L5r - scroll 06 - The Dragon

by Ree Soesbee

  "To arms!" one of the Thunders cried, drawing his sword and charging before the others into the fray.

  They followed, one by one, into the battle that was their destiny.

  Fu Leng opened his arms wide, daring them, unafraid.

  "You are my champion." Hitomi looked down at the crushed and crumpled form of the Dragon kami, amazed at how small he seemed, lying in dark blood upon the floor of the wide throne room. Her obsidian hand touched his chest, the wounds that scarred his flesh, the spreading blood that stained her kimono. She knelt beside him, pressing his hand against hers, feeling its warmth through her own skin.

  You are Dragon. Togashi's whisper was faint, and his fingers brushed against Hitomi's bare forehead as if to comfort a grieving child.

  Hitomi looked down at his face, remembering the past, the years at the Iron Mountain—imagining all of the faces that Togashi must have seen come and go during his life. The immortal kami was dying. Within his eyes, Hitomi saw memories, the faces of thousands of samurai flashing by as brightly as stars in the heavens. He remembered every one. And then, as she stared within his golden pupils, she saw something else ... something that had been lost for a thousand years.

  Togashi whispered once more, and his voice was distant and soft. You must become the riddle.

  Her face a study of desolation, Hitomi lifted her Obsidian Hand above his chest. Then, with a soft whisper, she plunged the hungry black fingers within the flesh of his chest, piercing through armor and bone, breaking open his body and stealing the life within.

  Something moved against her fingertips, and she gripped it, crushing Togashi's heart within her iron fist. She drew it out. Hitomi stared in wonder as his heart broke open, revealing an ivory scroll tube, weathered and aged beyond belief. Drawing it forth, Hitomi broke open the seal and gazed upon gold and green kanji that shifted and writhed on thick black parchment,

  The Twelfth Black Scroll.

  Hitomi lowered her head, grief growing like a cancer in her soul. "Farewell, Togashi-sama," she whispered. "You will never truly leave us."

  Then she squeezed his still-beating heart, stealing his strength and feeling the wisdom of ages rush into her body. Hitomi gasped, her spine arching and her mouth dropping open in amazement, touched by power beyond imagining. A thousand memories flooded her mind, and every moment since the world began poured into her soul in a single instant, sharing an aeon of thoughts, of laughter and sorrow—of all the lives and deaths that had ever been.

  I shall go mad, she thought, her mind trapped within the scream. She saw the threads of possibility stream out from her, stretching before and behind with the power of the Celestial Heavens. Within their coil, a serpent stretched its sleeping body. Gently, it touched her mind with its own, lending her the strength.

  The Dragon Champion's immortal soul twined with hers, offering eternal life. Her mortality vanished in its coils.

  Hitomi could hear the other Thunders fighting against Fu Leng, but the battle seemed strangely distant, as though it occurred in another lifetime. Along with their struggle, she heard the echoes of a fight that happened a thousand years ago. One that ended with the creation of twelve Black Scrolls____

  ... She saw all time as it passed; future, present, past... all ages ... now.

  "Togashi..." Hitomi screamed into the Celestial Heavens, and her voice echoed in distant worlds, "I understand...."

  His eyes have become my own.

  Prologue

  Time has turned its back to me, and the end has become the beginning.

  The day is bright and filled with sunshine, the Scorpion mountains stark and green against a Crane blue sky. I am alone, standing near the high walls of the Bayushi palace. Every stone is familiar, as though mine was the hand that placed them. I have been here before. I turn, seeing figures gathered about a clear field. The Dragon banner flutters gaily beside the mon of Scorpion, Crane, Lion, and Crab—but I feel no happiness.

  I know this day... It is my own past.

  A small girl dances at her brother's side, grinning eagerly up at the handsome youth. His crooked smile crinkles, and I hear the warmth of his voice. The child laughs, sprinting ahead to bring her brother a wild-flower that had bloomed in their path. He accepts it with a solemn bow, and places it in his obi.

  I know his heart is heavy.

  "Tell me again, Satsu, about Togashi and the kami of the Celestial Heavens?" Her black eyes sparkle with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old, and her heart-shaped face crinkles with a joyous smile.

  "Again?" the older boy says, his frame expanding with a hearty laugh. "No more, little sister. You've heard enough." Reaching the wide tournament ground, Satsu releases his little sister's hand and kneels beside her. I watch as he straightens her kimono, brushes the long hair away from her sweet face. I remember the touch of those fingers, that moment, and I feel his embrace before he stands.

  In the throng of people that gather to watch the duel, the young samurai sees his uncle Sukune standing beside a grumpy-faced little boy. "Now, Hitomi-chan, I want you to do what Sukune-sama asks you to do."

  "Yes, Satsu," she says, squinting up at him in the bright summer sunlight.

  The words are not mine—but the memories are. I remember this, even as it occurs before me. All time is now ... all places are here.

  This is the field where the final days of my destiny began.

  "And I want you to remember to study your niten. It is important, and you'll need it when you grow up."

  "I won't need it," she said, reaching to squeeze his hand again. "I'll have you to protect me."

  He smiles adoringly, rumpling the thick hair that spills from his sister's forehead. He stands then, giving Hitomi's hand to Sukune. The general shares a long gaze with his handsome young nephew, seeing his sister's bright smile in the youth's earnest face. "Take care of her, Uncle."

