Chapter One

"A wise hunter cultivates a wolverine's honor, where the foolish one cultivates her fury. The first has a true friend who will defend her in times of need, the last is left with naught but a weapon that shall turn without warning." -- Seventh Proverb of Ayako Ueda of Nezushi

Kenjiro looked up from her computer screen as the chiming bell alerted her to the entrance of some-beast into the ferry terminal. A wolverine wearing the forest-green armored vest with blue and yellow-striped kilt of an army officer was marching towards the vixen's desk. As the wolverine came closer, Kenjiro was able to place her as a Major by the four yellow wedges and single gray wedge on her collar's badge of rank. The fang-baring snarl that wrinkled her muzzle captured Kenjiro's full attention. The words of Ayako's Seventh Proverb drifted up from the vixen's memory. Whatever it was that had summoned the Major's fury, Kenjiro would need to work quickly to calm her.

"I am Major Shukko, commander of the Quill Breakers' Fourth Century, and I have come to you for answers. Would you please explain to me the delay in ferry service? My troops and I must be at the Mitsugawa Confluence within two days. I have seen sailor foxes brave the fiercest typhoons! Our navy surely can't be afraid of a little fog," the wolverine demanded of Kenjiro.

Kenjiro hurriedly stepped in front of her desk and bowed to the wolverine at a proper twenty-degree angle with her hands flat against her thighs, "Lady Major! Please forgive my impertinence, but you truly should not have come here."

"Who are you to dictate where soldiers in the Republic's service may and may not go?" Shukko asked with the hint of a growl in her voice.

"My apologies, Ma'am. I am Kenjiro, the portmaster of Hyuga. I do not mean to give you commands, I am simply saddened that you have become trapped here with the rest of us. It is true what you say, the Republic's navy has no fear of fog. We have become trapped by no simple mist, however.

"All attempts to leave the immediate area have failed. Several hours ago, when the fog first settled here, the ferry cast off and traveled down-stream. Not five minutes after it disappeared into the fog, it re-appeared upstream of the dock. Since the fog descended, any traveler seeking to escape this place, whether by foot or vehicle, has been turned back."

The wolverine closed her eyes and took four deep breaths. With the calm of her Center restored, Shukko opened her eyes and looked down at Kenjiro. "I am sorry, Portmaster. I should not have taken out my frustration on you.

"I will contact the base at Mitsugawa and inform them of our status. While we are here, I will ask my chaplain to intercede with Itazou. Her prayers should be able to drive this fog away."

Kenjiro shook her head sadly, "You may try to contact your base, but you will not succeed. Radios and telephones have been unable to reach beyond this prison of mist. Even within the fog's boundaries, we have found radios to be unreliable. We prisoners of the fog are doomed beasts, Major. The evil will keep us here until our food stores run out, and then we will starve."

Shukko's left ear twitched as she listened to Kenjiro's pessimistic evaluation of the situation, "I see. My troops will be making camp here while this fog persists. If the Quill Breakers can be of any assistance to you, do not hesitate to ask." She bowed to the vixen and left the terminal to rejoin her troops.

* * *

Shortly after nightfall on the seventh day of fog, Shukko sought out answers from the chief chaplain, an otter named Keiko. She found the priest sitting on a bench by the pier, with her muzzle buried in a manual of prayers and rituals, her black-hemmed crimson robe nearly concealing all but her snout and hands. Shukko did not wait for the priest to acknowledge her before launching into a tirade. "It's been a week, Keiko! For the last seven days we've been trapped here by this fog. Care to tell me why you and your priests haven't been able to clear this out, Captain?"

Keiko closed the book and reverently set it down beside her. The otter looked up at Shukko and spread her arms wide in resignation while remaining seated, "The mist refuses to be moved despite the mightiest spells I could cast. It has even proven resistant to our prayers and invocations. This mist could only have been called forth by Great Itazou herself. The skills of mortals are as nothing beside Her will. I would not even dare to try." The otter clasped her hands together in front of her chest, and bowed to the wolverine, "I am sorry, Major Shukko, but we can only wait until Itazou relents and dispels what She has created.

"Now please leave me to my studies," Keiko requested of Shukko, though the request's scent carried more than a hint of an order. Keiko returned the book to her lap and prayed softly while caressing the crimson disk and ermine silhouette of Itazou emblazoned on the cover. With the ritual completed, she opened the book and resumed reading.

Shukko vented her frustration at the bad news with a hissed expletive and stalked off to find her captains. She wandered through the camp looking for either Asuko or Mayumi, cursing the fog's deadening of radio communication. Several minutes later, she was finally able to pick up Asuko's scent. Shukko followed the scent trail to where she found the long-tailed stoat with her badger lieutenants, huddled around a propane heater. "Captain Asuko, I would like to have a word with you."

Asuko and the lieutenants snapped to attention and bowed in salute to the wolverine. "Good Evening, Major. How may we serve you?" the red-furred stoat ritually greeted Shukko while she and her lieutenants held their bows at a respectful thirty degrees.

