“Of my importance?”

  “And reason for seeking me out.”

  I glanced nervously at Ahlaksiz, but as she opened her mouth to explain, I decided it would be better if it came from me.

  “We came to ask for your help. To…” Unsure I should do this, but figuring we had better lay all our cards on the table, I pulled around my satchel and pulled out first the Iridant, then the half of the sun disk. “To help me in my mission.”

  “I don’t get involved,” he said, though his focus on the two items told me he was at least curious.

  “I’m not asking that you get involved, only that you help me… advance.”

  “Train him,” Ahlaksiz cut in.

  “Train…?” He looked from her back to me, and frowned. “This is why you seek me out?”

  I nodded, then bowed at the waist. “Onegaishimasu.”

  “And the rest of you?” Vaper asked, giving me a slight bow of his head so I could straighten up. “You are here, so I assume you vouch for him?”

  “Of course,” blurted out Milrae. Kinara and Jalee quickly followed her lead.

  “We wouldn’t be here if not for him,” Mizuki said.

  Koharu bowed, then stepped closer to him. “If I may—the two of us serve the Monkey Princess. It was by her wish that we accompanied these others to find you, and by the Eye of Ra that she allowed them to use in this endeavor. Neither of us know him well, but from what we’ve observed, he is a kind and caring man.”

  “And powerful,” Suiko said. “I’ve connected with him. We are not linked, as these others are,” she paused to eye my monster ladies with a humored half-smile, “but on a spiritual level, I can vouch for him.”

  I hadn’t been aware she was probing so deeply while with me, but had no complaints if it helped win this man over to our side.

  He gave her a pleased nod. “There are few opinions I value more than yours, dear friend.”

  “Then you accept?” Ahlaksiz asked. “You will train him?”

  As his eyes weighed me, I felt an intense tingling in my mind, as if he was reading every thought. Finally, he said, “He has potential. For the Iridant, though? That is… dangerous, even with my training.” Turning to me again, he said, “Do you mind if Suiko shares with me what she has learned?”

  I gulped, unsure what that would entail, but I wasn’t about to reject any request from him. “Please.”

  “Suiko?”

  Turning into two balls of light, she floated to and around him, faster and faster until she was like a halo of light above his head. His eyes were wide as he saw what he could; then she was back at my side, in her normal state, and he was smiling.

  “She might have shown me more than I would have liked to see, but what I was looking for was there,” he said. “While I do not get involved, you have a good heart and will accomplish great things. As you are determined and would do more harm than not if I were to reject your request, I have decided. I cannot fully train you, as that would take too long. But, judging by what I’ve seen from you so far, I believe you are close to unlocking your next tier of advancement. For that, I can be of assistance.”

  I bowed, completely clueless about what this would truly mean, but floored at the idea of this acceptance, and the promise of what it meant for my future.

  27

  There was no time to hesitate, no time to even catch my breath and wonder what was to come. With one hand lifted, my surroundings transformed. I still stood on a dirt path, and the trees were still around me, but everyone else had faded; the forest looked nothing like it had moments before. Where it had been dark, it now glowed with golden light that filtered down to reflect off of the green. Specks of light reflected in the air on what I thought to be dust at first, but they were too large.

  “Welcome to the world as I see it,” Vaper said. “This energy around you can be used and manipulated in ways that will take you years to understand. Even then, only after you’ve trained long and hard. You have great company, though, and I have no doubt you will succeed if you put your mind to it.”

  “Thank you,” I muttered, looking around in awe.

  “You have learned to work well as part of a team. You can rely on them, which is great. How well can you rely on yourself?”

  “I…” Damn, he had me. My confidence had certainly grown lately, but only because I was surrounded by awesomeness. In nearly every situation, we’d persevered as a team. While I’d done my part, could I truly take credit for any of it?

  “Confidence in oneself is not a part of the use of prana and ichor. But it is a starting point, and as long as you don’t know your own abilities and feel you have to rely on others, you can never fully advance. You will have paths blocked off, paths that are necessary for full deification.”

  “Deification?” I asked, suddenly snapping to attention. “I’m not, I mean, I have no intention of being a god.” Maybe I wasn’t the strongest Christian, or didn’t even know if I believed in any of that stuff, but I’d at least been raised going to church. Maybe I did believe, on some level, because I was fully committed when I said, “That would be blasphemous.”

  He laughed but held up his hands at my look of annoyance. “I’m not laughing at you, but at the idea that you can’t achieve this level of greatness without committing blasphemy. Maybe another word will help? You won’t become a god, but the amount of power that you could potentially become capable of accessing would make you god-like. In terms of not God—you won’t be able to create Adam and Eve, for example. No, what I mean is like the gods of old, some of which, you might know, still exist in one form or another. You can become as powerful as any of them.”

  “Ah, I… see.”

  In truth, what he was saying seemed far beyond my reach, let alone my comprehension. I wanted to learn from him, so I went along with it. Regardless of my ability to understand, I would do my best.

  “Very well.” He motioned to the trees around me, glowing as if in a dream. “And you have a connection to nature, yes?”

  “I do.”

