The next morning, the first thing that James learned was that the sea around the island had turned blood red. You couldn’t actually see the change from the school buildings, even if you had a seaside view. All you could see at this distance was the sky's reflection in the water, and the sky hadn’t changed. At least not yet.

  That didn’t stop gossip from spreading like wildfire through the student body, or Harue and Suki from texting him about the phenomenon. Half a dozen messages were waiting for him when he woke up.

  The second thing that James learned was that muscles that felt fine after a workout could ache excruciatingly the next morning. He almost didn’t get out of bed; it was only Mitsue’s reminder that Suki was holding a seat for him that got him moving.

  Classes would start in two days, so the cafeteria was almost filled with new students, all gossiping about the change to the sea.

  “It can’t really be blood,” Matsuri said contemptuously. “This sort of thing has happened in other places; it’s just an algal bloom.”

  “It smells like blood,” Kana said, pausing her eating only long enough to say that.

  “I thought you weren’t going to eat for a week,” James said as he sat down.

  “I don’t need to, now,” Kana agreed. “But this food is delicious.”

  “How can you smell it from here?” Matsuri said incredulously. Kana shrugged.

  “I have a good nose, and there is a lot of it. I’m surprised that none of you can detect it,” Kana said, ignoring the looks that the table was giving her.

  “I mean, I can smell salt, but that’s just the sea air, right?” James said.

  “Blood is salty, but it smells more of iron,” Kana said, nodding.

  “Well, we’re going down to check it out!” Harue put in. “And we have to leave about now if we want to get a space on the bus.”

  She dragged Kana away from her plate. As they left, James could hear her talking to Kana.

  “Now remember, when we get down there, no bathing in the blood.”

  “How do you expect me to drink it if I can’t get in the water?” Kana protested.

  “Do you even know what a bathing suit is?”

  “That sounds like a birthday suit—I have one of those.”

  “Okay, when we get down there, it’s time for lesson forty-five of fitting in…”

  James stared after the pair. “She’s going to drink it?” he asked.

  “Only if it turns out to be blood, I imagine,” Mitsue said queasily.

  “I’m going to go down too,” Matsuri said. “I’ll get a sample and test it, prove that it really is just algae.”

  “Sounds like a good science project,” James said. Matsuri glared at him.

  “Who asked you?” she said angrily.

  James was spared from answering by his phone, which buzzed with another message. Glancing down at it, he frowned.

  “Professor Toei wants to meet me after lunch,” he said.

  “Of course he does,” Matsuri snapped. “I’m leaving.”

  The morning flew by, filled with chores that James had been avoiding, like laundry and getting his textbooks sorted. He went over the student handbook again with Mitsue’s help and found that there was indeed a section covering duels under student interaction. He was still struggling with it when it was time to meet Professor Toei.

  “It says serious injury and death are strongly discouraged,” he said to Mitsue. Mitsue and Suki had agreed— well, more like insisted— on accompanying to meet with the Professor. “Not forbidden.”

  “You have to expect these things will happen in a serious duel,” Mitsue explained. “The students are fighting with deadly weapons, you can’t expect them to successfully pull all their strikes.”

  “Yes, but isn’t that the reason you shouldn’t want them fighting with dangerous weapons?”

  “That does not seem to be the prevailing attitude at this school,” Mitsue said as they arrived at the lobby of the academic building.

  “Ah, good, right on time,” Professor Toei said. He had been pacing nervously as they approached. “It sounds like you’ve been reading the student handbook, good. We need to go on a little trip.”

  James bit back a comment on the handbook. “Is it all right if my friends come along?”

  “Your friends?” Professor Toei said, startled. He looked at the two schoolchildren as if he were noticing them for the first time. “Ah… yes… that should be fine. Come with me.”

  He turned and led them out to the front, where the Bentley was waiting for them. The kids all got in the back seat.

  “Are we taking the ferry?” James asked. “Is it running, with all the blood—the red sea?”

  “No,” Toei said distractedly. “This matter is too urgent for us to rely on commercial shipping.”

  The three kids looked at each other, not knowing what to make of this. Before reaching the town, Toei turned down a side road that James hadn’t noticed before.

  Suki frowned. “This is the way to the army base,” she said softly.

  It wasn’t long before they came to a high fence and guardpost that marked the start of the base’s secure area. Toei stopped and showed something to the guard, and they were waved through. As they drove off, James noticed a poster plastered against the wall of the guardhouse. It looked like it was made of expensive rice paper and was painted with kanji that James didn’t recognise.

  “Is it… normal for a professor to have access to an army base?” he asked.

  Toei twitched his head, not actually glancing at him, but making an effort in that direction.

  “I’ve done some consulting work for them, and we’ve cooperated on… various matters,” he said. “Things will become clearer soon.”

  The rest of the short ride was done in silence.

