CHAPTER 14

夜明け Yoake

Daybreak

The sky brightened, shifting its canvas from black to deep blue. In that pale light before daybreak, Hiro and Jet found the shed and the thick nylon rope.

The ravine was more than two hundred feet high and almost sixty feet across. Jet and Hiro peered into its depths, dark cavernous places where even daybreak hadn’t reached. Hiro’s eyes were tired and his body looked weak. Jet took his hand.

“Let’s go,” she said. “We promised Ojiisan we’d cross.”

Hiro pursed his lip, considering. “You’re right. As soon as we set up the rope, he’ll come. I’m sure of it.”

The misty rain was still falling. Hiro tied a piece of wood to the rope and threw it to the other side of the ravine. It looped around the trunk of an old cedar. Together, they tied it tightly to a tree on their side.

Shots rang out in the distance. Jet looked back into the forest. She knew they were both thinking the same thing—about Ojiisan—but there was nothing they could do. They had to keep going and trust that he would make it to them safely.

Hiro wrapped his arms and legs around the taut rope, and hoisted himself across the ravine, knees bending and straightening like a frog’s.

With an extra piece of rope, Jet made a harness and attached Aska to the line. Then she followed hand over hand, using her feet to push the dog. The autumn leaves below were orange, yellow, and gold. Halfway across, she stopped in exhaustion. This was harder than she’d expected.

Amegakurejutsu. The art of hiding in the rain. Making your body wet, slippery, part of nature, and drawing your strength from the elements. She needed to remind herself that she could use these skills. As she reached one hand over the other, she concentrated on bringing the rain into her body, seeing herself as water—no longer a girl hanging above a ravine, or a target.

But it was hard, so hard… She fought the desire to stop with fear, to drown in her confusion. She grit her teeth. Satako had believed in her. Ojiisan had believed in her. Hiro had believed in her. Now she had to believe in herself. Every time she felt herself being pulled down, she tried instead to imagine herself fluid, flowing like the great waves of the Pacific Ocean over which she had flown to arrive here. Slowly but surely, she felt her body melt into a vast blueness—like liquid, soft. Then it was easy—she gusted with the rain along the rope, pushing Aska forward with ease now. Briefly, she was no longer a girl but a part of nature. And then, before she knew it, she had reached the other side, gliding like water, then pouring like a wave onto the earth.

She’d made it! For a split second, she recalled that last time in the mountains, when her mother was so sick and weak, yet she still had fought so fiercely. Jet hadn’t been able to transform herself so completely into the elements then. Now, it had happened with much more ease, and she hoped that if she had to, she could use this skill powerfully again. If only her mother could see her!

As Hiro untied Aska, she looked across the ravine. There was no sign of Ojiisan.

Jet glanced at her cousin worriedly. Where was their grandfather?

Suddenly, a tall man in black staggered from the forest, heading directly toward them.

“He’s coming over here!” Hiro cried.

The man seized the rope and began crossing the ravine, advancing furiously, his hands moving with inhuman speed.

“Let’s cut it!” Jet said.

“No! Ojiisan won’t be able to cross!” Hiro shouted. “Look! He’s wounded, and there are two of us. Three, including Aska. We can fight him!”

Jet looked back over at the man. He was halfway across. Blood covered his clothes. Then she saw it. A flash of silver. A blade flew out of the forest, striking his back. His hands slipped from the rope, and he fell, disappearing into the ravine.

Ojiisan staggered from the forest. His clothes were dark with blood—his or another’s?

“Ojiisan!” Hiro shouted. “Hold on! I’m coming!” He began to cross the ravine.

Ojiisan held up his palm. “Stay where you are. There are no guarantees you can make it back over.”

“I don’t care!”

“Hiro, no! Remember what I taught you!” he shouted, but Hiro’s gaze was elsewhere.

“Watch out!” Hiro shouted.

Ojiisan had already sensed the presence behind him. He turned, but there was no way to avoid the knife.

“Ojiisan!” Hiro cried as Ojiisan pulled the attacker against his own body, struggling to stand. By now, they were at the ravine’s edge.

Jet couldn’t tell what was happening or make out the man clearly. All she could see was that he was dressed in black, face smeared with dirt.

“Ojiisan!” Hiro wailed. Ojiisan threw his attacker over the cliff forcefully, even as he himself fell. Jet and Hiro watched helplessly as he separated from the other man midair, drifting down the ravine slowly like a piece of silk.

“Ojiisan! Ojiisan!” Jet cried. Aska came beside her, whining desperately.

Jet closed her eyes and held herself, rocking from side to side. As if guided by some unknown spirit, she began to chant Namu Amidha Butsu over and over, hugging her body as she uttered the words Ojiisan might have said to himself as he fell.

This can’t be real. It can’t be happening, Jet thought.

“Ojiisan! Ojiisan!” Hiro echoed plaintively.

Hiro stomped on the ground, screaming, “I hate them! I hate them! I hate them!”

Jet pulled him against her to comfort him, but he struggled to break free.

“I could have saved him!” he shouted. “I should have saved him!”

“There was nothing you could have done!” Jet said, touching his shoulder, sensing how, every muscle every bone, every cell contracted.

“You could have saved him!” he cursed through his tears. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t come back, none of this would have happened!”

“I know. I never should have come here,” she murmured.

“You didn’t fight! You didn’t even move!” he hissed.

“Hiro, I’m sorry. Sorrier than sorry. You have no idea,” Jet moaned.

