looking around the training hall.  She had entered by one of the long sides of the hall, where equipment hung on racks.  The opposite wall had always fascinated her, covered as it was with ornate paintings of the divines.  At the center was a representation of Amaterasu, goddess of the sun.  It was the largest of the paintings, as befitting for divinity most venerated by her family.

The portrait of Amaterasu was flanked on either side by pictures of the goddess’ parents, Izanami and Izanagi.  Miko still recalled the day that her father had told her, his voice heavy with sadness, that she had a special link with Izanagi.  She still wasn’t quite sure why that would be a bad thing, to have a god looking out for her.

There were six other paintings.  Hachiman, god of warriors, to whom both Miko and her father looked whilst training.  Pictures of Tenjin, Inari, Ninigi and Susanoo lined the wall.  At one end of the line was Tsukuyomi – the god of the moon had once offended Amaterasu and his picture was kept as far from hers as possible.  The last picture, at the opposite end of the line, wasn’t a divinity at all, but rather a representation of the first emperor of Japan, Jimmu.

Miko became aware that the rhythm of her fathers practice, the thud of his foot striking the floor and the sound of him shouting, had stopped again.  She looked away from the paintings on the far wall.

“Why are you still here Miko,” asked her father sternly.  He stood unmoving, locked in a strike stance.  “I told you to help your mother.”

“I already asked mother if she needed help,” replied Miko, keeping her anger in check.  “She told me to come here.”  Miko paused for a few seconds.  “I was hoping we could train,” she asked uncertainly.

Her fathers stance relaxed again.  “Very well,” he said, still not removing his mask.  “Fetch a practice sword and come over.”

“Will I put on some armor,” asked Miko.

“No,” replied her father.  “You will attempt some strikes and I shall make simple responses.  I will not strike back.”

Miko set her bag carefully on the floor and looked at the equipment racks which covered the nearest wall.  There was far more than would ever be needed, armor for all sizes starting with young children.  The practice swords were held in a rack attached to the wall, slats of bamboo held together by leather.  Eight of them were held there.  Miko selected one at random, quickly getting a feel for the weight of it in her hands and stepped forward in front of her father.

Miko’s father raised his practice sword into a defensive stance.  “You may strike when you are ready,” he said calmly.  “I will…”

Miko’s practice sword was already moving.  She raised it above her shoulder and then brought it down with as much power she could in a slashing motion that aimed at her fathers head.  With amazing speed, her father brought up his own practice sword, blocking Miko’s blow and knocking her practice sword away to the right.  The motion caught Miko unaware and the practice sword skittered out of her grasp and bounced on the floor.

“Good,” said her father as Miko retrieved the sword.  “You are learning speed, but your incaution has left you exposed.  Try again.”

Miko held her practice sword, it wavered slightly in the air as she examined her father’s stance looking for an opening.  This time she tried a darting strike at his wrists, sacrificing power to move faster.  Her father had less time to react this time but still managed to get his own practice sword in the way.  His block was weaker and Miko was able to regain her poise almost instantly.  She pushed for another attack at the wrists, but her father somehow moved to the side and she missed.

“Better,” said Miko’s father.  “One more try.”

Miko tried a strike from below, first dropping her practice sword and then bringing it back up in an unconventional wide arcing strike aimed at her fathers ribcage.  Her father twisted his wrist and brought his own practice sword in a backwards sweeping upwards arc.  The two swords met and slid against each other.  Miko pushed hard but was unable to move her practice sword any further forward.

“Enough,” said Miko’s father.  Miko withdrew her practice sword and let it fall to her side.  She watched as her father threw his practice sword aside.  “Let’s make this easier for you.  Try striking while I am unarmed.”

Miko turned nervously towards her father’s discarded practice sword and then back to her father  “I don’t want to,” she said quietly.

“Why,” asked her father.  “You should put feelings of sentimentality to the side when fighting Miko.”

“It’s not that,” explained Miko.  “I think that if I strike at you now, you’re just going to do something that ends up with me falling on the floor.”

“So you are showing signs of wisdom,” replied her father.  He might have been smiling behind his mask, it was impossible for Miko to tell.  “However, there may also be wisdom gained in seeing the execution of the trap you expect.  Attack.”

Sullenly, Miko raised her sword again.  She decided to repeat her first attack, going for power.  Miko didn’t doubt that she was going to fail here, but at least she could attempt to make it sting her father a little too.  She was bitterly disappointed when he smartly stepped out of the way of her slow and clumsy blow.  She struck the floor with the practice sword making a loud clunking sound.  It vibrated in her hand, but Miko managed to keep a hold on it, at least until her father moved smartly beside her and grabbed hold of it too.  She struggled briefly, but her father was far the stronger.  His elbow caught her under the ribs and she let go and tumbled to the floor.

“That wasn’t fair,” complained Miko angrily.

“Oh,” replied her father, walking to where the other practice sword lay on the floor.  “How was it not fair?”  He picked up the other practice sword and walked back to the equipment racks

“You’re bigger and stronger than me,” pouted Miko.  She rolled over to look at her father.  He was facing away from her, replacing the practice swords in the rack.

“And,” said her father abruptly.  “I have fought creatures both bigger and stronger than myself many times.  Fair did not come into it.  My advantages were speed and guile, something for you to remember next time.”

“I see father,” replied Miko, pulling herself to her feet.  “I did not think.”

“Then in the future, make sure that you do think,” stated her father firmly, still not turning towards her.  “Now go see if you mother needs help again.”

*****

Miko stared distractedly out the window as her history teacher droned on with his lecture.  The classroom sat on the second floor and she could see out and onto the rooftops of the nearby houses.  The sky was grey and miserable looking.  It looked like it was going to rain soon, probably when she had to walk home Miko thought.

In truth Miko had trouble concentrating all day.  She felt as if she had disappointed her father in his training hall the previous day.  It had left a sour taste in her mouth that hadn’t faded since.  Miko sighed as the first drops of rain pattered against the windows.  Maybe she could try again when she got home

“If I can have your attention, Miss Toyotomi,” said her teacher, Mr Watanabe, instantly snapping Miko’s attention back to the class.  She blushed furiously at the embarrassment.  “This should be very interesting for you,” he added taping the blackboard with a wooden pointer.  “We are talking about your clan Miko.”

The rest of the class tittered dutifully, doing nothing to ease Miko’s already red face.

“Or what happened to them, at least,” added the teacher.  He continued his lecture in the manner of one used to giving them.  “The Siege of Osaka continued on into 1615, with the so-called summer campaign.  A series of battles culminated in the sacking of Osaka castle.  Hideyori Toyotomi was forced to take his own life, ending both his rebellion against the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Toyotomi Clan.”

A hand shot up near the front of the class.  “Didn’t Hideyori have any children,” asked an eager boy.

“Yes he did Hisao,” begun Mr Watanabe before being interrupted by the bell.  The Teacher waited patiently for the ringing to subside before continuing.  “But that will have to wait for next week it seems.  You may pack up class.  Remember your homework for Monday.”

Miko stood up as the class started to break up, looking out the window again.  “I told you should have come with us yesterday,” whispered Yuriko in her ear as she passed.  “Summer sun has all gone now.”

Miko sighed again as she hoisted her bag up onto her shoulder before making her way to the front of the class.  Mr Watanabe had sat at his battered old desk and was marking papers.  He looked up was Miko approached.

