L5r - scroll 06 - The Dragon

by Ree Soesbee

  "Satsu .. ." Hitomi whispered to herself in awe, her black hand gripping the hilt of her katana. "What magic is this?"

  Deep within her, the Obsidian Hand ceased its whispering and fell eerily silent. There were no answers to her questions, only more riddles. ... Riddles she did not have time to answer.

  Tearing at the creature with his hands, Yakamo wrapped the oni in his arms and crushed the creature in a massive bear hug. He roared, increasing his grip as the oni's claws ripped at his flesh. Yakamo drew back his jade hand, clenched it into a fist, and plunged it into the oni's chest with a deadly strike.

  Instead of screaming in pain, the oni laughed, a terrible half-human sound filled with the popping in sinews. Blood welled up in the wound, spraying out at Hida Yakamo and covering the Crab samurai's face.

  Yakamo screamed, releasing the oni to tear at his own eyes. The gore burned into his flesh. Black, seeping holes opened along Yakamo's face, showing bone beneath the pale skin and red strands of muscle.

  He stumbled backward to recover.

  The oni towered above Yakamo, extending its hands in victory and preparing to slice once more through soft flesh and tissue. It brought is hands down.

  Hitomi leapt from behind the rubble of the western wall, her blade cold and relentless. She caught the claws in a single sweep of steel, blocking the blow as well as removing the oni's arm.

  The oni turned in surprise, staring down at the small samurai. It screeched an inhuman cry of rage.

  Hitomi's sword cut again.

  The oni's large hand caught the hilt of her sword to twist it away.

  "Sorry, Yakamo," she whispered. "We Dragon are taught to fight with two weapons." She grinned wickedly as she allowed her left hand, the hand bearing her katana, to move with the oni's strength. "You caught the wrong hand," she said quietly, and was rewarded by the gleam of surprise in the oni's almost-human eyes.

  The Obsidian Hand grasped the titanic oni's brow. Black fingers of glass squeezed with immortal strength. The chitin shivered. It cracked. Demon brain oozed in gray streams.

  The oni screamed with Yakamo's voice. It clawed desperately at her with its remaining arm.

  Kill now, kill child, kill Yakamo, the hand purred as acid blood ran over her fist and arm. Her flesh did not pucker, protected by a sheath of obsidian that grew from the hand. More... it whispered silkily. More . ..

  Hitomi turned to look down at the fallen samurai, staring into Yakamo's eyes.

  The Crab cleared his vision and shook his head, reaching for another samurai's fallen tetsubo.

  Hitomi's eyes were strangely cold. The fury and rage that had consumed her soul for so long lay dormant within her heart.

  It was as if the world slowed down while the oni fell. Its inhuman face writhed and died. The creature slumped to the ground with a piteous howl of fury, blood seeping from every crack in its skull. Red, scalded flesh twitched beneath the pure light of the sun.

  Hitomi stared down at the oni, its blood dripping from her black fingers. She watched the face of Hida Yakamo die. When it was at last dead, the oni lay still, acid blood burning into the ground.

  Yakamo stiffly stood. His body seemed to ache with every movement.

  Hitomi waited, silent and still. When the oni had ceased moving, its head crushed into a bloody pulp, she looked up slowly from its corpse.

  Yakamo shook his head. "I cannot afford the luxury of killing you."

  "I thought you were Kisada's son," she whispered, her voice filled with hate. "I suppose he is the coward I always suspected him to be."

  Hitomi's taunt was successful. Yakamo charged her, but the fresh Dragon was too quick for the wounded Crab. In a moment, the tetsubo was on the ground, and her blade was at his throat.

  It was too easy. Yakamo was wounded badly, his eyes torn by the oni's acid blood, his skin pitted and steaming. The seconds slowed once more, and Hitomi saw each flash of her own blade against his soft throat. The green glow of his jade hand echoed the black gleam of her own, but the voices of Onno-tangu and Shosuro were silent.

  Below her lay her brother's murderer. One stroke would end her torment. One cut would free Satsu's soul. She raised her sword to finish it.

  Within her spoke a voice—one that was not a part of the Obsidian Hand, nor a part of her own riddle. It was a voice

  Hitomi had not heard since her childhood, a voice she would have given her life to hear again.

