2.07: Through the ShadowsI fumbled with my harness until Ume leaned over and snapped it in pce for me with a soft fangy grin.

  The rotors’ whine deepened. My stomach lurched as the rooftop dropped away.

  Tokyo spread beneath us, a mosaic of rooftops, alleys, elevated tracks, and shimmering gss. The garden shrank into what looked like a green postage stamp on top of Natalia-sama’s building, the shrine’s red torii shrinking into a thin line.

  “Akuchi, dear,” Natalia-sama said calmly, her fingers brushing a floating glyph. “Bearing: due north. I will guide you in.”

  “Aye, aye, Natalia-sama,” Akuchi’s voice replied from everywhere and nowhere. “Engaging. At warp speed! Please keep your hands and feet inside the emotionally unstable yōkai at all times.”

  We banked northward. The city flowed past beneath us, gss towers packed close together, scramble crossings, billboards and signs jutting out between them, giving way to older neighborhoods with tangled power lines and nes filled with cars. As Akuchi climbed, the wind hit harder, drumming against the fusege. Sunlight fshed off windows in quick, sharp bursts.

  I pressed my forehead lightly to the gss window, watching the world slide by with excitement.

  Sumire Shinohara.

  DOKI-DOKI

  The name echoed in my mind, in time with the steady thrumming of Akuchi’s rotors.

  Partners…

  My fingers brushed the jade bracelet at my wrist, tracing it gently. The talisman charm chimed faintly with the airframe’s vibration, like it was echoing my excitement.

  Engagement ring, my treacherous brain whispered.

  Ume abruptly plopped herself into my p, nestling her twintails right between my breasts. Her backside wiggled against my thighs. I felt every curve of her down there in a way I couldn’t ignore. Heat shot up my neck.

  If I still had a man’s body, I wouldn’t have been able to hold back a certain reaction.

  My face combusted, and Ume snuggled against me in delight as she looked up into my eyes with a faint blush.

  DOKI-DOKI

  I took critical damage.

  Ume peeked out the window, her fangies poking out around her lower lip. “It’s much better this way, right?~”

  “Knock it off, Ume!” Rui snapped from the copilot’s seat, instantly sensing what Ume had done, her imaginary horns twitching in outrage.

  “Stop making goo-goo eyes at each other, Susu,” Rui said, her voice wobbling between scolding and mortification. “This is not a honeymoon flight, especially not YOURS.”

  Ume kept snuggling, grinning at Rui.

  “It’s not like that!” I squeaked.

  “…It’s absolutely like that,” Akuchi murmured over the speakers, sounding amused at Rui’s frustration. “It’s sometimes nice to watch instead of participating.”

  “Fly, you damn fluffbrains! Fur-covered moron!” Rui snarled.

  The flight didn’t take long before we reached our destination. After a few more minutes, the concrete forest began to thin. Patches of older houses with tiled roofs appeared, wedged between modern apartment blocks. The echoes of the past clinging to the present.

  “We’re now descending,” Natalia-sama murmured. “Land in the big open space in my garden, Akuchi. Do you see it ahead of us?”

  “Yes. I shall, with aplomb,” Akuchi replied.

  The VTOL dropped smoothly, her rotors tilting, the world rising up to meet us. A rectangle of green opened beneath. We were in an old walled garden with overgrown hedges and a worn stone path cutting through it.

  We touched down with a soft jolting sensation, the rotors spinning down. Ume jostled around in my p on nding, making my heart lurch. The door hissed open and the steps unfolded for us.

  Cool, earthy air washed inside, carrying the faint smell of old trees and incense.

  Natalia-sama unbuckled and rose, leaving the front compartment. “Welcome back,” she said softly, most likely to herself, I realized.

  We stepped down into her old garden.

  The world here felt quieter. Not empty exactly, the air feeling kind of expectant.

  The minka that rose behind the garden wall looked like it had grown from the earth itself.

  Weathered wooden beams with deep eaves and a tiled roof gone dull with age, moss creeping between the edges.

