I returned the hug, just as glad to see him. His greasy hair and long eyebrows were a welcome sight. But things humbled quickly when we both remembered why I had come in the first place.

  “Jimmy-san,” he said in his high, deranged voice. “We live in hard times, neh?”

  “Yeah, Tanaka, I guess we do.”

  A look of grief came over his face, something so rare that it took me aback. But it made perfect sense. His own daughter was trapped in a living nightmare.

  I looked around and took in my surroundings. It was nighttime, and we stood on a sidewalk in the middle of a huge city. There weren't many people around, but bright neon signs shone from everywhere, with those funky Japanese letters written all over them. The air was moist and cold, like it had just rained. Typical smells of the city made my nose cringe—gas, trash, air pollution. Or maybe it was just Tanaka, it was always hard to tell.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Ah, Jimmy-san, we in fun place, my friend. This called Tokyo! You know?”

  After all I'd been through, I pretty much felt like an adult. But people must've still thought I was an idiot kid because now I'd been asked if I had heard of New York City and Tokyo within the last several hours.

  “Yeah, Tanaka, I'm not as dumb as you look.”

  He didn't get my joke, and slapped me on the back.

  “Come on, my friends,” he said, grabbing Hood's and my arms.

  “We go to mountain first thing tomorrow.”

  I wasn't very prepared for what we saw as Tanaka took us through the streets of downtown Tokyo. Everywhere we looked, people were lying on the sidewalks and in the streets, deep in the Coma of the Stompers. Most shops and businesses were closed, and it wasn't just because of the late hour. Every once in a while we saw a police car or fire truck, but for the most part, it looked as if there weren't enough people awake to help those who weren't.

  The world was in bad shape.

  “Have you seen any Ka around here lately?” I asked as we walked down a long and dark alley. The click of Hood's Ring as he moved along using it as a cane echoed up the damp walls of the tall buildings.

  “Here and there,” said Tanaka. “But I avoid them good. They no like my smell, neh?”

  “Imagine that,” I said.

  Just then, a faint shadow crossed our path, and I looked to the sky on instinct. I caught the tail end of a winged beast as it disappeared above a building.

  “Jeez, I just saw one up there!”

  Tanaka paused to look up and then motioned to a side door, old and dilapidated.

  “Come, quick. He probably not notice us so far up. In here.”

  He took out a key and opened the door. It squeaked on rusty hinges as it swung wide, and the three of us entered. The place was small and dank, and smelled like a locker room. Tanaka flipped a switch, and a single light bulb turned on, hanging from the ceiling with no cover. It was a one-room apartment, with no furniture except a table and two metal chairs. A small stove and kitchen took up one corner.

  “How did you get this place?” I asked.

  “Found a man sleeping out there.” He pointed to the door. “Stole his key and tried every door until one open. Genius, neh?”

  “More like thief, neh?” I replied.

  “Ah, no worry. He wake up, we move out. Sit, sit!”

  Hood wasted no time and snagged one of the two chairs, setting his Bender Ring on the table. Tanaka grabbed my arm and made me sit in the other. He walked over to a small closet, opened its door, and pulled out a large object.

  It was the birdcage. And the butterflies were all inside, flying around like windblown leaves.

  “Remember my friends?” Tanaka asked.

  How could anyone ever forget? I wondered. The memory of that day came rushing back.

  The day Tanaka introduced us to his purpose in life.

  It had been the day after he showed up at the hotel—we hadn't seen him since he jumped off of our yacht in the middle of the ocean. I would never forget the look on Miyoko's face after she watched her own father disappear into the cold, black water. It was like mine must've looked when I realized my dad was turning into a Shadow Ka.

  But soon after, she'd told me that there had to be something behind it, some reason, because her dad was not crazy. Tanaka had proven her right.

