Chapter Two

1880

Through the stone and what Satou saw there.

August 7th. 1880. Ancient era.
Shinjuku, Tokyo.

The sun was already setting on the horizon, but they continued to wait expectantly.

The group of six children, between seven and ten years old, ran amidst laughter and battle cries, following the course of the train tracks. It was something they always liked to do every day as they played in the surrounding area after school. But on vacations, those games could extend well into the afternoon, especially since that day was a public holiday in the city.

The train they expected to see was the one coming from Sendai to the port of Yokohama, in the southeast. They weren't really sure if that was the train's real destination, but at least that's what their parents and school teachers told them. The reason they were expecting to see the train again was because, in the previous days, it had passed by bringing what at first they thought were steam-powered automatons, but turned out to be mechanical suits at least two and a half meters high.

Although that day it was not passing by at the usual time.

For them it was really something fascinating, beyond the fact that it was carrying coal, automatons or suits, and they always wondered what was beyond that. Beyond the place where they lived. Because, from what they heard recently, it seemed that even in Osaka a tunnel had already been built for the train to pass under the mountain. What would be found there was really a mystery to them, and sometimes they liked to imagine themselves riding in some of the coal cars, heading south, while fighting off all sorts of yokais on the journey, or outlaws sabotaging the tracks, as in the last days of the Satsuma Revolution.

The new locomotives, which were recently brought in, were much faster than those that have been in circulation in the last few years. The upheavals, caused by the tumultuous social changes in recent years, forced the sale into private hands, and the privatization of what had hitherto been government-owned railroad construction plants and factories. But with the modernization of the country, it was more and more frequent to see trains coming and going on the new railway lines, and with it all kinds of different locomotives. Not to mention some of the airships that had recently been put into the service of the country's security.

Despite that, there was still criticism against the government from some sides, who judged the position to be too broad-minded, and this led to all kinds of mobilizations and clashes between diferent parties.

 

But the intrigues of the adults did not concern the children, unless it was material for one of their games. They were interested that the train not passed at the usual time, and so they decided to play something else in the meantime.

"I don't think they will be passing through here anymore," Satou said thoughtfully, waving one of his bamboo stilts as a makeshift sword at his friend Kenji. "My dad says those iron giants are for use in the mines. In Korea there are many more than here, brought from Russia."

"I wonder what it would be like to ride one," Kenji said, as he charged a wooden sword at his friend. "I bet it would look like the Iron Demon."

Seven-year-old Satou Nobuyama was slightly shorter than Kenji, and while he had a really slender build, it allowed him to move nimbly like a fox. His physical agility was a source of pride for him. That, and the uncanny ability to whistle like no one else in school, which he acquired a couple of weeks ago, through the gap left by one of his baby teeth falling out.

That day he had exchanged the usual clothes he wore for a yukata with a new haori, decorated with gear motifs, and geta sandals.

Kenji, on the other hand, was a slightly bulkier nine-year-old boy, whose face always seemed to have a sort of half-smile that nothing could wipe off. Even when he was in trouble. Kenji's new clothes and toys made him stand out in the small group of children, and he must have been from a wealthy family.

That day they were playing an impromptu battle reenacting the Battle of Tabaruzaka. They were three against three, with Satou on the rebel side, while Kenji with the other three were part of the Battotai. Or at least that's what they were trying to do. Kenji's references seemed to indicate that he was either trying to confuse his friends, or he was simply bad at remembering dates and historical events.

"Saigo! You're back from Mars!" Kenji shouted.

"What?! I'm not dead yet! And no one can travel to Mars." Satou told him, raising an eyebrow.

" I'm Hijikata Toshizou, and I'm going to stop you!"

The other five stopped fighting and looked at Kenji in confusion. What the hell was up with the references?

"No wonder the teacher says you're like smoke for history," Satou said, holding both hands to his head to which the others began to burst out laughing.

Kenji tilted his head. "What does that mean?"

