LA DIASPORA
I reached the shallow river crossing. Although this was the shallowest crossing north of the bridge, I knew the river reached my waist at its deepest point. I used to not like the water.
When I was younger, my parents took me on an excursion to the beach. An unexpected wave had knocked me off my feet, and I churned and tumbled through the sea. Although I washed up a couple of heartbeats later, I never forgot the fear and helplessness I felt at being at the mercy of something I couldn’t control. I conquered those fears later, with the help of my Sistahs, as I paddled while they held my hands.
It was funny the arc of a life: knowing fear as a child, to conquering them as a young adult, to going back around to fear in your older years and knowing that your initial assessment had always been right. Life was an endless churn of helplessness and fear that we had no control over. The only difference was that now, I have learned to swim my way through it.
The river was a thick pink with floating cherry blossoms.
I kicked off my getas, peeled off my white tabis, and stripped down to my underwear. I didn’t have the time to dry my clothes if they got wet, nor did I want to return home in soggy pants. With my katana and wakizashi in one hand, and my clothes and belongings held atop my head with the other, I waded into the water.
The cold needled my ankles. The river was always freezing this time of year, fed by the melting snow caps atop Mt. Kuroi-san squatting in the distance. The water rose to my legs, to my thighs, and then to my waist as I reached the deepest depth. Pebbles and silt shifted under my bare feet. Gold-streaked sweetfish fled past my legs. Then something stiff wrapped around my ankle.
What the fuck?
Before I could react, I was yanked under the water.
The sun speckled the receding surface as I sank far deeper than the river should have allowed. With a clench of my teeth, I retained a grip on my weapons but released my bundled belongings. They floated up as I continued down.
I curled toward my feet, and with my free hand, yanked at whatever had caught me by the ankle. My grip slipped on something metal, like a chain. I peered below at the endless watery depths, at a large circular shadow cranking me down toward it. A demon, no doubt, pulling me toward its void.
I tugged at the chain. I kicked to loosen it and tried swimming up against the descent, but to no avail.
The River Demon grew larger and larger the closer it neared, and my lungs began to burn at the edges. It was like being snatched by the ocean all over again and I was helpless to do anything against its strength. Except this time, I wouldn’t be spat back to shore. This time, it would consume me.
No. Ain’t no demon ‘bout to have my soul.
Except for me.
I don’t have time for you right now.
I shifted Fuck-Around to my right hand, pulling it out of its sheath as I did so. I raised my arm, prepared to cut off my foot if I had to.
The water glitched, and my surroundings flashed between the bright colors of a coral reef, to an algae-green lakebed, to the dark awe of deep ocean. I’ve experienced this phenomenon once before. The line between realities thinned at the places where the demons appear and rip a hole through the world. Some people have gone missing wandering too close to these multiversal bubbles. Those rare few who return rave of metal birds, glass buildings, and humans with eerie pale skin.
Voices whispered in my ears, growing louder and louder as I descended. A growing choral of multitudinous tones. Some of the voices were comforting like the sweet edge of a katana, and others chiding me like a well-meaning sensei. The voices were from a thousand different multiverses—of souls who have drowned, who have sacrificed, who have fled, who have dived free—and inhabited the waters. They whirled around me with a chant that imbued my arms with strength. They gave my lungs new air. I felt buoyed by their embrace.
The chain came loose around my ankle, and I swam up towards the light.
When I broke the surface, the ground jarred beneath my feet. The river had returned to its former depth. I clawed through the water. Fallen to my knees, I clambered out of the river into the mud. Water dripped from my hair, weighing down the coils. Then I flopped onto my back, exhausted, chest heaving.
“Thank you,” I whispered to the souls that had saved me.
The sun warmed the side of my face, reminding me of the time and urging me to get up and continue. One of these days, I would have to slow down and soak in all these near-death experiences and process the exhaustion that seemed to root itself deeper into my bones. But that day wasn’t today.
