Ink

Chapter 16

“Katie!” Jun yelled. He ran toward me, grabbing me by the shoulders; and even though ink-sketched snakes were swarming the room, even though a giant serpent slithered toward the shrieking Sunglasses, all I could feel was the heat of his palms through the cotton of my shirt.

“Daijoubu ka?”

“I’m fine,” I said, “but what—? How—?”

“Yuu,” he said, and at first I thought he meant you, but then he let go of my shoulders and walked toward Tomohiro, taking Ishikawa’s other arm and draping it over his back.

“Takahashi,” Tomohiro said, staring at the giant snake cornering Sunglasses on the other side of the room. “You…

made these?”

“We need to go. Now,” said Jun, and just like that he and Tomohiro started dragging Ishikawa to the collapsed rice-paper door.

I hurried after them, leaving behind the shrieks of the Yakuza and hisses of snakes that buzzed in my ears.

We wound through the building, moving as quickly as we could. Ishikawa groaned as the other two shouldered him through the narrow hallways.

My mind buzzed with the same thoughts over and over.

Because I knew Tomohiro didn’t draw any snakes.

We came out in the same garage; there was the truck. But the garage door was in pieces on the ground, puddles of thick ink oozing across the floor.

“Come on,” Jun said, leading us through the gaping hole of the garage. The humid summer air hit as I stepped out into the smell of night flowers and the hum of vending machines. In the dark, three motorbike engines revved to life and I blinked as the beams of light splayed onto the walls.

Three people dressed in dark clothes straddled the bikes, hands on the handles and helmets shining my reflection back at me. One of the riders carried a beat-up-looking navy duffel bag—I knew it instantly. Tomohiro’s kendo bag, which meant they’d started searching for us at Sunpu Park.

Tomohiro jumped back, but Jun slipped out from under Ishikawa’s arm and raised his hands.

“It’s okay,” he said. “They’re with me. Oi! ” he called to one of them. “We need to get Ishikawa to Kenritsu fast.”

“No,” Ishikawa gasped.

“Are you totally mental?” I snapped. “You’ve got a gun-shot wound, for god’s sake!”

“That’s the point,” Ishikawa said between breaths. “They’ll…

ask questions.”

“So, what, you’d rather die?”

“Satoshi, go to the hospital,” Tomohiro said.

“Yuuto—”

“Please, Sato.”

“I’ll take him,” said one of the riders. She lifted the helmet off her head and held it under her arm. “I’ll cover the questions.”

How is she going to do that? I wondered. But the girl reached out her arm and helped Tomohiro hoist Ishikawa onto the back of the bike.

“Can you hang on?” she asked.

Ishikawa didn’t answer, but the weight of his body pressed against her back. She revved the engine and zoomed into the darkness, Ishikawa slumped over as they went.

“Katie,” Jun said, gesturing to another of his companions,

“go with Ikeda. She’ll take you back to your aunt’s place.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I don’t think they’ll come after you. Ikeda will stay with you if you’re worried.”

I stared at Jun. I definitely appreciated the fact that he’d followed up on my call, busted us out of Yakuza hell and was now giving us an escape, but I had questions burning in my mind that wouldn’t go away.

Why didn’t he call the police?

How did he know where to find us?

Where the hell did those snakes come from?

“I’m not sending Katie home alone,” Tomohiro said.

Jun grabbed a fourth motorbike, shiny black and parked in the shadows of the Yakuza building. He swung his leg over and revved the engine to life.

“Yuu, you may still be in danger. If you stay near Katie, she is, too. Get it?”

Tomohiro balled his hands into fists and looked down at the pavement.

“You don’t get it,” I said. “I’m in danger whether he’s near me or not.”

“What do you mean?” Jun said.

“Nothing,” Tomohiro said.

“Look,” said Ikeda, “we can’t stick around here.”

“Yuu, come with me,” said Jun. “I know somewhere safe you can go for now.”