  The wood siding had silvered in pces, its paint peeling, but the bones of the house were strong.

  The garden around us, though a bit wild at the edges, was obviously tended to. Stone nterns stood at intervals, their tops worn smooth. A stone basin for ritual hand washing sat beneath a bamboo spout, the water still trickling. Someone had left fresh flowers at a small sub-shrine… chrysanthemums and, I noticed with a tiny start, violet flowers.

  Sumire…

  Nine fox statues lined the main path, three on each side and three fnking the shrine. Some sat, some crouching mid-pounce, some curling around carved stone orbs. Each had nine tails fanning behind them in stylized stone.

  “You lived in this beautiful home?” I asked quietly. Her garden helped me settle a little, especially after what Ume had just put me through.

  “Yes. For a few hundred years or so,” Natalia-sama answered lightly, csping her hands in front of her. “The shrine is maintained these days by the family of some old human friends. Today they’re Shinto priests and their acolytes. They think I’m the protective spirit that’s supposed to be enshrined here.”

  A small, amused smile glinted in her blue eyes. “I suppose they’re not entirely wrong. Part of my heart will always remain here.”

  “Do they… know you’re a real breathing person?” I asked cautiously.

  She tilted her head, foxlike and elegant. “Of course they do. How else would I make sure my old house stays in good shape? I would not forsake my memories.” Her eyes went distant for a moment, then her lips curved slyly. “Anyway, they insist on deifying me, though I haven’t shown them my fox form in a long time.”

  My jaw dropped.Wow…

  Ume clung to my arm, nestling it between her breasts, sniffing faintly at the air.

  Rui squinted toward the weathered minka. “Does anyone go inside your old house?”

  “They do, but only to clean,” Natalia-sama said. “It’s my house after all. This house is considered generally off-limits, a sacred pce. They tend the grounds, sweep the steps, and refresh offerings here and there.” Her tail flicked toward the shaded veranda. “Which makes it the perfect pce for…” She paused when a loud noise went off next to us.

  WHOOMP

  Behind us, there was a soft noise as the VTOL shimmered.

  POOF

  Akuchi reappeared mid-air, shrinking down into her tanuki-girl form and nding in a crouch. She shook herself out, her tail fluffing. “We have arrived,” she decred. “No turbulence encountered. Five stars. I know, I know. I’m great.” She put her hands up, tossing her curly hair. “Please don’t forget to review Akuchi Express online.”

  “No one is reviewing your performance,” Rui said ftly. “You don’t even have a website.”

  “I do! I’ll make a special page for Akuchi Express if you promise to leave nice comments!” Akuchi grinned.

  Rui facepalmed. “Shut up and focus on more important things.” She turned to Natalia. “Where’s the portal?”

  Akuchi pouted, grumbling.

  “I suppose we should get right to it,” Natalia said, adjusting her dress skirt. “Come along.”

  She led us down the stone path, past the nine-tailed fox statues and the trimmed shrubs toward the garden’s quiet center. At first nothing seemed unusual. Just moss, rocks, manicured trees. It was the serene sort of garden where a breeze might whisper old secrets if you strained to listen.

  Then we stopped in front of what looked like an ordinary stone ntern. It was a little taller than the others, its top cracked, its base half-swallowed by creeping ivy.

  “This thing is supposed to be a portal?” I asked skeptically.

  Natalia-sama’s smile widened. “One of them, yes.”

  She stepped onto a circur paver set into the gravel in front of the ntern, turning slightly so the minka’s snted roof loomed over her shoulder.

  “Count the tails,” she said.

  “The… what?” I blinked, gncing around.

  Every fox statue in the garden, quiet, regal and watchful, had Natalia’s nine tails.

  “…Nine,” I murmured.

  “Isn’t it kind of vain to put so many statues of yourself in your backyard?” Akuchi asked lightly. “I should do the same thing if I get my own house.”

  Natalia flushed. “I didn’t pay to have them made.”

  “You didn’t?” Rui asked.

