by Jay Kristoff
The girl finished her barrage, stepped back and parried the two rapid ripostes, ducking beneath a vicious swipe that would have taken her head off. Her form was perfect, her blades a blur. But the iron arm was as much a part of him now as his flesh had ever been; a constant weight on his shoulder, a chill across his chest in the dead of night. And her every lunge, strike, stab—all of them were met by his blade on hers, chainsaw teeth snarling like starving wolves, sparks on their tongues.
He struck again, aiming a whistling blow at her throat, roaring as he swung. She caught his attack against both blades, blazing fragments of metal spitting and sparking in the air, the soles of her boots squeaking on the wood as she skidded back three feet across the deck.
Michi was panting, her expression incredulous as she adopted a backfoot stance, blades growling in guard position. He could read her thoughts, as plainly as if she’d spoken them aloud.
Little Michi, the Kagé sword-saint. Any other man she’d faced would have been dead by now. Her blitz attack had failed. Every second he lived was another second he could simply call for help from the dozens of Elite fighting on the deck below.
But no. Where was the honor in that?
Hiro laughed instead, flexed his clockwork arm back and forth.
“Say what you will about the Guild, Michi-chan.” He revved his chainkatana. “They seem to have this flesh problem solved.”
“Can your masters craft you another head?”
FeintLunge.
ParrySparks.
“They are not my masters,” he found himself growling.
Now it was Michi’s turn to laugh. “Did Buruu take your eyes when he took your arm?”
Rage came then. Sudden and burning. He could feel the ashes on his skin cracking as he snarled, brought his sword down toward her head. Michi deflected the blow into the deck, his blade churning through the boards as she brought her wakizashi up toward his throat and kicked at the trapped blade. Hiro released his grip, bent backward as the blow clipped his chin, trimming his goatee. Tumbling away, he came up on his feet, drew his wakizashi and thumbed the ignition. Michi plucked his katana from the deck and tossed it over the railing.
Sloppy.
“Truth hurts, little Daimyo?” she smiled.
“Shut your mouth, bitch.”
StrikeParryLungeParrySparks.
“Gods, look at you.” Michi tossed the hair from her eyes, glancing at the carnage around them. “All this death—all because Yukiko chose to stand tall instead of kneeling in Yoritomo’s shadow. And you kneel there still.”
“Do not speak her name to me.”
“She loved you, you realize.”
Hiro drew back as if she were a jade adder, coiled and ready to strike.
“I could see it in her eyes when she spoke your name. Like a flower unfurling in the first light of spring…”
“Shut up!”
“You were her first, you know. And she yours, am I right?”
“SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!”
A tiny part of his brain screamed he was being played, manipulated into a clumsy, howling attack. But that voice drowned under the indignation, the fury, the blood flowing from the scabs this little Kagé bitch had so casually torn away. And so he charged, watching those bee-stung lips curl into a smile, the girl moving like water over river-smooth stones. Deflecting his strike, she brought her wakizashi down on his sword arm, crunching through the crossguard, cleaving fuel lines, the blades falling still. Spinning down into a crouch, kicking his ankles as he stumbled past, momentum sending him crashing to the deck, colliding face-first with the railing and rolling over onto his back, gasping as blood spewed from his broken nose.
Riding on his shoulders through the lotus fields. Reaching up to touch his swords, so heavy he could barely lift them, little eyes alight.
“Will I grow up to be like you, Father?”
Her foot came down atop his chainsword, her own growling in her hands. Wind in her hair, a tangled knot of raven black in her eyes, staring down at him with nothing close to pity.
“You don’t even know what you took from me, do you?” Michi hissed.
“Lord Izanagi give you the strength to die well…”
“Still you talk?” Hiro spat. “Finish it, for the love of the gods…”
Michi brought the katana’s buzzing teeth close to Hiro’s throat.
