Wearing the Cape 5: Ronin Games (20 page)

“And you, Hikari? Don’t you agree that enough blood has been shed?”

It took everything I had to keep from nodding, but I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. How had he overwhelmed
Jacky
? She was a
vampire
—contests of will were her
specialty
…

She hadn’t relaxed until she’d
agreed
. Could agreement—even unintentional agreement, be a force-multiplier? Her body-language told me she wasn’t even
thinking
about fighting anymore and that was so not-Jacky that it totally freaked me out.

“It’s just you and Ozma,”
Shell whispered through my earbug, and I swallowed, nodding. If the yakuza oyabun had overcome
her
will then she wouldn’t be restrained.

“Good.” The man smiled and I blinked. What—
oh
. He’d mistaken my nod for agreement with
him
. I made myself straighten up, lower Cutter.

“We do need to talk.”
My
intention, not his.

“Yes, we do. Join me?” He grandly waved to the now-empty chair beside him. I stepped forward—not towards him, towards Ozma who happened to be in the opposite corner.

“Shell?” I swallowed again and subvocalized, keeping my lips as still as I could. “The sorcerer with Ozma? His fan?”

“If we’re in a magic version of the Littleton Pocket, the fan may be its anchor. Or it could just control a doorway.”

Okay. Flip a mental coin? If I guessed wrong would we be any worse off?

Probably not, and as soon as the boss realizes he doesn’t have you he can threaten you with Ozma and Jacky
. I flexed my fingers on Cutter’s hilt, felt him twitch. “The fan, Cutter.” My words were a breath and he hummed in answer.

Five more steps and the oyabun frowned—I wasn’t
that
great an actor. “Stop—”

I threw Cutter, spinning him end over end and heart-stoppingly close to a calmly watching Ozma, and lunged for the oyabun. “No—” he got out before my hands closed on his tie and I lifted him off his feet. Spinning him in my grasp I kicked the light aluminum chair at spooky, flickering Onryo, and missed.

Cutter didn’t miss; a whirling blade, he visibly jinxed in air to both slice the paper wrapping Ozma and neatly bisect the paper fan in the Japanese sorcerer’s hand without drawing a drop of blood. The man standing over Ozma staggered back with a strangled cry as the destroyed fan fluttered to the floor in two equal pieces.

Keeping my grip on the oyabun, I tossed Ozma her folded box as she
finally
transformed into a magical-girl in black. Lowering him to the ground, I kept one hand on the tie knot and tugged the narrow end to tighten it against his Adam’s-apple.

“I am going to let you talk now.” My voice shook—cold and calm as Jacky would have been nice, but barely-under-control was a good threat too. “If you do anything but tell my friend she is free to fight, I will make sure you don’t breathe until I feel safe again. If you understand, tap my arm.”

The man went deathly pale, and it took me a moment to realize he wasn’t looking at me. When I turned to look over my shoulder the golden koi floating beside my head practically touched my nose.

You do not need to fear.

Omega Class:
definition; beyond Ultra Class. Omega Class breakthroughs shatter the accepted scale of powers. Omega Class breakthroughs are ultimate manifestations of their powers, beyond standard means of measurement and equally beyond the power of D, C, B, A, and even Ultra Class breakthroughs to effectively oppose. Omega Class breakthroughs are so rare that encounters with them are largely anecdotal, and most Omega Class breakthroughs appear to no longer be human.

Barlow’s Guide to Superhumans.

I didn’t even hear it in my
head
—I just knew it had somehow spoken and what it had said.

You do not need to fear
. The golden koi floating by the oyabun’s head didn’t speak the same words either, but it did. There was no influence in the words, no oppressive weight like the yakuza boss’s power, only friendly reassurance, but its little fins idly churned the air and when the tip of its tailfin brushed his cheek he flinched as if burned.

And Jacky stood wound tight and ready again, staring at her own fish. Everyone had one, even my dead ki-pusher.

I let the oyabun go.

He tugged his collar open, loosened his tie. “She has broken your law, Kami-sama! She has killed here!”

And should I / punish her for not taking off her shoes when / she did not know she / had entered my / house? Who brought / her here?

It was a rhetorical question, but as the fish passed their unspoken sentence among them like a ball tossed back and forth, the onmiyoji standing beside Ozma shook so hard I wondered if he was going to collapse. He stared at his own fish like a mouse mesmerized by a snake.

“Shell?” I whispered.

“I think we know what’s in Golden Gai now.”

“Really? Do you think?” I was going to skin me a cat.

But not everyone / is here / who is here.