The anger and fear boiled inside me. I couldn’t take it anymore, all of them talking like I wasn’t there, like I wasn’t part of this. Wasn’t it me that snuck into Toro Iseki with Tomohiro, watched him sketch the dragon and the wagtail and the horse? I’d been through just as much as him. I’d seen the way he struggled between his passion and his curse.

What had Cigarette said? I was an ink magnet. I was making the ink do things. Niichan said I was connected to the Kami. I was definitely part of this, and there was no way I could just go home.

I walked up to Jun and sat behind him on the bike.

“Wherever you’re taking Tomohiro, I’m damn well going, too.”

Jun stiffened, the bike idling underneath us, kicking up smelly fumes that flooded my nose.

“Jun,” Ikeda urged. “We’ve gotta go.”

“Okay,” Jun said at last. “Hold on.”

I nodded and wrapped my arms around his waist. His skin was warm and hard through his shirt, and I knew Tomohiro was staring at me as he sat on the bike behind Ikeda. I kept looking forward, not letting him know I saw him watching.

What was I supposed to do, let go of Jun and fall off the bike?

Jun only had one helmet, and he plunked it down on my head before we took off. We lurched forward into Shizuoka traffic, zipping in and out of the lanes. I’d never ridden on a motorbike, and before I knew it, I was pressing myself against Jun, my knuckles white as I clutched at his shirt rippling in the humid breeze.

“Where are we?” I shouted over the roar of the engine.

“Yakuza meet-up place in Aoi Ward,” Jun said. The red light turned blue-green and we raced forward. “About an hour from Shizuoka Station.”

Only an hour north of Sunpu Park, then, an hour from home.

“How did you know where to find me?” I yelled. My hands felt like they were slipping, and for the hundredth time I readjusted them around his broad frame.

He tilted his head back, the blond highlights whipping around in the wind and the traffic lights sparkling in his silver earring.

“I’ve had a few run-ins with them before,” he said.

What was that supposed to mean? Like the knife incident with Sugi? I remembered what he’d said then. I don’t like gangsters. I looked back at the other two motorbikes and watched them zip after us. Ikeda and Tomohiro passed us, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

Well.

“Jun.” The wind whipped my words back at me. “Did you make those snakes appear?”

“What?” He sped up.

“The snakes!” I said.

He didn’t say anything, which was answer enough.

Which meant he was one of them, too. He was a Kami.

My mind reeled. The ink at the kendo match—he must have realized what it was. I thought back to how he’d pressed me in the convenience store, in the stations, on the way to school. How’s Tomohiro’s wrist? I always knew he’d done calligraphy. Would you get him to show me his drawings sometime?

Damn. It was all a trick, and I’d let it all pass over my head.

How long ago did he figure it out?

I tried to think of anything that gave Jun away. Was there ink on his hands? Did he have a notebook with him?

I craned my neck to look over his shoulder, but the bike wobbled underneath us. He wasn’t carrying anything with him, but that didn’t mean anything anymore, not after I’d seen what Tomohiro could do without drawing anything.

Or more like what the power could do to Tomohiro.

But that was with my influence. So what were the chances Jun could do that? Pretty slim. No, there had to be some paper involved somewhere.

Jun was tall and I didn’t want the bike to flip as I shifted around, so I gave up and slouched behind him, resting my head against his shoulder to avoid the strong winds batter-ing my face.

Then I noticed the way his arms bent to grab the handlebars of the motorbike. At this angle I could see the muscular curve of his kendo-champion arms.

And I saw it on the inside flesh of his left arm, near his wrist.

A kanji carved into his own skin, fresh welts rising on the pink surface of the strokes.

Snakes.

The blood drained from my face as I stared at the carved kanji. It moved in and out of view, Jun oblivious to the fact that I’d noticed it.

It made me sick to think he’d carved it into his own skin, even if the wound wasn’t much deeper than a paper cut.

But he’d saved us. He’d told me to come to him if I ever needed help, and now I understood why. He’d figured us out a long time ago. Had we been so transparent?