“I was distracted Sir,” she said, bowing her head slightly.  “It will not happen again.”

The teacher broke into a broad smile.  “You shouldn’t worry too much about it Miko,” he said.  “We all have other things on our mind from time to time.  So long as your are back to your usual exemplary self on Monday I will be happy.”

“I will,” replied Miko, smiling faintly. 

Miko turned to leave but felt something brush against her bag, followed by the sound of something hitting the floor.  She turned back round to see that she had accidently knocked some textbooks off the teachers desk.  Eight textbooks had fallen to the floor in a radial pattern.  For a moment Miko thought they resembled stylised drawing of the sun, light radiating from it in all directions.

“I..  I..” she stammered.

“It looks like it isn’t your day Miko,” sighed Mr Watanabe.  He grinned impishly.  “I’ll tidy up, you should go before you damage my classroom further.”

“Yes sir,” replied Miko, nodding her head deferentially before scuttling out the door.  The conversation with her teacher had delayed her and the stairs down to the exit were already empty of students.  She took the steps two at a time, desperate to flee the building.  She rushed downwards and out, pushing past the double doors out of the school and into the rain. 

A few students still huddled in against the building, hoping that the rain would end.  Most were running or walking quickly away home, although a few hardy types were milling about in the short courtyard between the doors and the gates.  Miko sighed again, at least it was not far to her home.  She quickly checked her bag was closed securely.

A side pocket was open.  Miko looked inside it and found the comb her mother had given her yesterday.  She’d forgotten she had put it there.  Miko closed the pocket, hoisted the bag back on her shoulders and walked briskly out to the gates.

Miko stopped just in time as a compact van bearing the laurel wreath logo of a nearby rice-liquor company hurtled down the road far faster than it should have been going.  The van’s nearside front wheel hit a pothole in the road where the rain had been pooling.  The rainwater splashed into the air soaking Miko.

Miko almost shouted after the van, but it was going far too fast to even notice her.  It turned right at the crossroads at the bottom of the road, its tyres squealing in protest.  She watched it disappear with a sense of resignation.  Shoulders slumped, Miko set off up the hill, increasingly sodden as the rain grew heavier.

The door to the house was open when Miko arrived.  She took a step back and looked around, there was nobody nearby, no sign of her mother outside the house taking the garbage out.  “Mother,” she shouted as she walked inside.  “Mother, where are you?”  Miko slipped off her shoes and went further inside.  She dumped her bag in the living room before checking each room in turn.

Miko came to the kitchen last.  Here at least there was some sign of life:  A couple of pots sat on top of the cooker but there was no heat from the hobs.  Miko walked round behind the counter.  A plate had been dropped on the floor and shattered into eight pieces.  There was a scrap of cloth under one of the pieces.  Miko knelt down to pick it up.  She rubbed the thin scrap between her fingers, recognising it almost instantly:  It was from her mother’s robe and it had been torn roughly from it.

Miko’s heart started to beat faster as a horrible, inconceivable idea started to gnaw away at her.  She dropped the strip of fabric and ran for the basement.  The light was already on and the stairs to the training room open.  Her father never left the stairs open.  She skidded down the stairs, down the corridor and into the training hall.

It was a mess, the equipment had been torn from the racks and scattered about the floor.  Much of it was broken and Miko had to carefully pick her way through the wreckage carefully.  Long, ugly looking bloodstains marked the floor, the swirls showing the path the fighting had taken.

Miko span slowly round, taking it all in.  At least three men had fought here judging by the blood.  The trails went and back and forth.  They had been pushed back by a fourth man, perhaps Miko’s father, yet still they had come on.  Miko traced the fight till it came to a halt.  A single practice sword lay on the floor, broken in two equal sized halves.  The leather bindings had broken and the four slats of bamboo that made up the sword had come loose and scattered.  Miko sank to her knees and wailed.

Miko knelt there, quietly sobbing for what seemed like an age.  As her tears finally subsided, a little spark of hope formed within Miko.  Her father had fought with one of the practice swords.  She glanced towards the portrait of Amaterasu, daring to hope.  It was untouched.

Calmly, Miko stood up and walked to the portrait, not wanting to be excited, not wanting to show emotion in case she was mistaken.  She looked at the wooden frame of the picture, running her hands along the bottom.  She shouldn’t have known this, but she had seen her father do it once years ago.  If she pressed here, and then here and finally there then she should be…

There was an audible click.  The wall panel below the painting fell open to reveal a hidden alcove.  Miko stooped down to look inside:  Her father’s sword was still there.

Miko stood straight back up and took a step back.  She looked at the picture of Amaterasu again, looking at the representation of the goddess straight in the eyes.  “I know I shouldn’t take this, ok” she begun.  “But my father is in trouble somewhere.  He’s alive, I know he’s alive because if they’d killed him I’d have found his…  I’d have found him here.”  She bit her lip nervously.  “I’m going to take this sword to my father.  I’m going to res…  I’m going to help him escape and rescue my mother.”  After a moments though she added.  “Please forgive me.”

Miko knelt by the alcove and reverentially removed the sword from its stand.  She removed the blade from its sheaf, gasping a little in admiration.  The blade was a little under a metre in length and curved gently inward.  There was no maker’s mark on it, just the distinctive wave like pattern that ran along the side of the blade.  Miko grasped the hilt with both hand and hefted it experimentally.  She should put it away, sheave it until she could deliver it to her father, Miko thought.

Miko heard a noise from the corridor leading to the training hall.  “Susa,” called a voice from the corridor.  “Susa, are you down here,” shouted the voice; male, heavily accented.

Miko snapped round to face the doorway.  She lifted the sword into a guard stance and tried to calm herself.  Her mother and father were gone, had they come for her too?

A lone figure entered by the doorway opposite.  Miko almost did a double take:  The interloper was a foreigner, a westerner, in a simple charcoal grey suit.  His white shirt was open at the collar.  His face was ruddy, perhaps he has spent too much time in the sun?  That was the sort of thing these foreigners did.  It was in stark contrast to the pure white of his beard.  What shocked Miko the most was simply how small he seemed.  He was certainly smaller than her father, how could someone like that have defeated him?

“What have you done with my parents,” asked Miko coldly.

The man mutter some unintelligible.  “I haven’t done anything with your parents girl,” he said slowly and carefully.  “You must be Miko, I’m…”

“I will ask you one more time,” interrupted Miko.  “What have you done with my father,” she shouted.  The words reverberated against the walls of the training hall.  The scattered detritus on the floor rolled about and old man staggered backward.

Miko couldn’t read the expression on the mans face, shock or something like it?  He said something to himself again in a language that Miko did understand.  “Look girl, I know you’re hurting right now but…” he added.

Miko stopped listening.  She raised her father’s sword above her head and charged the man, channelling her rage, her anger and her fear.  She roared as she swept the sword downwards in a mighty blow that should by all rights have cleaved the interloper in two.

She missed, the old man had moved out of the way somehow.

The sword bit deeply into the wooden floor.  Miko tugged at it a couple of times until it came free.  She twisted round, searching for the man.  He had somehow managed to move several paces clear of her.  “You move fast for a fat man,” she panted.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, I think,” he replied.  “I’m a friend of your father’s Miko.  My name is Charles…”

“Lies,” interrupted Miko.  She started advancing towards the man, this time more circumspectly.