“A parting gift before you leave us,” the girl said. “To repay the kindness you showed my Mistress. You remember Lady Aisha, don’t you, Daimyo? Chained to a bed of machines for the sake of your glorious dynasty. Raped nightly by Guildsmen and their honorable inseminator tubes? And all the while, your dynasty was already assured. Growing in the belly of the girl you once professed to love.” She drummed her fingernails on her katana hilt. “Two of them.”
“What did you say?” Hiro’s eyes grew wide.
“Would that I could sing it, bastard.”
“Yukiko is . .?”
“You’ll never see their faces. Never hold them in your arms or hear them call you ‘father.’” A smile, as cold and empty as tombs. “And now … now you know the shape of loss.”
The girl raised her sword, steel teeth slicing the air as she drew it back to strike.
Licking his lips, tasting the ash of the funeral offerings. Eyes open wide.
A good end. A warrior’s end.
A father’s?
Gods …
“Wait,” he said.
“No,” she replied.
Everything in that final breath was hyper-real—every nerve singing, every sense alive. The wind on his skin. A black snowflake melting on his cheek. Men screaming. Swords clashing. Running footsteps. ’Throwers spitting. But amidst all that input, that storm of touch, sound, smell, all he could see was that falling blade.
Falling.
Tumbling.
Clattering on the deck.
Her hand at her throat, the spray of blood that bloomed there as the shuriken passed clean through. The report of the ’thrower, hanging in the air like smoke. Her eyes wide as she spun about, bringing her wakizashi to bear as the second marine opened fire, sparks dancing on her breastplate, crimson spraying from her forearm, shoulder, face. Features twisting, charging into the hail, but so frail now, so small, this little engine of death and deception who’d played him like a shamisen, unable here, at the last, to speak even a word.
She killed them both—brave men with the sense enough to look toward the pilot’s deck, rushing to their Daimyo’s defense when all others were concerned with their own lives. She cut them to pieces, not realizing she’d spent the last of herself doing so. And turning back to him, she fell to her knees, wakizashi clattering into the blood beneath her, one palm to her throat.
So much blood.
On her face, twisted with hatred as she tried to crawl, eyes locked with his. Collapsing on her belly, fingernails clawing the wood, legs kicking on the deck. Running only on hate now, the blood fleeing her body in steaming floods. And he, helpless, but to stare.
And at the end, her face bled all hollow and white, she tried to talk. Ruby red, bee-stung lips, mouthing the word she couldn’t speak. Her last will and testament. Something profound, perhaps. The name of a loved one? Some word of wisdom to carve on her stone? To make sense of all she was, and why this, of all places, was the place she ended?
Hiro crawled through the blood, pressed his ear against her lips. The faintest whisper, a single syllable, fragile as glass.
A prayer.
An epitaph.
Wreathed in smoke.
“Burn…”
42
WHAT WILL BE
Charges set. Timers ready. Kaori’s smile, grim in the dark.
The chi reservoir was rigged with four bombs, each one enough to ignite the fuel vapor and set off a catastrophic reaction. None of the rebels seemed to know how deep the reservoir stretched, but there was certainly enough chi to blow First House off the mountainside.
When each device
was triple-checked, Misaki turned to Kaori.
“How is it you planned to escape from here, Kagé?”
A shrug. “Steal an ironclad. Fly it as best we could.”
“Our crew is waiting at our ship for us to return. One of our brothers is planting explosives beneath another landing platform, to serve as distraction. We will be under heavy fire if we launch without clearance. But we can bring you with us if you wish.”
A glance at Maro and the others. A slow nod.
“We will ride with you.”
“And what about your father?” Misaki said.
Kaori blinked. Knife in her gut.
Twisting.
“… My father?”
“He is in First House. They spoke of him in the security reports.” Misaki shrugged. “I presumed that was why you were here.”
“He…” Kaori’s voice cracked, “… he still lives?”
“Can it be any surprise the First Bloom wished to speak with the Kagé leader?”
Kaori’s eyes narrowed behind her breather. “He’s with the First Bloom?”
