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It took us hours to clear the debris from the enormous propeller casings. Once we cut away the snapped mooring cable, we had to contend with the slimy vines that had stubbornly entwined themselves around its blades. By the time the sun poked its bleary face through the clouds and burned the mist off the lake, we had a pile of unwanted souvenirs from Lake Motosu to show for our efforts: driftwood and dead fish, tattered cloth and tangled weeds. New scratches, brilliant silver against the blotchy grey metal, crisscrossed the rounded casing and scored the ship's panels. One unit's trailing blades were so twisted, it looked as if a feral creature, trapped by the storm, had frantically kicked and clawed its way to freedom. All that we were missing were bits of fur and blood.
"I had no idea the storm was this bad," I murmured, fingertips tracing one of the longer gouges near the craft's underbelly. "I didn't hear a thing."
"I wouldn't have noticed if a monsoon had hit us." Kei's head and trunk disappeared in the propeller housing. "The anchor probably did most of this." After some thuds and muffled curses, he reappeared, scowling. "Well, that settles it. She's not going anywhere on or underwater, unless we want to go around in circles."
"At least we can still fly. That's something, right?"
"Yes, but the closer we get to the Jukai, the more interference we'll encounter. There's also a good chance we'll drop our cloaking shields. I was hoping the water would've given us an advantage in that department, but now"—he shook his head ruefully—"now, we'll just have to hope for the best."
While probably the one responsible for lifting anchor, being so deplorably unschooled in the fine art of nuance, I let his cue to proffer an apology pass. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving."
Our meal of rice and fish passed in silence, until hollow thuds that sounded like muted gongs intruded. Without excusing himself, Kei rose, strode over to one of the workstations, pulled a green bottle and hypodermic syringe from a shallow drawer, then disappeared down the hall. Moments later, a door squealed open. Sounds of scuffling and low whimpers followed, but then, the door clicked shut once more. When Kei returned, his features appeared even more drawn than before.
"His fever's worsening," Kei said, his voice leaden. "I had to give him a double dose of the sedative just to calm him down." He tucked the medicine back in the drawer, closing it with a click that seemed to fill the room. "We should start scouting. From what Mazawa told me, Yomichi was almost a decade his senior, so we're looking for a man in his late-sixties, maybe older, with a medium build, and white, probably long hair. For now, we'll stick to the shore and look for trails. He hasn't lived out here all this time without leaving an imprint on the land."
I ran upstairs to grab my gear. Sometime, while I'd been making our lunch, my now-clean anorak had made a welcome reappearance. I threw it on and rejoined Kei at the ramp. The dun-colored, waterproof field coat he'd shrugged over his black sweater only accentuated his increasing gauntness from worry and lack of sleep.
After engaging the cloaking field, we headed out. We hadn't gone far, when I thought I spied a partial roofline, then a grouping of more substantially solid forms through the trees.
The buildings might've been houses once, but time had taken its toll. The roof on one had completely collapsed, while the other's still-upright wooden frame felt spongy, unwholesome to the touch. A profusion of thick woody vines sprawled over both and the soft ground near both ruins was covered in tracks from deer, birds, and what might have been a fox. Kei and I picked our way around them, careful not to add evidence of our passing.
Beyond the houses, the shoreline became rockier and the forest denser, Shoji's lapping water and birdsong giving way to only the crunch of our boots, swish of branches and rustle of leaves. We pushed on, fighting our way through obstinate vegetation, but without spotting a single track. Hours passed.
As we rounded another bend, a swath of rock-strewn beach appeared. At its far end, a long dark shape hunkered behind a cluster of bushes. Kei unholstered his MBL and motioned for me to keep low. When the sounds of our approach didn't frighten it—didn't cause it to budge at all—I retracted the naginata blade and whispered, "It's probably just a deer carcass."
Unconvinced, Kei crept forward, MBL at the ready. A few yards from the bushes, however, he lowered his weapon. "I knew we weren't alone," he said.
Nestled in the brush lay an old canoe. Old, but intact. Drag marks in the sand suggested it had been used recently, as did the length of new rope still affixed to its prow. Although our search for a paddle came up empty, as did our attempts to locate any footprints, neither of those things seemed to bother Kei in the least. Buoyed by the discovery, he seemed truly happy for the first time that day. "If we fly low, towards Saiko, we might still spot someone! Come on!" He dove back into the tree line. I followed, giving him a long lead to avoid catching a backlash of branches in the face. But when we burst onto the beach once again, the sight that met our eyes left both of us slack-jawed.
The ship now sat in plain sight.
Someone had lowered the ramp.
"Think this was Yomichi's way of sending a message?"
"Once she's cloaked, the only way to trigger the shields is..." he stopped, suddenly ashen-faced. "Hiro? Oh, gods, Hiro!" He sped inside, still screaming for his son.