by Noah Ward
The smile died on his lips. “Yes, but I’ve not seen her for some time.” Ponytail straightened and looked down the path. “I’m sorry, but I should be going. Unfortunately, I have other types of children that need looking after. Will you be okay?”
She looked down at the ground. “Fine.”
“You’re going to see your family now?”
“I don’t know. I, er, may have done something stupid.”
Ponytail patted her on the shoulder. “They’ll forgive you. They know you better than anyone else. Problem is, it’s sometimes hard to work up the courage and put yourself in front of that blade. When winter comes, they’ll keep you warm.”
“You’re right…” she conceded. Shay couldn’t deny Kaz was all she had. How could she even doubt the woman, especially after what Denjuro had done.
“Good luck,” Ponytail said, then gave her a slight bow.
“You too,” Shay said, and returned the bow.
He gave her one last smile before trundling off down the slope, leaving Shay to figure out how she’d find Kaz and explain this whole mess.
35
Shadow Steps
Gin couldn’t say he was surprised by the turn of events. People never listened.
Upon removing himself from Kaz’s room, he had slunk into the shadows around the inn. The sworn watching Kaz was still at its post, but he was awaiting the ryojin to show herself. As expected, she had not chosen to keep her nose out of proceedings and had fled via the rear entrance.
Gin had yet to decide if it perturbed him or worked in his favour. While she scarpered through alleys, making a poor job of trying to conceal her destination, he had a decision to make. He couldn’t let her get in the way of Saito arriving at the house and cutting the fact she had conversed with a kamen out of her. He’d kill her quietly before she made it to the house and then proceed, business as usual.
While he was coasting along the shadows, he spotted another who had joined the chase. To his surprise, it was the sworn who had been keeping tabs on Kaz. That thing must be quite an adept tracker, though the ryojin had made herself rather easy to spot. Best he wait until Kaz was in a less crowded area before making his move and do his best to keep the assassin in the dark.
Gin forged ahead of the two of them, his ability offering greater speed and the opportunity to bypass physical obstacles almost completely. Upon arriving close to the house, it was likely Kaz would attempt to enter the house via the rear, given she was at least smart enough to make her escape from the back of the inn.
With time on his side, he shot towards the house for some quick surveillance and to determine if his plan required swifter execution. However, upon reaching the building, he found it to be completely empty.
Not good, Gin.
Outside, he found a couple of sets of footprints in the mostly undisturbed snow--one belonged to the ryojin--and the other was of a similar size, most probably Kuma’s. The sworn had exited via the rear. So where were the girl’s footprints? They surely would not have carried her away and if anyone else had arrived he would have found evidence of their arrival.
The last time he had heard or seen from the girl was when she was locked upstairs…
Gin coalesced from the shadows inside the house and bolted up the stairs, where he found a destroyed door. The mat and covers had been hurled across the room and there was a hole in the wall. The window frame had also been torn out of the wall.
Ah…
Gin poked his head outside. Footprints in the snow. Two pairs. One was Kuma’s; the other was smaller…
He hopped out the window, kept low, and followed them across the roof. Kuma’s stopped near the edge, while the girl’s continued, meaning she’d jumped; but apart from the initial impact, her footsteps quickly became lost in the morass of other treads in the snowy street.
Gin readied a curse, but decided it was better to duck when he saw Kaz leap over a fence from the adjacent house.
Damnit. He’d been too preoccupied.
When he returned inside, he drew his tanto and cocked an ear to side. One set of feet, almost too silent to hear, crept along the floorboards. Stopped. A muffled curse. A loud crash. Silence. The door slid open.
While he may be too late to act, he could at least discover just what in the shogens’ names was going on.
In his mercurial form, he watched the sworn with no eyes standing several paces away from Kaz. The chest had fallen, or had most probably been thrown, to the floor. How it had not exploded or whatever was a miracle.
Both of the them had their weapons drawn. Chances were one of them was going to kill the other, and they’d make a mess in doing so. Gin didn’t fancy finding out who was the better warrior, especially when necessity might dictate it spill into the streets. He could still use the sworn for information if nothing else.
Time to make a decision, Gin.
Ah, fuck it.
Gin materialised behind the sworn and pressed his blade to its neck. Its body stiffened. Kaz frowned at him.
“Move and I’ll slit your throat,” Gin whispered into its ear, then wondered whether its ears had been plugged or something equally disturbing. It must have worked, however, because it continued standing still and did not fight. “And I thought I told you not to interfere?” he snapped at Kaz.
She had the gall to roll her eyes at him like Gin had done when he was still a child. “The only ones I take orders from are those that pay me, and you have not paid me.”
“Shogens, I tried,” Gin scoffed. “Now you’ve just made this worse.”
“For you.” She pointed her blade at the sworn. “Unhand them and let me finish the job.”
“I can’t do that.” He pressed the tanto into the sworn’s neck. “I need to talk to my new friend here. They can’t do that with their stomach cut open.”
Kaz barked a laugh and glared at the sworn. “You think she can talk? I’d find that difficult with a sewn up mouth.” Gin frowned.”Don’t believe me? See for yourself.”
