“Let me in!” Ikeda-sensei roared, shoving my head against the outside wall of the cultural center.
“Yamete kudasai! Please!” I screamed.
Ikeda-sensei’s fingers dug into my face, squeezing my eyeballs shut.
“You’re breaking my head,” I cried, beating at his arms and face.
“Nothing will break this head! Where is it? Where is the part that keeps me out? I’m going to find it. I’m going to dig around in your brains until I can pull it out with these fingers.”
I kicked and jumped but couldn’t break his iron grip. “Please, Ikeda-sensei, please,” I cried. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“I want this mind!” Ikeda-sensei screamed.
My thoughts raced around like mice trying to escape a fire. This is it, I thought. I’m going to die. Just like Aiko and Ichiro and Taiki. I’ll be the fourth. A possessed sumō is going to smash my brain and I’ll become one of the Yamabuki mountain-breath-kids.
I clawed at Ikeda-sensei’s arm and shook my head until I was able to open one eye.
“Let me in!” Ikeda-sensei bellowed.
But my gym teacher’s voice suddenly sounded distant. His bloodshot eyes transformed the world around us. Heaven didn’t look the way I’d always imagined. I don’t know what I’d thought, really. More light. Less freezing air. A few floating Shintō temples in the background. A sun goddess or two. Heaven looked more like walking into the kitchen of a cold apartment building.
The front door slid open, but the wintry temperature remained the same. I jumped back as Ikeda-sensei stumbled into the room. He was dressed in a pair of boxer shorts and a robe.
“Father, please,” he said.
I looked around but didn’t see anyone else in the room.
“I swear to you, Father, I haven’t been bad. I make tribute to your shrine every night. Just like you asked. Fish and seaweed. Every night. I promise.”
As soon as he said it, the stench of Ikeda-sensei’s apartment cut through the freeze and overpowered me. I stumbled back to cover my face. In the corner there was a small mountain of rotting fish. Dripping with ooze. Sliding off the bone and plopping onto the stained floor below. Above it all stood a single crow, cawing at the ex-sumō.
“Please, Father, no,” Ikeda-sensei begged.
Eat, came a dark voice from somewhere in the frigid shadows.
“No, I don’t want to eat tonight. Please, I ate last night.”
Go to the shrine. Kneel down before my face and eat.
“Father.”
Do this and you shall sleep another night.
“Please.”
Do it not, my son, and I will come for you. I will come tonight and I will tear out your soul.
Ikeda-sensei fell forward and dropped to his knees in the sludge and the slime.
“No,” I whispered.
But Ikeda-sensei couldn’t hear me. He reached out his huge hands and plunged them deep into the mountain of rot. As he lifted a fistful of slime to his face, the voice called out again.
You are a disgrace, Nobu. You are a filthy man. And so you will eat filth before my face for all of your days.
Ikeda-sensei chewed through the thorny bones until his mouth bled.
Abandoning your mother to become sumō. You are no hero! You are a rotting sack of meat! You have dishonored me. And so you will kneel before my shrine and eat nothing except rotting flesh.
Black slime oozed out of Ikeda-sensei’s mouth and dripped down his chin.
You should have stayed by our side, Nobu. You never should have left her to die alone. Money and fame and whores were all you sought. So now you will kneel and feast on the only thing you gave her in return.
“Father,” Ikeda-sensei blubbered.
Open your mouth and eat death, my son.
“Caw,” cried the crow above him.
Ikeda-sensei collapsed next to the mound of runny meat and moaned like a child.
“Koda!”
The smell of rotten fish disappeared.
“Koda!”
I opened my eyes.
“Koda, get up! We have to go!”
“Moya? Where am I?”
“Stand up!”
My head was groggy, but I could hear Ikeda-sensei moaning on the ground near the wall. His arm above the wrist was burned, like it had been yanked over a bonfire.
“You have to get out of here,” Moya said, lifting me to my feet.
“Where are we?”
“Can you walk? You need to run. Get away from here.”
“But his arm. What did you do to Ikeda-sensei?”
“Go!”
“Where?”
“Down the hall. Into the restroom.”
“The restroom?”
Moya opened the door and pushed me inside. “Go! They’re coming.”