Shell dropped into my arms, yowling and spitting. Cutter’s weight settled into the harness on my back.

And things / should be neat.

The last shadow of the walls blew away and we stood in the middle of a valley between low purple hills, under a starry sky. The
ground
we were standing on was a frozen pond. More schools of golden koi swam through the air, and silver koi swam beneath the surface of the ice that wasn’t ice—it wasn’t cold or slick, more like glass pretending to be ice because that’s what solid water was.

The silver koi weren’t the only things beneath the ice; each burning silver koi swam beside a sunken sleeper. Not corpses—they were alive; I could see them breathing as they slept in their weedy beds.

Bright side, making things neat meant my right arm wasn’t bloody up to the elbow anymore and dead ki-guy was gone.

Nor is / deception necessary.

And Kitsune changed from a lightly bearded lady to a gloriously white seven-tailed fox, a glowing ball of white fox-fire floating beside him to match the koi at his other shoulder. Ozma and Jacky were themselves again and a quick tug and peek at my own hair confirmed I was too.

At least Shell was still a cat; we would have looked pretty silly otherwise.

Such interesting / guests. Won’t / you introduce yourselves?

I am talking to a fish
. If I’d fallen asleep and was dreaming, would I even
know
? Of course I would, because then I’d be talking to a
tree
. Only the thought that laughing at something that scared a sorcerer capable of restraining Ozma might be a Bad Idea kept the giggles in, but the simple request gave me something to focus on. I ignored my incredulous and unhelpful inside-voice, bowing as correctly as I could while holding Shell. “I’m Astra. My companions are Artemis and Ozma. I apologize for our intrusion, please believe that it was not intentional.”

It was / intended. Another / brought you and / hid you from / me. He / abuses my offer of / passage.

The onmiyoji pissed himself. I could smell it, the sudden sour reek. I could smell other things too, with my super-duper nose. The pond was the source of the smell of still water from earlier.
Kitsune
had a smell, an aromatic musky scent, stronger now but one I realized I’d smelled before when he’d been Yoshi and Allison. In the middle of the weirdness it made me smile to realize I’d be able to smell him from now on, no matter his form. Or her form.

Focus, Hope
. The pretty fish had just made a criminal sorcerer wet himself with terror. “Do my friends and I have safe passage?”

My fish abandoned its float to swim in excited circles.

Perhaps. / So many! You / can win the use of / my doors. A / game. A game / to see what I shall do / with you and with / them!

I blinked, holding Shell tighter. I had not seen that coming, and my eyes darted to Jacky and Ozma. Jacky looked like she wanted to start shooting fish, but her guns pointed nowhere near them. Ozma…

Ozma slowly reached up to lightly tickle her fish’s belly. “A game sounds lovely.” Her face was a study in pleasant interest. “But we should be allowed to hear the rules before we agree to it, don’t you think?”

Her fish wiggled happily.

Of course! / Yes, a / contest to replace such / vulgar fighting. / A trade of things, the / best of each trade winning / the point. The winning / side goes free, the other / to stay with me / and be taught proper / manners.

I barely kept from looking down at the sleepers below us. Not all of them slept soundly. Some of them wore ancient clothing, robes and pantaloons and yukatas, and a couple of them wore samurai armor. How long had
they
stayed?

Ozma smiled at her fish. “Yes, that is very exciting. And who trades? What would the trades be?”

I was perfectly happy to let her take over negotiations—if you could call it that. It sounded more like diplomatic flattery while waiting to hear a victor’s terms. Certainly our silent and pasty-faced mob boss didn’t seem inclined to jump in.

A trade / of blows! A trade / of power! A trade / of oaths! Yes! I shall / choose which for / each of you. You / shall choose your own / opponents from those / who may match / you! They shall go / first! I will judge! / It will be / splendid fun!

“I see.” Ozma’s smile remained bright while her gaze touched on me and Jacky in turn. “And the winner gains the privilege of using your doors while the loser remains here to enjoy your company?”

Yes! Some to / go, some / to stay! The terms / and stakes are / agreeable?

What was the alternative? Fight? With no idea what the fish could
do
, all I knew was that they were literally scaring the piss out of people who thought they could handle
us
. With no other cues to go on, I took my lead from Kitsune. He had stayed as silently attentive as his oyabun, but he’d warned me twice already; whatever his game was, it wasn’t the same as his boss’s.

I nodded. So did Jacky. Shell kept quiet; I hadn’t named her and if the fish were happy to treat her as my pet rather than a teammate to involve in the contest, I was okay with that.

