Page 2 of Cherry Moon

I leaned back to stretch before putting the lid on the tub of cherries, trying to resist, only to pop it and grab myself another.

Willpower? Are you there?

Life was all about cherries during September, from the fruit to the blossom.

Every second Monday of September, the moon began its seven-night run as the Cherry Moon—the holiest week of the year. The big rock turned a pale pink on the first night, the color of Sakura blossoms, finishing as a deep cherry red on the seventh night.

Today was day one.

What a sight. Talk about pretty. And the air caught this sweet cherry scent that blew your nostrils away. Just so good, like someone lit the best scented candle for a week.

Because of all the drama that’d gone down in recent times, and the terrible damage inflicted upon the world, the tenshi were now trying to put things right by giving the planet a healing touch every Cherry Moon.

As well as the spectacle in the sky, a stream of Sakura got released from the heart of Japan and London, soaring around the globe, landing in towns and cities to shed glittery particles of pink pollen wherever they flew. They specifically targeted the places damaged by mazoku attacks—demonic nasties with apocalyptic desires.

Down with the mazoku, man. The thought of them always made my guts boil.

The combination of the moonlight and the blossoms would bolster the regrowing of felled forests, for example, and also boost the rate of repair work carried about by the good people of the world. It was as if their presence put a spring in the steps of every worker, cheering them on during the month, and across most of the following year.

Awesome stuff.

London, one of the worst hit during the whole Mama Rita and the mazoku saga I was tangled up in, had come along leaps and bounds. Not that I’d seen it for myself, choosing to stay away from my home turf since moving to Wales.

“Eternal thanks to the tenshi,” I said, wiping down my worktop.

The Cherry Moon also destroyed lesser mazoku, and weakened the more powerful ones, making them easier to destroy overall. They were still around, unfortunately, wanting revenge for having their arses kicked. Stewing in their prisons, clinging to hate. Those weaker dickheads would just vanish across the week, unable to withstand the holy touch of our creators, who were the angelic opposite of the mazoku.

But a lot of demonic pricks remained. In fact, there’d been an uptick in mazoku-related attacks recently, which never boded well.

What was this, a third go at starting a proper apocalypse?

And it didn’t stop crime. There were still nefarious dickheads on the streets, and gangs running their shady hustles. And still a lot of suffering, still sickness and disease. Maybe one day, after several Cherry Moons, that stuff would all be gone.

Fingers crossed.

Done with wiping my surfaces down, I opened the living room’s patio doors to let some air in.

Sunlight poured over the rolling hills beyond our garden, only one wisp of cloud in the sky. A nice day, sunny but not scorching.

Thank fuck!

I stood in the doorway, listening to the birds, my mind still on the mazoku and the guilt I couldn’t quite shake.

You should be out there fighting the good fight, my brain liked to tell me.

I liked to fire back with, If you don’t shut it, I’m gonna eat twenty ice lollies and give you the biggest bitch of a brain freeze!

Yeah, I had the skills to kick mazoku arse. I could be out there hunting them, using my power-sucking katanas to shit on their days. Aki the warrior and all that.

That used to be me. But my boots were well and truly hung up nowadays. Don’t get me wrong, I’d always throw down if need be, and had done so a few times recently. Although, most of the time a mazoku would scarper off, afraid of the tenshi half of me inherited from my mum.

A werewolf dad and a tenshi mum. It still blew my mind.

Given the choice between stepping back into that life or staying in my love bubble? The bubble won every single time.

Still, guilt wormed its way to my core. Things felt like they were on the cusp of getting, I don’t know, bad again. So I should be stepping up to meet it.

How dare I be all peaceful?