We made our way south, the roads starting to look more and more familiar. The streets were almost deserted and I pulled my keitai out of my pocket to check the time. Just past 2:00 a.m., but adrenaline pumped through my veins as the lights of conbini and vending machines whirred past us.

I saw it in the distance when we stopped at a red light, the walls and tiled roof in shadow, away from the glare of the city lights. There was no mistaking what it was. The traffic light flicked to blue-green and we sped toward it.

Sunpu-jou. The castle at the heart of Sunpu Park.

Jun slowed down, the bikers killing their headlights and coasting forward as the castle rose before us.

A sign hung on the end of the bridge to keep cyclists out.

The castle always closed at night; if you stayed late at Suntaba for clubs, you had to cut through the southern or western bridges.

Jun stopped in front of the bridge to Sunpu Castle and shut off the engine.

“Here?” I asked. The others had already climbed off their motorbikes, twisting them around the wooden barrier placed to deter after-hours cyclists. Jun didn’t answer at first, lifting himself off the motorbike and waiting for me to do the same. I tugged at the straps of the helmet, shoving the heavy black plastic into his waiting hands. He hooked it around the handlebars. “You think we’ll be safe in the middle of the night in the deserted park where they first nabbed me? Are you kidding?”

Jun looked at me with curiosity, then pointed at the tall glass tower at the southern end of the park, its glossy windows dwarfing Sunpu Castle. “Under the nose of the police headquarters?” he said. “I think we’re safe from them here, yes. And who said anything about deserted?”

He turned to cross the bridge, and that’s when I saw them, the others dressed in dark shirts and jeans, clustered at the door of the castle and peering out at us. There were seven of them in all, parting to let the motorbikes through and into the courtyard. I stood there in the cool air, listening to the crunch of the gravel under the tires.

Tomohiro stepped toward me as I folded my arms across my chest.

“What the hell is this?” I said.

“That’s what I want to know,” he said. He rested a hand on my shoulder and it sent a jolt through my body to feel his fingers closing around me, to feel the warmth of the pads of his fingertips.

Ikeda and the other rider waited behind us.

“You need to get moving,” she said to us. “The Yakuza might not be far behind. We’ll be safe in the park for now.

Safer than out here, anyway.”

I peeked at Tomohiro, but he looked more unsure than I was.

Jun turned around, waiting.

We stepped forward and clambered across the stone bridge.

Fish bobbed up and down in the dark waters below, sending ripples spinning through the murky water.

Our sneakers crunched on the gravel as we passed through the giant doorway of the castle.

Ikeda and the other rider followed, pulling their bikes up to the others and dropping Tomohiro’s kendo bag beside the mini makeshift parking lot. Then a few of Jun’s friends pulled at the giant castle doors. The slabs of wood groaned as the doors ground shut.

“Are you allowed to do that?” I said, but no one answered me.

I looked at them, huddling around Jun like a timid goth following. They ranged in age, the youngest maybe twelve and the oldest in his twenties. They all wore the same dark clothes, the same grim look on their faces. Jun stood in front, his lean arms folded across his chest.

“What’s going on?” said Tomohiro.

“Yuu, I want you to know you and Katie are safe here.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. His voice was strange, his eyes gleaming. My heart pulsed in my ears. Something was off here. Way off.

“I want to help,” Jun said. “I’ve always wanted to help.”

“I don’t need help,” Tomohiro said.

“You need to trust me,” Jun said, “so I’m going to tell you everything about what happened.”

“You don’t need to tell us,” I said. “I saw the mark on your arm.”

Jun’s eyes widened for a moment, and he loosened his grip around his elbows, rubbing his fingers over his wrist.

“This?” he said, opening his arms to reveal the pale skin on the inside, the welts raised in the kanji for snake. “Yeah,”

he said. “I’m a Kami. Like you, Yuu.”

“You made those snakes,” Tomohiro said.

“Yes.”

“How did you know where to find us?”

“Like I told Katie, we’ve had run-ins with the Yakuza before.”

“We?”

Jun motioned to the group around him.