Outside the door, Ikeda-sensei continued to moan. “Father,” I heard him say. “Oh, Father, what have you done?” Above me, the ceiling filled with tapping and scraping. I ran back to the door and peered through the open crack.
Moya the girl was gone. Hundreds of crows poured from the outside vents and swarmed a snarling, writhing white fox. It twisted on the ground, snapping its teeth and tearing at the flock. All the while a silent mist of fumes snaked across the ground. Then, in a single flash, the crows burst into roaring flames. In the midst of it stood the white fox, untouched, enveloped in fire, licking its stained fur.
“Kitsune,” I whispered.
The fox looked up and growled at me. I slammed the door and ran down the hall.
* * *
“What. Was. That?” I yelled when Moya slipped into the men’s restroom.
“I’m sorry, kid. I had to let Kōtenbō make his move. What did you see?”
“What did I see? I saw Ikeda-sensei trying to tear my head off my body!”
“Skin and bones can be fixed, Koda. Did he have a memory that would help us?”
“Did you kill him, Moya? Did you kill my gym teacher?”
“No! I don’t kill innocent people. Even huge jerk-faced innocent people. His arm’s just a little singed.”
“That was a third-degree burn!”
“Second-degree at most. His mind was so scrambled he won’t remember how he got it, anyway. Did you find a memory?”
“And why are we meeting in the men’s room? You’re not a man. Or a human. Someone could just walk in here!”
Moya marched to the door and slapped her palm on the frame, melting the metal and welding it shut.
“There,” she said.
“The lock, Moya! Use the lock on the door!”
“What did you see in there?” she asked again.
“Gods,” I breathed out. I walked over to the mirror and held on to the sink. “Ikeda-sensei believes his father’s ghost is punishing him,” I started. “And Shimizu-sensei thinks he’s being followed by dead ancestors. But it’s not true, is it? They’re both on the Tengu Road.”
“You need to focus, Koda.”
“Are they going to die?” I asked through the mirror.
“Probably.”
“Can we stop him? Can we stop Kōtenbō?”
“We might have a chance if you find me the memory I keep asking for.”
“I don’t get it. Why use crows? He’s a tengu. Why doesn’t he just stroll down from the mountain and murder us all?”
Moya walked up behind me and leaned against the wall. “He could have done that at one time, sure, but not anymore. He’s hiding.”
“Right. But why doesn’t he stop hiding? He’s a tengu!”
“He’s a blind tengu. And from what I can tell he’s mostly blown up.”
“What?” I said, looking into the mirror.
“I blew him up the last time we met,” she said nonchalantly. “It didn’t work.”
“Didn’t work? You mean the explosion at Ōmura Shrine? How does an explosion not stop a tengu?”
“Well, you jerk, this one is not so easy to kill.”
I turned around. “Why me, Moya? I’m not a threat to anyone! Maybe to bicycle helmets and my own face, but not to a mountain demon.”
“You’re a suri,” Moya said. “And from what I can tell you have an unusual talent for it. Most suri only ever lift feelings from their victims. Maybe they see colors or hear weird tones. Sometimes, with enough practice, they can learn to capture an image or two. But you, Koda, you lift entire memories from people’s minds. You break inside their heads and clip whole conversations. You steal interactions, spy on what you should not be able to spy on. You’re a potential danger to anyone you come in contact with—especially people who don’t want to be found.”
“Then why doesn’t Kōtenbō just possess me and walk me into Route 33? I wouldn’t be that hard to kill!”
Moya smiled. “You’re like a kaki tree, Koda. You might look weak on the outside, but believe me, there is great strength inside you. You are a very dangerous little mind-thief.”
“Not against Kōtenbō.”
“Kōtenbō is just a more dangerous mind-thief.”
I looked up at Moya. “Kōtenbō is a suri?”
She nodded. “Was, anyway, at one time. It’s the only thing that explains his ability to possess humans.”
“Wait, can I possess people?”
“Afraid not, kid. That is some dark magic. Kōtenbō embraced the Tengu Road a long time ago. It’s hard to say for sure, but he was likely a priest. Or maybe a pilgrim who wandered mountain paths to separate himself from the traumatic memories of man. At some point, though, Kōtenbō changed. He began to thirst for strength and power.”