“I’ve got this letter he sent me,” he continued, reaching inside his suit jacket.  He pulled out a folded piece of paper and held it out.  Miko went for a darting strike to his outstretched wrist, figuring that he had no blade of his own to deflect the blow.

She missed again.  It wasn’t that he dodged, or was fast enough to move out of the way, he simply wasn’t there when the blow arrived.  The piece of paper he had been holding floated to the ground gently.

“Stars, you’re fast girl,” he said, breathing heavily.  “I just want to talk.”

“Tell.  Me.  Where.  My . Parents.  Are,” shouted Miko, advancing on the old man again.

The old man shook his head and sighed.  “I’ll come back when you’ve calmed down Miko,” he said sadly.  “Why don’t you read the letter, it’ll explain everything.”

As Miko made ready to thrust the sword at the old man, he started glowing.  Dimly to start with, but the glow rapidly intensified.  It quickly became blindly bright, forcing Miko to raise an arm to cover her eyes.  The light kept on getting brighter, to the point where Miko started to think she could see the very bones in her arm silhouetted.

Just as suddenly, the light vanished.  Miko lowered her arm, blinking a couple of times as she did so.  The training hall seemed darker than it was before somehow.  She looked around, the only trace left of the old man was the letter he had dropped.

She picked up the letter and unfolded it.  The careful neat writing on the paper matched her fathers, but the bulk of the letter was written in another language, perhaps English.  There were only a few Japanese characters sprinkled in the text.

Miko let the letter flutter out of her hands, unsure what to do next.  She had been running on a mix of fear and rage since she’d arrived home but now she felt drained and exhausted.  Almost mindlessly, she returned the sword to its scabbard.  Instead of return it to its hiding place she grasped it close, unwilling to let go of what might well be her last link to her father.

Miko made her way listlessly back through the house, closing the stairs in the basement behind, closing the front door that she’d left open during her frantic search of the house.  She returned to the living room, finding her bag where she had left it.  Miko removed her mother’s comb from where she had left it.  With her fathers sword held tightly in her right hand and her mother comb in her left, Miko hugged herself tightly.

She drifted upwards to her bedroom.  She didn’t stop to disrobe, or to drop the sword and comb.  She didn’t even climb under the bedcovers.  Miko just collapsed on top of her bed and quietly sobbed herself to sleep.

*****

As Miko drifted into wakefulness, there were a few brief moments of peace, a few moments before the events of the previous day drifted back into memory.  She was dimly aware of something small and hard sticking awkwardly into her stomach.  Drowsily, she scrabbled for it, reaching down and pulling out whatever it was.  As her eyes came into focus, she recognised her mothers comb.

Everything came flooding back and Miko sat up in bed abruptly.  Her free hand reached for where she had left her father’s sword.  She grasped the sword and comb tightly again as the tears threatened to well up again.  Miko choked a little as she fought them back.  She could hardly find her parents if she kept on crying, although she had no idea how she would even start looking for them.  A singe tear rolled down her face, pausing at it reached her jaw.  It hung there, a droplet ready to fall

A cold, harsh light shone through the window.  Miko looked through it to see that it was another overcast and gloomy day.  She sighed.  If only there was somewhere to start, something to point her in the right direction.

The tear dropped from her face.  It splashed on the comb.

Miko sighed and put the comb and sword down on her bed.  She could think of nothing to do except maybe get some breakfast.  As she hauled herself to her feet, she noticed some movement out of the corner of her eye.

The comb had turned by itself, Miko was sure of it.  She picked it up and placed it back on the bed, turning it round a little as she did so.  After a few seconds the comb spun slowly in place, the handle coming round to point the same direction it had before, westwards towards the rest of Kyoto.

Miko gaped at the comb.  Was it something she had said or done?  Perhaps the comb had always been able to do that and her mother, somehow seeing what was to come, had given it to Miko for that very reason.  If she followed the comb, Miko pondered, would it lead her to her mother?

Did she have any other options?

Miko didn’t run, or shout or yell, but instead she spent the next hour calmly preparing to go look for her parents.  She fetched one of her father’s sports bags from the training hall, into which she packed his sword hidden below a couple of old shirts.  After some deliberation, she added the letter the foreigner had left the day before.  Miko then added a little food and some other odds and end she thought might be useful before setting out.

The sun was starting to peek through cracks in the clouds as Miko left her house, the comb held tightly in her left hand.  She opened the hand and balanced the comb on it again.  It swung lazily round to point down the hill towards the city.  Miko shoved the comb into a pocket before setting off at a brisk pace.

The clouds continued to lighten as Miko worked her way westwards.  Every few blocks she would come to a halt and pull out the comb again, heading off in the direction indicated.  There was little change at first, but as Miko got closer to the heart of the Fushimi Ward she found herself zigzagging, changing direction frequently.  At times a passerby would stop to look and puzzle at the odd girl staring so intently at a comb, but Miko ignored them.

A little over an hour into her search, the comb suddenly pointed back the way Miko had come.  For a few moments Miko despaired as she thought it might have stopped working.  It hadn’t, she realised after a few moments of thought, she must have passed wherever it pointed to somewhere since the last junction.

Miko retraced her steps along the street, holding the comb as she did so.  The right hand side of the street was the back wall of some kind of hall.  A laurel wreath symbol had been stencilled onto it at regular intervals.  The left hand side was a row of houses.  The comb drifted leftwards as Miko walked, eventually settling to point towards one house.

With her heart in her mouth, Miko edged close to the house, moving in beside a window to sneak a glimpse inside.  Through the dirty windows  Miko could make out two figures inside, kneeling at a low table.  The first was an old woman, her hair silvery grey and tied up in a tight bun.

The second was Miko’s mother.  Her hair was dishevelled, her head bowed and her robe torn but Miko recognised her instantly.  Miko turned away from the window and leaned against the wall of the house, her heart hammering against her ribs.  She had to do something.

Miko edged round the walls towards the door.  She gave the handle and experimental turn and to her surprise it opened.  Miko slipped inside, and closed the door behind her as quietly as she could.  Still keeping as quiet as possible, she pulled her father’s sword from her bag.  Miko grasped the hilt firmly with both hands and advanced inside the house.

The old woman had vanished from the room by the time Miko entered.  Her mother looked round and stared at Miko quizzically.  Her eyes were hooded, her lips swollen and there was a livid bruise on her cheek.  “Mother,” gasped Miko quietly.

“I…” stuttered her mother, her tone uncertain.  “I… know you?”  The bewilderment on her face was obvious.  “I… was…  I was having tea with Granny.”

Miko lowered the sword a little.  “Granny,” she repeated in confusion.  “I don’t have a grandmother.”

“Of course you do dearie,” came a voice from the far end of the room.  The old women entered carrying a tray.  It was filled with elaborate looking cakes and fripperies.  There was just the faintest smell of the sweetness of them, beguiling and seductive.  “Oh and you’ve brought the sword too,” the old woman grinned, her teeth shining brightly.  “Why don’t you put your toy down and join us.”

The sword suddenly felt very heavy in Miko’s hands.  The tip wavered as she fought to keep it up.  “It’s not a toy,” she said, her resolve wavering.  “It’s not a toy,” she repeated, shouting this time.  The old woman took a step back as if she had been slapped and the weight of the sword lightened for a moment.

