Year of the Demon

clearest route lay outside in the open water, but she had to swim farther down to get free of the carrack. She was already far too deep. And the sword was as heavy as an anchor.

It was never the easy choice, swimming down instead of up. But obviously Shioko had tried swimming upward. Kaida was the stronger swimmer, up or down, but Shioko hadn’t shared Kaida’s fear of being trapped in the wreck. And Kaida had already spent too much time choosing. Black spots formed drifting schools in her vision.

Up, down, both options were probably fatal. There was no doubting it. Kaida gave herself over to the mask and the sword. They pulled her downward, out of the wreckage.

Escaping its innards was such a relief that it gave her newfound hope. She even had a flash of insight: she knew she lacked the strength to drag her two anchors all the way to the surface, but perhaps she could use the hull as a sort of ladder, launching herself one push at a time, just like kicking off the sea floor. Suddenly the broken carrack became the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

Then she looked up. As soon as she realized just how deep she was, she knew she’d never make it.

49

The black spots in her vision pressed in, multiplied, reeled drunkenly. She saw more darkness than light. Being the strongest diver of her generation meant less than the fact that, unburdened, her body would float to the surface even if she were dead. At least her father would have the chance to give her a proper funeral. Shioko’s mother could not say the same.

Kaida’s lungs had long since stopped hurting. Even her diaphragm had given up its death throes. Kaida pushed off the wreckage one last time, then let her body’s buoyancy do what it could for her. She didn’t think it would count for much.

She blacked out entirely. She could no longer sense the water moving around her, and because of that she was no longer sure she was even floating upward. She vomited into her mouth. Pushing the filth out let seawater in. Kaida knew it was the first taste of drowning.

And then she broke the surface. Her gasps of breath didn’t even sound human. Still seeing black, she nearly slipped below the surface again, but sheer animal instinct forced her legs to kick.

Soon enough daylight pressed its way into her vision. Genzai’s boat was not far away. It bobbed crazily on the waves—or was it Kaida’s mind lurching, throwing everything off-kilter? He was saying something, but she had to get her breath under control before she could hear him.

“Where is the mask?” he bellowed. It was the first time she’d ever heard him raise his voice.

“Down,” she said, gasping, paddling toward his boat like a wounded animal. “Down there.”

“The tether is broken,” he said. She saw Tadaaki beside him, holding the dripping, limp end of it. “And broken cleanly. You cut it?”

“Had to.” Kaida’s breath still came raggedly. “Can’t—can’t dive with it.”

“You cut the cord to the mask,” said Genzai. He’d regained control of his temper. “If you’ve lost it for us, I will kill you. You know this.”

“Anchor line,” Kaida said. At last she reached Genzai’s rowboat. She didn’t want to swim to him, but his was the closest boat, and her body swam to it instinctually, without her willing it.

“Make sense, girl.”

“Anchor line,” she said, hooking the gunwale in her feeble grip. “Haul it in.”

“I felt it the moment you cut it,” said Genzai, his fury so hot she thought she could see it rising from him like the sun shimmering on sand. But that too might have been a trick of her staggering air-starved mind. “I can only assume you cut the anchor line for spite. That will not be the offense I kill you for. Tadaaki, pull in that line. And you, girl, tell me about my sword and mask.”

At first Kaida could not answer. Her relief at having something sturdy to hold, some reason to think she might escape drowning, left her incapable of anything other than a weak, exhausted smile.

“Well? Speak! I will have you tell me where you left the mask before I send your body back down to join it.”

“It was too heavy,” Kaida said. “The sword too. I couldn’t swim back up with them. So I tied them to the anchor line.”

Even as she said it, the demon mask rose toward the surface. Trailing it was a broken wooden spar, the anchor point that had connected Genzai’s little boat to the wreck until Kaida kicked it loose, her last conscious act before ascending to the surface. Trailing the spar and the mask was the sword known as Glorious Victory Unsought.

Kaida watched the light play on them as they came up. They were the strangest school of fish she’d ever seen.

Genzai rumbled like distant thunder, and his anger seemed to lessen somewhat. His breath was less audible, at any rate, and his shoulders and jaws relaxed. Perhaps it was relief at seeing the sword, and no abatement in his anger at all. Kaida wondered if he still meant to kill her.

At length, begrudgingly, he said, “I suppose you’ll be wanting me to make good on my word.”

“And then some,” Kaida said.

He grunted again. “You press your luck too far, little girl.”

“You said whoever got the sword could name her reward. And you promised to take me with you if I told you how we could dive better. So I did. I told you to tether the mask, not our ankles.”

“What of it?”

The strange fish were almost to the surface now, close enough that she could make out the fangs and horns of the mask. “So you were sworn to take me with you even if the sword remained at the bottom until the ocean dries up. Now you owe me my reward as well.”

He grunted again, almost growling. She didn’t look up, but she could hear him scratching behind his beard. “This one’s too clever by half,” Tadaaki said.

“She is. And damn it all, I’m a man of my word. Name your price, Kaida-san.”

“Not here,” she whispered. “There are too many people listening.”

She wasn’t wrong. Every last villager fixated on her, agape, stunned into silence. Not only had Kaida spared the village from Genzai’s wrath, but she’d also pulled off the impossible, diving deeper and longer than the best ama in the village. She did not meet their stares, and did not speak again until all the other boats had turned in to shore. She waited until the wild-haired grandfather had his iron mask back in hand and Tadaaki had bound the Inazuma blade to his own body, so that even if he were killed it would not sink out of reach again. All the while Genzai scowled at her wordlessly.

At last she asked him, “You’re shinobi, neh? Men of magic?”

“There are no magic men. The only place you’ll find shinobi is in fairy tales.”

“Fairy tales and in this boat. You said it earlier. ‘Spoken like a true shinobi.’ That’s what you said.”

“Too clever by half,” he muttered, frowning at her. “If I were any other man, I’d drown you here and now.”

“But you’re not. You’re a man of your word.”

His grimace became a squint-eyed scowl. “Name your price, then.”

“I want to be one of you. A shinobi. I want you to train me.”

He scratched behind his beard. “You do not know what you ask.”

“What need is there to know? I know I cannot stay here. I know my father would do better to see me go than to see me killed by his own stepdaughter’s hand. And I know if I go with you, you’ll sell me off as a whore at your first opportunity. Neh?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“Then I need you to make me one of your own. I cannot dive and fish for the rest of my life. Now I see how