by A. L. Knorr
It was then that I noticed the matching katana threaded through his belt, the same blue sheath inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the shape of trees. Daichi pulled the long sword out and handed it to me.
I blinked at him, confused. Then his request sank in. Samurai who committed seppuku were seconded by a loyal friend. After the warrior cut open his own belly, the friend would decapitate him to end his suffering quickly. I swallowed and stepped back.
"Please don't make me," I whispered. If he commanded me, there would be nothing I could do about it, whether or not I felt capable, I could not deny him an order.
He looked me in the eye. For as long as I had known him he was lined and aged, and his eyes had always had a dead quality to them. No, not dead, grieving. For the first time, they did not appear sad, but relieved.
He simply held the sword out to me and for several breaths, we were statues on a clifftop. He wasn't going to command me, and I realized with a sinking stomach that it was because I had no choice anyway. I wasn't going to let him suffer in agony while he slowly bled to death. Belly-cutting was not a quick way to die.
I grasped the handle of the sword and took it from him. My mouth was void of all moisture and my vision blurred at the edges. Could this be real? Was this really happening? Was I about to decapitate my captor and companion of multiple decades?
Daichi faced me and bowed in thanks, the first time he had ever made the polite gesture toward me. I bowed back.
When he kneeled down at the edge of the cliff, facing out to sea, I backed away to give him privacy. Every muscle in my body was vibrating in fear of what he’d asked of me, what I was about to witness. He pulled an envelope painted with kanji out of his robe and set it on the ground beside him. He picked up a rock and set it on top of the envelope. He untied the belt at his waist and opened his robe down to the belly.
I panicked. I couldn't watch. It was worse than watching Raiden humiliate Fujio, way worse. I turned around and walked back to the forest, stepping far enough inside the woods that Daichi would have the clifftop to himself, and close enough that I could still see his kneeling form at the cliff's edge.
"This can't be real, this can't be real," I whispered, looking down at the weapon in my hand. I pulled the sword from its sheath and held it in both hands, straight up. I took shaky breaths and turned around to face Daichi.
He was still kneeling, his back to me and the wakizashi on the ground at his side. He had his head bowed. I wondered what he was thinking in these last moments. I knew what I was thinking. This was crazy, and not at all where I thought our relationship would end up. When his withered hand reached for the wakizashi, I dropped my eyes. Sweat sprang out all over my body and I slapped a hand over my mouth to choke off a sob.
There was no sound on the breeze. Not a groan of pain or a whimper. When Daichi collapsed to the side it was like watching a silent film.
"Daichi," I meant to scream but it came out as a choked sob. "No." Everything in my body regretted this moment. There must have been another way. Tears blurred my vision and I shook my head and picked up the sword. He was suffering and I had to end it. It would be an act of mercy. Who knew mercy could be so hard, ask so much.
I stepped out from the woods and halted when a bright light flashed at the cliff's edge. A bright white ball of light was hovering over Daichi's frame. My tamashī.
Squinting, I strode forward, raising the katana. But I froze to the spot again when the color of Daichi's neck and ankles went from pink to ashen gray. Then his form crumbled into dust.
The white robe collapsed into a heap and a breeze picked up some of his ashes, swirling them up into the air and out over the water. I lifted my face to the sky, watching what was left of Daichi drift and scatter on the wind.
There was nothing left of him now, nothing but what I held in my memory. Nothing but a white robe, two samurai swords, and some paper. Did that mean he was at peace?
I could have wept with relief. I wouldn't have to raise a sword to him after all. The moment the tamashī left his body, he reverted to the form he should have been in years ago. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
I wiped the tears away from my face and crossed the cliff, my hand reaching for the tamashī. A scuffing sound on the rock made me turn as a shadow fell across me.
A violent shove sent me flying sideways. My neck snapped painfully. I screamed with shock and surprise. The katana fell from my grip and clattered on the stones. I skidded across the rock, bruising my shoulder, and stopped dangerously close to the cliff edge.
The light from my tamashī disappeared as a hand closed around it.