"Fools are like smoke. They always try to get high," Satou explained to him with a sneer, as he picked his nose with his free hand.

"You're the fool!" Kenji spat at him, raising the wooden sword and launching himself at Satou's scampering.

The games went on for another twenty minutes and by the time they realized it the sun was already hidden on the horizon. Perhaps something had happened that day and there would be no train.

On the other hand, in the city, the sound of drums and flutes could be heard mingling with the screeching of the night insects. The Obon and Tanabata festival had already begun and they were missing it. Gathering their toys and water pistols, they set out on the short walk back to the city. Over there already circled a couple of the police airships that, which with their oil lamps shining back and forth over the town, were in charge of security.

The paper lanterns were already been lit at the festival and people had taken to the avenues of the city to celebrate, while in the east the stars had already begun to appear.

"Where were you?!"

The sudden shout of a woman, made Satou and the others gasp, and they slowly turned around.

It was a woman dressed in a yukata walking toward them. They all knew her. Despite her slightly tanned skin from working in the fields, the woman knew how to maintain her beauty. But also she was really scary when she got angry.

"Let's run!" Kenji said to the others, who ran off in panic, getting lost in the crowd.

"I've been looking for you for a long time!" She said looking at Satou, and then she watched as the rest of the herd got lost. "Young Lord Kenji! Your father is looking for you!" Satou's mother raised her voice, but Kenji had already disappeared.

"I'm sorry, mom..." Satou wailed. "We were waiting for the train."

"You're all dirty. Were you playing near the tracks? We've already told you it's dangerous there." After challenging him for a few moments, she ran her hand over Satou's head. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Can I go and continue playing with the others? I promise we won't go to the tracks, it's already too dark."

How much energy still have? The mother snorted. She knew it was better for him to end up tired from all that playing, so he would sleep more soundly and be distracted from school matters. After all, he had been devoting a lot of time to his studies lately, even if he was on vacation.

He discovered that he was quite good at mathematics. Something that was a surprise to his mother. She barely knew the basic numbers to do the shopping accounts. The only bad thing was that she was noticing that he was spending more and more time between books and less time with his friends. If he wanted to study, well he could do it in a few years.

"Go get them," she said and stroked his head again.

Satou smiled at his mother and shot off through the crowd, toward the place where his friends had gone.

"No going to the tracks! It's already too dark! And tell Kenji that his father is looking for him!" the woman shouted. She wasn't sure if he had heard her, but at least it was worth a try.

Where have they gone, Satou wondered, looking for them. He passed by several game and food stalls, but couldn't find any of them.

After another detour, he was about to give up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Kenji had returned and was showing him a huge beetle. "Look what I found!"

"Where?"

"Here, in the trees. Let's go!"

All was said and done. They would play “the treasure hunt”. The one who caught the biggest beetle would decide the games for a week, while the loser surely would have to eat the carcass of a cicada.

The two friends turned off the avenue, passing between two small stalls of masks and paper balloons and headed for the small grove on the other side. There were only two of the others who had participated in the games in the train tracks. Most likely the other two had gone with their families to go around the stalls.

The search for beetles went on for about thirty minutes, aided by a portable folding lantern, which Kenji took with him. Of course he was cheating, trying to better illuminate the places he was looking for.

One of the other kids had just caught a hercules bettle, big as his little fist, when they heard it.

"It's trusting too much."

"I just wish she would have given us a better explanation."

"She just left, just like that?"

"Yes..."

The group of friends looked at each other in surprise. The voices they had just heard were the adult voices of a man and a woman.

"Turn it off, turn it off," said one of the children, and Kenji folded the portable lamp, while everyone's ears perked up.

"I bet you it's some couple doing something dirty," Kenji whispered, with a wicked grin.

"Shhhh," Satou spat, almost hissing through the gap in his teeth.

"I guess we can only wait and see if it is as she told us," the man said.

"And how will we know it's the right time?" the woman asked.

