The training dummy shattered into splinters when it hit the wall. Lethaltooth maintained her stance, her chest heaving and her fists aching. She had lost track of how long she had been training. It had at least been through the night.
She had lost her edge. She should have known, after two decades of raising children instead of slitting throats. She was fine in a fight, but fights were not the only things to be concerned about. It wasn’t a fight that caused her husband to be arrested by Clan Sasaki enforcers, and it wasn’t a fight that caused her son to be kidnapped by another enforcer. Ambushes and shakedowns. Things she should have been able to prevent.
She turned to the next training dummy. Destroying them wouldn’t actually help sharpen her senses, but it would help her process just how utterly furious she was.
There are inconsistencies, Haruko had signed when she showed the flash drive’s contents to Lethaltooth and Silentsign. In the message between those who are presumably Asaki and Nobuko, Asaki says that she knows that Takahiko can’t be brought back. But in the video, she is ranting about learning necromancy. The books in the second video are genuine necromantic texts in Innistradi, but why would Asaki buy books that she can’t read?
Her fist met the wooden training dummy. It was easier to repair and strengthen wooden objects with magic than to get the higher-tech or fancier options. Splinters were easier to pick out of injured skin than shards of metal.
And why was that camera set up in that room to catch the two women having a discussion? Silentsign had asked afterwards. How would they not know it was there? Why wouldn’t they turn it off? Especially if it was this incriminating.
She spun and kicked the training dummy, sending it into the wall of the training yard. Once more, her chest heaved from the exertion. She was...how old was she now? Sixty-eight, sixty-nine years old? Maybe she was seventy already? It was hard to remember. Ayame had always been the one to keep count, and she had been dead for eighteen years now.
This whole thing was set up by someone, Lethaltooth had agreed. Even if it’s not Hanzo, clearly he benefits from this mess, so anyone who wants him to gain leverage on Koda is equally suspect.
Another training dummy was reduced to splinters before Lethaltooth was even aware that she had set it up to take it down. Her shoulders slumped slightly. Her anger had been burned. She was just leaning on the same skills, the same magic, the same training. And that clearly wasn’t cutting it. With the multiverse opening up more broadly, sticking to the magic and talents of one particular plane was going to leave her with more and more blind spots. She needed to...
She needed to do what her son did. She had traveled several planes as of late, but she hadn’t actually used anything from them. She needed to take what she could learn from other planes and use them to protect her family. Much like items in the Kit that had been handed down to her son. If she still had the Kit herself, maybe this wouldn’t have happened...or she could make people pay for it faster. But she would not derive her son of that tool. Not when he needed it most now.
She had a few options. There were cycling Omenpaths nearby that led to Eldraine, Theros, and – far more rarely – Odithis. There was one in Arán Park that led to Arcavios, specifically to the basement of Strixhaven University’s first-year dorms, which was under constant watch and protection by the Dokuchi because those poor kids did not need the stress of random people showing up in the basement. There was also the Thunder Junction Omenpath over on Hyozan turf.
But the one that drew her attention most was the New Capennan Omenpath on Dokuchi turf. The one that was controlled by the gang on the Towashi side and the Brokers on the other. Her son had done a damn good job as Dokuchi boss of making sure that the Brokers knew their place and didn’t try pushing through anymore. It was a tense and uneasy truce. Every truce was tense and uneasy, that’s what made it a truce instead of peace.
She made her decision and headed back inside to inform her husband.
New Capenna was bright, but in a distinctly different way from how bright Towashi was. Towashi was brightly-lit by neon lights and hologram advertisements. New Capenna was lit only by the sun in the spot where the Omenpath connecting them lay. The few Brokers keeping an eye on it saw the serpentine design of the wax seal on her “papers” and knew better than to ask questions. That was a good thing from whatever deal her son had come to with their boss.
Lethaltooth brought up the 3D map of New Capenna that had been built into her gauntlet’s tech. She had plenty of places to investigate, explore, and, most importantly, source proper additions to a new Kit from. From where she stood, she knew that the most promising tools would be found in the lower levels of this city, the “Caldaia”. She could probably figure out a way down from here...
Her gaze drifted over to a nearby train stop. That would be much faster if the trains going from Towashi to Eigan Town or Sokenzanshi were comparable to the ones here. Her pocket was decently weighted with some of the Halo that the Dokuchi had acquired from the Mukotai after that gang’s collapse, to say nothing of the more casual currency that she had converted from the kinsen given to her by her son. Reparations to our gang from the noble bastards who bled us, he had said.
She approached the ticket master, a leonin who looked as exhausted as she felt, and spoke with him briefly before handing over an appropriately-sized bottle of Halo. His eyes widened as he examined it, but he gave her a ticket – first-class seating, she noticed – and let her on board. She cursed under her breath in her first language and resolved to figure out how money worked here so she didn’t overpay again.
That regret, however, immediately disappeared when she sat down in a first-class seat and let out a low sigh as her old bones relaxed into the soft cushion. Okay, maybe there was a benefit to getting a more expensive seat. Especially since she could look out of the window and analyze buildings as the train went by.
Once the train started moving, it didn’t take long for the scenery to shift from a sunlit cityscape to a darker, fire-and-electricity-lit industrial city heart. This is what actually kept a city running so that the shining facade above could keep going. This was New Capenna’s equivalent of Towashi’s Undercity. This was where the working class spent their lives and this was where the most practical structures existed.
Lethaltooth stepped off of the train carefully. The buildings were primarily factories, warehouses, and apartment buildings, but there were other buildings carved out of the practical and turned into places for the everyday worker to grab a meal. Even the layout felt like the Undercity, with alleyways snaking between buildings. She saw humans down here, naturally, but also people that she recognized from descriptions as devils, viashino, and rhox. It was pleasant to not be the shortest one around, though she knew she was drawing attention as a lone nezumi wearing armor under a coat.
The cold temperature was probably the most unexpected part of New Capenna. Towashi’s weather was always mild and occasionally rain battered the layer between the Undercity and the “normal” upper city. But even down in the Caldaia, snowdrifts were shoveled up off of the sidewalks and roads.
Snow had even been cleared off of sturdy concrete benches scattered about. Lethaltooth settled down on one, sighed, and rubbed her face. She would get back up in a moment to start her search for supplies for a new Kit, but she was already growing tired. The downside of aging, though she was lucky to have lived this long to begin with.
At least she was not alone. An aged rhox with an impressive beard sat down on the bench with a soft sigh as well. The sturdy concrete had no complaint about either occupant.
“Long day?” the rhox asked, leaning back against the bench. Lethaltooth noted that they had a cane that seemed decently weighty. Good, it was important to have a weapon for self-defense. Lethaltooth herself was carrying a quick-draw katana hilt and some blinding powder, for example.
“Long month,” she admitted with a weary nod.
“Ah, I’ve had a few dozen of those.” The rhox pat the chest of their shirt and found a box of cigars in their pocket. They withdrew one and used a small spell to light the end. Based on the way it glowed, it seemed like there was Halo worked into it, which was very strange to think about when Lethaltooth remembered that Halo was a liquid. “Comes with being a single parent in my case. What about yours?”