  Sukune opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it silendy. There are no words.

  "Satsu!" Hitomi shouts, tugging on her uncle's arm as her older brother steps out onto the green grass of the Scorpion tournament field. "Satsu, Satsu!" she cheers happily, watching him check the balance of his katana in its sheath.

  The Crab waits there for him, as he has each day for a thousand years. The Hida's brown skin is dark in the sunlight, and his hand seems to shift for a moment into a titanic metal claw. But, no, that day has not yet come. Gray armor shines dully, and a wicked smile crosses young Yakamo's lips.

  I watch as he weighs the tetsubo in his hands, feeling its strength and tremendous iron girth.

  "You can't bring that weapon onto the field ..." the arbiter begins, but a murderous look from Hida Yakamo silences the man. The Crab strides past him without stopping, not pausing until he reaches the center of the tournament ground.

  "Come, Dragon!" Yakamo yells, taunting the brave young samurai. "Your lady is a liar, a whore for the men on Carpenter Wall. Remember the words you have said about my father's honor," Yakamo lowers his head like a charging bull, swinging the massive steel tetsubo against the ground in front of him like a warning, "because I am about to make you regret every one of them."

  His words echo in the future, spilling from time and space, misplaced by destiny.

  "To the death, samurai. May your honor, and Shinsei's blessing, carry you to victory... or to eternity." The arbiter's words fall heavily on the crowd, and the gathered samurai watch.

  A tiny boy turns fearful eyes from the duel, hiding his face in his uncle's robes. Daini.

  The Dragon takes his place at the edge of the tournament field, his hand steady on the hilt of his katana. The Crab crouches, swinging his tetsubo as the field whispers into silence. A pair of red and white flags rise above the arbiter's head. The crowd whispers, staring at the great metal club.

  It is forbidden to bring such a weapon onto the field of honorable combat, but I have allowed it.

  The arbiter looks at me, and I realize he awaits my command. I raise my hand to the sun.

  Sat
su's eyes meet mine, and I wonder if he can see the tears beneath my golden mask.

  My hand falls.

  Had you won, the empire would have lost a Thunder, and we would all be destroyed. I had to sacrifice your life to buy life for all the world.

  My own voice rings in my mind as the strike begins. I speak in the future, in a time that has not yet come, in a distant place of shadow and pain.

  If he had not fought, the rise ofFu Leng would have destroyed the empire, and there would have been no one to defend against it. Destiny would have changed, and all the world would have been lost.

  The tetsubo falls, the sword a split second too slow. His failure is deliberate.

  I look into Satsu's eyes when the steel club strikes him, as he feels the pain of his life being stolen away. I see no surprise in his thoughts. There is only agony and honor. The duel is inconsequential. Satsu's lady weeps by the side of the field, watching her husband defend her honor. She will commit seppuku before the sun has set, but her life will be forgotten as history unfolds.

  His death changes the world.

  Satsu ... forgive me.

  "No!" A scream as Satsu's body falls to the ground at the Crab's feet. The Hida erupt into shouts and cheers of victory, and Satsu's lady lowers her face to the earth, racked by grief. A girl escapes her uncle's hand, charging onto the tournament ground to fall beside her brother's body.

  She is eight years old.

  I watch as she lifts her brother's sword from his still-warm hand, pointing it up at the titanic Crab warrior. It is huge in her hands, tilted crazily as she tries to see through tears and fury.

  Yakamo looks down at the tiny child, surprise warring with arrogance on his features. His kin burst into laughter, seeing their greatest samurai threatened by a stripling girl a third his size.

  With a callous gesture, he knocks the sword from her hand, sending the blade spinning into the far ground of the field. "Not today, girl," he says, turning his back on her. "I won't kill you today."

  She recoils from his blow, her black eyes haunted and despairing. Hitomi falls to her knees beside her brother's body as the Crab strides from the field. "Satsu ..." she whispers, staring in horror at the crushed mass of bone and flesh that had once been a crooked smile. Blood stains the grass and covers her fingers as she tries to close his one, staring eye.

  "I will avenge you!" she screams, her childish voice breaking with pain. The howl of loss will break her father's heart. She fumbles for the tanto in her brother's obi, knocking aside the wildflower that wilts against his saya. Her hands tremble, her soul stricken with grief.

  She lifts his tanto and begins to rend her hair, cutting it away in long, jagged strands. Blood pours from her scalp from the knife's sharp tip, but she does not care. The pain of the cuts is gentler than the agony of her brother's death.

  I know the pain. I remember it still.

  The girl's face is etched with sorrow, her head covered in ragged tatters of hair and torn skin. The knife falls from her hands, crushing the soft grass beneath her. She extends bloodied hands toward me, reaching to my golden throne, her long brown hair falling from her fingers. The wind is cold, the sky covered in a blue so pale that it hurts the eyes to look upon it.

  "Why?" she asks me softly, tears streaming with blood down her flushed cheeks. I cannot answer her. I can see my death in her eyes.

  But I also know that one day, we will stand within the Imperial Palace and together we will fight a god. Of all the tortured days from this to that, of all the time that will not pass, and yet does, I can see her soul shining with the flame of Thunder.

  I have walked her path. It has been my own.

  There is still hope.

  We have reached the end together, you and I.

  The final days have come.