  He showed up the night I'd saved my dad from the Blackness, carrying the same birdcage he'd just pulled out of the closet, full of the same butterflies, their bright colors fluttering about like living artwork. We'd been shocked, of course, at seeing him, and the cage full of pretty bugs had just made it all the more strange.

  We were able to put the little things aside a bit that night as we had our grand reunion with Tanaka. As we hugged and caught him up on what we'd been through, I couldn't help but feel sick that Miyoko wasn't there to see her dad safe and sound. But she and Rayna had already set off to try and find the rest of the Alliance.

  After a few minutes, he told us that he was exhausted and had to rest. We were eager to hear his story but swallowed our impatience and let the stinky man sleep. He did—for twenty-four hours straight, driving us insane with curiosity. The next evening, he didn't tell us everything, but what he showed us left me speechless, and I still had a hard time accepting it weeks later.

  How he swam through the ocean and made it to land was a mystery even to him, and hard to swallow for us, but he insisted it was true. He said that an image entered his mind, a seed left by the huge monkey—the one we'd seen in the woods—that sprouted into a full-fledged vision in his head. He knew, without any doubt, that he had to dive into the ocean. When he did, he said that everything went dark, and he fell asleep. Hours later he woke up and was lying on a beach in Japan.

  Dazed, confused, but still aware of the message that had burst forth in his head, he went to the place he knew he had to, deep in a forest nearby. When he got there, something was waiting for him, something that he claimed was the entire purpose of his existence.

  He stopped at this point in his story, and all of us berated him, insisting he continue telling us what happened.

  “No, my friends,” he had said. “Let me show you.”

  He turned toward the birdcage, and called out a command in Japanese.

  “Kure!”

  One single butterfly, bright yellow, slipped through the bars of the cage and flew over to Tanaka, landing on his hand.

  “Jimmy-san,” he said. “Keep your eyes pulled, neh?”

  “I think you mean peeled,” I said, wondering what in the heck he was about to do.

  “Yeah, yeah, that what I mean.” He smiled at me and then turned his attention to the small specimen in his hand. Its wings were still fluttering, but it rested in the middle of Tanaka's palm.

  “Tskure,” he whispered.

  A bright light flashed in his palm, seeming to devour the butterfly in a burst of flame. Tanaka drew his hand back, and the light floated in the air. Then it expanded into a stream of bright fluorescence, dropping toward the ground, until a band of light stood before us, like the string of a fully extended, flaming yo-yo, blinding in its brilliance. Then, with no warning or sound, the light disappeared.

  Sitting there, having appeared from nowhere, was a very large monkey.

  “Say hello, my good friends,” said Tanaka. He pointed to the animal. “Say hello to the okisaru.”

  Rusty, taking Tanaka a tad more literally than he intended, said, “Hello.”

  As for me, I could only stare. It seemed years ago when we had been on the mountainside near the Pointing Finger, looking for Hood, and bumped into the huge monkey. Tanaka had told us that it was a beast of legend—the okisaru—that was supposed to be wise beyond imagination, and very powerful. At the time, the monkey touched Tanaka's head, hypnotizing him or something, and then disappeared into the forest.

  And there he was again, sitting before us. And just to top it off, just in case we were getting too used to weird things, he had turned from a butterfly into a monkey.

  Tanaka was beaming, looking between his pet and us, smiling like there was nothing wrong in the world.

  “Uh, Tanaka,” I said, “could you maybe explain a few things to us?”

  “Explain?” he said. “What need to explain?” He pointed to the monkey. “This is an okisaru. All of my creatures are okisaru. They have devoted their existence to serving me.” He walked over and put his arm on my shoulder. “To serve me, so that I can serve you. We are here, we are your army.”

  “Huh? You and a bunch of butterflies that can turn into monkeys? What's that gonna do against the Stompers?”

  Tanaka shook his head, and frowned. “You make Uncle Tanaka very sad. Have some faith, neh?” He snapped his fingers and clapped his hands a couple of times.

  And then things got really weird.