“Not a single parent, but...” A pause. How much should she trust this stranger? “...Not a whole familial unit. Not like we wanted.” She sighed softly. “And with my children – particularly my older son – winding up in more danger... It’s frustrating since I can’t help them as much as I would have been able to ten or twenty years ago.”
They nodded and offered her a cigar as well. “As you get older, you need to change how you do things. Works for combat and protection just like everything else.”
She politely turned down the cigar. She had smoked more than enough in her youth; it was still evident in her voice. “That’s part of why I’m in this city. I can pray to the kami all I want, but ultimately I need something new to protect my family.”
The rhox tucked the cigar away and took a long drag from their own. “Can’t say I’m particularly familiar with ‘kami’, but it’s good to have someone keeping an eye on you while you watch out for yours. My child looks out for me as much as I look out for them, for instance. And it’s been a while since the people in this city have needed either of us, but... We still remain. That’s more than can be said about some of our contemporaries.”
Lethaltooth’s right ear twitched. She was familiar with the idea of kami taking on the forms of mortals. Perhaps spirits of other planes did the same. “What’s your child like?”
They smiled. “They are kind. They help at one of the soup kitchens down here. Making sure people get the food that they need, even if they can’t pay for all of it.”
That reminded her of her own children. All of them – Goldenscar, Koda, Ghostmark, and now Vasro – wanted to do their best to help people even outside of the scope of the family and the gang. Goldenscar and Koda both found it through working at Jinja Dokuchi, Ghostmark found it through repairing technology for people around the neighborhood, and Vasro found it through fixing problems for everyone in whatever ways he could. And she was proud of all four of them.
“What about your own?” the rhox asked, the conversation still moving forward as it should.
“My husband and I have four. Two sons and two daughters.” And also Satoru, but that was because Ayame had mentored him when he was still a teenager. She didn’t want to get into Ayame’s death with a stranger. “Our older two are first-rank kami priests and head one of the neighborhood shrines. Our younger son is a fixer of many things. And our youngest daughter helps make sure that things run smoothly in the neighborhood.” No need to bring up the criminal gang binding them all.
“Four! Goodness, you and your husband must have your hands full. How old are they?”
“Let’s see...Goldenscar just turned thirty-one, Koda is twenty-three, and Vasro and Ghostmark both just turned twenty-two. That’s to say nothing of all twenty of the children we raise through the orphanage, their ages range between three and twelve years.”
The rhox smiled. “Twenty orphans! Your family does so much, no wonder you’re so worried about them all. Especially as young as most of them are.”
Lethaltooth nodded. “We’ve made things work for years. We...finally got a break, so we have enough money to not just survive, but get the kids things that they want in addition to what they need. But still...I feel like if we get too comfortable, we’ll lose it and be back to bare minimum for survival again.” She sighed. “I feel like just buying a train ticket instead of walking down here was already too much, considering I can barely wrap my head around the idea of a liquid currency.”
“It is difficult to keep track of. My child manages to keep track of our finances without too much issue, but it’s still another thing on the ever-growing list.” The rhox paused. “You seem as though you need help from outside of your family to help keep them safe.”
“Help from who?” Lethaltooth asked rhetorically, leaning back against the concrete bench with a sigh. Getting up was going to suck. “The Imperial Court should never be trusted, even with my older son trying to change things for all of us. The rest of our...more extended family...are all struggling with their own things and relying on each other. It feels as though...”
“...As though you are alone to defend the hearth and home,” the rhox finished, their voice gentle and understanding.
She nodded slowly, staring up at the “roof” of the Caldaia rather than looking at the rhox. “Yes. It’s my family, but even we can’t always protect ourselves. Especially...” She swallowed a lump that was trying to build in her throat. “Especially with everything in the multiverse opening up this much. The threats have increased, but our ability to defend ourselves hasn’t. Add onto that the fact that I’m getting up in years, and...” Her voice cracked. “I can’t lose them. Not to people that I can take out first.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the rhox tilt their head. “You’re an assassin, then? You speak like one of those...what are they called nowadays...Maestros.”
Lethaltooth’s whiskers twitched. She finally looked at the rhox again to answer their question. “Talk about losing my edge... Yes. Retired. Been retired for a little under two decades now. Though I think I never should have done that to begin with. If I were still an active assassin...” She sighed again. “If I were still active, then maybe my elder son would not have been kidnapped by the family of one of his ‘suitors’. I could have slit all of their throats just for coming up with such a stupid, foolish, twisted idea.” Anger coiled in her gut once more like a viper ready to lash out.
The rhox nodded sympathetically. “And so you’re here to find something that could help.”
“Exactly. Something that I can use to keep my family safe. Tools, weapons, tech, magic, anything that will...” She took a deep breath. “Anything that will help me regain the skill and strength I had but twenty years ago.”
“...I have often felt the same way, though things are different for myself and my child. Long gone are the years when we had champions among the mortals.” The rhox finally took another drag of their cigar. “We were always worshiped as a pair, you see. There were no grand temples, just simple household shrines.”
Lethaltooth’s right ear twitched again. “Are you kami?” she finally asked.
“No,” the rhox denied with a small, secretive smile. They were still warm and comforting. They were a fellow parent looking out for their family, after all. “But we served a similar role. Old gods, now forgotten by most, still around thanks to the fact that the people of the city do still need us. Even if they have forgotten our names.”
An old god. From her own son’s travels and her own assembling of the initial Kit, Lethaltooth knew that gods sometimes served the same roles as kami on other planes – though typically they functioned more as myojin than the very personal neighborhood kami or even the Guardian Dragons.
But something still made Lethaltooth wary. After all, where there were kami, there were oni. And if gods served the functions of a kami, perhaps they also served a similar role to oni as well. Tread lightly. That had kept her and her family – minus Ayame, whose death was still her greatest failure – alive thus far.
“What was your role, back then?” she asked. Nostalgia usually got most people talking. It had just worked on her, after all.
“The hearth and the home. Of course, not everyone agreed which of us represented which during the time we were worshiped, but nowadays I’m the god of hearth and my child is the god of home.” Another drag on the cigar. The rhox was still peaceful. “I am the light left on so the house is not dark upon one’s return, the wafting scent from the kitchen, the chores completed before nightfall. I may not have a name to be referred to by anymore, but I still have that.”
Lethaltooth’s left ear twitched. Footsteps approaching on the concrete. Or rather, the clacking of hooves. A devil, around Lethaltooth’s height but much closer to her younger three children in age, was approaching the two. They still wore a simple shirt and a simple pair of trousers with suspenders. Their black hair was tied back out of their face. Their warm brown eyes widened a little in surprise when they saw Lethaltooth sitting with the rhox.
“This is my child,” the rhox said, gesturing to the devil with their cane. “The god of home, the work that goes into keeping the lights on and food in the fridge.”
The devil offered a nervous smile that reminded Lethaltooth of Ghostmark. “Greetings, ma’am,” they said with a small bow, as though Lethaltooth were the powerful being worthy of reverence here.
“A pleasure to meet you both.” Lethaltooth chose her words carefully. “I am Lethaltooth of Kagemachi in Towashi.”
“Lethaltooth,” the rhox repeated. “A very pointed name for a former assassin. Did you pick it yourself? That is common in this city now.”