“You shouldn’t talk to your dear old Granny like that, hmmm,” murmured the old woman and the weight returned.  “Why don’t you put it down and let me get you a cake.  Come sit down with your mother and me.”

Miko’s mother looked pained for a second.  “I…  Yes…  Sit with me for a while,” she said slowly.

“What have you done to her,” asked Miko quietly.

“Nothing,” replied the old woman.  “Come on, put the sword down and sit with your Granny.  I’ll see it gets returned to its rightful owner.”

Her father’s sword now felt impossibly heavy.  Miko let it sink to the ground, pulling one hand off the hilt with what felt like incredible effort.  At the same time she couldn’t bear to let it go completely:  The knuckles on her other hand whitened as she grasped the sword tight.

Miko’s eyelids drooped and she felt the energy drain out of her.  Her knees felt weak and the room almost started to spin.  She was ready to lay down there and then.  There was a noise behind her and she turned her head lazily to see what it was.

The foreigner had kicked open the door forcefully and strode into the room.  “Don’t listen to it Miko,” his voice boomed.  Miko stared blankly for a few seconds, quite unable to make sense of what he had said.  She half heartedly raised her free hand to one of her ears, but still found herself unable to let go of the sword.  “The kitsune is trying to trick you.”

“The fox is what,” asked Miko, her mind reeling.  The cloying smell of the cakes begged for her attention again.

“Don’t listen to him dearie,” interrupted the old woman.  “You trust your old Granny don’t you?”

“Enough,” said the foreigner forcefully.  Suddenly he didn’t seem so small any more.  The foreigner raised an arm, holding his hand open.  An incandescent light erupted from his palm and shot towards the old woman, enveloping her in a white glow.  The woman seemed to melt away, fizzling under the glare of the light.  Patches of orange fur showed through here and there as she disappeared from sight.

It was a fox, if a fox could stand on it hind legs and reach the height of a man.  It grinned uncertainly, exposing unpleasant and needle sharp fangs for Miko to see.  Its expression was at once weirdly alien and yet all too human looking.  Perhaps most strangely of all, it didn’t have one tail, but many.  Miko counted them, eight in all.

“We do this he hard way then” said the fox, dropping the tray to the floor.  The contents spilled out and Miko noticed they now looked rotten and mouldy rather than tantalising. 

The fox tensed it legs and leapt.  Miko brought the sword up quickly, but the fox wasn’t jumping towards her.  It landed beside her mother, grabbing her with its claws and hauling her roughly to her feet.

“Miko,” shouted her mother, her eyes suddenly alert again.

“What a touching reunion,” sneered the fox.  It ran its snout alongside Miko’s mother’s neck and grinned unpleasantly.  “Hate to cut it short.”  The fox raked one set of claws along Miko’s mother’s belly.  There was a glimpse of crimson beneath her robe and she fell shrieking to the floor.  “You got me,” sniggered the fox.  “I lied.”

Miko fought he urge to run screaming at the fox.  She attacked incautiously the night before and when training with her father – it had not worked.  This time, she realised, the stakes were higher.  Instead she advanced cautiously as the fox bounced towards her.  The fox slashed quickly with its left claw and followed up with its right.  Miko easily read the attacks and batted them aside with the sword.  The claws sparked as the met the blade.

The fox growled and pushed at Miko, intending to bowl her over.  She stepped smartly to the side and the fox staggered as it suddenly found no resistance to its forward momentum.  Miko brought the sword down sharply.  The fox was just quick enough to twist out of the way of the blow, but not quick enough to escape it completely.  It yelped in agony as the sword cleft its tails in two easily.  Eight tufts of blood splattered white fur fell to the floor.

The fox rolled away and leapt back to its feet growling.  “You’ll pay for that,” it snarled.  Miko risked a glance sideways to check where the foreigner was.  He was kneeling beside the prone form of Miko’s mother. 

When Miko turned back, the fox was already bounding straight at her again, its face a mask of pure rage.  It roared incoherently as it swung wildly at Miko.  The blow was clumsy and Miko caught it easily with the sword.  The fox whimpered as the blade cut its flesh and it skittered backwards.  It glared at Miko, pacing backwards and forwards angrily a few metres away from her.  She settled into a guard stance, waiting for the fox to attack again.

The fox didn’t attack, instead it stopped pacing.  Its form shimmered and blurred.  Miko found herself staring at a copy of her mother.  The illusion flickered and flared, the image distorted.  It wasn’t convincing, but that wasn’t what the fox was attempting.  “You failed me Miko,” said the fox, its voice matching Miko’s mother’s.  The illusion shifted again and now the fake mother guts were rent and bloodied.  “You left me to die,” the fox added with a glimmer of a smirk.

“Mother,” stammered Miko.  The sword pointed drooped a little in the air.

The fox shifted again.  This time Miko found herself staring at the image of her father.  “You’re a disappointment Miko,” said the fox sternly.  “You failed to protect your mother and you will fail to protect me.”  The fake father’s face twisted into a mocking grin.  “My master will end your clan.  This time no one will escape his wrath.”

“No more games,” stated the foreigner from behind Miko.  His voice was authoritative and the fox flinched.  Another incandescent beam erupted from the foreigner and the image of Miko’s father shattered.  The foxes flesh bubbled where the beam struck it and the room was filled the smell of charred fur.  “Tell me,” continued the foreigner.  “Where is Toyotomi Susa?”

“You think I will tell you,” snarled the fox.  It howled and charged straight at the foreigner, ignoring Miko entirely.  She thrust at it as it passed.  Her father’s sword passed cleanly through the foxes neck and embedded itself in wall.  To her surprise, Miko managed to hold her ground and keep her grip on the sword.  The fox’s legs slipped out from under it, carried by what remained of its momentum.  It made a surprised gurgling sound and the expired.

Miko let go of the sword, which remained buried in the wall and in the fox.  She turned round to the foreigner and where her mother lay.  “Mother,” she whimpered, her eyes wide.

The foreigner looked at the floor.  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Miko pushed past him and fell to the floor beside her mother.  “Mother,” she screamed, throwing her arms round her mother.  There was no life left, no warmth or movement.  Hot, stinging tears started to flow again from Miko’s eyes.

After a few minutes, when there were no more tears left to cry, Miko felt a hand take her by the shoulder gently.  The foreigner helped Miko to her feet.  “You’re a hard girl to find,” he said ruefully.  “You know that?”  Miko stared at him dumbfounded, unsure what to make of the foreigner.  “How did you find your way here?”

Miko was too numb to complain, or to query.  She answered simply:  “I followed the comb.”

“Followed the comb,” repeated the foreigner, his face screwed up in confusion.  “I don’t understand Miko.”  Miko stood dumbly, she didn’t have the energy to talk any more.  “Listen, I know you’re hurting right now girl,” continued the foreigner.  “But your father is still out there and he needs your help.  You need to let me help you.”

Miko breathed deeply.  “The comb,” she said, pulling it from the pocket where she had placed it.  “It showed me the way.”

The foreigner took the comb carefully between his thumb and forefinger, turning it over and examining it closely.  His eyebrows suddenly shot upward.  “Well that certainly confirms something,” he said wryly.