I rolled over onto my back, scrambling away from the ledge. Blinking, I looked up at the shape that towered over me and blocked out the sunrise.
The hand holding my tamashī opened and Raiden looked at it. He wore sunglasses, and the light of my tamashī illuminated his face and mirrored in the lenses of his glasses. My throat felt choked with shock. How had he tracked me? My mind flashed back to the hum on the phonecall I’d had with Daichi, and the tailor who had my number. I squeezed my eyes shut and cursed my own sloppiness.
"A Hanta tamashī." He gave an amazed laugh, like he could not believe his good fortune. "I never dreamed it could be as easy as that. Served up on a platter."
"No!" I screamed. My heart had stopped, my brain refused to believe what it was seeing. "Raiden, don't!"
He dropped the tamashī into the pocket of his suit jacket and patted it like it was some rare coin or a banknote.
Fury filled me. Blood rushed to my face and made me feel like my head was going to explode. I scrambled to my feet and went for the katana. A few moments before, I had been having doubts as to whether I could kill, even if it was to ease suffering. Now it was all I could think about. I could not stand to have my freedom snatched away again, this time likely for good. There would be no release from this captivity. The thought of being under the control of a host of Oni, especially after all I had been through, enraged me.
I grabbed the katana and held it up in front of my face, ready for combat. Every nerve was a live-wire. The blade quivered in the air.
"I would rather die than serve you," I seethed. "Give it back to me." My mind raced and I debated turning the blade on myself, since the odds of actually defeating him in combat were zero.
Raiden looked unafraid—bored, even. "Or what?"
I began to turn the blade around, but it was so long and awkward, and handling a sword was so foreign to me that my whole being telegraphed my intention in slow-motion. Raiden spun so fast he was a blur. His foot kicked the sword out of my hand and pain shot through my wrist and up my right arm.
My knees buckled and I landed on my knees. A sob ripped from my throat as the blade clattered and rolled along the clifftop, coming to a stop in the dust and pebbles. A long keening wail came unbidden from my chest and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was completely alone, helpless, and now the property of my worst enemy. The humiliation and tragedy of it was enough to crush my heart into powder.
"Stop that," Raiden snapped. "Be quiet. And get up."
The sound snapped off in my throat and I was compelled to get to my feet. I couldn't see through the tears in my eyes, nothing but the blue of the sea beyond Raiden and the rising sun in the distance. I stared at the cliff's edge, longing to throw myself over.
"Don't even think about it," Raiden said. He wandered to where Daichi's white robe sat in a heap. He toed the robe open. An ages-old-looking bloodstain had spread over the lap of the fabric, and more dust floated up and swirled into the air. The wakizashi clattered from the folds and onto the rock.
Raiden stooped to pick it up. Examining the blade, it was easy to see that it was shiny and free from blood. Daichi’s blood had turned to ash and blown away.
I wanted to scream at him not to touch it, but my throat was a steel trap. The thought of Raiden touching anything of Daichi's was abhorrent. Strange, since Daichi had been my captor for so long. In that moment
I admitted to myself that I had come to care for him in spite of our situation.
"Was it worth it, little Hanta?" he asked, sheathing the wakizashi. He laughed. "You belong to me now."
But just as suddenly, Raiden stopped laughing, and his gaze locked on the woods behind me. I turned.
A man stood just outside the forest. His black hair was tied half-back, and he wore a simple, button-up shirt, with a thick fabric belt wrapped around his waist. A katana with a red leather-wrapped handle was tucked into his belt. He looked exactly as he had the last time I saw him, just as beautiful, just as strong, and I knew I was having visions. I had finally become unhinged and couldn't handle what had just happened.
I had to be hallucinating. Because Toshi was dead.
Chapter 24
My heart stopped and then tripled its speed. I felt like I couldn’t open my eyes wide enough—I only wanted to stare at my beloved from decades past. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to clear the hallucination. But when I opened my eyes, he was still there.
"She is not yours," Toshi said quietly, his eyes never leaving Raiden's. "She will never be yours."