  The butterflies swarmed out of the cage. Colors flashed as they expanded into a huge mass of writhing wings and antennae, filling the room all around us. Red and blue and yellow and green and black and brown, flying around and above us. I felt like I was in a huge paint mixer.

  Tanaka laughed. “Jimmy-san, open the door.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Open the door, boy! This room way too small!”

  I walked over with careful steps, scared I would squash a butterfly, and opened the door into the night. Without hesitation, the swarm of bugs flew past me into the streets. They seemed to glow, filling the place with light where before there had only been darkness. Tanaka was at my ear as I looked on in wonder.

  “What you want them to be?” he whispered.

  I turned to look at him. “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “You quit asking dumb questions, neh? I say, what do you want them to be? You speak English—always make fun of Tanaka's English, neh? Answer my question.”

  “What do I want them to be? You mean …”

  Tanaka nodded his head. “Yes, Jimmy-san, like your fancy Gift. Anything.”

  It seemed way too crazy to be true, but then again, I had sworn a long time ago to never doubt again.

  “I … I want them to be … tigers.”

  Tanaka yelled out an odd guttural roar.

  The butterflies organized themselves at once, as if they all shared the same brain. They flew to the ground and landed in several straight rows, about three feet apart, forming a grid of colored dots filling the entire street.

  A bright light flashed where each butterfly rested, a blinding sea of radiance that made me cover my eyes. I squinted and peeked through my fingers because I didn't want to miss what happened next. In perfect unison, the lights floated upward, leaving a line of fluorescence connecting it to the ground. When they had reached three feet or so, the band of lights flared a moment then disappeared. My eyes had to readjust a bit, and then I saw that Tanaka had not been exaggerating.

  There were orange- and black-striped tigers everywhere.

  They looked very mean—four feet tall, six feet long, and muscles rippling through their colored fur with every move. Several of them revealed their sharp teeth as they yawned and let out a small roar.

  “Will they hurt us?” I asked.

  “Hurt us?” asked Tanaka. “You crazy? The okisaru on our side, only obey me. No matter what shape they take. And they understand every word we say. Very smart, these guys.”

  I couldn't take my eyes off of them. There had to be hundreds, packed into the street and beyond. They seemed so out of place in the city.

  “What … are they?” I asked.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, his voice very contemplative. “They are many things. Changelings, I have heard them called. Magical creatures. I only know them as the okisaru.”

  “Didn't Miyoko say that means big monkey?”

  “Yes, yes. For some reason, that is their favorite shape. But make it very hard to get them around!” He laughed, a loud bark that actually startled some of the tigers. He yelled out a new command, and they turned back into the butterflies, bright lights and all.

  “Wow. It's just unbelievable. How did you survive the ocean? What did that monkey do to your brain when he touched you? How in the world did all this come about?”

  “Ah, Jimmy-san, you leave that to me, neh? Just know this.” He held up the birdcage for the butterflies to fly back into. “The okisaru are your army, and I am their general. We help you win this war.”

  “Well … thanks. I could use the help.”

  That had been weeks ago, and the memory of it still made me shake my head. Now, sitting there with Hood and Tanaka on the eve of our daring rescue attempt, I looked at the butterflies in amazement. How could I live in a world with so much magic, I thought, and not know about it until a few months ago? Amazing.

  “Yeah, Tanaka,” I said after he took the cage out of the closet. “How could I forget my own army?”

  “Good boy, good boy!” he said. “Now, should we make them cockroaches, just for fun?”

  “How about let's not and say we did. Are you guys tired? It's still morning where I just came from, so I don't feel like going to bed.”

  “Sleep?” he asked, his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “No time for sleep. We must figure out the rescue.”

  And we did. We spent the next few hours coming up with a plan.

  And it was brilliant.

  The next morning, with a birdcage full of butterflies in tow, we set off for Mount Fuji. Nothing like having an army of winged shadow-beasts take over your planet to help you appreciate some of the things you used to take for granted—we didn't realize what a time we would have trying to get around.