Miko’s curiosity sparked, dulling the pain she felt.  “What do you mean,” she asked anxiously.

“I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I,” replied the man with a faint smile.  “I feel like I should properly introduce myself.  I’m a friend of your father’s Miko, name’s Charles Brennan.”

“I’m Miko Toyotomi… sir,” replied Miko respectfully.  The deferential slipped out without her meaning to say it.  It just seemed somehow appropriate.  “What did you mean about confirming something,” she asked again quickly.

“Didn’t you read that letter I left girl,” asked Charles.

“I don’t know, uh, whatever language it was,” replied Miko with a touch of embarrassment.  “English?”

“Mostly English,” replied Charles with a faint smile.  “You could say that me and your father are in the same line of work.  He thought you might want to come work with me.”

“Work with you,” said Miko with a brittle smile.  “I want to fight monsters like my father does.”  She stopped to pull the sword from where it was still embedded into the wall.  The corpse of the fox crashed to the floor as she pulled it clear.  “I want to defend Japan with my father’s sword.”  Miko wiped the sword on a clean part of the fox’s fur.

“I don’t doubt that you could,” replied the foreigner, his smile warming.  Miko couldn’t help but flush with pride a little.  “The way your father told me, he said you had a link to Hachiman and Izanagi.”  Miko nodded, she remembered her father saying as much to her.  “That’s what I would call having Malacandra and Catilindria as your ousiarchs.  Actually that’s exactly what he said in the letter: ‘what you would call a Catilindria ousiarch’.”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about having a link to the gods,” replied Miko stonily.  “It helped me fight that fox, didn’t it?”

The man’s smile broadened again very briefly.  “It did, didn’t it?  Your father would have been proud of you if he’d seen that.  Might not have shown it, but he’d have been proud nonetheless.”

“I didn’t save mother though,” interrupted Miko.  Her face fell as she turned back to look at her mother’s remains.

“You still did well,” said Charles.  “If you hadn’t, you’d have been dead too and the fox would have the katana.”  He cast his gaze downwards for a moment.  “It’s my fault, I should have found you sooner,” he sighed.  “I’m getting too old for this sort of thing, it’s been a while since I’ve been in the field.”

The pair stood silently for a minute.  Miko didn’t know what to say.

“But the fact that you have these ousiarchs does make you special Miko,” continued Charles, his eyes twinkling.  “It means that you could join us, be one of the Stellae Errante.  That’s what the comb confirmed.  Your link to Catilindria brought it to life, to show you how to find your mother.  Did you breathe on it?”

Miko cast her mind back to the morning.  “I don’t think so.  I think I was crying a little when it started moving.”

“Yes that makes sense too,” said Charles, rubbing his beard with a free hand.  “The tears could give it life if they landed on it.”

“But why can’t I do what my father does,” asked Miko.  “You just said I’d be good at it.”

“It’s his katana,” explained the foreigner.  “It’s linked to Arbol, what you would call Amaterasu. The katana channels its, her, power.  I can see that now, clear as day.  Without an Arbol ousiarch you wouldn’t be able to use it fully.”  He smiled faintly again.  “That’s why he sent me the letter.  He knows how much being just like him means to you,” continued Charles, as if he was finally just realising something.  “The best way for you to do that is to join the Stellae.”

“I want to save my father,” said Miko flatly.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” grinned Charles.  “It’s a pity we couldn’t get its master’s location out of that Kitsune.”  He gave the fox’s dead body a gentle nudge with his foot.  “Eight tails, that’s got to be symbolic somehow…”

Miko frowned.  A thought bubbled to the surface amongst the tangled memories of the last day.  “It did tell us, um, sir.”

Charles turned and looked at Miko.  “Well out with it girl.”

“Remember when it said ‘My master will end your clan’,” explained Miko.  “My history teacher told me yesterday that the Toyotomi Clan ended at the siege of Osaka.  The fox said no one would escape this time.  That’s what it meant,” added Miko excitedly.  “Whoever its master is, they are going to try to kill my father at Osaka castle!”

Charles walked over to the door before turning back round.  He grinned at Miko wickedly.  “Well what are you waiting for girl,” he said.  “Let’s go.”

*****

Charles parked the compact van at the side of the road, opposite the bridge across the moat.  It was only thirty miles between Kyoto and Osaka, but somehow the journey had taken them the rest of the day:  Delays in traffic, problems with the van, it sometimes even felt like time was stretching out itself.  It was nearly midnight and the street seemed abandoned.

“This is where we get off,” said Charles, nodding towards the bollards that impeded progress across the bridge.  “We walk from here on.”  He climbed out his door, slamming it behind him.

Miko followed suit, walking round the side of the van to its rear door.  They had found the van at the fox’s house, the laurel wreath logo of a rice-liquor firm on its side jogging Miko’s memory.  She’d seen it the day before, racing down the road outside Daigo Junior High.  Miko had baulked a little at getting inside the van when she had realised it was the one the fox had used to abduct her parents.

Then again, she thought as Charles opened the van’s rear door, it felt right to be using the tools of her parents abductors against them.  He passed Miko the sports bag with her fathers sword and peered inside.  The van walls were lined with crates of rice-liquor.

“I think some of this saki might prove useful,” he said, prising one of the crates open.  He pulled out a couple of jugs and place them in Miko’s bag.  “Just something I was thinking of after I saw that kitsune’s tail.”

“I don’t think this is the time for getting drunk,” replied Miko stonily.  She drew her father’s sword from the bag.  “If you want to bring the rice-liquor, you can carry the bag,” she added.  “I need both hands for the sword anyway.”

Charles smiled wryly.  “I think I can bear that burden girl,” he said hoisting the bag.  He crossed the road and set off across the bridge.

Miko checked for traffic before scurrying after him.  The area seemed quiet, abandoned even.  She looked over the railings as she crossed the bridge, the  inky blackness of the moat was still.  “It’s so quiet,” whispered Miko as she caught up to the foreigner.  “Where is everyone?”

“There’s definitely something at work,” explained Charles as he reached the heavy wooden gates that lead into the castle grounds.  He knelt beside them and examined them closely.  Miko shivered as she waited.  “Closed, but unbarred,” Charles pronounced eventually.  “Come on, give me a hand,” he continued, standing back up and pushing at one of the gates.

Miko joined in and the gate moved fractionally back before seizing up.  There was just enough of a crack in the doorway to slip through.  Charles squeezed through the gap before Miko could say anything.  She took a quick look around at the deserted bridge before ducking through herself.

Inside the gate a short, dark, tunnel lead inside to the castle grounds.  Charles was already moving ahead, silhouetted against the mouth of the tunnel.  His shoes clacked against the flagstones as he walked ahead.

“Something tells me this is the place,” he said as he reached the end of the tunnel.

“What,” called Miko.  She half-ran to catch up, almost colliding into the foreigner.  “Wow,” she said, her eyes widening.  The grounds were overgrown, the grass had somehow swollen up to thick trunks that reached several metres high.  It waved menacingly, despite the stillness of the air.

“That could be a problem,” muttered Charles.  A couple of tendrils curled experimentally towards him.  “How do we get past this?”