“In the Chamber of Void,” Misaki nodded.
“How do we get there?”
“You do not. To attack the First Bloom in his sanctuary is to commit suicide.”
Kaori took one step closer, stared into those bloody eyes. “I asked how we get there…”
A metallic sigh. “This mission is too important to risk on the life of one man.”
“A great man,” Maro growled. “A man who has given all to save this land.”
“If he had given all, there would be nothing left of him to rescue.”
“You told me you do this for your daughter,” Kaori said. “That there is no greater love than that of parent for child. Well, I have no children. No family save him, and these brothers and sisters beside me. And I will not leave one of them behind today. I’ll die first.”
Misaki was motionless, glancing amongst the Kagé, one by one.
“The Chamber of Void is an observatory. A domed roof. Climb through the hatchway and you will see it immediately. But your chances of making it there unseen…”
“We are shadows,” Maro said. “Leave that to us.”
“Fifteen minutes. After that, there will be nothing left of this place but rubble.”
Kaori nodded. “We understand.”
“The Inquisitors who guard First Bloom Tojo,” Misaki warned. “They have strength born of madness. They move like the very smoke they breathe. You will have to fight every inch of the way. You will need the intercession of the gods themselves to have any hope of victory.”
Kaori smiled. “Just another day, then.”
She nodded to her brethren.
“We move.”
* * *
Daichi blinked, scarcely believing what he heard. He stared at the First Bloom atop his Throne of Machines, breath rasping in blackened lungs.
“You want me to kill you?”
“Want has little place here. This is where I die, and it is you who brings me my death.”
“The What Will Be…”
“Ah, you have heard of it. From young Kin-san, I presume? Did he tell you what he saw within the Chamber of Smoke?” Tojo gestured to his throne, eyes aglow. “Did he tell you he will be First Bloom when I am gone?”
Tojo flipped a lever on his armrest, and a rumbling creak reverberated through the floor. A hollow song of mighty gear chains sounded in the walls, and the great domed ceiling began rolling back, inviting in a brutally sharp daylight Daichi winced to see. Cold wind howled through the widening gap, bringing stabbing pain to his lungs even as it banished the chi stink dripping from the walls.
Blinking in the burning light, Daichi made out vague shapes of the Inquisitors gathered around him—two dozen, black-clad, midnight smoke drifting from their breathers.
“It is time,” Tojo ordered. “Leave us, brothers.”
“First Bloom—”
“I will give her your greetings, little Serpents. Your new First Bloom rises this day. Go, and prepare for his coming, the ashes of Foxes upon the soles of his feet.”
The Inquisitors bowed, low and solemn, palms pressed together, speaking as one.
“For the Mother.”
“For the Mother,” Tojo nodded.
The Inquisitors filed from the room, through the aperture of an iris portal, the metal grinding closed behind them. Only four remained now, standing at the room’s periphery. Daichi found himself alone, just a few footsteps away from the heart of Guild power in Shima.
Staring down at his upturned palm.
None of the Inquisitors were close enough to stop him. Once his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he could snap this old man’s neck like tinder. There was no way in the hells Kin would serve as First Bloom in this place—he knew the boy’s love for Yukiko would never allow him to rule the Guild. If they were relying on him to step into the void Tojo left behind …
“If Kin will be the Guild’s next leader, why is he not here in First House? Protected?”
“Because he Will Be the Guild’s next leader.”
“But should you not be keeping him safe? Why risk his life in the Yama assault?”
“We risk nothing. What Will Be, Will Be.”
“That is madness. Nothing in this life is a certainty.”
“Foolishness. All is preordained. Tell me you do not feel it, since first the blackness took root in your lungs. And tell me that certainty has not brought you a clarity. A peace. A strength. You know it, Daichi-san. You were meant to be here, speaking with me, right now.”
“I chose to be here. For good or—”
“We are slaves to fate. To a design beyond our comprehension.”
“That makes no sense. There are no strings. No puppeteers.”
“You do not believe in gods, then?”