  My sister, he said, and she could imagine his softly crooked smile. Don't you see the truth, after all you have been through? If you kill him, everything I died for is in vain.

  "Satsu?" Hitomi looked up in that frozen moment of time. Her eyes streamed hot tears across her bloodied cheeks.

  The world around her did not move. Time did not progress. It was like standing within a child's glass globe, waiting for the snow to fall. The battlefield slowed to a halt, and only one figure moved. He was not dressed in armor or covered in blood, but wore the gi and mon of a Dragon samurai. Surrounded by the frozen butchery of the battlefield, he seemed out of place. Only Hitomi could see him as he smiled his crooked smile.

  Satsu.

  Yokuni's voice echoed once more in her mind. She became aware of the champion's soul, watching. Had he brought Satsu's soul, at last, to her side?

  The time was not right for the emperor to die. You were too young.

  Her brother reached toward her, his hand gentle against her cheek. The death of the last emperor was the key to Fu Leng's return. It was foretold that the Thunders would gather to fight Fu Leng and save the empire. Your soul rings with Thunder, little sister. When the emperor died and the darkness rose, you would be chosen to fight for us all. Satsu smiled sadly. You were eight. You could not fight Fu Leng. If I had won the battle against Yakamo, he would have been dead, and Fu Leng would have won. If a Thunder died, if Yakamo died, then the empire, too, would die. I made that choice. You were eight. You could not have fought Fu Leng then.

  Yokuni showed me the future I would create by living. It was a future of darkness and death; both the empire and the Dragon would fall. I could not let you live in that world. Satsu smiled sorrowfully, his crooked mouth sweet and familiar. My sacrifice was not for the empire, Hitomi-chan . . . it was for you.

  His voice echoed in her mind and brought with it memories she had long ago forgotten. His presence, the nearness of his soul, after so long apart, made Hitomi's heart ache with loss. Her tears flowed freely in slowed time as he continued.

  I have always known that Thunder sang in you.

  "I must free your soul." Her voice was broken.

  Hitomi-chan, my sister, He smiled again, and peace spread across his features. You already have.

  With a sudden jolt, time started once more. The vision melted like sand through an hourglass. Satsu was gone, or perhaps he had never truly been there, but Hitomi could still feel his soul sheltering hers.

  The world had begun again. The puzzle was completed. Hitomi found her sword leveled at Yakamo's throat.

  With a shuddering breath, she slid her katana down his enameled breastplate and slowly backed away.

  "I won't kill you now, Yakamo," Hitomi whispered, "but you'll always remember that I could have."

  on the steps of

  madness

  It is time," the Hooded Ronin said, stopping before a secret door in a dark passageway beneath the Imperial Palace.

  He had come to them in the dark night, gathering the chosen ones to complete destiny's call. The champion of the Dragon and Six Thunders—their number short by one. The Scorpion waited for them just beyond that door.

  "I am the last of Shinsei's children," Hyoji continued, "guarded since the beginning of the empire for this day. If you wish for the empire to survive tomorrow's sunset, you must believe me."

  No sooner had he finished speaking than the door slid silendy open. Beyond it appeared a lithe woman, a softly glowing lamp in her hand. "Follow me, if you would be heroes," Kachiko murmured, her eyes flashing like fire.
The Scorpion Mistress led the way, the lamp swaying in her hand with each silken step.

  Hitomi followed the others into the Imperial Palace, stepping through the secret door. The light of the palace's interior corridor dimmed as her eyes adjusted from the pitch blackness of the underground passage. Her own footsteps were masked by the tromp of heavy sandals, hidden by the quiet swish of Kachiko's long scarlet kimono.

  Yokuni moved up near her, but Hitomi turned away from the Dragon Champion. Yokuni's voice echoed once in the corridor, calling her name softly, but she continued on as if she had not heard.

  This was not the time for riddles; it was time for decisions and for death. Nothing more.

  "Here," Kachiko said softly, sliding a wooden panel from its place in the wall.

