Shion was waiting for them by the boat. She’d driven one of the Frame-transporting trucks the yakuza owned to get here. At least, that was what James assumed, based on the way the truck was parked, half-skewed over the side of the pier, with one of its tires hanging over water.

  Matsuri tsked. Over the speakers, it sounded like she was spitting. “When are you going to learn to drive?” she asked Shion, who was sitting on a bollard, smoking.

  “What are you talking about?” Shion scoffed. “It’s parked, isn’t it?”

  “Half-parked,” Matsuri retorted. “The other half is swimming.”

  She used her Frame’s one working arm to lift the truck back on the pier. Only then did she carefully maneuver her frame into the carrying cradle.

  “Where’s everybody else?” Shion asked. She stood up and threw her cigarette butt into the water.

  “I’m here,” Mitsue said, stepping down the gangplank. He was carrying a large aluminium suitcase. Shion started and whirled around in surprise.

  “Shion-san was kind enough to take care of the guards, but there were a few security measures that needed to be dealt with before we left.”

  “How long have you been there?” Shion demanded.

  “Not long, Shion-san. I was dealing with security, as I said. I certainly was not hiding to avoid a conversation with you.”

  “Oh. Good.” Shion frowned, narrowing her eyes as if some thought was eluding her. Then she shook her head, dismissing it. “So who else? And how are we going to pilot this damn barge?”

  “Suki can do it!” Harue said brightly. “Suki can pilot anything!”

  “Are you feeling better?” James asked Suki, still cradled in his arms. “Should I put you down?”

  “I think so… and if you want to,” Suki said.

  James gently lowered Suki to the ground. She wobbled on her feet for a moment but then steadied herself. James sighed with relief, and his armour faded away.

  “That’s a neat trick,” Suki said, her eyes twinkling. She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks for the lift.”

  “Right!” Harue exclaimed. “Shion, if you can show Suki where the bridge is, and Matsuri… you can drive that truck, right?”

  “Of course!” Matsuri replied. “I mean… not legally.”

  “I don’t think we have to worry about that on Yakuza Island,” Harue said. “Get your Frame on board while we wait for Kana.”

  “One moment,” Mitsue said. He stepped forward and offered the suitcase he was carrying to Matsuri. “I believe you should have this.”

  “What is it?” Matsuri asked suspiciously.

  “The prize money for the tournament,” Mitsuri said calmly. “That was the reason we all came out here, after all.”

  “What!” Matsuri yelled. She grabbed the case. “You stole it?”

  Mitsue shrugged. “Since the Raimēkai family went back on their promise of a fair competition, it didn’t seem right to let them keep the prize money.”

  “Wait, that was Harue’s secret mission?” James exclaimed. “You were planning on stealing that before we even got here!”

  “We knew they were gonna cheat,” Harue said. “It’s a lot easier to respond to cheating if you set it up in advance.”

  “Exactly,” Mitsue agreed. “Naturally, I waited until they had forfeited all moral protections before I acted. Fortuitous, as it meant I could use the attack by ten heavy Frames as a distraction. I’m not sure how Harue arranged that.”

  “Right!” Suki said suddenly. “Let’s get to the bridge, Shion-chan!”

  “Sure, whatever. This way.” Shion said. She led Suki onto the ship.

  Matsuri was staring at the suitcase as if she meant to bore a hole in it with her gaze. “The prize money… I got the prize money anyway?”

  She was staring so intently that she almost missed Kana’s arrival. Kana slid out of the sky like a bolt of shadowed lightning. Her blue and black form, glowing slightly with a mystical light, dove down to the pier, rearing up just before she reached the ground. Her tail touched the dock for just a moment, and then she was human again.

  “Nice timing,” Harue said dryly as all the humans jumped in surprise. “Did you deliberately wait until Shion left to show yourself?”

  Kana stared at the schoolgirl for a moment. Harue had reverted back to human form but had kept the school uniform. James was sure there was a logic to her costume changes, but he hadn’t figured out what it was.

  “Yes,” Kana said slowly. “I… remembered that I had not revealed myself to her, and so I waited for her to leave.”

  “Nice work,” Harue said, not quite suppressing a smile. She looked over at Matsuri. “Shouldn’t you be driving a truck?”

  Matsuri started. “Prize money… dragon… truck!” She yanked open the cab door and tossed the suitcase in ahead of her before climbing in.

  “Ew, it smells of cigarettes in here!” she complained, before starting the engine.

  “Are you actually trying to keep it a secret?” James asked Harue.

  “Keep what a secret?”

  “Spirits!” James yelled over the noise of the truck starting up. “You were just acting like you were keeping it a secret from Shion, but you let Kana fight those Yakuza and those Frames…”

  He switched to Kana midstream. “Are you alright after that?” he asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” Kana said smugly.

  “They had guns! Really big guns!”

  “The bullets just glanced off my scales,” Kana said. She beamed with pride. “My scales are impervious to human weapons.”

  “As for the secret part,” Harue said. “I guess the answer is… Yes, but no?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Maybe it should be no, but yes,” Harue muttered. “You might have to be Japanese to understand.”