I looked at Ikeda, lifting the motorbike helmet off her head.

She saw me looking and put the helmet on the ground, pulling back the sleeve of her jacket.

A ribbon of cuts ran up the inside of her arm.

Shit.

“You’re all Kami?”

“Try to understand,” said Jun. “It’s not something to be afraid of, Yuu.”

Tomohiro didn’t answer, but I swore I saw his hands shaking.

“The power you wield—it’s not something to turn away from. We’re descendants of Amaterasu, kin of the imperial family. I know you’re afraid of it, Yuu. But we’ve all had the nightmares. We’ve all seen what you have seen.”

I looked at Tomohiro, but he looked away, his eyes cast down to the gravel. I wondered what kind of horrible visions haunted him at night. I shuddered, remembering the demons and shadows in the Taira painting.

“Some can bear it better than others. Some are more gifted than others. And you are gifted, Yuu. Incredibly gifted. Not many Kami can call on their power without sketching a single line.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t have to pretend with us,” Jun said. “We’ve all seen our drawings move on the page. We can help you.”

Tomohiro’s eyes filled with suspicion. I touched his arm to reassure him. Jun had always been kind to me, and now he’d rescued me again. I knew he could help Tomohiro control the power.

“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “We can trust him.”

“Because he’s your friend,” Tomohiro said, and the way he said it made my cheeks blaze.

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t feel like explaining myself to him. It was 2:00 a.m. and we’d been kidnapped by Yakuza and freed by Kami. If he was jealous, he could deal with it.

Tomohiro looked at Jun for a moment. “What do I need to do?” he said at last.

Jun smiled. “We can help you, Tomohiro. Or rather, you can help us. We’ve been looking for someone with your ability for some time. So first, we’ll offer you a gift.” He reached his hand out to Ikeda, who shuffled in the pocket of her jacket for a small notebook and pen. Jun took them and walked toward us, placing them in Tomohiro’s hands.

“You want me to draw?” Tomohiro said. “Draw what?”

“Hanchi,” Jun said. “The Yakuza boss. Dead.”

The pen dropped from Tomohiro’s hand and hit the gravel below.

“Kill him?” I breathed.

Jun blinked, tilting his head to the side. “You need to send a message to the Yakuza. You don’t want them coming after you again.”

“Yeah, but—” I started, but Jun held up a hand.

“I’ve never killed anyone before,” Tomohiro said quietly.

“I didn’t even think it was… Can we do that?”

“Go ahead, Yuu,” Jun said. “The honor is yours.”

“Honor?” Tomohiro’s voice was shaking. “What honor is there in killing a man on paper?”

“You show a lot of mercy to the man who kidnapped you and Katie,” Jun snapped, and I saw Tomohiro flinch as Jun used my first name. Jun tucked his blond highlights behind his ears with force; he was getting frustrated. His eyes were dark pools of ice. “You think he would’ve shown you the same kindness? He’s been responsible for lots of deaths. As a Kami, you can exact judgment.”

Tomohiro dropped the notebook on the ground, disgusted.

“I’m not killing someone,” he said.

“Jun, that’s excessive,” I said. “What’s the point of killing someone?”

“I think you’ll see, in time,” Jun said. “The world is crying out for the judgment of the Kami.”

“What does that even mean?” I said.

“Japan was ruled by Kami a long time ago,” Jun said. “The major samurai families of Heian Japan? Almost all Kami.

Some were stronger than others, like me and Yuu.” I glanced at the kanji engraved on Jun’s arm. He didn’t even use paper or a pen to control the ink—what was he capable of? “The world’s falling apart, decaying before our eyes. The Yakuza are spreading across the country, spilling into other parts of the world—is that a world you want to live in? We’re destined to take it back, Yuu. We can rule Japan like gods, like the kami once did.”

“Are you crazy?” Tomohiro said. “Rule Japan? What the hell are you on, Takahashi?”

