Chapter 1.6

A nascent “snow” descended upon the city.

To the average resident, that was how it appeared, as white crystals melting on children’s tongues, sugar frosting dusted over bus windows and shining lampposts. For a moment, the torrential winds above parted to allow this snow to swoon softly, gently, over all souls and all things in Sapporo.

Miyuki and Mamoru made their way to the top of the rusted copper dome above the government office. The imaginarium drifted around them. From the roof, Mamoru spotted high beams pouring out of Odori Park.

“Is it over already?” he wondered aloud. “It can’t be.”

“Look,” Miyuki pointed, towards the roof of the prefectural police headquarters a few blocks away. “You feel anything coming from that direction?”

Mamoru sensed it the moment Miyuki gestured, a faint signal reverberating through the imaginarium. It was such a quiet echo, in the same manner that even the strongest heartbeat required an ear pressed against one’s chest to hear.

“The captain?” Mamoru answered.

“An incantation of hers, probably,” Miyuki said. “It’s muting the effects of the storm for now. But this is just a prelude. Castle Gramarye hasn’t even descended yet.”

“On the radio, you mentioned this Baby Yaga was going to ask a Question–”

“Baba Yaga,” Miyuki corrected, “but yes, the imaginarium gathering now is in preparation for that Egregore’s Question. That moment is what we’re here to stall.”

The high beams from earlier drew closer to the front gate of the prefectural government office. A league of trucks ferrying extra polycarbonate panels halted just in front of a concerned crowd.

“Bring the trucks around! Form a cluster around the gate,” Kanna Samukawa barked as she dismounted the foremost vehicle. “Layer the panels starting from here.”

“Right,” Miyuki said. “We better get started too. What can you make, Mamoru?”

“Make?”

“When you create your imaginarium weapons,” Miyuki explained. “What else can you make? Can you make anything you want?”

“No,” Mamoru shook his head. “Whatever I make, it has to be something in the popular imagination. Guns with famous names, for instance.”

“Popular imagination,” Miyuki murmured. “Then what about mythological weapons? Like what about Kusanagi or Totsuka-no-Tsurugi?”

“I’ve never tried it, but it would probably work,” Mamoru scratched behind his neck. “What, are we trying to cut the storm in half? I don’t know how to use swords. What about a shield? I can probably make a famous shield.”

“Your thinking has no imagination, Mamoru,” Miyuki scolded. “With your level of dexterity you could be reanimating more than just weapons and armor, and no, I don’t think a shield would work here.”

What Miyuki didn’t tell Mamoru was that she would be the one on shield duty. Unfortunately, her skill set included punching and kicking, not exactly the most useful toolkit when facing off against a storm.

Mamoru, on the other hand, was different.

“If only there was a legendary vacuum cleaner,” Miyuki mumbled. “Maybe some kind of container? What about a gourd?”

The snow intensified into a flurry, but strangely, the rate of snowfall maintained an eerie evenness. Miyuki caught a whiff of embers dancing on the nearby roof. Reiko’s presence grew stronger. The surrounding imaginarium flickered pink. The captain had thrown pieces of herself into the storm, and those pieces now lay hanging in the air.

Hanging in the air… hanging…

“I’ve got it!” Miyuki exclaimed and shook Mamoru’s shoulders. “Catching a catfish with a gourd!”

“What?”

“There’s a hanging scroll painted by the Zen artist Josetsu. It’s called catching catfish with a gourd.”

“Is that where that’s from? What does a scroll have to do with anything?”

“You’re going to materialize the man who’s catching catfish with a gourd!”

“First of all,” Mamoru scowled. “I have to know what he looks like to incant–”

Miyuki flashed out her phone before Mamoru’s “second of all.” Mamoru spotted microbursts of imaginarium behind her fingers as she flew across her keyboard. The only slow motion was the loading of the painting itself, courtesy of the single bar of reception left on her device.

“Is this good enough?” Miyuki held up her phone. “Do you need me to zoom in?”

“Can you at least explain to me why I need to incant…” Mamoru blurted the first thought that came to mind, “this old ass deformed man?”

“You’ve never heard of someone who said catching a catfish a gourd?”

“My dad used to say it. I don’t know. I’m not middle aged yet.”

 “This is why your imagination is no good,” Miyuki pouted. “People think this phrase means something impossible to do, but Josetsu specifically meant that it’s impossible to control the natural world. With a little irony, a man with a gourd could suck in the surrounding imaginarium.” 

