The shrine precincts were lit by several braziers, the illumination reaching the iwakura but not dispelling the shadows within it. Akiko didn’t remember coming out, but Shiraishi was there, in her vestments, waiting in front of the iwakura, between two of the braziers. The scene reminded Akiko of something… the vision she had had of the wild festival. That was it. So, this was probably a dream.

At that point, Akiko realised that she was looking at the precincts from maybe three or four metres above the ground, and didn’t appear to have a body.

<em>Probably a dream, then,</em> she thought.

There was a noise from the steps, people shouting and running, and Akiko went over to see. Looking down the steps, she could see the mikoshi, its gold sparkling in the light from the torches carried by the men running ahead of and behind it. They, like the men carrying the palanquin, were wearing nothing but loincloths, and were covered in a thin film of sweat. They all started up the steps, just as the women’s mikoshi came into sight behind them. With a shout, the women found a burst of speed, catching up with the men before they could all start climbing.

The steps really weren’t wide enough for both mikoshi to climb at once, but the women weren’t about to let the men go first, forcing their way up. The men and women carrying torches in front of the mikoshi were now standing together on the steps, looking down and laughing and shouting encouragement, and rather more personal comments.

The men managed another step, then a third, and the women realised that they weren’t going to push their way in front here, dropping back slightly. Akiko was watching from above the steps now, and could see the women charge up directly behind the men, just to one side, as close as they could get. As soon as the men reached the top, the women put on another surge of speed, breaking out to one side. Shiraishi stood between the braziers, a sakaki branch in each hand, one adorned with red shide, the other with white. As mikoshi appeared, she raised them, waiting.

The men couldn’t help noticing what the women were doing, and, with a great shout, they also pushed harder, keeping barely ahead as they raced across the precincts, putting the mikoshi down on its stand and kneeling just as the women reached the finishing point.

Shiraishi dropped her right arm, and the white sakaki, and the men erupted in a great cheer. The people gathered to watch the festival, people Akiko had not seen before, also cheered, and the women were laughing, as well, as Tamao slid out from behind the braziers, weaving in and out of the crowd.

Within the iwakura burned a light, white and steady, casting sharp shadows across all the participants.

Then something wrenched inside Akiko, as if she were suddenly falling. There was a screaming in the sky, a piercing sound that filled her awareness, making her long to stop her ears, grab her head, bury her head in her knees. But she had no body, no way to block the clamour, no way to even muffle it.

The people vanished, the braziers vanished, leaving the precincts dark, lit only by the light that still poured from the iwakura. Dark shapes flowed out of the sky, ragged slashes of utter blackness against the air, trailing death and decay behind them as they fell. The light in the iwakura was so bright that not even the stones cast shadows now, but still the black forms came.

Tamao leapt at one, tearing it apart with his jaws, and it vanished into nothingness. He twisted to attack another one, but as he did so a third plunged into the ground of the shrine, and black vines erupted from the spot, spreading quickly, burrowing in and out of the ground.

The things were falling <em>through</em> Akiko now, and every one of them carried a deathly chill, a sense of loss, of failure, of defeat. Weakness, despair, depression.

Akiko couldn’t even shake herself out of it.

There were many patches of vines now, their black tendrils finding each other, weaving together, breaking open into obscene dark flowers, from which more black shapes rose, languidly at first, then seeming to catch a wind that Akiko couldn’t see or feel, a wind that blew differently for each of them.

One of the things struck Tamao, half way down his body. The kami twisted at once, lunging at it, but the thing had already vanished inside his skin, and the kami screamed as a red scale turned black, cracked, disintegrated in a shower of powder. Red and white fluid leaked from behind it.

The kami’s scream snapped Akiko out of her lassitude, and she rushed to Tamao’s side. What could she do? How could she…

She raised the kagurasuzu in her hands, sweeping it through one of the things, which split apart into hundreds of tiny fragments, fragments that were devoured by the bells as she swept them back through it. She ran to catch another one, but even as it vanished Tamao screamed again, and Akiko looked around just in time to see another scale disintegrate.

There was no time to think; another of the things was just above Tamao’s back. Akiko swung the kagurasuzu…

And missed, as something grabbed her ankle and pulled, tumbling her to the ground. The kagurasuzu fell from her grasp, bouncing away, and before she could grab it the tendrils of the vines had wrapped around her wrists, another one crossing her back, probing at her, a gentle pressure that, even through her clothes, made her shudder.

She tried to push herself from the ground, looking up at the iwakura. The black shapes were diving into the light, which flickered as it consumed them. Flickered, and grew dimmer.

More tendrils pressed across her back, forcing her down, and now she could feel them probing across her face, at her neck, the cuffs, pushing up inside her clothes, coiling round her skin so that she could not draw back from their slimy touch. A scream welled up inside her, but she could not, dared not, open her mouth, because a vine was wrapped around her neck, its tip probing at her lips.

Tamao screamed instead, but Akiko could not even look at the kami.

Akiko sprang out of bed with a scream, grabbing the wall and holding on, tight, breathing heavily, shaking, covered in sweat.

<em>A dream, a dream, a dream…</em> She repeated it to herself, even as she checked her skin for marks.

“Akiko! Akiko! Are you all right?â€ She heard Shiraishi calling from the corridor, but couldn’t muster the will to say anything, to do anything other than breathe and try to recover her composure.

<em>Just a dream.</em>

<em>Just a dream.</em>