Page 85 of Dragon 7

Behind me I heard the Claws murmur worry.

Of course his left hand still held the gold lollipop.

And then finally. . .Hiro’s eyes slowly opened.

He stared at the canopy first. Then the dark surrounding him. Then the muzzle flash strobing through the trees. Then the masked figures moving at the tree line. Then Reo's table and the four men moving pieces by phone-light farther away.

Next he found my face again.

Hiro sniffed. "You smell different. Why?"

"The war is here, brother."

He stared down at the gold lollipop. “Who gave this to me?”

“Probably the Silent Ones.”

Lowering his leg, he frowned and placed the lollipop in his pocket. “The bastards did something to me. Where is Nyomi?"

"She's safe."

"That's not an answer."

"She's in the Bamboo Garden."

Slowly, Hiro went quiet. He looked down at the ground between his boots and I watched his eyes move across the leaf-litter and the soil the way they moved when he was seeing a thing that was not there.

Does he see a ghost? I hope not. I need his mind with us.

I did not know what held his attention in that dark patch of dirt. His jaw worked once and then stopped. "What happened in that forest, Kenji?"

"A lot."

Hiro looked down at the dirt, seeing something the rest of us could not. His bottom lip quivered. Then, he stared at my hands. “What are those lines on your palm?”

“The war is here, brother. That conversation is for another time.” I picked up his mask and held it out to him. "Get this on. We need to fight. I have confirmation that our father is on his way."

Hiro took the mask from my hand. He looked at it for one breath—that single angle that showed mourning, that single angle that showed rage—and then he pushed it down over his face.

And because I was so different now, I appreciated Hiro in a more intense way.

My brother.

My weapon.

The most dangerous man in any room I walked into.

Always, I saw loyalty for me within his eyes. I had even seen devotion so complete it had never asked for a name. I had never let myself see what was underneath those things.

But the ritual had changed what I was capable of seeing.

In that one breath, before the Hannya mask swallowed Hiro’s face, I saw it.

Clear.

Still.

Undeniable.