“We cut,” said Miko as she pulled her father’s sword from its scabbard.  She took the ends of the tendrils that were winding towards Charles with a flashing upwards cut.  The tendrils reeled backwards.  “See,” she exclaimed.  Miko lunged forwards with a sweeping horizontal slash, yelling as she did.  The blow split several of the trunks just above ground level.  The severed stalks seemed to float for a second before flying backwards, flattening the monster grass behind them.

The surviving grass trunks around the pair strained to pull themselves away from the sword.  Where the grass had been flattened, it shrunk away and evaporated, leaving only a well cut lawn behind.  “Well that seemed to work,” said Charles absentmindedly.  He looked at the sword curiously.

“What,” asked Miko turning back to face the foreigner.

“Oh, nothing,” he replied after moments thought, his face breaking into a grin.  “Remind me to ask your father where the sword came from when we see him.”

“It’s my family’s sword,” replied Miko flatly.  “We’re wasting time,” she added, setting off at a run down the gap in the oversized grass. 

The grass swayed as she ran past.  A single trunk bent itself at an angle just ahead of her, blocking her path.  Miko jumped over it, slicing with the sword as she went by.  Miko didn’t look back as the severed trunk fell to the ground.  She was too busy fending off attacks from other tendrils and trunks.

“Slow down girl,” called Charles from behind her.  Light flickered and flared behing Miko as he summoned whatever fire he had used against the fox earlier.

Miko picked up pace.  A pair of crossed in front of her, forming an X shape.  She dived and rolled through the gap, twisting her grip on the sword to avoid it becoming tangled in the ground.  Miko leapt back up as the grass pressed in on her.  She brought the sword round in a glittering arc, screaming her defiance as she did so.  Miko spun, bringing the sword full circle.  Everywhere she moved, large sections of oversized grass fell to the ground and melted away to nothing.  The grass pressed in one last time and she reversed direction, still yelling at the top of her lungs.

For a second everything was still.

Then the grass flew backwards, flattening the growth behind it as it went.  Miko fell to her knees exhausted, leaning heavily on the sword.  She could only watch as the felled monster trunks faded away.  All of it.  Every last bit was gone.

A few metres in front of Miko, Charles picked himself up from the ground.  He dusted himself off and turned round slowly, his mouth agape.  “Well done,” was all he managed to say.  “Very well done Miko.”  He offered Miko a hand.  She gladly took it and Charles helped her back up to her feet.  “You must be exhausted,” he added.

Miko nodded stiffly.  “Now what,” she said, her voice hoarse.

“Now we head into the central tower, unless I’ve missed my guess,” explained Charles.  He offered Miko his shoulder.  “Here, lean on me.”  Miko placed her father’s sword back in its scabbard and hobbled beside Charles.  “That was an impressive display Miko but you’ve drained yourself.  No, not permanently,” he added when he saw the look in Miko’s eyes.  “You’ve a power in you, and your grass cutting katana there draws on it.  You should avoid drawing on it too deeply.”

“I see,” said Miko quietly as Charles led her to the inner wall gatehouse.

“You’re young,” said Charles with a smile.  “And it’s the first time you’ve drawn so heavily on your anima.”

Miko paused and stared at the foreigner.  “Your Japanese is really bad.  That’s not how you say that word at all.”

Charles frowned for a moment.  “No, anima,” he explained, examining the gate as they arrived at it.  “It’s a Latin word.  Vital energy, life force, that’s what it is.  It fuels my talents.  Yours too girl, but I’m more practiced.”

“What,” interrupted Miko.

“Think of it like this,” replied Charles, his eyes twinkling again.  “Imagine I’ve got a big mug of coffee.  I only take small sips from it.  That’s all I need.  This one’s not blocked at all,” he said nodding at the gate.  He gave it a nudged and it swung open silently.

“So you have lots of coffee,” said Miko stonily, following Charles through.  There was another tunnel, this one leading up an incline.

“Exactly,” said Charles striding ahead.  “Occasionally the waitress drops by and gives me a refill, but only occasionally.  Come on,” he said, turning round to look at Miko.  She half-ran to catch up.  “Now you have a really small cup, maybe a thimbleful, but you’re holding it under a fountain.  It fills back up much quicker than mine.  Which is why you could barely stand a minute ago but now you can run again.”

“Oh,” said Mikos, light dawning in her eyes.  “So I could do all that again?  With the grass and the sword?”

“Not for a couple of days,” replied the foreigner.  “Not if you don’t want to hurt yourself permanently, but you’ve recovered a lot quicker than I would have if I’d pushed myself that hard.  Ah, here we are.”

Miko reached the end of the tunnel.  A gravel path lead across a well manicured lawn to the central tower.  “This is it,” she asked, pointing to the tower.  Light spilled out an open door.

“I don’t see where else it could be,” stated Charles.  Miko followed him warily across the lawn, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of the sword.  Her gaze swivelled from left to right and back again but no threats emerged from the darkness.

Nothing challenged them as the entered the central tower, the crunch of the gravel underneath their feet giving way to the soft clunking of wooden panelling under their feet.  Charles led the way inside, stopping at each junction to consider before choosing a direction.

Charles motioned to Miko to be quiet as they reached a corridor that bound a large hall.  He nodded to one of the gaps in the inner wall that led into the hall itself.  Miko edged up to the gap and peeked round it.

The hall was huge, with balconies overlooking from the floors above.  Miko’s father knelt in the centre, his head bowed and drowsy.  Behind him, a huge scaly mass squatted in the hall.  Long serpentine necks erupted from the mass, ending in lizard like heads, eight in all.  The heads curled and twisted round beside her father.  Most were asleep but one of the heads was dopily bobbling backwards and forwards, blinking hazily.

Miko ducked back behind the wall.  “What is that,” she whispered to Charles anxiously.

“You don’t know,” whispered Charles softly.  “Orochi, the eight forked serpent…”

Charles’ answer was interrupted by the clacking sound of someone walking across the hall.  Miko looked round the side of the wall.  What she saw was more shocking than seeing her father ensorcelled, even more shocking than the dragon sleeping by him.

The girl walking into the hall from the left hand side was herself.

Miko watched her duplicate amazed.  The fake was wearing Miko’s school uniform, but apart from that she appeared identical.  Miko ducked back round behind the wall.  “That’s…  That’s me in there,” she stuttered.

“Another kitsune,” explained Charles.  He pulled one of jugs of rice-liquor out of the bag and opened it.

“This is not the time to get drunk,” interrupted Miko sourly.

“Actually, this is my plan,” smilled Charles broadly. “You really don’t now about Orochi,” he asked before rolling the jug along the floor.  Miko could hear the floor inside the hall groaning as the serpent shifted its bulk.  A scaly head appear through the gap in the wall to one side and sniffed at the jug.  “Well,” whispered Charles.  “Make with the…” he added making a chopping motion with his hand.

Orochi gobbled up the jug noisily as Miko slid the sword from the scabbard.  She lifted the sword high, ready to bring it down with both hands.  She flinched as the serpent belched loudly, its eyes swivelling wildly.  The sword came down, as fast and hard as she could make it.

The severed head fell to the floor with a loud thud.  The neck thrashed wildly for a few seconds before falling to the ground itself.  Charles grabbed another jug and moved round the fallen head quickly.  “You head in the other direction and rescue your father,” he whispered.  “I’ll keep the beast distracted.”