“Of course, but—”
“I have seen the future, Daichi-san. I have seen this moment, every night in my dreams. In the Chamber of Smoke, we pry our inner eye wide, looking into the tapestry of fate. Those of us with strength see the most pivotal moment of our lives. How could that be, if those lives were not predetermined? If all the events leading to that moment were not set in stone?”
“But if everything is predestined, what is the purpose of living at all?”
“There is no point. None whatsoever. That is the truth she whispers to us in the dark.”
“She?”
Tojo gestured to the walls with one creaking sweep of his arm. Daichi looked around, eyes still narrowed after weeks spent in gloom. But on the room’s edge, carved deep into the granite, he could see murals. Lord Izanagi stirring the oceans of creation with his spear. Lady Izanagi, perishing in the birth of Shima. The Maker God’s quest to retrieve his beloved, ending in failure. And at last, the Lady sitting on a throne of human bones, waiting in the dark.
Alone.
“Endsinger, Daichi-san,” Tojo said. “End. Singer.”
“Lady Izanami.”
“Hai.”
“But why? What does she—”
“One thousand people. Every day.”
“And you fools in the Guild seek to aid her? To bring about the end of all things?”
“Not all within the Guild know. Most are as blind as you. Never questioning.”
“But how? She is forever trapped in Yomi…”
“She sought to reclaim this world once. Tricked a child into opening the gate Lord Izanagi had sealed. And through that gate, she sent her children to war on the world of men.”
“The War of the Hellgate.”
“Indeed.”
“But the stormdancer Tora Takehiko charged into Yomi and sealed the gate forever.”
“And so, with the Iishi gate reduced to rubble, she sought a new way into the world. A new key to unlock it. A new altar, watered with the blood of thousands.”
“Blood lotus…”
“Hai.”
“The deadlands…”
“Hai.”
“No, no,” Tojo chuckled. “Your Goddess.”
“So all this … lotus, the gaijin war, inochi … all to start another hell war?”
“There will be no war.” Tojo shook his head. “More than oni will crawl from the cracks we tear in this island’s face. The little ones have already begun arriving, but when we are done, the fissures will be large enough to unleash the greatest denizens of Yomi. Horrors beyond imagining. The Dark Mother herself will walk these isles. And in her wake? Ashes, all.”
“Madness…” Daichi breathed.
“We could not have done it without you. Oh, you wonderful little skinless. So enamored of the trinkets we gave. Engines and sky-ships and chainswords to fight your wars and stock our larders with gaijin slaves, their blood watering the earth from which She will spring.”
Tojo shook his head, sighing.
“You cannot imagine the magnitude of the task when first we began. So few of us left, we Serpents. And if you had told us then we could convince the entire country to become complicit in its own death, to not merely sit back and let us work, but actually aid us … well, we would have called you insane.”
Tojo’s laughter was the flutter of a thousand metal wings.
“But you are blind. So blind.”
“You lied to them,” Daichi growled. “No one could have known…”
“Should they need to? You people are not eyeless. You could see the damage you were doing to your world. Red skies. Black rivers. Mass extinctions. And nobody lifted a finger. Because it was easier, wasn’t it? The world we gave you? We never forced anyone’s hand, Daichi-san. We simply gave you the blade and let you cut your own throat.”
Daichi spat black onto the floor. “Not all of us are blind to what you do.”
“And for that, you have my thanks.”
“So why?” Daichi rasped. “Why tell me all of this?”
“Because there is nothing you can do to stop it. What Will Be, Will Be.”
Daichi couldn’t see Tojo’s face, but he swore the old man was smiling. A toothless grin behind a chitin mask, sallow skin and ricket bones held together by its cage of brass. He could feel the rage inside; that burning, blinding hate he’d drawn so much strength from. The gift he’d urged Yukiko to embrace. Here he was—in the heart of Guild power. Their leader near-helpless before him. The man responsible for all of it—poisoned sky, blackened earth, mass graves.