Shukko returned their salute with a shallow fifteen-degree bow of her own, signaling her permission for the stoat and badgers to stand at ease. "I want to speak with you, Captain Mayumi, and your lieutenants tonight, regarding drill schedules. I fear that the troops' inactivity over the last few days may have blunted their teeth and claws. I will be waiting for the six of you in the Staff tent. I trust that you won't keep me waiting for too long?"

"No, Major," the three under-officers chorused.

"Very good." Shukko waved off their salutes as she made her way to her tent.

Once inside, she turned on the lantern and ignited her own heater. While holding out her hands towards the welcome warmth, Shukko once again cursed the unnatural weather that held the wolverine and her soldiers captive. "Why? Why has Itazou trapped us here with that damnable fog?" She rubbed her hands together and sighed, "It pains my soul to contemplate this, but She may have done this as a warning. Could it be that the fanatics and rebels were correct to declare Dougenyou's teachings blasphemous? Itazou willing, that is not the case. I do not want to believe that one of the Republic's founding documents could be foul in Itazou's eyes." Shukko hissed with frustration at the dilema, "I'm no priestess or raccoon, why must I be the one to map this burrow? I beg of you, Itazou, guide me to the prey in this matter. Am I right in performing my duty?"

Major Shukko's thoughts and prayers were interrupted the sound of claws scratching at the tent's flap. "You may enter," Shukko called out, expecting the arrival of Asuko and Mayumi. Asuko's right hand pushed the flap open as the stoat and her fisher compatriot walked into the tent.

The captains saluted their superior officer, "How may we serve you, Major?"

"First, you can stand at ease, and then you can tell me why your lieutenants aren't here with you. I ordered that all six of you be in attendance," the wolverine sharply said with a glare directed at the duo.

"Forgive us, Major," Mayumi the fisher said as she and Asuko stood at ease. "The lieutenants are standing right outside. I'll bring them in immediately." Mayumi quickly bowed to Shukko and stuck her head out of the tent. "The Major would like you to come inside now," she told the beasts waiting outside. The badger sisters Yuki and Hana, Asuko's lieutenants, were the first to enter. They were quickly followed by Mayumi's lieutenants Rie, the only raccoon officer in Shukko's command, and the ferret Youko.

Shukko waved her subordinates to the waiting chairs placed around the table, "Ladies, take your seats so we can get this meeting underway."

"We have been trapped here for a week, and during that time our soldiers have done little save eat and sleep. They have become soft and the inactivity is also affecting morale. This sad state of affairs ends now, do you understand me? At first light tomorrow, we will hold a tournament between First and Second Companies. The exercise will stop the slide in their skills and the competition will lift their spirits."

* * *

While Shukko and her officers were discussing drill schedules for the troops, something changed in the fog. A light rain fell to the ground as a wind from the southwest started to pick up. While beasts scrambled to protect fires and equipment from the weather, a bright flash lit up the fog. Less than a second later, the deafening rumble of nearby thunder rolled through the camp. As the thunder faded, the light rain shower became a downpour. A thunderstorm had sprung up from nowhere, targeting the ferry terminal and the beasts camped nearby. The ice-cold rain, howling wind, and near-constant thunder drove every beast, save those unfortunates assigned to guard duty, inside to a tent or the terminal building. Nearly twenty minutes after the first thunderclap's reverberations split the air, the terminal building and pier went dark as the storm's fury destroyed the transfer point's generators with a well-placed lightning strike.

* * *

Mayumi hurried from the staff tent to her own tent. Though she had only a little more than a hundred meters to travel, her uniform and fur were soaked from the rain when she opened her tent's door flap. Upon entering the tent, she secured the flap with a padlock. When she was satisfied that her privacy would be uninterrupted, Mayumi peeled off her uniform. She hung the armor vest on its rack and draped the shirt and kilt over the back of a chair. She toweled off her sopping wet fur paying close attention to her head, tail, and belly. When her fur was merely damp instead of soaked, Mayumi dropped the towel into a basket next to her footlocker and bent to open the locker. Inside the locker were extra uniforms, a fur grooming kit, and a lacquered cherry-wood box. She removed the grooming kit and box and closed the locker.

She set her burdens down on the table and sat on the stool. Pushing the grooming kit to the left, she drew the box close to her. The box was two hand-spans long by one wide and deep. Scenes of love, play, and the hunt wrapped around the sides while the lid was painted to represent the night sky. Eleven of the zodiac constellations were painted on the lid. The twelfth constellation, Raccoon, had a special place as Mayumi's birth month. Its stars were picked out by diamonds rather than paint. She tapped eight of the Raccoon's stars in a special sequence while reciting a traditional pre-hunt prayer. When the last word of the prayer was spoken and the sequence completed, the painted lines that connected the Raccoon's stars began to glow softly. With the ward deactivated, Mayumi lifted the box's lid and removed the Testament of Itazou with Ayako's Proverbs. She licked and nuzzled the book in devotion before she set it down to the right of the box.