Miko could only nod dumbly.  She peeked round the gap on the opposite side from the fallen head, trying to ignore the way it seemed to be staring at her.  Her duplicate had disappeared, but another two of Orochi’s heads were rousing themselves from their slumber.

One sniffed at the air.  “Is that…” it asked.

“I think it is,” replied the second, sniffing at the air in turn.  “Oh, look at that,” it added, nodding towards its fallen comrade.

The first head sighed and shook.  “I can’t believe he fell for the rice-liquor trick you know,” it said sadly.  “Again.”

“It’s coming from over there,” said the second head, pointing in the direction of the left hand side of the hall.  There was row of evenly spaced gaps in the wall that led to the corridor.  “Did you see that,” it asked as Charles dashed across one of the gaps.

Miko watched the two heads bicker with one another as they snaked towards the left had side of the hall.  As soon as their attention was elsewhere she snuck round in the opposite direction.  She crossed each gap carefully and silently until she was broadly opposite to Charles.

Four heads slumbered on the floor between her and her father.  Miko tip-toed silently into the hall and picked her way carefully across it.  One sleeping serpent head yawned loudly as she stepped over it.  Miko held herself still, unable to move until the head settled back to sleep.

“It does smell like good rice-liquor though,” grumbled one of the woken heads from the opposite side of Orochi’s mound like body.  Miko skirted round another sleeping head.  Her father wasn’t far now

“Well that’s the point isn’t it,” snorted the other.  “You stick yourself through that hole and you’ll get a sharp sword in the neck area though.”  Miko shook her father gently.  He looked up at her, his face scrunched up in bewilderment.  “Get it? Point!”

“Ha ha,” deadpanned the first head.  “Look, he’s not where the rice wine is, he’s hiding behind the wall.  Why don’t we just go through it?”

“Father,” whispered Miko quietly, taking hold of his hand.

“That’s actually a pretty good idea,” replied the second head.  “I’m surprised you came up with it.”  Miko’s father blinked a couple of times and slowly, unsteadily, rose to his feet.

“One of us has to do thinking round here,” snarked the first head as Miko lead her dumbfounded father away from Orochi.  She pulled him out of the hall and into the bounding corridor just as the first head smashed itself into the opposite wall.

Miko set her father down on the floor, his back against the wall.  “Miko,” he asked hesitantly.  In the distance Miko could hear Orochi batter its heads against a wall.  She took his hand and placed his sword in it.  Her father’s eyes widened and the confusion on his face vanished like a mist cleared by a gust of wind.  “Miko,” he repeated, this time more confidently.  “What’s happening here?”

“You were kidnapped,” she whispered in reply.  “By some foxes.  Orochi is here.”

“I see,” said Miko’s father solemnly.  Again the sound of Orochi battering its heads against the wall could be heard.  “Your mother?”

Miko bowed her head, tears brimming in her eyes.  She could not look her father in the eye.

“I see,” he said again, his voice tinged with sadness.  “How did you get here?”

“Charles helped me,” began Miko.

“Charles,” asked her father.  “Charles Brennon is here?”

On cue, there was the sound of splintering wood and stone as Orochi finally knocked through the wall it had been hitting.  “Miko,” called Charles from the opposite side of the hall.  “A little help here would be good.”

“You stay here Miko,” said her father, rising to his feet.  “Stay safe.”  He grasped his sword with both hands and it started glowing softly.  He stepped smartly back into the hall, sword raised and ready.  “I’m here old friend,” he called out.

Miko stuck her head round the side of the wall to watch.  Several sections of the wall at the opposite side of the hall were broken and the two awake heads of Orochi were closing in menacingly on Charles.  “Good to know,” he called back.

The two serpentine heads snapped back round to look at where Miko’s father stood.  They wailed in anger as they spotted him.  Oily black smoke rose from the nostrils of one of the heads.  It opened its mouth and spat out a tongue of flame.  Miko’s father blurred as he moved and by the time Miko had worked out where he had gone, three more sleeping dragon like heads lay on the floor separated from their long necks.

The remaining two sleeping heads woke up screaming and weaved their way towards Miko’s father.  He danced round them, fending off their lunges with almost casual ease.  One of the two heads that had woken earlier joined in but only succeeded in tying itself in knots as it tried to follow Miko’s father.  Its head joined the others on the floor for its pains.

Miko suddenly noticed that the last head, the one that hadn’t joined in had been positioning itself to throw another gout of fire.  The oily smoke curled out its nostrils again, but just as it opened its mouth and prepared to strike a flash of light struck it in the back of the head.

Charles emerged from the rubble of the walls that Orochi had knocked down, throwing beams of light from his hands in quick succession.  They didn’t do much damage to Orochi beyond knocking the head about, but it was enough to put it off its aim.  It howled in frustration.

Miko’s father glanced round and realised the trap Orochi was trying to lay for him.  He ducked and rolled under another head as it lunged at him again and sprinted for the edge of the hall.  Three tails lashed out as he passed but he jumped over them with a great leap before disappearing through one of the gaps at the back of the hall.

Orochi’s three remaining heads turned their attention back to Charles.  He was retreating slowly and sure-footedly back to the edge of the hall, liberally spraying Orochi with blasts of light as he did so.  One head made a lunge, trying to come at him from an awkward angle.  Charles spotted it easily and brought both his hands together.  A dazzling spray of fire erupted from his hands hitting the head squarely on the snout and stunning it, giving Charles enough time to run back out the hall.

The heads howled in unison.  Miko dashed along the corridor, making her way to where her father had exited the hall.  As she approached the turn in the corridor to where it ran along the back wall of the hall, she heard voices ahead.

“Miko,” came her father’s voice sternly.  “I thought I told you to stay safe.”

“I had to see you,” came the reply, sounding oddly familiar to Miko’s ears.  “To make sure you were alright.”  Miko skidded round the corner, desperate to see who it was talking.

Her father stood a few metres ahead, his back turned towards Miko.  The fox stood in front of him.  It had changed, its clothes now matched those Miko wore.  The duplicate stared past Miko’s father and directly at Miko.  It smirked evilly at her.

“No,” shouted Miko.  “It’s not me!”

Her father had enough time to turn his head round before the fox struck.  Its hand blurred – flesh turned to fur and claws that dug deep into Miko’s father’s stomach.  Miko could only watch as her father doubled over, clutching at his gut.  The sword fell to the ground with a metallic clunk and the glow enveloping it faded away.

“Too late,” laughed the fox.  It brought its bloodied claw to its mouth and licked at it theatrically as Miko’s father collapsed to the floor.  “Far too late little girl.”  It flicked its wrist and the fur shimmered and faded back into a hand.

Miko screamed as she lost herself in fury and charged at the fox.  Its look of superiority vanished in an instant as Miko grappled it and bowled it over.  The pair rolled over, entangled.  Miko found herself atop the fox when they came to a rest and started pummelling her doppelganger with her fists.

For a few seconds the fox looked like it couldn’t quite believe what was happening.  Then it snarled and shimmered and Miko found herself staring down at the wiry and lean frame of the fox.  It easily kicked Miko over and pinned her down with its hind legs.

The foxy laughed a wheezy laugh as its claws snikked out.  It made great play of showing them to Miko as she squirmed helplessly underneath it.  The fox ran its claws gently along Miko’s face, scratching but not breaking the skin.  It dug them into floor on either side of Miko’s head, missing her by inches.  The fox was toying with her and Miko knew it.