“But isn’t this a natural–” Mamoru paused. “It’s not!”

Miyuki pointed at precipitous skies. Reiko’s hold on the storm was waning. The clouds broke lower, bringing howling banshees with them. Their bodies held fastened to a distinct shape.

For the first time, limestone peeked through gaps in the fog.

“That’s right, Mamoru. This storm is an artifact made of magic, a human creation, which means we have the power to resist it.”

“Besides,” Miyuki chuckled. “I’ve always wanted to give an old man like that a good ending. It’s a little cruel, don’t you think, for him to wander, destined to never catch a fish? What if the gourd was the only tool he had?”

Miyuki turned around and walked towards the edge of the verdigris dome.

“Where are you going?” Mamoru called.

“I’m going to cast some wards to buy Mrs. Samukawa time,” Miyuki said. “You’re my ace in the hole, Mamoru, when I can’t hold back the storm anymore. Make sure you do your job. Captain Nakamura put me in charge, after all.”

“Wait!”

Miyuki didn’t look back. She knew what face Mamoru was making.

“Do you know?” she laughed. “Do you know what my track coach used to say to me, whenever I was nervous before a meet?”

She smiled.

“The future is right there. Run towards it! Tell it that you’re here!”

Glyphs on Miyuki’s shoes activated and she propelled herself into the air.

“As close as you can, Miyuki,” she told herself.

She landed on the roof of the adjacent office building, then jumped again, this time landing on the windows of the prefectural police headquarters. She sprinted vertically until she cleared the rooftop, where she caught sight of Reiko standing with her eyes closed, her arms wavering.

Fujiko stood beside the captain, her eyes too focused to notice Miyuki at all. Miyuki shook off her confusion and activated the glyphs beneath her soles again. From Central Sapporo’s highest point, she launched herself towards the encroaching cloud formation until she was face to face with a wailing front, the tempest’s worst excesses held back by Reiko’s meddling.

“Let me help, captain. I’m borrowing that imaginarium of yours,” Miyuki winced and pressed her hands towards the sky. “Incantation.”

Her fingerless gloves gleamed to life.

“Wards,” she incanted. “Galbraith Sequences One through Ten.”

Reiko’s magic, resting within the imaginarium over Sappore, surfaced, and the city bore witness to a newborn galaxy of twinkling pink stars. They swirled about Miyuki, some surrounding her in a translucent orb that kept her afloat below the clouds.

The rest stretched across Sapporo and flapped together into fledgling wings that caught the howling gales escaping the clouds.

The storm lashed out, like a child rampaging against its mother’s loving arms. Miyuki held firm, even as the tempest sought the maker of the wings, sought her. When it found her, it converged and threw everything, unpredictable imaginarium, chaotic squalls to loosen itself from her clutches.

The orb protecting her shuddered and cracked. It wouldn’t last long.

Miyuki dared to look below.

More emergency vehicles streamed towards the former Hokkaido Government Office. They cascaded out of Odori Park to all parts of the city. Everywhere, people without magic, who could not know that they might be blown out to Ishikari Bay should Miyuki’s wards fail, rushed from door to door, from observation area to observation area, delivering last minute supplies and protection.

The clouds broke away. Miyuki could see it, an unnatural light that illuminated the silhouette of angled terraces and a central bastion resting upon a floating rock.

Then came the sound of voices from the keep, but Miyuki couldn’t make out the words. The space surrounding her was flooded with screams. Through the cavity that revealed Castle Gramarye, a hand, nearly invisible, wreathed in streaming currents, reached forward and clutched the orb surrounding Miyuki.

It crushed the orb, and the wings cradling the sky crumbled and fell. The hand pressed further and pummeled Miyuki in the stomach. She gasped and folded her arms together to block another blow. The third blow came from above and hit Miyuki square in the skull. Her ears rang. On the fourth strike, she snapped her arm forward to catch the hand in midair, then clutched her fingers to disperse the imaginarium.

Miyuki hurled through the sky. The ground grew closer, more detailed. Dizziness settled in and her vision blurred. She leveled herself as best as she could, then cast as many wards beneath her as possible.

“Incantation!” yelled a voice from the copper dome.

Miyuki closed her eyes and smiled.

“It’s okay, everyone. We’re going to be okay.”

“Catching a catfish with a gourd!”

Before her consciousness drifted away, Miyuki laughed, and then something caught her before she hit the ground.