  “I might have to get an explanation before I understand it,” James countered.

  “Hmm, that’s fair,” Harue admitted. “Okay, spirits aren’t exactly a secret in Japan. Maybe they are in America, and you’ve got men in black suits running around erasing the memories of whoever starts talking about them.”

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  “Wait, we have spirits in America?”

  “I don’t know, you’re the American, why don’t you tell me?”

  James tried to find a response to that, but failed. Harue shrugged.

  “We get a few tourists at the temple who are foreign spirits,” she said. “They exist, but they never said much about what it was like back home.”

  “So… here. They’re not a secret, but nobody talks about them?”

  “That’s it exactly,” Harue said. “Everyone in Japan is far too polite to talk about things that clearly can’t be real.”

  James looked pointedly in the direction Shion had left.

  “Well, the natural flipside of that is that if you’re a rude teenager, no one pays attention to what you say.”

  “Is that how you get away with it?”

  “Partly!” Harue giggled. “But anyway, the government knows, and they have special sections to deal with spirits. That lets them not worry about it, beyond calling in the specialists. The same goes for civilians. They have people they can call when things get a little weird, and that way they don’t ever have to think about it.”

  “So you don’t really care if Shion knows?” James asked.

  “Nah,” Harue declared. “But it’s good practice in keeping a low profile.”

  “Also,” Kana added, “Revelations should occur at a dramatic moment, or with a sense of theatre.”

  Harue blinked. “That’s… an attitude, that someone could have,” she said. “You didn’t get that from me, though.”

  “Of course not,” Kana sniffed. “It is inherent to my nature as a dragon. Now, shall we get on board? Some of their machines are still operable and are quite capable of sinking this boat.”

  It was a much more comfortable ride, seated on the bridge. The engines were further away, the air was cleaner, and the view was better. The seats were more comfortable as well. Once Suki had cleared the dock, the ship mostly steered itself, from what James could see. Suki was sitting in the captain's chair, looking ahead, but she didn’t touch the wheel, letting it move according to some programmed route.

  So, James felt safe bringing up something that had been on the forefront of his mind for some time.

  “Suki,” he said carefully, “Can you tell me why Kotodama Heavy Industries would go to such lengths to get you?”

  For about a second, Suki stared straight ahead as if she hadn’t heard him. Then she slumped in her chair and sighed.

  “I do owe you an explanation, James,” she said sadly. “But it’s… hard.”

  “Wait,” Shion said, looking up from the graffiti she’d been scratching on the console. “KHI was here? That’s a bullet dodged.”

  “They must want Suki quite a bit more than they want you, Shion,” Harue mused. “You’ve been wandering around the docks for a while, right? Did they ever send Frames after you?”

  “Not Frames, no,” Shion said, scowling. “They sent some… guys. Murder-guys. Kanon said that they kept it low-key because if I was pushed too hard, I might expose their… product.”

  “Kotodama Heavy Industries is a publicly listed corporation,” Suki explained. “While they can take some… shortcuts, they still have to care about the law and public opinion. The extraction team was sent under the orders of a different person.”

  “Who the hell can give KHI orders?” Shion objected.

  “My Master can,” Shion said unhappily.

  “Your master? Who’s your master?” James said. He stood up, suddenly angry enough to punch the guy if he should appear in the room.

  “Master is Ma—” Suki stopped herself. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to talk about Master without…” She took a deep breath and continued.

  “The CEO and founder of KHI is Kotodama Aiko,” Suki said slowly. “Her father is Kotodama Haruko. He is the one who created me, and he is… my Master.”

  “So, like, he’s the previous CEO?” Shion asked.

  “No, Aiko-san formed her company in… reaction to her father’s methods. They disagree on many things.”

  “That mean you’re a robot, like me?” Shion pressed.

  “Is that what you are?” Harue put in. “You’ve never struck me as being very robot-like.”

  “What do you mean?” Shion asked, pulling out a cigarette.

  “That.” Harue rolled her eyes and snatched the paper cylinder out of Shion’s hand. “And there’s no smoking on the bridge.”

  She pointed at a sign. Shion stared at it incredulously as if it were the first such sign she had ever seen. Harue, meanwhile, sniffed at the confiscated cigarette and made a face. She tossed it in a nearby bin marked ‘paper only’.

  “If we can get back to Suki’s story, please,” James said with great restraint. “What do you mean, he made you? How?”

  “I don’t know,” Suki said helplessly. “Master was always disdainful of Aiko-san’s technological achievements, so I don’t think I’m a robot. I don’t know what else I could be.”

  “What makes you think you’re not human?” Harue asked. “I mean, aside from the lack of a soul.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Suki replied. “But I was told that Master made me. I was born fully grown—at least my earliest memories are of me looking like I do now. I’ve been imprinted with skills that I don’t remember learning, like piloting a wide variety of craft. And I have to do everything my Master says.”

  “Everything?” Harue asked. “Hey, I heard that your master wants you to strangle James.”