An uneasy feeling swelled in his stomach. With his free hand, he reached over the sworn’s shoulder and tugged down the kerchief from around their jaw without protest.
Well shit. The ryojin was right. And Kaz had known it was a woman. Was there history there? More importantly, how was he supposed to interrogate her with no damn mouth?
“Something tells me they’re not meant for conversation,” Kaz commented. “Just the iron trade.”
He’d never seen anything like it before. Was this related to Retsudan’s military and Saito somehow? If it were anyone, his aians were on Asami.
Before he had chance to contemplate his next, confusing move, the mute and deaf woman took a step forward. Gin grabbed her under the armpit and pressed his blade to her throat, but she just grabbed his wrist and slit her own neck.
Stunned as blood fountained over his hand, he barely noticed her dash across the floor. Kaz readied herself and lashed out with a horizontal strike that sheared the woman’s arm clean off--if she’d actually been rushing for the ryojin, it would have gutted her.
But she never was. She went for the chest.
Gin vanished and streamed towards Kaz as the sworn clutched the chest to her abdomen with her remaining arm, no intention of relinquishing her (probable) bomb. He grasped Kaz’s forearm and took her under the black waves. He felt the heat on his face and side, the deafening explosion. Though he’d taken her into the shadows for a second at most, the toll on his body was analogous to spending hours in the state by himself.
He surfaced with her outside, in the small garden. Debris pelted his face as he flung Kaz into the fence, followed shortly by himself and the crack of splintering wood. A gout of flame spewed from the house’s interior, heat lapping at his face.
Gin, the wind knocked out of him, gazed up at the overcast sky, black smoke belching into the air, backed by the crumbling of rubble. Kaz was a couple of feet away. The wrappings around her head were singed, hinting at the bunched up hair below and a pal
e cheek.
“Told you...it was a bomb,” he croaked.
If that girl was somehow in there, she was nothing more than a charred or scattered husk about now. Gin hoped she’d truly escaped.
With great effort, he managed to prop himself up on his elbow. The ryojin beside him was muttering curses and trying to stand.
“Shogens…” he breathed. She frowned and then followed his gaze.
Crawling out of the house, crater in her chest, remaining arm nothing more than a gory stump, and face burnt down to the bone, was that...thing. Though she had miraculously kept her legs, one was at a strange angle, causing her to hobble towards them. But, Shogens have mercy, that wasn’t even the weirdest thing about it all. Close to the centre of her chest, where one’s heart should have been, was a chunk of krystallis. Thanks to blackening effect of the bomb’s damage, he couldn’t even begin to guess its affiliated Shogen. All he could surmise, like Kuma, was that it somehow leant this person power.
Kaz was up and trudging towards the figure with determination, a hand still grasping her katana.
“Wai--” Gin began, but he was too late.
Kaz drove the blade into the krystallis. There was no way she could shatter it--
--the krystallis shattered--
--unless her blade was bonded.
“Ah, shit…”
Light flared from the broken krystallis, a concentrated sun that rose and set in a heartbeat. The woman collapsed to the floor.
Well, Gin, it wasn’t like you were going to drag that burgeoning corpse around without raising a few eyebrows anyway.
Exhaling a long breath, Gin attempted to lever his other forearm under himself to rise, but found he lacked the strength. Instead, his body decided to give out, leaving him staring into the sky. The last thing he saw before passing out was Kaz standing over him, blade in hand.
36
Best Laid Plans
Saito had reached the bottom of the decline and headed towards the castle when Mei showed herself.
“Are you finished with your rituals?” she chided, slinking out of the shadows nearby.
“Some of us should still respect the shogens,” he replied. “We’re not all heathens like you and the others.” He raised his eyebrows, but she knew he was only joking.
“How was it?” she said as she fell into line with him, starting down the curving path to the lower rungs of Akimaru.
“Interesting,” was all he would say. Mei didn’t need to know about the girl. She’d call him soft, that he did it because of his own daughter. She didn’t need to know because she was right. He’d wondered, talking to the girl, if that was what being a parent was supposed to be like, then suppressed the urge to slap the stupid thoughts from his head.
Speaking with a young girl for a few minutes is not the same as raising one, being there for them through the good and bad.
But he was trying now, he really was. So much had happened that when he eventually met her, he had no idea where to begin…
“You’re doing it again,” said Mei, giving him a nudge.
“Hmm?” he said, broken from his reverie.
“Like you’re not there.”
“Sorry. These past few weeks have been...interesting to say the least.” He patted the small chest full of dirt in his robes. “Soon, the hardest part will be over.” Saito gave her a smile that they both knew was false, and they carried on.
His mind had been dwelling on the yakura-addicted monk in that lightless hovel, those he’d slaughtered in the village. Their faces were etched in his mind. Sleep came after what felt like an age, not that he’d had much time to rest anyway.
And after all of it, he believed bringing family into this world was for the best. But it was not as if he had another option.
“Is the boat ready?” he asked Mei, trying to occupy his mind with their next steps.
“It is…” she said.
“But?”
“Asami.”
Saito’s heart jumped. “She had found her--”
Mei placed a hand on his chest. “I don’t know. But she says she must speak with you.”