Jun laughed, but there was no humor in his voice. “I’m de-claring war on the Yakuza,” he said. “But war requires weapons. I’ll make them all pay for what they’ve done. They’ll beg forgiveness at my feet or I’ll wipe out every last one of them, whatever it takes until Japan is safe. The Kami will reclaim our place as rulers, the way it used to be. The ink wants blood. It always wants blood. Yours, or someone else’s.

Let us help you.”

“I told you,” Tomohiro snapped. “I don’t need h—”

“Stop acting like you’re human!” Jun spat. The comment stung me, and Tomohiro stumbled backward like he’d been slapped. “You think you’re so much stronger than your Kami blood? You think you can go around life with a blowtorch and it’s okay because you have a little candle snuffer? Wake up, Yuu! Before you hurt someone.” Jun looked directly at me. “Before someone gets burned. You’re a weapon, and you have to decide which side will wield you.”

I wanted to punch him. What the hell did he know about us? I’d seen the control Tomohiro had, the way he scratched out his drawings in time. But the image of the wagtail dropping midflight flashed in my mind, the horrible way it had attacked the other birds. I thought about the way Tomohiro’s eyes grew vacant when he sketched, how I’d pinched him and he couldn’t stop. How I lost him, how he couldn’t hear me.

The scars climbing his arm, the dragon spiraling into the sky.

“Stop acting like you’re normal,” Jun said, his voice softening. “The blood of Amaterasu runs in your veins.” He stepped forward, extending his hand. “You can be a prince in the new world we’ll create. Once we take control of Japan, with the emperor as our puppet, we’ll rule like we did before. We’re marked for this. You’re more than human, Yuu.

You’re superior.”

“Superior?” Tomohiro whispered. He hunched over, clutching his hand to his heart. I heard a splotch and looked down. Ink carved down his arms and dripped onto his sneakers. “Superior?” he said again, his voice trembling. “How can this be superior? My own sketches try to kill me. My dreams hunt me down. Being a Kami took my mother’s life from her, and it took my mother from me! How the hell is that superior?”

“We’ve all lost something. But it’s time to stop running from who you really are.”

“That’s it, then,” Tomohiro said. Splotch, splotch. “Destined to take over Japan, no matter the price, no matter the blood?

So this normal life I’ve tried to create—it’s all an act. I’ve always known. Always known what I really was.”

“Gifted,” said Jun, stepping forward again.

Tomohiro shook his head, his whole body heaving with every breath.

“Evil.” He looked up, a darkness in his eyes.

“Tomo,” I said, but icy fear tingled in every part of my body.

“I’m a monster,” he said, raising his hand to point at Jun,

“and so are all of you.”

“The human in you fears the Kami that f lows in your veins. Once you stop struggling, things will be easier.”

“I’ll fight this as long as I live,” Tomohiro hissed.

“And if you hurt others in the process?”

Silence.

“What’s a guilty man’s death compared with many innocents’?”

“Because!” Tomohiro shouted. “It’s not my choice to make!”

“You’re still talking like you’re not a Kami,” Jun snapped back. “It is our choice. It’s our responsibility to protect them.

When others get hurt because of your inaction—what then?”

My body tensed, looking for some way out, some way to end this. But doubt pressed against me. The kanji for sword, the dragon, the gun—they’d all tried to kill Tomohiro. What if he really was so dangerous he was unconsciously trying to stop himself?

What if he—the ink— What if it killed me, too? It was already seeping into my life in every way possible. What if—

I swallowed, my throat so thick I could barely breathe.

“What then, Yuu?”

“Then it’s better if I’m not alive.”

It’s worth my life, but it isn’t worth yours.

“You can do so much more with your life,” Jun said. “Don’t settle for this. Don’t let it haunt you.”

In the breeze I could hear a whisper of that voice again, that gathering noise like a million voices talking at once. It was the same voice that had taken him over when we’d faced Ishikawa and his thugs. The sound was overwhelming, moans of pain and cries for help, animalistic screeches and overlap-ping voices. Monster, they said. Demon. Murderer.