The darkness prevented the kid from seeing the faces of those who were speaking, but they could estimate that they must be about twenty meters away.

They were trying to see their faces, when they heard the sound from a bush, which was between them and the supposed couple.

Satou was about to run away. Who knows if it wasn't some animal attracted by the noise of the festival. Kenji squeezed his shoulders and stretched his long, plump neck trying to see what it was.

A metallic sound was heard and from the bush, a third person came out and, speaking in somewhat stilted Japanese, said. "Hands up! Where are they?"

Despite being only children, the group knew that this metallic sound could only correspond to a pressurized steam rifle. In the darkness the silhouettes of the couple gasped at the sudden appearance of the individual, and the man tried to interpose himself between the newcomer and the woman.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" the woman asked in surprise.

"Please just give them to me... I just want to see my daughter again. I don't want to cause you any trouble. Give me the stones!!!" The man's voice sounded like it was about to crack.

"I don't know what you've heard, but that's not how it works," the man said.

"I know what they are! Don't think I'm a fool. I've been after them from London for months!"

"So you're the one who's been following us halfway around the world..." the man said.

Satou felt something wet falling on his forehead. He looked up and saw Kenji's face, who was sweating profusely and looking terrified.

"That guy has a gun," Kenji whispered to the others. "This is bad."

"What do we do?" asked the other boy.

"He's a thief!" The second one chimed in.

"Let's run!!!" shouted Kenji.

"Damn chicken!" Satou cackled angrily, as he started running after them.

The sudden screams were more than enough to get the attention of the three people.

Satou turned around for a second looking back, he saw a flash and the sound of the rifle barrel. Trying to get out as fast as he could in his sandals he looked ahead, only to run into a tree, which he hit hard enough to start bleeding from his nose and forehead.

Stunned by the blow, he thought he saw the shadows of the three people moving and struggling, and the sound of a gunshot rang out again, only to be drowned out by the sound of some fireworks officially signaling the beginning of the last day of the festival.

He heard the woman shout something and, before he could tell what happened, he heard a sound of cloth being torn and things falling on the grass. There was a series of scuffles and he heard a thump. The next moment Satou heard something fall next to him, just a few centimeters away.

Satou saw lanterns waving in the trees. The local police must have heard the detonations after all, or maybe Kenji called they in.

The fight seemed to continue, but Satou wasn't going to wait around to see how it would end.

To defend himself he picked up the object that fallen near him in case he had to throw it to protect himself. He couldn't see it, but it was something hard wrapped with paper and a red string. Whatever it was, it was as light as a feather. It was not going to do him any good if he wanted to defend with it.

He ran in the direction of Kenji and the others, but they were already gone. He didn't want to run into the police. For some reason they didn't take a good look at the group of friends. Perhaps it had something to do with Kenji's father, Toshitsune Yanagida, who seemed to be closely watched because of his involvement in illegal gambling. Whatever it was, he didn't want to get involved with the police, as he was likely to give his parents a hard time about it.

He ran along the trees, past the back of some stalls, until he finally came out onto one of the festival streets and mingled with the people. It was really crowded. He had to make sure he would at least be able to set up a tanzaku later with Kenji and the others.

He crossed to the other side of the tents on the opposite side and hid behind one whose back was covered with cloth, but which by the smell seemed to be some kind of food store. The smell of fried squid was whetting his appetite, but first he would have to calm down.

Due to the adrenaline of the moment, he felt no pain from the nose and the bruise on his forehead. He was wiping the beads of sweat and blood from his forehead with the haori sleeve, when he turned his attention back to the packet he took.

Satou wondered what he could do with it. He took it on the spur of the moment, but now he wasn't sure if he should return it, or just leave it lying around. What could it be? After all, to the touch it looked like some kind of stone. Could it be what the guy with the gun was looking for? If that were the case it would be best to throw it away.

But no one saw him take it. Maybe there was nothing wrong with seeing what it was.