  The passage beyond was dark, but a glistening light shone at its end. Kachiko led them down the hall to it. She reached two tall doors. Enameled with polished ivory and shining gold, the side doors to the Imperial Throne room stood closed, awaiting the touch of their master's hand. The Thunders could not have approached through the main doors, for they and the stairs that led to them had been burned away. Kachiko passed her fingers gently over the carvings, feeling the ancient kanji and the heavy steel brackets. Turning, she stood in the shadow of the massive wooden doors. Her perfect silhouette cut the light in two.

  "You are certain ... ?" she whispered.

  The Hooded Ronin nodded. "This is how it must be."

  A pause, and silence. Kachiko murmured a word known only to the imperial family. The doors swung open silently at her command, moved by magic a thousand years old. Kachiko stood for a moment, readying herself, and then walked into brilliantly lit room beyond, her form lost in the white glare.

  The others passed one by one into the palace, leaving the Mirumoto daimyo alone in the darkness.

  Hitomi stepped forward, but suddenly a hand touched her from behind. Reaching for her katana, the Dragon turned with cadike dexterity to gaze behind her.

  Togashi Yokuni stood in the hallway. He strode around her to stand between Hitomi and the bright passage into the throne room. His cold, gold-tinged eyes seemed almost to glow beneath the dark covering of his helm.

  Hitomi stared up at Yokuni for a long moment, impervious to his scrutiny. At last, the unnerving silence won out, and she muttered, "Yokuni..."

  He said nothing

  Hitomi tried to push past him, determined to enter the throne room.

  Yokuni's hand moved faster than thought, gripping her chin with the iron force of death.

  Again, she stared into those eerie, glowing eyes. Now their light had changed to fields of pure gold, shining brightly beneath the blackness.

  You must not fight Fu Leng.

  Hitomi started, her hand shaking with sudden rage. "But you brought me—all of us—here to kill him, to save the empire. I have come so far, sacrificed so much. Already you have forced me to give up too much. I will not do it anymore, Yokuni. Not for you, not for the empire, not for anyone." Hitomi drew up her right hand and balled the stone fingers into a fist. Veins of steel through obsidian flesh clenched with immortal fury as her eyes narrowed in hatred. "I have given my flesh, my honor, and my brother's soul. There is nothing left of me for you to take, old man. I am not the child I once was."

  Your purpose is not to kill him, but to kill me.

  Hitomi felt her heart sink within her chest. To have come so far, fought so much, only to meet with another riddle.... Each argument was met with only stoic silence from the face within the golden mask, with the stone of immobile mountains and the resolute gaze of fate. In the future, Hitomi would remember their conversation as if it were a dream, their eyes locked in a struggle of wills. But even in the night, with a thousand stars to comfort and guide her, Hitomi stared into the light of an endless moon and remembered Togashi's eyes. His eerie eyes were all that mattered. They alone had convinced

  Hitomi to do his bidding, shining with a glistening golden light that seemed to hold all the warmth once stolen from her world. She could not remember the words.

  It did not matter.

  "No questions for me to answer, Yokuni? No talk of paths and enigmas, and no more vanishing into the night? No more riddles, Yokuni?" Hitomi said at last, her Obsidian Hand clenched into a fist at her side.

  The answer is my death, Hitomi. The riddle is yours to ask.

  There was nothing left to say. Nodding, Hitomi turned from Yokuni's grasp, pulling her chin from his fingers and stepping forward behind the others.

  "Your strength will not save you. Your courage will not save you. Nothing will save you." The words of the emperor rang in Hitomi's ears as she stepped into the wide audience hall.

  Its roof was gone, and the beaming space was open to the starry heavens. The Emerald Throne rested upon its ceremonial dais, raised slightly above the floor by some strange sorcery. On the throne sat the emperor—gaunt, rotten, and shot through with an unholy light.

  "Togashi . . ." he whispered, standing from the glowing throne. "At last... my brother, I knew that you would come to me. There are too many questions left unanswered. Too many riddles left to solve." The emperor's black tongue licked his cracked lips, and a rotted hand extended claws toward the Dragon Champion.

  "No, Fu Leng. I have not come here to listen to your riddles." The voice was clear and strong, shaking the earth with its force. For the first time in recorded history, the Dragon Champion had not whispered, not hidden his thoughts behind murmurs and innuendoes.

  Hitomi stared openly at her champion as he reached to remove the straps that held his helm.

  Sliding the golden mask from his face, Togashi Yokuni lowered his mempo and cast the discarded helmet aside.

