Kou, the tiger god within him had also grown in the last two months. Since helping to wipe out the ōkami lair in downtown Nakano, Kou had grown to nearly six feet long from tail to snout. He had refined an air of fierceness that allowed him to convert his usual kitten-like personality and big eyes into something far more dangerous.
The kami was as much a part of David as his own thoughts, as much as any part of his body. Transforming, David left a thick winter kimono behind and let Kou paw through the soft new snow. One of the benefits of having a kami within him was that as long as they had paws and fur, they could stay quite comfortable in the falling snow.
Above, an unintended squawk alerted them to a small gray bird hurtling from among the white tipped tree branches. Kou sat back and looked up, his tongue slid out with an unconscious movement he had picked up from David. His black tongue licked his furry lips as the little missile dived un-steadily at him. The baby phoenix spread its small wings in an attempt to airbrake. Veering off, the unstable bird flopped into a pile of snow in front of Kou.
“Still having trouble landing?” the tiger asked aloud in his purring Japanese. “What if you break your wing again? Injured animals do not stay off predators’ menus for long.” David chided Kou as the tiger’s mind conjured visions of the little gray-feathered bird becoming their next meal. Around them, the snow melted from the heat Reimi radiated.
“I don’t get to fly as much as you run. And Takumi isn’t around to help me,” the phoenix said, her voice high and lilting.
“Speaking of Takumi, he asks that you try to stop running into trees. He keeps coming back sore.” David’s blue twinkled in Kou’s eyes as the tiger’s mouth and throat formed his own voice. Ever since that day at the Matsumoto Shrine, David had gained the ability to speak and understand Japanese perfectly. It was a necessity—while most Japanese studied some English, few spoke it fluently.
“He never lets me change,” she pouted. “You two are lucky. You can speak with each other, while I am cut off from Takumi. Anyway, Happy Birthday. Natsu and Rie should be on their way.”
“Everyone will be on their way,” Kou said. “The New Year’s Shrine ceremony will start soon.”
“And my birthday was two weeks ago,” David added.
“Reimi!” Natsuki’s voice floated along the path behind them.
“Oops. Looks like I’m in trouble. She doesn’t like it when I fly off. I’m harder to follow than you are,” she said sulkily.
The little phoenix sprang out of the puddle and pumped her wings. She flew just high enough to clear Kou’s head and land between his shoulders. Reimi wobbled precariously as she tucked her wings in. Kou grudgingly allowed her to wait there for the girls. Although he was not cold, he could easily feel the warmth that spread out from where Reimi sat on his back. The phoenix exuded a heat that changed with her mood. Happy as she was, Reimi would have burned a lesser being than a tiger god.
The two kami were far from being completely comfortable with each other, but David insisted Kou try to be nice—despite the tiger’s instincts to go for a taste of the little bird.
‘Remember the last bird you ate? You still had feathers stuck in your teeth when you transformed,’ David thought. Kou replied by reliving the memory of the hunt, which made keeping Kou from slinking off for a snack even more difficult.
Natsuki and Rie appeared from behind a stand of trees, the pair huddled together against the cold. Natsuki was the tallest girl in their class, yet was still shorter than David. Her newly-cut short black hair hung around her ears, glowing with moonlight reflected off bits of snow. Her features were so much softer than the hard angry lines David had remembered when they first met, but that only served to hide the strength of her will. Rie had kept her long black hair and it shone faintly in the moonlight. More willowy than ever, she still radiated a kind of graceful power, albeit tinged with an occasional shadow.
“I can’t believe you two aren’t cold. It’s freezing out here,” Natsuki frowned, pulling her coat tighter as they approached the adolescent tiger and gray bird. “Your sister says ‘Happy New Years’ by the way. Just got her email.”
“I feel like my contacts are freezing,” Rie said, stamping her feet. David cringed at the reminder of his failure. Though Rie never seemed to blame him, David still felt responsible for her abduction by the Jeong brothers. Chul Soon, and perhaps even Chul Moo, were still out there somewhere. His only condolence was the certainty he would see them again.
Reimi took the opportunity to jump onto Kou’s head, interrupting his thoughts as she opened her wings to fly the last few meters to Natsuki. Kou snapped at her tail feathers as they flew by, just out of reach of his fangs. His tail twitched in annoyance and a low rumble began in his throat. Catching her as easily as she caught thrown swords during practice, Natsuki pulled Reimi into her jacket, sighing at the extra heat.
“How come I don’t have a personal heater for a partner?” Rie asked, smiling at Kou. The tiger shook a bit of snow from his fur and blinked.
“So how many people will be here tonight?” David asked, curious about his first New Year’s Eve in Japan.
“A bunch of people from town. There will be other gatherings of course, but this is the biggest Shrine in Nakano, and the only one with a bell,” Rie answered, her voice light on the cold breeze.
“Shouldn’t you two change back to your human forms? I mean, what if someone sees you. I have Takumi’s clothes.” Despite her words, Natsuki did not appear too eager to give up Reimi’s fiery heat.
Reimi popped her head out, saying “Fine, but only if you let me go flying later. We never get to practice.”
“That’s because I end up climbing twenty trees when you do,” Natsuki said. “I’m not some flying squirrel.” Though her words were true enough, Kou easily saw the smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Chuckling with their tiger growl, Kou loped off to his clothes. Though he had a special set of armor that would transform with him, he could not very well run around in tiger striped armor while groups of outsiders were on the Matsumotos’ Estate. In a blink, Kou had David’s clothes in his mouth and was gone. Natsuki left Takumi’s clothes behind a tree and walked away with Rie.
David was the first to rejoin the girls. Jumping out from a tree, he smiled at Natsuki’s foot, an inch from his face.
“Tsk tsk,” David shook his head seriously. “You really shouldn’t go around kicking everything that jumps out at you. I mean who else with my skin and hair color would be around here?”
“That’s why she stopped,” Takumi said in a voice newly deepening. Shorter and slighter than David but coiled and strong as a snake, Takumi ducked out from behind a tree. His thick winter kimono melded into the dark shadows of evening despite the white snow behind him. “She still has better control than you. Sorry about Reimi, she really wanted to fly.”
“We better go. It’s almost eleven-thirty,” Rie said. With a smile, she took the lead, weaving through the familiar trees of her ancestral home.
“Good. Kou might be warm, but I’m freezing,” David said. Appearing naked in the snow was not fun for him after being warm and comfortable as Kou.
Covered in white, the clearing looked completely