Not only had she worked out how to choose whether the stars multiplied in mid-air, she had also discovered how to do what I had not managed to do—she could apply the ice damage attribute to one star in a flight while withholding it from the others.
She turned to us and bowed, satisfaction and pleasure shining from her face.
“You did it!” I said.
“Yes. It’s hard to describe how I did it. It’s almost as if the Persona itself spoke to me, and I knew instinctively how to do it. Do you want to try?”
I shook my head. She had walked over to me, and now I put my hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. “No,” I said, “I think that from now on, the Kitsune Persona is yours. The Personas I bind are bound not to me, but to us. I will use the Ironside Persona, because the axe suits my fighting style, but the Kitsune seems almost to have been made for you. Try your bow!”
Her eyes shone, and she leaned up to kiss me on the lips. Then she leaped away—the Persona had given her incredible agility, and she did a backflip onto her hands before springing up onto her feet again. The bow was in her hands, and three black-feathered arrows flew, slamming into the face of one of the training dummies.
She reached for a potion, and a bright yellow phial flew into her hand. She treated the tip of her arrow, nocked, drew, and loosed all in one fluid motion. She had already been greatly skilled, but the Kitsune Persona made her movements nearly as quick as sight.
One of the training dummies exploded into orange flames, and black smoke rose from the conflagration. She pulled a shuriken star, applied the ice magic and flung it into the fire. I expected an explosion, but instead a thick coating of ice wrapped the burning dummy, quenching the flames.
“That was unexpected!” she said.
“You must have to freeze the target first to achieve an explosion. Try again.”
Two more stars flew, thudding into the ice-covered figure. Two new layers of ice expanded rapidly to cover the first, leaving a shapeless, vaguely humanoid lump of opaque ice where the dummy had been. Then, a fire arrow flew from Cara’s bow.
This time, we got the expected result and then some. The thunderous explosion was deafening, and the shockwave from it knocked the other training dummies over and sent the wooden target flying. I braced as the shockwave hit me, and Toshiro leaped instinctively into a stylized fighter’s stance, one open palm raised in the direction of the explosion, the other in a fist at his hip. Cara dropped to one knee to resist the shockwave.
From the tall trees behind the house, a flight of brightly-colored birds rose shrieking in alarm. The trees swayed as the echoes died away, and to my surprise I heard clapping. I looked up and saw most of Toshiro’s servants crowded around the doorway of the house. They were clapping and cheering. Cara seemed a little embarrassed at them having seen her, but then she swallowed her embarrassment and gave them a little bow.
“I think that’s enough for the moment, don’t you?” she said, nodding at the mess the explosion had made of the practice court; lumps of smoldering wood and partially-melted ice lay scattered around one end of the area.
“As you wish,”said Toshiro. “For my part, I’m pleased to see some combat magic being practiced here at Ferndale again. It reminds me of the old days, and even makes me think about the future...”
“On that point,” I put in, “I think it’s about time we had some talk about what comes next, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said solemnly. “There is indeed a great deal to discuss. Come with me over to the pond, we’ll have some refreshments and talk things over.”
I looked at Cara. She nodded, then looked abstractedly away for a moment. I saw with satisfaction that she was applying her will to the Kitsune Persona. She was learning fast. The Shinobi outfit melted away, to be replaced with a beautifully patterned robe of silver-gray.
The civilian outfit aspect of the Kitsune Persona was perfect on Cara. For me, the gray robes had been comfortable and practical, but I preferred the familiar feel of the Saxe-style Ironside clothing. On Cara, the Kitsune manifested a gorgeous, figure-hugging robe of light yet warm and strong material. It had a plunging neckline, showing off the top of her well-formed breasts, and it was slashed up the side from ankle to hip, so that if she chose, it could leave her shapely legs bare to the open air.
She caught my admiring look and gave me a private smile. We followed Toshiro away from the practice court and into the garden, where we sat with him at a little wooden table beside a small pond in which fat golden fish moved lazily under white lilies.
“I have a question that’s been burning in my mind,” I said to Toshiro. “Did anyone ever try to fight the Festering?”
He shook his head. “That would be a foolhardy act. Only one man ever tried to do that. Not long after I left the Shogun’s retinue, I heard that another man, a close friend of mine, and one of the greatest Samurai in the retinue, had also left. There were dark rumors that he had seen something terrible, and some folk said he had gone mad, because he claimed there was some evil power in the mountains behind Otara. Suspecting the cause, I traveled to Otara to try to intercept him and stop him from going off alone, but I was too late. He was gone, and he was never heard of again. That was two years ago. But recently, stories have reached me from the villages at the foothills of the mountains. They say that a hungry ghost roams the hills on moonlit nights, dressed like a Samurai, but