“Very well,” Ozma approved. “We agree, but we must be clear on the conditions of each contest before choosing our opponents.”

Wonderful! / Wonderful! / Wonderful!
Every one of our fishes spun about in tail-churning ecstasy. All her hair standing up, Shell hissed at ours. She wasn’t talking and I wasn’t asking, but whatever this breakthrough we faced was I had to assume she rated it an Omega-Class power. Limited omnipotence? At least inside its own extrareality pocket? The oyabun had called it Kami-sama,
god
; on a scale of one to ten its power might rank at Why Are You Even Asking?

Ozma’s fish swam circles around her head.
First! A trade / of power! A / gift! Since only / two can trade / power here your / choice is made / already!
It seemed quite delighted in its cleverness.

Maybe it thought it had tricked her, but Ozma gave it a smile and an acknowledging bow. On the other hand, the onmiyoji looked less like he was going to faint. While Ozma had been negotiating, the yakuza group had gathered around their boss. Giving myself a moment to focus on something other than our god-fish, I gave the oyabun a glance and could tell he’d recovered. He waited, stone-faced and eyes moving between the fish and us.

He probably thought his chances of making it out of here had just gone from zero to fifty-fifty.

Ozma turned to the onmiyoji and gave him a bow as well. “We have not been introduced?”

“Ah.” He started, returned the bow. “I am Fourth Wind, Ozma-san.”

He had no trouble with her name although he gave it the extra Japanese syllable,
Ozuma-san
. We were Sentinels so everyone at home knew us, but did Japanese sorcerers keep track of powerful gaijin?

“Fourth Wind-san.” Ozma bowed again. “It is a pleasure. I believe the first gift is yours?”

“Yes.” He stood still, brow furrowed. Ozma might have had no choice, but he had a worse problem. If he knew even a little about Ozma he knew that most of her power was in her charms and enchantments. She carried them with her or shared them with others, and as I’d demonstrated they could be used by anybody who figured out how. So she had a
lot
of things she could gift, from trivial to not-so-trivial, and he didn’t dare underestimate her. On the other hand, if
they
won he would have to leave at least one of his tools here. Maybe an irreplaceable one.

Finally he sighed, reaching into his kimono to pull out a small white figurine. An ivory netsuke? It looked like a tightly coiled and sleeping snake.

Holding it in both hands, he breathed on it. And it woke up. “Fly,” he whispered, and it did. A tiny white Asian dragon, all scales and furry whiskers, it darted out to swim through the air almost like the golden fish it cheerfully played with before returning to sit upon Fourth Wind’s shoulder and wait for instructions.

“Little Dragon can find anyone he has smelled before,” the sorcerer told Ozma. “He can smell the approach of magic no matter how disguised, and he is how we found you today. He is incomparably stealthy, and you will be able to see what he sees, hear what he hears. He is also a matchless guardian except when he must sleep.”

He stroked the little dragon’s furry head. “Go to your new mistress.” The beautiful thing rubbed his cheek with its own like a friendly cat, and then launched itself again to fly to Ozma. It circled her twice, hissing at her fish, then settled on her open palm to turn back into a little ivory figurine.

Ozma smiled at it, stroking the ivory. “Thank you. Little Dragon will be cherished.” Tucking it into her coat, she unfolded her box and opened it. Placing it in the air in front of her to float like a magician’s trick, she widened it and sorted its contents to pull out the little wooden teabox. My stomach sank as she plucked out two of the last three paper packets of Six-Leaf Tea.

She held out her hand, and he accepted them. “A dose of this tea will break any evil enchantment, of any power, laid upon the drinker. It will restore the fundamentally transformed to their natural state. It will restore the weakened to strength and even the deathly ill to vibrant health. It is the master of all natural and magical poisons, all curses, and all death-dealing enchantments.”

I sucked in a breath. And she had planned to use the last of her stash just to keep me awake? That was just
wrong
.

“Thank you.” The onmiyoji weighed the packets in his hand, looked at his fish. Finally bowing, he smiled ruefully. “Your generosity has defeated me.”

Excellent! / Excellent!
All our fish practically wiggled with delight.

The insane impulse to do a jumping
Go team Ronin!
cheer was me trying not to think about my turn. A trade of blows? I didn’t think anyone here could
survive
a real punch from me. Could I punch—
kill
—someone who just stood and took it?
No
. And a trade of oaths? What exactly was
that
?

And should it bother me that
Kitsune
seemed utterly unconcerned about our side getting the first point? Not that I could read a fox very well—would a nervous one whine like a dog?