Raiden bared his teeth in what might have passed for a smile on any other face. "Who are you?" he barked. "An idiot from the village?"
"Return her tamashī," Toshi commanded. "And do it quickly."
Toshi's hand rested on the katana tucked into the broad sash around his waist. Except for the weapon and embroidered band, the man, so slight and youthful, would have been commonplace in a dozen Kyoto campuses or bars. It was his stillness—his lethal, earnest placidity—which made Raiden pause.
Toshi was no hallucination. However impossible, he was here.
My eyes flashed back to Raiden. Taller, wider, stronger. I had seen the brutality of Raiden's heart. He would kill Toshi as soon as look at him.
Raiden's smile widened, catapulting his face to those same demonic proportions I remembered from the night at the fortress. With a speed telling of years of practice, the towering oyabun drew a handgun from the shoulder rig beneath his suit coat. The gun, a metal projection of its owner in steel and polymer, eyed Toshi from beneath its master's grin.
"Or what," Raiden drawled, his free hand removing and then tucking the sunglasses inside his coat. He was only slightly less monstrous without the insectile lenses.
I wanted to scream at Toshi to run. Every muscle in my body tightened in terrible anticipation of the sound of a gunshot and Toshi's body slumping to the rock.
With deliberate slowness, Toshi adjusted his stance, feet spreading and weight shifting forward onto his toes. He adjusted the angle of the sheathed katana like a master steersman handling the tiller. He cocked his head ever so slightly, the movement a clear challenge.
My eyes darted back and forth between the two men and I could almost see the communication that passed between them. Toshi had thrown down a gauntlet, something that Raiden's ego could not deny, even if he could simply pull the trigger and be done with his challenger for good.
The oyabun growled deep in his throat. He rotated the pistol in his fist, a pendulum swaying with fatal whimsy.
Toshi did not move, not even seeming to notice that death was ready to fly from the pistol’s blue steel hive.
Raiden laughed, and then with a sh-h-hrik, k-klick, the gun’s magazine and a formerly chambered round fell to the pebbled clifftop, followed by the louder clatter of the gun itself.
"This should be fun," Raiden said, and I could once again hear the voice of the Oni surfacing. The softer sounds hissed out underneath the words and lingered long in the air like a growl. He shucked out of his suit coat and shoulder holster. Taking his time, he unbuttoned his white shirt. The Oni tattoos shone bright and fearsome in the sunlight.
I watched his jacket fall to the earth. Everything in me strained toward the tamashī in the pocket, but my feet were rooted to the ground just as solidly as my voice was locked down. I looked toward Toshi, trying to tell him that I could help, if only I could get to what was in that coat pocket.
Toshi remained defiant, staring at Raiden in immobile tranquility. My heart burst with love for him and the courage he displayed in the face of such a deadly opponent.
Raiden bent and scooped up the katana Daichi had left behind, weighing it in his hands as if taking its measure. He lifted the sword in both hands. The long blade extended from just above his widow's peak like a gleaming horn of steel. Arms upraised in an aggressive stance, his tattoos were on full display. The koi bodies undulated sleekly across his broad chest. The muscles moving beneath his skin set the Oni faces to laughing. On any normal man, the movement would be just an illusion, but on Raiden, the demons' visages moved just enough to make an opponent do a double-take.
Toshi continued to stare, not reacting to the hideous display before him.
Raiden's laugh became a snarling roar as he launched himself across the distance. Toshi did not advance and did not retreat; in fact, he did not move at all.
My throat swelled with the words clawing to get out, pressure building in my neck and face. I couldn't watch, but I couldn't look away.
Raiden's feet hammered the hard ground, leather dress shoes scattering dust and pebbles in his wake. The space between them had seemed so great, but in a breathless heartbeat Raiden descended on Toshi with a stroke that would have cleaved him from shoulder to groin. In one blink it would all be over.
But Toshi was not there—at least not where the blade descended. He curled back on his haunches, just enough to let the scything blade pass within inches of his face.
