Reclaimed – Chapter 20

Soft rain, a mist of heated water, coats my face, the crackling of the building on fire, louder than anything else. My eyes see flames and smoke, but my brain only rewinds through time. My fifteenth birthday party when Miko’s mother gave me a tin of sweets from my favorite candy shop. Sleeping in bed with Miko as a kid and her dad reading us bedtime stories. Oyama delivering the cake to us before Miko’s wedding. Working next to Oyama in the garden.

Fading up through the haze of memories, a ping knocks on my skull over and over. Ping, ping, PING! My bag is pinging at twice the normal volume, but I’m frozen in place, Jiro’s forehead on my shoulder, his tears dripping down my arm.

“Oyama… No!” he bellows, leaping to his feet. He runs at a trash can sitting outside the building next to us, kicks it, and sends it into the street.

“Jiro,” I call out, smearing my tears and soot all over my face. “Jiro, stop!”

He lifts the trash can and smashes it on the street several times until he’s breathing heavily and starts crying again. My heart constricts in my chest, his rage abating while my dragon breathes fire as real as the flames consuming my aunts’ home.

Ping! I search for my bag as Sakai sits with Aunt Kimie and attends to her. I pull my tablet out and a priority message from Lucy blinks on the screen awaiting my identification.

“Maeda missing. Miura’s wife dead and daughters missing. Risa’s parents found on city’s outskirts. Enemy hostage at the estate. I’m at city center directing emergency relief.”

My arm throbs, and when I glance at it, a bright red and blistering line crosscuts my tricep, the cloth there burned away and into the wound. Looking at the injury makes me sick to my stomach, so I drop my arm and reach for my bag.

“Jiro! Let’s go.” Grabbing Jiro’s arm as I sprint past him, I wrench him forward towards the hill to our estate. He stumbles but his legs pick up the same pace as mine.

“Where are you going?” Sakai shouts after me.

“Wait!” Usagi runs up behind us. “I need to check on Helena and Hiro.”

My tired, jelly-filled legs pound the pavement. If there’s an enemy hostage at the estate, I’m going to be the first and possibly last person he ever sees. We crest the hill, and inside the gate to the front courtyard, our security staff has a man on his knees, swords to his chest. The main building appears to be unharmed, at least not on fire, and the only smoke in the air is coming from town.

I force my legs to sprint, drop my bag, and launch myself at the hostage. Everyone scatters as rocks fly from our impact and the man cries out. He’s dressed all in black, and I recognize him as one of the Koga Kuroi Ninjas, one of the men who walked me home from my capture at the palace. I pin him down as Jiro comes up by my side, Oninoten out and straight to the man’s face.

“Get off me!” he yells in my face, his breath sour and hot.

I slap one hand over his mouth and pinch his nose with my other, a bursting well of rage exploding inside of me. He struggles, shaking his head side to side, until Jiro brings the tip of Oninoten to his throat. I lean in slow, my lips a centimeter from his face.

“You’re going to suffocate, and guess what? I don’t give a shit. I don’t care about you, your life, your family. If you die right now, it will be of no difference to me. You’re one of Koga’s men and now I know exactly who to destroy. Do you hear me? I have shuttles. I’ll burn the entire village to the ground. If you value your own life, you’ll tell me something I don’t already know. Do you?”

Whimpering bubbles up as the veins on his temple begin to throb.

“Blink if you’re gonna talk.”

He blinks rapidly, and I hesitate a moment before letting go. Rocking his head back, he gasps for air, gulping it down.

“Fucking bitch,” he spits at me.

Usagi, silent until this moment, growls, runs forward, and kicks the guy in the balls. “You killed my brother!” Two security guards grab Usagi and hold him as the man writhes under me.

“Listen!” I yell in his face. “You have five seconds to talk. One…”

His eyes swivel around to everyone over him. “I have family in my village.”

“Give me a reason not to kill them all.”

He grunts and closes his eyes. “We fought. Koga wanted us to stay out of your alien affairs, but a lot of us didn’t agree. What would be the point of letting you come in and take over when this world belongs to us!” He screams it, his chest lifting me up off the ground. “This world belongs to us.” His eyes narrow on mine. “So we left. Miura hired us. Some woman named Sachi told us which buildings to burn. Don’t blame my family. They begged me not to go.”

Is it the truth?

“Sanaa…” A sweet, girly voice calls my name from the shadows, a flashing of yellow eyes running to me. Momo. “What are you doing here?”

I stand up, rub my face, and hold out my arms to her. She jumps into the nest I make at my chest, purring and rubbing her whiskers against my cheek.

“The whole city is on fire,” I say, turning to the drop-off and street leading to town. In the distance, bright licks of orange flame consume more buildings than I can count. My poor city. I was worried something like this would happen, and it did despite every protection I could put in place. “I came home as soon as I could.”

“You can finally hear me?”

I nod in response, burying my face in her coat.

“My babies?”

“I saved Arashi. I don’t know about the rest.”

A sharp gasp comes from the ground. “She’s a monster. She talks to animals!” The hostage’s eyes are wide and accusing.

I sigh. “Stop fear-mongering.” I squat down next to him and turn the side of my head and tattoo to him. “I got Oda’s chip. It’s technology, not some spell, not some spirit. I talk to animals and now I can hear them too.” Glancing up at my security guards, they process this new information with a nod of their heads. “And once my owl returns to me, I’ll know the extent of the damage you bastards wrought on my town.”

I clutch Momo to my chest and scratch the soft fur of her neck. “We will rebuild. Miura will never bring us down. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Jiro sheathes Oninoten and slides his arm over my shoulder, pressing his face into my neck. We both lost family tonight. I fear it may not be the last time.