“No!” Tomohiro cried out and fell to his knees, hands clutched over his ears. He could hear it, too, like high-pitched feedback that bounced around inside your head. Only, the way he writhed, I knew that whatever I was hearing, his was tenfold.

My mind reeled. I had to stop this torture for him.

I stared at the motorbikes, useless with the castle doors closed. And then I spotted Tomohiro’s kendo bag, its white zipper gleaming in the moonlight.

I stooped over, grabbing the pull with shaking hands. I rummaged through the bag, the smell of worn leather filling every breath, the armor slipping across my palms as I searched.

The smooth touch of bamboo as my hands closed around the shinai.

I wheeled around, the others watching me with confusion.

I stepped in front of Tomohiro, swung the shinai forward and pointed it at Jun’s throat.

“Leave us the hell alone,” I said.

“Katie,” he said, lifting his arms in front of him. “What are you doing?”

The shinai shook in my hands as I tried to hold it steady.

Jun stepped toward me. “We’re trying to help.”

“The hell you are.”

“Tell me you’ve never felt afraid of him. Tell me he’s never endangered you.”

My cheeks flushed red. “You don’t understand anything!”

I shouted. I swung the shinai at him and he leaped back.

“And you think you do? How long have you known him, a few months? Do you have any idea what Yuu is capable of?

Does he?”

Splotch, splotch. Only, now the ink was dripping onto the gravel from Jun, spreading across his back into feathered black wings. The ink dribbled down Jun’s arm and pooled in the palm of his hand. It stretched out on itself, building like an icicle of ink until it was as long as the shinai in my hand.

“I didn’t want to involve you in this. I wanted to protect you. Can you expect the same from him?”

“Shut up!” I snapped. “You’re the same as the Yakuza. You just want to use him, too!” I pushed off the back of my foot and swung the shinai at him. “Do you hear how crazy you sound? You’re just thugs trying to take over Japan!” My kiai shout rang in my ears. It was so loud I could barely believe it was my own voice.

He lifted his ink shinai to block my attack, and the force of the block pushed me backward. Ink splattered onto both of us, sprayed across the ground like dark blood.

Jun’s eyes flashed. “I’m not the same as the Yakuza. They can all rot and die.”

“Jun,” called out Ikeda, but he threw his hand back to them.

“No one touches her,” he said. Then to me, “Katie, please.

Don’t fight this. We’re on the same side.”

I circled him, but the other Kami backed up. He held his shinai ready, moving faster through the stances than I could.

Like I had a chance of beating the sixth-place national kendo champion.

But I had to try.

He was on the defensive, not lunging at me, which only pissed me off even more. It was like he knew I didn’t have a chance, like he wanted to humor me.

I shouted again, going for a right kote shot. If I could take out his wrists, wasn’t that the source of the Kami’s power?

But he turned at the last moment and I stumbled forward, leaving my dou wide open for a hit.

He didn’t take it.

“We’re not like them,” Jun said as he circled me, his leather shoes crunching the gravel slippery with ink. “All they think about is money and drugs, useless street power. I’m talking about real power, carving out a new future for Japan. Yuu belongs with us. He is one of us!”

“He’ll never be like you!”

Jun pointed the shinai down at the ground, his hands spread apart. He thought I wouldn’t fight him.

He was wrong. I swung and the tip grazed his wrist. He stumbled backward, letting go of the shinai with his left hand and shaking his fingers back and forth.

He inhaled a sharp breath. “I-te!”

Point.

I swung again, but he twisted out of the way. Now he was advancing toward me, a fire lit in his eyes. Ink feathers spread across his back, splaying out as they formed wings.

He yelled his kiai and lunged at me, his sword clacking under mine and pulling up with such force that I tumbled into the gravel.

“Katie,” he said, his voice full of concern. The sharp edges of the stones sliced across my knees as I fell, but I grabbed on to the shinai with everything left in me.

I was not going to lose, not like this. I couldn’t win, but I wouldn’t give up.