Raiden's eyes flickered with surprise, but his fearsome reputation was not built just on looking impressive, and with a rising kiai he reversed his strike in an impressive swallow-tail cut. The blow was wasted when Toshi pivoted on his forward foot and the blade hissed upward in a harmless, frustrated whoosh.
The oyabun had no time to wallow in his irritation as Toshi's blade licked out. Raiden just managed to swing his blade around to guide the stroke away from his throat.
For the briefest moment, Toshi and Raiden froze with their faces close together and I could see the understanding pass between them. Toshi's fierce glare and tiny smile was full of meaning.
My turn, he seemed to be saying.
Raiden shoved against the blade near his throat with a snarl and Toshi let him. Toshi’s katana, lighter and quicker, spun wide and then darted for a low slash across the Raiden’s shins. Raiden's height worked against him, and all he could do was dance backward from the serpent tongue of bright steel. Toshi did not advance so much as a single step, and his quiet poise must have stung Raiden more than a thousand insults.
Raiden's dark eyes smoldered. He prowled back and forth a few paces away, blade held level. Suddenly, he kicked off his dress shoes and bent and ripped off his socks. His bare feet settled into the dirt. He straightened and dropped his chin, ready for more. Finally he was taking Toshi seriously. With an eye-stinging flash of sunlight from his katana, Raiden renewed his assault.
With his longer, heavier sword, Raiden began a series of probing jabs and swipes. With the advantage of his greater reach, Raiden had a better shot at the more vulnerable targets—throat, armpit, groin—but each time Toshi's blade set the thrust aside. The men shifted and moved across the clifftop together like dancers. Raiden put more of his weight behind the stabs, drawing on the strength of his shoulders and back. The red-skinned demon tattoo across his spine flexed and bulged grotesquely with each thrust, green eyes winking and flashing, thirsty for Toshi’s blood.
Under such a punishing onslaught, Toshi danced and glided, each step taken just in time to avoid Raiden’s katana. Feet snapping and sliding across the loose ground, casting the rest of his poised body this way and that, away from the hungry tongue of metal, now desperate to have a taste of him.
Toshi had nearly worked himself to a place with his back to the cliff when Raiden over-extended a lunging stab. Raiden’s bare feet skittered across the chipped stones
. With a swift precision which made it seem like Toshi had expected the stumble all along, his katana hissed through the air, trailing blood. It had happened so quickly that I didn't even see it; I only knew Toshi's blade had struck when Raiden cried out and recoiled, cradling his wounded arm to his chest. Raiden swung his katana one-handed to fend off Toshi, but the strokes were slow and ill-aimed. Toshi, seeing his chance, uncoiled like a striking cobra.
Katana singing through the air, he drove Raiden back toward the forest. Raiden parried, but the strikes came so fast and smooth that for most of them it was all that he could do just to keep himself lunging and lurching away. When he was too slow, Toshi's razored edge took another little sip of his life, hot and red. An Oni face upon his belly lost an eye to the pass of Toshi's blade.
Raiden's teeth flashed as he bit back a scream.
Rage and fear gave Raiden a burst of hateful quickness, and he threw his bulk inside the guard of Toshi’s katana. A rip appeared in Toshi's shirt and blood stained the shredded fabric. Raiden spun on his heel and delivered a crushing back kick to the side of Toshi's belly.
My neck felt as though it was going to burst with the words and screams bottled up inside me. Toshi flew to the side, gasping for air as he folded around his stomach. Still he kept his feet, and his katana, though wavering, held its pointed vigil for its master.
Raiden scrambled across his newly opened avenue to the cliffside. Dirty feet carried him out of reach. Toshi, his face flushing at his enemy's cowardice, moved to follow, albeit more gingerly than before. When he realized that Raiden was arrowing toward the discarded pistol, Toshi leapt after Raiden like a big cat closing in for the kill.
Raiden scooped up the handgun, but he fumbled as he tried to ram the clip home with his injured arm. Toshi came hot on his heels, blade raised before him for a final, head-severing slash. Only instinct saved Raiden as he threw himself to the ground and Toshi’s katana whistled overhead.