– 4 –

Hikari kicked off her shoes as she flew into her house, Nobu's gift of mikan swinging from her hand. "Tadaima!"she shouted the customary greeting, "I'm back," followed by, "What is it?"

Ren stood with a yukata draped loosely over her shoulders, no doubt because her wounded arm prevented her from performing the complicated task of putting on a full kimono. Hikari wasn't surprised. Few women could do that by themselves these days, even with two fully functional arms. She could never figure out how Ren normally managed it.

Fresh blood showed faintly through the bandage around Ren's arm. She finished wrapping a cotton sarashi band around her chest and pulled it tight, grimacing. She looked up as Hikari entered. A pair of sunglasses concealed the light from her eyes. "You can sense it too?"

"Yes. It's the Corruption, ne?"

Ren nodded. "It must be a big outbreak if you could sense it."

"Perhaps I'm just becoming more attuned," Hikari said pointedly.

Ren's scowl was mostly lost behind the glasses. Her face scrunched up in pain as she folded the yukata closed and wrapped the obi sash around her waist with a hiss.

"What are you doing?" Hikari asked.

"What I always do. Stop the Corruption."

"You're in no condition to fight. Where's Jingwen?"

"He's gone ahead." Ren grit her teeth as she lifted her naginata. Sweat broke out on her forehead.

"Good. I'll go help him. You need to rest," Hikari said.

"You're not ready."

Hikari lunged forward and snatched the naginata from Ren's hands. She leaped up to the vaulted ceiling and jammed the weapon into the intersection of two roof beams. "I'm better prepared to fight than you are," she said, hanging from the weapon's shaft.

"Give that back!"

Hikari swung forward and let go, landing beside the wall of weapons where she snatched up a pair of katana from a stand. She bolted from the house, her feet barely touching the floor on the way.

Ren's shout held a panicked edge. "Hikari!"

"Stay and rest!" Hikari shouted back. She raced toward the beach, the Sacred Fire driving her legs at impossible speeds. She ran so fast she nearly missed the turn onto the coast highway and had to leap over the fence bordering the beach to avoid colliding with it. She jumping back over onto the highway and headed north, sensing the Corruption coming from just beyond the town's north side.

The source turned out to be a tight cluster of shops near the small fishing harbor. A group of local businessmen had turned them into a would-be tourist trap in an attempt to capture some of the tourists passing through on the way to see the big temple, Izumo Taisha. Even now a tour bus sat in the parking lot, engine idling.

A flurry of movement near the main gift shop's entrance caught Hikari's eye. A short man in an orange shaolin robe leaped back and forth like a grasshopper within a dark crowd of corrupted. His surrounding aura of light left trailing arcs of flame that crossed over each other above the corrupted's heads.

Remembering that Jingwen had been forced to retire from combat for fear that his power would consume him, Hikari drew up her own and charged toward them. She snapped the two katana forward and sent their scabbards flying through the heads of the nearest corrupted.

"I see you decided to join me." Jingwen gave a leap and somersaulted through the air like a circus performer. His butterfly swords snipped off heads with each bounce. "You've also chosen your weapons."

Hikari's katanas shimmering with fire as she crashed into the mob. "Ren wasn't too happy about my coming. I had to confiscate her naginata."

"If you could take it from her hand, then she is in no condition to fight."

Hikari spun in circles, sometimes rising up to split a head in half down the middle, sometimes striking low, cutting legs out from under the corrupted then slicing off their heads before the bodies could hit the ground. Dozens of black oil-slicked faces fixed on her. Jingwen leaped into their midst and spun, smoothly decapitating them.

Working together, they quickly thinned the numbers. But Hikari was surprised by how quickly she tired, not from spinning and chopping, but from the strain of holding back the Sacred Fire. She could feel its righteous indignation at the Corruption's presence. Restraining its eagerness was like hanging by one's fingertips. The ache of holding on was almost too much. She desperately wanted to let go.

Jingwen landed next to her. He must have sensed her struggle. "Pace yourself. Remember your breathing."

Hikari took a deep breath and nodded.

"Oh, crap!"

Hikari followed his gaze. A bus full of corrupted tourists had just piled out into the parking lot.

"I'll take the lead. You follow and clean up." Jingwen rushed forward leaping from side to side, cutting down camera-ladened tourists. Hats flew into the air still strapped to disembodied heads.

Hikari relaxed her grip a little and a surge of fire washed through her. It flashed under her skin like lightning within dark storm clouds. Her smile strained against her teeth. This is going to be fun.

She charged in behind Jingwen, sweeping her two katana around her in a blazing ring of fire. The Sacred Fire sang a triumphant chord within her and she laughed as the corrupted draw back as if in fear. Circling, she herded them together while Jingwen leaped back and forth among them, dropping out of the sky like a little fiery bomb.

Together, they drove them back toward the bus where more figures moved inside. Realizing Jingwen's preferred tactics wouldn't work in the confines of the bus, Hikari knew she had to get inside first. She leaped high over the crowd, stepping lightly off Jingwen's bald head and landed just inside the bus's narrow doors.

"Oi!" he objected.

Hikari flung her arms out to the sides. Her swords flared with the white hot flames of cutting torches and the fabric of the front seats smoldered in the heat. She laughed, racing down the aisle, effortlessly slicing through heads, torsos and steel handrails. The windows shattered as she passed and the beams supporting the roof parted, their molten metal ends glowing with an angry red glare. Hikari scissored her swords before her and sent a blast of pure energy at the back of the bus. It exploded outward and she somersaulted into the cool night.

This is fun! This is amazing!

She skipped through the parking lot arcing back to the front of the bus where the last of the corrupted had gathered around Jingwen. She hoped she wasn't too late to kill a few more. On the way, she accidentally destroyed a car parked nearby with a careless brush of a sword.