“Of course. I chose several names through my life before settling on this one.” She smiled bitterly. “It’s something of a last line of defense for me nowadays.”
The devil looked to their parent. The rhox merely nodded once. It was the silent conversation of close family. Lethaltooth had often communicated similarly with both Ayame and Silentsign.
Finally, the devil spoke. “Can we help?”
Lethaltooth’s right ear twitched. Suspicion naturally colored her voice. “In what way?”
“We are not as powerful as we used to be,” the rhox began, “but we can still give our blessings and favors to mortals who act in the ways that we once did. We protected the hearth and home, and you seek to do the same.”
“...What’s the cost?”
“If we require help with protecting our home, we would like you to assist,” the God of Home piped up. “Especially on the personal side.”
“And,” the God of Hearth added, “if we were to visit your home, we would like to be welcomed in. Our hearth shall be yours as well.”
That was...simple. Almost alarmingly so. Deals that were too good to be true had colored many of the Dokuchi Reckoners’ early days as a gang under Bosses Hail-Fur and Puddlepaw. Deals with other gangs that turned into bad blood. And Boss Mazene following them up hadn’t helped in any case.
But...this was exactly what Lethaltooth needed. Something new, someone watching her back, so she could protect her family. These gods were not asking for bloody sacrifices like an oni. They were merely asking for the very thing her family already practiced: the welcoming of friends into their home. It wouldn’t even be the first time that gods from another plane came to visit. And if they upheld their end of this bargain.
She looked between the two gods, rhox and devil. “I accept.”
The rhox smiled warmly. The devil looked relieved. It was the devil, the God of Home, who spoke. “Then we grant you our boon.” They reached behind themself. It felt as though the fragile strings of reality twisted for a moment, like they did before a merge point manifested in Towashi’s cluttered streets.
But instead of two realms becoming one, a sword was drawn and offered with reverence.
It looked nothing like a katana or a wakizashi or any other sword from Kamigawa, instead bringing the swords of Odithis to Lethaltooth’s mind. It was greenish and golden and felt just as warm as the gods granting it. Intricate knotwork, or perhaps they were vines, were the main feature of the pommel and crossguard and ricasso. The knotwork of the ricasso led to two blades, each sharp-edged and mirroring each other, yet with a split where the fuller would have been. The grip was black leather carefully woven and wrapped, bringing a much-needed darkness to the otherwise-blinding blade.
Lethaltooth’s hand wrapped around the blade’s grip. There was power there, a power that she had never learned to wield yet one that felt familiar and comforting. Open sun-lit fields, a fresh breeze coiling through shaded forests, a fire burning in a fireplace and a forge.The serpentine tattoos on her arms animated, coiling beneath her fur. She welcomed all of it and felt the sword welcome her. She pulled the sword close to examine its most intricate details. As she did so, vines of light trailed after the sword for a moment after each move. Her right ear twitched again as one of the gods spoke.
“You will never be truly disarmed of this weapon,” the God of Hearth promised with a soft nod to her. “If it leaves your hand, you can recall it. You can also alter its appearance as you wish, but only in the form of a sword. We are not gods of warfare or the forge, after all.”
“Its magic will help you protect people, too,” the God of Home said. They shoved their hands in their pockets and scuffed the sidewalk with their hoof. “It can help you channel general magic involving the hearth and home, like magic that helps boost a garden or other natural stuff that creates food for people to eat. Oh, and vine growth, that’s probably the best offense stuff it can do besides...being a sword. It can also take the place of a lighter if you don’t have one and you’re trying to start a fire in a camp or home. And! Do you see the wisps of light there?” Once she nodded, they continued. “If you use that to grab someone, you can teleport them back somewhere safely behind you to get them out of the way.” They barely paused for a breath as they spoke. It reminded Lethaltooth of Vasro and the time he had explained Capennan combat instruments and their full illegality (instead of, he had stressed, their current mostly-illegal state) for a hundred years.
“Thank you,” Lethaltooth whispered, still examining the sword. “Both of you.”
There was another warm smile given to her from the rhox, the God of Hearth. “Of course. Good luck to you, Lethaltooth. We will be aiding as we can.” Then there was another slight warp in reality. Lethaltooth kept her gaze on the sword until the two gods had fully vanished. They deserved their dramatic exit, after all.
She had found exactly what she had been looking for. The beginnings of the new Kit.
Ghostmark stood in front of the mirror in their dorm room, silently gawking at their own transformation. They even reached out to touch the mirror just to confirm that it was real.
The other Strixhaven students – Khaeightlynne, Biilziebub, and even Ghostmark’s nephew-through-Vasro Gary – had done an incredible job. Between the makeup courtesy of Khaeightlynne’s stash and Biilziebub’s skills, the adaptations to the first-year uniform by Biilziebub, and the careful styling of Ghostmark’s hair by Gary to resemble a more traditionally feminine Kamigawan look, Ghostmark looked almost completely different from the scared young man who had left Towashi.
Ghostmark slowly smiled. This felt far more right than any other attempt to look different had gone for them in the past.
Despite the stress that came with increased Oriq attacks early in the semester, a bunch of homicidal spy network thopters torturing someone to create more and more thopters, and a whole slew of homework that was made nearly impossible by a lack of magic, he was, somehow, doing pretty well. Well enough that he could be pretty deeply involved in the Strixhaven Star and the Playactors Drama Guild, at least.
He was also able to spend time quietly getting into systems to watch the staff. He was gathering information and monitoring them to make sure that things were still on the up-and-up. That was something he was monitoring for the Dokuchi Reckoners. And he was good at it. No one would find his trail through this unless he wanted to be found, even if they used magic. He may not have been able to do magic himself, but he could work around it and keep it from working properly. The staff and students’ reliance on magic meant that nonmagical solutions were rarely considered, and that was where Ghostmark thrived.
Ghostmark was laying on his bed and scrolling through a datapad that connected back to Kamigawa, allowing him to keep up with both the news and with the Dokuchi Reckoners’ activities. The work done by Clan Hayashi to better life for all Kamigawan citizens, the city-wide blackout in Towashi, a recent string of arrests of small-name criminals being sniffed out by audits... The city was just as chaotic as Ghostmark had left it.
Goldenscar was recovering. Doctor Tosari Itomi, the gang’s official doctor and healer, had come up with a theory about why her health had taken such a bad turn after she came home and seemed to be recovering from the typhoid outbreak. Tosari’s theory was that, as a kami channeler, Goldenscar was a lot more sensitive to having to quickly change what magic she was drawing on than someone who wasn’t a kami channeler would be. Ghostmark didn’t know much about magic, but it sounded like it made sense. It also made sense with how Koda had been “allergic” to the mana of other planes when he was still a planeswalker. Though to hear Koda tell it, the problem wasn’t that he was a kami channeler... Tosari’s theory was just that: a theory. But at least his older sister was recovering again, so Ghostmark could relax a bit.
He was getting along well with other students. They were all busy, of course, because this was a school and they all had homework. But he was making friends regardless. Rohia and the other Coalition exchange students, Razzle, Biilziebub, Ihrin and Kyros, Khaeightlynne, Lily, Grayson...