  The army base was… an army base. Not quite the same as the American ones that James had seen on TV, but similar enough. Lots of low, wide buildings, an open area in the middle for parades, or sometimes… a helicopter landing pad.

  “Are we… going to take that?” he asked, looking at the military helicopter warming up on the tarmac.

  “Yes,” Toei said shortly. Men in army uniforms rushed up to them and handed over helmets with hearing protection. Somehow, they managed to have extra for Mitsue and Suki.

  James was seriously freaking out as they walked up to the helicopter, but he was keeping it inside with great effort.

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  Is this really happening right now? he asked himself. He didn’t have an answer.

  The thudding roar of the chopper’s engine, muffled by the helmet, rose in pitch. Without any fanfare, they were suddenly lifted off the ground. He clutched the straps of his harness as the ground, visible out of the still-open side door, fell away.

  It was another short trip. Over the water, but that, at least, he had expected. A helicopter wouldn’t have been needed if they were going somewhere on the island. Their destination was… a nearby island. Smaller than Oshima, and without any sign of development that James could see.

  When they started to descend, they appeared to be heading for an unbroken stretch of dense forest. Then, there was a flicker, and James could see that there was a cleared valley below. Or not a valley, exactly, more like a hole dug into the mountainside. There was… James had a glimpse of…

  That couldn’t be right. He must have been seeing things. Before he could look again, they were landing. A mix of soldiers and civilians swarmed the chopper, gesturing for passengers to leave, urging them to keep their heads clear of the moving blades. Once they were clear of the chopper, and their helmets were removed, James had a chance to look again. Just a glance was enough to confirm that Mitsue and Suki were seeing the same thing.

  James stared.

  There was a giant robot being dug out of the side of the mountain.

  A giant robot.

  Not a frame. There was no comparison. Frame sizes varied, but they started at three meters and got no higher than five. This was… it was hard to tell, given the way it was lying, half entombed, but it had to be fifty meters tall. At least.

  “It’s easier if you see this before I start the explanations,” Professor Toei said wryly. “It makes the incredible much easier to accept.”

  Before James could come up with an answer, there was a flash of blue light. Everyone looked towards where it came from, a stone slab set into the ground near the edge of the clearing. Inscribed with kanji characters, it was glowing brightly, while the kanji seemed to be written in blue fire.

  Much like the kanji on the poster, James couldn’t decipher the characters.

  “Sir, the ward is being tested,” one of the soldiers said.

  “I can see that,” Professor Toei replied. “It might just be a wandering spirit, but we wouldn’t want to take chances. Not today.”

  “Sir… how should we respond?”

  Toei waved dismissively. “You should have procedures for dealing with this, don’t you? I don’t want to interfere with your chain of command. Just tell your commander: my advice is that he should treat this seriously.”

  The soldier saluted and marched away, while the professor looked back at his stunned students. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Come this way.”

  James and his friends followed Professor Toei into one of the single-story buildings. This one was staffed by civilians, who all seemed to know the professor. They soon found themselves ushered into a perfectly normal conference room. Professor Toei started fiddling with the laptop attached to the projector.

  “Where was… ah, I see. Now, let’s start with the Jade Warrior.” He clicked a button, and a picture of the giant robot that they had just seen was splashed on the screen.

  “As best we can tell,” the professor lectured, “The Jade Warrior was the crowning achievement of a civilisation that existed fifteen to twenty thousand years ago.”

  “But that’s—” James started.

  “Impossible? True, it’s far earlier than any civilisation you’ll find in the history books. That is the case for two reasons. One is that this civilisation fell, hard. Not much was left when they were done, and time has done a good job of cleaning up the remains.

  “The other reason is that every artifact recovered from what we refer to as the God-King period is classified as top-secret by every nation in which it was found. At least, it is in Japan, and we suspect that other nations are doing the same thing.”

  “Why?” Mitsue asked.

  “Because artifacts from that era are a level of technology that we can only guess at, not match,” Professor Toei said. He clicked to the next frame, which was a close-up of the giant’s foot. People were clustered around it with equipment. He clicked again, and the video started playing.

  The people were trying to cut into the foot. James saw circular saws and cutting torches, as well as a hammer and chisel, but nothing even scratched the greenish metal.

  “Every government in the world would do anything to armour a tank in that metal,” Toei said. “Thus far, however, we are completely unable to cut or shape it. A few smaller pieces have been found, but not enough to glue onto a fighting vehicle.”

  “If they were so powerful and advanced, how is it that they fell?” Suki asked.

  “We don’t know the whole story,” Professor Toei said. “We only have access to the artifacts recovered across Japan thanks to our partnership with the Japanese government.”

  “Who is this we that you speak of?” Mitsue asked. “The school?”

  “Ah, no,” Professor Toei said. “The organisation I’m a part of…” he stopped and cleared his throat awkwardly. “It feels a little strange to just say this. I am part of an organisation that calls itself the Jade Path. We are, I suppose you might say, a secret society devoted to the return of the Jade Warrior to the fight, at the time when humanity needs him the most.”