Mayumi reached inside the box with her right hand and lifted the floor panel to reveal a tray that held a suction cup on a stick, two bags of cotton balls, and three sets of glass eyes sized for a fisher. Two hemispherical depressions in the tray showed where a fourth pair of eyes could rest. She picked up the suction cup, moistened it with her tongue, and held it up to her right eye. Mayumi spread her eyelid open while she used the suction cup to pull the eye out from its socket. She wiped the glass eye with a cotton ball and put the cotton that she had just used to wipe her eye into the empty eye socket. After she set the eye into the right-hand depression in the tray, she repeated the process with her left eye. With both eye sockets filled with cotton, she closed her eyelids and lightly massaged them with her fingertips.

She continued the massage for several seconds before she brought the grooming kit close to her. Picking up the kit's mirror in her left hand, she brought it close to her face while she pulled the cotton from her eye sockets. Mayumi's muzzle wrinkled into a snarl when the stench of the dark brown sludge smeared over the cotton balls reached her nose. She looked into the mirror and saw more of the sludge flowing like tears from her eye sockets. "This is the last time I wear my eyes for twelve days straight, no matter what the risk of discovery may be," Mayumi said to herself while she packed more cotton into her gaping eye sockets. While the cotton balls did their job of absorbing her eye sockets' secretions, she took out her brush and brushed the fur of her tail and mane. When she was finished brushing her fur, she started the intimate portion of her grooming. Moistening several cotton balls with alcohol, she cleaned her scent glands and genitals. With her body cleaned and groomed, Mayumi opened the holy book for a night's reading and devotions.

"Tomorrow, I'll have to find an excuse to check up on Corporal Nabiki. If I, an officer, haven't been able to find enough privacy to care for my eye sockets for the last twelve days, she'd be even worse off," Mayumi mused, thinking of the Century's only other Blind trying to lead a normal life.

* * *

For nearly seven hours, the storm punished the area. Finally, in the dark hours before dawn, the storm abruptly died.

Sergeant Kikyo, who was one of the soldiers who drew guard duty this night, looked up at the rapidly clearing sky. The raccoon was overjoyed that the fog and the storm which followed were finally gone. "Thank you, Momma. . ." Kikyo's prayer of thanksgiving died in her throat as she looked up at the night sky. The last few clouds from the storm sped off to the east, revealing thousands of stars and a single full moon. "No, that's not right. The Hunter isn't supposed to be full for another week." She spun around in a circle, searching the sky for the second moon, "And where is the Mouse? It's all wrong!" Kikyo cried out in rising panic. "Calm, calm. Remember your training," she said to herself while taking several slow deep breaths.

Pulling her radio from a vest pocket, Kikyo took her hand-held radio out and set it to transmit using Lieutenant Hana's key. "Lieutenant, this is Sergeant Kikyo at the eastern perimeter. Something has happened, and it frightens me, Madam."

Four long seconds later, the badger's voice came over the radio, her voice slightly distorted by the encryption, "Yes Sergeant, what is it?"

"The fog is gone, as well as the storm clouds. There isn't a cloud in the sky, Lieutenant."

"And how exactly is this frightening?" Hana's voice sounded less than happy.

"It's what's in the night sky, and what's not there, that scares me, Madam. The Mouse is missing and the Hunter is full when She shouldn't be. That's not all, Lieutenant. The zodiac constellations aren't right, either. I'm looking at the Mink right now, but it should be below the horizon during the month of Badger. In fact all of the constellations are in the positions they would be in during the month of Mink. We're not where we should be, Madam. Why would Itazou do this to us?" Kikyo said with rising panic in her voice while she stared at the night sky.

"I'll inform Captain Asuko and Keiko of your discovery in the morning. As for you, Sergeant, you would better serve the Republic if you were to concentrate on your duties, rather than star-gazing. Lieutenant Hana, out." Kikyo's radio fell silent as the amber LED indicating a secure connection went out.

* * *

Yuki lifted her head from the pillow when her sister's movements and voice woke her from sleep, "It's the middle of the night, Hana. What are you doing awake at this hour?"

"My paranoid basket-case of a sergeant, Kikyo, reported that the fog has finally lifted. Then she started babbling some nonsense about the sky being 'wrong'."

Yuki sat up in the cot that she and Hana shared, "Hana, dear sister, I know that Sergeant Kikyo panics easily, but you do have to admit that she has the uncanny knack of being correct in her fears. How many times has she saved the lives of everyone in her squad thanks to an attack of 'paranoia'? I think the raccoon has a small portion of the seer's gift.

"The sergeant performed her duty when she alerted you of the changed conditions. In the morning, you will perform yours by reporting the night's events to Captain Asuko. For now though, why don't you come back to bed and snuggle? I believe it's my turn to take the male role."