I rolled across the stones and onto my feet. My scraped knees burned, but I ran toward Jun anyway. I lifted the shinai over my head and screamed as I brought it down on his shinai.

Ink splattered everywhere as his shinai shattered. It showered the ground as he stared at me, and then the ink slowly dripped upward, re-forming into the slats of the sword again.

“It’s you,” he whispered.

“Damn right it is.”

“You manipulated the ink.”

I felt exposed, frightened. I didn’t want them to use me.

“The ink’s reacting to you, isn’t it?” Jun said. “Even my shinai. It was you at the tournament. You’re why I lost control in the match.” So the pool of ink hadn’t been Tomohiro; it had been Jun. “Katie, you’re in serious danger.”

I paled, my shinai still thrust out at his. “Why?”

“His power,” he said, pointing at Tomohiro, who hunched over in agony as a pair of ink wings spread on his back. He opened his mouth to scream, but only trickles of ink came out. “It’s reacting to you. The longer you’re near him, the stronger and more deadly he’s going to grow.”

“You’re lying.” But it was an echo of what Niichan had said to me in the temple.

“Why would I? I’m your friend.”

“Huh, suddenly I feel all warm and fuzzy.”

“Katie,” he said, and I hated myself for the goose bumps that prickled along my skin.

“I’m not a Kami,” I said. “I don’t have the nightmares.”

“I never said you were a Kami. I said you’re in danger.”

Tomohiro writhed beside me, still unable to hear anything but the voices shouting. It was horrifying to watch. I bent down and rested a hand on his arm, stroking his back and wishing it would stop. Jun watched with his piercing eyes. I hated him for knowing more about it than me. I hated all of this. I couldn’t take it.

“So what am I, if you’re such a genius?” I shouted. “Yeah, okay? The ink’s bitten me. It’s trailed me, whispered to me, blown my pen up in class. It likes me, okay? I get it! But can you tell me why, Jun? Can you tell me why the hell the ink finds me so interesting? What does it want?”

“I don’t know how, but you have ink in your blood,” he said. “I’ve heard of it happening before. The ink inside you calls to the Kami blood. It’s trying to awaken in you any way it can.”

“Why?” I whispered. “What does the ink want?”

“Power,” Jun said. “The ink senses something of its own in Yuu and is drawn to it, like a stream to a lake. It augments our ability. It knows how he—how he feels about you.” His voice sounded bitter, and he looked away from my hand on Tomohiro’s back. “It’ll use those feelings to get the most out of him until—”

“Until what?” I breathed.

Jun looked at me with sad eyes. “Until the power overtakes him. Until his emotions for you make him lose control and he becomes only Kami.”

I rose to my feet, my hands clenched in fists. “So to save myself I just have to stay away from him? No going for coffee? That’s lame, Jun. Got anything else?”

“You don’t get it!” he shouted, and I took a step back. He was looking at me like he was going to break. He’d never looked so fragile. His eyes were melted ice, warmth spilling everywhere. “It’s going to kill you, Katie! If the ink kills you, Tomohiro will never regain control, and that’s what it wants!”

My ears stopped hearing. My eyes stopped seeing. All I could feel was my heart pounding, pulsing through my whole body.

“You’re lying,” I whispered.

“I hope so. I hope to hell I’m wrong.”

“You are wrong,” I said. “That can’t be it.” Tomohiro’s love for me, was it all just the ink attracted to something within me? Just power seeking its own like magnets, not caring if it crushed me to death?

Impossible.

Tomohiro moaned on his side, clawing away demons that weren’t there. His pupils were huge and alien, like he was living in some other world. And then the whispers dissipated and he stopped struggling, his breathing shallow. He blinked as his pupils shrank to their normal size, concentrating as he tried to focus them on me. He’d made it through whatever hell he’d trod, from being more Kami than human. But what about the next time? What if he didn’t come back?

“The ink doesn’t care about right or wrong,” Jun said quietly. “If you read the myths, the ancient kami are terrifying because they don’t share human judgments of right and wrong. We can wield the power, or the power can destroy us. Tomohiro needs our help or he’ll…he’ll destroy you. You need to stay away from him. Please.”