  “Then we shall start there. Show me the limits of this ability, as you know it to be.”

  “Sir?”

  “I want to know what you believe your limit to be, so you will attempt to use all the power you possess in this regard. Begin.”

  I blinked, turned to the trees, and thought, Here goes… Reaching out, I had the trees move, at first simply swaying, then getting into it and finding a rhythm. Embracing it, I started twisting my hands around and swaying, and so did they. Their branches intertwined, braiding and snapping back apart in rapid movements that would have seemed impossible if it hadn’t been happening before my eyes.

  “More,” Vaper said.

  If he said I could do more, I was damn sure going to try. Only what more was there? I had them move apart and then together, to do the wave, then to look like they were boxing each other. As embarrassing as it was, I simply didn’t know what else to do with them.

  “You are limited by your imagination more than your ability,” Vaper said, and approached, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Through you, I am not using your abilities or my own, but guiding your thoughts so that you can better understand. Do you accept?”

  I nodded.

  This time, when my hands started moving, ideas flowed. Whatever he was doing, it felt like a book had been closed in my mind and now was open, flipping through the pages; I absorbed each one with a simple glance.

  One second a tree would move, roots pushing through the ground so it seemed to walk, then I dug deep and lifted my hands to the sky. I felt the tree’s roots dig deep, pulling at the soil around it. The tree burst up and above the rest, growing as if captured by a time-lapse camera that would have covered many years.

  Vaper released me, and I stumbled back, staring at the tree in awe.

  “I did that?”

  “You did, and you can do it again, but only when you believe. And, I must admit, your ability could use some sharpening and honing before you can make use of such skills in battle. That day might not be as far off as you think, though. What I would like to achieve here is to help you see not only the internal power but this world as I view it. Once you’ve mastered that, you will understand where power exists in pockets, where it can be pulled from… and where you should avoid.”

  “Avoid?”

  “Dead spots, called so not only because they lack energy, but because attempting to use powers that rely on outside forces in such spots might have negative effects. Unforeseen consequences.”

  “I see.”

  “You might, or maybe you don’t yet. But you will.”

  With a wave of his hand, the woods returned to a state of darkness. But we now appeared to be in a completely different section of the woods, and it was darker than before. So dark that only the nearest trees were visible. Beyond that, I saw nothing but black. Considering that it shouldn’t even have been night yet, this was all very disorienting.

  “I’ve shown you the light, and now I want you to find it for yourself. Go, find your inner balance, your core vision, and open up to this part of your world that has always been there, for those who seek it out.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, but the man vanished. Was this even the same forest? For all I knew, I was in some other part of the world, or even another world entirely. Terror gripped at my chest for a moment; my breath strained as my eyes attempted to adjust to the darkness.

  He had told me I needed to learn how to find the light. Somewhere, even here, that spiritual energy lingered, waiting for me to find it. Magic, or power—whatever it truly was—could give me sight in a place like this.

  At first, I walked, using feel and clicking my tongue to get a sense of the area. That helped, but it wasn’t the point of the exercise, and no matter how far I walked, nothing changed. The ground became more uneven, and at one point I passed a dark, barely visible stream.

  So I found a rock near that stream and sat, listening to the water. Luckily, I didn’t have the urge to piss, or the sound of the stream would have been torture. That thought brought me down the rabbit hole of wondering when I had last used the bathroom. Was all this somehow pushing aside such needs? Maybe it was all in my head.

  Dammit, those lines of thought did nothing to help me here, so I focused instead on breathing, meditation as I’d practiced before, and finding the light. Or improving my sight? All the language Vaper had used had been over my head, but I imagined it wasn’t so important how one worded it, as long as the connection could be made.

  Breathing out, I paused, then took a deep breath, focusing not only on my energy, but on finding a way to see through it, to bring it through me in a way that would interact with my surroundings.

  Nothing happened. I sat in the darkness for what might have been hours, or might have been much less. Time lost all meaning in that dark forest.

  A thought finally came to me. My bat power allowed me to sense my surroundings in a way other than regular sight; that was based on a sort of echolocation going and bouncing off of my surroundings. Maybe this was similar?

  When I focused on my energy again, I tried, instead of just seeing with it, to use it to see my surroundings by finding the power, letting the two become one.

  In a burst of energy.

  “Already?” Vaper said, eyeing me with a bit of pride—and a hint of skepticism. “I’d almost say that was too fast.”

  “It came to me,” I said, “when I realized that I couldn’t force it, couldn’t just open my eyes and see it, but had to, in a sense, let my internal vision connect with the power.”

  He nodded, clearly impressed. “You did it on your own. Continue on that path, and you will unlock powers within that you can’t now possibly fathom.” His eyes lingered on mine, as if he wanted to ask something, but wasn’t sure he should.

  “What is it, sir?” I asked.

  “No, a simple human thought, nothing more.”

  “Is that so wrong?”

  He considered, then shook his head. “I suppose not.”

  “Well then?”

  “I was only curious. You’re from America, yes?”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  “How long has it been,” he said with a sigh. “When I was last there I passed through Texas, staying for a bit in Austin, but other cities as well. The food, especially the barbecue, I don’t know… seeing an American here brought back memories of those days, of that taste on my lips as I sat on a patio overlooking the river. Of all the Earthly pleasures, that one ranks among the highest in my book, though there are at least two competitors.”