He untied the string and tore the paper. At first he thought he had picked up two pieces of charcoal. But they had not stained his hands and it had almost the appearance of obsidian but lighter.

They were indeed two stones. Satou discarded the paper and held them up. They appeared to be the same, both had rounded shapes with smooth faces, as if they were crystal. Both had one face that was larger than the others.

Satou took the stones and observed it for a few seconds.

It was black like obsidian, but the faces seemed to glow somehow in that moment.

 

Satou wondered if it was some stone of the sorcerers, and therefore wondered if the two characters in the forest were not some wandering Onmyoji sorcerers. If so, perhaps that was the reason why they were hiding in the forest because the practice of Onmyodo was forbidden by imperial decree. Although there were rumors that there were still several magicians in the service of the government at the moment.

The screams and sounds of gunshots in the distance frightened him. The boy ran and rounded a bend next to other stalls. He must have been quite a distance away and he hid behind another tent. Hiding between two empty big rice baskets, he pulled out the stones to look at them again.

He felt that there was something strange about them, and brought them closer to his eyes to see them better, while he put them both together on the sides that were more flattened. As he thought, it was a single stone that had broken at some point.

But when he put them both together it was as if a sudden electric shock had run through his body.

Despite the darkness behind the stalls, it was as if the stone produced a strange luminescence in the form of faint blue particles, which Satou observed as if he could not move his gaze. And indeed he could not. In his black eyes were reflected the same blue particles.

The boy rolled his eyes and collapsed on the grass, as he convulsed with the stone clutched tightly in his hands. No one could see it, except him. Anyone looking behind the stall at the time would have seen only a small child convulsing on the grass between two empty rice baskets.

Impossible scenes flashed before his eyes, they were more like images out of the Scrolls of Hell. He saw horrible creatures, resembling yokais and other figures of what appeared to be some kind of war. Human figures, dressed in clothes of strange designs and lands and places he had never heard of. Many scenes were unremarkable, but others were horrific and full of suffering. The languages spoken did not seem to make any sense. They were words he had never heard before. Although, from time to time, he seemed to catch some Japanese words as well.

Time flowed strangely in the visions, as if a hurricane wind was sweeping through the scenes every second, but not fast enough, so he could grasp what was happening. It was a wind at times, at other times just images that followed one another more quickly, appearing sharply for a second, then disappearing the next, as an image blurs when drops of water fall on a calm surface, forming ripples.

He did not know if it was a few seconds or minutes. When he finally got up, he was shivering with cold, something strange since it was a rather warm night and he still had the stones in his hands, but now they were separated. He was staggering and his legs were weak. How long had he been watching these images? For some reason it didn't seem like a short time.

He heard some people shouting for water, and noticed that the streets were brighter than before.

The boy stood up and looked at one shop and saw that it was on fire, threatening to reach another.

"Satou! Where are you?"

"Satou!"

The shouts of his mother and Kenji brought him out of his reverie. Kenji was the first to reach him and shook him by the shoulder.

"We've been looking for you for a long time! Where were you? Dumb!"

"Let's go home!" said his frightened mother.

He was so overwhelmed by what just happened to him that he almost didn't notice that his mother picked him up in her arms, and she was carrying him away from the fire. He felt nauseous, his head throbbed terribly and he felt thirsty as if he had gone days without drinking a drop of water.

People seemed to be calming down now that the fire was being brought under control. But there was some commotion over something that happened on the other side. In the forest.

Satou, with his eyes blurred, looked at Kenji who gestured to him to be quiet. He surely didn't want his parents to know that they witnessed the fight in the forest either. It was a mystery to them how it had all ended.

But Satou no longer cared about that, he snuggled his face into his mother's neck. While hiding the stones inside his yukata.

Something that should not have happened. A mistake, an improbability.

An incident that would change the world, but that few would know about.

And not even Satou, or Kenji, ever knew. Although, over the years, they would remember the incident.