And Aurora.
Aurora Luna Wynterstarr.
Ghostmark felt his cheeks heat up every time he thought about the dhampir that used to be his sister’s roommate before Goldenscar got sick. He always felt so nervous around her. She was just so talented and kind and confident and intelligent and always took time to help him and Grayson out with Magical Physiologies homework whenever they hit a wall. And she was absolutely gorgeous. Her command of her wardrobe and makeup to complement whatever features she wanted to display was, in Ghostmark’s opinion, downright unmatched.
He took a deep breath. He’d figure that out later. Right now, he had to go help Biilziebub practice lines for the upcoming play.
Five people were clustered around a table with a stack of books, hidden away in the rebuilt Biblioplex. Lily of Thyrsus, Ghostmark and Goldenscar of Kamigawa, and Grayson and Aurora of Arcavios were all working on the same problem: the mage hunters that the Oriq used.
Grayson groaned and rubbed his face as he leaned back in his seat. “How is the origin of mage hunters of all things so hard to research? You’d think that them being used as weapons by the Oriq means that someone would have written a thorough summary of them already.”
“Or at least come up with some better theories,” Aurora grumbled in agreement, flipping through yet another book on Galathul’s assumed beasts and animals. She took a moment to brush a loose strand of hair away from her face. “They just breeze past where the mage hunters might have come from, every time...”
Lily finished another book and added another tally to her notes on a piece of scrap parchment. “General consensus seems to be either that the Oriq created them or the Oriq smuggled them from someone or something that created them down in Galathul. No one seems to believe that antimagic things can be natural, which I suppose is a fair assumption since everyone and their mother is capable of even a little magic on this continent.”
“That’s bullshit,” Goldenscar groaned, pulling her cloak more over her dyed hair since it was the most attention-grabbing part of their impromptu study group other than Ghostmark’s everything. “Nature will inherently attempt to balance itself in every aspect. That’s why the kami appear in every ‘color’ of mana and why the solutions for impurity are found in the same places that those impurities are.”
“I suppose finding out where they came from isn’t as important as figuring out how to beat them,” Aurora said, leaning against the table. The dhampir was the youngest of them all at the table, only twenty years old and thus a year younger than Ghostmark. Looking at her made Ghostmark’s heart skip a beat, so he tried not to do that and tried not to draw her attention.
But he didn’t really have a choice right now. “That’s what I’ve found,” he finally piped up. “It’s the purple spines on their backs and heads that let them sense magic, but the rest of their body is more chitinous. That means that the focus would be on getting weapons between the plates rather than trying to just stab randomly and hope for the best.”
“Good idea, Ghostie,” Goldenscar said, leaning forward to get a look at the various depictions of mage hunters between the open books. “Grayson, Aurora, Lily, how much combat training to you three have?”
Grayson shook his head. “None.”
Aurora shrugged. “I know a little self-defense, but nothing with, like, weapons.”
Lily glanced up from the next text she was reading through. “Combat is more in the realm of my sister, but I can use a spear effectively.”
“I’d be very worried if a goddess of knowledge didn’t know at least one form of combat,” Goldenscar snickered. “Alright, that will be our next goal, then. We’ll teach you two” – she gestured at Grayson and Aurora – “how to fight and defend yourselves with things other than magic. Weapon combat shouldn’t be restricted just to a ‘dueling club’ when life and death are the stakes with the Oriq and their mage hunters. By the time we’re done, you’ll at least know the pointy end of a sword from the hilt.”
“And we can train in our dorm rooms,” Ghostmark suggested quietly. “That way we don’t have to try and find a private place for all of us to meet up and try not to get caught.”
“Good thinking, Ghostmark,” Lily agreed with a nod. “Which cleanly splits the pupils here. I’ll work with my own roommate to have her ready for a fight if one comes to be.”
“Then let’s split and get to work,” Grayson said, standing up. He paused when he saw the full extent of the mess of books on the table around them. “Uh...after we put all of these books back, of course.”
“How much incense do you need, Goldie?” Ghostmark asked, his brow furrowing as he watched his older sister wrap up another batch of incense sticks in a cloth and put it in her suitcase.
“Enough to last the school year” was the immediate response from the much smaller nezumi. Goldenscar reached for the next batch. It was a good thing that both of their suitcases were enchanted with Jukai magic to be a lot bigger on the inside. “After all, I have a lot of work to do since we won’t have shrines there. I need to get another ofuda before we go.” At least Koda had agreed to handle everything at Jinja Dokuchi while the two were gone.
Ghostmark frowned and fidgeted with his own suitcase, even though it was already packed. In addition to normal things he’d need for the trip like clothes, he was bringing a few gadgets to tinker with. He didn’t really know why he agreed to attend Strixhaven with Goldenscar – after all, he couldn’t use magic – but he had gotten accepted during the tests thanks to his gadgets. He was going to focus on the least-magical courses and hope that was enough to get him through the school year.
He briefly wished that he had the same natural abilities and skills with magic that Koda and Goldenscar did. Goldenscar had the blessings of two kami to channel and extensive practice with both the purification magic of her first-rank priest position and the magic from the Dokuchi Reckoner tattoos. And Koda... Well. Ghostmark could try to remember and list everything Koda could do for the rest of the day, and he still wouldn’t reach the end. It made Ghostmark feel pretty small in comparison...which was hard to do more literally, considering he was eight feet tall. Ogres like him just kept getting taller as they got older.
“Do you think he’ll be okay without us?” Ghostmark finally asked. “I mean, he was getting better about relying on me as his second-in-command, but...”
“He’s still got Tsuji, Matona, Short, and Itomi while we’re gone,” Goldenscar reassured. “And we’re still tapped into the telepathic network. If he needs us, he’ll let us know.”
Ghostmark put his hands on his hips. “Uh huh. After spending years not doing that?”
Goldenscar paused in her packing. “...Fair point,” his older sister acknowledged. Her left ear twitched a little. “But like you said, he’s getting better about it.” She continued packing.
Ghostmark still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to all of this. Their brother was sly, always working on a plan and never really telling the whole truth about said plan. It was what made him such a good Reckoner boss.
Ichiro Hayashi and Yuna Suzuki were still alive. Based on what Ghostmark had heard about it from Koda, Vasro, and Kaizen, the attack would be swift, bloody, and involve many people from other planes. And the timing lining up well with Ghostmark and Goldenscar being away in Arcavios felt just a little too coincidental. Just like how the planeswalkers among the Dokuchi Reckoners were nearly all elsewhere as well – Lillie, Cunning, Honmo, Sasha, and Anva in Torrezon, Tony with Captain Storm in the Stormwreck Sea, Gesserith focused on his job with the Brokers, Ferlan fixing things in her new position as High Fae of the Court of Judgment, and only Vasro and Azzie staying behind in Towashi with Koda. Add onto that the fact that Koda was working with the Brazen Coalition to get the orphan kids taken care of and potentially adopted, and it all pointed towards one simple fact: Boss Koda Hayashi was preparing for the idea that he would fail in killing his grandparents and that the Dokuchi Reckoners would then be hunted.