Miko thrashed about, trying to escape the fox’s grasp but it was too strong for her.  Her arms flailed about uselessly as the fox laughed at her predicament.  Then she felt something holding her right hand.  She turned her head to look:  Her father had crawled over, smearing blood all over the floor.  He pressed a short dagger into Miko’s palm and closed her fingers round the hilt.

Miko looked back at the fox.  It was too wrapped up in tormenting Miko to notice the dagger.  She pulled her arm in with a quick jerk and thrust the dagger at the fox’s scrawny chest.  The narrow point of the blade met with little resistance and Miko pushed it in deep.  The fox frowned in confusion before toppling to the side, blood gurgling from both its mouth and the wound.

Miko scrabbled over to her father, propping him up against the wall.  He smiled faintly at Miko before coughing up some blood.  “Miko,” he said quietly.

“Don’t die,” shout Miko, tears welling up in her eyes.  “Don’t die, I’ll get help, I’ll…”

“No Miko,” said her father with some difficulty.  “There are more important things now.”  He smiled again and cocked his head to the side, as if thinking what to say.

“Father,” whispered Miko, her lip trembling.

“Someone has to stop Orochi,” said her father slowly.  He clumsily lifted his hand and placed it on Miko’s shoulder.  “You have to stop Orochi.  It cannot be allowed to escape this place.”  His head slumped for what seemed like an age before he continued.  “Take my sword Miko.”

“I can’t,” she replied.

“Take it,” he said, his voice momentarily capturing the firmness that Miko was accustomed to.  Miko’s father was suddenly racked by a coughing fit, spilling blood dribbling down his chin.  “You’ve….  You’ve earned it Miko…”  The light faded from his eyes and his head slumped one final time.

“Father,” said Miko quietly.  She shook her father’s lifeless body but he did not move.  “Father,” she said more urgently.  There was no response.  Tears streamed down Miko’s face, but she had no time to waste on them.  She glanced at where the sword had fallen.

Miko picked up her father’s sword, no it was her sword now, and strode back into the hall with a grim determination.

Orochi was firing off blasts of flame at the front of the hall.  At the walls, through the gaps into the outer corridor, it kept on blasting away, trying to keep Charles pinned.  The rain of fire ground to a halt as each of Orochi’s three remaining heads turned round to face Miko.

“You have our sword little girl,” growled one of the head ominously.

“Where is the warrior,” asked the second.  The third head snorted ominously, sending puffs of thick black smoke into the air.

“My father is dead demon,” stated Miko.  She felt a tear trickle down the side of her face.  “And so is your servant.  You are next,” she shouted, pouring all her anger into it.  Orochi flinched, its heads visibly swayed by the force of Miko’s shout.

The heads looked at one another, nodding almost imperceptibly.  One head immediately launched another burst of fire directly at Miko.  She span out of the way quickly.  The fire singed the floor where she had been moments before but Miko was already moving away.  The other two heads dived in towards her.

The first head sped in ahead of the other, moving in low.  Miko vaulted on it, taking just long enough for a rough hack at its eyes before jumping back off.  The blinded head yowled in pain, breathing thick choking smoke that missed completely.  As it flailed about, it knocked the last head just as it was coming in towards Miko.

Miko saw the opportunity and skidded to a halt before turning about and running straight at the dazed head, sword held high.  An overarm slash dispatched the dazed head, sending it rolling across the floor.  “That was for my father,” yelled Miko.

The fire breathing head tried another shot, moving as close in as it dared.  Miko barely had enough time to duck underneath the blast of flame, rolling to the floor as she did so.  Though the fire had missed, it passed close enough to scorch and blister Miko’s left arm.  She yelped in pain.

The blinded head took a wild swipe at Miko, using her cry of pain to home in on here.  It caught a glancing blow on Miko’s legs as she stood back up, sending her back to the floor.  The head growled its pleasure and sent another burst of thick smoke rolling out.  It missed completely, giving Miko enough time to haul herself back to her feet and drive toward it.  He strike went straight through the creatures destroyed eye and penetrated its brain.  “And that,” shouted Miko as the head shuddered and fell still.  “Was for my mother.”

Miko pulled the sword clear and let her arm fall.  She wheezed from the effort, barely able to stand upright and gritting her teeth at the pain in her burnt arm.

The last head regarded its fallen comrades, howling its rage.  It had no time left for clever tactics or manoeuvres.  It just wanted Miko dead, and it wanted her dead now.  In its bloodlust it dived straight at Miko.  Battered and bruised, Miko managed to limp to the side just in time as the head went screaming past.  With one last titanic effort of will she raised her sword and brought it down.  Orochi’s last head rolled to the floor and the beast finally fell still.  “That,” said Miko quietly as she watched the head come to a rest.  “That, was for me.”

Dizzily, Miko turned round, surveying the devastation of the hall.  Walls had been knocked down.  Small fires were burning here and there.  A pile of rubble shifted as Charles disentangled himself from it.  Miko smiled at the foreigner as the world faded into blackness and she slipped into unconsciousness.

*****

The room swam lazily into focus as Miko opened her eyes.  She was dimly aware of a bed, some beeping electronics and something sticking into her hand.  Miko attempted to sit up, but felt woozy as soon as she tried.

A shadow seemed to move beside her.  Miko blinked a couple of times until she realised that it was Charles, the foreigner.  He closed the book he had been reading and smiled at Miko.  “You’re awake,” he said.

“Where am I,” asked Miko weakly.

“Hospital,” explained Charles.  “I carried you out of the castle after you collapsed.  I did warn you drawing too much from yourself.”  He broke out into a wide smile.  “Planets, girl.  That was an amazing display.  I know fully trained Malacandrae that would have struggled to beat Orochi.”

“What about my father,” asked Miko quietly.

“I’m sorry Miko,” replied Charles, his expression suddenly solemn.

“I see,” said Miko.  Charles helped silently as Miko tried to sit up again, propping her against some pillows.  She stared out the window for several minutes, deep in thought.  “I just wish…” she began before falling silent.  “I just wish he’d said something before he left.  To show that he cared…”  Tears formed in Miko’s eyes again.  “All he did was give me his sword and tell me to kill Orochi.”

Charles put the book he had been reading down and took Miko by the hand.  “He did tell you, in his own way” he explained.  “Your father was a warrior, he lived to protect people that couldn’t protect themselves.  When he gave you his sword he was saying that you were a warrior and defender of the innocent too Miko.  For your father there was no higher token of esteem.”

“Thank you,” replied Miko quietly.  She looked directly at Charles, her eyes wide with fear.  “What do I do now?  My family is gone, I have no aunts or uncles.  Where do I go?”

Charles put Miko’s hand down and smiled faintly.  “I came to Japan to test if you would be suitable for the Stellae Errante.  I would say that you have more than passed.  If you want, if you ask to join us, then I will finish the training your father started.

“You would do that,” asked Miko.

“Let’s just say that I owe him a debt,” replied Charles enigmatically.

“I don’t have any other choice, do I,” asked Miko.

“You always have choices Miko,” replied the foreigner sternly.

“But not good ones,” she sighed.  A pregnant silence hung in the air.  Miko realised that the next move was up to her.  “I’ll do it.  I want to join the Stellae Errante.”