  He was human, yes ... but something more. Golden eyes shone within brown-tinged skin, and black hair cascaded over lightly scaled cheekbones. His eyes gleamed, reptilian in the torchlight, and his voice echoed as if the mountains themselves spoke with him. Lizardlike features moved as Yokuni continued, his voice gaining strength with each word. "For a thousand years, Fu Leng, I have watched over these mortals. I have guided them when they would falter, and I have stood back when they needed to learn their own lessons. I will not see that great work destroyed by your evil corruption. If you wish to destroy the empire, first you must destroy me."

  "A thousand years ... ?" Hitomi murmured in shock.

  Standing by his high throne, Fu Leng began to laugh. His laughter was as hollow as Hitomi had remembered it, but now his blackened face shifted with maggots and dripping pus. The lips boiled with each movement, sliding sickly against the dark god's skull. Hitomi felt a wave of nausea sink through her stomach as he floated into the air above the Thunders. "A thousand years, Togashi?" His laughter changed, turning sour and harsh. "A thousand years you watched them destroy all that we once were, my brother—slaughtering our family and destroying the work our father, Onnotangu, began!" Fu Leng's anger shook the throne room. "And for a thousand years, I have been trapped by the sorcery of the Black Scrolls, twisted by their power and enslaved by these mortals you would protect!"

  "Brother . . . ?" Hitomi whispered. Her thoughts spun. Yokuni. Yokuni is the first Togashi, the kami of the Dragon Clan. The realization struck her as solidly as a blow, and Hit-omi's mind reeled with astonishment. "He has always been the champion of the Dragon. The ise zumi knew; they have always known. This was their secret! They were not discovering the Dragon's Heart... they were protecting it!"

  "And what will you do, Togashi?" Fu Leng asked. "Watch me as I destroy your petty mortals? Ask me riddles as I tear the empire from its foundations and shatter its heart?" The Dark God's contempt was clear, his cheeks bloating in disdain.

  "I may have watched for a thousand years, Brother," Togashi said, opening his arms with a gesture of dismissal. "But I am here now, Fu Leng. I am here to show them that you can bleed!"

  Togashi looked up at his brother, his golden eyes glowing with the inner light of a god. His face was not that of a man, but rather
the features of a dragon cast upon a human mask, slitted pupils of black hiding within his golden orbs. Fire leapt from his mouth, and claws extended from his hands, tearing through the metal mesh of his gauntlets. His body lifted from the ground, limbs elongating into serpentine legs, armor melding into true scales. By the time Togashi reached his brother, he was no longer a man, but a true dragon, master of the Celestial Heavens.

  Fu Leng opened his arms, and a cold wind seared through the throne room.

  Hitomi looked away, hiding her eyes from the shards of stone and mosaic tile torn from the ground by Fu Leng's laughter. When she looked back toward the battle, there were two dragons, one golden and gleaming, the other black and tainted, its twisted form covered in filth and rotten flesh.

  Their fight was swift and bloody. Claws tore wide gaps beneath scale and sinew. Fire roared through the star-filled void, which shattered around them as the two gods fought.

  Awestruck, the Seven Thunders watched from the ground as titanic powers battled above them. Hitomi stole a glance toward the son of Shinsei, but no surprise shone on his face— only sorrow, a great abiding sadness that pained her simply to look upon it.

  Togashi roared in pain and anguish as Fu Leng twisted his brother's body and snapped his back. He threw the broken body to the floor, laughing as it landed at the feet of the assembled Thunders.

  Fu Leng raised himself to his full height and released a pealing roar, celebrating the first of his victories. The sounds was deafening, echoing up through the open ceiling of the throne room.

  "Die, Brother," Fu Leng hissed from above them, his form shifting back into that of the last Hantei emperor. "Die, as you once left me to die, in anguish and in fear. And when you do, know that you will forever be, as I was ... alone."

  Hitomi knelt down before Togashi, her Obsidian Hand glowing with a hungry light.

  Staring into the strange golden eyes, Hitomi's heart-shaped face twisted with loss and remorse, with all the knowledge she had earned and all the suffering she had borne. "Togashi..." she whispered, her voice soft and afraid. "I... I cannot..."