Gen­eral Takara reigned in his horse as he crested the top of the hill, and glared at his armies march­ing through the val­ley below. The wind was blow­ing more strongly now, and the air smelt tinged with ice. The man sighed as he con­tem­plated his next move. He had expected to encounter the enemy forces in this val­ley, but so far they had seen no sign of any army — any life at all, in fact — besides their own. There’d been no report from the for­ward scouts, either; and now dusk was com­ing again. Yet another night risk­ing the entire force by camp­ing in a ter­ri­ble location.

High above, Yuki and Kurayami floated on the air as cloud swirled around them. Pick­ing up the thoughts of the men below, they glanced at each other and smiled.

“Fools,” mut­tered Kurayami.

The wind had strength­ened still fur­ther, and the val­ley was filled with the sound of its roar as it was fun­nelled between the moun­tains. Shouya swore as the fire he had been try­ing to light for the last fif­teen min­utes extin­guished itself yet again. Finally fed up with his incom­pe­tence, one of his fel­low sol­diers grabbed the fire-lighters from his hands and pushed him aside.

Dejected, Shouya sat on the ground and shiv­ered. This whole cam­paign had been a dis­as­ter from the start, and he was begin­ning to sus­pect his com­man­der of incom­pe­tence although of course he dared not men­tion that to any­body else. Star­ing blankly into the night, he won­dered what his wife and son were doing at that moment. Play­ing together, per­haps, or eat­ing, or sleep­ing — maybe dream­ing of him?

Twi­light came and went, the com­ing night wel­comed by Kurayami as he stood at the sum­mit of a moun­tain, not even notic­ing the cold of the wind that blew his cloak out behind him. Excite­ment boiled through his veins as he con­tem­plated the prospects of the night to come. There’d never be as good a chance as this again — tonight, they could end this war for good. It would be a glo­ri­ous vic­tory. It would be a glo­ri­ous slaughter.

Shouya turned over in his makeshift bed, unable to get to sleep. The tents had been put up in a hurry as dark­ness fell, and now they were so unsta­ble that every gust of wind made the sol­diers within para­noid that this would be the time that it would blow away completely.

Fed up with his own anx­i­ety, he left the tent qui­etly and sat down out­side. His shiv­er­ing inten­si­fied, but some­how being out­side under the open night sky was com­fort­ing and rem­i­nis­cent of his child­hood. As he looked down at his knees, he noticed the first few flakes of snow set­tling on the ground next to him for a frac­tion of a sec­ond before being blown away by the next gust. By the morn­ing, the whole army could be snow­bound, but yet some­how… He knew he should warn his supe­ri­ors, but right now he just didn’t feel like it…

Yuki, sat on the ground by Kurayami’s side, was feel­ing odd and keep­ing quiet. As the clouds rolled in over the moun­tains, she could feel the snow falling heav­ier and heav­ier with every pass­ing minute, and spread­ing across the val­ley floor. She knew that she should feel happy that she was tak­ing part in what would become a famous vic­tory, but yet there was a nag­ging feel­ing of regret inside her…

Kurayami put his hand on her shoul­der, and sud­denly she felt con­fi­dent again. She smiled and winked at him, while the weather down below became a blizzard.

Shouya turned to shel­ter his face from the wind, then scram­bled back inside his tent. “This can’t be nat­ural,” he mut­tered as he crouched in the cold dark­ness. What­ever was to hap­pen this night, it was now in the hands of no-one else but the gods…

Kurayami grinned and stopped lis­ten­ing to the soldier’s thoughts. “Ah, if only he knew how true that was…”

“Par­don?” asked Yuki, look­ing up at him again.

The man chuck­led. “Don’t worry. Come on, it’s time to get started.”

Yuki nod­ded, closed her eyes, and reached out with her mind into the dark­ness to rouse the archers that had been hid­ing in the foothills. With a wave of her arm, the wind died and the archers took aim; see­ing the camp-site below them with eyes that the dark­ness did not hin­der. They fired simul­ta­ne­ously, the noises of their loosed strings rever­ber­at­ing and echo­ing across the valley.

As the sound of half-choked screams and shouts fil­tered up from the camp, Kurayami motioned to the sol­diers that stood behind him, winked at Yuki — and the charge began.

Tents erupted in a mess of cloth and a shower of blood around Shouya as sharp wooden rain fell from the sky. What lit­tle com­mon sense he had left now destroyed by the hor­ror he saw around him, he drew his sword and rushed at the enemy sol­diers that had begun slaugh­ter­ing their way through what remained of the camp-site. The man screamed and flung him­self sword-first at the leader of the group who, seem­ingly in slow motion, raised her bow, closed her eyes, and fired.

A flash of pain coursed through Yuki as her arrow hit Shouya in the chest. Some­where beyond the agony, beyond the blood and the dark­ness, there was a voice. A voice call­ing out to her from beyond the world…

“Ladies and Gen­tle­men, please fas­ten your seat­belts and pre­pare for land­ing,” came the voice again.

Yuki’s eyes snapped open and guiltily sur­veyed her fel­low pas­sen­gers as a drop of sweat fell from her brow. None of them had even noticed her night­mare — as always, busi­ness class was full of com­pany work­ers and exec­u­tives so wrapped up in their own work that they barely acknowl­edged each other’s existence.

The woman shifted her gaze to the win­dow as the plane finally descended below the low-lying clouds. They were fly­ing in across the water towards Seat­tle, a city that they said was almost always wreathed in cloud. Since it was also quite far north, Yuki sup­posed that it might then have more than its fair share of snow. But yet, would it feel right, see­ing snow in this strange land so far from home?

The more Yuki thought about it, the more she began to won­der if she should have come to Amer­ica after all. But still, it was to this land that she had been called, so it was to this land that she had come. And she’d just have to make the most of it.