With a groan, I pulled myself to my feet. I had to trek a little ways downriver where my clothes and bag had collected against a fallen tree trunk half-floating in the water. I pulled my belongings from the bed of cherry blossoms that had also gathered against the trunk. They clung to my haori like tenacious leeches. I swept them away and immediately searched through the clothes, and cursed when I retrieved the soggy paper talismans folded within my obi.
Well. Those were useless now. The ink smudged, and the paper wet. If anyone used the talismans now, they most likely would not work, or, worst-case scenario, backfire disastrously. I sighed in relief to at least find that the stoppered bottle of ink had not spilled or broken and was safe, as well as the rest of my calligraphy materials still dry inside the inro. I eyed that line I had scratched into the vial back in the village. If I went below that line, I wouldn’t have enough for the talismans needed to protect my house.
Was it too much to hope I wouldn’t run into any more demons before I got home? What a shitty fucking day.
I wrung out my clothes as best I could, but they were still cold and damp when I put them back on. I pinned my sunglasses into the intersection of my kimono neckline. The cloth straps of my getas were squishy and wet. My hair was quickly drying at the edges, shrinking and poofing up, but still damp at the roots. I ran a tired hand down my face, then froze at the sound of rushing water behind me.
The river hadn’t been moving that fast before.
I spun around as the river exploded to reveal the demon that had almost killed me. The water rained down, several drops pattering into my eyes and running down my face. I blinked the droplets out of my eyes and squinted at the demon: green skin, a tortoise shell, and hair slicked back in the hairstyle of a sumo wrestler.
Then it bent forward in the water, the top of the shell receding to reveal two giant blast cannons. I blinked. The demon was apparently some sort of . . . Blast tortoise? Who came up with these things?!
I leaped as the cannon blasted a hole through the forest. I rolled and scooped up a smooth rock, one ideal enough to skip across the water, and scrambled into my obi pocket, where I had left the ruined wet talismans. I grabbed the one with the kanji for LIGHTNING smeared into the creases. With a prayer, I applied the talisman to the rock. The rock wouldn’t be very conductive, but, at this point, did it matter? Adrenaline beat in my ears, unsure if this gamble was going to work.
I evaded another cannon blast. Then I threw the rock toward the demon, activating the seal as it left my fingertips. The rock plonked against the tortoise shell and then dropped into the water.
Nothing happened. A dud.
Then a simultaneous flash of light and crackling explosion consumed the river. Screeching like a thousand scattering birds. I closed my eyes against the brilliant flash. When I opened them a moment later, I found the demon had fallen back, floating atop its turtle shell.
Ha! Lightning beats water every time!
For a moment, I almost felt young again, reminded of a time when adrenaline and uncertainty were constant companions. At my age, you’ve seen almost every demon. You know how to execute every tactic with calm efficiency. Rarely did a fight leave me trembling with adrenaline like this, as if I were surviving scrapes by the skin of my teeth with my Sistahs again. I missed them. I truly did. I remembered that dumb sense of fearlessness and feeling of invulnerability that the world couldn’t cut us down. In truth, the world was a cruel, sharp scythe that I never thought could get all of us at once, but alas, the reaping came.
The firefly glow of this new demon dispersed into the air. More freed souls. Floating along the river like paper lanterns. The attack had burnt the surrounding grass and caked the mud hard. Dead fish had bubbled up to the water’s surface, but the river continued to flow, and the waters soon ran pink again.
Smudged with the kanji for EARTH, I crumpled up that last wet talisman, unwilling to risk another desperate move. I tossed it into the small fire caused by one of the rocket blasts. The river explosion had quenched most of the flames, but I dutifully stamped out the rest.
I’ll just have to go forward without any talismans to protect me. It wasn’t the first time I had to make do with such little ink. I had Fuck-Around and Find-Out, and they were always enough.
Ride-or-fucking-die.