“Very well.” He set off with renewed vigor.
“Just be wary of what she has to say,” she said, her shorter legs moving twice as fast to match his stride.
“I’ve known that woman for over a decade, know every secret she has. I don’t fear her. If krystallis is involved she’ll do as I command.”
“I was trained to know people like you and her. Knowing about the girl would be valuable leverage to many.”
“And now you’re one of us,” he said, eyes wide as if the answer was simple.
“Then at the very least I don’t trust that man she has under her spell.”
Saito smiled. “Now that, I believe. And if anyone...” He looked around. “If anyone were to even try that.”
She waved him off. “Yes, I know. I’ve seen you fight.”
“Then you have no need to fear,” he said with a flick of his eyebrows.
Mei was about to respond when a deep sound rumbled from the within the city, followed by black clouds of smoke reaching for the sky.
“Close to the docks,” said Mei, squinting into the distance.
“Explosions are never good,” Saito said and broke into a jog.
It did not take the two of them long to reach the rundown excuse for an inn that Asami had taken into her possession. While he didn’t particularly enjoy ruminating on her ability, he never once doubted its usefulness.
On their journey to the lower portions of Akimaru, he failed to ascertain the cause of the explosion. It had animated a good number of denizens, who had all rushed to the scene, but he didn’t have the time to look for himself.
Inside the inn, the owner greeted him numbly, with a blank stare, mood unchanging as Saito ignored him and rushed up the stairs. If they had her...He didn’t even know where to start.
Instead, he found an empty room waiting for him, no sign of Asami or that reedy servant of hers. Despite how useful the woman’s thralls might have been, a part of him was glad she couldn’t corral that ensorcelled army of hers. An act like that wouldn’t have escaped Retsudan’s eyes.
Frustrated, Saito checked the room opposite, where the caged thing whipped its head around to affect what was probably an inquisitive gaze. It tried to move, but was firmly secured with chains. Grumbling, he shut the door and returned to the room, where he began pacing.
A short while later, there was movement downstairs, and Asami returned with the one called Kuma in tow.
“You smell like a piece of kindling,” Mei said. She had wedged herself in the windowsill while Saito has been too agitated to sit still. The man stopped his pacing and regarded the two new arrivals standing at the door. Asami had a face like someone had pissed on her robes.
“What happened?” Saito said, stopping his pacing. “Where is she?” Then the uneasy feeling in his stomach from before resurfaced. The explosion, Asami’s obvious presence there…
“She is fine,” said Asami before Saito could continue.
“Where’ve you got her, Asami? Hidden in your robes?” said Mei.
The woman afforded the former kamen a caustic glare. “It is more complex than that.”
“Your task was simple, was it not?” Mei hopped down from the window to stand next to Saito.
“She was in our care but…” Her sharp eyes shifted to Kuma, who cowered. “For reasons unknown, she fled.”
“Fled?” Saito spat.
“Probably because you had that freak to greet her,” Mei said, and pointed a finger at Kuma. “That’d be enough to make grown men flee.”
“I told you to use Kit,” said Saito, hands clenched by his side.
Asami huffed and took a step forward. “That girl and her brother have just arrived--they aren’t even here yet! I had no choice. Blame their gallivanting. Not to mention a large group of Retsudan’s sworn wandering Akimaru might catch an eye or hundred. The fact the three of u
s are here is bad enough, Saito!”
The man averted his gaze and waved her off. Yes, it was risky them all being here and could result in the wrong people acknowledging them. He had no excuse, only that he wanted them close by, not to mention what happened with Hanza.
The thought of his friend drew a grimace on his face which he hid from Asami.
“Then tell me--where is she?” he said.
“That, we are working on,” said Asami.
“And you hope it will go as well as last time?” said Mei. “You blew up a house! And you tell Saito he’s conspicuous! If I were still a kamen, I’d be kissing your feet for making yourself known. Not to mention there was a kamen following you until I dealt with him.”
“Yet failed to kill him, which would have been a little more helpful, dear,” Asami spat.
Mei’s smugness faltered. Saito glanced at her and she shied away under his gaze.
“You told me he would not be problem,” said the man.
She shook her head. “I used enough...It must not have been deep enough…”
“Weren’t you just regaling us with how exceptional a kamen you once were?” Asami chided.
Mei opened her mouth to retort but Saito held out his arm, barring their argumentative route.
“Enough,” said Saito. “I will find her.”
Asami rolled her eyes. “We have discussed this. What happened the last time you took finding her into your own hands? Hanza--”
“Died,” Saito finished bitterly. “At the hand of some...some nameless warrior!”
Asami took several steps forward until she was close to Saito. She placed a hand on his forearm. Mei shot daggers at the woman.
“They can’t know you or any of us have a connection to the girl. If they do, they will attempt to use her...or worse.” She let the words hang for a moment. “No one knows of Kuma. He is our best option now that my other...tools are broken. You have the final piece.” Asami gestured over her shoulder. “Take it with you. I will be beside you, too, as will the others. Don’t put your faith in Kuma. Put it in me, Saito.”