  “There was a sculptor back in Edo that was obsessed with me. He kept creating statue after statue of me. When he died, I didn’t know what to do with them all. I finally put them in my garden.”

  “Awww… Did you like him?” Ume asked.

  “Yes. It was funny how he fussed over worshiping me. That man’s children became the priestly line that’s been taking care of my home,” Natalia said. “Anyway, back on the subject. This statue is special. It depicts a different kitsune yōkai.” Natalia-sama brushed her fingers along the ivy trailing down the ntern’s base. “This shrine belonged to a different guardian long ago. A smaller spirit. When I took its pce, I rewove the old patterns.” Her blue eyes fshed. “Hidden things must be rooted in symbols humans already accept.”

  Her fingers paused on one particur vine. She pinched it between her fingers delicately and tugged.

  The ivy peeled away in a single smooth tug, revealing carved kanji on the stone, markings that no ordinary ntern would have. The markings depicted a stylized fox that sat before an ornate gate, holding a mirror against its chest.

  A soft pressure built in the air.

  The paper charms tied around the ntern trembled, although there was no breeze to stir them. The stone beneath Natalia-sama’s foot gave a faint, resonant hum as she slowly tapped it.

  She whispered a phrase in a nguage that sounded old, fluid and thrumming with a weird spiritual power. The hairs on my arms rose.

  The ntern’s tiny opening, where a candle might rest, darkened. Shadows inside gathered, deepening until they looked like pooled ink.

  Then the darkness spilled outward.

  It flowed across the ground like liquid shadow, forming a rippling circle at our feet. Within it, faint shapes flickered. There were torii gates and neon lights inside, warped at odd angles, silhouettes that clearly weren’t built by humans.

  “I… I can see through it,” I whispered.

  “Yes.” Natalia-sama stepped aside so we could look deeper. “The surface is like a mirror, the same one depicted in the carving. Reflections can be windows into the Yōkai world under the right circumstances. Haven’t you ever felt, just for a moment, that something on the other side of a reflection was watching you back?”

  Her eyes softened. “Perhaps not. Most reflections only show us ourselves and what stands behind us. But this one…” She extended a hand toward the rippling substance.

  “…once you step through this mirror of shadows, there will be no gradual transition.” Her voice dropped to a reverent hush. “You will simply be… elsewhere.”

  Rui’s jaw tightened. “How dangerous is it?”

  “Not particurly,” Natalia-sama replied. “From here, we are linked directly to a district that is adjacent to the council’s domain. It will be just a few streets away. Nothing too dangerous prowls there under normal circumstances.” She flicked her tail. “Assuming you don’t wander off and try to pick fights with every yōkai you see, we’ll be fine.”

  Rui rolled her eyes. “I only do that when they deserve it.” She eyed Akuchi.

  Akuchi swallowed audibly.

  “The council district is somewhat safer,” Natalia added. “There are a lot of rules and regutions. The yōkai that live in that district tend to be smaller, or the sort that thrive on bureaucracy. The predatory ones avoid it. If they misstep, the paperwork is too troublesome, and they might end up facing one of the council members.”

  My stomach tightened anyway.

  A whole world filled with yōkai.

  It wasn’t just one haunted train tunnel, or one awful Halloween night filled with mysterious encounters. An entire dimension filled with them. It was pretty much their home turf.

  I gnced at Rui and then at Ume, who had gone a little pale but was still standing firm. Then I noticed Akuchi, trying and failing to look as fearless as Rui. I peeked at Natalia-sama, calm, her posture still.

  “Once we go through,” I asked quietly, “we’ll be able to get out the same way, right?”

  “Of course,” Natalia-sama said. “The mirror is keyed to me. As long as I live, this path stays open both ways. But I think we’ll use one of the Yōkai Council’s in their building to leave.”

  She smiled faintly, her expression conveying far more reassurance than her words.

  “Don’t concern yourself with the portal. If anything unexpected happens…” Her beautiful blue eyes flicked to Rui’s chocote brown eyes, softening. “Protect RuiRui. She’ll need it the most.”