A world alone, without him. The flowers around the void in my heart wilted, crumpled beneath the weight of the truth.

Going back to being alone.

I screamed and thrust the shinai at Jun. “Don’t you dare tell Tomohiro that crap.”

“And what, wait for you to die? I can’t do that.”

“Don’t you understand? If he thinks the power will kill me—” I fell to my knees, the tears spilling over my cheeks.

“If he knows it, that might be enough to send him over the edge.”

He hesitated, because we both knew I was right. We were holding a ticking time bomb. Wait and it explodes. Try to defuse it and boom. We all die.

Unless one of us was wrong.

“What will you do?” Jun said.

And then I felt the warmth of Tomohiro’s fingers as they wrapped around mine on the shinai. He pulled us upright, the shinai pointed at Jun’s throat. Something slick squished against my shoulder and I turned to see Tomohiro’s inky wings spread out to match Jun’s, warm ink oozing down my skin where the feathers touched me. He squinted a little, his eyes still having trouble focusing, and his shoulder leaned into me as he legs wobbled underneath him.

“We’re done here,” he said faintly, and Jun smirked.

“Get it through your head. We’re not the enemy.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Jun looked at me hard, lowering his shinai and dropping it to the ground. It splashed into a puddle of ink as it hit the stones.

“The power is hunting you both, Yuu. What if it gets to you first?”

“Then at least it’ll keep me out of your hands,” Tomohiro spat.

Jun squeezed his hands into fists so tight the veins popped along the strokes of the snake kanji on his skin.

He said, “You don’t know how to handle your gift.”

Translation: you may accidentally kill your girlfriend, which I can’t tell you in case you blow up and kill us all right here and now.

Tomohiro smacked the shinai into Jun’s right wrist so hard the bamboo slats rattled. I heard the snap of bone as Jun fell to the ground with a cry.

“Jun!” said Ikeda, running to his side.

“It’s my life!” Tomohiro shouted. “I’ll live it how I want. I don’t owe you anything!” He threw the shinai to the ground and grabbed me by the wrist, pulling us toward the closed castle doors. He yanked on the heavy handles, but they wouldn’t budge.

I looked back at Jun, the way he was sprawled on the gravel with Ikeda’s arms wrapped around him. He lifted his head, his face covered with sweat and dirt, his fingers scratched raw by the sharp stones he’d fallen into. He looked so pathetic cradling his broken wrist that I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“You have no idea,” Jun rasped. “You’ve barely seen the surface of what you’re capable of.”

Tomohiro wrapped his arms around me tightly, the warmth of his body pressed against mine so hard I could barely breathe.

“Then we’ll find out together,” he said and flapped his dark wings, lifting us upward. The walls of Sunpu Castle slicked past, my sneaker tapping against the clay roof tiles as we lifted. The Kami scattered as we hovered an inch above the shingles, slamming into the drain spout on the other side of the castle wall. Tomohiro’s wings gave out and we collapsed onto the rail of the bridge, the ink feathers melting and splashing into the dark water below. Tomohiro tipped forward toward the water, but I pulled him back as hard as I could and we tumbled onto the bridge.

We could hear the groan of the wooden doors as the Kami pulled on them, the rumble of the motorbikes revving to life.

But as the gate opened to the scene of Jun crumpled on the ground, we heard his voice, hollow and defeated.

“Mou ii,” he said. That’s enough.

“But—” Ikeda said.

“It’s enough!” he yelled. “He’ll come back when he sees his mistake.”

I stared at him, but Tomohiro grabbed my wrist and started running, and my eyes fell off the shape of Jun, off the wings that were pooling into puddles of ink below him like thick black tears. We ran until the tunnels of the underground walkway swallowed us up, until we stumbled through the glaring lights of the empty train station, where our footsteps echoed in the silence.

We ran until tears streamed down my face, blurring the streetlights as we walked toward Diane’s mansion.