Chapter 13

Shota didn't think about returning to his new friends' ship as he walked through the port town. He worried about having to stay a boy. He'd concluded that he must keep every one of his lucky trades until he found the next thing he needed. He certainly couldn't abandon the fabric and money! He'd need both when he found Azuki. Time was flying by and there was so little of it left! From the charts, it looked like it could be as much as a month's journey from here to where he suspected she was going. Each way. Maybe more. Even if he found Azuki quickly, they would have to hurry to make it back in time. And they had to make it back in time! To keep his trade goods, though, Shota had to stay a boy. Rather than fly along the coast of this island, he would have to walk.

So walk he did, on and on and on. To his great disgust, he was even slower as a boy than he was as a bird. He worried and hurried, but he couldn't go fast enough. He caught rides when he could, but the roads were narrow, twisty and steep, so there were few carts. The days ticked by relentlessly. Mostly, he cached his assets at night and ate and slept as a sparrow, but sometimes he got a meal and lodgings at an inn, so he could ask directions from humans. He saw toki here and there, now, fishing tide-pools and estuaries, but they had not seen Azuki. They promised to tell her he was looking for her if they did, and that it was urgent he find her, but Shota knew that was a vain hope. Azuki was far ahead of him by now.

The toki he met confirmed his suspicions, though. While they lived, as Shota thought, in wetlands and by the sea, almost everywhere all over Japan, they were mostly solitary birds who preferred to live alone and moved around a lot. However, there was a huge more or less permanent colony on Sado Island, which formed their principle nesting ground. Yes, they told Shota, Sado Island was where someone looking for toki on an island to the north and west of Honshu would go. Unless, that is, she found other toki first, who might point her elsewhere or take her in!

But Sado was the big island off shore from the big port at Niigata, the one he'd seen on the charts Hideko had shown him. It had to be the place the egrets had described. The other toki promised to spread the word to their fellows about Azuki, but Shota was nearly certain now that Azuki was headed for Sado Island. He was absolutely positive she was far ahead of him.

Azuki, a loner true to her bird-nature, wouldn't ask anybody, Shota thought. She'd first heard from the egrets that she'd find toki on a cold island north and east of Kyushu, and Shota knew she'd take that as truth and simply go to that island, seeking only what information she needed to get there. Azuki was brave and adventurous, but not curious like him. She wouldn't ask endless questions. She'd just act leaving Shota to catch up. He hurried faster.

***

"What are YOU?" a huge voice roared.

Azuki woke up with a start only to find herself seized by a massive hand, lifted into the air, staring at the terrifyingly ugly face of an Oni, a woods ogre with red skin and masses of green, snake-like hair curling around her head.

"Azuki," she stammered, trembling with fear. Oni could be good or bad for humans, sometimes protecting certain villages, and sometimes terrorizing them, according to some rules known only to Oni. No one knew where the Oni came from, or what they wanted. They'd just appeared one day, according to the tales, and began imposing themselves like unwelcome guests.

Azuki had no idea what Oni thought of toki.

"You are not really a bird," the Oni said, regarding Azuki quizzically. "Nor human, either. You are an Azuki, you said?" The Oni whirled and stuffed Azuki into a cage.

"I'm called Azuki, ma'am," she said, frightened still more at being in a cage again. She felt her shoulders tremble and several feathers fall.

"I am going to have to think about you," the Oni said. "Do you suppose you're edible?"

"I don't think so," Azuki said, quaking in terror.

"Well, of course you'd say that," the Oni said. "I want to ask my nanna about you. I'll be back."

***

It took, Azuki thought, a very long time for the Oni to return. She could barely think for fear. She was hungry and once again she was very cold. She fell into a stupor that wasn't quite sleep, shivering with fright as well as with cold.

"There's no such thing as an Azuki!" The Oni announced on her return, making Azuki jump. "You are not quite a bird, so what are you?"

"It's my name," Azuki said desperately, "not what I am. What I am is a bird-child. As a bird, I'm a toki, as a human I'm a girl. Have you never seen a toki?"

"Not like you. My name is Kukanko." The Oni reached into the cage and stroked Azuki's feathers. She giggled disconcertingly as a few brushed off. "Do you do that all the time?"

"What?" At least the odd-colored giant didn't for now seem to want to eat her.

"Feathers, Azuki-toki. Do Azuki-tokis always drop feathers?"

"Yes, Kukanko-san," Azuki replied. "Let me out and I'll give you some. You can sell them to humans or use them yourself."

"Pretty." The Oni opened the cage door, set Azuki on a tree branch and gathered up the feathers Azuki had already shed, placing them in a pile beneath the branch where Azuki perched. Azuki, slightly less terrified but still quivering too much to fly, began to preen, hurriedly pulling out all her loose feathers and a few that weren't so loose.

"You can make fabric from them," Azuki said through a mouthful of feathers, "make clothes of them. They'd be pretty," she ventured, "with your coloring." Did Kukanko care about how she looked? She wore a well-made laced shirt and either a short skirt with many pockets or a very long tool-belt, so it was at least possible that she did.

Kukanko laughed uproariously. "Red and green? You think those are pretty colors?"

"For an Oni, of course," Azuki assured her, adding to the pile of feathers rapidly growing on the ground beneath her. "And they'll go so well with my extra feathers! See how the peach highlight sets off your red?"

Kukanko picked up a handful of feathers and fanned them out against her wrist. "They do look nice, don't they?"

Suddenly she stood and stared Azuki full in the face. Her breath was horrendous, but Azuki didn't flinch. Her own probably wasn't any better, since she didn't get much chance to clean her teeth. As a toki, she didn't even have teeth!

"What do you want for your feathers?" Kukanko asked.

"My freedom," Azuki replied promptly, daring to hope that the ogre had decided she was inedible. "And directions."

"I can't keep you," Kukanko said. "Nanna decided. You aren't human, so you aren't mine to either protect or devour. She's my mother so I listen to her. Your freedom you have. Where are you going?"

"Where the toki live, on the island by the big port."

"Sado-ga-shima?" The Oni cocked her enormous head. "You want to go to Sado? By Niigata? To live with the toki?"

Azuki nodded, hoping that was in fact the name of the island where the toki lived.

"Toki live there?"

"I have been told that."

"You want to live with them and be a bird?"

Azuki nodded again.

"That might be a good idea. You'll be safe from other Oni, at least. Niigata's that way," Kukanko said, pointing. "It isn't even far." She ran her gaze over Azuki. "Big bird like you could make the crossing."

Azuki felt her heart leap. She was almost home! At least, she hoped it would be home.

"Thank you," she said, brushing off the last of her loose feathers. "I must go."

"So you must," said Kukanko, stepping back from the tree, "if you think so." The giant seemed to reconsider. "There are toki there, you say, but you aren't really a toki. Are there Azuki-toki?"

"There will be," Azuki said, leaping into the air and flying away as quickly as she could, before the ogre changed her mind.

Kukanko shook her huge head, setting her snake-like hair dancing. It might be a mistake for the bird-girl to go to Sado-ga-shima, but that was not for her to say. She had left Kukanko many of her beautiful feathers, though, and for that the Oni and her family were in Azuki-toki's debt.