Ghostmark took a deep breath. He trusted his brother. He trusted Haruko, too. It was the boss’s job to prepare for the worst and keep the gang safe. And Koda had kept them safe since he was seventeen and Ghostmark was sixteen.
He picked up Goldenscar’s suitcase once she closed it. “We ready, big sis?”
“As ready as we’ll ever be,” she confirmed. “Vasro’s got an Omenpath for us. Let’s go.”
Arcavios took Ghostmark’s breath away.
He had gotten a full dossier about the plane ahead of time thanks to Tony, so he knew that they were in the northeastern part of the continent of Orrithia. Behind them was the Biblioplex, the largest library in the Multiverse. The two suns and the star arches illuminated and framed the landscape. And even Ghostmark, magicless as he was, could feel the mana that seeped into everything.
“It’s beautiful,” he whispered, gently setting their suitcases down on the stone beneath them. He turned around to finally look at the Biblioplex itself. It was an enormous domed building that made Ghostmark feel even tinier by comparison. He already knew that he would be spending a lot of time in there.
Goldenscar’s eyes were closed as she tapped into the mana of the plane. Finally, she opened them. “It feels like magic is so much easier to cast here than it is in Kamigawa,” she mused. “I can feel the...I believe Tony’s dossier referred to them as ‘elementals’ rather than kami...and I’m looking forward to working with them.” She made it sound so easy. To her, it was.
Ghostmark tried to ignore the pang of jealousy in his heart. Instead, he pulled down his half-face gas mask and breathed in the crisp, clean air of Arcavios. His heart thundered in his chest from sheer excitement. For the first time in his life, he was on another plane, something he had dreamed about ever since Koda sparked and began traveling the multiverse to bring resources back home. “Where do we start?” he finally asked.
“Checking in, signing up for classes, and then getting settled into the dorms.” Goldenscar began walking in the direction of the building they’d need to get in, and Ghostmark made himself walk slowly in order to keep pace with her.
Once inside, they split to speak to a different person each and get signed up. Ghostmark’s aid was the guidance counselor, an owlin woman named Mavinda Sharpbeak. She offered him a beaked smile, and Ghostmark was glad that he knew Tony so well that he could read birdlike facial expressions. As they talked, Ghostmark came across a problem that he knew Goldenscar also ran into – ogres and nezumi did not traditionally have family names in Kamigawa.
Koda? Ghostmark privately called in the telepathic network to Koda and Goldenscar. When Lily signed up for Strixhaven, how did she handle not having a surname?
She used “Thyrsus” as her surname, Koda called back, nearly immediately. Why do you ask?
I’m...not sure what Goldie and I should use for ours, Ghostmark admitted.
Well, you’re both my siblings. Use Hayashi. It’s your name just as much as it is mine.
Ghostmark took a deep breath. Ghostmark Hayashi. He wrote it down on the form, then moved on to the next chunk they needed. He was nervous about sharing too much, but equally nervous about sharing too little.
Finally, the first year courses. “All first-year students take Magical Physiologies,” Mavinda explained as she dug out the list of this year’s courses and offered it to Ghostmark. He was glad that Arcavios’s common written script and language was one of the many that Koda had uploaded into the Serpent after learning. “Several of them lead into courses for the other colleges, those are marked appropriately on here.”
Ghostmark took the list and examined it. Three immediately stuck out to him – Basic Magical Auras in the general studies section, Beginning Computational Magic in the Quandrix section, and History of Magic and Art in the Prismari section. He marked those down as the ones he was most interested in and continued through the forms.
There were a number of extracurriculars available through or around the school. A list of all the official ones were present, though there was also a small-print note at the bottom of the page making a note that there were dozens of unofficial ones. Ghostmark had no intention of causing problems while he was at school, so he went over the list. Of the sixteen official extracurricular clubs, only two stood out most to him: the Playactors Drama Guild, which seemed to be theater kids of a level that the Living Historians would love, and the Strixhaven Star, the monthly newspaper distributed across campus. Ghostmark commit the details of both to memory.
There were also jobs available around campus for students who wanted to make extra money. Koda had assured Ghostmark and Goldenscar both that they wouldn’t need to worry about money thanks to Vasro, but Ghostmark felt a little odd just relying on his newest brother for monetary support. There were jobs available all over campus – in the Biblioplex, on the intramural fields or the campus grounds overall, in the campus magic labs and dormitories, in the stadium, at the performing arts society, and at the Bow’s End Tavern and Firejolt Cafe. Working at the Biblioplex would help Ghostmark get acclimated in there faster, so he also commit those details to memory. He was used to being the one to get things down from or up onto high shelves already.
The rest of sign up made Ghostmark’s head spin, but finally, he was done, and he and Goldenscar received their student packages and were able to head towards the first-year dormitories. Ghostmark was still responsible for both of their suitcases, and he couldn’t help but ask a question. He leaned down a little and lowered his voice. “So what all did you sign up for, big sis?”
“Magical Physiologies obviously, since that one’s required. Arcano-botany for Beginners for Witherbloom, also obviously. Beginning Inkomancy, I’ll admit that it fascinates me, even though I know I’m not joining Silverquill. And Basic Magical Auras to round it out, it’ll give me an idea of how magic is done here. You?”
“Also Magical Physiologies and Basic Magical Auras. I went for Beginning Computational Magic for Quandrix and History of Magic and Art for Prismari.”
Goldenscar smiled. “Those sound like they’d be fun for you. What about extracurriculars? I have my eye on the Fantastical Horticulture Club and the Student-Mages of Faith.”
“I really like the Playactors Drama Guild and the Strixhaven Star, but I guess that will depend on how they react to...me,” Ghostmark mumbled. If his hands weren’t full, he’d gesture to himself. Back in Towashi, being an ogre was difficult. Either you were a Reckoner and people hated you based on that, or you weren’t one and everyone assumed you were one anyway. Things like jobs and homes were beyond the reach of many ogres...if they survived childhood to begin with. Even the ogre villages at the Jukai-Towashi border were regularly attacked on all sides and burned to the ground. That was why Ghostmark had been adopted by Lethaltooth and Silentsign, after all.
“There are ogres here in Arcavios,” Goldenscar reminded him. “Hopefully the students are open-minded. Your dorm is two floors down from mine, right?”
“Dorm 205, yeah.”
“And mine’s 406, so two down and across the hall. Good. I’ll let you know if I like my roommate. And if yours gives you any trouble, I’m sure we can find a solution for that.”
Ghostmark stood in front of the door to the dorm room, the key feeling oddly small in his hand. The door was large enough for him, thankfully, and the ceilings were high. Goldenscar had taken her suitcase and continued up the stairs when they split off. His suitcase felt heavier in his hand then it should have. With a deep breath, he unlocked the door and stepped inside.
It was bigger than he thought, though still quite compact overall. He had been expecting something like his bedroom for the layout, but this was more like an apartment. It was mostly open-plan, with the shared living area and kitchen all as one thing, then a walled-off bathroom and what seemed to be doors to two bedrooms. It was clean and was the same white-and-grey color scheme overall that the first-year uniforms were. He didn’t have to lean down in order to fit through the doorway or into the room, there was plenty of overhead space.