“Or he could have just been lonely. You know, isolating himself to protect the people around him and then marching all over the countryside with no one to talk to. I can see how that could break a person’s mind.”
“Okay, do not sympathize with the bad guy, please,” Moya said. “If you’re having trouble with that, try counting the number of urns he’s created since Kōtenbō entered the Tengu Road. His humanity withered away until all that had once been good was replaced by hate and despair. Whatever man Kōtenbō was doesn’t exist anymore, and hasn’t for hundreds of years. He is a suri on the Road. And when suri enter the Road, they become something else. Their minds turn viciously on the human race, which had once been their own. They start not only to steal memories but to manufacture ones in their place. And worst of all, when Kōtenbō cracks open a human mind, the Tengu Road comes rushing in. The Road invades places that were never meant to be invaded. It infects them. Breaks them down from the inside. The Road fractures their hold on reality, and in the end it almost always destroys them.”
“But my mind is different.”
“Suri cannot invade the minds of other suri. That is why Kōtenbō doesn’t walk you into Route 33. He thought he was powerful enough to break into your mind. He’s now realizing how wrong he was.”
I slid down along the wall to the floor.
“The tengu is changing tactics,” Moya said. “He’s desperate. He’s trying to use his puppets to reach you.”
“Why doesn’t he just use you to kill me, then? I can steal memories from people who are not so human, so why doesn’t Kōtenbō just use his crows to force you into barbecuing me?”
“I feel like you said ‘not so human’ in a way that means ‘less than human.’”
I looked up at her. “That’s obviously not what I meant, since you can start bonfires out of thin air. That’s ‘more than human’ to me.”
Moya paused for a moment. “The Tengu Road doesn’t affect us like it affects you. I think it’s because we accept the inevitability of an end. Humans—they cling to life with both hands. They dig their nails in like they’re terrified of what comes next. A large part of the madness of the Road involves loosening that iron grip.
“And without that grip the Road has much less influence. Kōtenbō can still lift memories, like any suri, but his ability to influence … people like me is severely muted. That’s not to say tengu aren’t a danger, though.”
“Well, they are huge,” I said.
“Which doesn’t matter at all. It’s the swords they carry. Tengu taught swordplay to humans in the first place. They are very skilled at it.”
“Even when they’re mostly blown up?”
Moya nodded.
“If we can stop this sword-swinging puppeteer, though … You know, like”—I dropped my voice to a whisper—“if we can kill…”
“You mean tear Kōtenbō’s head off and shove it down his neck hole? Yes, go on.”
“Gods, Moya.”
“A tengu just possessed your elephant of a gym teacher and tried to physically remove your head with his bare hands, and now you’re getting squeamish?”
“Look, if the tengu isn’t around anymore, will that cut the strings? Will the Road disappear and will everyone go back to normal?”
Moya shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a nice thought, though.”
“Then I have a confession to make.”
Moya cocked her head to the side.
I took a breath and said, “I wanted to wait until we were under the kaki tree, but I know where Shibaten is hiding.”
“You found the memory?”
I looked around, which was stupid since we were the only two people who could have been in the restroom. “Yori was right. Shibaten did murder Taiki’s father. I convinced Yori to steal the evidence from the town hall, and last night I lifted the trauma from the watch Taiki’s father was wearing.”
“Gods,” she said. “I’m impressed. You are a dangerous mind-thief.”
“Can we cut the puppeteer’s strings, Moya?”
“Well, we’re a whole lot closer to finding out.”
“All right, then, let’s do this,” I said, walking briskly past her. “Let’s go find ourselves a river troll and stop the Tengu Road.”
“And try to stop the Road,” she corrected me.
I yanked on the door, which didn’t budge because Moya had welded the stupid thing shut. I did lose my balance and took a face-plant into the door frame, though.
“Gods, Moya!”
“Maybe we should take the window?” she said.
“You think?”
“Wow. You are cranky when you’re acting heroic and stuff,” she said with a smile. “I don’t hate it.”
I gave her a heroic look as I walked over to the window and shoved it open.