  “Alright,” I said, my throat tightening.

  Rui, strangely, didn’t look bothered at all, even though Natalia had implied she was the weakest of us, even though she’d manhandled a Noh Face and dominated a mischievous tanuki. She just crossed her arms and huffed like it was normal, like there was nothing unusual about any of this.

  We gathered at the edge of the pool of shadows. The surface trembled like dark water, but it didn’t p against the stones like water would have.

  Rui drew in a breath, her fists clenching at her sides.

  “Ready to make the plunge, Susu?” she asked with a wide grin.

  “…Not exactly,” I admitted. “But… I’ll go anyway. My future waits for me somewhere in there.”

  “Good answer,” she said, then offered her hand to me, averting her eyes and blushing.

  I smiled. Apparently it’s entirely for my sake. My fingers twined around hers automatically.

  Akuchi stepped to my other side, seizing my other hand. “I am with you, every step, Sumire-sama.”

  Ume silently slipped into a pce between Akuchi and me, bumping her with her hip, ciming the whole arm that Akuchi had taken the hand of and wrapping her surprisingly springy breasts around it.

  I blushed in reaction and she grinned in victory.

  Akuchi pouted. “I don’t like being upstaged. Be careful little vampire. I might start thinking of you as a rival.”

  Ume winked at Akuchi. “You didn’t already? How silly.~”

  DOKI-DOKI

  Despite her good cheer and how she was pying it up, her grip on my arm felt a little unsteady. Her breathing was a little too quick. I felt every rise and fall of her chest against me. She was anxious for reasons she didn’t voice.

  That small crack in her act tugged at me. I shifted closer without thinking, keeping my arm firm where she held it. If anything reached for her on the other side of that mirror, I would put myself in their way.

  Natalia-sama watched us all, pride and something close to fondness in her gaze.

  “On three,” she said softly. “One… two…”

  We stepped forward on “two.”

  The shadows rose up around us, the sensation cool and velvety. We waded through the dark substance. It was strange that it didn’t try to cling to our skins as we plunged. For a heartbeat, everything vanished. Light, sound and the feel of the garden stones beneath our feet.

  Abruptly a new world snapped into pce.

  We stood in the middle of a street.

  At least… It resembled one.

  Buildings rose on either side in shapes that echoed Tokyo, an assortment of apartments, shopfronts, and older houses pressed together. There were no vending machines on every corner, and no convenience stores either.

  The yout of this city was close enough to fool my eyes for a second, but the details were skewed in a way I couldn’t get used to, like the whole street had been copied from memory by something that didn’t actually understand people.

  The buildings leaned a little without actually being ready to fall over, snted at an angle like they were frozen in time mid-bowing. Their roofs were decorated with extra flourishes and their eaves stretched into horn-like points.

  The windows were tall and far too narrow to be useful, and some were set at angles you couldn’t even stand at.

  Flickering nterns hung where streetlights should have been, their paper skins painted with symbols that seemed to crawl, alive, like insects.

  The sky overhead wasn’t blue either. It was a gradient of deep indigo fading to vender near the horizon, streaked with slow-moving wisps of pale light that pulsed gently, like the aurora had gotten lost and settled permanently over this city.

  Distant towers glimmered in colors that Tokyo had never had.

  Soft ghostly greens, deep indigo blues, and floating crimson points that drifted like embers suspended in time.

  Shadows moved in alleys and on balconies, some shaped like people, some… not.

  A train roared overhead on tracks that weren’t attached to anything, its cars translucent, filled with silhouettes that flickered in and out like the whole thing had a signal problem. It passed through a building, leaving ripples of light in its wake.

  I blinked, struggling to understand what I was seeing.

  The air felt thicker, humming against my skin. Every breath tasted faintly of incense and the sharp bite of ozone, with something sweet and rotten underneath, like fallen leaves after rain.

  “…Welcome,” Natalia-sama said quietly, her voice echoing strangely in this pce. “To the yōkai world.”