Ghostmark blinked a few times as he took this in. He finally noticed his roommate, a handsome-looking human who looked about the same age as his brother. Smooth skin, fairly pale, dark eyes, and well-combed brown hair that already had early greying. He wore the first-year uniform like a soldier preparing to head to the front lines – crisp, clean, professional, yet to be stress-tested. This assessment was done in the blink of an eye, considering how quickly a Reckoner like Ghostmark needed to adapt.
Ghostmark offered a smile, trying not to seem too intimidating. “Hey there,” he said, keeping his voice soft as he set down his suitcase. “I’m Ghostmark Hayashi.” It felt a bit clunky, but he’d get used to his brother’s surname being his the more he used it.
The human had seemingly also assessed Ghostmark. Ghostmark knew he wasn’t much of a looker himself – dark purplish skin with slightly more saturated fur and neon-inked serpentine Dokuchi Reckoner tattoos, long black hair that he could only ever coax into a topknot, two larger horns at his temples and then much smaller spikes behind them, very fuzzy animal-like ears that only made it harder to deal with his hair, sharp teeth, and dark and narrow eyes. Even in the first-year uniform, he was obviously out of place.
Regardless, the human returned his smile, though his was more muted. “Grayson Wildemere,” he introduced with a slight bow. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
A fancy talker. Ghostmark didn’t often interact with those, that was usually what his brother did as the Dokuchi boss. But Grayson seemed friendly, which eased the tension from Ghostmark’s shoulders. “Which room is yours?” he asked, not wanting to make assumptions about them both being open.
“That’s what I was just pondering,” Grayson admitted. “They’re mirrored, which is more than a little disorienting.”
“Wait, really?” Ghostmark carefully and silently moved around the furniture – which seemed too small for him, unfortunately – and checked the room off to the right, then checked the one on the left. “Oh wow, you weren’t kidding. Mind if I take this one?”
“By all means, go ahead,” Grayson agreed, picking up his bag and heading towards the right bedroom.
Ghostmark retrieved his suitcase and brought it into his new room. It was fairly blank and bare, with just a walk-in closet with a floor-to-ceiling mirror in the back, a large bed, a nightstand, and a chair and desk under the window. The desk was too small for Ghostmark to sit at, but the bed was big enough to support him.
He put his suitcase down on the bed and opened it up to unpack. His armor remained folded and stashed under the bed, along with his odachi and his energy blade katana (thankfully, the safety was on, so it didn’t activate during the trip). His gas mask was set down on the nightstand while his gadgets and the spare parts went inside of its drawers. His casual clothing from Kamigawa was carefully hung or folded in the closet. The handful of books he brought from the orphanage’s library were placed on the desk in a stack next to the basic student package he had gotten when he finished enrolling. Once empty, his suitcase was stored under the other side of his bed.
When he was done, Ghostmark assessed the bare walls and frowned. He wished he had brought some posters or something along to decorate them. But, he reminded himself, he could always decorate more as he spent time here. With that thought in mind, he headed back out to the shared part of the dorm.
Grayson was still in his room with the door open, so Ghostmark got a glimpse of that as he stepped out thanks to the doors being even. It seemed like he was a lot more prepared for decorating a dorm room than Ghostmark was. The ogre hesitated for a moment when he got over to the couch. It definitely seemed way too small for him. As did the armchairs. Would he only get to sit on his bed? Maybe they could find a chair big enough for him, or he could call Vasro and ask for help.
He dismissed that thought with a shake of his head. No, Vasro and Koda were both incredibly busy. They had an entire multiverse’s worth of problems to deal with at any given point.
“So, where are you from, Ghostmark?” Grayson called from his room when he noticed Ghostmark. He was carefully unfolding some of his own casual wear, more in line with what Ghostmark assumed was the current fashion of Arcavios.
“Kamigawa,” Ghostmark replied, carefully picking up the couch and setting it down a little closer to the coffee table so that he could more easily walk behind it. He was aware of what Grayson was doing – fishing for information. It was something he was used to as a Dokuchi Reckoner, so he knew how to leverage things to get just as much information out of Grayson in return.
“I mean where in Kamigawa,” Grayson clarified as he hung each article of clothing. “My family lives in Rundlestrom, which is best known for its military academy. We’ve been there for generations now.” An old human family, probably moneyed and influential. Grayson’s tone meant that Rundlestrom was a decent ways away from Strixhaven’s campus.
“Towashi,” Ghostmark finally shared, giving just as much as he had received. “Its Undercity, I should specify. The parts of it that doesn’t get natural light. I’ve lived there with my adopted family since I was a baby.”
“Your family?” It was an open-ended question.
Ghostmark stuck to the facts. “Two adopted parents and a couple of siblings. Got a new adopted brother recently.”
Grayson finished putting away his clothing and came out to the common area, heading to the kitchen to see what was going on with the cabinets. He made a face when he found food from whatever previous students stayed in this dorm. “I don’t have any siblings, but I’ve got about a dozen cousins,” he said, volunteering information in return. He was picking up on how Ghostmark gave information and adapting. “I’m not really close to any of them. My father’s the eldest son in his family, so there’s a lot of pressure on me to follow in his footsteps.”
“I get that. My older brother is technically my boss. I’m just glad we get along as well as we do. And my older sister is the head of faith in our household. And a priest for a local shrine. She came here to study too.”
“You guys have shrines? We have temples here, maybe your sister would like to visit some of them,” Grayson suggested. He was looking for, presumably, trash bags. “...Wow, they don’t leave much in these dorms for us, huh?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Ghostmark agreed. “Uh, how good are you at cooking? I’m a genuine hazard in the kitchen, I’m not even allowed to use a toaster.”
“Can’t say I’m any good, but it sounds like the bar is low,” Grayson joked. “I can make noodles and I can cook meat. Plus, we could always just throw together sandwiches. Got any food allergies?”
“None that I know of, no. You?”
“Shellfish, but that shouldn’t be a problem. And hey, we could always go to the Bow’s End Tavern or the Firejolt Cafe if we don’t want to make anything.”
More stuff that required money. Ghostmark once again considered looking into getting that Biblioplex job. He couldn’t just rely on the money that Vasro gave him, right? But Ghostmark offered a closed-mouth smile at the idea. “Sounds like fun.”
He swung the door open with such force that it made everyone inside the safehouse go silent immediately. His footsteps echoed in the deadly quiet until he made it to the front of the room. He turned back, not faltering for even a second as the seasoned killers watched him for any form of weakness.
“Hyozan Reckoners,” he said, his voice carrying even without the speakers around the room, “our problems do not stop at the Imperial Court’s most recent crackdown. We have the potential for another invasion on the way. Angels from the plane of Xerex.”
Murmurs broke out around the room, and Satoru categorized them all. Frustration at it being so soon after the Phyrexian one. (“At least there were more than twelve hundred years between the Kami War and those Phyrexian bastards,” one man in the back muttered to someone slipping a light-dose poison into his drink.) A craving for violence, particularly among the more bloodthirsty Hyozan Reckoners. Ruminations on what the hell an angel was and where Xerex was. Disappointment that they would once again have to step up to do “the right thing” because the Imperial Court was so inept. A few quieter concerns about being able to fight otherworldly angels.