  There was silence in the room as everyone just stared at him. He cleared his throat again.

  “Your family,” he said to James, “has been a part of this society for a very long time.”

  “What? For how long?” James asked. How long have my parents had that weird Japanese obsession? he thought. Before I was born, but not too much longer, right?

  Professor Toei gave him a small smile. “For about fifteen to twenty thousand years,” he said.

  “What? What?” James exclaimed.

  “Your ancestor was the pilot of the Jade Warrior,” Professor Toei said. “Well, the main pilot. He parked it here, after the war, so that it would be ready when the time came.”

  He sighed. “Very little of that time has been passed down through the society. But we remembered the need, and this location, and we kept track of the line that would one day provide the pilot.”

  “You think that I—” James started, but he couldn’t finish. This was all too much. His parents had been keeping this from him?

  “I’ve seen maths on long-term genealogy,” Suki said when he couldn’t continue. “There must be thousands, if not millions, of descendants from this pilot. Why are you singling out James?”

  “There are other candidates,” Professor Toei admitted. “It hasn’t been easy keeping track of the line over the years. We did our best, but there were… complications. That’s why we gave him the key, and now that it is attuning to him, we have our answer for sure.”

  “The key? Attuning?” James gasped. His breath was becoming laboured, but he wasn’t sure why. The stress of learning this?

  “The key,” Toei said, pointing at his chest. He looked down to see his sword necklace glowing green through his shirt. “The light is a sign that the time is almost at hand.”

  “This is… I can’t… I’m not…” James babbled. He took a deep breath and then jumped to his feet. “I need to take a walk,” he said.

  His friends jumped up to follow him. “Just wait… here,” he said. “I need to process this alone.”

  Ignoring Professor Toei, who had picked up a phone and started to dial, he stumbled out of the room and made for where he remembered the exit being. He found it, but he also found that it was blocked by soldiers.

  “Let me out!” he shouted. He knew it wasn’t a good idea to shout at armed men, but he didn’t care. They ignored him anyway, just standing in his way unmoved. He wasn’t so far gone as to attack them.

  Another soldier came up from behind. “It’s fine, I’ll accompany him,” he said. The other soldiers stepped out of the way. James spun to face the new soldier.

  “I want to be alone right now,” he said. The soldier cocked his head.

  “You can’t wander the site unaccompanied,” he said calmly. “There are places you aren’t allowed to go. You can be alone in a cell, or you can go for a walk with me.”

  James thought about his options. It was hard to think.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk. Is this direction okay?”

  He strode off, not waiting for a reply. He got one anyway.

  “This is fine, at least until we get to the perimeter, anyway,” the soldier replied, keeping up with his angry stride without difficulty.

  James soon found out what was meant by perimeter. He wanted to get into the forest, and he did, but only a few meters in.

  “Stop!” the man said. “This is as far as we go. I can’t let you go past the wards.”

  “Wards?” James asked. The man pointed a little way off at a tree that had more strange kanji plastered on it. They were glowing blue, not as brightly as the stone in the centre had been, but still clearly visible in the shadow of the canopy.

  “They were recently tested,” the soldier said. “That means there’s something out there.”

  “It’s just forest,” James protested. Then he blinked. Harue had just popped her head around from behind a tree. “What?”

  “Did you see something?” the soldier said. He’d been looking at James. By the time he turned to look into the forest, Harue had ducked back.

  “N—no, I don’t think so,” James said. He took a step back and sat down, his back to a tree. Remembering his parents, he dug out his phone.

  No Signal.

  Of course not. He sent the text anyway.

  Putting his phone away, he asked the soldier, “What’s the ward for?”

  The soldier looked at him. Apparently deciding that James wasn’t going to go running off, he fished in his breast pocket for some cigarettes and a lighter.

  “It keeps out magic and monsters,” the soldier said, lighting up and taking a deep breath.

  Harue popped out again behind the soldier’s back. She pointed at the ward poster and made a tearing gesture. When James didn’t move to comply, she stuck her tongue out and pulled her eyelid down. It was the first time James had seen someone do that in real life, and he almost laughed at the sight.

  Instead, he asked another question. “Are monsters something the JSDF fights?”

  “Not often,” the soldier said. “There are some units with special training, like this one, but it doesn’t amount to much. Mostly what not to do, like go past the wards. We leave the monsters to the priests.”

  “Are there priests here?”

  “Eh, sorta. We got a couple but they’re not good for much,” the man said. “The one that put that wardstone up, she was only here for that. She knew what she was doing.”

  “The others don’t?”

  The soldier shrugged. “Hard to say, they haven’t been tested since the ward went up,” he said. “Don’t seem up for much, though.”

  James didn’t reply, just stared out into the forest. Eventually, he noticed that the soldier had finished his cigarette.

  “Let’s go back,” he said.

  The soldier nodded. “As you like.”