Such power!

Since the day she could walk, it seemed she had been forced to balance on a complicated and ever expanding web of demands and expectations. She was constantly reminded that one misstep from that path would destroy her entire future. Parents, teachers, her peers—even people she didn't know like admission boards of universities and medical schools she hoped to someday enter—held more control over her life than she had. Forced to please everyone else, Hikari didn't even know what she wanted.

But now she had more than enough power to do whatever that was and right now she wanted to kill the corrupted.

Hikari looked around at their disappointingly small numbers. She stalked toward the last of the mob and began to spin, her incandescent swords leaving deep slashes in the pavement, its melted edges bubbling from the passing inferno.

Blazing pieces of corrupted flesh flew in all directions as if they had fallen into a flaming wood chipper. She only stopped when her blades crashed into Jingwen's butterfly swords with the clang of colliding church bells. Her swords rang in frustration as they were deflected away. Hikari knew she had tapped more deeply into the Sacred Fire than he had and she struggled to restrain that power. If she hadn't succeeded in the last moment, she might well have cut through both Jingwen and his weapons.

Jingwen's sweating face drew tight with anger and concern.

"Did we get them all?" She grinned.

His frown deepened and he stared searchingly into her eyes. "Nearly."

The Sacred Fire pulled her gaze toward the gift shop. She was only faintly aware of flying across the parking lot, arms extended, swords blazing behind her like fiery wings.

Without slowing, she punched through the door leaving the door frame — and parts of the surrounding wall where her arms had smashed through — in blazing splinters.

The Corruption had transformed the store into a nightmare from another world. Two store clerks and a handful of tourists had been changed beyond anything human. Their distorted bodies stumbled about on swollen legs looking like walking seed pods. Their faces, mask-like caricatures of the humans they had once been, were pressed into their outer husks.

In the back of the store, thick black tendrils branched out from darkened refrigeration units where drinks had been kept. Looking like the engorged roots of a giant charred redwood tree — the smallest tendrils were as thick as fire hoses — they had wrapped around the store's shelves and twisted them as if the steel were no more than thin strips of foil.

Oily black liquid oozed from everything. It crawling across the floors and the countertops and up the walls with a life of its own. Hikari stomped into the nearest puddle of black with flaming indignation. Tongues of fire licked out around her foot and a noxious fume rose upward as the ooze smoldered and burned.

The darkness within the coolers seemed to reach beyond the back wall into a cold and empty space beyond this world. The whispers grew louder in Hikari's mind and with them a profound sense of loss. Something was missing.

Hikari heard her father's laugh and her mother's soft voice. She felt her little brother, Daichi, wrap his arms around her legs so tight she nearly fell. She remembered the warmth of her mother's arms, the gentle touch of her hands as she brushed Hikari's hair... The memories returned with piercing immediacy, then slowly faded leaving a deep aching loneliness in her soul. She needed those things. She needed them back. A strange compulsion grew within her like the desperate hunger of starvation. She whispered plaintively, "Mother? Where are you?" She had to find her. She had to find her family.

The darkness pulled at her as if gravity had shifted and she had already leaned out too far over an empty frozen pit of infinite darkness.

"Mom... Dad... Daichi... Where are you? Come back. I don't want to be alone!"

The heat drained from her body. She shivered and stepped forward. "I must... I..." Her foot splashed down into another black pool and pain shot up her leg. She had not felt such searing heat since she was first awakened and with the pain came a new realization.

They would use me, she thought. They would use my pain and mock me with it!

Flames erupted from her blades; their low fluttering sounded almost like a growl. She spread her arms and a flash of heat lifted her from the floor. The black root-like tendrils withered and recoiled, steam whistling out like high shrill screams. The monstrous remains of the store clerks and tourists stumbled toward her, arms outstretched and hands grasping. They collapsed, shrieking in the flames.

Hikari thrust both swords toward the dark opening and jets of flame roared out. The heat rose with her rage. The air shimmered and the two streams of fire swelled into a single roaring column of plasma. The refrigerators' metal sides glowed red, then white, then melted and pooled on the floor. The whole building vibrated from her surging power.

This is the Corruption's fault! She would have been back in Tokyo with her family right now if it weren't for that living curse from another dimension. It has to be destroyed!

She screamed and the air boomed from the sudden pulse of power slamming into the dark void. Wave after wave followed, each pounding into the void. The air thrummed from the continuous impacts which sent rippling sheets of flame splashing out across the walls and ceiling like an avenging tidal surge of light.

The dark void began to fade, driven back by the Sacred Fire. The world itself started to dissolve in the consuming light. Somewhere in the distance, a metallic clang and ring of hollow metal striking pavement approached. Shouting followed and someone called her name.

The pain and grief faded, taking with it the memory of Daichi's face and her mother's gentle touch. The Sacred Fire promised to burn it all away, along with her grief and despair...

Hikari shivered. Would she lose all her memories? Could she even be the same person if she did? The Corruption would have her cling to her grief and drive her to try to fill her unquenchable need. The Sacred Fire would cleanse ever desire except to be one with the fire.

She closed her eyes. She could feel that enormous power behind her, pushing her forward, urging her to use it. She had not yet tapped into even a fraction of what could be available to her. If she wanted it, she could find a way to tear down all of her restraints and open those floodgates. She could become a pure empty channel for the Sacred Fire to flow through.

No! Painful or not, she could never surrender the memories of her family. Even though their loss hurt, she loved them still. With a strength born of panic, Hikari yanked back on the power she channeled. As a falling climber might grab a rope — even knowing it would burn his hands — Hikari snatched the power flowing through her and held on to it. Something slammed to a halt inside her head. The impact sent her mind spinning. Her body went numb and everything faded to a silvery white... then nothing.