Satoru raised a hand, and the room fell silent. He tucked his hands behind his back. “Prepare yourselves for the worst. We will not be sparing any hesitation or mercy. We stand down only when I give the order to stand down. Dismissed.”
As Hyozans slipped away into the night to prepare themselves and share the news with other Hyozan Reckoners, Satoru kept a firm control of his body language and face. Internally, his gut churned with concerns about being able to fight angels with an additional two dimensions to move around in, especially given Koda’s current condition. Externally, the Hyozan boss was as he always was – cold, calm, in control.
Greasefang was on the warpath as well.
Every hoverbike was in working condition. Every garage and storehouse was cleaned up. As Greasefang examined the next pack of hoverbikes that her Okibas would be taking out, her tail lashed, betraying her irritation.
Her second-in-command, Bearclaw – a particularly tall and bulky nezumi who stood over a foot taller than Greasefang – watched her work. “The gang’s ready to move the moment you give the word, Boss Greasefang,” she reported. “We’ve got those Izzet things from Ravnica mounted to every bike.”
Greasefang had noticed that. High-power tasers – not high enough power to kill, but definitely high enough to cause permanent damage – on the front of every hoverbike, under the designed fangs of the rat-like fronts wasn’t something she had ever expected to see, but it also meant that they had more power that most people wouldn’t notice.
Greasefang grinned. It had been a while since the gang was ready in full force. “In that case, get us on the streets in rotations. We don’t stand down until I give the all-clear.” Her blood pumped in her ears as the next pack of Okiba bikers went out, and she was still grinning.
Koda Hayashi was not on the warpath.
He lay in the Jukai Forest, fingers clenching the blanket covering him. Turrak was with him to keep an eye on him post-heart attack, but Satoru had gone to rally his Hyozan Reckoners, Vasro was struggling with keeping up with the archangel’s actions against the Obscura agents, Leta was doing kami-knows-what to help out in kami-knows-where, and Shigeki was having his Order hold the line against Mukotai attacks.
Koda took a deep breath. He wasn’t supposed to use magic, but he needed to get out orders. Ghostmark, he called through the telepathic network. I’m sending you an information packet. Handle the logistics for me.
Of course, big bro, came his second-in-command’s response immediately. Any particular specifications? And are you feeling okay? Ghostmark’s telepathic voice was soft, warm, gentle. He was the reason that Koda fought so hard.
I’m doing better, but everything still hurts, Koda admitted, forcing himself to be honest with his younger brother. He needed to trust Ghostmark to make the right moves. Get the gang on high alert. Protect them for me, Ghostie. Exercise their strengths as they perform best.
You got it, boss, Ghostmark promised. Please focus on healing, I’ll focus on the gang. Love ya.
Koda smiled sadly. I love you too, little bro. Make me proud.
Not that Ayame Hayashi was too surprised. She had become the second-in-command under Tukebe when she was sixteen and took over when he stepped down the moment she turned eighteen. She had launched the youngling program so that Dokuchi Reckoners could fully join the gang yet still be mentored by the age of sixteen. The young had a type of energy that she did not anymore, at the age of forty.
But Satoru Umezawa, a teenage boy whose voice hadn’t even fully cracked yet, stood before her at fifteen years old. He was the spitting image of his father Daichi and had the same temper as his mother Keiko. He already smelled of blood, poison, and technology, the three core parts of a Reckoner.
That was the moment that Ayame took him under her wing, to teach him about being not a Reckoner, but a Reckoner boss, and the pains that one would face from such a position.
A year later, Ayame held a little bundle in her arms as she gave orders to her waiting Reckoners. Satoru, now at sixteen and far less scrawny than he had been before, stood dutifully by her side, his prosthetic hands folded behind himself as he learned how to give orders hands-on. When the little girl in the bundle that Ayame held became fussy, Satoru took her so Ayame could focus on work. Despite the dangers of the life of a Reckoner, there were still always children to look after, and Satoru found himself gravitating towards those sorts of duties despite his position as a Reckoner boss.
Maybe one day, he’d take in one of his own. He had already learned the news of his infertility young, so having a biological child – as much as he wanted one in the future – was impossible. But maybe helping to take care of this child as his younger sibling would help fill that pit.
Satoru was twenty-one when he got the news about Ayame’s murder. He had grown into his own as a Reckoner boss, but he still dropped everything to take off across Towashi towards Dokuchi territory. Ayame’s child had already gotten the news, and Lethaltooth and Silentsign had taken her in, but Satoru dropped to his knees and let her cling to him and sob for as long as she needed.
It was the least he could do.
Satoru, at twenty-three years old, was the first one that Ayame’s child told about being transgender. It wasn’t a surprise, as Satoru had already gone through the song and dance of transitioning socially and, for the most part, medically as well, and Ayame’s child knew this.
Koda was seven when he introduced himself by his new name, and a quick-witted little bastard already. Satoru barely managed to not laugh when Koda showed him the kanji he had settled on for his name. Naming oneself “orphan” was a step up from Satoru naming himself the equivalent of “the guy who knows things” with the kanji he used for his name.
So it was Satoru who was with Koda when he told Lethaltooth and Silentsign, along with Goldenscar and Ghostmark. He was there to celebrate afterwards when it all went well, even acquiring a cake (or, more accurately, stealing, because he wasn’t above stealing desserts) so they could both eat until they got sick.
Satoru was the only person outside of the Dokuchi Reckoners who was allowed to sit in on the Reckoner tattoo ceremony. He was a tattoo mage for his own gang, so of course he knew the basics already. And Koda, at thirteen, had wanted a family member he knew well to be there when Flinttooth gave him the first of the serpentine tattoos that would define his life from then onward. So Satoru, at twenty-nine, got to watch as Koda Hayashi officially became a Dokuchi Reckoner youngling.
“Take care of my little brother, Benkei,” Satoru said as he finally went to leave, pausing only to address the man that would be Koda’s mentor.
“Until my dying breath,” Benkei Oda agreed.
Neither of them knew how accurate that would be.
“Let me kill Sakai,” Satoru, at thirty-one, had snarled over the frequency during a moment stolen in the terrible business of being the Hyozan boss. “I’ll have him dead by lunch. Lethaltooth, I will ask you for nothing else-”
“What Koda needs,” the elderly nezumi, probably in her early sixties at this point (though Satoru never knew how old Koda’s adopted parents were), “is support and safety, not vengeance. He will be able to get vengeance on his own time, when he’s ready. But right now, he needs his family. Myself, Silentsign, you, Goldenscar, and Ghostmark.”
Fifteen. Fifteen years old, and Koda had barely survived three months of torture that killed seventeen grown Dokuchi a month in, had bonded with a kami to escape, and had gone completely silent, speaking to no one – not even with nezumi sign language.
Satoru took a deep breath. Lethaltooth was right. Typically, if a nezumi made it to old age, they usually were. “I’ll be there in an hour.”
Thirty-three and seventeen were Satoru and Koda’s ages, respectively, when Koda became the youngest Dokuchi Reckoner boss on record. And the Dokuchi Reckoners were obsessive about their records. He had beat his own mother as youngest by a year, not even technically out of youngling training. But Mei’s illness had finally gotten worse, and she would need to dedicate most of her time to fighting it, so Koda Hayashi became the second Boss Hayashi.