  The main source of transportation in Japan was the train system, which had finally, amidst all the chaos, ceased to operate completely. In fact, most of everything had shut down, with almost no services available. Every once in a while a taxi would drive by, but usually the driver looked way too terrified to pull over. Plus, most of the streets were jammed with cars whose owners had fallen asleep while driving.

  Therefore, our immediate challenge was to get to the mountain in the first place. And for that, Tanaka had no qualms about stealing a car from one of its sleeping owners.

  “Jeez, Tanaka,” I said as he pulled a nice sleeping gentleman out of a shiny red car so small I thought we'd never fit the butterflies in the backseat. “You really have become a thief in your old age.”

  “Ah, Jimmy-san,” he said with a grunt as he practically threw the man onto the sidewalk, “you no worry. Things like that matter nothing, now. You think Sleepyhead here complain when we save him from Stompers?”

  “Good point,” I said, and meant it.

  We put the items needed for our plan in the trunk, helped Hood into the backseat with the okisaru and then took off toward the mountain, with Tanaka driving like a drunken senior citizen. He swerved around the many stopped cars, often having to go onto the sidewalk to get around them. Several times he honked, knowing full well that it would do no good. I wished over and over that I could take over the wheel, even though it would be my first time ever.

  It wasn't long before we came to our next obstacle.

  Gas. It got low just as we were reaching the outskirts of the main city.

  We pulled into a gas station, but it was abandoned, just like the rest we had seen. Thanks to modern technology, we couldn't get it to work without the whole place up and running. Even if the automatic part for which you used a credit card had been working, none of us had one anyway. Tanaka mumbled something about how he would never trust a bank with his money.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I'm sure they were just knocking your door down every day to get to all your money too.”

  “What, that another funny Jimmy joke?” he asked. “Tanaka have more money than you dream about, stinky pants. Now, let me show you how smart I am.”

  He motioned for Hood to get out of the backseat, carrying the butterflies, and then Tanaka got our stuff out of the trunk. We followed him as he went to look into some of the cars around us in the streets. Soon, he yelled out.

  “This one almost full!”

  “Wow,” I said as we got into the new car, a silver one that was a little bigger. “You really are smart to figure out we should switch cars when the other one runs out of gas.” I smiled to let him know I didn't really mean to be such a smart aleck—I was just mad that I didn't think of it first.

  “Oh, yes,” he replied. “Uncle Tanaka very smart. Very smart man.”

  And so it was that we sped out of the city, heading toward the distant, snowcapped mountain that I had seen in a million pictures. Its upside-down conical shape was so familiar, and yet it was hard to believe I was actually looking at it in real life. It was much more impressive up close and personal. The further we got from the city, the fewer cars there were to swerve around, and so my stomach settled a bit, and I got very drowsy.

  A thought hit me. “Why didn't we just use the Bender Ring to get there?”

  Tanaka looked back at Hood, and then he answered for him. “We still not sure exactly where to go, so the Ring not much help.”

  “It could've at least gotten us close to it,” I said.

  “But maybe no cars up there, neh?”

  “Yeah, I guess you're right. Mind if I sleep a little?”

  “You go right ahead. Watch out for Stompers!”

  It was meant to be a joke, but it made me ill. The last thing I remembered before sleep was Tanaka laughing in his usual nerve-grinding way, but I was so tired I didn't care.

  When I woke up, Tanaka and Hood were standing outside in front of the car, looking at something in the distance. We were parked on the side of a narrow road, a towering wall of green to our left, an incredible view of the city to our right. The sun was high in the afternoon sky, but you could barely see it through the gray stain of the Ka.

  I rubbed my eyes, and wondered how long I'd been asleep. It felt like forever, but it seemed I was more tired than when I started. Groggy and a little dizzy, I opened the door and got out.