Sirens wailed louder in the distance. The smell of the fire crept up the mountain. Jet took a deep breath, trying to gather her strength.

“Hiro, please. Please come with me. We’ve got to get out of here now!”

“No!” he shouted. “We can’t leave. I’ll never leave Ojiisan! I’d rather die on this mountain with him than run away.”

“Ojiisan wanted us to escape,” Jet said gently.

“Ojiisan wanted us to fight,” Hiro said accusingly.

A thunderbolt cracked the sky.

Jet jolted, staring up.

“It’s Ojiisan’s spirit!” she exclaimed, “telling you to listen to me like you promised!”

“No. I won’t listen! You don’t know anything!”

“Well, I know this. I won’t leave you here,” Jet declared. Ojiisan had trusted her with Hiro’s life. She wouldn’t let him down again.

Jet took a breath and gathered all of her strength. She picked up Hiro by the collar and dragged him along the ground.

He struggled against her furiously, but she used every ounce of her strength to meet his power with her own, pushing him with her knees as she hauled him away from the ravine.

Aska whimpered and followed gingerly, unsure of what to do.

“Ojiisan! Ojiisan!” Hiro cried, flailing against her body, against all that he had suffered.

Jet held onto his wrists with iron fingers until she felt his will give in to exhaustion, and she knew he would let himself be carried down the mountain.

Aska followed behind them, head tilted to the ground as if she might hear Ojiisan’s footsteps on the mountain’s floor if she tried hard enough.

Jet summoned all her will to drag Hiro through the wall of trees, leaves, and branches. It was slippery underfoot, and she had to focus intently to keep her footing.

Suddenly, she stopped, sensing the presence of another being nearby.

A thick fog was settling into the woods, blanketing everything in a cottony white mist, and she couldn’t be sure if it was her imagination or reality. Her instinct told her otherwise. She knew enough to listen.

Jet pulled Hiro to a stand of pine trees and pressed his head down, making them squat under the pine grove’s thick cover. She steadied her breath and held onto Hiro tightly, stroking his head to keep him calm.

A dense black blur emerged from the cathedral of trees opposite where they were squatting. There was no mistaking this either. It was a bear.

The bear’s thick round face looked intent as its eyes darted around the brush. Jet had never seen a real bear in its natural habitat, and didn’t know if it was young, old, male, female, or a figment of her imagination. But when the bear lifted its long, curved, charcoal-covered claws to its face as if swatting away a fly, Jet knew it was real. Did Hiro see it, too? Jet held her breath.

Aska, too, seemed to hold her breath, looking up at Jet with expectant eyes. The message in the dog’s eyes was unmistakeable: You’re the Alpha now.

Jet sank closer to the earth. She could feel the bear’s gaze boring into her. She dared not look up, but she had to act fast. The gigantic hump of black moved toward her.

Was this the bear’s home? Had Jet intruded? She meant no harm. Could she communicate this to the bear?

She stepped toward the bear softly, the way her mother had taught her how to walk on paper. If the bear would let them leave now, they’d go peacefully and never hunt again. She would hold that promise in her heart. She’d tell the bear this. And it would let them go, unharmed, down the mountain.

That’s what would happen, Jet assured herself. If she thought so, her thoughts could make it real. Isn’t that what Satoko had always said? Thought determines action, which determines reality.

Ojiisan and Hiro might have been matagi, hunting the bear for its many moons of meat, cooking grease that would fill two vats, precious powerful medicines, and heavy covering to use as warmth in the snow-covered thick of winter, but Jet was not a hunter. Now she was the hunted.

Closer now, the bear loomed huge above her. She could almost see its breath, steaming in the frigid air.

Jet steadied her gaze and sent the message through her mind and out through her eyes, shooting her intention into the bear’s eyes like an arrow.

Her heart hammered in her chest. Hiro sat perfectly still, depleted.

The bear stood perfectly still, too, as if a statue of a bear in a wax museum. Then it let its massive front legs relax by its sides. It appeared to be frozen.

Her saiminjutsu had worked! She had succeeded in hypnotizing it! Now it was in receiving mode, waiting.

The bear’s eyes met hers, the light of the two round black moons boring into hers until their gazes melded into one. She felt herself disappear into the bear’s eyes, into its mind. Its belly was empty, and it was hungry, seeking nandin nuts, hickory, and chestnuts to gorge on. It had to feed its family, who were starving, too. That had been the only thing on its mind. But an intruder had come into its path, and it was scared. When Jet tapped into that thought, she sent her a message, loud and clear—she was not a hunter. She, too, was seeking sustenance and safety. Jet would not harm her if she would not harm Jet.

The bear blinked and lurched forward. Jet’s heart shot into her throat and she crouched, covering Hiro. Aska leaned forward on her haunches.

But the bear ran right past them, lumbering off into the woods, leaving Jet and Hiro and Aska alone.

Aska whimpered. Jet finally exhaled. She wished someone could describe to her what she had just done so that she could know it had really happened. Until now, she’d doubted her powers, those of her body and of her mind. But if she could go into the bear’s mind and soothe its fear, then why couldn’t she do the same with her own? Her mother must have taught her well, and maybe all she had to do was turn inward to find the lessons she would need to keep her and Hiro alive.

She took his hand and led him away from the bear’s lair, down the mountain. With a vacant gaze, he kept repeating their grandfather’s name as they fled the fires of Kanabe that burned ferociously in the distance.