And he was a natural at it. He was sharpened by years of being a Reckoner already and quick-witted from childhood, so it was difficult for other Reckoner bosses to not take him seriously as he poked holes into things and made a name for his gang once more. Satoru didn’t go easy on him, but the verbal push-and-shove as they hashed out a non-intervention deal was fantastic. It was almost as if Satoru were once more arguing with Ayame herself, except that Koda also had a temper that Ayame didn’t have. Even Greasefang, who was dating Koda’s sister by this point, had to give it to Koda that he was doing a damn fine job at keeping family and Reckoner boss dynamics separate. He was cold, calm, and firm in what he wanted.
Satoru knew that Ayame would be proud of Koda if she were still alive.
Satoru took in a lieutenant shorly after Koda became the Dokuchi boss, a young man who was sixteen named Hideo who needed a mentor, guidance, a parent. Hideo was like Satoru and Koda both in a lot of ways – quick as a whip, sour attitude, well-suited for the life of a Reckoner. Hideo filled a hole in Satoru’s heart where the idea of a family of his own was poked.
Even Koda had approved of Hideo as Satoru’s son and lieutenant when the two met, and getting Koda’s approval was a monumental task in and of itself since he became Dokuchi boss. Koda did not hesitate to give his approval to Hideo after dueling the younger man for practice just once.
But Reckoners were not allowed to stay happy for long.
The Phyrexian invasion five years later was sudden and harsh. While Kamigawa was used to the tales of the Kami War, they were unused to fighting their own people. The Imperial Court’s samurai fell first, quickly compleated. It took the combined forces of the Reckoner gangs and Saiba Futurists to fight back the wave in Towashi. The Dokuchi Reckoners were along the rooftops, cutting down as many invaders as they could, while the Okibas and Hyozans, among other gangs, handled the street-level fights. Satoru himself fought alongside Goro-Goro, an akki from the Sokenzan mountains.
But even with all of this, Reckoners and Futurists also fell to the invasion.
It was only after the invasion finally stopped all at once, when the bodies of the fallen Reckoners were recovered, that Satoru found Hideo’s body. Koda was the one to recover it, half-compleated and covered in oil.
Koda knelt down beside Satoru and made sure that the shadows hid his brother while he cried.
Ghostmark was, among many other things, a strict pacifist. Being adopted by two extremely successful assassins, having a powerful kami channeler as an older sister, and having Koda fucking Hayashi of all people for an older brother made it so violence was never something he had to do himself. It let him focus on the logistics of the Dokuchi Reckoners, to shift some of the workload away from Koda. Which was also a good thing, because his complete inability to use magic made it so that operating in the field was more dangerous for him than anyone else. Even the ingrained tattoo magic of the Dokuchi Reckoners did not leap to his call as swiftly as it did for his elder siblings.
He was happy about his lot in life – he handled the messy logistics, he took care of tutoring the kids and encouraging them to enjoy learning and thinking critically, and he helped with repairs around the orphanage, especially when technology malfunctioned or wires burned out. And, as of this week, most of his job involved teaching the newcomers about stuff in Towashi.
Some things, various people took to well with some help. Building repairs were easy for Bromley and the Jundians. Learning how to respect the kami properly was easy for Gouvle and Turrak. Several people assisted with the making of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, while others also assisted with the incomprehensible number of dishes that came of it. Ghostmark was even teaching Arturo how to fix the plumbing when the pipes got clogged or knocked loose, and the Marshal in question was taking to it with much bravado and... Well, he was working on the skill to back it up, but there was a reason Ghostmark was not using a functional bathroom to teach Arturo about plumbing.
There were a few that made him uneasy. Shimatsu the Bloodcloaked, the oni who apparently was his adopted brother’s bio dad, was high on that list. Ghostmark didn’t like being around him. But Zenkuro had stepped in – in the shadows, of course – to make sure that everyone would stay safe while Shimatsu was here.
So, Ghostmark left it in the hands of more powerful beings.
He sat on the floor with the younger nezumi twins in his lap, reading one of the books about the Kami War that the Dokuchi Reckoners had transcribed to keep. This particular volume was focused on the Takenuma Swamp and the early Reckoner gangs, with some of Haruko’s own recollections scribbled in the margins – an addition that the normal version online did not have.
“The Okiba Reckoners were once known just as the Okiba Gang, a ninja class in nezumi society,” Ghostmark read aloud, slowly tracing his fingers under the hiragana as he spoke. “They were outcasts, but even they had ostracized others. Even from its earliest days before the Kami War, they were exclusively nezumi. Through the Kami War, they were hunted by other nezumi.”
Palefur wiggled a little so he could look at the ink drawings on the page that Greasefang had painstakingly replicated from the ones on the technological counterpart of this particular text. Not for the first time, Ghostmark found himself thankful that Greasefang had become such a solid friend and ally for their family.
“They survived the Kami War as a whole,” Ghostmark continued, shifting the book a little so Embereye could see it too. She was here just because Palefur was, but Ghostmark wanted to make sure she was pointedly included and learning. “Though they were fewer in number by then, they came together as an early Reckoner gang. During the Shattered States Era, they grew in power and posterity, to the point where the pre-Imperial government was starting to see them as a threat. However, when the Night of Withering started between the Takenuma Swamp and Sokenzan mountains, the Okibas took a serious hit to their numbers again. This pattern repeated in the early Era of Enlightenment, then its late period, then in the middle of the Modern Era. Now, they’re one of the most powerful Reckoner gangs, and most of that is thanks to Boss Greasefang’s work for the past fifteen years.”
“Thanks Ghostie.” Ghostmark looked up in time to watch Greasefang vault over the back of the couch to sit on it, leaving her roughly equal to Ghostmark’s sitting-and-hunched height. She nodded to the twin nezumi. “My gang’s had a rough history through the years. Life’s often real messy, especially for nezumi like us, but we gotta all work to make sure it’s better in the future for all of us.”
“Exactly,” Ghostmark agreed with a nod. “And you’re doing a really good job, Fang.”
That managed to get the Okiba boss to laugh. She rubbed the back of her neck. “Aw shucks, thanks kid. But I’ve also had a lot of fighting and some schisms to get us this far. I just hope that the next Okiba boss won’t just undo everything I’ve done. But that all depends on who decides to challenge me for leadership and wins.”
“Would you be okay, Miss Greasefang?” Palefur piped up.
Ghostmark and Greasefang exchanged a split-second look. The kids knew that if a Reckoner went missing, they were unlikely to still be alive. The Dokuchi all did their best to shield the kids from the worst of everything while still being realistic and honest with them. It was a hard balance to strike, readying them for the outside world while also protecting them from it.
Greasefang thumped her fist to her chest, bravado fully in place. “I’ll give it my all, like I always do!”
Ghostmark offered her a quick smile as the twins perked up at that. With their attentions reinvigorated, he shifted their attention back to the book, and Greasefang pantomimed particular parts as Ghostmark continued reading aloud. Embereye watched quietly, but Palefur soon got up to join Greasefang in the re-enacting of history.
Ghostmark smiled. This was what he loved the most. This was what he wanted to protect.