  “I can think of a couple of good ones.” My mind went to the monster ladies and I turned, looking for them. “Speaking of…?”

  “Your friends? We will all be reunited shortly, once I’ve finished our lesson.”

  Having thought it done, I closed my mouth, waiting patiently for him to explain.

  “This is only the first stage of your training, but for what you desire… it should be enough,” Vaper said. “And it can only be completed in one way.”

  I waited patiently, hands folded in my lap.

  “Why do you suppose I am where I am?” he asked.

  “My best guess, some sort of spiritual connection to the place?”

  He considered. “In a way, yes. But it’s more than that. Japanese shrines and temples carry large amounts of that energy from the other worlds and planes. Sometimes I travel through the void; others I sit and watch over the worlds, or find myself close to these spiritual waypoints. To meditate, channel my energy into ways that will help both the universe and myself. Nature, too, has its own energy.”

  “And Mt. Fuji has shrines on it,” I said, putting the two together.

  “This world has very few spiritual locations as powerful as this one.” He turned, waving a hand so the trees moved aside to give us a view of the mountain above. “So it will be that, if you hope to accomplish what it is you came here to do, you must climb the mountain and connect to this spiritual power. Find it for yourself, alone, and do what must be done.”

  If I understood what he was telling me, I had to climb Mt. Fuji, by myself, and there complete my training by reaching out to touch this energy he had been showing me how to connect with.

  As much as I’d always wanted to climb Mt. Fuji, and equally, as much as I now wanted to cultivate this energy they spoke of, this sounded horrible. That didn’t mean for a second I was going to do anything but accept the mission.

  “When do I start?” I asked.

  He stepped aside, motioning for me to follow the path he had made. “Now.”

  28

  My only thought was, What the fuck’s wrong with me?

  In the moment of climbing, endlessly walking up that damn mountain, doubt and regret penetrated me from every direction. I had briefly told the monster ladies, Basty, and Suiko my farewell below, and what I needed to do. They had been supportive, telling me they believed in me and that they’d be waiting for me at the bottom.

  Back there with them, anything had seemed possible. Now, my breaths came heavy, my legs shook from exhaustion, and there was not a friend in sight.

  I was starting to hate life. I was beginning to wonder why I wasn’t back home playing around with ideas for my visual novel, or working with artists to come up with some new ideas. That was the simple life. A life I could make last an eternity. Out here, I felt like Bilbo in those first few days after leaving the shire. But there was no dragon on my mountain, no halls of gold. At least, not that I knew of.

  Instead, it was just me, walking up a damn mountain to reach a sense of spiritual enlightenment, or some such bullshit.

  I turned, arms around my torso as I shivered with the cold, and shouted, “FUCK ME!” at the night. Standing there, I paused, looking out over the view of Japan. Lakes shimmered with the setting sun, indicating how long I had been walking. Mostly it was nature from here, but I could make out patches of villages or cities. A breath of fresh hair helped clear my mind, and I reminded myself of the cost of giving up. Possibly saying goodbye to my monster ladies, to all of this? Not a fucking chance.

  If this mountain killed me, at least I’d go down with the knowledge that I’d done them proud. So I turned, pressing on, telling myself there wasn’t anything the mountain could do to break my will.

  You can believe it damn well tried. Within an hour of that moment, a light mist started to wake me up, then that mist turned to rain. I took refuge in a nasty-smelling toilet, where I tried to hold my shriveled dick with my cold-as-ice hands, and took a piss. I imagined a number two was in order since it had been a while, but there wasn’t a chance of me doing that on this cold mountain. Better to keep climbing and get it over with.

  Opening the door to the cold wind, I was not at all happy to find that the rain had become sleet, and I wondered what the hell was going on with this place. Considering the time of year, the weather didn’t seem right. Someone or some force was messing with me, without a doubt.

  It had grown dark, and while I could still find my path, I imagined it would have been so much easier with crowds during the climbing season. Still, I pressed on, doing my best to ignore the pain and exhaustion. How long had it been since I’d last slept? Naps, sure, but actual sleep… I couldn’t remember. Tunisia?

  At one point I had to climb some rocks instead of merely walking the trail. I glanced about, wondering if I’d somehow taken a wrong turn, but no, it didn’t seem that way. Hunger gnawed at my insides; I had been stupid enough not to bring anything. Or maybe that was part of this test? A vending machine tempted me, but it was turned off and I had no money—meaning I’d be stealing, and I wasn’t about to do that.

  I licked my lips and eyed the rocky terrain, noting a lack of bushes or trees at this point. A glint of hope arose, however, at the sight of a sign that told me I was at the old eighth station. It was only because I’d watched some VR climbing videos long ago that I knew this meant I was on the Yoshida or Subashiri trail, and that the end of the climb was coming up. When climbing, one can’t really tell; all you see is the side of the mountain. Each ledge had seemed like the top to me, so finally I stopped letting my hope rise. This time, though, I had a literal sign.