  “What?” James blurted, but it was Suki who had the most extreme reaction. Her arms started twitching, and it looked like she was forcing herself to look at Harue and not James.

  “That is… a lie,” she spat out. “You’ve never met Master, and he wouldn’t talk to the likes of you! You’re lying!”

  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, her arms relaxing and falling to her side. When she recovered, she glared at Harue.

  “What did you do that for?” she yelled.

  “I wanted to see what would happen,” Harue said. She held out a knife. “Actually, that was a lie; he wanted you to stab James.”

  This time, there was no reaction; Suki just increased the intensity of her glare. “You are a lying liar, and I don’t believe you.”

  Harue laughed delightedly. “You’ve immunised yourself to it! Is that why he hasn’t just sent you a recording of an order to come home?”

  “Recordings can be easily faked,” Suki said stiffly. “I’ve no way of knowing if such a recording comes from Master.”

  Harue chuckled. “So he has to come get you if he wants you to obey.”

  “Master doesn’t leave the Garden,” Suki told her. “It’s in Hong Kong. That’s why he’s enlisted Kotodama to bring me back.”

  “That’s a lot to unpack, right there,” Harue muttered. “But let’s stick to the topic. Do you have blood?”

  “I do, and a heartbeat as well,” Suki confirmed. “Other fluids, mucus and saliva and… other fluids.”

  “That’s no big deal,” Shion said. “I can do that, but it’s just a shell around the machine.”

  “It’s not the same, though,” Harue mused. “Mitsue could tell you were heavy just by fighting you, and Suki’s…” She looked at James.

  “She’s light,” James confirmed. “I mean… a normal weight for a girl.”

  “It’s a puzzler,” Harue admitted. “Did Haruko call you anything that might give us a clue? Like Bioroids or something?”

  “He calls us his children,” Suki said. “But the men who came to look at us had a name that they used. Living Doll.”

  Harue shuddered. “I don’t know which is creepier. Why did men come to look at you?”

  “Master wished to show off his creations,” Suki said calmly. “Partly for pride, and partly to advertise the girls that he sold.”

  “He sells his children?” James’s anger, which had been building throughout this conversation, didn’t have anywhere to go. He stood up, his fists clenching, and then, having nowhere to go and no one to punch, he sat down again.

  “Not those of us in the Garden… I think,” Suki said. “Girls would disappear… rarely. My understanding was that they either escaped or were… found wanting. But they might have been sold.”

  “We have to rescue them!” James declared. “Find a way to get to Hong Kong, break in and—” he stopped because Harue was shaking her head at him.

  “James, James, James,” she said. “Your heart’s in the right place, but think. Didn’t we just meet a terrorist organisation headed by someone from this place?”

  “Kaguya,” Suki confirmed. “I really want to get to her safe house tonight.”

  “The terrorists…” James trailed off, thinking back to the conversation. “The kid was talking about an old man and a compound in Hong Kong. That’s the Garden!”

  “Ah, they mentioned it? The compound was a high priority for them, wasn’t it?”

  “They wanted to hit it, but it was too hard a target,” James said.

  “If those guys can’t get in, what makes you think you can?” Harue asked.

  “Maybe they can help—” James cut himself off, horrified at what he was about to say. Join forces with terrorists? What was he thinking?”

  Harue gave him a sympathetic look. “Yeah, you’re starting to see the issues now. We haven’t even touched on how Hong Kong is the last place that Suki should go anywhere near if she wants to stay free.”

  “But—” James didn’t have an answer to that. He sat down despondently.

  “I’m not saying we won’t,” Harue clarified. “Just not tonight, or next week. We need to gather allies, consult with Professor Toei…”

  “Both KHI and my Master are connected with the Black Dragons,” Suki put in.

  “They mentioned something about… so the Kokuryūkai is the Japanese name?” James asked.

  “Yes,” Suki said. “I don’t know much about them, but I know Master is in the inner circle, and Kotodama Corporation is… not.”

  “Is he a dragon then?” Shion asked. “Damn, is Aiko-bitch a dragon?”

  “I don’t think so,” Suki said. “I only knew the name until Professor Toei told us about them. I thought dragons were a metaphor for their power.”

  “Professor Toei will know what to do, then,” James said with a feeling of relief. “We’ll talk to him, and we’ll—”

  Harue patted him on the shoulder. “We sure will,” she said. “Just be prepared for a lot of ‘we can’t mess up the status quo’ talk.”

  “You think he won’t want to help?”

  “Oh, he’ll want to. It’s just that there are larger considerations, or it’s too dangerous, or there are other things we should be doing now.”

  James looked at her with dismay. She shrugged.

  “Face it, if they could have done this before we showed up, they would have.”

  “So you think we can’t do it? That we shouldn’t try?”

  “Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. I’m all about smashing up the status quo. What I’m saying is, don’t get discouraged when they tell you no. Keep smashing your face into that brick wall.”

  Harue grinned, the widest grin that James had yet seen on her face.

  “And while they’re dealing with you, I’ll slip in the back and figure out a way to make it so they’ve no choice but to help us.”